1978: Congress’s Coalition of Peace Through Strength Opposes Arms Limitation Talks with Soviet Union

The American Security Council (ASC), a McCarthy-era organization originally conceived to ferret out Communists from the American business community, and now broadening its focus to oppose any sort of detente with the Soviet Union or any arms control agreements, forms the Coalition of Peace Through Strength, an association of 148 members of Congress led by Senator Robert Dole (R-KS). It opposes any sort of arms reduction agreements with the Soviet Union, and particularly opposes the SALT II (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks) treaty negotiations. By 1979, its ranks in Congress will have grown to 191, and it will have the support of over 2,400 retired generals and admirals. The organization insists that any such agreements with the Soviet Union are nothing less than a “symbol of phased surrender.” The organization is allied with other hardline conservative groups, including the American Conservative Union, Phyllis Schlafly’s Eagle Forum, Young Americans for Freedom, and a loose organization of neoconservatives and disaffected Democratic hawks called the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. [Scoblic, 2008, pp. 72-73]