Senate Races Offer Stark Contrasts on World Affairs : Politics: Boxer and Herschensohn agree only on China. Feinstein, Seymour differ on extent of defense cuts.

Bruce Herschensohn, Republican candidate for U.S. Senate, stood before a group of party activists, speaking eloquently on his favorite theme: foreign policy and the state of world affairs. Conjuring Communist ghosts of the past, he enunciated the names of fallen Cold War leaders--Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko--no fewer than 21 times.

Through it all, the crowd was silent.

In a year when political discourse is being dominated by jobs and the economy, it can be tough to find an audience that warms up to international affairs.

But the two senators California chooses this November will be asked to rule on foreign policy and, in the extreme event, cast life-and-death votes on whether to go to war.

In interviews with The Times, the four principal candidates for Senate outlined their world views and gave opinions on what the role of the United States should be. Their positions offer stark contrasts--Herschensohn, for example, stands alone in advocating that current levels of defense spending be maintained in this post-Cold War era, while his opponent, U.S. Rep. Barbara Boxer, wants sizable cuts.

In the other Senate race, adversaries Dianne Feinstein and Sen. John Seymour concur on cuts but disagree on the amounts.

Foreign policy also provides some surprises: conservative Herschensohn and liberal Boxer, who are at odds on almost every imaginable issue, actually agree on China (neither wanted to give the huge nation favored trading status without certain reforms).

Republicans Herschensohn and Seymour have accused their opponents of advocating policies that would weaken the United States in its international standing. Democrats Boxer and Feinstein focus more attention on domestic issues, but emphasize domestic strength as a key to being a world leader.

Boxer, a five-term congresswoman from Marin County, and Herschensohn, a former television commentator from Los Angeles, are competing to succeed retiring Sen. Alan Cranston in a full, six-year term. Feinstein, the former mayor of San Francisco, and Seymour, the appointed incumbent, are competing for the last two years of the seat relinquished by Pete Wilson when he became governor.

Military Spending and the U.S. Role Abroad

Mirroring the Bush Administration plan, Seymour wants what he calls a “gradual build-down” of the U.S. military apparatus, trimming $50 billion from the Department of Defense over the next five years. He charges that opponent Feinstein wants a “total tear-down” that would threaten national security and cost jobs.

Feinstein denies that her policies would have the gloomy effect Seymour alleges. She sets a goal of $135 billion in cuts that she argues could be obtained over the next five years in part by requiring European allies, Japan and South Korea to pay for their own defense. The money would be spent to repair roads, build schools and support other domestic programs.

Seymour supports the Strategic Defense Initiative and B-2 Stealth bomber; Feinstein opposes the SDI and wants to study the most recent downsizing made in the B-2 program before passing judgment.

Both maintain that their programs would enable the United States to remain strong while taking advantage of today’s world events.

“The price of freedom is eternal vigilance (and) we can be vigilant (by) maintaining our technological superiority,” Feinstein said. “At the same time, there is now a window of opportunity” for worldwide arms reduction.

Seymour said: “If the lion and the lamb are going to lay down together, and I think they should . . . we’ve got to be the lion. . . . Having said that, the Cold War is over. We should work toward a peace dividend.”

In contrast with the leadership of his own party, Herschensohn advocates maintaining defense spending at its current level--after initially arguing that military spending should actually rise. He believes that despite the demise of the Soviet Union, threats still exist.

Herschensohn roots his concern in what he says is the dangerous perception being created that the United States is disarming. He says history shows that every time a world power has appeared to disarm, another country has risen to fill the vacuum. He fears it could be a nation such as China or a coalition of Middle Eastern states.

“It’s national nature (for) a country that has the potential to be a superpower . . . (to try) to flex its wings,” he said. “And for people to think, well, the world’s OK now, everything’s just fine and we’re the world’s only superpower, is in my view very, very risky thinking.”

Herschensohn acknowledges that there could be specific areas to cut back but that overall the strength and readiness of the United States should not be allowed to diminish.

He shies away from exact dollar figures, saying that no one really knows the right number.

Boxer wants to reduce defense spending by 10% a year over the next five years, for a total savings in that period of $150 billion. As in Feinstein’s plan, Boxer said, most of the money would be generated by making Europe and Asian allies pay their own defense bills, with the savings directed to domestic programs and reducing the deficit.

Relying on reports from the Central Intelligence Agency, she said she believes it is unlikely that a foreign threat to U.S. national security will emerge in the near future.

Herschensohn argues that he and Boxer disagree sharply on when and where the United States should step in to ensure peace and liberty elsewhere in the world. He supported, for example, the anti-Sandinista Contra guerrillas in Nicaragua and the U.S. invasion of the Caribbean nation of Grenada; she voted to cut aid to the Contras because of their dubious human rights record and thought the attack on Grenada represented a failure of U.S. policy.

Herschensohn believes the interest of liberty is the criterion for U.S. intervention. Boxer counters that although the United States should support emerging democracies and defend human rights, it can no longer afford to be “the 911 of the world.”

“With the demise of the Soviet Union, it isn’t necessary anymore,” Boxer said. “We should be the moral leader, and the leader in foreign policy, but we are part of a team” that includes the United Nations and other democracies.

Indeed, the role of the United Nations is central for Boxer, Feinstein and Seymour. The three candidates agree that most U.S. international peace-keeping missions should be carried out under the auspices of the United Nations. The United States should take a lead role, they say, but act as part of an international team.

