A look at noteworthy addresses in...

A look at noteworthy addresses in the Southland.

Sir Geoffrey Howe, former c hancellor of the e xchequer in Great Britain , addressed members of Town Hall and the Japan America Society of Southern California Tuesday night at the Sheraton Grande in Los Angeles. From his prepared text:

U.S.-Japanese Relations

“After only a day or two in the United States, one is very aware of the centrality of the Japan dimension to domestic American politics, perhaps especially here on the West Coast.

We also see a common interlocking set of economic and political problems in the US-Japan side of the triangle (Europe, Japan and the United States) which tend to worry us. We see the two economies out of balance, in different but directly connected ways. Excessive trade surplus; excessive trade deficit. High savings ratio and relatively modest consumption; low savings ratio and substantial consumption. Undervalued currency; over-volatile currency. Aggressive trading backed by hidden protectionism; underperforming or declining industrial sectors invoking illusory protectionist solutions. Political interdependence prejudiced by economic pride on both sides. Economic advance jeopardized by a growing mutual cultural skepticism.”

Congressman Les Aspin (D-Wis.) c hairman, House Armed Services Committee spoke to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council on Wednesday afternoon at the Century Plaza Tower. From his address:

U.S. Defenses Without the Soviet Union

“What do you do with defenses in this new era? How do you design a defense budget when you don’t have the Soviet threat to design it around? That is something that we have not done in four or five decades. It’s almost impossible to overemphasize the degree to which the Soviet Union drives our defense budgets. It’s not only the numbers in the defense bill, but the kind of forces we have, how many light divisions, how many heavy divisions. And the designs of the weapon systems. . . . It’s part of our culture to think in those ways and in those terms. Without the Soviet Union, where do we go? How do we do it? How do we design it? How do we decide how much is enough? An enormously complex and very very important issue.”

What kind of a foreign policy do we have in our country now when you don’t have the Soviet Union? . . . The central focus of our foreign policy was containing Soviet communism. . . . In a way, we are back to where we were in the late 1940s, when we were asking ourselves: ‘What is our role in the world now?’ . . . It took a while to figure out, after World War II, what the policy is. It’s probably going to take us a while to figure out now what the post-Cold War policy is. . . . Whatever our foreign policy is--is ultimately what drives our defense budget.”

Looking Ahead

* Sunday: Ray Bradbury, best-selling science fiction writer, will speak at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Studio City at 10 a.m. For more information, call (818) 769-5911.

* Jan 31: William Aramony, president, United Way of America, will address the Los Angeles World Affairs Council at noon at the Sheraton Grande Hotel in Los Angeles. For more information, call (213) 628-2333.

Announcements concerning prominent speakers in Los Angeles should be sent to Speaking Up, c/o Times researcher Michael Meyers, Los Angeles Times, Times Mirror Square, Los Angeles, CA 90053