DISARMAMENT BRIEFS
Lash, Joseph P.
Disarmament Briefs Letter to a Generation, by Ralph E. Flanders. Beacon Press. 116 pp. 12.50. The Price of Peace—a plan for disarmament, by Charles G. Bolte. Beacon Press. 108 pp. $2.50. Reviewed...
...Bolte contends that the only safe program is the total disarmament of states with the simultaneous transfer to a U.N...
...Reviewed by Joseph P. Lash THESE two litttle books reflect the widespread dissatisfaction among thinking Americans with the way initiative in foreign policy has been allowed to pass into the hands of the Russians...
...Both books strike out at the lack of bold, affirmative ideas which in the last few years has placed the United States increasingly on the defensive before world opinion...
...That would mean that for the first time since the U.N...
...This really is the linch-pin of the Bolte argument...
...epousal of what Flanders calls the "Grand Project...
...This book is the result...
...observers believe this has set the stage for agreement on a first-phase disarmament program which would include the elements of an early warning system and reductions in conventional armaments...
...Perhaps that is man's destiny, but to most of us it seems necessary and useful to make the effort to save humanity by taking men and nations as they are...
...In the disarmament field the apostle of this approach has been that indefatigable Frenchman, the socialist Jules Moch...
...position on disarmament under the Eisenhower Administration...
...If the salvation of mankind depends on the prompt acceptance of world government, then we probably had better resign ourselves to atomic extinction...
...Flanders addresses a warning, specifically to the "oncoming generation," that "while preserving our ideals we may yet be outmaneuvered in the battle for men's minds...
...Elaboration of a "safe" plan for world disarmament is the major theme of The Price of Peace...
...police authority of enough armed power, including bases and A-bombs, to enable that authority to enforce its disarmament decisions...
...But even Modi's proposal for partial reductions in conventional forces and partial control over nuclear weapons falls into Bolte's classification of "unsafe...
...of any kind of a disarmament agreement, however, are mammoth...
...He fails to defend it by rigorous analysis of the many partial approaches to disarmament—some of which occupied a central place in the London talks...
...Theoretically there are many modalities of disarmament which are partial yet safe...
...Later he joined the U.S...
...Bolte's approach to disarmament, like Senator Flanders', owes a good deal to Grenville Clark...
...The forces that stand in the way...
...The threat of a third world war is a principal weapon in this contest...
...The French position was somewhat different- Moch argued passionately that France would not accept a disarmament limited to conventional armaments, which would allow the nuclear weapons race "to continue and be extended...
...This is one of the rare and tragic moments of history when there is no good middle way," he writes, "when half a loaf is worse lottf none...
...Our representative, Harold Stassen, argued that until there were political settlements of such outstanding issues as Germany and Formosa, the United States would not reduce its forces below 2,500,000...
...We must dedicate our lives to the establishment of worldwide controlled disarmament—disarmament down to the small arms needed to preserve domestic peace," he writes...
...At the London talks the main objection of the United States to the Soviet proposal that the United States and Russia agree to military manpower limits of 1,500,000 was not one of military safety but political expediency...
...disarmament discussions began the two great superpowers will be discussing disarmament from about the same starting line...
...One might mention an early warning system, reductions in conventional arms and armed forces, control of future production of nuclear weapons, the thinning out of forces on each side of the iron curtain...
...Letter to A Generation is written by a doughty old Republican Senator from Vermont, a member of the Party's liberal internationalist wing, who will be remembered for many things, but especially for his plain-spoken attack on Senator McCarthy...
...This is more than of academic interest...
...Since leaving the government, Bolte, like many others, has been dismayed by the disintegration of the U.S...
...Mission at the U.N-, and as one of the young advisers sitting behind Ambassador Austin during the Korean debates in the Security Council became a familiar image on TV screens...
...He was well regarded in the Mission and during the last period of his work there—he left just before the Eisenhower deluge—worked with Benjamin V. Cohen in the Disarmament Commission...
...It would be a pity if the counter-forces in this country were immobilized by the perfectionist approach of Bolte...
...The way to do it is by all-out U.S...
...The unilateral Soviet reduction of 1,200,000 men, if carried out in fact, would bring Soviet force levels roughly down to those of the United States...
...This is a plan for universal controlled disarmament...
...Bolte contends there is no such halfway house between all-out armaments and total, U.N.-enforced disarmament...
...The avoidance of that war without surrender is his basic concern...
...His formula has been neither disarmament without controls as advocated by the Russians, nor controls without disarmament as urged by the United States until the recent London talks, but all the disarmament which is presently controllable...
...Unfortunately he does little more than assert his thesis...
...This international inspectorate-cum-police-force would be directed by five Commissioners, chosen from among the "neutral" states, and operating by majority ruleThe objection to Bolte's scheme is the same that has been directed against plans for world government now...
...Some U.N...
...Charles Bolte was a leading figure in founding the American Veterans Committee...
Vol. 20 • July 1956 • No. 7
