FINDING PEACE IN STRENGTH

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP91-00901R000500150026-2
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 19, 2016
• Document Release Date: December 20, 2005
• Sequence Number: 26
• Publication Date: January 31, 1983
• Content Type: MAGAZINE

?ove, rrRlease 2 NIIA Y 7 1-00901 R000
The Presidency/Hugh Sidey
Finding Peace in Strength
T here is a melancholy echo these days for
Richard Helms, former head of the CIA,
as he trudges to the Pentagon and pulls up a
chair in the somber interior of Room 3E333.
He and ten other members of the Presi-
dent's Commission on Strategic Forces have
been asked to design the free world's nuclear
deterrent for the rest of this century. Helms'
entire adult life has been given to studying
and acting against forces that would quell
freedom. The problem probably cannot be
solved for more than a few years at a time, a
fact that Helms accepts but many Ameri-
cans find hard to digest.
As Helms nears 70, his belief that
strength brings peace, that vigilance
thwarts aggression, is undimmed: And so he
is back in public service, alarmed at the ris-
ing number of people in the free world who
accept without question Soviet declarations
of peace, who grow flaccid out of fear of So-
viet strength. The cycle repeats itself.
Fifty years ago this Sunday, Jan. 30,
1933, when Helms was a Williams College
sophomore getting ready for exams, he
heard that Adolf Hitler had become dictator of Germany. Two years later, in the,,,
fall of 1935, Helms was a United Press reporter in Berlin, hunched forward in his
seat in the Kroll Opera House watching Hitler rant against the Versailles Trea-
ty. "I noticed that Hitler had become rather pale," Helms recalls. "He was pass-
ing a handkerchief back and forth between his hands underneath the lectern."
Suddenly Helms understood. ;'At this moment," Hitler shouted, "German .
troops are crossing the Rhine bridges and occupying the Rhineland!" .His
mesmerized audience cheered wildly. Helms, then 23, was stunned. The world
shrugged.
In the summer of 1936, Helms covered America's greatest hero, Charles
Lindbergh, who became frightened by German air might after Hermann Goring
showed him the huge air force he was building. That September, Helms-was in
Nuremberg at the Nazi Party Congress, where uniformed ranks roared their de-
votion to Hitler and flights of new bombers thundered endlessly overhead. In all
his subsequent years in and around power, Helms has never seen anything quite
like it.
Helms rode in the car behind Hitler in a motorcade through Nuremberg,
where the frenzy spilled down every street. At the Burg, a medieval castle, Hitler
came out on the battlement for one of his rare interviews. Helms was seized by
conflicting emotions. He looked down- on Hitler, who was smaller than Helms
had thought. Hitler's handshake was firm: But his personality was not hypnotic.
His eyes possessed no power, as the myths had it. Hitler's skin was coarse and his
mustache slightly-gray. His bottom teethwere gold-plated, which made Helms
suspect they were lse. Hitler's smile was humorless but his manner was . pleas
ant enough. What was it about this.plain :man that had brought him so far,. v
Helms wondered as Hitler talked of his hatred of Bolshevism, of the value of the 1
'party congress. Later, Helms owcruid write:' "No imagination could make any-
thing godlike out of the ordinary mortal who chatted on that day. The striking
things were the ready intelligence,,the amderstanding of German psychology; the. .
complete assuredness." But the sad fact was that Helms was only one of a small
group of journalists and diplomats who understood the Nazi menace when there
might have been time to stop Hitter.
There is no Hitler in today's world, in Helms' view. The adversary is many
men, many nations and many systems. The measures of strength are economic
as much as military. But the basic challenge, believes Helms, remains un-
changed: how to preserve freedom while preventing war. The world failed with
Hitler. It has succeeded for nearly four decades since World War II, largely
through U.S. strength and resolve. Now doubt assails us again.
So each day Helms makes his way to Room 3E333 carrying with him the
memories of what started just half a century ago next week in Germany, when
Hitler rose to power and weary nations turned away from danger and refused
Apprtl~t~air9vrd as~i~Q~3fbkli~~~im~iArtRF Br R?8~~f3U1 Q~1 .26-2
 Approved For Release 2006/01/12 : CIA-RDP91-00P
WVAS ITINGTCN PCT
4 JA IN UA P Y 1983
' .: 'es
_LJeal ie,.
