In his failed attempt to resuscitate the moldering corpse of U.S.-Soviet
”moral equivalence,” Walter Hixson resorts to grossly false analogies. He compares the ”imperfect democracy” of the early U.S., where the vote was restricted to ”white propertied males,” to present-day Nicaragua. In fact, the U.S. has from its earliest days enjoyed a free press and regular, vigorously contested elections-all of which the Marxist Sandinistas have suppressed.
Hixson does not deny that Soviet violations of arms treaties have been numerous and blatant. Instead, he condemns our ”unilateral repudiation of SALT II,” which was our last resort in the face of Soviet noncompliance, and the ”broad interpretation” of the ABM treaty-an interpretation supported even by some Democratic senators.
Hixson`s contrived parallels cannot obscure the truth: America`s few blemishes represent departures from its highest ideals, while communism`s many crimes are inevitable consequence of its savage ideology.
