Definitions of peace

Press, 9 January 1986, Page 14

Definitions of peace

Sir,—No-one could quarrel with Sue Hunt’s wish that “It would be helpful to all if the word peace was defined” (January 4). Unfortunately, she then claims that the word has “two distinct meanings,” which, when examined, are discovered to be nothing more than an expression of her own pro-Western, anti-Soviet prejudices. However, the view of peace which she attributes to the West is far from flattering, being only the absence of war and armed conflict, an entirely negative concept, which leaves the United States-inspired arms race intact in an atmosphere of international tension and confrontation at every point on the globe where the United States maintains military bases, some 1500 in all. She attributes to the Soviet Union a definition of peace entirely at odds with what actually is Soviet peace policy, stated times without number over the past 68 years. The laboured irony of her final sentence is misplaced. The Soviet people are committed to the peace of universal, general disarmament—Yours, etc., M. CREEL. January 8, 1986.