Friday, August 24, 1973
Work
WASHINGTON 0P) - Led by
the United States, the world's
industrial nations are scrambling
to peddle more and more arms
in a competition sharpened by
the oil shortage, international
power politics and economic
problems.
U.S. arms sales have tripled,
to $4.5 billion a year, since the
Nixon administration reversed
the nation's course in 1970 and
began pushing the products of
American defense plants in over-
seas markets. Those sales a r e
due to jump another $900 mil-
lion in the fiscal year that be-
gan July 1.
THlIS DISTURBS some influ-
ential members of the Senate
Foreign Relations Committee
who want to put a brake on the
trend. As one Senate source put
it, "The committee's basic feel-
ing is that the United States
should do what it can to tamp
down the arms race, not heat it
up.",
Pentagon officials reply that
U.S. restraint in the late 1960s
did not discourage arms buying,
but sent the buyers 'to other
countries eager to fill their ord-
ers.
"When we have been unable to
sell U.S. military material or
services, our friends and allies
have turned to other sources,"
Adm. Thomas H. Moorer, chair-
man of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
told the House Foreign Af-
fairs Committee.
IF OTHER ARMS dealing
countries are worried about be-
ing labeled "merchants of death"
they don't show it.
Russia is estimated to export
military gear, including supplies
for its East European allies, at a
rate of about $2 billion a year.
One U.S. expert s a i d , "The
Soviets will sell anywhere they
can," with political influence the
motive.
Although it cannot match the
United States in output, France
has been giving this country a
competitive run in Latin Amer-
ica and to some extent in the
Persian Gulf area, today's best
arms market.
OTHER ARMS vendors include
Britain, Italy, Canada, Sweden,
Czechoslovakia, Poland, Belgium
and the Netherlands.
Israel, which is developing ts
own missile and small arms, is
looking for customers abroad and
has found at least one, National-
ist China.
Even India, long identified with
a pacifist philosophy, displayed
a readiness to sell tanks, war
planes and other weapons from
its factoriess during an interna-
tional trade fair in New Delhii
last fall.
Two industrial heavyweights,
West Germany and Japan, have
been concentrating on their own
military requirements and have
refrained from plunging into 'be
world competition on a major
scale, although Germany h a .
sold freely to its NATO allies.
BOTH GERMANY and Japan
still are somewhat hesitant about
stirring up negative memories
of World War II, but U.S. of-
ficials are confident they will
not hold back much longer.
About 80 or 90 countries, mostly
in the developing "Third World"
of the Mideast, Latin America,
Asia and Africa, are buying wea-
pons, and U.S. experts report
demand is rising.
The oil-rich Persian Gt u I f
states were bound to become the
prime arms market because, as

one analyst said, "They have
the money and the desire."
But the energy crisis has in-
tensified the maneuverings of
oil-short Western nations to gain
or cement friendships wiih Iran,
Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and a
group of small emirates. Along
with Iraq, these Persian Gulf
states contain about 70 per cent
of the world's known oil reserv-
es.
IRAN, WHICH seems ambi-
tious to dominate the Persian
Gulf region, ranks as the Unit-
ed States' premier cash custom-

THE SUMMER DAILY

Page Nine

THE SUMMER DAILY Page Nine

I arms race heats

er. Its orders for more than $2
billion worth of fighter planes,
helicopters, tanks and ordnance
represented about half of all U.S.
arms sales in fiscal 1973. On top
of this, Pentagon officials anti-
cipate another $t billion in sales
to Iran in the new fishal year.
Pentagon officials insist that
the State Department, which bas
final say, will reject specific
arms deals unless the country
buying the weapons has a valid
security requirement and there
is assurance the buyer will not
use them to threaten is neigh-
bors.
But Deputy Secretary of De-
fense William Clements Jr., who
is more candid than many oth-
er officials, acknowledged re-
cently there are other important
considerations involved in the
proposed sale of up to 31 174

Early this year, the Czechs and
Iraquis signed a new $80 mil-
lion arms pacts, U.S. intelli-
gence sources said.
ELSEWHERE IN the Middlr
East, the United States extends
about $300 million a year to
Israel, in credit sales of Phan-
tom jets and other U.S. Yea-
pons. Obviously, Washington
hopes the Persian Gulf Arab
states will not hold that against
this country and cut off oil,
which is another reason for U.S.
open handedness in arms sales
there.
American officials admit very
frankly they have trouble telling
how much of communist arms
shipments to the Middle E a s t
and other places are sutright
gifts and how much involve cash,
credit or barter sales.

