LOST a Dangerous "Booby Trap," Says NY Sun; Reagan Rejected it on Principle

Need a clear reminder about what President Ronald Reagan thought of the Law of the Sea Treaty? None clearer than that in today's New York Sun will be found.

In an editorial entitled "George W. Haig," Sun readers are treated to an anecdote from former Reagan official Ken Adelman, who relates that the president's objections to LOST were not based on arcane specifics, but on common sense.

According to Adelman, Reagan refused Secretary of State Alexander Haig's push for the ratification of LOST, calling it "really stupid," and rejected the idea that just because most other nations of the world had signed on, we should ratify it too. His forthright assertions of U.S. sovereignty were, and remain, an indication of what principled governance is all about.

The Sun goes on to chide the Bush Adminstration for walking the path of Secretary Haig and forfeiting U.S. interests to a supranational bureaucracy by pushing for American accession to the Law of the Sea Treaty. It calls the treaty "an ivitation to war" against American interests, and warns that our joining would subject us to "a collection of security, financial, and administrative booby traps."

The Coalition to Preserve American Sovereignty commends the Sun for joining the rising groundswell against U.S. ratification of the LOST, a disastrous document that President Reagan wisely spurned twenty-five years ago.