February 1, 1979
Page 1732
INTERVIEW WITH MR. RICHARD N. GARDNER, AMBASSADOR TO ITALY
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, I send to the desk and recommend for my colleagues' attention the text of an interview of the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Mr. Richard N. Gardner. The interview was conducted by Mr. Alberto Ronchey for Italian television. I recommend it because it offers, in my opinion, a valuable insight to perceptions of the United States from abroad. Ambassador Gardner offers concise, but thorough responses to questions of interest to the Italian people. A studied awareness of the concerns of a highly regarded ally, such as Italy, is invaluable in the formulation of responsible foreign policy.
I ask that the text of the interview be printed in the RECORD.
The interview follows:
INTERVIEW OF AMBASSADOR RICHARD N. GARDNER
(By Alberto Ronchey)
Q. Ambassador Gardner, the Carter Administration is now two years old. I would like to ask you which events have characterized this period of American policy.
A. I think the record of the Carter Administration in these first two years is one of solid accomplishment, both in domestic and foreign policy. At home, the most important thing is that President Carter, after our difficult period of Watergate and Vietnam, has restored the confidence of the American people in the integrity, morality, openness and responsiveness of our government. I think we have also made important progress in reducing unemployment and increasing our rate of economic growth. In all honesty, we have not done such a good job in controlling inflation. But overall, the record economically is a good one.
In foreign policy, I think we can say objectively that we have taken major initiatives for peace, for disarmament, for human rights and specifically to strengthen our relations with our close friends and allies in Europe and Japan. I need only mention the extraordinary initiative the President took in bringing about the Camp David agreement which, I believe, despite all difficulties, will lead to peace between Israel and Egypt in the Middle East. And I think as far as our allies are concerned, President Carter has demonstrated in his leadership in the economic summits and the NATO summits that we intend to work more closely than ever with you in Europe to assure Europe's defense and to assure a stronger international economic system. These seem to me to be the most important elements in the first two years of President Carter.
Q. You have just mentioned the problem of inflation. The Italian edition of your book "Politics economica ed ordine internazionale," with Guido Carli's preface, has been published recently. I remember that you have great experience in this field, and I would like to ask you if you think that a lasting stability of the dollar is possible despite the dangerous wandering masses of Eurodollars and petrodollars.
A. I think stability of the dollar is possible. Indeed it's essential, because the dollar, as you know very well, is not only an American currency, it's a world currency, it's the currency which is used for world trade, it's the currency used by most countries for the holding of reserves. Therefore, a strong dollar is in everyone's interest. And to this end, President Carter is totally committed, and we are going to have a strong dollar. The President, first of all, has committed himself in the November 1st announcement to intervene massively to prevent speculation against the dollar in the foreign exchange markets, and you've seen how this has succeeded in restoring confidence in the dollar; the dollar has recovered much of the value that it lost in previous months. In addition, to have a strong dollar, we must reduce our balance of payments deficit, and all the forecasts by objective sources, such as the International Monetary Fund and OECD, indicate that our deficit will be greatly reduced next year, mainly because our rate of growth relative to that in Europe and Japan will go down, so we'll be importing less and exporting more. And finally, we have made a very serious commitment to control our domestic inflation. We recognize that unless we control our inflation we can't have a strong dollar. To this end, the President has increased the discount rate and committed himself to reduce our budget deficit. These were not easy decisions for him to take; in some respects, they are politically unpopular. But they represent our recognition of our responsibilities, not only to our own people, but to the rest of the world.
Q. Personally, do you believe it possible to stabilize the dollar avoiding a recession in the States?
A. I do believe it's possible. The forecast for our economy in 1979 is for a rate of growth of between 2 and 3 percent. That's not a recession. It's a reduced rate of growth compared to the growth of 4 to 5 percent we've had this year and the year before. But we just have to have somewhat reduced growth in order to control inflation.
