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March/April 1999
Nuclear Abolition
Is Everybody's Business Jonathan Schell is no stranger to the Fellowship. In the spring of 1998, shortly after publication of his book, The Gift of Time, he spoke to the FOR National Council at Shadowcliff about the urgent need to address the question of nuclear abolition. For this special issue on disarmament, we asked him to share his latest ideas on the subject with our readers. On February 10, Virginia Baron interviewed Jonathan Schell at his office at The Nation magazine. VB: Americans seem unconcerned these days about the nuclear danger. How is it different from the time of the Cold War, and how can we renew people's interest? JS: It has always been difficult for people to think about nuclear danger. There is a powerful resistance to thinking about it. If you consider the history of the nuclear age, you see that it's only been at particular moments that there have been these bursts of attention. People have then gone back to not thinking about it. The Cold War gave people a framework in which to think about it because the danger was acute. It was tied in with the major political struggle of the time, that is to say, the struggle between East and West. When that ended, one of the things that happened was that people lost the context in which to fit the danger. On the one hand, during the Cold War, especially in times of real threat, people turned their attention to it. On the other hand, when they did so, they discovered that, politically speaking, there was really little of a comprehensive nature that they could do, or even imagine doing. What happened is that interest would awaken, then it would run into this wall of political impossibility. And the interest would evaporate again. You have a quite different situation, now. We don't have the feeling of acute danger - and in actual fact the danger that existed has been reduced greatly. You can't say the danger is gone, because there are still 8,000 nuclear warheads on rotting missiles in Russia, pointing straight at us, and there are still 8,000 American missiles pointing the other way. But the danger is reduced, and the political context is falling away. So people are not as concerned as they were before. Admittedly, there is a new source of danger from proliferation, and that means from other countries around the world, and from terrorism. People are aware of that, they feel it, but not very acutely yet. What all this adds up to is that people don't have that sharp elbow in the ribs that forces them, that pierces their denial and makes them think about this awful business, which is always awful to think about. So people don't have the same strong motive they once had during the Cold War. But what is really revolutionary about this moment - or could be - is that a comprehensive solution is actually in sight. VB: Why do you think it's a real possibility today? JS: To put it bluntly, it's a real possibility because there is no Soviet Union. It's GONE! Have we noticed? Sometimes I think we haven't, because we're going on with all the apparatus of the Cold War. VB: And Star Wars is back! JS: Star Wars is back as the cherry on the sundae. And we have NATO, and NATO is even expanding, and they don't know what it's all for. And we have 8,000 nuclear weapons, and we're ready to fight two wars at the same time, somewhere around the world. And we in this country have failed to absorb the fact that the Cold War has ended, and a revolution in international affairs has occurred. But back to your question: why is it possible now? The principal argument in this country against abolishing nuclear weapons was that in order to have a reliable arms control agreement of a radical character, you had to have very, very intrusive inspections. The Soviet Union wouldn't permit such inspections. Why? Because it was a totalitarian country and its business was shrouded in secrecy. Now I actually think it's a pretty strong argument. It wasn't strong enough for me - I wanted to do it anyway - but it was a strong argument and it was hard to dismiss it. VB: Would the US allow those same inspections that we want to do in every other country? JS: Well, that wasn't put to the test at the time. . . VB: But do you think now we would? JS: That's very much open to question. Actually I think we're the ones, more than the Russians, who put the restrictions on inspection. But, if you're speaking of the government embracing the goal of living in a nuclear-weapons-free world, obviously that's a radically different context - so I don't think the reluctance to allow inspection can be seen as an insuperable obstacle going in. It's just one of the questions that has to be considered, along with a lot of others, if this very radical change in policy were to occur. VB: And it would be a very radical change in policy. Now, we're increasing instead of decreasing. JS: We're not increasing nuclear weapons, actually. We're bringing them down. We are increasing the military budget, overall. VB: And we are continuing to decrease the nuclear weapons? JS: We are. Under the START I agreement, the numbers have been coming down. There are about half as many nuclear weapons in the world - maybe 35,000 - as there were at the height of the Cold War. VB: But with more countries joining the club. JS: But with