THE REAGAN DOCTRINE

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00965R000403570007-9
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: January 12, 2012
• Sequence Number: 7
• Publication Date: July 19, 1985
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403570007-9
ARTICLZ ZARS
01 PAGN A -c2S
WASHINGTON POST
19 July 1985
Charles Krauthammer
The Reagan
Doctrine
There are four major anticommunist insur-
gencies in the world-in Angola, Nicaragua,
Cambodia and Afghanistan-and within th e last
six weeks the House of Representatives has en-
dorsed them all. It gave money to three, and re-
pealed a 10-year-old ban the Clark amendment,
on aid to the fourth (Angola). In effect, the
House, the last remaining wildlife refuge for the
American dove, adopted the Reagan Doctrine.
The Reagan Doctrine, enunciated in the 1985
State of the Union address, declares, quite sim-
ply, American support for anticommunist revolu-
tion "on every continent from Afghanistan to
Nicaragua." It constitutes our third reformula-
tion since Vietnam of the policy of containment.
First came the Nixon doctrine, which relied on
regional proxies and sank with the shah. Then
came the Carter doctrine, which promised the
unilateral projection of American power and dis-
appeared with the Rapid Deployment Force.
(Come to think of it, where is the Rapid Deploy-
ment Force?)
Enter the Reagan Doctrine, which relies on
indigenous revolutionaries to challenge (for
reasons that parallel, but need not coincide
with ours) the Soviet empire at its periphery. It
is the American response to the Brezhnev Doc-
trine. The Brezhnev Doctrine declares: once a
Soviet acquisition, always a Soviet acquisition.
The Reagan Doctrine means to test that
proposition.
For many Democrats, coming around to this
idea has meant reversing field. And that has
given the cynics a field day. Cheap symbolism,
they say. Easy politics. Besides, this toughness
is not serious. It is merely reactive. After the
TWA hijacking, the Walker sring and the
killing of Marines in Salvador, Congress is
cranky. The United States has been kicked
around lately, and so have Democrats: some
are still smarting from Daniel Ortega's trip to
Moscow just hours after the House had voted
to cut off contra aid last April.
Now, it is true that the Reagan Doctrine
costs little, less than $50 million a year. Politi-
cally, too, it is not very expensive. There are
not very many fans of, say, Indochinese com-
munism to be defied (this time around, any-
way). And granted, Congress is no island of
stability.
Still, Congress, like the two-ton gorilla, can be
serious in spite of itself. Whenever it moves, the
effects are serious. Democrats may indeed be
acting from "political" motives. So what? So did
Vandenberg and the Republicans who in the late
1940s had to abandon isolationism or face politi-
cal ruin for being soft on communism. That did
not make their about-face any less momentous.
However ynically conceived, the "Reagan Doc-
trine" amendments to the 1985 foreign aid bill,
have a serious effect. They amount to a signifi-
cant?-and, if sustained, historic-change in the
nation's foreign policy consensus.
To be sure, opponents of the Reagan Doc-
trine have by no means been swept away. A
majority of House Democrats are still to be
moved. Rep. Tom Downey is one of the leaders
of the opposition. He explained his objection to
the foreign aid bill thus: "What this bill says is
that the threat to use force is part and parcel of
our diplomacy, and I think that's a mistake."
Rarely has the advocacy of a toothless foreign
policy been so forthright. Majority leader Jim
Wright voiced a different protest. Contra aid
makes us, he said, "accessories to an attempt
to the overthrow of the government of Nicara-
gua." Wright may worry about the knock on
the door that brings a subpoena from the
World Court. But much of his party doesn't.
Indeed, the Reagan Doctrine gathered some
remarkable support from House liberals. Repeal
of the Clark Amendment was introduced by the
last of the great New Dealers, that indefatigable
tribune of the elderly, Rep. Claude Pepper, a
man not known as a cold warrior. He led the
charge on Angola. Stephen Solarz, one of the
leading anti-war Democrats, hatched the Cambo-
dia aid idea. Seventy-three House Democrats
voted aid to the Nicaraguan contras. And every-
body supports the rebels in Afghanistan.
The great irony is that all these moves have
left one man behind: Ronald Reagan.
Reagan proclaimed his Doctrine (and George
Shultz elaborated it in a major address in San
Francisco), then shied away from taking any
political risks on its behalf. On Clark, the ad-
ministration thought the votes were not there
and exerted no pressure. On Cambodia, it had
to be pushed by the House. (The State Depart-
ment opposed the measure. Shultz wants overt
aid to come from the ASEAN countries, not
the United States.) And on Nicaragua, the
president lucked out completely. Last April, he
refused to risk his prestige by going on televi-
sion to support contra aid. It lost in the House
by two votes. The only thing that saved it in
the end was Daniel Ortega's travel agent.
The president obviously believes in the cause
of anticommunist revolution. However, he is re-
luctant to expend political capital for it. He has
other priorities. In the name of these priorities
(for example, arms sales to Jordan and more mili-
tary aid to the Philippines) the White House has
even threatened to veto the foreign aid bill.
Imagine: Congress, the Democratic House,
adopts the Reagan Doctrine-and Reagan vetoes
the measure. That would be one irony too many.
At that point, those who support the Reagan
Doctrine will have to start thinking about rechris-
tening it.
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/01/12 : CIA-RDP90-00965R000403570007-9