The Gift of Time (Introduction) (Page 4)

In the face of these questions, the citizens who oppose nuclear arms are as sorely in need of fresh thinking as the governments that possess them. The starting point of this thinking must be recognition that even as the main obstacles to abolition have been removed the main goad to getting there--the immediate danger of a full-scale nuclear holocaust--has been greatly reduced. The fact is that the public at large, enjoying a reprieve from immediate, universal terror bestowed by the end of the cold war, is not paying much attention to the nuclear question. It's also true that the public is actively worried--and with good reason--that a terrorist group or government will use one or more nuclear weapons somewhere in the world. But the feeling of relief dominates. During the cold war, abolition, though perhaps highly desired, was found impossible. Now it appears possible but is not so urgently desired. The combination of comparatively low nuclear danger and high opportunity to solve the nuclear dilemma is new. During the cold war, opposition to nuclear arms was driven by immediate, overwhelming fear--fear that ran headlong into the wall of political impossibility. Today, in sharp contrast, fear has been radically reduced. Our primary inspiration for attending to the nuclear question, accordingly, should not be fear but fear's opposites, hope and faith--hope that, in the transformed and brightened political scene, the goal of abolition is achievable, and faith that we possess the nerve, stamina and wisdom to reach it. At the very least, all who, at one terror-stricken moment or another of the cold war, picked up a sign or shouted a slogan or organized to protest nuclear danger should now stir themselves again to seize the present opportunity actually to rid the world of the weapons. Protest is not something undertaken for its own sake; it is supposed to inspire constructive action. And the time for action has come.

It may be that the initiative for such a radical challenge to the status quo must be taken by the public, as has happened so often in the past, and especially in the United States. But there are no rules in such matters, and the initiative could also come from the political class. Rarely in history has a riper opportunity for political leadership presented itself. An achievement that, soberly speaking, is of measureless value is within reach, if only the will to act can be found. This leadership might come from some unexpected quarter, but the obvious candidate is a President of the United States. It could be--it should be--Bill Clinton. If it is not Clinton, it could and should be Vice President Al Gore, whose concern for the earth's environment ought to lead him to try to preserve it from the greatest by far of the perils that threaten it. No cause is greener than the abolition of nuclear weapons. But the abolition movement need be no respecter of the political or party divisions of the cold war. In the contest that is about to begin, we can be sure, lines will be drawn, ambitions and interests will clash and political battles will be fought. But it is by no means clear yet that these will occur along the familiar fault lines of left and right, liberal and conservative. A Republican may step forward. The most fervently abolitionist President of the cold war period, let us recall, was Ronald Reagan, who regarded his scheme for antinuclear defenses as a path to abolition. His meeting in 1986 at Reykjavik with another abolitionist, Mikhail Gorbachev, was the only occasion on which the heads of state of the two superpowers seriously discussed abolition. There may well be a successor in his party who will take up his forsaken cause.

If the United States defaults on its responsibilities, leaders in other countries can take up the cause. (If the movement is not American, it can easily turn out to be anti-American.) No country is unqualified to lead a movement for the abolition of nuclear arms, since all are threatened by them. In Australia and New Zealand, to give just two examples, the antinuclear movement has been especially vigorous and effective recently.

In the meantime, a new generation, innocent of the divisions of the cold war, is coming of age. Its thoughts and feelings, which have yet to make their weight felt on any great issue of public concern, are largely unknown. If its members do not feel the urgency to escape the nuclear danger that some of its parents felt, neither has it developed the deep attachment to nuclear arms also often found among their parents, including most of the governing class. The minds of the young, it appears, are open. A call for abolition should therefore be, among other things, a call from an older generation to a younger one. Among the many links between people that this effort would forge would be a new link between generations. And since the project, if successful, would save the lives of future generations, that link would be the first in an everlasting chain.

The task is of course immense. But history has given us the gift of time--a limited time, perhaps, but enough to proceed, without haste, to scout the obstacles in our path, to weigh carefully and thoroughly the course to be followed, and then to create the structures that will carry us to the goal and keep us there. If we use the gift properly and rid the species for good of nuclear danger, we will secure the greatest of time's gifts, assurance of a human future. Of course, some will say the goal is a utopian dream of human perfection. We needn't worry. There will be more than enough sins left for everyone to commit after we have taken nuclear bombs away from ourselves. Others will say the obstacles in the way of success are too great. We can answer, as George Washington once did, "Let us raise a standard to which the wise and the honest can repair. The event is in the hand of God."

If it seems paradoxical to call for the greatest exertions at a time of relaxed urgency, we should remind ourselves that the opportunity is greater for the same reason that the danger is less: the end of the cold war. That people can be inspired to act as much by the appeal of reaching a great goal in a time of peace as by immediate and overwhelming terror in a time of conflict is admittedly an unproven proposition. Terror, unquestionably, is a powerful spur to action. If we wait for terror to revive, however, what price will we pay? Will it be New York City? Teheran? Berlin? Beijing? And are we sure that after such a catastrophe we would act wisely? Our reasons for acting are bound to shape the character of our action. Measures taken abruptly, after the abrupt end of fifty years of nuclear peace, possibly in an atmosphere of global suspicion, bewilderment, panic and calls for revenge, seem unlikely to be as sensible as measures adopted now, after thorough and careful discussion and preparation.

The nuclear crises of the cold war called for the swift, sharp shock of protest. On June 12, 1982, a million people, dismayed by the acceleration of the arms race, gathered in New York City to call for a freeze on nuclear arms. In the years that followed, their wishes were more than granted: Nuclear arsenals were not merely frozen, they were reduced. The million never gathered again. In our new circumstances, what is needed is not just a moment of protest but the steady engagement of citizens and their representatives over many years of constructive purpose. Can a movement based on hope, confidence in the concerted powers of human beings and faith in the human future be as great as one based on terror? It must, in fact, be greater. In the words of Jody Williams, on the day her campaign to ban landmines became a treaty signed by 121 nations, "Together we are a superpower. It's a new definition of superpower. It's not one of us; it's all of us." The abolition of nuclear arms--to cite a chapter of American history--would be to the end of the cold war what the Constitutional Convention was to the War of Independence. The end of the cold war was a liberation. Abolition is the act of foundation toward which that liberation points as its natural consequence and completion.

To succeed in the task would, by securing human survival through human resolve and action, go far toward restoring our faith, so badly shaken in this century, in our capacity to make use of the amazing products of our hands and minds for our benefit rather than our destruction. It would bring undying honor to those who carried it to fulfillment and to their generation. It would have the character not of a desperate expedient resorted to under pressure of terror but of a tremendous free act, following upon calm public deliberation in every nation--among all humankind. In a way, it would be the foundation of humankind.

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