A LITTLE THRASHING FOR 'MISS AMERICA'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000605250011-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 2, 2012
• Sequence Number: 11
• Publication Date: November 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
J Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605250011-5
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WASHINGTON TIMES
4 November 1985
A little thrashing
for 'MNZiss America'
. All the world's suddenly a stage, and Mikhail
Gorbachev has successfully cast the Soviet Union
as wife-beater.
You-know-who is playing the role of the little
woman who has to learn to love it.
No matter how hard the bearish groom may
choose to be, "Miss America" must smile through.
her tears and whisper, "Pour it on:'
? That's the only way the events of New Orleans,
Kabul and now Mariel make any sense.
"What you have to understand:' says a top official
of a previous administration who is intimately
acquainted with the Soviet heirarchy, "is that Gor-
bachev's No. 1 priority is to show how tough he is to
the people who put him where he is. Arms control
comes only after that.
Ronald Reagan's first priority, as imposed on him
by the shrill and relentless cacophony of the big
media, the arms-control bureaucracy and his own
political establishment, is to show how "nice" and
"gentle" and "peace-loving" he is.
. This gives Mr. Gorbachev the advantage, as chil-
dren could plainly see. Ronald Reagan's con-
stituency, growing more hysterical as the Geneva
summit approaches, is desperate to have an
agreement, any kind of an agreement, to make the
world safe for the little children of the world, their
kittens and the pretty flowers.
If Mr. Reagan leaves Geneva without such a So-
viet blessing, the fault will be Ronald Reagan's.
This prospect seems to have rattled even Mr. Rea-
gan who knows as well as anyone what peanut but-
ter this is. He may be lulling everyone into a suck-
er?'s: game, but, for whatever the reason, Mr. Reagan
has;suddenly adopted Jimmy Carter's vocabulary,
wito his talk of American "paranoia" and the need
to."start all over."
Mr. Gorbachev has no such need to feel good
about himself. He can demand that the United
States betray a defector in New Orleans, confident
that Washington will acquiesce and that the
American secretary of state will even say what an
artful piece of work the State Department's double-
dealing was.
And now, rotten luck, a Soviet soldier in
Afghanistan, as credulous and as gullible as Miros-
lay Medvid, darts through the front gate at the em-
bassy in Kabul and expects to find a welcome.
U.S. officials say the 19-year-old Soviet private
"seemed confused." That's State Department jive
for?`If he thinks he's going to get any sympathy
froi us, he ought to ask a Soviet seaman:'
The Soviets cut off electricity and water to the
embassy, and when an American diplomat went out-
side to the street, he was roughed up. Powerful
searchlights were brought up to bathe the
American compound in harsh light. The Soviets
know how American governments love this sort of
treatment.
1 he only option," an American Embassy source
told:The Assgciated Press, "would be if this person
were to decide to go back where he came from:'
Youcan bet that's what the State Department thinks
about "this person:'
The ultimate sock in the eye, the teeth broken in
the act of love, is the disclosure - on the front page
of this newspaper - that Soviet and Bulgarian
freighters are transferring enormous amounts of
tanks and other weapons of war to Nicaraguan
coastal freighters for delivery to the Sandinistas.
These deliveries were confirmed by aerial pho-
tographs taken Thursday night by an SR-71
Blackbird reconnaissance plane. With more respect
for his adversary, Mikhail Gorbachev wouldn't have
made such a fuss in New Orleans. He wouldn't have
ordered the humiliation of the American Embassy
in Kabul. He would have waited two weeks to supply
the Sandinistas.
He knows who he's dealing with. He would never
have ordered such provocation on the eve of the
summit if he were not confident that he could do it
and get by with it.
Not only get by with it - but have "Miss
America" begging for more.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/02 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000605250011-5