Weapons Testing
Eugene J. Carroll’s Column Left on testing of nuclear weapons (Commentary, Sept. 3) brings to mind my favorite definition of democracy: a system which guarantees one thing only--that its citizens get exactly what they deserve.
When two former Presidents, Democrat Lyndon Johnson and Republican Richard Nixon, refused to terminate our Vietnam War, the people made their feelings known to their elected representatives, and it was Congress that ended what should never have begun. President Bush, showing that he can be as obtuse and obstinate as those two predecessors, refuses to end the costly and counterproductive testing of nuclear weapons at a time when common sense cries out for us to stop setting the wrong example for the rest of the world.
Unless we want a world teeming with nuclear-armed nations, it is we who must take the lead toward an eventual non-proliferation regime. In that incremental process cessation of testing is a serious, significant first step. Congress, doing something we citizens want and “deserve,” ought to receive gratitude and support from all of us.
HAROLD WILLENS
Los Angeles
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