Who is lying: the
Soviets or Carter?
[Letter submitted to the Holland Sentinel, circa
22 January 1980]
Lie — but lie with courage — and something will always remain. — Voltaire
Mr. Carter assured us many times that we are the most powerful nation. Here are the actual figures:
| Item | USA |
USSR |
| Strategic Offensive Weapons (ICBMs, SLBMs, cruise missiles, bombers) | 2,125 |
3,909 |
| Ships and submarines | 289 |
584 |
| Strategic Defensive Weapons | 324 |
14,664 |
| Military Manpower | 2,100,000 |
4,800,000 |
| Tanks | 10,000 |
45-50,000 |
| Armored personnel carriers and fighting vehicles | 22,000 |
45-55,000 |
| Artillery | 5,000 |
20,000 |
| Heavy mortars | 3,000 |
7,000 |
| Helicopters | 9,000 |
3,500 |
| Overall defense spending (billions of dollars) | 80 |
110 |
A detailed breakdown on some Navy figures:
| Item | USA |
USSR |
| Cruisers | 27 |
37 |
| Frigates | 65 |
108 |
| Corvettes | NONE |
111 |
| Ballistic Missile Submarines | 47 |
90 |
| Cruise Missile Submarines | NONE |
74 |
| Patrol Submarines | 8 |
154 |
| Patrol Craft | 7 |
202 |
"The flag of the Soviet Navy flies over the oceans of the world. Sooner or later the United States will have to understand it no longer has mastery of the seas." — Statement of Admiral S.G. Gorshkov, Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy.
"A decisive shift in the [balance of] forces will be such that, come 1985, we will be able to exert our will wherever we need to." — Statement of Leonid Brezhnev at the Communist Party Congress in Prague, 1973. My comment to this: The constant increase of Russia's military strength and the disarming of America will speed up Mr. Brezhnev's calculations!
Taking into consideration the above figures, Mr. Gorshkov's and Mr. Brezhnev's statements, adding to this the Russians in Cuba, the Russians in half of Europe (thanks to Mr. Roosevelt), and lately the Russians in Afghanistan, and comparing all this with Mr. Carter's "heroic" announcement how powerful we are, I am asking: Who is lying? Mr. Gorshkov and Mr. Brezhnev, or Mr. Carter?
Mr. Carter is waking up now; he already decided that the military budget will have priority in 1980, and he even considers the draft. Why did he not do this sooner? What did he do in the past 3 years? Play messiah? Military power just cannot be rebuilt overnight! And there is still the big question: Will Russia allow us to do it? In the 19th century, Poland took the same decision Mr. Carter is taking now, and Russia liquidated Poland....
I had a bad dream: We no longer have an American president, but the occupant of the White House is already a Russian Deputy Commissar! I hope it was and will be only a dream.
[Signed as Stefan Zachartowicz.]