Q. How can the birth of the SME and the ECU, the new European shield, contribute to international monetary stability?
A. I think it will make a major contribution. Let me emphasize that we believe that a strong and united Europe is a good thing, not only for Europe but for the U.S. and the entire world. We favor the economic integration of Europe and we believe that the SME, the EMS as we call it, can be a very important step toward those objectives. We don't see it as antagonistic to the dollar.
Indeed we see it as part of a process of international collaboration to achieve greater stability in international payments. A zone of monetary stability in Europe will mean less international currency speculation against individual European currencies and against the dollar. Having said this, I want to emphasize that we are not taking any position as to whether any particular European country should join or not. That is a matter for every country to decide in the light of its own appreciation of its national interest. All we are saying is that we favor the process of European integration and believe the SME is a constructive step in that direction.
Q. Ambassador Gardner; another subject.Thirty years have passed since the Declaration of Human Rights. During the past two years, right when the phenomenon of Soviet dissension was breaking out, President Carter has been pressing for the respect of human rights, especially in the USSR. But how can the Carter doctrine be compatible with Washington's policy towards other nations, such as Iran and Nicaragua, where these rights are violated? And this is not all. The more or less despotic governments of the world are about one hundred; do you think that the United States would maintain their influenceon a world scale if they made their foreign policy conditional on each of those governments' respect for human rights?
A. This important question of human rights has interested me for many years. In fact I worked on that subject of human rights when I served in the Kennedy Administration. And more recently as a private citizen I was a member of the Board of Freedom House, which is perhaps the leading private organization in the United States concerned with human rights. That organization publishes every year a map of freedom in the world, and this year the map shows that in the world there are about forty countries that are truly free, about 60 countries that unfortunately are not free, and about 50 countries that are partly free and partly not free. Now it's obvious that the United States cannot impose freedom by military force on the countries that are not true democracies. And there would be no point in our cutting off diplomatic relations with the countries that are not free, because that would serve no purpose, we would then have no influence over them. So what this administration is doing, is to try to use its influence, political, economic, and moral, to persuade countries to grant more human rights to their citizens. We do this everywhere, not just with respect to the Soviet Union, but we do it in Latin America, we do it in Africa, we do it in Asia. We do it with Nicaragua and Iran, where we have consistently urged the leaders of those countries to grant more rights to their citizens and to move toward free elections.
Our interest is global: not only does it apply everywhere in the world but it applies to economic rights as well as to political rights. We care deeply about such things as the right to form a free trade union, the right to strike, the right to choose one's job freely, the right to have decent working conditions, the right to move around one's country. All of these rights of course do not exist in the Soviet Union and in Communist countries. So we have a major interest in human rights in the world and every country now knows that how it treats its own citizens will be a major element in its relations with the United States. And that is our policy on human rights, it's neither more nor less than that.
Q. I see that the estimates of this map of freedom are more or less like mine, since 60 countries which are not free and 50 countrieswhich are partly not free correspond, as I said before, to approximately 100 despotic governments in the world. I would like to ask you how you consider, today, the phenomenon called "Eurocommunism" with respect to its French, Spanish and Italian variations.
A. This is such an important question that you are asking, that I want to be sure that I give a precise answer and of course in a matter like this an ambassador doesn't make policy, he reflects the policy of his country.
So the first thing I want to say is that the Carter Administration has expressed its view many times, and that view has always been the same. We have said, first of all, that it is up to our friends and allies to decide how they want to be governed. They are sovereign countries, we will not interfere in their internal politics. We have said, secondly, that we are also a sovereign country and we havea right to express a preference as to what kind of friends and allies we wish to have, and we have said consistently that we do not favor the participation of Communist parties in West European governments and that we would like to see the influence of Communist parties reduced. This is not a new policy, it has been the policy of the United States from the time of Truman, Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Nixon, Ford and Carter.
