Tocsin' Member Attacks Western Nuclear Build-Up

Debating a member of the Harvard Young Republican Club, Peter A. Flynn '63 of Tocsin claimed last night "the United States must give Russia reason to believe we can be trusted" to avoid the dangers of the arms race.

Flynn attacked a proposal of George Gilder '61-3 to "conduct the arms race so vigorously that Khrushchev will realize the threat of force will not intimidate the West." The Tocsin member termed Gilder's suggestion "a proposal which says the United States cannot afford to co-exist with the Soviet Union except by perpetuating this conflict." The inherent weakness of this position, he asserted, is that it "would cause no change of the principles on which both are operating."

Suggesting a way the United States could exhibit unilateral initiative, Flynn advocated eliminating military bases in Europe which could only benefit the United States if we were to strike first in a nuclear war.

Because "the arms race cannot be abolished," Gilder said, the United States "should use the arms race to the best of our capabilities." He called for an invunerable deterrent force.

Ridiculing the whole concept of deterrents. Flynn asserted, "Deterrents are based on the contradiction of trying to operate a peace on the condition that each side is committed to trying to upset the existing balance of power."

But Flynn did not advocate any extreme form of unilateral initiative; this could not guarantee that other nations would not become involved in a nuclear war. The concept of "better red than dead," he said, could not justify universal disarmament. "It would give us the 'red' without barring the possibility of the dead.'"