Dear Editor
DEAR EDITOR MEN AND BOMBS Reading the discussion, in your pages and elsewhere, of proposals to end atomic-bomb tests and/or ban nuclear weapons, I am surprised to find not a single American...
...Drafting American "boys'' would create problems for political leadership in terms of a hyperactive interest by American parents in foreign policy...
...As Bertram D. Wolfe and others have pointed out in your pages, Soviet losses in World War II—heaviest of all nations—imply a decided manpower shortage in the years ahead...
...it is that our leaders are afraid to muster them...
...3. Great-power disengagement in central Europe, including the neutralization of Germany and the present satellites, with United Nations emergency forces (recruited from small powers) to police the frontiers of the neutral zone...
...Even assuming that Peking could rally an effective force of some two million men, any troops beyond that would probably be on about the level of the Serbian troops of World War I—in other words, an economic liability...
...This illustrates the fact that, in assessing manpower for conventional war, one can only equate on a one-for-one basis troops roughly comparable in education, training, morale, skill in handling equipment, etc...
...Lexington, Mass...
...We now have an Allied advantage of 350 million to 200 million, without counting Latin America, Switzerland, Scandinavia or Germany...
...Third, the Chinese were effectively defeated in Korea by a small force under General Ridgway without any bombing of Manchuria...
...It would seem clear that the difficulty is political...
...Even if one assumes (falsely) that the Communist threat to freedom is military (rather than socio-political), the fact is that the nations of the free world have more than enough manpower to cope with Soviet aggression in conventional war...
...Kissinger's ruminations on "limited" war...
...2. An international agreement expanding the open city*' concept to prohibit any type of bombing of civilian centers...
...From this point of view, a dozen Chinese divisions are probably not equal to one Soviet one...
...This is why Soviet armed forces now are probably below the 4-million level, and will have to be reduced again...
...It might even, after a while, build a non-Communist "peace bloc" into the structure of American politics—the type of public opinion with which no U. S. leader since Roosevelt has had the imagination or the nerve to cope...
...the population of the USSR is 200 million—as opposed to 215 million for the United States and France alone...
...Second, it is far from clear that China should not be considered in the same category as the Soviets' European satellites...
...If the U. S. Strategic Air Command, through its own huge propaganda apparatus and through the support of powerful aircraft manufacturers, did not so dominate the creation of American political opinion, such a program would merit at least as much discussion as Dr...
...guerrilla activity continues to flare and the "100 flowers" campaign revealed tremendous hostility to the regime in all strata of the population...
...5. New and sincere attempts at a fully policed reduction of conventional forces among the great powers, and the creation, of ^ permanent United Nations security force composed of contingents from small powers...
...The peoples of the Soviet satellites are a liability, not an asset to any Soviet war effort and therefore should be subtracted from, rather than added to, any assessment of total Soviet strength...
...Ernest Bunker...
...That false premise is that the Atlantic democracies lack the manpower to match the land armies of the Soviet bloc...
...4. Gradual dismantling of U. S. overseas bombing bases as the Europeans (and such Asian powers as Japan and India) acquire enough well-trained and well-equipped divisions to defend their own territories against invasion...
...It is not that we do not have the men...
...From that premise have flowed such disastrous U. S. policy errors as the decision to place Nazi generals back in harness, the reliance on weapons of mass extermination expressed in the "massive retaliation" dogma, and the current refusal to ban the testing and/or use of atomic bombs...
...Airpower is "cheap'' as far as its domestic implications are concerned...
...Yet, even assuming total mobilization (old people, teenagers, women, etc...
...DEAR EDITOR MEN AND BOMBS Reading the discussion, in your pages and elsewhere, of proposals to end atomic-bomb tests and/or ban nuclear weapons, I am surprised to find not a single American politician, writer or scientist striking at the false premise that is at the very heart of official U. S. confusion...
...First, if one begins to count the Chinese, one may with the same logic count in Indians (350 million) and Japanese (90 million) against them—since these are the only two powers in Asia against which China could conceivably be embroiled in a serious major war...
...We return, then, to the situation in Europe, where the democratic peoples (including North Americans and excluding Germans) have twice as many reliable men as the Communists...
...Such a policy would include: 1. Unconditional prohibition of nuclear weapons and an end to nuclear tests...
...Nevertheless, recognition of the facts about military manpower could lead to a new U. S. policy which would not only maintain American security but would win uncommitted millions throughout the world...
...Let us merely eliminate them altogether, while adding to the NATO total the United Kingdom (50 million), Canada (16 million), Italy (50 million) and Benelux (20 million...
...Why, then, the Washington reliance on strategic bombing (civilian-killing) with nuclear weapons...
...it is clear that the U. S. decision not to march to the Yalu again was based on political, not military grounds...
...The attempt to build up the 600 million Chinese as a present-day military threat is completely spurious...
...As things stand now, however, we shall continue to lose the battle for men's minds all over the world so long as our paramount values are not democracy and peace but the bombing plane and the atomic weapon...
Vol. 41 • May 1958 • No. 18
