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Clouded Crystal
ECONOMIC QUESTION:
Can U.S. Afford
To Disarm Now?,
Y, JANUARY 19, 1962
NIGHT EDITOR: JUDITH BLEIER
I
4ieannantt
ETWEENTHE FOR1CES of terror and the
forces of dialogue a great unequal battle
has begun. I have nothing but reasonable illu-
sions as to the outcome of that battle, but I
believe it must be fought and I know that
certain men, at least, have resolved to do so.
I merely fear that they will occasionally feel
somewhat alone, that they are in fact alone, and
that after an interval of 2,000 years we may
see the sacrifice of Socrates repeated several
Today, the unequal battle described by Albert
Camus is evidenced in the international arms
race. This time the forces of philosophical rea-
son must triumph or Socrates will be sacrificed
for the last time.
For the past 15 years there has been a fun-
damental conflict of interests between the
United States and the Soviet Union resulting
In an increase of tension. This has engendered
an increasingly dangerous spiral of weapons
development, threat and counter-threat; bluff
and counter bluff. One nation's actions to pre-
serve the peace are seen by the other as bellig-
erent and threatening. Fear is heightening the
pattern of action and response has become self-
perpetuating.
The West has responded to the challenge of
the Soviet Union's dynamic ideology and ex-
pansionist foreign policy by fighting a rear-
guard action around the world; by merely op-
posing Communism and desperately attempt-
ing to maintain the status quo to the extent of
appeasing governments and. tolerating situa-
tions completely repugnant to the principles
it is trying to defend.
I N DEFENSE of what is construed as their
national interests, the two nations have sum-
moned the maximum weapons at their disposal.
Each is now capable of destroying the other
and war has become a matter of mutual sui-
cide. Both parties have therefore come to rely
on the threat of war, rather than war itself,
as a means of defending their national inter-
ests
This, is the strategy of deterrence. It depends
on maintaining a "delicate balance of terror"
In which any faltering or any unbalanced ad-
vance by either side can topple the whole struc-
ture.
Deterrence can fail. With the decentraliza-
tion of weapons control, it becomes increasing-
ly possible for human or mechanical failure to
result in disaster. As more and more countries
tacqure nuclear arms the probability increases.
For as Todd Gitlin of Harvard says, "If the
nuclear sword of Damocles is now suspended
over our heads by the most tenuous of threads,
the presence of more swords, each hanging by
its own thread, makes it more and more likely
that, sooner or later, one thread will break."
Indeed, the United States is not satisfied with
deterrence alone. We have decided to incorpor-
ate first strike capability into our "defense"
.structure under the name of "specialized deter-
rene.n" The government plans to build 800-1,200
Minuteman missiles and 40 Polaris submarines
with funds to be provided by this year's Con-
gress.
THE ORCES OF TERROR are therefore in-
creasingly evident. No longer do we arm for
cause; rather we 'arm because the other is in
arms. Our foreign policy has been changed
from one of opposition on an ideological basis
to one of opposition because we are being op-
posed. Just as the Soviet Union refers to the
dictatorships of Eastern Europe as "people's
democracies," the United States ref'ers to the
governments of Spain, Portugal, Taiwan, South
Viet Nam and Guatelama as part of the "free
world."
It is in this respect that we are already bar-
baric; mutual destruction by nuclear war would
leave us unchanged.
It is therefore apparent that even if by some
miracle, (and contrary to every lesson history
teaches) we continue the arms race and avoid
war, the arms race itself will destroy our so-
ciety and all that we believe in.
For if the only basis of our actions is a de-
sire to "prove" our moral and ideological
"strength" through the forces of armed per-
suasian, we will crumble at the base.
If we are to survive as men, we must return
to the real strength of our ideological heritage.
It is in this respect that we must forego
persuasion and invoke reason. It is in this re-
spect that we must disarm.
For as E. B. White once said, "It might be
advisable to compromise with the Russians,
Editorial Staff
JOHN ROBERTS, Editor
PHILIP SHERMAN N FAITH WEINSTEIN
City Editor Editorial Director
SUSAN FARRELL..... .......Personnel Director
PETER STUART... . ......Magazine Editor
MICHAEL BURNS'... ..............Sports Editor
PAT GOLDEN..... ....Associate City Editor
RICHARD OSTLING...Associate Editorial Director
DAVID ANDREWS.........Associate Sports Editor
CLIFF MARKS ...............Associate Sports Editor
but it is not advisable to compromise with the
truth."