ROME, Jan. 3 (UPI)-Former national
security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski said he
believes the Soviet KGB, the secret security
police, was behind the assassination at-
tempt against Pope John Paul II.
Brzezinski, in an interview published
Sunday in the Turin newspaper La
Stampa, also was quoted as saying that
\'uri Andropov, the new Soviet leader, "rep-
resents the most sinister forces at work in
the Soviet system."
Andropov headed the KGB from 1967
until only months before his appointment
to replace the late Leonid Brezhnev in No-
vember.
"The secret police he directed for such a
long time is responsible for the suppression
of internal dissent and profoundly involved
in the control of Eastern Europe," Brzezin-
ski was quoted as telling the Italian news-
paper-There is mounting evidence, he con-
tinued, that it was implicated in the most
monumental assassination attempt carried
out in this century-that against the pope."
"There is no doubt that the investigation
made by Italian authorities has established
the- complicity of Bulgaria in the attack
against the pope," the former Carter admin-
istration official was quoted as saying.
"Those who know the reality of Eastern
Europe automatically deduce that the So-
viet Union was in command of the opera-
tion."
"Only the KGB could have been its in-
strument and Andropov dominated it for
15 years. The logic of this affair ... is ir-
refutable," Brzezinski was quoted as saying.
[U.S. intelligence officials have expressed
skepticism about the allegations of a KGB
connection to the plot against the 'pope.
But former secretary of state Henry Kiss-
inger, in an interview last week with Cable
News Network, said ex-CIA director Rich-
ard Helms had told him "it had all the ear-
marks ... of a KGB operation."
[Kissinger said he agreed: "If you try to
square the known facts, it really leads al-
most to no other conclusion."
L
said. T he $ui,a: isr.s h,,,ve no interest in
coming after the pope."]
In Moscow, a Soviet television corn nen-
tary said the charges of Bulgarian and So-
viet involvement were an attempt "to turn
Italy into a launching pad for retaliation"
and to set Catholics against Communists.]
One Bulgarian-Rome-based airline of-
ficial Sergei Ivanov Antonov-was arrested
in Rome Nov. 25 on suspicion of complicity
in the May 13, 1981, attempt on the pope's
life. Lawyers for Antonov today formally
filed a request for his release on the
grounds of lack of evidence.
[According to Reuter, the lawyers' formal
application was a detailed alibi, quoting
witnesses in an exhaustive account of An-
tonov's activities on the dates he is alleged
to have helped Turkish gunman Mehmet.
Ali Agca plan and execute the attack.
(Mario Marelia, the Italian magistrate
investigating the case, is expected to rule on
the lawyers' application when he returns
from West Germany, where he is interview-
ing Musa Cedar Celebi, a right-wing Turk
who has been arrested by police in Frank-
fun on charges of complicity in the plot.]
["It had 4~fo d ?&A~ I&PeM06/01/12: CIA-RDP91-00901R000500150026-2
 Approved For Release 201 1 kC PRP91-00901 R00
RTICZ~ AARED 4 JANUARY 1983
RE,AGAN APPOINTS
ti PAI~EL TO STUDY
MIX MISSILE SYSTEM
SEEKS TO BREAK DEADLOCK
Chairman of Bipartisan Group
Cautious on Prospects of
Accord on Basing Plan
Defense Policy Specialists
In contrast to some earlier MX study
panels that included a heavy repr-eseen-
tation of technical experts, the commis-
sion appointed today appears to put em-
phasis on former military policy spe-
cialists, including some prominent past
advocates of the MX missile, a "safe"
group, by the estimate of one Capitol
Hill official involved with the issue who
asked not to be named.
in addition to Mr. Scowcroft, a for.
mer Air Force general and national se-
curity adviser to President Ford, the
panel will have as vice chairman
Thomas Reed, a former secretary of
the Air Force and a special assistant to
President Reagan on national security.
R was an advocate of placing
"I feel," he replied, "that the MX is a
very important part of our future de-
fense posture, but that's purely person-
'Rush to Judgment' Questioned
Senator Ernest F. Hollings, the South
Carolina Democrat who led opposition
to the President's MX Plan in the Sen-
ate, called on the new panel to "study
all options, not just MX." He questioned
how the study could be thorough in the
limited time available. "I don't see the
need or rationale for this rush to judg-
ment," Mr. Hollings said. "After all, i
we're talking billions of dollars."
