Can Americans survive as a free people in the nuclear age? “This question is too important to leave to the politicians,” according to Laurence W. Beilenson, a prominent Los Angeles lawyer, author, and authority on foreign policy.
Beilenson has studied and learned the lessons of history, he understands the present, and he is a realist about the future. He has thought the unthinkable (the possibility of nuclear war), and he has come up with a common-sense prescription for peace.
Beilenson established his credentials as a scholarly historian and foreign policy critic some years ago in his copiously documented volume called “The Treaty Trap” in which he proved that practically all treaties are violated and that any nation is a fool to rely on them. So he can with confidence condemn “treaty-reliance” as the “occupational disease” of diplomats and heads of state.
Beilenson’s new book, “Survival and Peace in the Nuclear Age,” is a good vaccine against the contagious disease of treaty-reliance. It should be studied by Senators and others who, infected with this disease, may be tempted to entrust our lives, liberty, and property to a SALT or other treaty rather than to modern military weapons.
“Survival” says our government’s failure to provide shield and shelter against enemy bombs and missiles is just like playing Russian roulette with a hundred million American lives. Beilenson’s expert analysis of our total lack of any civil defense, and of our government’s theories for keeping us naked and defenseless against a surprise first strike, should reopen national debate on this subject.
It is basic to American military doctrine — and, indeed, to our entire character and ideology — that we will never start a nuclear war or launch a first strike. That premise means, therefore, that if and when war comes, we must bear the first blow. Receiving the first blow without any shelter or shield against nuclear weapons means accepting the loss of 100,000,000 or more American lives.
In weapons as in football, each team has offensive and defensive players. It is in the defensive weapons that the United States has deliberately forfeited our advantage and become highly vulnerable, and has done so under cover of misleading slogans.
Defensive weapons in the nuclear age consist of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) (the shield referred to above), and a shelter program. In the 1960s, we were years ahead of the Russians in ABM technology and accomplished an ABM intercept of an ICBM over Kwajalein in 1962. The primary mission of Soviet diplomacy then became to stop our ABM technology. This goal was achieved in the SALT I Treaty, by which the United States gave up its right to build an ABM system to defend our people (reserving only the right to build an ABM to protect one Minuteman missile location, which was later cancelled).
Having SALTed down our ABM program, the Russians moved ahead with theirs and now have an extensive ABM system all around Moscow. The Soviet civil defense system is massive and extensive, including shelter capacity for a large proportion of the population.
Various Administration spokesmen deny the effectiveness of the Russian defense systems, but, in the last analysis, what difference does it make if some U.S. officials think the Russian system is defective or inefficient? The crucial factor is what the Russians think, and they are obviously thinking the unthinkable.
It is clear that the Russians have rejected all the myths and illusions which have frustrated any American ABM or shelter system: (1) that nuclear war is unthinkable — that it won’t happen because it would destroy the world as we know it and incinerate the human race; (2) that the peace can rest on Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) — that both powers can and must leave their population undefended as hostages to the other; and (3) that the Americans have “overkill”, the ability to destroy the Russians ten times over.
America cannot be defended by theories, by treaties, by weapons on the drawing board, or by threats to kill Russians after they kill us. America can be defended by the positive program for peace outlined by Beilenson in his perceptive book.
Frederick the Great once said, “Diplomacy without arms is music without instruments.” Unless we rebuild American offensive and defensive arms immediately, our diplomats will be whistling in space.
