Editorials
CONTENTS Volume CXX, Number 3 COMMONWEAL Correspondence 2 Editorials 3 A sedan is not a home:...
...Anchors away...
...It wasn't until Did we say afloat...
...From 1987 to 1991, the top Staff: Harriette Balsky, Carmen Alava, Pamela Quatse five exporters of conventional weapons (as it happens, the five permanent members Advertising Manager: Ruth E. Taylor of the Security Council, which are also acknowledged nuclear powers) sold more Publisher: Edward S. Skillin than $150 billion in conventional arms, with the U.S...
...POSTMASTER: Send address changes to Commonweal, 15 Dutch St...
...But In 1990, the U.S...
...and conventional arms transfers worldwide go on unabated, outBusiness Manager: Richard Haas stripping in dollar value even the world's grain trade...
...The near-collapse of the Soviet economy and the ascendancy of Mikhail Gorbachev allowed such Commonweal 12 February 1993: 3 unilateral actions to become a reality, and George Bush recip- of mass destruction, yet according to Richard Barnet (Harpers, rocated in kind...
...and the Soviet Union accounting for $120 billion between them...
...While only the U.S., Russia, worldwide arms trading exists...
...Display advertising buildup of armaments, will not suffice...
...6 It doesn't hurt to hope : Abigail McCarthy 7 You can't keep a good theory down: Stephen J. Pope 9 I think you should be responsible: Gordon D. Marino 13 Poetry: Jack Lindeman 14 The curse abides Screen: Richard Alleva 15 Stage: Gerald Weales 16 0 n May 3, 1983, the Catholic bishops of the United States issued their Media: Frank McConnell 17 pastoral letter on peace and war, decrying the arms race as a curse BOOKS on humanity and warning that "the threat of nuclear war hangs over The Ethics of Authenticity/Multiculturalism the human community...
...Arms reduction is chiefly a political and correspondence should be sent to Ruth E. Taylor, diplomatic challenge, more a matter of restraining the demand-side of the arms equa11 Graffam Rd., So...
...Because knowledge of nuclear technology is widespread and indestructible, the nuclear genie STAFF is out of the bottle...
...The police well-almost as amazing as the number of things he will called a few days later to inform me that it have to do to keep Commonweal afloat...
...Portland, Me...
...He also wears a very nifty fedora...
...The U.S., while attempting to curtail such Design: Emil Antonucci nuclear proliferation, has refused to definitively stop its own nuclear testing...
...had been found, undamaged...
...bishops called for a variety of initiatives, including unilateral ones...
...Interns: Jessica Bayne, Walter Swett Now add to this these ominous, everyday facts: other weapons of mass destrucColumnists: John Garvey, J. Bryan Hehir, tion-chemical and biological weapons-are far easier to make and to conceal than Abigail McCarthy, David R. Carlin, Jr...
...nuclear weapons...
...would sell 18 billion dollars' worth Weapons Convention, the most stringent agreement of its kind...
...The Haases worn blanket, a package of chocolate chip cookies, a box of lost both their cars, but no one was hurt and their mod- cereal, a metal container of aspirin...
...and the former Soviet Union agreed bilat- it is here that the "conversion of hearts" the bishops called for erally to halt the production of chemical warfare agents and to will be most difficult to achieve: A well-established pattern for reduce their stocks of these weapons...
...The great December storm here in I paid the towing fees and got the car home the New York area flooded Richard and his family out that I noticed the back seat was piled with dirty laundry and a of their rented home on the New Jersey shore...
...It has been able to do this because governments which The bishops were correct a decade ago when they observed ought to know better lack vigilance and the international agen- that the demand for weapons will disappear only when the earth's cies meant to monitor such matters do not have the means or the various tribes and factions have developed more effective means backing they need...
...est sailboat survived undamaged...
...The fact that the dramatic reductions proposed February 1993), at least 20 million people died during the coldin START II were formulated in less than six months would war period in more than 120 conventional wars...
...that received the least scrutiny of all arms transfers...
...was the Gulf War ended, for example, when President Bush Last month in Paris, more than 120 nations, including the U.S., reversed his own call for proscribing arms transfers to the Middle Russia, Israel, and Iran, began signing the new Chemical East and announced the U.S...
...nuclear weapons relevant" by the Energy Department...
...strategic weapons-are scheduled by 2003...
...Natural History: Irving Malin 23 Recent tensions among Russia, the U.S., and Ukraine over the latter's failure to Religious booknotes: implement START I, signed in 1991, make clear how hard it is for nuclear-armed Lawrence S. Cunningham 24 states to wean themselves from dependency on these devastating weapons...
...In 1990, The Conventional Forces it establishes the most complex international verification regime in Europe Treaty brought significant cutbacks in these arms in ever designed, one that includes challenge inspections of a sus- Europe and created greater "transparency" of arms transfers...
...and hint of change is finally afoot...
...it is a party, and has made a sieve of international nuclear regu- It is a modest, necessary step...
