Principles of abolition

...One might isolate any number of rea- sons for the failures of those who think there are too many weapons in the world, not too few...

...How are we to choose between human beings, and say that the death of one somehow mat- ters more than the death of another...

...Nothing the United States or the Soviet Union could do to each other in a non-military way could ever equal what they can do to each other in a military way...

...Who can say...

...They describe without truly ex- plaining the war...

...The Nazis gave up on that one...

...Some think we may squeak through...

...But we really must con- sider what obedience has brought us...

...Is this the best we can do...

...Talking to these scientists, or to others in what is called the national security community, one hears a great deal about hope...

...In the following months Bacher was active with the Association of Los Alamos Scientists--known with- out irony as ALAS--in what came to be called the scientists' movement...

...There are exceptions: in fairy tales they have to do with orders which come from obviously magic sources...

...8. We do not have to submit...

...He had been working on the bomb since 1943...

...But his teaching on justice to the poor is also clear...

...Threats elicit threats...

...they are admitted, and called on to repent, and be transformed, Questioning those in authority, and where necessary resisting them, is not disloyal...

...so is his teaching about laying up treasure for ourselves, and on loving our enemies...

...it is one of preparation for war...

...their causes come in doz- ens of varieties...

...But the hope is not robust...

...In August, 1945, he personally checked out the core of a bomb intended for a third Japanese city, while a military team waited outside, motor running, to carry it to the airport for the first leg of its flight to the Pacific...

...When America's support of dictatorships is allowed to go unchallenged in any serious way, some- thing important about America has been allowed to die...

...Thus the danger posed by nuclear weapons is inseparable from the danger posed by...

...Nothing stands in the way of the disaster Bacher and so many others foresaw but fear, and the hope that fear is enough...

...Such claims are only a convenience...

...We rieed no one's permission to begin...

...In this perpetual debate at the official level all concede we need arms, including nuclear arms...

...At the last minute orders arrived not to send the core...

...I don't think this can be extended to in- clude the orders of generals or judges...

...We need to get rid them, not build more...

...Jesus's teaching on divorce is clear, and clearly opposed to divorce...

...it is the bedrock of defense pol- icy...

...It shows us that when resistance becomes a com- munal undertaking, a form of common sense, it can save the soul of a nation...

...This ability to injure each other has become the deepest source of conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union...

...If we do not know the root causes of war how can we hope to pre- vent it--forever...

...Thus an attempt to free ourselves of war and the fear of war may be seen as a struggle toward the light--to see the danger as a common one, to grasp our own role in the process as well as our opponent's, to comprehend that the vio- lence of modern war is out of scale with whatever it may be said to be about,and finally to understand there is no way to threaten others without endangering our- selves in return...

...The twenty-five thou- sand we are expected to have by 1985 may threaten human life in this hemis- phere...

...Scientists didn't like it, but for the most part went along...

...This pattern is not reason for abandon- ing arms negotiations, but for something else--the building-of a constituency which might take a different approach...

...It may be the result of deeper loyalties...

...Thus arms negotiators and defense planners are in the same line of work...

...The only unqaestioning loyalty we are allowed is our obedience to God, and even here there are questions and strug- gles: Job is more admirable than Abra- ham, because he questions God...

...The example of Denmark has not been praised or studied enough...

...The theory of deterrence is that war is an act of aggran- dizement, and that nothing can prevent it but fear of the consequences...

...In disobeying Creon, Antigone is obedient to something more pro-foundly important than the laws of the city...

...allow our children to believe that a sol- dier should obey orders without ques- tion, or a citizen must pay taxes or obey the summons to join the army, we are laying the groundwork for more of the horror that has marked our century: total warfare, and the destruction of millions...

...In religious history the unques- tionable orders come from God, as when God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac...

...Robert Bacher, at Los Alamos, was one of them...

...The English and Americans did little to stop the slaughter of the Jews...

...they attack the problem from opposite ends, but meet in the middle...

...they only en- sure it will be terrible...

...As a practical matter one can't pro- tect oneself by threatening others...

...Now a professor emeritus at the California Institute of Technology and a veteran of many government commis- sions, Bacher hopes he was wrong, that the world's failure to reach agreement does not really mean disaster...

...It is not disloyal to wonder whether the institution --whatever it is --is being well served by those who are tem- porarily in charge, nor is it disloyal to judge an institution in the light of what it claims to be about...

...Attempts to gain or hold an advantage in weapons have been the motor of the arms race, and have only increased our common danger...

...To free ourselves of war we must understand and transform our-selves, no easy task...

...One thing is clear: attempts to control nuclear weapons in the last thirty-six years have failed...

...As long as questioning those in author- ity is seen as a special vocation, the prophetic call of a chosen few, we are in danger...

...A major one is the tendency of any plan for controlling, limiting, or reducing arms to invert itself, to shift its focus from limiting weapons to an argu- ment that X are enough...

...Some say we need a great many, others say not so many...