more countries joining the club. So the image I use is... it's like, how can I put it? It's like something tall that when pushed at the top, it spreads out at the base. VB: I wanted to ask you about the Russians. What's preventing the Russians from dismantling now, given their economic crisis? JS: The Deputy Minister of the Russian government said that Russia will have to go down to 500 nuclear weapons, with or without arms control agreements, because of their economic situation. So it's very hard to read what's going on there. This whole context of arms negotiations was created for a different era. On those grounds alone, even leaving aside the question of abolition, something much swifter and more radical is called for. You know, Admiral Stansfield Turner, the former head of the CIA, has proposed bold unilateral initiatives, in the hopes that those would then be matched by the Russians, that we would cut through this red tape of negotiations. I think it's a great idea. And there's precedent for it: George Bush, of all people, took all bombers and many missiles off alert, and almost immediately, in a matter of weeks, Gorbachev responded. There was not this business of stretching out the process over years. VB: Do you have suggestions of how we could get the ear of our own government? JS: You know, I'm really bewildered about that. You can say Clinton had his troubles with the draft, therefore he's not in a strong position vis-à-vis the military, but I'm not even sure the military would strongly resist nuclear disarmament. In the interviews I've done, there are plenty of military people, most of them retired, who have come out for the abolition of nuclear weapons. They tell me there's some sentiment, maybe not a majority sentiment, but some sentiment for it on the part of the military on active duty. Another thing, just to state the obvious, is that the Clinton administration has concentrated entirely on domestic policy, and has done nothing bold in the foreign sphere. In addition to which, we're in an apolitical moment. People don't even vote. They feel disgust with politicians. VB: Growing disgust. So it seems as if when [Secretary of Defense] Cohen comes out strongly now for a new missile defense system, they're just looking for something to get attention. JS: The main supporters of missile defense are the Republican party. They are adamant for it. I hope I won't surprise you too much, but my thinking about missile defense is a little bit different from the standard liberal arms control point of view. I recall that Ronald Reagan actually proposed the abolition of nuclear weapons at Reykjavik. You can say it was a fantasy or just a passing moment, but I don't believe that. I think it was a serious moment, even though the likelihood of its happening was very, very low. Nevertheless, I think it revealed a real opportunity. So Reagan was an abolitionist, but the trouble was, he wanted to put up an SDI shield in order to make that possible. When scientists, including those in his own administration, said that was not possible, he moved to another position. If you did go to zero, he said, then defenses might be useful as a kind of safeguard. I have a dream that we might find support among successors to Reagan on the right who would still be ready to entertain the idea of going to zero if there were some kind of defenses against possible attacks. That would be fine with me. VB: So you see a kind of positive possibility with this missile defense shield? JS: I do. What you have to add immediately is that without any commitment to go to zero, it would be very mischievous. So there's a pretty big piece missing in my hopeful puzzle. VB: FOR has joined with groups that have drafted a New Abolitionist Covenant to revive the movement to eliminate nuclear weapons. What do you see as the direction such a movement should take? Is there a strategy you propose? JS: I have an idea. This is something that arose out of a breakfast with Pamela Midell, who runs the Atomic Mirror in California, and a friend of ours here in New York, Cynthia Owens. If I can express it in a few words, I'd call it a civil society strategy. I don't think the time is right now to go into the streets with demonstrations. People wouldn't come out because we haven't created the kind of support yet that would make that possible. Likewise, if we go directly to the politicians, I doubt they would be very responsive as long as we lack the public support. Although I think it's fine to do that, because I think some politicians might want to associate themselves with this, just out of conviction. But the question is, how do you create public support? Here's my idea: Frame a very simple statement in support of calling the United States government to embrace a policy of abolition. This would be a campaign geared solely for the United States, calling on the American government for a change in policy. It would be our contribution here in the United States to the global movement. We would take the statement to civic organizations of every description in the US: labor, civil rights, women, environment, veterans, doctors, lawyers, architects, veterinarians, PTAs - you can extend this list indefinitely. There's no group that isn't the right group to do it because this is everybody's business. It affects the human substance. Nobody can say, "Oh, we're