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or would be willing to spend, to keep a
man aüve.
Many emerging new nations, whose
desperate business should be the pursuit
of a better life for its citizens, turns
instead to the arms traffickers and asks
about costs.
Usually, the graphic cost comparisons
between airplanes and tractors, tanks
and trucks, mortars and ploughs, rifles
and rakes are not considered. And yet,
newly independent countries find them–
selves in the control of a revolutionary
new government which came to power
largely because it continually high–
Jighted the terrible plight of the average
citizen of such country.
Notably, the dismantlement of Empire
in Africa; the retreat of the Colonial
Power era into the maze of newly con–
structed, autonomous countries. The
screams of peace, freedom and the good
life which brought such governments to
power quickly turned to críes for arms,
as each new government looked about
itself, frightened at the new neighbor
government, or tribalism within its own
boundaries.
While country after country in Africa
should have busily pursued agracian
reforms, campaigns against disease, mal–
nutrition, illiteracy, and stifling super–
stition, it found itself, iostead, caught
up in the same mindless search for
killing implements as the rest of
humankind.
The first order of business, it seems,
is to put the peasant in a uniform -
not a better home. And so the arms race
goes on - and on - and on.
United States- Biggest
Arms Dealer
The United States is the biggest
trafficker in world arms. This may seem
shocking for a nation pledged to peace.
Yet, the United States has found itself
in the grips of the burgeoning arms
cace,
burning up its economic strength
to arma world at war.
In the
24
years since World War JI,
according to one estímate, the United
States has sold or given away sorne of
the following implements of war:
2,150,000
military rifies
1,445,194
carbines
82,496
submachine guns
The
PLAIN TRUTH
30,668
mortars
25,106
field guns and howitzers
93,000
jet fighter planes
8,340
other planes
2,496
naval craft
19,827
tanks
448,383
other combat vehicles
31,360
missiles
Selling arms is big business as well as
a prime instrument in the power game
natious play. The United States, Soviet
Union, France, Britain al! sell arms for
both reasons. For example, the Soviet
Union reportedly supplied Egypt with
$2.25
BILLJON
worth of arms in the
31
months 9etween the end of the
1967
Middle East War and January
1970.
This
in hopes of extending its sphere of
inlluence in the Middle East.
It
is
estimated that approximately
three quarters of the world's arms
spending is done by the Soviet Union
and the United States. The United
States in one recent six-year period sold
arms worth at lcast
$13.3
billion to
57
countries - including Egypt - which
was being supplied so generously dur–
ing
this time by the Soviet Union.
Dizzying U.
S.
Defense
Budget
The United States has continued its
immense spending oo defense and
armaments. President Nixon's budget
sent to Congress on January
29, 1971
asked for
$77.5
BILLION
for national
defense, including nuclear weapons, for
the fiscal year cnding in June
30, 1972.
This was a staggering
ONE THIRD
of the
$229.2
billion total outgo projected for
that year. Defense spendiog was by far
the biggest single ítem on the budget.
Meanwhile, many feel that the
defense budget must climb to more di?–
zying heights. Sorne economists forecast
that a
$100
billion budget is inevitable.
Part of the rising expenditure is the
increasing cost of the weapons used.
For example the proposed Advanced
Manned Strategic Aircraft - successor
to the
B-
52 -
would cost
12
to
15
MIL·
LJON
dollars apiece. Here are sorne other
comparisons, showing the increasing
costliness of weapons:
Aircraft carrier
in
World War JI . . .
$
55 million
Carrier
Nimitz,
now being built . . $545 rnillion
April
1971
Destroyer in
World War
II
$8.7
millioo
Latest destroyer . . . . $200 million
Submarine in
World War
II
$4.7
million
Latest nuclear
submarine . . . . . . . $200 million
Bombee in
World War
11 . . .
218 thousaod
B-52 bomber
built io
1961 . . . .
$7.9
million
Figbter plane in
World War
JI . . .
$54 thousand
F-11
fighter plaoe . . $6.8 million
M-1 rifle made
in
1946 . . . . . . . . . $31
M-16 rifle used
in Vietnam . . . . . . $150
Perhaps even more frightening than
the rising cost of weapons is lhe dan–
gerously increasing destructive power of
modero weapons.
The Era of Overkill
In ancient warfare, generally one
man could only kili one other man with
a single effort. With the introduction
of gunpowder and cannons one man
could dispatch severa! of the enemy.
When machine guns, bombs and high–
powered artillery became available, the
destructive power at one's beck and call
increased mightily.
Then carne our modero age with
nuclear power, poison gas, chemical :md
biological warfare. Now onc man's
decision can annihilate entire cities
and could cause a chain reaction of
events to annihilate al! life!
Today we talk about 'overkill." That
is
BOTH
the United States and the
Soviet Union have enough weaponry
and atomic power to annihilate each
other many times over.
The fear of better weapons being
developed by the "enemy,"
QUALI·
TATIVELY,
as well as quantitatively,
drives each nation onward in its never–
ceasing search. Better means of delivery
(what a sickeningly appropriate word),
with belter trajectory, better and more
efficient warning systems; the search for
anti-missile missiles, and anti-anti-mis–
sile missiles, and anti-anti-anti-missile
missiles and anti -anti-anti-anti-missile
missiles, and ... aU
this
goes on aod
on.
A dcer hunter, armed with high-pow–
ered, scope-sighted rifle, has Jittle use
( Contintted on page 48)