STANFORD UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF MEDICINE
STANFORD MEDICAL CENTER
300 PASTEUR DRIVE, PALO ALTO, CALIFORNIA

SEPARTMENT OF GENETICS DAvenport 1-1200
. Ext. 5052

January 13, 1971

Hon. Arthur J as

New York
+ Dear Mr. Goldberg

The Washington Post for Jan. 5, containing your article on
U.S. pressures on Germen overtures to the USSR, just arrived.

I am very much with you on your principal conclusions; but
was rather nonplussed by one of your arguments, that we might
belie a "genuine interest in a detente with the Soviet Union on
vital matters. of mutual interest ond concern, perticulerly the
SALT talks". This would seem to imply that the pursuit of arms
control end other errangements must depend on mutual trust and

confidence about the other's intentions end motives, end demonstra-
tions thereof.

There are so many weaknesses in such a position I do not think
you meen to entertain it. The "sentiment" of detente, when it exists,
is so evanescent and vulnerable to shifts of internal posture and
power thet it cen hardly be relied upon as e basis for strategic

t bargains. Neither the Kremlin nor our Senate would ever egree to
a SALT egreement that lacked internal integrity, that would not
stand up under the assumption that both sides had the most mele-
volent purposes -- which still does not keep edversaries from
finding mutual benefits in egreements.

But ebove all, you give ammunition to our own herdliners,

-who for their own reasons woyld prefer further armament to nego-
tiated balances. They can use precisely your own logic to question
whether there is any evidence thot the Kremlin is interested in
the detente of the, kind you indicate -- there is certainly little
enough sign of this in their arming of Egypt, in their domestic
repression and in the stifling of liberalism in Czechoslovakia.
Should we then back off from SALT?

Finally, the Kremlin would like nothing better than to exact
still more concessions from us as the price of merely agreeing to
negotiate, which will then be simply piled on top of bargains that

(necessarily and appropriately) will be as close to marginal as
we can be pushed to. ‘

In any case, your main point is indisputable. The Soviet's fears
of a Greater Germany ere archetypal and it would be worth a great
deal for world stability if that frontier can be normalized, and
chances of misverceptioyjs of motives minimized. One can still arsue
whether US pressures on Brandt do more to weaken his government then
to strengthen his bergsining position with the Soviets. Those double-
helical gemes hocome too serpentine even for a moleculsr biologist.

oaiina Lederberg

LT. }.P. KENNEDY, JR., LABORATORIES FOR MOLECULAR MEDICINE, DEDICATED TO RESEARCH on neat TAL sPranpanion!
MOLECULAR BIOLOGY HEREDITY NEUROBIOLOGY DEVELOPMENTAL MEDICINE

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