are more real and loom larger in the years ahead than any fantasies of falling dominoes. The threat to the UN system is a part of this general crisis. It is being exploited by the international populists because of a vacuum in progressive leadership by countries like the United States.

The proposed reorientation of U.S. policies in the direction of greater international accountability obviously has implications beyond the way we conduct ourselves in UN debates. There are numerous practical applications in a variety of fields.

A few examples:

1. Despite the sluggishness of the international negotations to revise the Law of the Sea, the United States should refrain from unilateral extensions of its coastal zones and from unilateral authorizations of its corporations to exploit seabed resources before the establishment of an international regime. The Congress must play a crucial role here in resisting the pressures of special interests urging such unilaterialism.

2. The United States should enter into serious negotiations to develop a comprehensive international system for protecting commodity producers and consumers from damaging fluctuations in prices.

3. The United States should take the lead in supporting obligatory international consultations by any country or corporations contemplating projects that might alter natural environments used in common with other countries.

4. The United States should revise its standing policy of opposing all international limitations on the capabilities of the advanced space powers to broadcast via satellite into other countries.

5. To balance its insistence on due process and just compensation by countries who take over U.S. multinational corporation subsidiaries, the United States should champion international regulation of the behavior of multinationals to assure they do not take unfair advantage of weak national governments and weak national labor movements.

6. The United States should broaden the opportunity for developing countries to participate responsibly in the international financial system, through revising voting procedures in the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development and opening up the informal committee structure of the International Monetary Fund.

The basic security and welfare of the United States, its international influence, and ultimately the self-respect of its people, require its full participation in the difficult task of constructing such networks of international political accountability, and assuring that the resulting institutional structures are congruent with the emerging realities of material interdependence. Other countries have no less an interest in the full participation of the United States. If the United States withdraws from this effort out of pique at not being able to dominate the process to the extent that it dominated the founding of the UN system, the necessary evolution of world society will suffer a severe setback.

An emotional polarization of world society along North-South lines is inconsistent with the sense of basic community that is the precondition for the elaboration of the needed scope of international accountability. Thus, for the United States to fall into the trap of polarization set by demagogic populists, would be against the United States interest and against the world interest. This is my main argument against the current sulking tone of the U.S. official response to the populists as well as the suggestions that the United States should come out swinging against them.

The effectiveness of the performance of the United States in the new international politics does partly depend on our style, the concepts we employ to explain our actions, and the words we use to symbolize our empathy and connection with others, or our opposition and alienation. But the words will ring hollow unless they are accompanied by concrete policies that are consistent with them. Whom we consult with; whom we invite into the forums of decision in international institutions with important operational responsibilities; our willingness to invest wide-membership international institutions with significant allocative and dispute resolution capabilities-more than the amount of foreign aid we give, more than our charity, these issues will test the credibility of our professed commitments to world community.

What about the support of the American people for such a progressive international sharing of decision-making power? Even the best public opinion polls give us little guidance; for the most part, they are still asking the old questions— Which allies should we support with military force if attacked by the commu54-738-75-17

nists? Would you accept a rise in taxes to finance development assistance to the Third World? etc.—to determine the degree of internationalism or isolationism in the country.

However, some possible indications of latent popular support for the kind of internationalism I am urging can be gleaned from the recently published analysis of American Public Opinion and Foreign Policy 1975 by the Chicago Council on Foreign Relations and Louis Harris and Associates. Despite the journalistic reports of a wholesale turning inward by the public, the foreign policy goal of "fostering international cooperation to solve common problems, such as food, inflation, and energy” was rated "Very Important" by 67 percent of the respondents, "Somewhat Important" by 24 percent, and "Not Importnt At All" by only 3 percent. The goal of "strengthening the United Nations" did not rate as high. but still commands general support: "Very Important" 46 percent, "Somewhat Important" 32 percent, and "Not Important At All" 14 percent. The survey also asked respondents to say which among a list of 18 goals they thought were "Most Important." The largest number of respondents selected "keeping peace in the world," and the next largest number selected "fostering international cooperation to solve common problems" as most important.

