You start speeches with jokes, and I've heard the joke from speaking somebody Moscow and they said the latest joke is what has wings and glows in the dark and the answer is chicken kiev. I don't know. It's I spent about seven and a half years and Russia over the last 18 years. But one of the most interesting periods was the last five years because the rhythm of Russian political life is determined by the life of its are vajura General Secretary a man can live 18 years 20 years or a year. And during the past four years we had tremendous change. There were three leaders who died in a period of less than three years. But more importantly than having a new and younger General Secretary now, it seems to me the Soviet Union is gone through a generational change. I think that this office opportunities to the United States to deal with this country in a more reasonable way. and I'd like to tell you why I think so I of course speak from a perspective of a journalist and we tend to impart great importance to things we know about then those things we don't But I also speak not in terms of trying to pass moral or any other comparative judgments. Because I don't think we need to demonstrate the superiority of American way of life at least to me. That's obvious. The change in the Soviet Union that came about last year should be placed in the context of the what what preceded it. On the 18 years of mr. Brezhnev's rule. The Soviet Union has achieved the peak of its military and economic power is achieved parity with the United States. It is provided life to his people that's better than any time before and yet at the same time. It has brought about it is entered into a period of stagnation and decay. The such that the society was stable because it did not provide any alternatives in an organizational social field. and the stability that ensued deprive the party in the leadership of any kind of creative impulse. So the new group that came to power it seems to me should be looked at in the following way. First of all, they're all younger and better educated. I am to believe that in that people who lead the companies or countries make a difference in terms of their Outlook and education and let me just tell you briefly few things about God watch over which you may not know. the you know that he has finished law school as a regular student, which I think is all right. But he spent 23 years of his career before moving to Moscow in a small town called stavropol and he walked to work most of the time and I and not because he didn't have a car but because his office was just about a quarter of a mile away. So it's seems to me that that people who live in small towns and have and in contact with other people actually get to get a better sense of what's going on in the people in Moscow from the Kremlin in the limousine out of the doctor and back. He has inherited a situation where for one the taunt with the United States has collapsed. The leadership the prior leadership was physically and psychologically not prepared with the deal with the crisis. And in a country where there's a where there is no clearly defined mechanism of succession these transitions create enormous internal problems. It's like the Chicago political machine of Mayor Daley a lot of people depend on people in the top and the next level and when there is a change or things about to happen, this is unsettled unsettling situation across the board. The new people other new people like mr. Ligature of was spent 18 years in the provinces before coming to Moscow and 83 or mr. Risk of the new prime minister was also a manager a plant in the Euros. I all younger better educated and then they were not associated with any mistakes made in the past and as such not responsible for them. They also did not have to justify their their position and hide things but could start with a clean slate. Now the there's a there's an important psychological difference in the Soviet Union with the change of the generation. The old leaders have lived through a series of crises. They themselves came to power young after Stalin's purges then they had War post-war reconstruction. quest to achieve parity with the United States in nuclear weapons It was constantly struggle for them. The struggle had a profound effect on the on the condition the Soviet Union in other words in 1945 at the end of the war Soviet leadership woke up one day to discover that the United they won the war but the United States had a new and more powerful weapon and they didn't have it. In order to compete with United States, which was not devastated. They had to divide the economy into two so they divided one sector of the economy which was a military economy which claimed all the resources and all the talent and the civilian economy, which didn't get anything. This has been the situation for about 40 years. The basic principle of this economy is coercion of force. Coercion as a principle of an economic management is good. If you are engaged in the type of projects building huge dams railroads highways and so forth, but it is not a very good concept when you come to the high-tech age where you cannot motivate people by just telling that they have to do things. Psychologically also the arms race has done something to the Soviet Union that I think it's interesting to understand from our point of view to the H by their capacity to achieve parity or reasonably reasonably essential equivalence with the United States has given the new generation a greater degree of security of psychological security while it does that it has had precisely the opposite impact in the United States. The United States has been invaluable for a couple of hundred years and the notion that there's another country that can destroy the United States is unsettling to most Americans. The Soviet Union has been invaded and ruined many times. And for the first time they have capacity to claim equivalence with another major power and I think it gives them a sense of and they profess to feel the sense