...Thirty-five years of try- ing to guarantee our safety with strategic weapons has made us about as unsafe as any nation in history...

...Soldiers and people with fat bank accounts are not kept from com-munion...

...Others think not..It seems to be a ques- tion of temperament...

...Poland is wonder- ful news...

...There is a corollary to the no-villains principle...

...resistance was for ex- traordinary or heroic people...

...if the other side isn't the problem, then we aren't the problem either...

...The problem isn't too few weapons, but too many...

...it is clear to most people by now that Communism is a bad idea whose time may be passing...

...We have one good example in our time of a community which resisted, not assuming that...

...Clearly men are ready to go to war for this reason or that reason or no reason...

...Weapons have not made us safe...

...Even if complete abolition of nu- clear weapons were achieved, no system of international inspection or control, however extensive, could prevent their renewed manufacture in the event of a big general war...

...It seems to me there are eight basic principles on which an abolitionist movement might found itself...

...The problem is not rapacious monopoly capitalism or militant Communism...

...There is a problem all fight, but it isn't the iniquity of the other side...

...But the his- tory of these efforts is a history of failure, for the most part, while the historY of the arms-builders records one triumph after another, without break...

...But early in I945, when the magnitude and the imminence of the bomb became apparent, the scientists--in a single, spontaneous, almost convulsive awakening--suddenly grasped the thing whole: the bomb was big enough to wreck our civilization, there was no de- fense, any determined nation could build one, an arms race could result in stockpiles of thousands, something had Commonweal: 424 to be done...

...Nations have their differences, but it is impossible to conceive of one large enough or important enough to re- quire the wrecking of the world...

...Whatever they think, naturally all are hopeful...

...The pattern since 1945 is clear...

...Perhaps it was a miracle...

...Attempts to save our side only are simply military measures under a differ- ent name...

...An army looks like a weak thing next to that sort of spirit...

...threaten our civilization...

...It is hope naked, hope pure, hope unalloyed with anything hard enough to point to as an actual reason...

...One should not be too quick to answer...

...5. There is no military solution...

...Our reason for it is the common one to6...

...war simply came and took their lives away...

...The scientists who were active in 1945, asked for a gambler's guess of our chances now, fall into two rough groups...

...The weapons reflect a dangerous part of our nature, not the only one by any means...

...Instead it remained at Los Alamos...

...The fact that he was obeying orders was Eichmann's chief defense...

...Very few of the dead had anything to do with starting it...

...it is the whole loss which diminishes mankind and is cause for sadness-- not just the loss on our side...

...It was the scientists alone, throughout 1945, who understood what had happened, and what must be done...

...And although God's answer to Job seems a rebuke to the whole idea that God can be questioned, the strong implication is that an honest man must question even God...

...Arms control is not a subject which has been neglected in print or in fact...

...The American stockpile of nu- clear weapons may be said to have begun at that moment...

...There are loyalties deeper than the allegiance which is ordi- narily asked by the state or the church, loyalties to what state and church are supposed to be about, but too often are not...

...Nuclear weapons do 31 July 1981:425 not make war impossible...

...But if such a movement came into being--a genuinely abolitionist movement, pre-pared to forego nuclear weapons en-tirely, to work for none--on what basic principles might it build an argument...

...But in- sofar as the military sees weapons (theirs) as a .problem, it insists that weapons (ours) are the solution...

...There are distinc- tively defensive measures a nation might take, but building strategic weapons is not one of them...

...they simply fail to see an alternative...

...I burn with anger against you," God says to Job's comforters, who offered pious answers to Job's anguished ques- tions, "for not speaking truthfully about me as my servant Job has done...

...War on a global scale cannot be said to be about anything...

...The easiest answer--the one that leaves us out--is villainous intent on their part, some great ambition we must resist...

...The students of war have got hun- dreds to study...

...it is our characteristic response to the fact of sides...

...Such a war would simply happen...

...1. It can happen...

...All are in the nature of givens...

...In the past it might have been said that war was about who wins...

...Eventually we may acquire weap- ons enough to threaten all human life on the planet...

...Next time the job would go quicker...

...JOHN GARVEY Of several minds: Thomas Powers PRINCIPLES OF ABOLITION EIGHT REASONS FOR GETHNG RID OF THE BOMB N 1945, even before the Trinity test proved an atomic bomb could be made to work, a sud-ddn wave of concern or alarm swept the laboratories where the new weapon had been fashioned...

...Why wait till war proves the point...

...Our chances of al- together escaping this war are fragile, but the prospect of failure is no reason for submission...

...7. We can never forget how to build nuclear weapons...

...The fifteen thousand strategic warheads possessed by the U.S...

...more weapons cannot be expected to do any better...

...But it is a betrayal of American assumptions about liberty to support a Somoza in the name of anti-Communism, and the argument that the Sandinistas aren't very decent either is not a worthy response...

...3. Nothing can be gained orpreserved commensurate with the loss...

