Weinberger Scored on Testing

Weinberger’s article is typical of the paranoid mentality that has produced the critical situation that the world is in today with 50,000-plus nuclear warheads.

The planet and all of human life is more threatened today by nuclear war and its effects than at any time in history. It is just such testing that has resulted in the advancement in the nuclear arms race and produced such hideous weapons of destruction.

The United States, with its technological advancements, has succeeded in being the first in the development of the atomic bomb, the hydrogen bomb, the more compact and efficient hydrogen bomb, the neutron bomb, the multiple independent targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV), capable of delivering 10 warheads per missile, and now we are testing the next generation of nuclear weapons, the nuclear pumped X-ray laser, to be used in Strategic Defense Initiative. The United States has always been able to lead the technological advances with the Soviet Union in pursuit to maintain parity.

Albert Einstein in 1946 said, “The unleased power of the atom has changed everything save our modes of thinking and thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.”

Drift we have, from none in 1946 to 50,000 today, with the number growing every year. Do we need any more evidence of drift? So when Weinberger suggests that we need to continue testing weapons of up to 150 kilotons, to insure reliability, one begins to suspect his motives given his commitment to the Strategic Defense Initiative.

Any continued testing by the United States and the Soviet Union must be the leaders in establishing a verifiable ban on nuclear testing if we are ever going to change the direction of drift that Einstein saw. As Einstein said “save our modes of thinking” should be evident that a new way of thinking is required if we are ever going to change the finality of the drift.

JOSEPH R. CASTRO

Manhattan Beach