New York, Mar. 28—When President Reagan the other day made reference to the Monroe Doctrine, it was as if someone had rediscovered the Lost Chord. The Monroe Doctrine had become, since the October 1962 crisis, a fugitive term, used only with some embarrassment by historians required to teach atavistic United States diplomacy. Mr. Reagan’s re-baptism of the Monroe Doctrine is nothing less than a spiritual experience. Itisasif one could get Arthur Schlesinger to refer to the military-industrial complex as the “arsenal of democracy,” which it was once called; or John Kenneth Galbraith to stop in mid-sentence next time he uses the term “cold warrior” and reformulate it into “freedom-fighter.”
Having given us the relegitimization of the Monroe Doctrine, Mr. Reagan owes us one thing more. In this space a few weeks ago I committed a careless error for which I have been chastised by that eminent attorney C. Dickerman Williams, whom I once accurately described as the best thing to happen to the Constitution since the Founding Fathers. I made some reference to the repeal of the Monroe Doctrine implicit in President Kennedy’s promises to Nikita Khrushchev not to invade Cuba, nor to countenance aid to Cuban freedom-fighters from the United States. I wrote as if Mr. Kennedy’s decision were in some way binding on his successors. I was most misleading.
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