From Washington Straight: What to Do With Fidel?

Cap Weinberger is a hawk on Europe and a dove on the Caribbean. Al Haig is a hawk on the Caribbean and a dove on Europe. In architecture this is called symmetry; in rhetoric, chiasma; in politics, disarray. Be that as it may, is Haig right in refusing to rule out the military option in the Caribbean basin? (He feels so strongly about it that he publicly rebuked Weinberger in classic Haig argot: “The sterility of drawing lines around America’s potential options constitutes the promulgation of roadways for those who are seeking to move against America’s vital interests.”)

Of course the Secretary of State is right. Why give up half your ground? But Haig and the President are going to have to put teeth in their hardlining admonitions if they want the Hemisphere and the world to take them seriously. Threats or no threats, the Soviets moved more military hardware into Cuba in 1981 than during any year since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis: 63,000 tons of munitions and equipment, in addition to minesweepers, missile attack boats, and a squadron (12) of crated MiG planes, probably 23s, Flogger lighter bombers that can carry nuclear warheads and reach choice targets in the U.S.

JM

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John McLaughlin

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Cap Weinberger is a hawk on Europe and a dove on the Caribbean. Al Haig is a hawk on the Caribbean and a dove on Europe. In architecture this is called symmetry; in rhetoric, chiasma; in politics, disarray. Be that as it may, is Haig right in refusing to rule out the military option in the Caribbean basin? (He feels so strongly about it that he publicly rebuked Weinberger in classic Haig argot: “The sterility of drawing lines around America’s potential options constitutes the promulgation of roadways for those who are seeking to move against America’s vital interests.”)

Of course the Secretary of State is right. Why give up half your ground? But Haig and the President are going to have to put teeth in their hardlining admonitions if they want the Hemisphere and the world to take them seriously. Threats or no threats, the Soviets moved more military hardware into Cuba in 1981 than during any year since the 1962 Cuban missile crisis: 63,000 tons of munitions and equipment, in addition to minesweepers, missile attack boats, and a squadron (12) of crated MiG planes, probably 23s, Flogger lighter bombers that can carry nuclear warheads and reach choice targets in the U.S.