May 17, 1999
ESSAY / By WILLIAM SAFIRE
Cut the Apologies
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After a week of whipping up hatred
of Americans by accusing us of deliberately murdering Chinese journalists in Belgrade, President Jiang Zemin deigned to accept a call from The
Great Apologizer.
For the fifth time, President Clinton
apologized, expressed regrets, sent
condolences, kowtowed and groveled,
begging to be believed that we did not
bomb China's embassy on purpose.
But it is America that is owed an
apology. After an accident of war, we
have been falsely accused of killing
Chinese with malice aforethought.
That is a great insult, compounded by
the calculated trashing of our embassy by a bused-in mob encouraged by
police.
The truth is that Beijing's leaders,
worried about demonstrations on the
10th anniversary next month of their
Tiananmen massacre, are milking
this mistake for all it is worth.
By lying about our intent and
suppressing coverage of our prompt
admission of error, the nervous rulers
are diverting their people's anger toward us and away from themselves.
By demanding we investigate the
accident, they seek to water down the
current Congressional investigations
of their nuclear spying -- a series of
penetrations of our laboratories and
political campaigns that was no accident.
By making Clinton beg forgiveness, they are able to cancel human
rights talks while extracting new
trade concessions. The deal: they will
accept Clinton's apologies when he
caves in on their application to the
World Trade Organization.
No wonder that no reputable diplomat would accept the President's
pleas to replace our fed-up ambassador in Beijing. Clinton is now trying to
appoint an admiral whose amiable
association with the Chinese military
and U.S. arms contractors will be
closely examined by the Senate.
Though Clinton is softer than ever
on China, he's taken a hard line in
resisting Congress's investigations
into Beijing's penetration of our nuclear labs and our political process. His
latest trick: the improper use of documents submitted for intelligence declassification to prepare advance refutations of evidence of security lapses.
The White House has delayed for
four months the three-volume report
on security laxity by the House select
committee headed by Representative
Chris Cox. Clinton spinners are already distributing a packet of reprints
of derogations by offended scientists,
China-defenders and favorite journalists.
Cox has used the "clearance" delay
to rewrite the turgid prose and to
enliven the report with photographs
and diagrams showing what missiles
and satellites were stolen; that might
even awaken television interest.
The Senate Intelligence Committee,
headed by Richard Shelby and Robert
Kerrey, is not about to hold still for the
abuse of clearance.
After it submitted
one of its reports on nuclear lab laxity
for review to protect intelligence
sources, it learned of a refutation of
that bipartisan report in work by the
National Security Council response
machine.
The White House was told that the
submission of documents was for security clearance only. It was not to be
used for (a) advance policy review so
that "rapid response" would occur in
the same news cycle as the reports'
release, or for (b) leakage of portions
to the press for "inoculation" to later
reduce its impact as "old news."
The intelligence business is not the
publicity business. National security
reports are not to be equated with the
Starr report about hanky-panky. The
Shelby committee made plain to the
Berger Rapid-Apology Center that if
this undermining of inter-branch comity did not stop forthwith, "we're
going to zero out the N.S.C. staff budget." (By withholding some $15 million,
Congress could force the spinners onto
the Department of Defense payroll or
cause agonizing layoffs in the White
House basement.)
In both House and Senate, bipartisan committees are discovering serious intelligence weaknesses: too little
analysis of too much collection. "If
there's a flare-up in Iraq, North Korea
or the Andes," worries an investigator, "we could not handle it and Kosovo, too."
The most troubling breakdown is in
counterespionage. The F.B.I. and
C.I.A., which are not blameless, are
telling Congress the weakest link is
the Department of Justice.
What began as corrupt political protection became dangerous national security laxity. Who will apologize for that?