...New York, N.Y.10038...
...ing voice inside me would normally have replied "of course," but all that stuff, and the implication that someone had been 4: 12 February 1993 Commonweal...
...mendations and testimonials...
...of arms to its allies in the region It not only outlaws the development, production, and use of During the cold war, it was control of conventional weapons chemical weapons, but calls for the destruction of existing stocks...
...As a result, by this April, all tions...
...They had caught the thief and who knows how to keep his-and our-head above wanted to know if I was going to press charges...
...Defense Media: Frank McConnell Department scientists are even now developing a new generation of small nuclear Screen: Richard Alleva weapons-including a thousand-ton "tinynuke" warhead for attacking ground Stage: Gerald Weales Poetry: Rosemary Deen troops-for use in the third world...
...and the sheer force of habit creates a vicious circle...
...In this respect, the CWC itself builds on the This move, coupled with the Gulf War, led to a December 1991 1987 U.S.-USSR intermediate-range nuclear treaty that set strin- UN General Assembly call for a voluntary register of all ingent standards for verification...
...And this year alone, the U.S...
...Telephone: (212) 732-0800...
...Hardly tive gave rise to a new, multilateral chemical weapons accord...
...According to the New York Times (November of nonviolent conflict resolution...
...Stronger The next ten years will be both critical and dangerous...
...tensions that all but defy solutions drive detions are suspected of having them...
...But the U.S.-Soviet initia- mand...
...But the mark of Cain abides: 25, 1992), half of the equipment licensed by the U.S...
...It is convenhave been thought impossible even two years ago...
...It is cruregulation and better coordination need immediate attention...
...cial that world leaders attend to the control of conventional arms, Conventional weapons do not evoke the same fear as weapons including the bishops who should speak out again with the same principled specificity that marked "The Challenge of Peace...
...He worked as a newspaper reporter, marketing director, and circulation manager before venturing out on his own as a consultant specializing in marketing and management assistance for religious publications...
...ty...
...tional weapons that most need tough, multilateral controls...
...pected country...
...plans to The Islamic Threat: George Perkovich 21 spend $38 billion on nuclear war preparations...
...CONTENTS Volume CXX, Number 3 COMMONWEAL Correspondence 2 Editorials 3 A sedan is not a home: David L. Kirp 4 From ghetto to hilltop: David R. Carlin, Jr...
...Clearly, this is a man Then the police called again...
...Managing Editor: Patrick Jordan Nuclear power programs in both Algeria and North Korea may conceal nuclear weapons Associate Editor: Paul Baumann Production Editor: Jacqueline Dowdell production, and Iraq's "great deceit" in hiding its program should dispel any false Senior Writer: Robert G. Hoyt optimism about taming the nuclear hydra...
...The law-abidwater...
...The Rascal King: John E. McDonough 20 Yet despite START II, the nuclear arms race continues: worldwide, 20,000 nuclear warheads will still remain in place in 2003...
...Iraq flaunts the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty to which major 1992 arms transfers are to have been reported to the UN...
...Now, some the dismantling of all production facilities within ten years...
...A SEDAN IS NOT A HOME Richard comes to us on a tidal wave of glowing recom- CAN YOU SPARE SOME LOVE...
...lations...
...04106 (207) 799- tion than of controlling the supply-side...
...Commerce In the last ten years, more than 70 percent of those who died in Department for sale to Iran in the past four years was considered wars were unarmed civilians, victims of conventional weapons...
...To build the modicum of trust between ad4387, classified advertising correspondence to 15 versaries needed to instill even the glimmer of hope for nonmilitary solutions, the Dutch St...
...As the bishops noted, "negotiating on arms control agreements in isolation, withand monthly July and August, by Commonweal out persistent and parallel efforts to reduce the political tensions which motivate the Foundation, 15 Dutch St., New York, N.Y...
...A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS REPORT FROM THE STREETS Much to our joy and relief, Richard Haas, a Fordham graduate, has joined Commonweal as business manager...
...extensive and efficient suppliand Iraq admit to having chemical weapons, twenty other na- ers maintain it...
...ternational arms sales...
...Commonweal, [ISSN 0010-3330] A Review of But arms proliferation in all these categories is not spawned by sheer availabiliPublic Affairs, Religion, Literature, and the Arts, is published biweekly except Christmas/New Year's...
...10038...
...A decade later, with the signing of the START and the Politics of Recognition: II accord in Moscow on January 3, 1993, remarkable reductionsDavid McCabe 19 up to two-thirds of Russian and U.S...
...More than 150 nations, not including But nations do not necessarily abide by their treaty obliga- China, approved the resolution...
...It's while back, my car was stolen from in front amazing the number of things Richard has done, and done of my house in San Francisco...
...Crude fission weapons can be constructed by nearly any nation Editor: Margaret O'Brien Steinfels able to reprocess nuclear fuel into plutonium from its civilian power stations...
Vol. 120 • February 1993 • No. 3
