Man Must Face Possibility of War

To the editors of the CRIMSON:

On Saturday evening, October 1, 5,000 people came to the "Greater Boston Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy" Rally to hear seven eminent Americans re-iterate the need for world-wide peace and safety, through the discontinuation of nuclear testing. They were handed buttons and stickers saying, "Prevent Nuclear War;" they were asked to contribute money for a building for Boston SANE head-quarters; they were told that we possess the means for our own destruction, and that we must do something about the world situation (write to our congressmen, etc.) before it is too late; they were entertained by a comedian and two folk-singers; they were congratulated for showing enough interest in world peace to attend the rally. Perhaps they even came away from the rally comforted by the knowledge that there are some others who see the imminent danger of a nuclear war and of pushbutton annihilation. But they had not been alarmed or thoroughly shaken, they had not been made to feel strongly enough the sole and absolute imperative of preventing such a war at all costs.

This is not a question of dealing with "our enemies, the Communists," or of being calm and practical in bargaining with "enemy powers"--in this crisis the only enemy is self-wrought destruction. It is a situation which ought to shock us and to force upon us the recognition of a kinship, of a responsibility which is shared by all who have the power to push the button, and of a catastrophe which will be shared universally. There is an urgency about the condition of the present world which leaves no room for personal advantage or for the personal or national dignity of staying "superior to the situation;" moreover, there can no longer be any satisfaction in blaming other powerful nations or individuals. Over and above subjective concerns and circumstances, every nation, indeed every human being, is involved to an equal degree in the horrible possibilities which man has imposed upon himself. In addition, every individual must feel a kind of insanity, beyond the range of his detached intellectual rationale, when he considers the very possibility of a nuclear war. It is no longer his possessions, his own life, or the lives of his children alone which are at stake--it is the whole era of human history. Until this trans-rational dread of universal destruction becomes real enough to crowd out of his mind his every-day problems and worries, or even those of his country, no one will be willing to give up personal or national "practical" gains for the sake of human survival. This fear, which in itself is not a healthy emotion or motive force, is the only bridge over which he may pass from his present attitude of detachment to a sense of concern and of universal involvement.

This predicament cannot be resolved by organizational meetings involving relatively few people, raising money, and treating it lightly; those who have somehow been jolted into an awareness of what lies ahead must communicate their sense of emergency to others of all nations, for it is not an ignoble or selfish fear, which can be ridiculed, ignored, or soothed. Only as every individual is moved by this larger concern and allows it to affect his own life, to intensify his attitudes, will "those in charge" be forced to listen to him and to make the discontinuation of nuclear testing the primary and immediate objective in international policy. Only then will it become possible to remove the sense of frustration, of inadequacy, and of being "run" by the very machines man has constructed, which now confronts him.