If you ask the reasons for this position I think I can do no better than to quote what President Carter himself said shortly after he was inaugurated on May 2, 1977, in an interview with some European television journalists. He said and I quote: "We strongly favor the election of leaders who are committed to freedom and democracy and who are free from Communist philosophy, which quite often has been dominated from the Soviet Union or other nations." And my former Columbia colleague Dr. Brzezinski, now the National Security Adviser of President Carter, has more recently, in the fall of 1977, expressed very precisely our view of Eurocommunism, and permit me to quote this because it's a very important statement. He said, in an interview on October 9, 1977, in the Washington Post: "Eurocommunism is a highly differentiated phenomenon. All it is really is a catchword for West European Communist parties. Some of these parties arestill highly Stalinist, such as the Portuguese. Some of them have begun de-Stalinization but they've only begun it, like the French. Some of them are relatively de-Stalinized, but are still highly Leninist, like the Italian. Some are de-Stalinized and probably are de-Leninized, such as perhaps the Spanish. It's useful to bear these distinctions in mind because I think they enable us to make more discriminating judgments in regard to specific West European Communist parties, instead of lumping them under one label which really ignores quite important differences." I can do no more than to quote that which represents the continuing view of our Administration.
Q. One of the' most impressive new facts in recent times has been the pragmatic turn of Teng Hsiao-Ping's China, which, I would say, can open new prospects in the political scene. Actually, let us say, contradiction, antagonism, between the Chinese and the Soviets is not new since it dates back to the end of the 50's. But if it is possible for closer relations to exist between the
United States and China, then a problem arises often underscored by the Soviets. What would happen (there was a recent interview of Arbatov by "The Observer") if Washington decided to play the Chinese card, I mean from the strategic point of view, among other things, against Soviet interferences in Africa and around the oil route; what risks would this choice involve?
A. Well, it's not a matter of playing the Chinese card. The fact is that the U.S. wants to have better relations with both the Soviet Union and China and we are not going to let either one of them dictate conditions to us that we must not have relations with the other. We're just not going to permit that, we want to have relations with both, and I think I can say as of this time that our relations with both countries are improving. I think we're very close to signing a SALT agreement,and other accords with the Soviet Union, which will put our relations on a more stable basis. As you know, we have announced the establishment of full diplomatic relations with China. We're naturally very pleased at the developments that have taken place in China. You spoke of the pragmatism of this regime, this is in the great tradition of Chinese pragmatism. That China is moving back into a constructive relationship with the world is a positive thing for everybody — for Europe no less than the U.S., and to the extent that trade develops between European countries and China, the U.S. and China, this is all to the good. As to the question of military sales, our position is very clear, it's the same position that other members of NATO have taken, it's for each NATO country to decide whether to sell weapons to China. As for ourselves, we don't sell weapons either to China or the Soviet Union, but we are not asking our NATO allies to put an embargo on sales to China, that is for each country to decide. But we want good relations with both of these countries, it's in the American interest, and frankly it's In the world interest to have these relations.
Q. Ambassador Gardner, a historical tradition of the relations between Soviets and Americans exists in accordance with which, when mutual suspicions and controversies reach the crucial point, a summit meeting is called. Thus one remembers Camp David between Eisenhower and Khrushchev, Vienna between Kennedy and Khrushchev, Glassboro between Johnson and Kosygin, Moscow between Nixon and Brezhnev. Is it now possible to ratify in the near future the SALT II agreement still without a Soviet-American clarification of some problems of intent possibly through a Carter-Brezhnev summit meeting?
A. President Carter has indicated that when the SALT agreement is ready for signature, he would like to meet with Chairman Brezhnev in the U.S. and I think the President has also indicated that he would like to use this meeting not just to sign SALT, but to review the totality of our relations with the Soviet Union. You remember during the Presidential campaign — when I had the privilege of being the co-chairman of President Carter's Foreign Policy Task Force, along with Doctor Brzezinski — during that campaign President Carter said it was his objective to make detente with the Soviet Union both more reciprocal, more of a two-way street, and more comprehensive, namely that detente should cover not just relations between our two countries, but the way our two countries act with respect to the rest of the world. It's obvious that we can't have a lasting detente if the Soviet Union considers itself free to send client states' military forces, Cuban forces, into Africa or other places to impose their particular kind of social system, that is not a detente, so detente must become more comprehensive and these issues will have to be discussed, frankly, at any future summit meeting.