A DECISION to seek disarmament, however,
is far removed from a practical plan to im-
plement it. Idealistic conceptions, such as im-
mediate unilateral disarmament, are clearly
ridiculous and are, perhaps, motivated by un-
reasoned despair. Also, short-term actions such
as attempts to forestall atmospheric testing or
to curtail fallout shelter programs (for as the
level of Civil Defense preparations goes up, so
does the level of offensive preparation by the
opponent) are peripheral actions aimed at the
symptoms of the trouble, rather than the causes.
A possible first step has been suggested by
Prof. Leo Szilard of the University of Chicago.
He says that "if we intend to drop our bombs
on Russia in case of war, and expect Russia to
drop her bombs on us, so that both countries
would be wholly devastated, then our threat to
drop bombs on Russia is tantamount to a threat
of murder and suicide.
"A threat of murder and suicide is not a be-
lievable threat, in the context of the Berlin
conflict, and it would not be a believable
threat in the context of any similar conflict."
It would be a believable threat only of Amer-
ica's strategic striking forces were able to crip-
ple most, if not all, of Russia's rocket and
bomber bases by one sudden single blow, and
if it were America's intention to strike first,
in case of war.
"If America renounces the 'strike first if
necessary' policy, she loses the deterrent effect
of her strategic striking forces. For, clearly, if
the forces are not capable of a first strike
against Russian bases, then any threat, in case
of war, would be tantamount to a threat of
murder and suicide and would therefore be not
believable.
"If America renounces the first strike policy,
then the strategic striking forces of America
could thereafter function only as an insurance.
If these forcesare arranged in such a manner
that a sudden attack on them could not sub-
stantially reduce their capability to strike a
major counterblow, then they could be looked
upon as an insurance against the possibility
that Russia might attack America with bombs."
A CLEAR POLICY DECISION to the effect
that America is going to maintain an in-
vulnerable second strike (but would not try
to maintain force at a level where they could
knock ot in a first strike most of Russia's
bases) would open the door to an agreement on
arms cotrol..
This is a reasonable approach to the dis-
armament problem. Thousands of students and
professors will travel to Washington next
month in hopes of offering a program of ini-
tiative based on Prof. Szilard's suggestion. They
will confront senators and congressmen, in
small groups, in hopes of bringing about a
basic change in our policy, unilaterally, through
reason, in a program they title "Turn Towards
Peace."
Basically, the initiatives are as /ollows:
1) Public announcement of the United States
decision not to resume atmospheric testing as
a measure designed to limit the arms race; that
it will not give nuclear weapons to any nation
or alliance which does not possess them; and
that it will establish within the United States
a United Nations-inspected test monitorig
system as a precedent for future inspected dis-
armament agreements.
2) Withdrawal of missile bases, such as those
in Turkey and Italy, whose vulnerability to
attack makes them useless except for the pur-
pose of a first strike against the Soviet Union;
and an attempt to use this withdrawal as a
basis for negotiating agreements with the So-
viet Union on comparable steps to be undertak-
en in reciprocation.
3) Recognition that a settlement of the Ber-
lin crisis can only be obtained within the con-
text of the problems of Germany and Central
Europe. The United States should seriously
discuss and explore proposals toward a solu-
tion of these problems on the basis of demili-
tarization, troop withdrawal, and neutraliza-
tion of East and West Germany within the
context of general disengagement in Central
Europe. Disagreement in Central Europe should
be viewed as the beginning of a serious attempt
to negotiate controlled disarmament on an in-
ternational scale.
4) The United States must commit itself
fully to the struggle against poverty, hunger
and disease throughout the world. This massive
economic aid should be channeled through the
United Nations both in order to take econom-
ic aid out of the context of the Cold War and
also to strengthen the United Nations. Having
taken this initiative the United States should
then call upon the Soviet Union to join us in
channeling its economic aid through the United
Nations.
In this way the United States will not only
take the initiative in disarmament by abandon-
ing first strike capability, it will have taken a
reasoned initiative in the positive "fight" for a
better world.
By JAMES NICHOLS
Daily Staff Writer
IF ALL the world's philosophers
agree on the moral necessity of
beating swords into plowshares
and ICBMs into mechanical mail-
men; if the governments of all
the world's countries decide to
disband their armies and convert
their productive capacity to peace-
ful pursuits; if flawless policing
systems are devised to detect a
lethal weapon from a thousand
miles away; man's dreams of dis-
armament will remain only empty
dreams unless one remaining
question can be affirmatively an-
swered.
