Comments Made at Casey Funeral

Times staff writer James Gerstenzang describes (May 10) the muted occasion of William J. Casey’s funeral turning “into a debate over the very issues that engaged Casey’s professional life--from his days in the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II spy operation, through his stewardship of the CIA.”

Some of us, however much we regretted the opportunity afforded by the tragic loss of “a keen, bold intelligence, allied to a forceful personality,” had to applaud the belated emergence of such a debate--not, I think, accurately described as over the issues, but rather over the long persistent assumptions, ends and directions of American foreign policy. Not that the “debate” rose to the level of the argument its terms evoked. What the divergence between the final words of Most Rev. John R. McGann and former Ambassador Jeane J. Kirkpatrick revealed was that the real issue is: Who can properly claim the moral “high ground” to which their postures commonly appealed?

Nowhere here, neither in the Reagan Administration nor among its profoundest critics, do we have “evil” men, conscious hypocrites, crass opportunists. Oh, we have some of the latter, to be sure, both within and without government. But their significance pales before the revelation afforded by the claim to righteousness of McGann and Kirkpatrick that it is time to review the relation between our policies and our deepest principles, principles that transcend politics and that are the unquestioned foundation of our character as a nation, as a people and as a polity.

The questions we should be asking ourselves are not where the money went, who gave the orders, who knew what about this, that or the other “operation,” but rather: What are the highest priorities of responsible men and women? Does the security of the United States take precedence over the security of mankind at large? Does the end ever give a blank check to the means, and if so, what end?

Is the taint of socialism or even communism so unreservedly black that the slightest suspicion thereof merits accommodation with terrorists, the slaughter of innocents, the perpetuation of oppression and injustice anywhere just so long as it is outside our borders? Are we justified in reserving the right to annihilate at least half the earth, and quite possibly life itself, because their dream of an equitable world is not our dream of a free one? Are the prerogatives of ownership and property so sacrosanct that they overawe doubts about entitlement and the justice of distribution?

It is apparent that some honorable men and women will answer what are for me rhetorical questions with a resounding, and surprising, “Yes!” or “No” as the case may be. But that is the crucial point, is it not? This is not the time for polemics from fixed positions, but for the pursuit of a shared moral commitment from which the resolution of such differences will become clear.

GEORGE ERIC MASSEY

Long Beach