Americans Ignore Australia

Today I watched several US morning news shows - CBS & Morning Joe - and then I watched Aljazeera.  One of Aljazeera's lead stories was the fact that Australia had a new Prime Minister.  Neither of the US shows had mentioned that.  All of the the US networks focus on easy news.  They have virtually no staff overseas.  They send their one foreign correspondent to wherever the hot spot of the day is, now the refugees in Europe.  If they have any foreign story, it is that one hot spot, and often there is not foreign reporting.  Lately anything from the Middle East has just been reported from the foreign correspondent's base in Turkey.  If it's a European story, it's likely just to be reported from London, and if it's Asian, from Beijing or Shanghai, wherever their one correspondent is based.  Aljazeera actually has correspondents who go the where the news is happening, even if it is not in a major capital.

Instead of reporting news, the so-called news shows in the US mainly have pundit talking heads, pontificating about the US election, which is still more than a year off.  Right now, the campaign is really just a reality show, which partly explains why Donald Trump is doing so well.  He is good at reality TV, and the networks love him because he boosts ratings without requiring the networks to do any work.  There is always some new meaningless poll they can talk about.  With the advent of cell phones, polls are virtually worthless, but the pundits latch on to them as if they were solid gold.

Besides Aljazeera, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal are about the the only organizations doing serious reporting.  Even on American stories, the networks seldom do any investigative reporting.  They just go to press conferences at the White House, the forest fire, or wherever the press gaggle assembles.  America is supposed to be an important country leading the world, but it's difficult for Americans to find out what is happening around the world, or even what is happening in the US.  How corrupt is Congress?  Americans have opinions, but nobody gives them the facts to back up or refute their opinions.

IIASA and Richard Perle

For a substantial part of my Foreign Service career, while Reagan was President, I frequently crossed swords with Richard Perle at the Pentagon.  He was much superior to me.  He was an assistant secretary of Defense; for much of this time I was a junior officer at the State Department.  However, I often worked on technology transfer issues, and Perle was very interested in technology transfer issues, especially as they related to the old Soviet Union.  He always kept an eagle eye on CoCom, the old Coordinating Committee that regulated technology transfers from Western, allied countries to the Soviet Union. 

My first brush with him must have been shortly after Reagan was elected and Perle was installed at the Pentagon.  I got a call from the science advisor to the State Department Under Secretary who handled technology transfers.  He said that Perle was cutting America’s support for and participation in IIASA. 

IIASA is the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Austria.  (IIASA web site, and IIASA Wikipedia entry.)  In the Cold War 1980s its mission was to promote cooperation between scientists from Western and Communist countries.  Perle was apparently concerned that it might be a conduit for uncontrolled technology transfer from the West to the East.  It was such an innocuous, academic institution that this seemed ridiculous.  The Under Secretary’s science advisor and I tried to stop Perle from blocking US participation, but as I recall, we failed. 

The good news is that IIASA survived and is still going today, with a broader mandate, since the old bipolar Cold War has ended.  It was my introduction to Richard Perle, who always seemed to be on the opposite side of issues that we were both interested in, from East-West technology transfers to third world transfers involving nuclear proliferation or other high tech problems.  

Reagan, Casey, and the Ayatollahs

I was in a meeting with Bill Casey not long after he became head of the CIA.  I had been the State Department representative working on NIE-11-12-80 (CIA link to it is here - http://www.foia.cia.gov/document/0000261310 ) regarding Soviet military science and technology.  Reagan was elected more or less while we were working on it.  The chief CIA honcho was a guy named Jan Herring, who is apparently still around (link - http://www.academyci.com/jan-herring/ ).  He and CIA deputy director Admiral Bobby Inman quit abruptly about the time of the election and the naming of Bill Casey to be CIA director. 

