Alexander Haig

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might produce greater security at less risk. It is the duty of any Administration to listen to the messages contained in great popular movements and to try to understand their deeper meanings. But if the demands of a popular movement are likely, if adopted, to bring about results opposite to the ones desired by the movement, then leaders must not yield to popular pressure. Early in the Administration, when the nuclear-freeze movement was at its apogee, some of the President's advisers urged him to consider calling for a freeze after the level of weapons had been reduced and equalized. This I opposed, and would oppose again, because only the word freeze, not the qualifier "after reduction and equalization," would have registered on the superheated surface of the disarmament issue. The U.S. cannot freeze if its deterrent is in question; the U.S.S.R. would never negotiate the conditions that would permit a freeze if it knew in advance that an American President was committed to a freeze. It would merely wait for him to institutionalize the Soviet advantage. Any commitment to a freeze, at present unstable levels of force, would be a cynical exploitation of a vulnerable popular mood and a signal to the Soviets of precisely the weakness and erosion of integrity that can lead to miscalculation and its unthinkable consequences.

In arms control and in other areas, we wanted to identify questions on which the U.S. and the Soviets could accommodate their interests in ways that advanced peace and social justice. But before that could happen, the Soviets must believe that it was better to accommodate to the U.S. and the West than to go on marauding against their interests and security. Rhetoric would not lead them to this conclusion, only a credible show of will and strength. Even with the American military in a temporary state of post-Viet Nam dysfunction, the U.S. and its friends had enough assets to be able to deal with the Soviets and their proxies with confidence. No one knew this better than the Soviets.

The Soviet Union is not a buoyant imperial power, having its way whenever and wherever it chooses with an America that has come to the end of its moral capital. In fact, the Soviet Union is a deeply troubled and most vulnerable power, beset by problems that cannot be solved by its atrophying system and its doctrinaire leadership. Moscow is overextended militarily and economically. The Russian Revolution has become a frozen orthodoxy. Its objective is not change but conformity.

After the Carter experiment in obsequiousness, and the criticism and uncertainty it stimulated among our allies and friends, there was an imperative need to deal with the Soviet question. With the election of Ronald Reagan, the U.S. confronted a great opportunity. If it could shake off its lethargy and abandon its self-doubt, it could lead the free world into a new era of stability, peace and social progress. My years in Europe had convinced me that our allies thirsted for American leadership. Other nations wanted the reassurance, the freedom to develop, that only a strong American advocacy of the rule of law and peaceful change can provide. The Third World was ready to seek new areas of cooperation with the West.

The new President, in his first days, had to move against the climate of uncertainty. With our military strength at the ebb and our economy in trouble, we had to