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questions his mental alertness, but his physical health is suspect. And while he has taken the reins of the Soviet government, he is not yet firmly in the saddle. He needs a foreign policy initiative.
    He has to be looking for ways to deal with his problems or at least to mitigate them. That fact makes the prospects for real peace great. Putting it simply, both sides want peace—the United States because we believe in peace, the Soviets because they need it.
    The time is ripe for a deal.
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    If war in the nuclear age is so disastrous and if economic cooperation is so beneficial, it would seem that striking a deal for peace should be a natural. But that is not the case. The Soviet leaders are not the same kind of people we are. Their political system promotes individuals who view the world in a completely different way and who put an entirely different value on human life.
    As Russians, they will weep over the millions of deaths their country suffered in World War II. But as communists, they will defend the actions of a government that killed millions of other Russian citizens. In meeting with Soviet leaders, I often thought of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde as the warm, friendly Russian of our social conversations transformed himself into a cold, heartless communist as we got down to business. Within minutes, someone who appears to be a warm-hearted pacifist turns into a ruthless thug.
    There are many views about how we should deal with the Soviet leadership. At one extreme, we have the superhawks. They argue that because the Soviets are in deep trouble and are out to do us in by any and all means, we should build up military superiority and try to isolate them by cutting off all trade and negotiations. If we do that, they contend, the rotten Soviet economy will eventually collapse, bringing down the communist system with it.
    That is an appealing scenario, but not a realistic one. The superhawks are correct in recognizing the Soviets for what they are. But while their premise is correct, their conclusion is wrong. The Soviet system will not collapse. The Kremlin leaders have never won a free election, but they are masters at getting and keeping power. They have ruthlessly squeezed their people with brutally austere economic policies before, and they will do so again if that is necessary to keep themselves in power. Confrontation and isolation can strengthen a dictatorship. Hard-headed negotiation and contact with the outside world can weaken it.
    The superhawks also fail to realize that in a democracy it is impossible to sustain such a policy. The American peopleand our allies in Europe will shoulder the burden of armaments and bear the risks of military conflict only if they believe their leaders are actively trying to reduce international tensions. The people need to be given hope, for without hope the support for defense expenditures will crumble and the pressure for an ill-considered accommodation with the Soviets will build.
    Even if we assume that the superhawks’ policy would work and would command the sustained support of the American people, we would still be wrong to adopt it. It is irresponsible for the world’s two greatest military powers not to have maximum communication with each other and not to try to negotiate their disputes. This would put our relations in a highly combustible atmosphere of semi-belligerency, with both sides building up armaments without restraint while firing salvos of hot rhetoric. Our interests would inevitably rub together in the powder kegs of the world like the Middle East, possibly sending off the spark which would ignite a nuclear war.
    Sir William Slim, a Governor-General of Australia and one of Britain’s greatest generals in World War II, made this point in a conversation with me 30 years ago. He was a dedicated anti-communist, but he was also a realist. He believed even then, when the United States had overwhelming nuclear superiority over the