Nuclear Freeze – Hopes, Doubts, Convictions

October 17, 1982
Lakeland

My purpose today is to emphasize my belief that the accumulation of nuclear weapons will lead to the destruction of all living beings on this planet, either by accident or malicious design. I am glad that our General Assembly in June declared support for a “mutually verifiable, bi-lateral nuclear freeze as the first stage of world-wide, balanced, general disarmament.”

Many of you are aware that convictions about nuclear freeze are not new. Some of us, months ago, signed petitions and wrote letters urging such action. But the trickle can become a stream and the stream a strong river to an ocean of peace if convictions are strengthened and made known, again and again and again.

Observing a nova (an exploding star), a scientist remarked, “there goes another planet where they found out how to do it.” The late Aldous Huxley (Bio, p. 455), commenting on the prospects for peace with nuclear weapons overhead like the sword of Damocles, hanging by a thread, said the great powers were like delinquent boys of 14 with the physical power of God.

We are horrified and rightly so when a person or persons poisons Tylenol capsules and eight persons die. Tylenol is removed from the shelves to prevent further victims. Why are we not as deeply concerned when a fool, criminal, or lunatic persons or group could push the buttons causing the death of everyone through a nuclear blast, radiation sickness, and the many plagues which would follow? Why do we let nuclear weapons remain on the active shelves?

There are hopes. There is a rising consciousness of nuclear peril. The nuclear freeze movement is gathering political momentum. [CJW notes: 693 resolutions passed by state, city, and town meetings, resolutions urging an end to use and development of nuclear ....]. On November 2, eight states (CA, AZ, OR, ND, MT, MI, RI, NJ), the District of Columbia, and Chicago will vote on nuclear freeze initiatives. There are additional straws in the wind, not only religious organizations, but also Common Cause, the American Public Health Association, the National Education Association, the United Auto Workers, and others, support a freeze, as well as may members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat. [CJW note: Sen. Cranston: “The American people are far ahead of their leaders in demanding an end to the nuclear arms race.”]

In addition, there is pressure from abroad, particularly from our ally, the United Kingdom. The Church of England, this summer, urged Britain “to unilaterally abandon nuclear weapons ... the UK should cancel the Trident middle order and phase out Polaris missiles and submarines.” The London Times front-paged a report of the Pentagon document, drawn up on orders of President Reagan and presented to the National Security Council, [that stated] “the U.S. could win a protracted nuclear war with the Soviet Union.” The Manchester Guardian said of this and [another] Pentagon report, “They are crazy. No one who draws up these documents can have the slightest imagination of what nuclear war would be like. They are stupid extrapolations from the Battle of Waterloo, in which at the end of a hard day’s pounding, the two sides survey the ground and decide whether to carry on.” All through Europe, the peace movement is strong with its roots in the everyday women and men who are conscious, more than governments are aware, that any use of nuclear weapons has an inevitable fatal conclusion for the human family.

Another hopeful sign was the awarding this week of the Nobel Peace prize to Alva Myrdal of Sweden and Alfonso Garcia Robles of Mexico. Both have been strong advocates of nuclear disarmament. Norwegian foreign minister Svenn Stray said the Nobel selection was “a handshake to peace opinion that has been growing, especially in the Western world.” Each made a statement that may not be pleasing to our policy makers. Mrs. Myrdal reiterated criticism of both the U.S. and the Soviet Union, saying, “Every step they have taken since the beginning of the 1960s has been unnecessary.” Mr. Robles criticized the U.S., saying it “bears the greatest responsibility for the deadlock in efforts to negotiate a total ban on nuclear testing.” (Ledger, 10/14).

Yes, there are reasons to hope that there will be sufficient citizen pressure to secure a freeze on nuclear weapons followed by successive steps of disarmament.

But in all candor, there are doubts. Jefferson once used the phrase, “the wolf by the ears.” If one has the wolf by the ears, one can’t let go, or the wolf will go for the jugular. Yet one can’t hang on to the wolf’s ears forever. Jefferson was referring to his dilemma about slavery. On principle, he detested the institution of slavery, but he and his class were dependent on slavery for economic survival, personal comfort and civil order. Of course, the wolf got loose – our Civil War with its terrible price of blood and its long-lasting heritage of hate, ignorance, and social conflict.

Similarly, our government and the USSR have the nuclear wolf by the ears – [each] seemingly can’t let go, but can’t hang on forever. Unless the peoples’ pursuit of peace succeeds, the wolf will be loose.

