‘Talking Down Arms’

Kissinger states that “strategic defense is the only new idea that points away from excessive reliance on nuclear weapons.” Responsible technical opinion states that current strategic defense proposals can never be made sufficiently powerful, accurate or reliable. They are vulnerable to anti-satellite missiles and in fact would accelerate the arms race as the Soviet Union builds more and better offensive weapons to overwhelm the strategic defenses. The thinking is old-as old as fortresses, the Maginot Line and our previous ABM attempts.

In reality, the only possibility for mutually assured survival in the nuclear age is for both the United States and the U.S.S.R. to adopt a new way of thinking about each other; about other people; about the world we live in and about conflict. We must acknowledge that we are biologically, psychologically and economically interdependent and that global survival requires that we work together to build a world without war.

ARLEEN FORSHEIT

Los Angeles