Such polls of course are an insufficient guide to policy. They inadequately probe for the tough trade-offs which are the essence of policymaking. Ask Americans whether they are in favor of interdependence and international cooperation; they will answer yes. Ask them whether they are for preserving U.S. independence: they will answer yes. The tough questions involve how much independence to give up in specific fields in order to respond to the needs of an interdependent world, for surely by agreeing to respect and enlarge international decision proc esses we are in some fields likely to limit our freedom of action, just as an insistence on complete freedom of action will tend to limit our effectiveness in international forums. But to make such tradeoff is precisely the role of statesmanship, is it not? Legislative statesmanship as well as executive. Public opinion is inert when it comes to generating the real policy options, it can only respond to the options generated by those who have thoroughly studied the issues. The public's responses will also reflect, however, the concepts and visions suggested by the statesman for evaluating the options. This interplay is crucially important when it comes to the questions at issue here: the role of the United States in international organizations, and the reform of international organizations in the present context of growing international populism. To attempt to follow public opinion on these questions today is to attempt to take guidance from a public that has received little conceptual clarification from the Congressional debate so far and heavy Spenglerian visions of the decline of the West from the Seventh Floor of the State Department.

The main need today in U.S. foreign policy generally, not just in our UN policies, is for fresh concepts and analysis to illuminate the optimal tradeoffs between independence and interdependence, and for a new vision of progressive internationalism, that resounds with the best in our domestic and international experience, to counter the cynicism of both the new populists and their conservative critics.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you. Next is Mr. Norman Cousins, editor of the Saturday Review.

STATEMENT OF NORMAN COUSINS, EDITOR, SATURDAY REVIEW

Mr. COUSINS. Senator Sparkman, my sense of appreciation being before the committee is widened by the opportunity to learn from my colleagues.

I would like to depart from my text, I think you probably have a copy, in order to comment very briefly on a few points that have been raised.

UNWORKABLE PERIOD IN U.S. HISTORY-1776 TO 1889

Dr. Coffin made reference to the Bicentennial and it seems to me that one of the important things about the Bicentennial is that despite the

popular impression, this country was not born in 1776, this country will not become 200 years old until 1989, and the intervening years it seems to me have more to teach us about what is going on in the world today than almost anything else. I would like to call to your attention a very important book in American history by John Fisk that came in a series, I think it is a 13-volume series on history of the United States. One of the volumes was called the Critical Period in American History and discussed the years from 1783 to 1787 and refers to them as the lost years for American history precisely because most Americans have very little idea of what happened during that time.

We came out of the war for independence and promptly plunged into an unworkable period in the relations among the States. Fisk points out that one's currency would shrink 10 percent from the act of crossing a State line. New York and New Jersey shot it out in the harbor over which State had the right to tax incoming ships and Massachusetts and Connecticut had some arguments over which State had the right to acquire the western territory of Wyoming.

I suppose Connecticut was worried about its surplus population. And the inability to create a peace after the Treaty of Paris in 1783 brought about a virtual disillusionment of many of the gains of the war for independence. And, finally, the men came together in 1787 in Philadelphia to correct the mistakes that had occurred from 1783 to 1787.

It was only at the conclusion of that particular experience in Philadelphia that this country was born. So the correct date I think is 1789 and the failure I think has a great deal to teach us about what perhaps may be going wrong with world affairs today, which is that we are attempting to create a peace without the proper architecture of peace. Here I would like to comment on another point that was made. Reference was made to a biblical sentence.

It seems to me that the more apt analogy to the present has to do with the failure of the Greek states to arrive at an overall forum, just as the American States failed to understand principles of order and organization. So I think the fall of Greece probably is attributable to the failure of the Greek states to understand laws of political science that applied to geographic units. Theucydides, I think, is a tale of horror on the failure of wise men to know the principle of organization.

UNWORKABLE POSTWAR U.S. SECURITY ASSUMPTIONS

It seems to me, if I can revert to my text, that since the end of World War II the United States has gone through a long series of unworkable assumptions in its foreign policy.

POLICEMAN FOR THE WORLD

The first assumption was that the United States would be a policeman for the world. We need look no further than Vietnam for a dramatic illustration of the fallacy of that theory. The attempt of the United States to be the world's policeman has been carried out at an nacceptable cost to the American people.

SECURITY THROUGH BALANCE OF POWER

The second assumption was that the United States could achieve security by maintaining a world balance of power. The theory has had mixed success. It worked in Western Europe but has been a costly failure in Asia. The role of the United States especially through the Marshall plan, was critically important in giving Europe a springboard for economic recovery after the Second World War. The historical and economic conditions in Europe were propitious for the attempt of most of the nations to seek not just a common security but the basis for a European community.