Bosnia-Herzegovina

Herschensohn cites the savage civil war in Bosnia-Herzegovina as an instance in which the United States may have to act alone. He said he is disappointed with the United Nations’ failure thus far to end the fighting--and disappointed with the Bush Administration’s failure to take action.

Even if it requires air strikes or ground troops, he said, the United States should ensure that detention camps in the former Yugoslavia are inspected. It is unconscionable, he said, that Holocaust-like conditions may be occurring.

“If everything that I’ve heard during my entire lifetime is true, that we would never allow things like that to happen again . . . (then) we cannot allow this to happen,” Herschensohn said.

Boxer, Feinstein and Seymour also are horrified by events in Bosnia-Herzegovina but prefer that the United States act with the United Nations.

Last month, Boxer co-sponsored a successful House resolution calling for unlimited U.N. and Red Cross access to the camps, using “any means necessary.”

“We must stand together with the international community against the slaughter of innocents and the inhumane treatment of prisoners and refugees in this newly declared republic,” she said at the time.

If the United Nations believes air strikes would work, she said, then she supports them.

Seymour said: “We have absolute responsibility to be the cop on the block there (in Bosnia). . . . There’s another Holocaust at work there, and we have a responsibility to ensure that an end is put to it.”

Although he believes in acting with the United Nations, he added: “We should have been in there already. We’ve been too slow to respond.”

Gulf War

The Persian Gulf War divided the Senate candidates along party lines.

Herschensohn staunchly supported President Bush’s decision to go to war against Iraq in the Persian Gulf, while Boxer voted against it.

“It’s my belief that if we had followed her lead today,” Herschensohn said of Boxer, “Saddam Hussein would have jurisdiction over most of the Persian Gulf and jurisdiction over a great deal of our energy sources.

“And Israel would be tremendously imperiled if we had followed her advice.”

Boxer says that in fact history has borne out her position, that Hussein should have been “weakened from within” through sanctions, isolation and threats before military action was taken.

“Saddam Hussein is still there,” she said, “and I think it is very clear that if we had weakened him first and then gone in, if necessary, he wouldn’t be there today.”

Seymour voted in favor of the war; Feinstein agreed with leading U.S. military officials at the time who testified before Congress that sanctions against Iraq should be given more time to work. Once the United States entered the war, however, she said she fully supported the military effort--a mission she believes ended too soon.

“Once you go in, it’s imperative you win,” she said. “I don’t think we’ve won.”

Seymour and Herschensohn also rue the continued powerful presence of Hussein, but do not blame President Bush for failing to oust the Iraqi leader.

Israel

All four candidates see themselves as being strong supporters of Israel. All four said they disagreed with the Bush Administration’s policy of holding up loan guarantees to Israel unless the Israeli government curbed Jewish settlement of the West Bank.

“I didn’t like the idea of using (loan guarantees) to twist the arm of Israel, when we should have been twisting the arm of (Jordan’s) King Hussein,” Herschensohn said.

Seymour said: “You’ve got to remember who your friends are and Israel has been our only true friend in the Middle East.”

Aid to Soviet Union and China

Seymour, who voted against a $620-million aid package to the former Soviet Union in July, said rulers of the former Soviet states must come through with pledges to allow ownership of private property and to reduce their defense budget before receiving U.S. help.

“Until their actions are really going to resemble their rhetoric, I say giving them money is just going down a deep, dark hole,” Seymour said. “It’ll make the S & L bailout pale in comparison.”

Feinstein differs with Seymour, saying that aid would help foster a free-market system in the Commonwealth of Independent States and discourage the ascension of an authoritarian “Stalinesque” figure.

“I believe the most important thing we can do is see that democracy survives in the (former) Soviet Union,” Feinstein said.

The two also disagree on granting most-favored-nation status to China, a Bush-sponsored mechanism that facilitates trade.

Seymour voted in favor of it; Feinstein said she would have attached conditions demanding that China institute reforms in human rights, weapons sales and the use of prison labor.

Similarly, neither Boxer nor Herschensohn favored the special treatment of China. Boxer prefers to make it a condition that is dependent on human rights reforms and Herschensohn prefers to show support for China’s anti-government, pro-democracy movement.

Herschensohn favors giving aid to the former Soviet Union, although he says he would have argued over certain specifics, such as minimizing the role of the International Monetary Fund.

Boxer voted against the aid, saying that although she supports it philosophically, she wanted to see help for American cities first.

Central America

Policy in Central America is another area that underscores sharp differences between Boxer and Herschensohn. With the Reagan and Bush administrations, Herschensohn supported the Contras and military aid for El Salvador’s right-wing government, which fought leftist guerrillas for the last decade.

It was military pressure, Herschensohn argued, that forced Nicaragua’s Sandinistas to hold elections, and the Salvadoran rebels to negotiate a peace settlement.

Boxer opposed military aid in both instances, citing a litany of human rights abuses committed by the Salvadoran government and Nicaraguan Contras. Such aid, she said, only escalated the wars. Instead, diplomacy and economic pressure should have been exhausted before military aid was given.

Seymour supported funding the Contras as a way to bring about democracy, while Feinstein said she would have encouraged diplomatic efforts led by Costa Rica and Nicaragua’s other Central American neighbors.