Claiborne Pell: “I think it important at this point to read into the Record some of the statements that Strobe Talbott has made, because…”

“I think it important at this point to read into the Record some of the statements that Strobe Talbott has made, because as the author he is best equipped to speak for himself. As he says here: To recognize that the Soviet threat has been exaggerated is not to commit the sin of ``moral equivalence''; Western self-criticism about the phobias of the cold war does not imply a neutral judgment about the Soviet system. Quite the contrary: It is precisely because that system is such an abomination against basic human aspirations, against human nature itself, that much of what the West called ``Soviet power'' was actually Soviet weakness, and the instruments of that power could never have been all they were cracked up to be. For years there has been dissenting wisdom in the West. Most notably George Kennan, the intellectual godfather of the original concept of containment, has objected to the way it was applied; he cautioned against demonizing the adversary, overestimating enemy strength, overmilitarizing the Western response. As early as 1947, Kennan suggested Soviet power ``bears within it the seeds of its own decay'' and that the U.S.S.R. might turn out to be ``one of the weakest and most pitiable of national societies.'' These words speak for themselves.…”