Q. Many say that the new N-bomb is thecapitalist bomb because it would destroy man, saving things. How do you reply to this polemic?
A. This is the usual Soviet propaganda. I don't think serious people pay much attention to it, the facts are very simple. The so-called "Neutron bomb" isn't a new weapon atall, it's simply an improved version of existing tactical nuclear weapons which both NATO and the Warsaw Pact have already installed in Europe, in large numbers. The difference between this improved version, the so-called Neutron bomb, and existing weapons is simply this — that whereas the existing weapons make it possible to destroy an invading Soviet tank column within a diameter of one kilometer, while causing damage out to four kilometers in the surrounding countryside, the improved version makes it possible to destroy that same Soviet tank column within a radius of one kilometer, while limiting surrounding damage to two kilometers. So that far from being a weapon, as the Soviet propagandists say, that kills people and spares things, this is a weapon that kills less people and kills the right people, the aggressors, and spares the defending armies and the civilian populations, that's what it does, and that's why the Soviet Union is so anxious to prevent it from being deployed. And I find it strange, since you bring up the subject, that some people in Western Europe conduct this hysterical campaign against the neutron bomb as an immoral weapon, and never say a word about the Soviet SS 16/18/20 weapons, which have twenty thousand times the destructive power of the so-called neutron bomb. Why are they silent about this? Doesn't that tell us something about their good faith? Now I want to emphasize, I've always been a man of peace, I've spent my whole professional life working for disarmament, for the elimination of war, for the peaceful settlement of disputes, so I don't like any weapons, and frankly I would prefer to see the so-called neutron weapon not deployed, but as President Carter said, whether we will deploy it or not will be determined by whether the Soviet Union is prepared to take minimum steps toward reducing their enormous buildup of conventional and strategic forces. They have sixteen thousand tanks, facing seven thousand tanks on the NATO side. If they're prepared to do something about this imbalance in conventional forces, it may be possible for us not to deploy this improved tactical nuclear weapon.
Q. Now, in connection with these remarks made by President Carter, on which conditions, exactly, could Washington give up the construction of the N-bomb? Do these conditions regard the MBFR negotiations, for the reduction.
A. Well, it's not for me to set precise conditions, our policy is simply this: we haven't decided on whether to deploy the so-called neutron bomb, we would prefer not to deploy it, our decision will be based on whether the Soviet Union shows restraint in its buildup, both of its conventional forces, such as the tanks, in which as I mentioned they have this big superiority, and in the buildup of its nuclear forces, including those nuclear weapons which are targeted on Western Europe. The Soviet buildup, on any objective standard, goes far beyond the Soviet Union's needs for defense and it is in Europe's interests and our interest to see some reduction in that military buildup. If that takes place, we will respond.
Q. Mr. Ambassador, to sum up, what are the problems which most engage you personally in your capacity as American Ambassador in Rome today?
A. Ninety percent of my time is went on what I like to call "the strategy of cooperation," that is to say on about 10 very specific programs of cooperation and mutual benefit, between Italy and the United States, which we have initiated in the Carter Administration. For example: we have a major program of cooperation in the energy field. We announced, in the first meeting between President Andreotti and President Carter, that we're prepared through the Export-Import Bank to finance a major part of the cost of Italy's eight 1,000-megawatt nuclear reactor program. We're also working with the Italian Government to assure the safety and environmental security of those reactors.
Q. Mr. Ambassador, there are also programs for the utilization of solar energy .. .
A. Exactly, and because the Italian Government, just as the American Government, wants a balanced energy program, which uses not just nuclear energy, but as much as possible renewable energy sources, our two governments are working together on research and development of solar energy, wind energy, the conversion of waste material into energy (so-called biomass energy).