...the war itself...

...In the sort of war where millions die the balance of the millions is immaterial...

...it is the same for the Russians...

...It has been argued that there simply must be a more or less unchallenged chain of command for society to work at all...

...Churchill and Truman were slow to understand the bomb was not simply bigger...

...It was clear to Bacher what had to be done: the world had ten years at the outside to find a way to control nuclear weapons, or some awful calamity would eventually follow...

...This is not something either of us wants to do, and it is not something either of us would risk if it weren't for the peculiar context of pride and will which forms the background of an arms race...

...At this point in our history, it seems clear, optimism must be blind...

...War happens to both sides...

...When the Nazis threatened to enforce the law which re- quired Jews to wear the yellow star, King Christian let it be known that if they did so he would wear the yellow star himself, and call on all Danes to join him...

...But defense is a misnomer...

...It is not the intention of the regu- lations surrounding marriage and divorce which is in question...

...ttrey don't defend...

...All the millions were innocent...

...There are thousands now, and thousands more on the way...

...un- less people obey those in authority there will be chaos...

...Denmark is arguably the only nation which comes out of World War ii looking good...

...A move in this direction, away from war, must be personal before it can be political...

...why are we doing such a terrible thing...

...the reasons are only a kind of veneer...

...Natura!ly the president, who must decide, prefers to err on the side of safety...

...It is our nature which explains our behavior...

...Understanding war is not a polemical but a spiritual exercise...

...This I cannot answer...

...What might be the occasion for a spontaneous arousal on the necessary scale, short of a major war...

...History suggests that war is something else--a characteristic and habitual form of human behavior, a thing men do--sometimes for one reason, sometimes for another...

...Wherever allegiance is equated with un- questioning obedience it has led people into trouble...

...The threat they pose is now a permanent part of the human situa- tion...

...The result, since 1945, has been a slow, losing, rear-guard action by the arms limiters, and the building of a great many strategic weapons--not so many, perhaps, as the military' would have liked, but more than enough to break the back of our civilization, when used...

...The ten years passed, nothing was achieved, the calamity is still pend- ing...

...It is the weapons which threaten us, not the political differences...

...Military authorities had done their best to keep everybody in the darK, to isolate Oak Ridge, the Met Lab in Chicago, and Los Alamos, and to treat all general discussion of the bomb as a violation of security...

...Perhaps we've been given time for a second effort...

...The issues involved at the outset would be over-whelmed by the war itself...

...The strategic weapons possessed by both sides threaten the annihilation of the other...

...and the U.S.S.R...

...How might it justify--not only to the world's military and political leaders, but more importantly to itself--a claim that nuclear weapons are too dangerous and too wanton to possess in any number at all...

...For the Pentagon, then as later, a weapon was a weapon...

...when occupied by the Nazis, France caved in...

...2. All victims are equal...

...William Foster, Gerard Smith, Paul Warnke, Henry Kis- singer, and Cyrus Vance, as well as many others both in and out of govern- ment, in this country and elsewhere, have done their best to fashion useful and enduring agreements and to explain the importance of the undertaking...

...The history of efforts to establish varying degrees of international control of nuclear weapons--beginning with the ambitious and clear-sighted Acheson-Lilienthal plan of 1946--is dense with the serious work of able men...

...We should not teach our children wholesale cynicism or an individualism which would do away with the idea of any obligation at all...

...Then, in a massive act of resistance, the Danes managed to smuggle virtually every Danish Jew out of Denmark...

...To take a less serious, but still very serious, example from the church, it is necessary to judge the hard-heartedness of Catholic canon law in the light of the Gospel...

...Now it is about what survives, 4. Weapons threaten...

...The intention of an anti- Communist foreign policy is not what is wrong...

...It is worth undertaking for its own sake, whatever the results...

...We shall be struggling with it, one way or another, for as long as we are here to struggle...

...what we buy, for the most part, are not things which defend, but things which threaten...

...Denmark, occupied, resisted...

...The prospects for a new movement of this sort are dim at the moment...

...it is the pastoral effect of enforcing the laws we have, which are easier on mass murderers than on those who have remarried after di- vorce...

...The political and military estab- lishments of the world do not really like living under the threat of annihilation any better than we do...

...It's a miracle we've got this far," he said recently...

...THOMAS POWERS Commonweal: 426...

...Starting from scratch in August, 1942--with no certainty for the production of fissionable material--the United States built its first nuclear device in less than three years...

...6. There are no villains...

...Any serious attempt to save them must attempt to save all of them...

...Thus our own military efforts can be seen as the solution to a problem...

...It may very well be the best...

...The scale of the pres- ent arms race is unprecedented, but otherwise it's the common stuff of his- tory...

...We have built thousands of nu- clear warheads, and we hope they won't be used...

...Thomas More, the loyal servant of the king, knew that his loyalty had limits...

...America simply should not support the sort of people who send home other people's heads as a warning to behave...