favor among A
svhere a few p
carry a lot ofv
West Europeai
to guard their a
about as closely
munists, but U.S
the French, Brit
have more tha
Third World ord
still to be deliv
Apart from oi
al power polit
strong economic
the arms salesd
ed States and o
tions.
CLEMENTS,
civilian second
goes that mil
sales abroad es
ly increasing f
on the national

up again
frican countries, this country's chronic balance-
lanes and guns of-payments problem.
weight. American analysts say some
n countries seem of these same forces are work-
rms 'sales ing to stimulate European mdi's-
as do the on- trial nations to race for weapons
5. experts believe business abroad.
ish and o t h e r s "Europe used to be our best
n $2 bilion in - customer, but those countries
lerson te boks, now have lots of their own pra-
er on the books, duction, and their defense budgets
rad. ne have tightened up in the last
l and internation- few years," said a senior U.S.
ics, there are arms sales administrator.
impulses behind "The French, for one, have
drive by the Unit- such a small armed force that
'ther Western n- they have to look for exports to
keep the price of their own hard-
the Pentagon s ware down. Without exports, the.
in command, ar- prices of Mirages for their own
itary equipmenit air force would go to the sky."
xert a "constant-
favorable impact NEW YORK (UPt) - The coat
economy." of a new precision, foreign-made
sports racing car is estimated
at $130,000. Costs are high but
the stakes are worth it. About
ta: 7\05 a $1 million in prize money will be
distributed during the 1973 sea-
Dr services,_- -
Be careful with fire:
ifs of Staff There are babes
inthe woods.
rds, as Clements
foreign sales can
se industries heal-
when American
are sagging af-
m war.
boosters claim
ost of certain air-
pons for the U,.S
can be reduced "N
numbers of them
is.
CONTEND that
en in from over-
omers helps ease

"When we have been unable to sell U.S. military materialc
our friends and allies have turned to other sources.
--Adm. Thomas Moorer, chairman Joint Chic
:S'::":::"y rl.{":J '/vi'A"':ei::f::a:".5i-J:::J:'::

Phantom jet fighters t Sa;.di
Arabia and perhaps some F4s
to Kuwait.
"WOULD WE in fact raiher
do this, maintain the excelent
relationships that we have had
through the years with Kuwait
and Saudi Arabia, who are very
close to us and with whom we
have these ongoing problems of
petroleum and energy znd re-
gional mutual interests . . . Or
would we rather just in default
let the French sell them Mir-
ages?" Clements asked rhetor-
ically, leaving no doubt he fav-
ors the F4 sales.
The Kuwait and Saudi Arabion
deals are shaping up to abhut
$500 million apiece in cash, per-
haps more eventually, for an ar-
ray of tanks, warplanes, ailiair-
craft weapons, ships and other
material.
And while the Saudi Arabians
are negotiating for U.S.-made
planes, they are said to be plan-
ning to buy about 30 Jaguar
supersonic fighters worth about
$120 million from an Ango-
French manufacturing comubiii
AT THE SAME time, the hust-
ling French reportedly have com-
pleted their first sale of Mirage
jet fighters in the Persian Golf
region with a 2-plane order from
the United Arab Emigrates. Ac-
cording to U.S. calculations, the
French have sold about 450 Mir-
ages to less developed countries.
Despite a general atmosphere
of detente between the United
States and Russia, the East-West
rivalry is very much alive in the
Persian Gulf area and the rest
of the Middle East.
As a counterweight to U.S.-
backed Iran, Russia and Com-
munist Czechoslovakia have
steadily been building up Iraq,
with MIG jet fighters, power-
ful missile-firing patrol boats
and other first-line weapons.

Iraq is able to pay from her oil
income. But Syria, a favored Sov-
iet client which got nearly 60
Russian fighter planes this year
alone, is a poor country.
EGYPT IS BELIEVED to have
mortgaged. its cotton crop f o r
years to pay for billions of dol-
lars in arms as far back as be-
fore the 1967 Arab-Israel war.
Even though Russia and Egy-
pt have become estranged, U.S.
intelligence says many Soviet
cargo ships still unload militaiy
goods in Egyptians ports, pro-
bably as replacements for wor,
out or damaged gear.
Over-all, intelligence special-
ists guess that Russia sold about
$700 million in arms last year
throughout the Third World na-
tions, including India w 1 i c h
Russia supported against Paki-
stan in the struggle over Bnrgla-
desh.
GIANT COMMUNIST C h i n a
is still a pygmy in the w o r I d
arms trade, limiting itseif to
about $75 million last year. Most
of this went toPakistan and for
a low-key duel with Russia for

In other wor
sees it, such f
keep U.S. defen
thy at a time
military orders
ter the Vietna
Furthermore,
that the high c
craft and wear
armed services
by selling large
to other nation
THEY ALSO
the money tak
seas arms cast

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EASY AFTERNOONS
" Drinks 72 Price 0 Free Jukebox
* Peanuts 0 Free Parking
DAILY 3:30-7.30
A moimin expericnce in sound an light
341 S. MAIN ANN ARBOR

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Summer Daily
is FRIDAY, 24 AUGUST 1973
ix~r C ic tan4 t
resumes publication on
FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 1973
Display and classified advertising deadlines will be
Noon, Thursday, Sept. 6 for classified and 3 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 5 for display.



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