President Reagan, who decided to
create the bipartisan study panel after
Congress rejected his MX plan last!
month, stressed in his announcement
that "an important part of the commis-
sion's work will be to consider carefully
10() missiles in a closely spaced basing the views of Congress."
arrangement in Wyoming, a proposal Critics in and out of Congress, in de-
"
u o d
us
known informally as "dense pack
that i ing the Aew missiles, had oc
edthe
By FRANCIS X. CLINES sparked a resounding defeat for the
Specialty-heNewYOrkTimes proposal forburying l00ofthenewmui-
P d is my roduction plan in the 1 -
rockets In silos closely
p
wa
t
WASHINGTON, Jan. 3 President
Reagan today named a bipartisan com-
mission to study the deadlocked MX
missile issue, and its chairman quickly
cautioned that the panel would not nec-
essarily produce a workable solution.
"Obviously the problem is very diffi-
cult," the chairman, Brent Scowcroft
said of the dozens of past missile plans
studied and discarded by recent admin-
istrations. "If it were not very difficult
it would already be solved." -
The 11-member panel, formally
known as the Commission on Strategic
Forces, has a broad mandate to study
the total array of the nation's nuclear
deterrence. It is to make its recommen-
dations to the President by Feb. 18. The
Administration is to make its new pro-
posal to Congress on or after March 1.
Chairman Cautious at Prospects
"Nothing is ruled out," Mr. Scowcroft
said. "The commission has no kind of
do."
At a news briefing, Mr. Scowcrott
sidestepped such political questions as
whether the panel was established by
the President as a safe, bipartisan vehi-
cle to help revive support for the nu-
clear missile in Congress.
"Whatever we come up with is un-
likely to meet the unanimous approval
of everyone in the country, of everyone
in the Congress," Mr. Scowcroft said.
Asked how the new group, operating
against a tight deadline, might solve the the commission.
MX problem, still intractable after Mr. Scowcroft, interviewed in the
more than 30 studies, Mr. Scowcroft re- White House driveway after a visit with
plied, "I'm not sure that we will." the President, was asked whether the
panel might go beyond the basing ques-
tion and conceivably recommend veto-
Approved For Rel6l?(h14zI; 1iJ1e00901 R000500150026-2
perimental.
% S
res
txp e-
I post-election session of Congress last packed in a 20-square-mile plot in Wyo-
post-election
month. Asked whether the commission wing. Last October, Mr. Scowcroft said
could be sufficiently independent, Mr. such a plan "may be subject to cats-'
Reed said: "The commission has been strophic failure."
asked to take an independent look and I *sked about this today, Mr. Scow-
'think they will do so. And I think the croft commented, "I've said critical
President values the commission's ad- things about a number of basing
modes." '
vice." In appointing the panel, President
The commission includes Harold Reagan said the commission's basic
.Brown, a nuclear physicist who was goal was to "to preserve an effective
Secretary of Defense in the Carter Ad- deterrent while moving forward with,
.Jr., a retired general and Mr. Reagan's
former Secretary of State.
Other members of the panel are
Nicholas Brady, a New Jersey busi-
nessman and former Senator; William
Clements, the former Deputy Secretary
of .Defense who is about to step down as
Governor of Texas; Dr. John Deutch,
our our la ." "- - ?- ----
Energy; Richard Helms, a former Di-
land-based intercontinental balbs-
r+ector of Central Intelligence; John .tic missile system and basing alterna-
Lyons, a vice president and defense ? fives for that
system."
subcommittee chairman of the Ameri-
can Federation of Labor-Congress of In-
dustrial Organizations; Levering
Smith, a retired vice admiral and for-
mer director of special projects for the
Navy, and James Woolsey, a former
under Secretary of the Navy.
The panel's executive secretary is
Dr. Marvin Atkins; director of offensive
and space systems for the Secretary of
Defense. In addition, such past Govern-
?ment foreign policy and military spe-
cialists as Henry A. Kissinger and
verifiable arms reductions'"
The Administration will not be bound
by the commission's recommendations,
although Mr. Reagan's advisers are
hinging their campaign to revive the
MX proposal in the new Congress on the
panel. While the Congressional lan-
guage gives the commission a broad