architects. Our interest is in buildings." Well, friends, your buildings will be knocked FLAT if there's a nuclear war. Nuclear war is bad for architecture. And if it's veterinarians, nuclear war kills cats and dogs. So it's everybody's business. We take that statement to all these organizations, and invite them to go through whatever procedures they must to embrace and endorse a resolution, whatever decision process. We would offer them materials, speakers, we would lobby their members, and get other dedicated people to lobby their members. And then we would ask them to appoint a person, or establish a committee, to stay with this issue and make a report on it at every annual meeting. At the Sanitation Workers' Association, someone would ask, "How is abolition going?" They'd hear a five minute report on that. The issue would be built into the life and structure of these organizations. It would become part of their business, which it should be. Then, at some point, having obtained the confidence, the support of a tremendous number of organizations, we would invite representatives - those who are willing to come - to a kind of Abolition Congress, an Abolition Caucus. And then we would decide how to bring this public support to bear on the political process proper, because we've got to do that. At the end of the day, we would have to have a president of the United States who embraces this policy, and we need at the beginning to chart out the route to that end. Otherwise, we're just whistling in the wind. So there are two things that are necessary: you need something that's national in character, because this is a national problem. It's an international problem, of course, but the decision-making is national in the first place. Number two: you have to have a plan that plots the campaign from A to Z, and you have to chart that out in advance so people can see how far they have come in reaching the goal. Perhaps we could fashion some kind of atomic clock. Not one that shows how many "minutes" we are from doom, as the clock invented by the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists does, but one that shows how far we are from achieving abolition. Now how about that? It would take some thought. Perhaps it would be a twenty-four hour clock representing how far we've come toward abolition. Perhaps it would start with the worst days of the Cold War, when there were 80,000 nuclear weapons in the world. When arms were reduced, you would move the hands forward. When a new country tested nuclear weapons, you'd set the hands back. Midnight on this clock would not be doom but abolition. VB: I like it! Are you working on this now with any group? JS: Well, I'm going to propose the entire plan to some groups to see what they think. It would have to be the centerpiece of a program. VB: Nuclear abolition makes everything possible. JS: The ultimate goal is to end war. Nuclear abolition doesn't accomplish that, but it is the hub of the wheel. It's not that the spokes aren't important. You need every part of the wheel - the spokes and the rim and the hub. But you can't have a wheel without a hub. VB: Traditionally, those working for justice and those working for peace often don't seem to connect. Peace is thought to be a middle-class luxury unrelated to issues of jobs and bread. How do you see these issues as connected? JS: To me, they're indivisible in at least two ways. One is that, obviously, there's a choice to be made between military spending and the social spending needed for minimal economic justice. That goes without saying. You take that forty billion dollars we're spending on nuclear weapons alone, and think what you could do in this country, or in the world. That's just a basic either/or choice. But there's another sense in which peace and justice are united. As I said, I think the reason we have a chance for abolition now, whereas it was very low before, is that there's no Soviet Union. The people who put an end to the Soviet Union - a lot of brave people in Eastern Europe and in Russia - were not interested in nuclear disarmament but in justice. The Solidarity movement in Poland, for example, was a kind of exemplary movement in our time. They were not thinking about nuclear arms. They were thinking about justice. Nevertheless, what they did was to create the greatest potential for nuclear disarmament we've ever had. We should acknowledge that. I give immense credit to the peace movement here in the United States, too. I think it prevented all kinds of mischief. It acted as a kind of conscience of the nation and the world on the nuclear question. But if you ask what made the tremendous structural change possible, the one that now plausibly enables us to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons, it's what they did over there in the East. To acknowledge this takes nothing away from the peace movement here, of which I've been a part. So peace and justice: those two go together. VB: I hope we can convince everybody of that. JS: No peace, no justice, no justice, no peace. You cannot divide those two. You can't get very far with one without the other. I know there are trade-offs, when peace might be emphasized more, or justice more, but at the root, they are one and the same. They're not just linked, they're the same thing. M
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