The Debate Goes On

Back in London after my third visit to the United States this year, I am going to indulge in a sport much favored by visiting Europeans: meddling in American affairs. Indeed, it is, at such times as these, a duty more than a sport. For there is no visible substitute for America’s leadership of the Western Alliance, and when that leadership is seen to be defective, misguided, at best patchy, at worst dangerously wrong, one has a duty to speak up.

The key issue in American foreign policy is now, and has been ever since 1945, the proper interpretation of, and response to, Soviet intentions. On this recent trip, I had occasion to meet with some of the protagonists in the great debate, including James R. Schlesinger and Marshall D. Shulman. Since the occasion was private and off the record, I shall not quote them. Instead, I shall lean on the published accounts of the arguments attributed to them and others —for instance, the fair and accurate account given by Bernard Gwertzman in the New York Times of December 7.

BC

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Brian Crozier

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Back in London after my third visit to the United States this year, I am going to indulge in a sport much favored by visiting Europeans: meddling in American affairs. Indeed, it is, at such times as these, a duty more than a sport. For there is no visible substitute for America’s leadership of the Western Alliance, and when that leadership is seen to be defective, misguided, at best patchy, at worst dangerously wrong, one has a duty to speak up.

The key issue in American foreign policy is now, and has been ever since 1945, the proper interpretation of, and response to, Soviet intentions. On this recent trip, I had occasion to meet with some of the protagonists in the great debate, including James R. Schlesinger and Marshall D. Shulman. Since the occasion was private and off the record, I shall not quote them. Instead, I shall lean on the published accounts of the arguments attributed to them and others —for instance, the fair and accurate account given by Bernard Gwertzman in the New York Times of December 7.