of psychological Security in this. the the new new people want to do something about the country. It's quite clear to me that the gorbachov is sort of a Driven Man. I forgotten to mention to you also fact that you're most of these people have been exposed to the outside world at a relatively early age and not as high officials of the government Gorbachev himself told when he was in France on a state visit last year. He told a colleague of mine Michelle tattoo wax as a friend as an advisor to mister mister on on Soviet Affairs that he had spent a month in France with his wife and 60s motoring through the country. He had been there on an official visit but I want to suggest is that a man who would gone as a tourist as a better sense of seeing things in a proper context rather than a guy who's just LED around and with an official delegation. I'd also like to point out just the intellectual ambition of the couple Gorbachev and his wife. While in stavropol he had decided to get a degree in agriculture because that was an important field in the area and she was working. She had a child and she was working on her PhD in sociology and I could imagine them, you know, this town is sort of a hundred and fifty thousand people at a time and they both finished their work in 1967 and I've gone to the lending library in Moscow to take a look at her dissertation because it is what I was interested in was with the quality of work. And we say that she has a degree in philosophy that she's a philosopher. In fact, this was a sociological study and I was surprised that the woman had conducted research in a in an above-average way. In other words. She had taken five Collective farms in stavropol and decided to do a study of how people get adjusted to Modern condition, but apart from using documents and party analysis and archives. She had devised their own questionnaire, which was quite interesting as a methodological exercise and she conducted oral interviews with all the people and younger people to make comparisons. So it seems to me that I could not imagine them is the chanko or mr. Brezhnev having any real intellectual Ambitions of any kind, but this couple is somewhat different. What the basic as I see it in a schematic way the basic thing that's happening in the Soviet Union is the day that the new and younger group wants to carry out a second de-Stalinization the first de-Stalinization in other words the system that was created by Stalin. The first digital net ization was carried out by Khrushchev, but Crews showed touched on the moral aspect of a moral and and security aspect of the system which was based on mass Terror. In other words. The entire ruling Elite was terrorized. I mean the to illuminating would be just one example to this mind-boggling to what extent the Stan was able to terrorize these people is that his number two men Molotov. His motives wife is intrusion. I was Jewish and she was a member of cabinet in 1949 when the Israelis opened their first Embassy in Moscow. Mrs. Mayer was centers Ambassador to Moscow and Jim children I met mrs. Mayor the reception. And Stalin had heard about it and he sent me some children are monitors wife into Exile into Central Asia Molotov continued to serve as the number two man in the regime until Stalin's death and his wife was all the time in an exile in in Central Asia and who serves told a story that when it happened so that the burial of Stalin was on the day of molotovs mullet. It was motives birthday the same day and they brought small table and said, what can we do for you? What gift can we give you and he said Jim children? So they send the others. I have Exile. Well, it was easier in the ruling establishment to fight against Mass Terror because everybody was affected and I'm not trying to diminish what Russia overdone Then to deal with other consequences of the stalinist system in other words the system itself. And what Gorbachev is trying to do now is to deal with the consequences of the system of sound system, which means the economy and the way the society lives. Now, this is a very much more difficult problem. Because the Russians have lived under this system 470 69 years. This is the only thing they know. No other I mean China that they're still there still a generation of people that understand something different but in the Soviet Union that doesn't exist. Secondly the system that they have has created the world's greatest low-grade welfare state in other words. Everybody is taken care of in a in a modest way. And the people it is almost like a farming New Hampshire legislature. You can have says the largest house in the country, you know, 400 members and they've been talking about reforming the legislature for past 200 years, but you know, everybody says not my seat his in the Soviet Union the entire Society actually benefits on a very low level from the kind of system that they have in other words. You can not work and get paid now. There's a joke that they pretend to be working in the government pretends to be paying them. But but but the point is the point is that they do have apartments that bread is subsidized basic things that heavily subsidized and while everybody would say and welcome changes and reforms nobody wants to rent touched and this dawned on me. I was speaking once to a woman who has a one-bedroom apartment in Moscow have reasonably nice and so forth, but the rent including here It cost less than a bottle of vodka. So I try to tell her that this is not reasonable than in other words maintenance of the building. Just a heating bill should be high and she was all for the reform except you don't touch the rent. So the second and you know going into the trying to deal with the system as such which is really emasculated intellectually the whole country because it does not and does not promote any kind of initiative is a very is a task of great magnitude. It seems to me that you can look at gorbachov from two angles from one angle of vision. He seems to be a tragic figure because he