No More Hiroshimas (cont'd)

In 1971, I got a chance to go to Hiroshima again, this time as one of six U.S. peace delegates to the World Conference Against Atomic & Hydrogen Bombs. I met hibakusha (atomic bomb survivors) for the first time and listened to their stories. It's hard to explain, but hearing the tales of their suffering in Japanese made me get all choked up. Most of the hibakusha were noncombatant civilians in a war they did not want. They worried that Japan might remilitarize and that other countries would continue to build more bombs. They also conveyed their feelings of solidarity with the peoples of Indochina and with those of us in the peace/anti-war movement throughout the world. The hibakusha's unanimous plea was for Hiroshima and Nagasaki to be never repeated again to anyone.

Today, in 1982, I am afraid that the danger of war and the risk of a nuclear holocaust are very real. Despite the fact that a worldwide movement in support of disarmament and peace is developing, the United States and the Soviet Union are engaged in an arms race of unprecedented proportions. Even though a comprehensive program for disarmament was supported by the majority of representatives to the Second Special Session on Disarmament of the UN General Assembly, in June 1982, it failed to be adopted because of the opposition of the two superpowers.

Ever since World War II, the United States and the Soviet Union have been adversaries in a" cold war," during which time both sides have poured in billions of dollars into military spending. Their combined nuclear arsenal already surpasses 50,000 nuclear warheads, which is equal to about one million Hiroshima bombs and more than enough to blow up the entire planet many times over. Such overkill sometimes lulls us into thinking that no one can be that crazy to actually use these weapons. But the hard, cold reality is that both superpowers are putting more and more emphasis on actual combat readiness, with more than three­fourths of their military budgets allocated for conventional weapons and units. It is frightening to think that they are not just engaging in idle threats when each side declares its readiness to fight any type of war. You know that we're in big trouble when the Pentagon develops a "strategic master plan for winning a protracted nuclear war" that could last for six months, and when a State Department adviser specifies that 20 million U.S. fatalities would represent an "acceptable cost" for winning.

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