Nuclear weapons

Press, 24 May 1982, Page 18

Nuclear weapons

Sir,—The position of the nuclear-weapon-free movement in New Zealand is to create a positive attitude in people — to dissipate the hopelessness felt in the past. The hope is to contribute to the pressures on world leaders to put away their deadly toys. Failing this, if war does result, New Zealand could become one country capable of helping the survivors. Recent correspondents wrongly think the movement is against all nuclear power, and that we are simply afraid of dying. Personally, I would prefer going up with the first salvo — but this is unlikely. Therefore, if we must survive devastation, we should take precautions against weapons being used anywhere near us. Nuclear shipping is inevitable; nuclear weapons are not. Either we go all out to save our own, and others’, skins, or we can close our eyes, put our heads between our knees, and hope everybody just goes away. — Yours, etc., S. KNIGHT. May 20, 1982.

Sir,—Let me outline for J. Clarke (May 20), and other readers of the correspondence page, some of the more disturbing facts. The world's arsenal contains some 60,000 nuclear weapons, enough to target every city in the northern hemisphere with 2000 Hiroshima bombs. The United States Budget alone, for defence from 1981 to 1985, is a projected one trillion dollars. Apart from the agreed destruction of biological weapons in the last 25 years, not a single weapon: has, been destroyed as

a result of international disarmament talks. The arms race, generated by super-Power mistrust and fear, perpetrated by the arms industry itself, is out of control. The emergence of the peace movement and in particular the local widely supported notion of nuclear-weapon-free boroughs, New Zealand, the Pacific and the world are an expression of a last-ditch call for sanity that we should all heed.—Yours, etc., KEITH BURGESS. May 21, 1982.

Sir,—Your correspondent, R. H. Ciarke (May 17) considers that the Labour Party and the Christchurch City Council are ill-informed in their opposition to the visit of the nuclear warship Truxtun. I wonder whether the critic has taken the trouble to inform him/ herself on the human casualties of nuclear war and weapons testing. How much does R. H. Clarke know about the “overkill” of the arms race, the likely effects of even a “limited” nuclear wai;, and what he/she should do in the event of a nuclear accident? Perhaps R. H. Clarke has all this information, plus the knowledge of what weapons are entering our ports. If not, then I am not prepared, nor, I imagine, are the majority of my countrymen to live in a state of blissful but dangerous ignorance. Our children will inherit the world we accept or choose. We owe it to them, to ourselves, and to one another to find out these facts — and then make a choice. — Yours, etc., PAUL R. J. HOCKEY. May 20, 1982.

Sir,—Before chiding Susan Taylor for “quoting Russian propaganda,” H. F. Newman (May 18) should research his facts. The Soviet Union entered the war against Japan by a solemn obligation undertaken at the Yalta Conference, February 4-11, 1945, among Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin. The dropping of the atom bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was ordered by Truman to intimidate the Soviet Union. As Professor P. M. S. Blackett wrote, “It was not the last act of World War 11, it was the first act of World War III.” When South Korea attacked North Korea in June, 1950, the Soviet Union was boycotting all, organs of the United Nations at which Nationalist China was represented instead of mainland China. Taking advantage of Soviet abscence, the United States hastily convened the Security Council, when South Korea's aggression began to go awry, to place United States intervention under the United Nations’ flag, which a Soviet veto would have' prevented.— Yours, etc., M. CREEL. May 20, 1982.