wants to achieve a just Society wants to do something. And he wants to have a better organized Society, but his means a limited. And moreover his people and not psychologically really prepared to for change. The Russians are very conservative people. They live a life that they live an interior life. That's far richer than live. The Americans live interior life, but that means that your family friends and home things are Lively and so forth, but outside your home, there's trouble because somebody hits you over the head this everything is so psychologically, they're not prepared for changes and his basic functions so far has been to try to act as a teacher and to bring them along and he has been using the word psychology which is interesting because first time when I served in the Soviet Union from 68 71 the word Psychology was a taboo world word. This was a Bourgeois type of science, but Gorbachev was not talking about psychology. And for the first time it seems to me what's interesting is that he has changed the the scope. and goals of socialism in other words The socialism is such as always claimed to be the Triumph is at the Horizon that it's there's everything is inevitable that they're going to win no matter what and in speech in April for the first time that I've ever heard Soviet leaders say something like it he held out the hope that they can fail because he said, you know, we have to change. And unless we change ourselves. He says I'm deeply worried that we will not be able to meet our objectives set out of the party Congress. So what what you're dealing with is basically a backward Society. And you cannot you can give them the tools and equipment but they're not prepared to use them. It's like giving me the best ski equipment and setting me on the best ski slope. I you know, I plunge down I break my neck. And I think that that's his problem whether you can change the way people look at life work and live is it is it is a very difficult problem. Yeah, you you would be surprised how often you have seen on television political leaders talking to a group of people and telling them they have to work better. And these are people in their 50s if they didn't learn how to work by the time they have 50 they never will but you can't fire. I mean if my boss was telling me I you know, I should work better that he would never say that get fired. But looking from another angle go batch of it seems to me is in the truth in the traditional more enlightened rulers of Russia and the Soviet Union you have in or in Russia have always had attempts at reform. They always come from above. And this time what is important and knew is that he is make made economic necessity rather than dreams of Mother Russia or communist Glory as the main reason for change. He said things have to change. how realistic expectations that they'll be a basic transformation of society or is this what we call just a garbage show? I tend to believe that. That there are chances because conditions now exist for that Society to move in a different direction. And it seems to me we should take taken take the opportunity to deal with them in a more rational way. I think that the United States and Soviet Union would be at odds are in Conflict. No matter what. I mean if we get Nikolas the third tomorrow in two weeks, we'll be in trouble with them. But I think that we have certain things that we have where we do have a common interest. One of those things is management of our relations regarding nuclear weapons. And this thing at Chernobyl actually points. It's a minor accident and yet you can see the magnitude of the problem. The other thing is our trade with them. It seems to me that backward Society where they have enough cash or natural wealth can be hooked on a certain kind of things that taunt was after all a way to not only to manage your Soviet relations, but to get access to American Technology. I would not give them technology. That's the that can be used militarily against the United States, but it seems to me by giving them certain kinds of Technologies. You make them dependent on American industry. That's in the long run. That's now interest. I think now I take the questions. Thank you. Mr. Donor for those thought-provoking remarks. Here's question. Number one. Sorry, you said early on that the economy was divided into two major parts after World War II money was broadly being invested in the military and little in the civilian sector. What do you see in the next 10 or 15 years will that switch and shift in will we see more investment in the consumer sector in Russia? It seems to me that they want to put more investments into the consumer sector and he has promised people a better life. It cannot be done Soviet Union remains a military Empire. First of all, politically, it's hierarchical. Secondly. It's not a modern country as long as it does have these two industries into economy is not one and I think that they do want to become a modern country than to play a role commensurate with their size and Power. Seems to me that what's basically what they need is a pause in the arms race and it also seems to me that the United States will not give them a pause in the arms race because he they need a pause to consolidate their internal position because they've come to the conclusion that not a new weapon system. But rather the basic way the economy functions is there is the real test of their economy because their military strength upon it depends on their economic strength and the economy is not working well. And in that context the continue the arms race and the idea to match every weapon systems that we put together will draw away the resources and will delay their socio-economic development. I think that on the other hand garbage of and here's people have tried to use this idea that I mentioned earlier namely the idea of psychological security to tell their military people that the real strategic challenge for them is not a new weapon system, but to get their act together economically