‘Why Not Negotiate?’

You asked the right question in your editorial (April 10), “Why Not Negotiate?,” but, not surprisingly, you didn’t come up with an answer. For, of course, with the mind-set of this Administration and many hawks on the Democratic side of the aisle there is no answer except a continuous and unremitting escalation of the arms race in a never-ending (and never-reaching) search for nuclear superiority over the Soviet Union.

This mindless determination for “superiority” is the natural byproduct of 40 years of Cold War of which President Reagan is only the current presiding maestro. The line stretches back unbroken through Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, John Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman.

Your editorial refers to “nuclear-age youngsters” who are going to keep asking, why can’t we stop the nuclear madness? Think about it. The first nuclear-age “youngsters” are now 40 years old. Where are they? What are they doing with their lives and their second-generation nuclear-age kids?

There’s an organization called “Beyond War,” which has been quietly working on this Cold War mind-set. They argue that “war is obsolete” and we must begin disenthralling ourselves of the myth that we can fight nuclear wars or any other kind. They are not alone in believing that mind-set changes are possible.

The late Swedish Prime Minister Olaf Palme, one of the leading proponents for world peace before he was killed by an assassin, said last November that not only war is obsolete but the concept of nuclear deterrence as well--”. . . deterrence becomes like a drug. You need stronger and stronger doses to make it work, and in the end it doesn’t work at all. All it leads to is the ultimate catastrophe.”

Even our President says, “A nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought.” Perhaps it’s too late for this confused, old man. Perhaps he can’t change. Perhaps we’ll have to wait for the “nuclear-age youngster” to come along. But please hurry, will you. I ain’t so young anymore myself.

LU HAAS

Pacific Palisades