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115  Ire Over Czechs Shouldn't
     Blind U.S. to Its Interests
     The Washington Post, Saturday, September 14, 1968

     The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia has inevitably and properly
impelled a re-examination of U.S. policy in several areas.  A purely
rational argument would insist that the strategic situation is
unchanged.  Furthermore, any policies which assumed the primacy of
humanitarian motives on the part of the government of the Soviet
Union, or of any other super-power, are unrealistic from the start.
 
     But our feelings are not so cold-blooded and every instance of
the actual use of force in the service of an overriding national
interest is a chilling reminder of the primitive frailty of the
fabric of world culture.

     The Johnson Administration is too impatient and too pragmatic to
be distracted from its pursuit of realistic settlements on the vital
issues of arms control and completing the task of the nuclear
nonproliferation treaty.   The President has far more freedom than
candidates Nixon or Humphrey to pass over a popular wave of frustration
at the impossibility of effective intervention on behalf of the
Czechs.  He can focus on the reality that arms settlements are vital to
our self-interest and must be to the other side, as well, if they are
to have any hope of being concluded.  Nothing we do in this area is in
any sense a moral approbation of Soviet militarism, any more than the
air transport agreements are a Communist acceptance of capitalist
economics.

     Nevertheless, it is a well-documented part of human nature that
frustration leads to cutting off your nose to spite your face.  We
do not have to look far to see this process, despite the remarkable
probity with which the present Administration has reacted to the
Czech crisis.  Secretary of State Dean Rusk was quoted last week as
scrutinizing the entire U.S. Soviet educational and cultural exchange
program to find a way to demonstrate our displeasure.

     It would take a clear head and a real love of art not to be
galled by a performance of the Bolshoi Ballet in the midst of a crisis
of Soviet aggression.  But the peak of the crisis will soon pass and,
in the long run, the success of American idealism may depend on this 
clarity.  The Bolshoi Ballet is not the culprit that ordered the Red
army into Prague.  Nor are many other elements of Soviet society, and
least of all just those elements which are involved in the exchange 
programs.

     There remains a twisted argument for blaming Soviet scientists
and intellectuals.  In recent months, they have formed the forefront
of a liberal resurgence, making unprecedented demands for the free
expression of criticisms of the regime.  Many Czechs believe that at
least one motive for the military occupation of their country was a
reaction to the liberal revolt in the Soviet Union.

     One more theory of Soviet policy cannot be disregarded, and it
was based on misinformation, an uncritical acceptance of their own 
propaganda, with respect both to German military intentions and to
Czech popular reaction to Soviet "protection".

     On any of these theories, we all benefit from every opportunity
for Soviet citizens to see the real world outside -- and by the same
arguments for us to see them as people beyond the cloak of a paranoid
government.

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