Peace efforts

Press, 15 October 1986, Page 20

Peace efforts

1 Sir,—Ray Spring (October 13) ;• has still to answer John: Edmund- ft son’s' point of October ’2: L what happens to everybody if war 1 breaks out between the contem- I porary equivalents, of Rome and ’ Carthage? Saying “they’d never i do it” will not do. As a “Press” i editorial aptly titled “Six Minutes i to Doom” indicated, just one < nasty computer accident could i trigger it all off (September 14, 1983). The international polarisa- i tion and hatred that your often 1 vitriolic anti-peace movement ! correspondents advocate could i just tip a world-threatening acci- i dent into catastrophe. No such i correspondents have faced this ! point. Fruitlessly, I challenged i one of them 12 times in 13 1 months to do so. Reducing inter- I national tensions, and reversing I the arms race (not necessarily unilaterally), are the only realis-

tic pathways out of today’s nuclear cul-de-sac. Disappointingly, virtually no peace movement correspondents are exploring in these columns the specific constructive international relationships and policy initiatives that New Zealand and its people could be developing. — Yours, etc. J. GALLAGHER. October 13, 1986. Sir, —Are the writers of the letters about Punic wars serious about comparing them to the nuclear destruction of the Earth? It is, no doubt, commendable to brush up one’s knowledge of history, but I fail to see any connection whatsoever between the historic battles with sword in hand and the total destruction of life on Earth. The outcomes are entirely different; a nuclear war is so destructive that its consequences cannot be even guessed with any degree of accuracy. Recall Hiroshima and Nagasaki. What horrible power 1 drives humanity to self-destruction?— Yours, etc., ■ E. P. STECIURENKO. October 13, 1986. j