On Loving The Bomb

Remarks to the meeting of Citizens Reacting Against Anti-Nuclear Propaganda December 21, 1983

I speak to you tonight regarding the recent television program about alleged nuclear war. The question about The Morning After is, of course, will we still respect each other in the morning? This obviously was not a show suitable for children. In fact, the war itself has been rated PG, based on the previews.

Perhaps you noticed that there were no women on the panel following the show: You weren’t supposed to notice that. Or anything. But since you did, be advised that this was a panel of experts, and women know very little about blowing up the planet. We know what we’re doing.

The goal of the film was admirable. It attempted to scare us to death so that we won’t need to use those nasty nukes. This is also the President’s goal. In line with this, President Ron has made a proposal to reduce the missiles and their targets to zero. This is called the Ground Zero Model. What we would shoot for is to build down our missiles. Of course, when we cut in half the number of missiles, we replace them with new ones which are more than twice as effective. What we are aiming for ultimately is one single weapon that will be ultimately effective. Arms reduction will continue to be a matter of great importance to us until there are no matters of great importance.

Our deployments of nuclear peace-keepers in Europe, it should be clear, are in response to a request from our allies in NATO, just as our deployment of the rescue mission in Grenada was in response to a request from our subsidiaries, that is, allies, there in the Eastern Carob Bean.

ALLEGED SPECIES

As Mr. Buckley explained, if the Soviets know that a war will cause the extinction of the species, including Russians, then they won’t strike first. (Except of course by accident. We don’t have accidents, and if the Soviets do, well that’s their problem, isn’t it?)

Mr. McNamara said we must have stability, such as he personally tried to establish in Vietnam. Mr. McNamara unfortunately overlooks the fact that the tension in the world which is causing nuclear risk comes from an imbalance in the warhead distribution, weighted heavily towards the North. Now that Argentina has done its part to redress this inequity, we’re not arranging, through Israel which is not our proxy, for the South Africans to be able to contribute to peace as well. The Soviet Union, however, is doing nothing to rectify the imbalance, since all their territory lies in the North while many of ours are in the Southern Hemisphere.

Mr. McNamara also says we have consistently overstated our underpreparation for nuclear confrontationism—that is, the fact that we don’t have nearly enough missiles. In other words, we lie. Now I ask you, what would Mr. McNamara know about that?

CLEAN STABLES

We must have a stable detergent to clean out the Russians before they clean us out first. We must also be able to clean them out after they’ve cleaned us out first. The alleged scientist Mr. Sagan talked about a nuclear winter, which would plunge us all into sub-freezing temperatures for nine months. Now aside from his clearly faulty arithmetic, everyone knows there can be no winter in a nuclear war. That’s why we’re building down our tactical weapons, replacing them with strategic ones. It’s important to be strategic about this problem.

Another problem with cutting our own arms is that we will be seen as wimps. Armless wimps at that. Further, the minor nuclear powers will then have almost as many warheads as us, and may begin to think of themselves as our equals, and begin to throw their weight around.

That’s why we have to go to the high frontier: the wild, wild up. We must heighten the danger. Anything that reduces the horror of nuclear war increases its probability, since people will be more willing to engage in it. So we must make it as horrible as possible. That is our moral obligation.

Mr. Kissinger talked about these moral obligations, about which he has done a great deal of reading. He assured us we are not contemplating limited war. No indeed. We are talking about controlled unconventional hostilities.

Mr. Kissinger’s other contribution to the program was that we have got to have confidence in ourselves. That is, it’s a confidence game.

Mr. Bush, for his part, pointed out the day after the show after the day after that, “In Europe, where our detergent efforts have been focused, there has been peace since 1945. In the rest of the world, more than 100 wars have taken place.” So as you can see, if we would have had nuclear weapons in the rest of the world there would have been peace there too. That is why the only real guarantee of true peace in the real world is to put a satelly of battleites, perhaps even a battery of satellites, armed with nuclear detergents, completely surrounding the globe and aimed at all potential disorders, incidents, episodes of confusion and locuses of potential social change.

That concludes the discussion on this issue. Thank you for having me here to share your opinions with you.