now this is worked so far but it seems to me that over a longer period the military people do not buy this kind of argument and sooner or later. They will want to have new toys. So I think that the problem for for the for the gorbachov and he is His reforms will be eventually this the military. Yes, you mentioned that the Soviets are somewhere between and are seven and ten militarily with the u.s. Being somewhere around 10 the question relates to your comment earlier about the economic changes. And you mentioned that there is a fair degree of success over the years if that's the case. What will be the Catalyst for that change where they had adopted Chinese system IE dung's decentralization free market forces is driving force for these changes. If not, what will be the Catalyst to get these changes on the way secondly 20 years from now will the Russians be in this good of social or economic condition as the u.s. Is today for example in Russia. You still talking about 500 square feet apartment at the modes and common bathroom and so on so on. Yeah, there is let me answer this question two ways. There's an old Serbian proverb that says that a donkey cannot swim but it begins to swim when water gets up to his ears and seems to me that the Russians find themselves fairly close to this because if they really and they realize it if they want to compete with the United States and they do they have to do something about it. So there's a there's an understanding as to what has to be done. Secondly the basic philosophy and I don't know how correct this is on the but their basic philosophies that socialism is a system has a enormous economic potential. But that it has been twisted and misused in the system created by Stalin in other words. The idea is why not why I assume that economic tools and instruments such as Financial incentives and other applied in the west would not produce the same results in the Soviet Union if they were applied so there so they have to make a room for that the problem there is you know, chicken and egg because you have a labor force that docile and doesn't want to do anything and you give them Financial incentives, but there's nothing they can buy with the money. That's of good quality on the other hand. How how do you induce them to begin making things of good quality so that they can act it so that the money begins to mean something they'll have to tackle the question of prices. I mean the prices in the Soviets you Soviet Union are totally unrealistic. I've told you that rent is seven rubles. Months for you know, seven eight dollars a month for a one-bedroom apartment including heating for instance. Natural gas unlimited uses 60 cents a month. It's absolutely crazy. So you have to do something about prices and you basically have the main problem is the population. I have always thought that it's the party bureaucracy. And during and drop of regime. I talked to one of them and one of the people who was is close advisor, and I said, well, you know how you're going to deal with bureaucracy and so forth and he said no and they had Roxy we can handle bureaucracy, but the problem is the people and they have conducted surveys and these surveys show that something like seven out of nine people don't want any change. Now. They've tried to make one change in agriculture. In other words you have a system. Now where a farmer is works for the state and he gets paid say $100 a month and for the past three years. They've tried to tell them look. Why don't you make $300 a month, but let's make that contingent upon the production of how much you do and they don't want it. They would rather have a hundred dollars a month and do nothing then $300 and work. So this is a very very difficult. But I think that we should not underestimate this my view of the of the Soviet Union and its potential is not exhausted. I mean, it's not great. I think it's a third world country in many ways. Although it's an old Empire and yet you have a you have a population of 270 million people and you have an X number of geniuses every year that could be harnessed and All-American assessments all previous American assessments of Soviet capabilities were wrong starting with the atomic bomb to be said, they wouldn't be able to make it in 10 years. They made it in for then we have the merged these multiple re-entry vehicles. We were had with said they wouldn't be able to do it in seven years. They didn't three and a half years then we had cruise missile each time our assessment was not right. Yes. I think it's generally agreed that he is Consolidated his power Gorbachev has by putting in younger more ambitious leadership. Not only the high levels but Ministry levels throughout the system. My question is to what degree or what role do you think that that new Echelon of leadership is going to play in helping him achieve his economic goals. Can they make the difference against the apathy of the people that you speak of or is it perhaps conceivable that in five years when he has not succeeded that it will be that group that will turn on him and ultimately caused his demise. I forgot about your this strange thing. I was one of the few generals actually who was received by one of these stars chernenko and you get a sense that you know, they're too powerful members of the Central Committee who come with me to his office and you know, he doesn't even he shakes hands with me and he doesn't even look at them. Like they don't exist and they behave in a way that the man who sits in this chair is a time in this they have a tradition of I don't know 600 700 years of of autocratic Rule now, they've installed the politburo as a check on this but yet a man who was a General Secretary of the party and who runs these things can maneuver things to his Advantage anyway, he wants but see you can have power in the Kremlin and not have power where it really matters because what happens is that people in the provinces in regions. I mean, it's a country on Time zone so you can you can see the scope of