The question is this. "Is dis-
armament economically feasible?"
And the answer, say men who
are studying the problem with me-
ticulous care, is yes.
* * *
THIS YEAR the taxpayers of
the United States will give the
Pentagon about $45 billion. The
Soviet Union will devote only a
little less to its team in the arms
race, and the other nations of the
world will contribute about $40
billion, collectively.
Sums like these, if spent for
mankind's betterment and not
for its destruction, would produce
fantastic results. Horrible diseases
would be cured, literacy and edu-
cation would spread from Angola
to the Andes, and the fine line be-
tween starvation and man would
become a broad margin of salva-
tion.
* * *
LEADING economists say it can
be done.
According to economics Prof.
Kenneth E. Boulding, the problem
of converting swords into plow-
shares - military spending into
peaceful spending--is "perfectly
solvable." In fact, there are so
many ways of doing it that there
will be difficulty in choosing one.
It is a complete misconception
that this country cannot afford
to disarm. Each year we spend
about 10 per cent of our gross na-
tional product (GNP) for defense.
Each year our GNP grows about
2.5 per cent. This means that our
present GNP, minus defense
spending, is roughly equal to the
total GNP of four years ago. "In
other words," says Boulding, "if
we were to stop all military spend-
ing today, it would suddenly be
1966."
ECONOMICALLY, disarmament
is not an enormous problem. The
United States underwent a much
more drastic conversion from war-
to-peacetime footing in the single
year 1945-46. Our nation, over the
past 200 years, has seen a conver-
sion of a huge magnitude, during
which the per cent of the labor
force engaged in agriculture has
shriveled from 90 to 10.
Another change on the same'
scale occurred when U.S. military
thinking changed over to elec-
tronic weapons more sophisticated
than those used in World War II.
The dreaded changeover to non-
defense industries has already oc-
curred in Detroit, Boulding said.
There will be difficulties, of
course, and these may be divided
Into three major problems.
, * *
THE FIRST of these is Con-
version, according to Dr. Boul-
ding. It involves the actual change-
over of production facilities from
sword factories to plowshare
plants. From this point of view,
the U.S. economy is highly flex-
ible, he asserts. Some areas, such
as Seattle, Wichita, and especially
Los Angeles, would suffer more
than others. Boulding says "there
is a strong case for more positive
social organization" to deal with
areas that would be temporarily
depressed.
The second problem, actually
an integral part of the first, is
stabilization. Popular fears of a
serious depression resulting from
the termination of present defense
contracts are unfounded.
"If we take 40 billion dollars of
defense production out of the
gross national product," said
Boulding, "where can we find an-
other 40 billion dollars' worth of
goods and services which can be
absorbed without causing defla-
tion?"
This new spending can be done
in four areas, he said. Household
spending, which can be encour-
aged by tax decreases; business in-
vestments; expenditures by local
governments, on schools, for ex-
ample, and mental hospitals; and
foreign investment and aid.
THIRD among the problems to
be faced if the arms raceends and
disarmament begins is maintain-
ing economic growth. This should
not be at all difficult.
Some-although very little-of
the research and development now
being done under the American
defense program leads to non-
military growth. The development
of the jet plane, for instance, was
advanced years by work inspired
by World War II, and the nation's
space program is probably much
farther along than it would be if
Russia were a fifth-rate power.
If the United States were to
abandon its various "crash" pro-
grams aimed at speeding up man-
kind in its race toward destruc-
tion, other-more beneficial-pro-
grams for research and develop-
ment would have to be arranged.
This could be done by enlarging
existing government agencies or
by creating new ones.
Although problems do exist, and
although more study is needed on
some of the details of their solu-
tion, there is no doubt that the
United States would be perfectly
able to make the adjustment from
a nation virtually at war to a na-
tion economically geared for
peace,
Lo~
-~ -. 6TDIJ pti'*r'~.
CIVIL DEFENSE:
No Deterrent, No Defense
By JEAN TENANDER
Daily Staff Writer
WHEN THE WAR is over, the
remnants of civilization hud-
dling in fallout shelters will dig
their way through the ashes into
an uncertain radioactive world,
full of disease and genetic dis-
turbances. They will face prob-
lems of not knowing what food
and water is safe to be con-
sumed or how to go about pre-
venting uncontaminated seeds
from contamination. The gov-
ernment will have been destroyed
and there will be no law. There
will be few if any doctors.
