Bomb Alert

Teach-ins on nuclear arms

What a waste it would be after 4 billion tortuous years of evolution if the dominant organism contrived its own self-destruction," Carl Sagan, popular guardian of the cosmos and professor of astronomy at Cornell, told a crowd of 2,000 in Ithaca, N.Y. "We are the first species to have devised the means." George Kistiakowsky, an adviser to President Dwight Eisenhower who had worked on the Manhattan Project, told a Harvard audience: "If I knew then what I know now, I never would have helped to develop the bomb." At U.C.L.A., Governor Jerry Brown declared: "It's possible to turn the arms race around by changing public opinion."

Peace activists set about doing just that last week at Veterans Day teach-ins on 148 campuses across the country. The convocations were organized by the Union of Concerned Scientists (U.C.S.), a group that for twelve years has fought for safeguards in the atomic-power industry and has now turned its efforts to the crusade against the nuclear arms race. Co-sponsors as diverse as the National Council of Churches, the Council on Economic Priorities, and Physicians for Social Responsibility helped attract large audiences for speakers such as former SALT Negotiator Paul Warnke, former Tehran Hostage Moorhead Kennedy, and Democratic Senator Gary Hart of Colorado.

The movement these people represent, made up of an amalgam of professional groups, is nowhere near as vocal as the current wave of pacifism in Europe or as dogmatic as the unilateralist ban-the-bomb protests of the '50s. Said Hart: "If it grows into a unilateral thing, that would not be useful. We are talking here of responsible arms control." Nor were the seminars a replay of the rallies of the Viet Nam era. "During the 1960s we were concerned about our boys who were dying overseas," explained U.C.L.A. Philosophy Professor Don Kalish. "Now I'm concerned about myself. It's much closer to home." The discussions were sober and sobering, providing a detailed depiction of a nuclear holocaust. Said Howard Hiatt, dean of Harvard's Faculty of Public Health: "I think the medical realities are not clearly appreciated by those who talk about winning or surviving a nuclear war."

The teach-ins generally did not address the complexities of the strategic struggle with the Soviet Union, or that country's own massive buildup of nuclear weapons. Yuri Kapralov, a counselor at the Soviet embassy, told a crowd in Boston: "I wish your leaders would talk as clearly and forcefully for peace as ours do." Said Jeffrey Knopf, a Harvard junior: "We're simply asking the Government to call the Soviets' bluff. The U.S. hasn't even matched the Soviets' willingness to talk."

Few of the teach-in panelists discussed the point that, for a decade or more, the Soviets have shown a marked willingness to build up their military establishment. Even so, the Veterans Day turnout seemed to indicate that the Administration is losing a propaganda battle.

The sentiments at the seminars, like those in Western Europe, have been inflamed by President Reagan's musings on the possibility of fighting a limited nuclear war and Secretary of State Alexander Haig's suggestion that NATO could fire a nuclear warning shot to deter the Soviets from invading Europe.

"Those statements do more to galvanize public concern than anything we do in an organized way," said U.C.S. Coordinator David Brunell, who helped plan the teach-ins. Hart says that the U.S. must regain the peace initiative by showing a greater willingness to negotiate arms agreements with the Soviets. As he said at Cornell: "The U.S. must go back to the bargaining table and offer a challenge to the Soviets to reduce nuclear weapons. If not, we entrust our survival to leaders who believe that a limited nuclear war can be fought and won, and who might act on that belief."

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