the land they say yes, sir will do it and then they don't do anything what you what you ask them to do. So what he has carried out a I would say a significant Purge but this is the the structural problem of the Soviet system. When you have one party, if you you cannot cut the branch in which you are sitting you can prune it a little bit here and there and he is he is prune about 20% of this 82,000 people thrown out in the year that he was in power in the first year of his bomb and yet this is the Mainstay of your power. So I think it's a very difficult problem. He I don't think that there's any challenge to his personal Authority. I mean in the United States also, you know, the president can do a lot of things in military field in foreign affairs. It just takes five guys and you make a decision and announce it at the With the economy or to change the economy something that requires first of all consent much broader consensus and I can seek under certain circumstances where ways can he is confronted his first serious setback with the Chernobyl because since the explosion he has been hiding because nobody wants to associate himself with a failure disaster, but it's a setback and it's an act of God, but I think that they're going to be real setbacks and I could not exclude the possibility that if if he fails if the if the drive for changes is diminished significantly he'll turn into another brezner, but he can stay in power forever as long as he lives. Yes, mr. Dulberg as I as I understand it Mikhail Gorbachev was trained as a lawyer and when I think of lawyers of law you think of an orderly Society you think of rational rational thinking and reason and also he worked. Yeah, and also also he worked in agriculture. So as you said talking about the small town, he has been close to people in the sense that consumer side of Russia now when he recently said we'll have six months and no Atomic tests and then the international Physicians. I'm sure many of our people are belong to that International Physicians against the Tommy. Or suggested that he extended three months asked him to do it and he did so and went nine months while I was no response from the United States, except we continued our testing and I'm sure it's around politics somewhat. So so in the Soviet Union, they've got their hardliners just like we've got plenty of hardliners in this country all they want to spend more and more forearms and defenses in spite of its 300 million. My question is would it not what did not be good business for United States government for instance to to begin to cooperate on something like doing away with these Atomic test Frances. We had Eugene Carol here on the center for defense information. I'm sure you know, and he said what we should do is stop all Atomic Testing. So that's what garbage have talked about and that's what Dad margene Cara Lee tired. He talks about it. Centre for Defence information so wouldn't it be smart business for White House for instance to begin to think about this? when I think of lawyers, I think of a lot of people in Washington DC love is You know, it's a strange thing to say but it seems to me that the Russians are more serious about arms control and we are because they're weaker and they have different set of priorities in American political opinion. There's basically been no difference as to our attitude toward the Soviet Union. Both Americans actually believe that we should somehow contain, you know Soviet power, but there is a on the one end of the spectrum there people say well why doing that we should pursue policies to encourage them to become more civilized and to join the family of Nations as a full-fledged member. And this is Marshall Shulman for example, and at the other end of the spectrum you have somebody like pipes who says well why containing them we should run them into the ground and do whatever we can to to weaken them from within. I think that I believe in modest things rather than in some great Cooperative Ventures because our societies are so different, but I think when if you go into a business, I think you would first have to identify environment in which you're going to operate and then set the Strategic and tactical goals and the environment is such that we will be in some kind of conflict with him. And if you look at the 70s when the United States was week during Vietnam and Watergate you look at a string of countries. They have taken. Oh you from from Laos Cambodia Angola Mozambique Nicaragua, I mean 708 countries. So they did not behave well when we were going through a very difficult period And now when they when they were going through a difficult period we try to put pressure on them, but it seems to me in all of this. There should be some reasonable way of managing relations on things that really matter and I would I would say that when you have sensible people and willing to do things and actually constantly pushing and proposing whether they are weak or not. They're not that weak to not to be able to destroy us. It seems to me that then, you know, there has to be some kind of a regulated management. You cannot actually stop technology. I don't think that it's possible to say well no, we're not going to do this because people are going to invent things. I mean this country they are two guys were going to do things in a garage. I mean you gotta have a student at Princeton was going to do a paper and yes to be classified because he tells you how to make a bomb. But so they can do it because it's a society where pretty much you know, you everything is prohibited unless explicitly said it's allowed and he it's precisely the opposite so you can have a certain you should manage your relations between these two countries in the more reasonable way and I think that we that hostility and I think there's been an excessive accessibility by on the part of Reagan administration hostility is not produced results because first of all, our capacity to influence events is is limited and you could see where the grain