There were of course many military types working on the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate), and I was the lone working level State Department rep.  After a while I got concerned that the hawks were going nuts finding new technological ways the Soviets were going to kill us in our beds, and I started to push back and say that we can’t be sure that this unusual frequency or substance is being developed to use as a super weapon.  And I found the CIA was supporting me, although they wouldn’t take the lead in opposing the military.  However, after Jan Herring left and Casey came in, there was no hope of toning down the Estimate.  In addition the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research usually is headed by a senior Foreign Service officer, but at this time it was headed by a senior CIA official on loan.  He was not about to take a stand against the new man who was going to be his boss when he returned to the CIA.  So, at the big, final meeting with Casey to approve the NIE (which I attended), he did not make any waves about State Department concerns.  Casey really did mumble; I could not understand a lot of what he said.  I would like to think some of the “alternative view” language in the NIE was due to me, but after 35 years, who knows where it came from. 

Anyway, I like to think that Reagan’s election was orchestrated by the Iranian ayatollahs, rather than the ayatollahs being manipulated by the Reagan campaign.  There is a movie about the “Manchurian Candidate.”  I think Reagan was the “Iranian Candidate.”  The Iranians hated Carter for letting the Shah come to the US for medical treatment when he was dying.  They wanted “anybody but Carter.”  If Carter had rescued the hostages there is some chance that he might have been elected, because he would have appeared a stronger, rather than a weaker ("malaise") President.  Reagan probably would have won anyway, but who knows? 

I saw Carter recently when he came to Denver to sign copies of his new book, “A Full Life.”  I bought one and he signed it.  Recently someone asked him if he had any regrets, and he said one was the failed rescue mission, because if it had not failed, he might have been re-elected.  The Iranian hostages were a major factor in the election.  Incidentally, one of the hostages was a classmate of mine in the A-100 class.  This is the group of 40 or 50 officers that you come in with and there is a 6 or 9 month orientation, and then you can kind of keep track of your classmates to see who becomes the first ambassador, who goes the highest, etc.  Several of my classmates became ambassadors, but I didn’t make it.  

Second Letter to Congressional Representatives

As the date for voting on the Iran nuclear deal approaches, please note that despite the split of public opinion on the issue, the vast majority of those knowledgeable about the issue support the deal.  A number of military officers, scientists and diplomats have publicly weighed in on the issue, and in almost all cases they favor approval of the deal.  I urge you to support the deal. 

Three dozen retired generals and admirals have written an open letter supporting the nuclear deal and urging Congress to do the same.  They called the agreement “the most effective means currently available to prevent Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons.”  (https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/retired-generals-and-admirals-back-iran-nuclear-deal/2015/08/11/bd26f6ae-4045-11e5-bfe3-ff1d8549bfd2_story.html and http://apps.washingtonpost.com/g/documents/world/read-an-open-letter-from-retired-generals-and-admirals-on-the-iran-nuclear-deal/1689/) 

Twenty-nine top American scientists have written President Obama supporting approval of the deal.  Many of those who signed have worked on America’s nuclear weapons program; some were Nobel laureates.  The New York Times notes that many of the scientists hold Department of Energy “Q” clearances allowing access to sensitive technical information about nuclear weapons.  I held a “Q” clearance when I was a State Department Foreign Service officer, because I worked on nuclear non-proliferation issues.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/08/09/world/29-us-scientists-praise-iran-nuclear-deal-in-letter-to-obama.html and http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/08/08/world/document-iranletteraug2015.html)

Finally, many of my former State Department colleagues have written supporting the agreement.  A letter to President Obama signed by more than 100 former American ambassadors stated, “If properly implemented, the comprehensive and rigorously negotiated agreement can be an effective instrument in arresting Iran’s nuclear program and preventing the spread of nuclear weapons in the volatile and vitally important region of the Middle East.”  I served with a number of the ambassadors signing the letter, some when we were young junior officers together; others were ambassadors under whom I served overseas.  I have recently been corresponding about this issue with Amb. Dennis Jett, who signed the letter.  (http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/17/us/politics/former-us-diplomats-praise-iran-deal.html and http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/07/16/us/politics/document-american-ambassadors-letter.html) 

I hope that you will take the views of these experts who favor the Iran nuclear deal into consideration in your deliberations.  In addition, they represent the views of many others from their professions, like myself.  I believe that it will make the world, the United States, and the Middle East, including Israel, safer.  It will significantly restrict Iran’s nuclear activities, and it will provide ten to fifteen years of breathing space in which to work out the next steps for preventing further nuclear proliferation in the region.