For the Record

They’re calling it “The Weekend Wipeout,” and what it means for detente is clear. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger has now followed into exile other government officials who have in recent months called for a halt in detente: former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, former SALT negotiator Paul Nitze, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Foy Kohler. . . . NATO headquarters in Brussels was devastated by the announcement. “The people here say they’re going to miss Schlesinger,” says one high-ranking U.S. official; they believe Don Rumsfeld (Schlesinger’s replacement and a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO) is a nice fellow, and able, but “lacks the muscle.” . . . In Germany the conservative Die Welt called it “undoubtedly one of the darkest news items to circle the globe in recent months.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented that “with Schlesinger’s ouster the brake on SALT is being released by the American side.” . . . The liberal British Guardian was pleased: “Mr. Schlesinger’s hawkish instincts were incompatible with detente.” . . . Russia was overjoyed. News reports from Moscow say Brezhnev now hopes the U.S. will make enough concessions in the SALT II talks to get a treaty before the Party Congress in February. . . . The Daily World, organ of the CPUSA, was ecstatic at the ouster of a man who was “a menace to constitutional safeguards on civilian control of the military [and who] posed the danger, of a fascist-like military police takeover of the U.S Government.”

The Christian Science Monitor believes the shifs in the Cabinet give Don Rumsfeld the inside track tor the vice presidential nomination next year, but the Monitor points out that George Bush, who will succeed William Colby at CIA, and Elliot Richardson, who returns from London to take over from Rogers Morton at Commerce, were also mentioned as possible Vice Presidents before Ford chose Rocky a year ago. . . . About Bush, there’s the question: can anyone in any way associated with CIA these days expect politics in his future? Says one Republican in Congress: “It will be harder for him to move from the CIA to Vice President than it would have been even if they’d left him in China.” . . . Bush himself seems to have his doubts. “If anyone can conceive of this job [the CIA post] as a springboard to political fortune, well, he’s been hallucinating.” he told reporters in Peking. . . . On the other hand. Bush may not be confirmed. Rep. Otis Pike (D., N.Y.). head of the House committee on intelligence, says that the Bush appointment is the “politicizing” of CIA and that it’s wrong. “What I see as going wrong with the CIA was not when the pros at the Agency were left alone. Where they got into trouble was when the pros were told to do something by the politicians.”… And Rep. Michael Harrington (D., Mass.), who is himself being investigated by the Ethics Committee for leaking confidential news to the press, says Colby was probably disposed of because he was “a reckless spiller of beans.”

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They’re calling it “The Weekend Wipeout,” and what it means for detente is clear. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger has now followed into exile other government officials who have in recent months called for a halt in detente: former Secretary of Defense Melvin Laird, former Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, former SALT negotiator Paul Nitze, former U.S. Ambassador to Russia Foy Kohler. . . . NATO headquarters in Brussels was devastated by the announcement. “The people here say they’re going to miss Schlesinger,” says one high-ranking U.S. official; they believe Don Rumsfeld (Schlesinger’s replacement and a former U.S. Ambassador to NATO) is a nice fellow, and able, but “lacks the muscle.” . . . In Germany the conservative Die Welt called it “undoubtedly one of the darkest news items to circle the globe in recent months.” The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung commented that “with Schlesinger’s ouster the brake on SALT is being released by the American side.” . . . The liberal British Guardian was pleased: “Mr. Schlesinger’s hawkish instincts were incompatible with detente.” . . . Russia was overjoyed. News reports from Moscow say Brezhnev now hopes the U.S. will make enough concessions in the SALT II talks to get a treaty before the Party Congress in February. . . . The Daily World, organ of the CPUSA, was ecstatic at the ouster of a man who was “a menace to constitutional safeguards on civilian control of the military [and who] posed the danger, of a fascist-like military police takeover of the U.S Government.”

The Christian Science Monitor believes the shifs in the Cabinet give Don Rumsfeld the inside track tor the vice presidential nomination next year, but the Monitor points out that George Bush, who will succeed William Colby at CIA, and Elliot Richardson, who returns from London to take over from Rogers Morton at Commerce, were also mentioned as possible Vice Presidents before Ford chose Rocky a year ago. . . . About Bush, there’s the question: can anyone in any way associated with CIA these days expect politics in his future? Says one Republican in Congress: “It will be harder for him to move from the CIA to Vice President than it would have been even if they’d left him in China.” . . . Bush himself seems to have his doubts. “If anyone can conceive of this job [the CIA post] as a springboard to political fortune, well, he’s been hallucinating.” he told reporters in Peking. . . . On the other hand. Bush may not be confirmed. Rep. Otis Pike (D., N.Y.). head of the House committee on intelligence, says that the Bush appointment is the “politicizing” of CIA and that it’s wrong. “What I see as going wrong with the CIA was not when the pros at the Agency were left alone. Where they got into trouble was when the pros were told to do something by the politicians.”… And Rep. Michael Harrington (D., Mass.), who is himself being investigated by the Ethics Committee for leaking confidential news to the press, says Colby was probably disposed of because he was “a reckless spiller of beans.”