Disarmament

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29070, 5 December 1959, Page 3

Disarmament

Sir,—S. * Grant implies that Professor \ Pauling should have explained why Russia has civil defence. Professor Pauling’s statement was a brief form of the truth that no scheme of civil defence which would not itself destroy our freedom could save more than a tiny fraction of those who would die in an Hbomb attack. This is true, no matter what the Russians may be doing. However, I would hazard the guess that civil defence is used in Russia, as it is in other countries, to lead people to* think they are protected and at the same time to give an outlet to their national desire to do something to counter the threat of nuclear warfare. This desire otherwise might create an irresistible demand for immediate disarmament. Through civil defence, nuclear war comes to appear commonplace, and its use as a threat by governments is accepted. How similar, in all countries, is this tragic situation in which . men can contemplate the extinction of hundreds of millions of their fellow men in order, as they imaging, to preserve their own particular way of life.—Yours, etc., J.F.M. December 2, 1959.