This will also help the South of Italy, because the solar energy and the wind energy are projects for Sicily and Sardinia. We are also exploring the use of coal of Sardinia, how to use it, notwithstanding its high sulfur content, in coal gasification projects. So we have a major program in energy of mutual interest to both sides. Also geothermal energy, in which Italy is the world leader, and we get benefits from cooperating with you.
Then, in the field of unemployment, we are sharing information on how to deal with unemployment problems, particularly youth unemployment. How to provide incentives to private industry to create more jobs, how to provide jobs through the public sector, we have major cooperation here.
In the field of health and environmental protection we have a major cooperative program with respect to dangerous chemicals and how they should be controlled, drug addiction, cancer and heart disease.
In the field of economics, we are doing everything we can to facilitate American investment in Italy, and we've had some successes. Recently there was this big agreement between Boeing and Aeritalia providing for Italian participation in the production of the Boeing 757 and 767, which will be the principal passenger aircraft that Boeing will produce in the rest of the century. And this will bring thousands of jobs and billions of dollars of new income to the Mezzogiorno of Italy. We are working together to create more export opportunities for Italy, through keeping tariffs and trade barriers low. We rejected the proposal to put increased restrictions on Italian shoe exports, that was a major decision of President Carter to help Italy.
In the field of education and culture, we have started a truly exciting program by which the United States will help Italy improve English language instruction in Italian schools and universities, and your government is helping us improve the teaching of Italian in our schools and universities. You know, Italian is the fastest-growing language in America today, because so many Americans of Italian descent are rediscovering their roots, and many other Americans, not of Italian descent, want to learn Italian. I am a good example of that because I am not an Italian-American. I married a girl from Venice, and I think I am living proof that you don't have to be an Italian-American to want to learn Italian. So we have a big growth in interest in the Italian language in the United States and we need your help in training teachers.
And then we are increasing in a major way our exchange of persons. We have increased by 60 percent our funds for the bringing of young Italian leaders to the United States, political leaders, journalists, trade unionists and scholars. Together our two governments are encouraging the development of a student loan fund, in which the private sector of our two countries, banks and business firms, both Italian and American, will create student loans to bring up to 200 young Italians from poor families to do post-graduate work in the United States on subjects of importance to Italy's future. So in all these ways we are trying to find practical ways to help strengthen democracy and economic welfare in Italy as well as in the United States.
Q. You have mentioned possible investments. Well, on which conditions, in your opinion, would it be easier to obtain investment from the United States, particularly for Southern Italy?
A. Well, as you know very well, American private investors, like all private investors, are not charitable institutions. They invest where they see a chance to make a profit and investment security. And so we must study together how to create these conditions. American investors, like all investors, look at the cost of labor in Italy relative to the cost of labor elsewhere and they look at the issue of labor mobility. If they can be assured on those matters, and if they can be assured that national and local government authorities will take a favorable view, an encouraging view, I think they'll come to Italy. There's already three billion dollars of American investment in Italy. I'd like to see that grow. But that's something on which our two governments must work together. I'm doing everything I can when I return on visits to the United States to encourage American business to think of Italy as a place to invest, particularly in the South. And there are great opportunities, tourism is one area, agriculture, as well as industrial projects, in which our two governments can encourage investment.
Q. Therefore, you say that in the industrial sector competitive cost of labor and labor mobility are the two major conditions necessary to obtain foreign investment in general, and therefore also American investment.
A. And that's also true for Italian investment. There will be American investment in the Italian South when there is Italian investment in the Italian South. I'd like to see joint ventures between Italian and American investors. But my point is that most of my time as Ambassador is spent on this strategy of cooperation. Indeed, it's a measure of the interdependence of our two countries that we are working not only between foreign offices on diplomatic problems; we are working between labor ministries, education ministries, health ministries, and so on, on common problems that face all industrialized democracies. And this testifies to the very special, close, warm and friendly character of the relationships between Italy and the United States today.