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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 2, 1982
PAGE 11
Hence, Senator Edward Kennedy, with eyes on the White House in
1
84, has co
sponsored legislation on Capitol Hill calling for a joint, verifiable
u.s.
U.S.S.R. nuclear freeze.
Advocates of the freeze claim that nuclear disarmament is going to become
the central moral issue of the 1980
1
s, just as Vietnam was in the '60s. The
political resolutions introduced in Congress represent only the tip of the
iceberg. The senators and congressmen are merely responding to a flood of
university teach-ins, referendums ranging from town hall meetings in
Vermont to statewide initiatives in California, as well as an upsurge in
books describing in graphic detail the horrors of nuclear war. It's as if
life under the nuclear cloud--a reality since the early 1950's--had gone
unnoticed to the generation of self-centered pleasure-seekers during the
1960's and 70's. Suddenly it dawns on many--"Hey man, there are real BOMBS
out there!"
Nuclear freeze advocates cut across a rather wide swath of society, but
mostly stem from the intellectual upper crust. It is hardly the "grass
roots" movement the press portrays it as being. A list of some of the newer
anti-nuclear organizations reflects this professional and intellectual
orientation:
Physicians for Social Responsibility, International Physi
cians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, the Lawyers Alliance for Nuclear
Arms Control, the Business Alert to Nuclear War, Artists for Survival.
These groups join older anti-nuclear bodies plus the ever-present anti
Vietnam carryover crowd always anxious for another issue.
Religious
leaders and groups are also playing an important role in the movement.
The movement, of course, appeals to a growing segment of the public at
large, primarily idealistic people and others who want a dramatic, simple
"quick fix" to the arms race. Those who can see flaws in this approach are
almost accused of favoring a nuclear war. Recent statements on the part of
the Reagan Administration stating the belief that a nuclear war can be
limited or is survivable add to the clamor.
Critics of the movement point up its essential idealistic flaw, that of
getting the Soviets to agree to a verifiable freeze--meaning that both
sides would have the right to confirm the other's observance of the agree
ment on site in the opponent's country, if necessary.
The verifiability
question has been the principle obstacle in all past disarmament talks with
the Soviets.
Some of the most idealistic "freeze-firsters" (freeze now and negotiate
later) are not overly concerned about verifiability. They are so frigh
tened about the prospect of nuclear war--but not overly concerned over the
certainty of Soviet nuclear superiority translated into political leverage
and domination--that they call for the U.S. to take the first step "on
faith" and to set the "right example" for Moscow. Some go further still.
Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark has called on the United States "to
become the first nation to unilaterally disarm." Dr. Benjamin Spock urged
in a recent mass mailing: "We must stop him. And we can stop him"--Ronald
Reagan, that is--from making it "more likely than ever that you and I will
die in a nuclear attack."
The President, in the view of the freeze-firsters, is the main culprit in
the supposed arms race, one who is turning down legitimate offers of peace
from the Kremlin such as Presinent Brezhnev's recent announcement of a