Bentsen Calls on Allies to ‘Share’ Defense Burden, Sees Soviet Decline

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Voicing nationalistic themes in the heart of the Midwest, Democratic vice presidential nominee Lloyd Bentsen on Monday called on U.S. allies to “share the burden” of defense spending and predicted that the next decade would see “a continuation of the decline of the Russian empire.”

Bentsen noted that while the United States spends more than 6% of its budget on defense, its European allies spend only 3% and Japan spends about 1%.

“We do more than our share,” he told the Economic Club here. “We need someone to stand up for America and see that the burdens are shared as we defend the democracies of the world.”

Warns of ‘Chaos’

Recounting a tale that has become a staple of his stump speech, Bentsen told of meeting last year with Japanese business leaders and warning that there would be “chaos” in the world if the United States were as parsimonious as Japan.

“You’re the No. 2 economic power in the world,” Bentsen said he told the Japanese businessmen. “You’ve got to measure up to that responsibility and pick up that tab.”

In the speech, Bentsen mentioned “the decline of the Russian empire” first in a list of major challenges facing the United States, but he did not elaborate. Asked about it later, he cited an “economy in a shambles, their people demanding that something be done about the standard of living . . . and you see them losing ground in the world, and you see the American economic system being adapted more and more in other countries.”

But Bentsen said the United States should respond with “considerable care” to internal Soviet weakness. “There’s always a tendency when one’s going into a decline like that for the military to try to strike out. . . . So it’s important that we keep our defenses on during that process.”