Eliminating Nuclear Weapons

The Soviets are proposing ways of doing away with all nuclear weapons by the turn of the century, insisting that nations should accomplish this disarmament through stepwise diplomacy and negotiations rather than by checkmating each other with “Star Wars” defenses.

In contrast, the U.S. Defense Department has announced plans to establish a 100-to-150-person federally funded “think tank” ($30 million annually) to promote the strategic defense initiative (“Star Wars”). But no amount of promotion will make a flawed program any better. So many knowledgeable persons have gone on record as opposing the SDI as unwise or dangerous (e.g., the majority of Nobel laureates of this country), and in this nuclear world increased danger may be synonymous with oblivion--so much so that most people don’t even want to think about it.

In all fairness, our President has said from the beginning that he would share SDI research with the Soviets, enabling them to follow suit, eventually both powers having impenetrable defenses, thus making all nuclear weapons ineffective and obsolete.

Somehow this doesn’t sound quite right, given the new information that the various lasers of our strategic defense system can be used to incinerate enemy cities in rapid sequence just as easily as they can be used to destroy enemy rockets, even with the specter of a non-nuclear nuclear winter in the offing.

Even so, supposing each side did achieve strategic defenses that worked perfectly. Would anyone be better off than if nuclear weapons had been completely eliminated through political agreements and understandings between the nations? Having all nuclear weapons actually gone rather than just made obsolete would no doubt be a safer situation.

And so much could be accomplished if literally trillions of dollars could be spent for solving urgent problems of the world instead of being spent on nuclear weapon systems and “Star Wars” defenses.

If all nuclear weapons were eliminated by agreements between nations rather than just made useless by defenses, the exponential elevation of diplomatic skills and statesmanship needed to make this degree of disarmament possible would represent giant steps toward insuring the future of the world (something that will not happen if our security continues to lie with offensive and defensive threats).

L. FRANK KELLOGG

Garden Grove