Letter from Washington

Why is it that the Great Communicator is losing the communications war? The budget, Central America, and now peace have, respectively, been co-opted by the tax-tax, spend-spend incorrigibles, by the aggressive and cunning Nicaraguans (with American technical support in the PR field), and by an amalgam of politicians, anti-nukers, and Leonid Brezhnev.

The peace issue is the most durable of the three. It will last, and the politicians know it—Senators Hatfield and Kennedy have put in legislation calling for a nuclear freeze, and 150 House members have endorsed it. Brezhnev handed in his own endorsement when, in mid-March, he called a halt to further Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles, to which Reagan responded negatively and defensively, failing to reiterate his moving “zero-option” call, an omission which has set the Washington issue-spotters wondering why.

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Why is it that the Great Communicator is losing the communications war? The budget, Central America, and now peace have, respectively, been co-opted by the tax-tax, spend-spend incorrigibles, by the aggressive and cunning Nicaraguans (with American technical support in the PR field), and by an amalgam of politicians, anti-nukers, and Leonid Brezhnev.

The peace issue is the most durable of the three. It will last, and the politicians know it—Senators Hatfield and Kennedy have put in legislation calling for a nuclear freeze, and 150 House members have endorsed it. Brezhnev handed in his own endorsement when, in mid-March, he called a halt to further Soviet deployment of SS-20 missiles, to which Reagan responded negatively and defensively, failing to reiterate his moving “zero-option” call, an omission which has set the Washington issue-spotters wondering why.