President’s Speech to U.N.

The hypocrisy of President Reagan’s address to the United Nations ought to be apparent.

He asserts that the United States desires a nuclear test ban treaty when, in fact, it is the Russians, not the Americans, who have stopped testing. Indeed, Reagan, himself, has threatened to veto Senate legislation containing treaty provisions.

He points to the terrible destructive power of the Soviet Union’s land-based ICBMs but does not mention the equally destructive potential of our sea-based nuclear weapons.

He now admits that true security will require a coupling of SDI with a reduction in missiles when, for months, his Administration maintained that SDI alone would protect us. If reductions in nuclear missiles are necessary, why not begin those reductions now?

He indulges in vague promises to share SDI technology with the Soviets at some unspecified future date but does not say how reluctant we are to trust the Russians about the simplest detail of arms control.

He condemns the Russians for a war against the people of Cambodia, forgetting our invasion and bombing of Cambodia in the early 1970s.

He criticizes the Soviets for maintaining troops in Afghanistan but sends our own National Guard to train in Latin America, an activity designed to bolster military dictatorships in that area as it simultaneously harasses the recognized government of Nicaragua.

He condemns state-sponsored terrorism but backs CIA-sponsored contra thugs with American tax dollars as they terrorize and murder the citizens of Nicaragua.

The list could be extended. Thus, Ronald Reagan proves once again a master of the oldest ploy of political rhetoric--the notion that it’s only a sin if they commit it.

RICHARD NESTER

Irvine