Counsel for the Defense:
Connor, Michael
Counsel For The Defense. The Autobiography of Paul O'Dwyer, by Paul O'Dwyer, Simon and Schuster, $10.95,281 pp. There's a lovely consistency to this tale of a New Yorker famed for his political...
...We must make all governments understand that violent responses to political differences in a nuclear world are unjust and insane...
...He was the last of eleven born to two poor teachers, Patrick and Bridget McNicholas O'Dwyer...
...W.H...
...These, I submit, are the real questions at issue in the "counterforce" debate, not when and who would strike first and why...
...Limitations of time (mine) and space (yours) permit me to raise just a few semantic points: 1. When referring to U.S...
...Each story of O'Dwyer defending the Harrisburg Seven, maneuvering on behalf of John Kennedy among fallow reform Democrats, or working the street for himself in Senate and New York City Council elections is concise and proof of the story-teller's gift for knowing a good quotation...
...they may even threaten to "call tomorrow...
...3. I am baffled by your casual reference to "non-pacifist morality...
...But non-pacifist morality...
...It sounds like one of those perfect oxymorons military justice, political science, and the like...
...My birth in 1907 was not regarded as a blessing in my family," is how O'Dwyer begins the most vivid section...
...There's a lovely consistency to this tale of a New Yorker famed for his political stamina...
...and Soviet Union) freeze on testing, production, and deployment of all nuclear warheads, missiles, and delivery systems...
...2. When referring to SALT or other ventures in' 'arms control," it is misleading to use the term' 'disarmament," or to imply that arms control and disarmament are in any way consistent or compatible with each other...
...ERWIN KNOLL Editor The Progressive For comment on these letters, see editorial on Page 165...
...We must express our outrage at the emotional and monetary costs of the arms race that threatens our very survival and the survival of future generations...
...These are, first, that nuclear weapons make some kind of military sense, which they do not...
...When O'Dwyer tells his public life, the pace strangely slows...
...Born in Bohola, County Mayo, amid Irish rebellion and anti-clericalism, Paul O'Dwyer naturally identified with the downtrodden...
...While we question the morals concerning the use of these weapons, we must also study the moral question of taking money from social services and human needs to create those weapons...
...I can understand non-pacifist pragmatism or non-pacifist expediency...
...We seldom thought of him for his prominence...
...MICHAEL CONNOR Correspondence (Continued from page 161) But this is to make the mortal error of accepting the assumptions of the debate...
...arms expenditures in general, and the Reagan administration's proposed increases in particular, it is misleading to use the term "defense spending...
...The referendum question, co-sponsored by Traprock Peace Center and the Western Massachusetts American Friends Service Committee, also asked that the funds saved be transferred to civilian use...
...Nuclear weapons seem far away from many of us who do not live near ICBM silos or land the MX missile would usurp, but the money it takes to build each of those deathly, massively destructive weapons comes from all of our pockets...
...He watched his family and friends wrestle with lordly Englishmen and a scheming canon until he emigrated to New York City as a teenager...
...To the Editors: After reading the January 30 editorial and articles concerning nuclear war, one is tempted to set the magazine aside with a sigh, a shrug and a fleeting thought at the hopelessness of it all...
...Oddly, the inevitable episodes leading from this sympathy-the aiding of Jewish gunrunners and the fighting for civil rights workers-make the least interesting portion of this worthwhile book...
...On the contrary, an agreement such as SALT, which provides for controlled increases in arms expenditures and deployment, is the antithesis of disarmament and an obstacle to its achievement...
...William Sloane Coffin, in an address at Riverside Church last year, said ". . .it's clear that governments never put at the top of their agendas the question of disarmament as long as disarmament remains so low on our own agendas...
...second, that we must be ready to fight a thermonuclear war, which is insanity...
...With charm, the concern of a motherly landlady, and some political help from Bill, his much-older brother and the city's future mayor, he worked as a warehouseman, doorman and sailor while earning a law degree at St...
...John's University...
...Some readers may ponder a bit longer and think about a local peace group they have heard of...
...we remembered him for his snow-hair, humanity and earnestness...
...In Western Massachusetts last November 4, fifty-nine percent of voters in three state senatorial districts voted YES on a referendum calling for a bilateral (U.S...
...Our Western Massachusetts referendum served as an educational tool and a measure of the public support for disarmament...
...To prevent nuclear mass destruction all of us must put disarmament work at the top of our agendas...
...We urge all persons to search out or start a peace group in their area and join in the national campaign to bring a halt to the arms race...
...FERRY Northampton, Mass...
...THE EDITORSS...
...30], my impression is that while your concern about the dangers of the arms race is commendable, your thinking is quite confusedn example, perhaps, of what you call "the quasi-pacifism of many liberals...
...THE EDITORSorial on Page 165...
...Yet, the endearing detail and the lilt are missing...
...Still, "Counsel For the Defense" reminds me that at my family's old home in Brooklyn's Park Slope (which O'Dwyer left for its parochialism), O'Dwyer was something of a myth...
...The issue of nuclear war must be dealt with on a local level as well as through national demonstrations...
...RUTH BENN Disarmament Intern W. Mass.AFSC Madison, Wisconsin To The Editors: On reading your editorial, "The Whirlpool of Weapons" [Jan...
...finally, as Haig said, that' 'there are some things that are worth fighting for...
...What things are worth the destruction, of the Soviet Union, the United States, most of Europe, and imperiling the rest of the world...
...The American Friends Service Committee is one of many nationwide and local organizations striving to educate and activate all people toward preventing nuclear war and stressing peaceful reconciliation between nations...
...The situation may look hopeless and nuclear war inevitable, but it has not happened yet...
...We still have time to stop the arms race, but it will certainly take a massive public outcry, and soon...
...If a majority of voters in this diverse political area favor a halt to the arms race, maybe all the cold war rhetoric really is not convincing the majority of the population that we need more nuclear weapons...
...Precision of language can help liberate us from conventional falsehoods: Call it military not defense spending...
...He fondly recalls they expected him to uphold the family's high standing in the schoolroom and to send hunger from the door by harvesting potatoes and turning turf...
...The Plowshare Eight (King of Prussia Eight) present to everyone who hears of them a great challenge to become active in some way...
...We still can...
...Well, please, pick up your telephone and call...
Vol. 108 • March 1981 • No. 6