embargo that's who's suffering now from the grain embargo. I mean, we had a temporary gratification of the, you know, five or six months while they looked for markets in Argentina and Canada, Australia. But the American Farmer is now suffering from from the grain embargo. So I'll capacity to influence them is limited and these issues the issue of arms control or weapons is there's no other elements in our political life that's controlled by one person and in there. It's a presidential issue. The president comes and says this is good for you and most people will say yeah, and then you rationalize it and he says it's bad for you and people say no it's bad so you can I think mr. Reagan really as is put has been successful in exploiting their weaknesses, but you know in Washington anyone who thinks Beyond two years in advance as regard as a philosopher What can you say to the people who are would like to persuade others to some kind of disarmament who say that because it's uninformed on and we don't know if they're complying with every whatever their Agreements are. We can't trust they'll whole story that you can't trust anything the Russians say that whole thing. Is there anything you can say to that kind of thinking that says since we don't know if they'll live up to any agreement they make anyway, why make an agreement with them the best you can do is keep their economy in difficulty by continuing to compete with them since we can't trust what they do and we can't totally inspect what they do. Just keep building bombs. We can already kill each other 10 or 20 times over soda, and it's 20 or 30 times. How much worse is that? Given that many of us would not like that kind of thinking what can you say to persuade people to trust any kind of Arms Control agreement given that Attitude towards who the Russians are in the matter. Oh, I don't believe in the question of trust. I mean either why should I trust the Russians? I mean you make a deal and they have to fulfill our obligations that they undertake. I mean, I don't need any psychological State of Mind where I should trust or mistrust him you seems to me on the whole they have, you know, everybody's going to cheat on the margin a little bit but on the whole they have abided by the agreements the only example that's that's given as a violation of an overview of the ABM Treaty is the construction of this radar doubt there and they say we are constructing some Radars paid for somewhere else. I think it's the psyche the climate in the country is decided basically at a very narrow level. They have the number of officials who know what's going on is so small and and the number of people talk about it and write about is so large that there's a great disproportion right there. And it seems to me the the you have the attitude of an Administration and I don't think that we can really do much with mr. Reagan. I mean he's committed to a certain course he believes that SDI is an answer to a lot of things. I mean in terms of public relations It's a Wonderful gimmick because it's Strategic Defense Initiative and I just defy was speaking in contact or Congressional dinner the other night and I told them I defy any of them to vote against it they'll be defeated because for the majority of people, you know Strategic Defense Initiative your how can be you be against the defense of the United States people won't be against that. And and how do you prove that? There's the Russia's want to prove that this is an offensive system. I mean that all it would have offensive spin-off and all that. It's very complicated. And so it seems to me that. My feeling is that that and an individual even groups are very limited leverage and what can be done? I hate to sound so pessimistic but that's my feeling where I've typically seen the the change has to happen in Soviet Union being orchestrated by the the leadership. Are you suggesting instead that it's really the populace or the mess politic that is going to push the Soviet leadership into bringing those changes is the celebration of the 40th anniversary of the second world war on the more of the social level a signal to the leadership that we're ready to address the the internal weaknesses the shortcomings of the infrastructure. Well, you know, I tend to view people as more or less the same everywhere, you know politicians play roles that are larger than life as they do here. And I don't I believe that somewhere in the back of their minds. Also, they think that they're doing something to improve the world and they're going to do make all sorts of expedient and pragmatic decisions in the process the people in the Soviet Union by tradition. Do not matter. I mean, it's precisely the opposite from here here we can you know, we are determined to do something we can do it. We can organize and so forth what matters in the Soviet Union is the is the establishment the ruling establishing which is quite substantial and the other hand the country, you know, this is the tradition of the country on the other hand. The country has become more civilized is become more people are better educated. You have a literate population and you have a quest for things that everybody else. And I mean to assume that the Russian doesn't want to have a boat or a car or trailer means they want the same things like everybody else and it seems to me that the that the leadership takes that into account. You cannot run a country without knowing what the people want. They were very sophisticated way of sensing the mood of the country. I don't know what I can take time to explain that but but they know how the people feel and it seems to me that there is a pressure that which they can respond they have to respond, but they don't have to respond to a degree as for instance an Administration Washington would have to if the people want something In other words, they can make an argument that we have to tighten our belts because we are threatened by an outside enemy and the people are going to buy that argument most of them.