With the President off to meet NATO leaders in Tokyo, the polls continue to roll in—all favorable. Latest Washington Post/ABC News shows 76 per cent of Americans favor Reagan’s Libyan action, even though 50 per cent think it may lead to more terrorism. An astonishing 67 per cent would approve similar strikes against Soviet client states Iran and Syria if they initiate terrorist acts against Americans. . . . More important, says Everett Carli Ladd of Roper, is Reagan’s “solidification of support over the past two years” and a marked decrease in the hostility of his opponents. As case in point, Ladd cites black voters: Only 10 per cent approved of Reagan six years ago; his approval rate is now between 30 and 33 per cent. . . . Latest Gallup shows 83 per cent of Americans expect economic recovery to last until next year, and Wall Street Journal/NBC News polls indicate more than 50 per cent express confidence in Reagan’s handling of economy. (Carter’s rating, spring 1980, was 16 per cent approval.) … In Europe, meanwhile, immediate criticism of the U.S. action has given way to sober reflection. “European governments underestimated the depth of American public revulsion to Libya,” Prof. Paul Wilkinson, a specialist in terrorism at the University of Aberdeen, told the Christian Science Monitor. . . . France made a big thing of its support of U.S. in UN vote, and French diplomats spread the word that early postraid polls showed the French people favoring the raid. . . . Greek Prime Minister Andreas Papandreou, to be sure, remained his usual anti-American self. He has yet to see a “shred of evidence” of Libyan involvement in the West Berlin bombing. (Papandreou has yet to be convinced that USSR should be blamed for the downing of KAL 007.) . . . And our own Dr. Benjamin Spock says the death of Qaddafi’s adopted daughter has “made American children wonder if the Presi-dent would order similar raids on their home towns.” Dr. Spock also accused Ronald Reagan of being “a terrorist.”
It took only 24 hours after the Chernobyl Soviet nuclear accident for Coalition of Environmental/Safe Energy Organizations, a group of 18 antinuclear committees, to call for phaseout of U.S. nuclear-energy plants. . . . No surprise to see Union of Concerned Scientists at head of list, but what are Audubon Society and Sierra Club doing there? Commented Scott W. Peters, of Atomic Energy Forum: “Why should 15 per cent of our electrical capacity be shut down because of something that happened with a different kind of reactor without a containment structure?” . . . Latest Energy Department figures indicate a 17.1 per cent increase in nuclear-energy electricity generation in 1985, to a record 384 billion kilowatt hours. Nuclear power now accounts for 15.5 per cent of our electricity, up from 4.5 during Arab oil boycott in 1973. . . . Council of Bishops of United Methodist Church has gone one up on Catholic bishops and called for “clear and unconditioned” opposition to any use of nuclear weapons. The Methodists also reject concept of nuclear deterrence, which should, logically, suggest support of SDI, as a non-nuclear alternative. But no. . . . Win one, lose one. After 15 years as a foremost peace activist, Dr. Helen Caldicott is hanging up her bullhorn and placards. “The fate of the world,” she says, “does not rest on my shoulders. It rests on everyone else’s.”
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