I might add parenthetically one of the most hopeful items in any inventory of hope for the world today is to be found in the growing interrelationship of Europe. Two World Wars in this century found France and Germany as the prime antagonists. Whatever the other threats to world peace, we can at least take some measure of comfort from the fact that the old recurrent danger of a major eruption from within Europe itself has finally been laid to rest. The clear reason is that both countries have worked out an economic partnership that gives them a far higher stake in continuing peaceful relations than in pressing for conquest.

The lesson, of course, is that sound economic relations tend to create sound political relations as well.

This is not to say that our policy in Europe has been a thorough going success in every respect. But it has at least worked well enough in Europe to serve as a contrast with our policies in Asia. The attempt to fill the power vacuum of Indochina after the departure of the French in the midfifties has led in a straight line to the most serious disasters in the history of U.S. foreign policy.

By and large, the theory of security through a balance of power whatever its prominence in history going all the way back to the ancient Greeks, has become obsolete in the modern world. The theory had its natural setting in constricted areas, but it tends to lose work ability in direct ratio to the distance from the center. No nation ha the capacity-and this applies as much to the Soviet Union as it doe to the United States-to undertake and maintain economic, political and military commitments on a world scale.

MILITARY SECURITY ASSUMPTIONS

The third assumption, closely related to the second, was that th United States could advance its security by building twin regiona anchors of military security through NATO and SEATO. Neithe arrangement gave us what we were looking for. Whatever NATO may have done for the European nations themselves, it has had littl to offer the United States at times of its own critical need. NATO di not spring into action on the side of the United States during the tw major Berlin crises, nor did the United States receive physical o moral support from our NATO allies during the Cuban missile crisis SEATO was not an operational fact of any benefit to the Unite States during the Vietnam war. The historical record with respec to NATO and SEATO would have to be that our expectations wer far higher than the prospects warranted or that the course of event endorsed.

ASSUMED NEED TO STAY AHEAD IN ARMS RACE

The fourth assumption was that we could find security by staying ahead in the arms race. The United States and the Soviet Union 10 years ago passed the point at which they could annihilate one another. The explosive power of our bombs and the versatility of the delivery system have reached their apex, but there has been no corresponding increase in security for either party. Indeed, there is less security for both parties in view of all the possibilities of accident or miscalculation that could come into play in time of crisis. Retaliatory power as a deterrent to surprise attack works only when one is dealing with enemies who can be trusted not to panic in crisis situations. The very existence of saturation supplies of atomic weapons sets a stage for irrational action at times of extreme tension.

In any event, security is no longer proportionate to power in the modern world. Stockpiling additional power is not likely to be more meaningful than filling the kitchen, the living room and all the bedrooms with cordwood after the woodshed and barn are overflowing in order to guard against running out of firewood.

The attempt to justify the nuclear arms race in terms of safety through reciprocal terror has to contend with the rapid spread of fissionable materials throughout the world. Scientific and technological means for processing these fissionable materials for explosive purposes are no longer matters of great mystery. There is now a real danger of nuclear blackmail by governments that fall into the hands of men who may confuse reckless use of power with the need to be decisive.

From the beginning of the nuclear age, it was clear that true security for the United States, or for anyone else, depends on the control of force rather than on the pursuit of force or the accumulation of force. But adequate controls have yet to be established. Most dangerous of all to the American people is the myth that atomic supremacy is somehow an assurance of security.

Meanwhile, the connection between a widening arms race and the worsening of the American economy is becoming more pronounced. It is impossible to spend almost $300 billion in a decade for military expenditures a substantial part of it outside the United States-without creating a powerful momentum for inflation. The shortages created by spending of this size, to say nothing of the outflow of dollars for maintaining military establishments in many parts of the world, contribute mightily to the erosion of the currency. Whatever other measures may be taken to combat inflation, it is doubtful that any fundamental change in the cheapening of the dollar will come about unless a genuine basis for national security is achieved that makes it unnecessary to spend in the order of $100 billion a year for military purposes.

ASSUMED NEED FOR COVERT ACTIVITIES

The fifth assumption that figured in our foreign policy strategy since the end of the Second World War was that we needed an undercover organization to compete with Soviet secret police on the level of plot and counterplot. The general theory was that covert activities were a cheap way of fighting a war. This theory, like so many of the