On October 15, 1986 I wrote the following letter, and it was published in the Ojai Valley News:
To the Editor:
President Reagan's speech to the nation about the results of the
Iceland summit with Mikhail Gorbach requires and intelligent response
to clarify the true nature of the issues of world importance which
have been so cleverly distorted by the President.
Mr. Reagan states that the “Soviets may be developing a nationwide defense.”
The use of the word “may” here allows the President to completely distort
the truth without actually lying directly.
Only Mr. Reagan and a few of his advisors and selected scientists believe
that a comprehensive system against nuclear weapons is even feasible.
He also states that the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) is “non-nuclear.”
This is a blatant falsehood, because the laser-beam weapons
involved are nuclear-powered.
This is probably the main reason why he is so adamant
about not stopping nuclear testing now.
Mr. Reagan’s statement that
“we would share the benefits of advanced defenses”
with the Soviet Union is hardly credible when current U.S. policy
carefully outlaws the release of any technology, even non-military,
to Eastern bloc countries.
The idea that SDI would be needed to “protect against cheating
or the possibility of a madman sometime deciding to create nuclear missiles”
defies all common sense.
It would be absurd to spend nearly a trillion dollars as an “insurance policy”
when more intelligent methods of verification could much more directly
prevent the development and deployment of new nuclear weapons
after they have all been carefully dismantled
under the same kind of verification scrutiny.
As for the madman hypothesis, missiles are not exactly designed
and built in someone’s basement, and if a madman did build a nuclear bomb
and put it in a suitcase, the SDI would hardly be able to shoot it down.
Mr. Reagan’s “pledge to the American people
that I would not trade away SDI”
is not something the American people asked for nor want
but rather something that he is trying to foist upon us.
If Mr. Reagan is not willing to give up this mad pledge,
then the American people will have to get a new president
before any real arms control or disarmament can occur.
Mr. Reagan describes American foreign policy as
“not just the prevention of war but the extension of freedom.”
This is why he is supporting insurgencies in “Afghanistan, Nicaragua,
Angola, Cambodia and elsewhere.”
In other words, he is not really preventing wars but is in fact fostering
these civil wars in an attempt to spread so-called “democratic institutions”
in an imperialistic design.
He fails to recognize that the use of terroristic force against a
legitimate government is the antithesis of respect for freedom and democracy.
As usual the President argues that the reason the Soviets are bargaining
seriously is because of the tremendous building
of American military power and SDI plans.
Of course the USSR wants to negotiate an end to this insane arms race
before it gets even worse, but that does not mean that they would not
have negotiated arms agreements prior to the worsening by Reagan policies.
In fact, the Soviet Union has been in favor of a complete freeze on the testing
and deployment of nuclear weapons as a reasonable first step
toward reductions for seven years now.
At the same time that he is pursuing his hostile objectives Mr. Reagan claims
that he is “seeking means to lessen tensions with the Soviets,
and ways to prevent war and keep the peace.”
Mr. Reagan insists on “improvement of human conditions
within the Soviet Union” while ignoring the facts that there are
no homeless people in the Soviet Union
but tens of thousands in the United States.
As with Nicaragua, the best way to help the people’s conditions is to stop
threatening them with war which forces them
to take repressive and militaristic measures in self-defense.
I would like to respond to the questions which
Mr. Reagan asks the American people to reflect upon.
The first is, “How does a defense of the United States
threaten the Soviet Union or anyone else?”
The answer to this is rather complicated because of
the convoluted nature of deterrence strategy.
Nuclear deterrence is based on the MAD idea of Mutually Assured Destruction.
Because neither side has any effective defense,
we are each hostage to the fear of retaliation.
This, of course, assumes that moral self-restraint has been abandoned;
few seem to realize that this self-restraint is probably the real reason why
we have not had a world war in the last 40 years, not fear.
Nonetheless the fear could be overcome if one side believed that
they had a defense adequate to withstand a retaliatory attack
following a massive first-strike.
In other words, the combination of defense with offense
destroys the “defense” by deterrence.
Since recent U.S. weapons, such as the MX, Trident II, Pershing 2,
and cruise missiles are already perceived as first-strike weapons
because of their accuracy and targeting on Soviet missiles,
the Soviets are reasonably afraid that this combination with a defensive shield
would give the United States an overwhelming strategic advantage
which could be used as blackmail in power politics if not for an outright attack.
Secondly, the research and development into space weapons
and other “star wars” technology could very easily develop new offensive weapons,
resulting in a whole new generation of weaponry even more sophisticated
than traditional nuclear weapons.
Thirdly, the development of this technology means an escalation of the arms race
from a weapons-infested Earth into the heavens,
and the eventual cost of this contest could easily be a trillion dollars
for the United States alone and whatever the Soviet Union
would need to spend in order to counter these developments.
Mr. Reagan’s second question is,
“Why are the Soviets so adamant that
America remain forever vulnerable to Soviet rocket attack?”
His third question asks the same thing again and adds the word “forever.”
This is a “Have you stopped beating your wife?” question,
because it assumes that what is implied in the question is true.
However, Mr. Gorbachev has stated clearly that his goal
is to eliminate all nuclear weapons on Earth before the end of the century.
The Soviet Union is not only willing to dismantle all nuclear weapons
if the United States and other nations will agree,
but they are also willing to reduce conventional forces in Europe,
which is of great concern to many military strategists.
Finally, Mr. Reagan speaks of our expanded economic might.
Yet the United States is being quickly bankrupted financially as well as morally
and spiritually in this insane arms race.
In less than six years of the Reagan Administration, the U.S. has gone from
being the largest creditor nation in the world to
now being the largest debtor nation.
The national debt has gone from one trillion dollars to over two trillion dollars
to pay for this irresponsible and senseless military buildup.
Not since Germany in the thirties has a nation so drastically increased its
military power so quickly, and yet the military forces of the U.S.
are thousands of times greater than anything Hitler ever commanded.
Why are we doing this?
Mr. Reagan gives the lame reason that
this is the way to get the U.S.S.R. to negotiate.
He is trying to claim that we are building up so that we can reduce.
To the folks from Missouri, the results speak for themselves.
Currently the combined federal deficit and national trade deficit
are running over one billion dollars per day.
How long will it be before credibility is lost,
and this mountain of debt collapses of its own weight?
Mr. Reagan stated that he would not negotiate our future;
yet his policies place these tremendous economic burdens on the next generation.
He seems to be giving us a choice between the horrendous disaster
of a nuclear war and a serious economic depression.
Maybe economic hardship is what materialistic Americans need
to learn the hard lessons of greed, arrogance, and paranoia.
The time has come for the American people to regain control of the
government through Congress and with the next president in order to change
the course of our nation so that the disasters which are becoming more
and more inevitable can at least be lessened.
If we do not work for true peace, we will be left with either war
or a society increasingly bankrupted by this military spending spree.Sanderson Beck