Nation: Carter Defuses a Crisis

Getting rid of the issue, if not the Soviet brigade, but at some cost

It was like trying to fly a 747 through Washington's Rock Creek Park." So observed a top White House adviser of the way in which Jimmy Carter last week tried to extricate himself from a predicament mostly of his own making: the inflated fuss over the Soviet combat brigade in Cuba. In a straightforward speech to the nation, he largely defused the diplomatic issue, but by no means satisfied all his critics. Nor did he add any much needed decisiveness to...

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