The present program of civil
defense in the United States is
based upon two premises: it will
save the lives of American citi-
zens, and it will act as a deter-
rent to a nuclear attack by an
enemy nation. Both of these func-
tions are not and cannot be ful-
filled by the program as it now
exists. Nor can they be fulfilled
by any future program, however
competent. The goals of civil de-
fense are inconsistent with its
philosophy.
THE INHERENT difficulty pro-
ponents of civil defense face in
defending their position is that
of persuading people that redu-
cing casualties in a nuclear war
to only 20 million is something
good. In the words of Herman
Kahn:
"Unless we recognize that it is
a success, we cannot expect people
to build such a system. Few if any
people will work hard for goals
which are defined as being fail-
ures right from the beginning."
Few people will agree with Kahn
that it is a good or moral thing
to work for the survival of Just
a fraction of the human race
either.
Those who feel civil defense is
beneficial to the country are forc-
ed to make statements about fall-
out shelters which offer "almost
absolute protection," shelters
which will save 90 per cent of the
population, and fallout that will
not harm food or people-very
much. In reality these are blatant
falsehoods and obscure the real
issues from public view.
** *
THE MOST GLARING defi-
ciency in our civil defense pro-
gram is that we have practically
no warning system.
Our only adequate warning de-
vice is the Distant Early Warning
(DEW) line. It will give reliable
warnings of aproaching Russian
bombers, but missiles are very
rapidly superceding bombers, and
the DEW line is unable to detect
ICBM's.
The United States does hope to
complete a three-base Ballistic
Missile Early Warning System by
1963. Even with the BMEWS, the
maximum warning of 15 minutes
would only allow SAC to get one
third of its planes off the ground.
* * *
WARNING TIME is measured
from the moment of detection
of possible attack to the explosion
of the first warhead. Before the
I nfnr -1,4+ me h earpnder
warning signal and their range is
obviously limited.
* * *
REGARDING the prospects of
America's shelter program, Ad-
miral Burke said, ". . , the im-
mediate effectiveness of any
shelter system is basically de-
pendent on warning time
Because of the improbability of
having enough warning time for
the major proportion of our popu-
lation t attain shelter, I am not
in favor of the Federal Govern-
ment spending large sums of
money on a full-blown shelter
program."
Assuming some adequate warn-
ing system is installed, the devas-
tating results of a nuclear war
could still not be overcome by any
known measures.
* * *
DR. LINUS PAULING, Nobel
prize winner, estimated the bio-
logical and gentic consequences of
the new Soviet shots totaling 200
megatons: "The damage to human
germ plasm would be such that
in the next few generations 160,-
000 children around the world
would be born with gross physical
or mental defects.
Long-lived carbon 14 from the
fusion process would cause four
million embryonic, neonatal or
childhood deaths and stillbirths
over the next twenty generations,
and between 200,000 and one mil-
lion human beings now living
would have their lives cut short
by radiation-produced diseases
such as leukemia." Although all
scientists do not agree in their
estimates, none of them are op-
timistic.
* * *
ONCE THE BOMB has been
dropped and the family is cower-
ing some three or four feet below
the ground, they will be unaware
of what is going on above them.
They should not be.
If a bomb is exploded from a
high altitude, there will be little
fallout. Instead, there would be
fire storms which will generate so
much heat that the flames will
suck in oxygen from far into
space as well'as from the fallout
shelters. Those inside may have
their lungs collapse from the pres-
sure and die of suffocation.
There are other horrors - too---
radial burns, instant blindness
from the brightness of the fire-
ball, and the powerful pressure
generated from shock waves. All
this evidence indicates that civil
defense is not a solution to the
problem of nuclear war.
OUR CLAIM that establishing
a strong civil -defense system will
deter the Soviet Union in any way
from an attack, should she decide
to attack, is also invalid.
The enemy's aim in the Cold
War is not to kill but to use the
threat of killing as a means of
achieving compliance. Shelters,
saving lives, would not mean the
enemy would alter its desire for
compliance but merely her means
of achieving it.
To offset the lives that might
be preserved in shelters, the So-
viet Union would be forced to in-
crease the size and destructive
the United States except Ameri-
cans.
Civil defense does not protect
the country nor act as a deterent
against aggression. It increases the
furor of the munitions race and
deludes the populace into a false
sense of security. It is very sig-
nificant that neither Japan, still
remembering Hiroshima, nor the
Soviet Union, nor Great Britain,
nor France, have any civil de-
fense program. These nations do
not believe that nuclear war has
any preventive measures.
