It Tolls for Thee

Where but at Harvard could a group call itself Tocsin? When spoken, the word carries a medicinal odor, rather than the intended echoes of a warning bell. Yet the group exists and, surprising for the "peace movement," its notes ring clear. Forged during the summer, it is preparing to sound the alarm about impending nuclear ruin.

In the past, the peace movement has climbed out on some rotten limbs. Last spring, for example, the Committees of Correspondence, including professors David Riesman and H. Stuart Hughes, proposed "destruction of thermonuclear weapons" as an "independent American initiative." Admitting that unilateral disarmament would invite Soviet invasion and conquest, the Committee stated reassuringly that such tyranny would fall "within the limits of human experience." And bravely, the group accepted "responsibility for developing effective ways of keeping alive our basic values"--some sort of "non-military methods of resistance."

Happily, this ill-considered proposal was omitted from the new (August 1) Committees of Correspondence statement. Instead, the approach is now "unilateral steps toward disarmament," a phrase which Tocsin heartily endorses.

At first, the local peace movement fell into the trap of unilateral disarmament because it tacitly accepted the alternatives of either annihilation-risked or surrender-chosen. Since all signs suggest an increasingly unstable arms race, the Committee simply decided that it is better to live as a slave (hoping and working for a brighter tomorrow) than to end civilization and perhaps the human race.

Since both "pacifists" and "militarists" confined their thought to the same false alternatives, it is not surprising that the peace movement produced an analogue to the military dream of "preventive war." Both sides seek an escape from mounting tension: while the one has fantasies of crushing the enemy once and for all, the other resigns itself reluctantly to virtual appeasement.

In response to the idea of unilateral disarmament, the militarists began quoting Patrick Henry, whom the "appeasers" promptly hinted was "compulsively masculine." And so went the great debate on disarmament.

Now the local peace movement has broken free of this dilemma, and redefined the alternatives as (1) remaining in the arms race and depending on the logic of deterrence, or (2) taking unilateral steps toward disarmament, an approach suggesting a resonance between U.S. gestures and resulting negotiations. Tocsin and the Committees of Correspondence now ask that we take risks for disarmament equal to those we now take with retaliation-threats.

And the present risk is terrifying. In his recent book on national defense, Oscar Morgenstern, an expert on game theory, concludes that "as it is, the probability of a large thermonuclear war occuring appears to be significantly greater than the probability of its not occuring." Similarly, the Committees list some of the dangers: limited war growing, crucial failures of men or equipment, local feuds that drag in the major powers, the spread of nuclear weapons to other countries, new missile technology.

It is hard to live with a recurring vision of nuclear ruin, and yet, repressing the evidence of danger, like taking aspirin for a tumor, provides relief perhaps, but no cure. Once the danger is faced, we either place our faith in the system of nuclear deterrence or else find steps away from it. The first appears increasingly perilous, especially when present trends are projected even a decade (ten years ago we had no long-range missiles, no fusion bomb).

While rejecting wild pleas for unilateral disarmament, we must initiate a process of gestures and negotiations--incredibly complicated and surely full of risk--but leading away from a system likely to end in world ruin.

As first suggestions for meaningful gestures, the Committees list a nuclear ban agreement (even if small yield explosions cannot be reliably detected), a rejection of civil defense efforts (which add to psychological tensions), and the conversion to constructive tasks of laboratories now working on chemical and biological weapons. Tocsin agrees, and goes one further, suggesting that the U.S. set up a test ban inspection system in this country and invite the Soviet to reciprocate.

Significantly, the Tocsin prospectus starts off, not with these proposals, but with a discussion of the political bewilderment of students. Much nonsense has been written recently about student apathy--as if we knew what was going on, had a conceptual framework to deal with it, perhaps even knew what we wanted, and yet were simply too timid or lazy or busy or dull to do anything about it. None of these assumptions is true. As the Tocsin prospectus says, we are bewildered because we lack "a set of ideas which seem adequate to challenge prevailing assumptions supporting organization for war."

In the past, the peace movement has tried to arouse what is called "concern" or "involvement." But at Harvard it has failed. Tocsin wisely has chosen to play down group identification and to stress "personal commitment to act." Action does not mean running around with meaningless petitions or waving a sign demanding peace in our time. It means a host of more demanding tasks. Among them is research--and what is a more exciting topic than steps toward disarmament?

At present, Tocsin is just a prospectus. It has a sound approach, but it remains for its leaders to sponsor a sound program, avoiding the traditional pitfalls of the peace movement. At last we have a disarmament group that, hopefully, will engage the peculiar energies of Harvard.