The nuclear freeze movement has been gaining strength in numbers, but can enough people be convinced? Doubts exist. Faced with too much horror, too many terrible fears, a process of psychic numbing seems to set in. Remember the story of the ancient king who executed the messengers who brought him bad news? Have you ever felt, or said, “If it’s bad news, don’t tell me, I can’t take it.”

Dr. Helen Caldicott, in the article from which I read, also said, “America’s leaders also practice psychic numbing. During the SALT hearings, they talked about how many bombs the Russians have and how many more we need to counter them. They sound like nine-year-old boys, a little like my younger son.

“I called the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and asked, ‘Why hasn’t anybody testified about the medical consequences of thermonuclear war?’

“They said, ‘The Senators don’t like to hear that sort of thing, it makes them feel uncomfortable.’”

This has a likeness to not wanting to think of or talk about our own death. Those are thoughts we do run away from, even though every one of us has an appointment in Samarra.

T.S. Eliot wrote in BURNT NORTON, “humankind cannot bear much reality.” But unless we do confront the reality of what nuclear war means, we won’t have the moral energy to maintain a position of disarmament.

I have doubts, too, about how many will persist in the face of name-calling that has already begun. President Reagan has started the labeling process, saying “some who want the weakening of America were manipulating honest people and sincere people.” There’s no substance to that charge, but it does raise the question of who is manipulating whom. Did you see the cartoon where the “Great Communicator” is invoking the ghost of Senator Joseph McCarthy, pointing to peace advocates, saying, “Now ask them if they have ever been, and why they are now, communist pinko subversives.” Can freeze advocates persist in the face of that slander which is sure to continue?

Then, too, I know that when advocating a nuclear freeze, always the statement is made, “You can’t trust the Russians.” True – they can’t trust us either. Ample reasons for both cases can be made. As Sidney Lens wrote in an article for The Nation (9/11/82), “There is one overriding issue on which the interests (of Washington and Moscow) converge – survival of the human species. Whether we do or do not trust the Kremlin leadership, the U.S. cannot continue to exist as a nation (nor can the Soviet Union, nor can any other nation) unless it joins with the rest of the world to eliminate the threat of nuclear incineration.”

From these remarks you may conclude that I believe in a nuclear freeze now.

In spite of what you may hear from the Oval Office or the Pentagon, the USSR does not have nuclear superiority. There may be equality, but we have superiorities in certain ways. When asked, no U.S. military authority was willing to swap our weapons and technologies for the Soviet’s (which tells us something).

Verifiable testing procedures now exist – satellites, sensors, particularly each side is agreeable to on-the-spot inspection.

A verifiable nuclear freeze is a necessity and it is practical. If you share that conviction, let your public officials know – or if you did write them a few months ago – write or call again, as I will. They will know it is an issue we have not forgotten.

Instead of weakening, a nuclear freeze will strengthen our country, morally, politically, and technically. To do that we must not be awe-struck with pronouncements from the Oval Office or the shiny Pentagon medals and uniforms. The historian Arnold Toynbee, in his essay on “The Death of Sovereignty”, wrote, “Far from being divine, states are nothing but man-made public utilities. They are as unsuitable as gas-works and water-works for being made into objects of worship and into focuses of emotion.”

Now I respect, even revere, our Constitution, but any given person or party in power is as subject to criticism and protest as is a rise in the cost of utilities.

One thing more, I personally take a more advanced position than verifiable nuclear freeze. I believe that the U.S. should not only freeze nuclear weapons unilaterally but begin now – unilateral disarmament ... beginning perhaps with our land-based ICBMs. Now, is he nuts, you may ask. Or, more politely, Don Quixote rides again.

This is not the bubble-headed notion you may immediately surmise.

Geo. Kennan, p. 101-102
[CJW note, Institute for Advanced Studies, “Cease This Madness”, diplomat]

Now, if one is a rational person, and I hope I am one at times, if 20% of our present nuclear capability is enough to wipe out the Soviet cities and their people, why do we need to build such an overkill? The balance of the 1.28 trillion dollar war budget in the next 5 years could be turned to housing, food, human care, providing initiatives for the poor, hungry, and sick in other parts of the world (or, if you will, balance the budget). Is there a better way to begin to turn swords into ploughshares, spears into pruning hooks, and that we will learn war no more?