Each individual has the right
to know how to act to protect his
children, himself, and his coun-
try in the most effective way pos-
sible. If he is given false informa-
tion, he can only act accordingly.
No one would deny that it is
each father's right to know
whether he is saving or burying
his son.
WHITE'S THEORY:
Is Nuclear War Inevitable?
By MARTHA MacNEAL
Daily Staff Writer
THE DIFFERENCES that distin-
guish man from the animals
have been discussed many times.
One of'the most striking cf these
differences is the fact that man is
the only of earth's creatures which
has organized its highest capabili-
ties towards self-destruction, with
the possible exception of the Nor-
thern lemming, a rodent which
plunges in great hordes into the
sea, offsetting its population ex-
plosion.
Alarmed by the suicidal tenden-
cies of the human race, now cul-
minating in The Bomb and a
socio-economic system largely
geared to war, many individuals
and groups are pressing for a
redirection towards disarmament
and peace. The possibility of suc-
cess in this effort is open to ser-
ious question.
An article by Prof. Leslie White
of the anthropology department
entitled "Man's control Over Civ-
ilization: An Anthropocentric Il-
lusion" demonstrates that man
"exerts no control over his cul-
ture, and theoretically there is no
possibility of his ever doing so."
* * *
CITING fruitless human efforts
to change language, standards of
weights and measures, fashions,
and other non-vital matters,
White questions man's ability to
control larger issues. "When a
baby is born into a cultural mil-
ieu . . . his culture will determine
how he will think, feel, and act.
... We are beginning to suspect
it is not man who controls cul-
ture, but the other way around.
... Culture makes man what he
is and at the same time makes
itself."
Nor will education help man to
control his culture. "Wars are
struggles between social organ-
as acting upon culture from the
outside.''
However, Prof. White recognizes
the fact that human effort is
very much an internal part of the
cultural process. "Living human
beings cannot help but exert
themselves, and everything they
do counts 'for something in one
way or another." But "what one
does, how he does it, and the end
and purpose for which it is done
is culturally determined."
AT THIS particular time in the
history of the world, when the
hugeness of war-oriented society
seems its most striking character-
istic, the article implies that the
war is coming, the war, the bomb,
and the utter destruction of ev-
ery civilized value. But there may
be a few factors that are applic-
able within the context of cultur-
al determinism that offers a more
hopeful view.
First of all, the analogy between
fashion control and disarmament
control may b7 faulty simply be-
cause issues of the former class are
non-vital.
Perhaps people allow themselves
to be inexorably led in these areas
because it is not worth the strug-
gle; fashion, language, and other
such trends are easy to go along
with, and offer no real threat to
anyone. Nuclear war threatens us
all, our own lives, the lives of fu-
ture generations, our property, our
social system ,and every idea ev-
er conceived by man. It is possible
that this would make a difference.
WHITE SAYS that culture 'de-
termines the way in which indi-
viduals think and act. If this is
true, then the individuals and
groups working for disarmament
and peace are products of real and
vital force in culture, and there-
fore in cultural determination. In
a democratic country, the forces
of culture working at the grass--'
THE CULTURE of the United
States is supposedly based on the
right of every individual to life,
liberty, and the pursuit of happi-
ness. All of these rights will be
destroyed if war comes. From the
culture-determinist viewpoint, the
question is whether those rights do
actually represent the major force
in our society. If they do, and if
we understand them correctly,
then we will not permit war to de-
stroy us.
That nuclear war would destroy
life is obvious as a fact, but is
certainly not fully comprehended.
Nuclear war means destruction of
life not only in merciful imme-
diacy of blast, but in fire, in suf-
focation, in the slow wretchedness
of radiation sickness, and after-
wards, in starvation, and the
inevitable murders of kill-or-be
killed chaos. Three days without
water, ten without food, and man
loses the last trappings of his
thousands of years of civilization.
* * *
THE DESTRUCTION of liberty
is contained in the destruction of
civilization. Man's mind is not
"free" when it can see no farther
than the next bit of food, the next
defense of whatever he may have
claimed as his own against an in-
terloper, or the next confrontation
with a reality so foreign to any-
thing he had ever conceived that
all rationality is impossible.
There will be no pursuit of hap-
piness-and no happiness to pur-
sue. After the shock there will be
either insanity or numbness. There
will be no way for a mind accust-
omed to a rich and progressive
culture to react positively to the
antithesis of culture.
We have no premises for dealing
with universal holocaust-we have
no way for finding any sense of
happiness in being alive when
n. .,lf . A. rivrAQA WPciifp