WHEN MURDER BECOMES AN 'EPISODE'

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000404570012-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 12
• Publication Date: April 4, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404570012-0
A,ETZCI,E L?PELRUP
ON PAGLJq.=L1P7..
George F. Will
When Murder
The Soviets have- murdered an American
officer but have promised not to bear a
grudge about it, and we have promised to
work with them to prevent such "episodes."
Detente is back and standing tall.
The Soviets have been intimately involved
in killing scores of thousands of U.S. ser-
vicemen, but generally have used Korean and
Vietnamese surrogates. Still, who will
remember Army Maj. Arthur D. Nicholson Jr.
a month from now? Who remembers Peter
Fechter? He~ was shot in 1962 while trying to
climb the Berlin Wall and was left, like Nichol-
son, to bleed, while persons eager to help
I were kept away at gunpoint. Today, the Wall
is a state-of-the-art killing machine with auto-
mated firing devices. Behind the Wall is a?U.S.
Embassy. "Normalization."
The Soviet empire requires low-tech mur-
der, too. The day after an Afghan officer led a
defection from a convoy reinforced by Soviet
h Soviet troops arrested 40 civilians.
t e
WASHINGTON POST
4 April 1985
Becomes an `Episode'
ministration has documented. He spoke about
"language problems" and "ambiguity" leading
the Soviets to a different but equaky sincere
"understanding" of what the agreements re-
quire. He spoke of finding "ways where we
can by deed prove what our intentions are."
The Soviets are in the 68th year of a mur-
der rampage and the problem is a misunder-
standing: If we can just prove our benign in-
tentions ...
In 1982 a French officer operating under
"Historians may
conclude that it was
during this
administration that the
United States
conclusively lost the
Cold War. "
Will the murder interrupt, even momentari-
ly, the talks whereby we get the Soviets to
agree to allow U.S. taxpayers to subsidize;
with credits, the sale of high technology to the
Soviet war machine? No. So mesmerized is
the administration by the arms control
"process," it is too paralyzed to respond even
to murder, lest a response jeopardize that
"process."
Historians may conclude that it was during
this administration that the United States con-
clusively lost the Cold War. By "lost" I mean
forfeited the last chances to embody in action
correct thinking about the Soviet threat. This
severe judgment is justified in spite of the fact
-actually,. because of the tact-that this ad-
ministration is wiser than its recent predeces-
sors and probably wiser than its successors
will be. It is the wisest the nation has had in a
generation. Measured that way, it is com-
mendable. Measured against the task, it is un-
satisfactory. "
This conclusion is compelled by things done
and left undone, from the failure to use the
weapon of enforced default against the Polish
regime's debts to the current squandering of
energy on the charade of arms control. The
debacle of policy toward Poland demonstrated
-
d
troops,
Patrick David, a 'physician with Aide Medicale
Internationale, told representatives of Hel-
sinki Watch: "They tied them up and gasoline
them like wood. Then they poured
over them and burned them alive."
The Soviet empire is based on murder, retail
as well as wholesale. A Polish priest is mu-
dered by secret police wholly subservient to the
e pope is
KGB The attack on th organized by
Burl arian -secret subservient to t
he Soviets watch Nicholson bleed for an hour
and stalk Korean Airlines flight 00P7fo for two
Presi-
hours, and what price do they psy a}
dent Reagan said the murder made him espe-
cially eager for a summit with Gorbachev, who
used Chernenko's funeral to threaten military
action against an American ally, Pakistan, if it
continues to aid Afghan freedom fighters.
About four hours after Nicholson was mur-
dered, the president, breakfasting with jour-
nalists, was asked about Soviet violations of
arms control agreements-vi olations his ad-
mims
the degree to v4hich a conservative a
tration, especially, is incapable of subordinat-
ing commerce to. geopolitics. The Carter-
esque elevation of arms control to the rank of
centerpiece in U.S.-Soviet relations demon-
strates the degree to which democracies allow
their wishes to control their thoughts.
One week after Nicholson bled to death, the
president described the death as "coid-
blooded murder." There has not been even a
Soviet apology. Has the president asked for
one? If not, why not? If he has. asked, what
price will he make the Soviets pay for refusing
-for compounding cold-blooded murder with
ostentatious disdain for the murdered officer's
commander in chief?
the 1947-agreements that-covered Nichol-
son's activities was killed when his car was
run off the road by East German forces. Brit-
ish officers operating under the agreements
have been involved in suspicious "accidents."
Six days after Nicholson was shot-the day he
was buried in Arlington National Cemetery,
within sight of the office where Secretary of
State George Shultz met with Soviet Ambas-
sador Anatoly Dobrynin-those two men dis-
cussed having discussions to prevent such
"episodes." It was "murder" one day, an
"episode" the next at a State Department dis-
solving in pleasure because the Soviets have
agreed to cooperate with us.
Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000404570012-0