Beer Clarifies Group's Stand

At the start of the Tocsin meeting last night, much of the audience shared a confusion between "unilateral initiatives," an ambiguous Tocsin slogan, and unilateral disarmament, a proposal which the group opposes. In his brief speech, Samuel H. Beer, professor of Government, drew the distinction sharply, and Tocsin leaders defined clearly their approach and listed specific proposals towards a nuclear test ban.

As a member of the audience later suggested, most of the opposition to Tocsin had been based on a misunderstanding of its aims and proposals.

Outlining the special dangers of the present arms race, Beer spoke of "the need of either power to be able to strike instantly with full force." Thus, measures intended for defense can easily appear as preparations for aggression, and so drive a watchful enemy to strike first.

Beer sketched five possible approaches to the arms race, starting with the one most familiar, deterrence. The present U.S. and Soviet policy, deterrence depends on the threat of nuclear retaliation for an attack. Among the dangers here are accident and miscalculation, for the system requires both full, swift information and unfailing rational calculation on both sides.

"Extended deterrence"--overwhelming military superiority--is a second approach. But, said Beer, the U.S. is unlikely to attain either "a first-strike capacity so great as to eliminate Russian retaliatory power, or a monopoly on anti-missile defense so perfect that we need not worry about Russian retaliation."

The third alternative, Beer explained, was unilateral nuclear disarmament. Its very mention brought hisses, and the speaker had to point out, again, that neither he nor Tocsin advocates this step. When pressed, said Beer, even the unilateralists admit that their policy would likely lead to Communist control. Their usual defense is the slogan, "better red than dead."

Yet, said Beer, our surrender would fall to eliminate the danger of nuclear war, because a new chief rivalry--between China and Russia--would replace the present struggle, and thus unilateral disarmament would mean loss of both freedom and peace.

Finally, Beer spoke for arms control through "unilateral initiative" and/or multilateral negotiations. This is Tocsin's approach, and Beer's: taking small steps of disarmament in the expectation that the Soviets will "reciprocate with a similar or equivalent action." On our part, such steps would be intended "clearly to weaken our powers of aggression," but "not to cripple our power of retaliation."

Tocsin has two purposes, said Peter Goldmark '62, a member: to get its ideas talked about, and to influence government. As an example of the latter, Goldmark told the audience that he and Robert Weil '61, Tocsin president, had been invited to confer with top officials in the Disarmament Section of the State Department. Also, during the meeting, Goldmark publicly phoned Congressman Miller of California.

In conclusion, Tocsin presented a three-point plan toward a nuclear test ban, urging the U.S. to continue its moritorium on tests "as long as there exist reasonable prospects of a satisfactory agreement," and to invite other parties in test-ban negotiations to participate in Project Vela, a U.S. research project on test inspection systems