1999 (54 page)

Saint Thomas Aquinas observed, “If the highest aim of a captain were to preserve his ship he would keep it in port forever.” The sea may be stormy, but conflict is the mother of creativity. Without risks, there will be no failures. But without risks there will be no successes. We must never be satisfied with success, and we should never be discouraged by failure. In the end, the key is the call, the commitment, the power of a great cause, a driving dream bigger than ourselves, as big as the whole world itself.

In war, the Medal of Honor is awarded for conduct beyond the call of duty. In peacetime we must not be satisfied with doing only what duty requires—doing what is right only in the sense of avoiding what is wrong. A morality of duty is not an adequate standard for a great people. We should set a higher standard, what Lon Fuller described as the morality of aspiration—dedicating ourselves to the fullest realization of our potential, in a manner worthy of a people functioning at their best.

Let us be remembered not just as a good people who took care
of themselves without doing harm to others. Let us be remembered as a great people whose conduct went beyond the call of duty as we met the supreme challenge of this century—winning victory for freedom without war.

Are we witnessing the twilight of the American revolution? Are we seeing the first stages of the retreat of Western civilization into a new dark age of Soviet totalitarianism? Or will a new America lead the way to a new dawn for all those who cherish freedom in the world?

In his Iron Curtain speech at Westminster College in 1946, Winston Churchill said, “The United States stands at this time at the pinnacle of world power. It is a solemn moment for the American democracy. For with primacy in power is also joined an awe-inspiring accountability for the future.” Those words are as true today as when he spoke them forty-two years ago. We hold the future in our hands.

This book is the product of a lifetime of study and on-the-job training in foreign policy. In essence I began it forty years ago, when as a Congressman from California and a member of the Herter Committee I made a fact-finding trip through Western Europe, which was only beginning to recover from the devastation of World War II. I finished it on my seventy-fifth birthday, nine days into the year that will see the election of the President who will have it in his power to make a far more devastating World War III less likely, or more so.

If the world of the twenty-first century is to be a safer, more free, and more prosperous place than the world of the twentieth, it is imperative that the United States play an even more prominent role on the world stage than it does today—imperative, but by no means inevitable. The challenge we face is great, as befits a great nation. The first nine chapters of
1999
are about what America must do to meet the challenge. The tenth chapter is about what our leaders must do to inspire the American people to
want
to meet it.

In preparing this volume I received wise counsel from Michael Korda and Bob Asahina at Simon and Schuster. Loie Gaunt and Carlos Narváez provided vital research support, while Carmen Ballard, Kathy O'Connor, and Rose Mary Woods contributed outstanding stenographic support. Four undergraduate and graduate-level
students of international affairs—Dale Baker, Tom Casey, Nadia Schadlow, and Jim Van de Velde—submitted very useful background research. And for their immensely dedicated and astute assistance, I am particularly indebted to Paul Matulić, John H. Taylor, and Marin Strmecki, who once again served as my principal research and editorial consultant.

—RN

Saddle River, New Jersey

January 9, 1988

Also by Richard Nixon

Beyond Peace

Seize the Moment

In the Arena

No More Vietnams

Real Peace

Leaders

The Real War

RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon

Six Crises

ABM Treaty,
80
,
95
,
178

   SDI and,
85
–86,
92
–93

Adenauer, Konrad,
27
,
32
,
242
,
252

Afghanistan,
104
,
244

   Soviet invasion of,
48
,
58
–59,
75
–76,
105
,
111
,
115
,
118
,
167
,
179
,
182
,
190
,
274

   Soviet war in,
35
–36,
48
–50,
137
–142,
157
,
260
,
274

   U.S. covert assistance to,
110
–11,
139
–41

AFL-CIO,
299

Africa,
see specific countries

African National Congress (ANC),
283
–84,
292

Albania,
154

Alliance for Progress,
292

Alma-Ata, rioting in,
157

American Revolution,
128
,
316

Amery, Julian,
258

Andropov, Yuri,
29
–30,
37

Angola,
105
,
142
–43

Anne, Queen of England,
15
,
65

anticommunist revolutionary movements,
128
–31,
314

   in Afghanistan,
110
–11,
139
–41

   in Angola,
142
–43

   conditions for U.S. aid to,
129
–30

   in Eastern Europe,
147
–49,
151

   in Nicaragua,
see
contras

antitechnology syndrome,
311

Aquino, Corazon,
144
–45,
270
–71

Arab–Israeli conflict,
56
,
103
,
267
,
275
–79

Argentina,
290

Arias, Oscar,
133
,
136

Arias peace plan,
133
,
135
–37

arms-control agreements,
160
,
166
,
183
–84

   conditions to be met by,
87
–89,
94
–97

   construction of,
86
–87

   on conventional level,
94
–95,
97
,
153
,
170
–71,
215

   coordinating defense policy with,
86
–87

   European leadership in,
215

   flexibility required in,
90
–91

   legitimate role of,
164
–65

   linkage tactic in,
178
–80

   Soviet approach to,
164

   summitry and,
191
–92

   for total disarmament,
67
–71

   verification of,
88
,
96
–97,
184
–85

   
see also specific agreements and treaties

Articles of Confederation,
304

Australia,
272

Austrian Peace Treaty,
103
,
163
,
193

Averroës,
293

Avicenna,
293

AWACS sales,
279

Batista, Fulgencio,
122

Bay of Pigs invasion,
190

Ben-Gurion, David,
278

Berlin agreement,
103
,
193

Berlin crisis,
73
–74,
75
,
199

Berlin Wall,
190
,
199

Beveridge, Albert,
305

Bill of Rights, U.S.,
167

biotechnology,
310

Bolívar, Simón,
285

Bolshoi Ballet,
167

Bourguiba, Habib,
252

Boxer Rebellion,
242
,
250

Brazil,
307

   economic crisis of,
286
–87,
290

Brezhnev, Leonid,
24
,
29
–30,
44
,
146
–147,
189

   Gorbachev compared with,
32
–33,
37

Brezhnev Doctrine,
44

Brosio, Manlio,
188

Brzezinski, Zbigniew,
58
,
170

Cambodia,
244
,
269

   poverty of,
270
,
293

   Vietnamese invasion of,
143
–44,
270

Camp David Accords,
103
,
276
,
278