This piece was originally published in The Collegian, Grove City College, Grove City, PA, April 22, 1966.
by Roy Halliday
The most important question in world politics today is not which economic system is to gain popularity, but how can we avoid military conflicts between nations which might result in a nuclear holocaust. This question must be resolved if we are to have any future at all to resolve the other important questions perplexing us.
Today, politically appointed diplomats and ambassadors from the two major camps meet to discuss terms, make demands, and issue threats which compromise the lives of millions of people. At the same time the various major powers are engaged in an arms race to see which camp can produce the greater number of weapons of mass destruction so that the negotiators can "bargain from strength" when they meet to discuss our fate. A constant atmosphere of cold war and preparedness for hot war has dominated foreign policy in recent tears, and everyone lives with the constant threat of "the bomb."
How can we prevent a nuclear holocaust when nations with opposing ideologies, armed with weapons of mass destruction, distrust, threaten, and constantly come into conflict with each other? If we continue coexistence "at dagger’s point" annihilation may eventually result from escalation of a war in any of the ever-present trouble spots. If the nations adopt the United States’ proposal for control of arms without disarmament there would still be the possibility of accidental annihilation resulting from someone’s mistake or the malfunctioning of electronic devices in nuclear rocket systems setting off a chain reaction of war. As long as the weapons exist there is the possibility of some crackpot deciding to push the proverbial button. The only realistic solution is general and complete nuclear disarmament under strict international control.
The American public while perhaps tending to be in favor of disarmament is not aroused to action on the issue and is easily satisfied by disarmament noises which emanate from Washington from time to time. They are convinced that their government is doing everything possible to achieve a reasonable disarmament treaty even though very few have any knowledge of what proposals America has actually made and what proposals have been refused. The common notion is that a disarmament agreement could be reached any time the Russians really want it. If however, you would read the actual proposals made and trace the history of recent disarmament negotiations objectively, you will discover that the Russians have been explicitly and consistently advocating complete disarmament with strict international control while the United States has been inconsistent and extremely vague in its proposals and has generally seemed insincere. The United States has been reluctant to renounce the use of nuclear weapons and other instruments of mass destruction, probably because we have already used them on the people who used to live in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From the 1946 Baruch plan to the present day the United States has concentrated on efforts to control research, rockets, satellites, deployment of armed forces, etc., without disarmament. The USA has been proposing test bans and "hot lines" while the USSR has been proposing an unconditional ban on weapons of mass extermination. The Russians have honestly proposed the disbanding of all armed forces, the destructions of all stockpiles, the cessation of the manufacture of all weapons of mass destruction, the abolition of any kind of military conscription, and the discontinuance of the appropriation of funds for military purposes. Can you imagine the United States with its present foreign policy doing the same?
The Russian proposal of complete disarmament is the wisest policy. If a state is completely disarmed it cannot wage war and of course if all states are so disarmed there would be no possibility of a nuclear holocaust. If however, nations do not disarm completely (except for strictly limited contingents of police) they can wage war and the war could escalate and treaties be broken and nuclear weapons manufactured again and used.
I have no special liking for the Soviet government nor do I mean to whitewash their record, but I do mean to suggest that the United States has been the greater obstructionist force.
All disarmament measures, from beginning to end, will be carried out under strict and effective international control. ... The control organization will distribute inspectors over the territory of States in such a way as to enable them to start discharging their functions the moment States initiate the implementation of disarmament measures. Each party to the treaty will undertake to give the inspection teams timely and unrestricted access to any place where disarmament measures subject to verification are being carried out or to any area in which on-the-spot inspection of such measures is to be made. ... On-site international control will be established over the destruction of rocket weapons, military aircraft, surface warships, submarines and other means which can be used as vehicles for atomic and hydrogen weapons.Further on in his letter Mr. Patrick states that the USSR has left much out of her proposals and there is the suggestion that besides the imaginary lack of on-site inspection provisions, they omitted chemical or biological weapons from the ban. This, too, is incorrect as the following quotation from the same proposal illustrates:
There will be complete prohibition of nuclear, chemical, biological and other weapons of mass destruction, with the cessation of manufacture and the destruction of all stockpiles of such weapons.It is pertinent to the conclusion of my article of April 22, 1966, here to note that the USA has proposed only reduction of these weapons and not their abolition. Also pertinent is the fact (pointed out by Mr. Patrick) that a disarmament agreement to be entirely successful must include all the major powers. For this reason the USSR has been trying to get Red China admitted in the UN and make it a party to the negotiations on the disarmament question. The stubborn refusal of the USA to recognize Red China is a major obstruction to disarmament.
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