The nuclear freeze advocates are currently making a tremendous effort to capture the emotions of churchgoing Americans. By wrapping themselves in the Bible and words such as “peace” and “morality,” the freezeniks hope to chill Americans into pacifism.
A handy summary of their arguments appears in a little flier called “To Be or Not To Be in a Nuclear Age … That is the Question” published by the Christophers, an ecumenical, platitudinous organization which popularized the 20th-century use of the ancient saying “it is better to light one candle than to curse the darkness.”
The Christophers used to have a respectable reputation for presenting current moral issues factually and objectively. The “To Be” tract costs the Christophers their credibility. Because its arguments are typical of what is being said in the Freezeniks’ “peace offensive” in the churches, they are worth examining.
“To Be” falsely states: “A nuclear war is an unjust war.”” The truth is that’the world’s first nuclear war was a just war. We‘didn’t start it; we were the victim of a sneak bombing attack at Pearl Harbor in 1941. The sunken U.S.S. Arizona still contains the remains of some 1,100 American sailors. American servicemen were subsequently the victims of the horrible Bataan March and other atrocities. Tens of thousands of American GIs gave their lives in fierce battles at Iwo Jima, Okinawa, and the Philippines.
In 1945, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen were awaiting orders to the Pacific to fight island by island to end the war against Japan. U.S. plans projected a million American casualties. Those one million Americans were saved when America’s use of the atom bomb at Hiroshima and Nagasaki enabled us to end the war far more quickly, with far less loss of American lives, than battling with conventional weapons.
“To Be” falsely states: “Every nuclear arsenal implies a commitment to destroy innocent men, women and children indiscriminately.”” The United States has a great nuclear arsenal, but the fact is that we have absolutely NO commitment to destroy innocent men, women and children.
We absolutely proved in the years when we had total supremacy over every other nation in the world, and could have used nuclear weapons to achieve any military or political objective we chose, that our nuclear arsenal was a commitment to keep the peace and to protect the security of the Free World.
The section called “What Can I Do?” shows that the authors of “To Be” are either out of touch with the real world or are trying to lead gullible people down the primrose path. “To Be” states: “Learn about the peace efforts of the UN. Founded in 1945 ‘to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war,’ the UN has both promise and possibility.”
Telling people that the United Nations can prevent war and bring peace is about like telling a child to believe in the tooth fairy. The UN did nothing to stop the sneak attacks on South Korea, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, South Vietnam, or Afghanistan, or to stop the killing and persecution that followed those attacks.
Italicized quotations from the Bible are sprinkled throughout this propaganda flier, such as “Those who live by the sword will die by the sword.” The flier fails to quote» other relevant passages from the Bible. ‘”He that hath no sword, let him sell his garment and buy one.” Luke 22:36 “Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning hooks into spears; let the weak say, I am strong.” Joel 3:10.
The fundamental error of the religious pacifists is the notion that the United States and the Soviet Union are equally guilty of endangering peace by possessing nuclear arsenals. That concept is historically false, intellectually ignorant, and a gross libel on America. Yet, “To Be” smugly asks the identical question about both America and Russia: “Can the claim that a first strike will never take place, be trusted?”
For two and a half decades, from 1945 to about 1970, the United States had a first-strike capability against every other nation in the world, including Russia. We proved conclusively that America could be trusted NOT to use a first-strike capability when we had it.
But Soviet possession of a nuclear arsenal is very different. How much would you trust the Russians when they have a first-strike capability against us? Are you willing to risk yours and your children’s security on that trust?
It’s time we face the truth that the real danger in the world is not nuclear weapons, but Soviet possession of nuclear weapons.
