George Will and TV ‘War’ Series

It is always enjoyable to read columns by George F. Will to see how he attempts to belittle urgent matters of heart and mind to inconsequential mutterings. In his latest commentary (Editorial Pages, Sept. 29) on the seven programs that public television has devoted to the study of war, Will tries to reduce Gwynne Dyer’s questioning of the precepts that nations use to justify war to a fairy tale concocted by “ . . . one of the few sensitive people on the planet.”

Perhaps Will should be reminded of a moral code between “civilized” countries that was smashed in the beginning of the century. Before World War I, it was considered barbarous warfare ethics for civilians to be targets of war. At the outbreak of World War I, the torpedoing of the passenger ship Lusitania shocked the world and ended this “gentlemanly” conduct of war. By the end of World War I, the sinking of civilian ships was a common war tactic.

Here is an instance when what was once considered an unthinkable act was actually assimilated into war strategy. Because we have followed that same mode of thinking throughout this century, citizens of the United States and the Soviet Union, military and civilian alike, are looking down the barrels of nuclear weapons complete with computerized triggers for instantaneous destruction.

This transition from the unthinkable to the doable demonstrates how quickly concepts can be integrated into a national mind-set. For the continuation of aspects of our civilization that are worthy of survival, we have no option but to encourage and explore alternatives to the goal themselves. It must be done now--before we are interrupted, while viewing prime-time television, by the announcement that a fleet of Russian missiles will be exploding over our homes within five minutes. Then it will be too late.

Will states, “Is this why we have public television--to treat grave subjects flippantly?” I suggest from that preceding quote we delete the term “public television” and insert the name George Will.

FRIMA SCHNEIRSOHN-VAINSTEIN

Agoura