Strong U.S. Latin Policy Called Vital to Credibility With Allies

Vernon A. Walters, President Reagan’s nominee to succeed Jeane J. Kirkpatrick as U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, told American newspaper publishers Wednesday that the United States must prevent Nicaragua from establishing an “outpost of communist Soviet power” or America’s allies will “wonder whether the time has not come for accommodation with the Soviet Union.”

“Ever since the signature of the North Atlantic treaty alliance, the prime objective of Soviet foreign policy has been to divide the United States from its allies by telling the allies that the United States was not a reliable protector,” Walters told the annual convention of the American Newspaper Publishers Assn. here.

A failure to grasp this notion has plagued foreign policy since the Administration of President John F. Kennedy, Walters said.

For instance, Walters added, French President Charles De Gaulle launched France’s development of its own nuclear weapons systems because the United States failed to destroy Soviet missile sites during the Cuban missile crisis.

“When we did not (destroy the missiles), De Gaulle said it (the United States) was weak,” Walters said. “ ‘If they are not going to fight for Cuba 90 miles from the United States, why should I believe they are going to fight for France 3,500 miles from the United States? And if they are not, I must draw the consequences.’ And the consequences were his own nuclear efforts.

Credibility Vital

“Do we want to live in a world where 35 nations will develop nuclear weapons in order to protect themselves because they do not trust the United States? That is why the credibility of the United States is so important,” Walters said.

Walters explained that his experience in France during his tour as a defense attache at the U.S. Embassy has particularly influenced his view of the current problems in Central America.

In a reference to Nicaragua, he said that “if it is now true that the United States is incapable of preventing the establishment of an outpost of communist Soviet power in the heart of the Americas, will the allies not wonder whether the time has not come for accommodation with the Soviet Union.”

Walters said that under Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev, the Kremlin’s foreign policy could undergo a “considerable change in style,” with “more attempt to talk to the people of the United States and the allied countries over the heads of the government” in those countries.