Planning for Peace

...We found that the need for serious thought and action on conversion has largely been disregarded by most of the business community...

...what is needed now is not more of the same production of consumer goods, but production geared to meet the nation's vast social needs...

...We prepare for war," former Senator Ralph W. Yarborough of Texas has observed, "at a rate that practically forces us to look for a war to use our war material in...

...To some, the idea of planning for peace may seem premature...

...It was possible, to a limited degree, to talk during the closing days of World War II about reconversion, for the challenge was to get back to business as usual—to meet the long-denied demand for consumer goods whose output had been curtailed...

...Furthermore, they indicated an unwillingness to initiate such actions without a firm commitment from the Government that their efforts will quickly reap the financial rewards to which they are accustomed...

...For one fourth of a century a massive share of America's resources has been squandered on wars and weaponry, and in the process the nation has been transformed into something approaching a perpetual garrison state...

...Since then, however, America has learned how to carry on business as usual while waging war...

...125 for the war in Indochina...

...Most industries have no plans or projects designed to apply their resources to civilian problems...

...For hundreds of corporations, defense contracts are a prime—or sole—source of profits...

...The issues in conversion are difficult and complex...

...The needs are vast— in education, health, housing, even food—but they have been neglected for so long that it is easy to forget their dimensions and difficult to visualize the remedies...

...For many millions of Americans, working for the war machine has become a way of life and a means of earning a livelihood...

...Nixon's recently proclaimed conversion to Key-nesian economics, as well as the increased military funding provided in his budget for fiscal 1972, suggest that the President's blueprint for a "new American revolution" makes no provision for conversion from war to peace...

...It is equally incomprehensible —and equally obvious—that nobody in the Administration—and hardly anyone outside it—is working on a "Plan B" for the American economy...

...The bill also provides incentives for industry to enter into active conversion planning, with the assistance of the National Commission...

...It is time to start treating our psychosis, to reorient our economy, to restore our mental health...

...The lack of such planning is playing a major, though indefinable, role in prolonging the war and continuing the arms race...

...In his inaugural address on January 20, 1969, President Nixon declared: "We shall plan now for the day when our wealth can \>e transferred from the destruction of war abroad to the urgent needs of our people at home...

...The Subcommittee's chairman, Senator Abraham Ribicoff, Connecticut Democrat, summarized the findings of the survey in these words: "In general, the responses indicated that private industry is not interested in initiating any major attempts at meeting critical public needs...

...Another bill, sponsored by Senator Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, would authorize a three-year, $500 million program to be administered by the National Science Foundation and the Small Business Administration for the purpose of facilitating the shift of scientific and technical manpower from military to social programs...

...Markets owe their existence to demand," he wrote, "and demand itself is generated by needs...

...No plans have been made, though the President continues to speak often of "the problems of a nation in transition from a wartime economy to a peacetime economy...

...19 for the space program...

...Pending in Congress are several measures designed to start the nation on the road to conversion from war to peace...

...As the late Walter Reuther suggested a couple of years ago, our capacity to plan for war has far outrun our capacity to plan for peace...

...Keeping on a super war footing and treating and preaching and propagandizing war every so-called peaceful day gives the nation a war psychosis that is detrimental not only to our economy, but to the spirit, the psyche, the soul, and the mental health of America...

...The recent fight over Federal funding of the supersonic transport plane provided an example in microcosm o the pressures that could be brought t( bear in behalf of maintaining and expanding our war-dependent economy Only 13,000 jobs (twelve times thai many jobs were lost the same month because of the sagging economy) and only the profits of a few contractor: were jeopardized by the grounding of the SST, yet this was enough to bring the full force of the organized labor movement into action in behalf of a project that threatened the environment and wasted the public's money...

...I can't comprehend that there never was a Plan B," a Federal official said after Congress voted to kill the SST, "but it's obvious now that nobody even considered the chance of an SST defeat...

...The needs of the poor and the problems of the environment, he added, are "socially desirable goals" which the Government may encourage "from time to time...

...Don't bite the war that feeds you," said a lapel button that sprouted some months ago among California aerospace employes...

...Some 5,000 communities across this country depend on military bases or defense plants as the mainstays of their local economies...

...The McGovern and Kennedy bills, and others of a similar nature pending in Congress, represent only a beginning...

...As we have pointed out time and again, the monstrous war in Indochina is not being "wound down" but widened, and threatens to exact its grisly toll for years to come...

...Taken together, these interests constitute a formidable lobby for war—a lobby whose exertions are likely to increase —and perhaps prevail—as it sees itself threatened by a possible outbreak of peace...

...As we note elsewhere in these pages, no visible progress has been achieved at the strategic arms limitation talks between the United States and the Soviet Union...

...89 cents for cancer research...

...The mayor of Denver, Colorado, told Senator Ribicoff: "No business firm or industrial complex in this area, to the best of my knowledge, has made any specific breakthrough in any significant field of benefit to the city...

...Working from those figures, it should be possible to draft a rational agenda for America—an agenda that devotes the nation's resources to life, not death...

...Last year the Government of the United States spent these sums for every man, woman, and child in this country: • $410 for national defense...

...Senator George McGovern, South Dakota Democrat, who has been introducing conversion bills since he came to the Senate in 1963, is sponsoring a measure that would require a portion of the profits earned on military, space, and atomic energy contracts to be deposited in a reserve fund administered by a National Commission on Peacetime Transition...

...As the Senators acknowledge, far more ambitious efforts will be required to bring about a reordering of the nation's priorities...

...The private sector has shown itself no more eager than the Government to face the hard challenges of conversion...

...It is time to start planning for peace...

...The Federal Government spends $1,400 to train each South Vietnamese soldier, but only $54 to educate each American child," Senator Kennedy has pointed out...

...The chairman of the board of Goodyear Tire and Rubber indicated his firm saw no need to enter the civilian public market beyond a few "spinoffs" from its military work...

...The time to begin is now...

...Otherwise, they appear eager to pursue greater defense contracts or stick to commercial products within the private sector...

...Last year the Senate Subcommittee on Executive Reorganization and Government Research circulated a questionnaire on conversion among the heads of 118 major industries, the mayors of eighteen large cities, and the leaders of seven labor unions...

...The money would be used to pay benefits for workers dislocated by defense and space cutbacks to give them time to retrain and find new employment...

...Military activity, on the other hand, directly employs some 7.5 million Americans and indirectly supports about 11 million more—a potential army of apostles for war...

...The adjustment will be difficult for corporations whose experience with the Pentagon has taught them how to thrive on ineptitude, and for millions of individuals whose entire working lives have been devoted to skills that have no conceivable civilian application...

...19 for foreign aid...

...Kennedy has also drafted legislation that would provide loans to unemployed scientists and engineers during the period of transition...

...But these realities, it seems to us, make planning for peace all the more imperative...

...In general, Ribicoff concluded, "private industry is not interested in initiating any major attempts at meeting critical public needs...