Online version of: Nissani, M. (1992). Lives in the Balance: the Cold War and American Politics, 1945-1991.

NOTES AND REFERENCES

For informative, partially integrative, surveys of the Cold War, see: Cohen, Avner and Lee, Steven (eds). Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity (1986). Kurtz, Lester R. The Nuclear Cage (1988). Malcolmson, Robert W. Nuclear Fallacies (1985). Parenti, Michael. The Sword and the Dollar (1989). Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction (1990).

For the sake of brevity and convenience, in this book the term "Cold War" refers to the period 1945-1991. This should not be taken to imply that the Cold War started in 1945, that it ceased by 1992, or that something like it-against Russia or some other country(s)-will not continue long into the future.

 

Chapter 1: TOTALITARIANISM

1. Khrushchev Remembers (translated by Strobe Talbott, published by Little, Brown and Company; Boston, 1970).

a) p. 521.

b) pp. 367-368. Years later, Khrushchev remarked on Stalin's consent to the invasion: "I would have made the same decision myself if I had been in his place."

c) This gamble was taken, according to its author, despite the full understanding of the Soviet leadership "of what the consequences of putting the missiles on Cuba might be-namely, war with the United States" (p. 499). Even with the benefit of hindsight, Khrushchev still regarded his gamble as a "spectacular success" and a "triumph of Soviet foreign policy," which, by "bringing the world to the brink of atomic war," enabled the Soviets to win "a Socialist Cuba" (p. 504).

d) p. 152.

2. East of Eden (1963 edition), chap. 13, I.

3. One runs at times across statements like: "The reconciliation of man with the environment is a qualified success story" (Ashby, Eric. Reconciling Man with the Environment, 1978, p. 86). But, in either 1978 or 1992, such statements betray, at best, wishful thinking.

4. Jaspers, Karl. The Future of Mankind (translated from the 1956 German edition by E. B. Ashton), p. 4.

5. Because physical health and psychological well-being are more closely related to fate and personal circumstances than to politics, they are not included in the text as formal components of freedom. Obviously though, people who feel compelled to eat sand or who are dying from a painful lung cancer are not as free as their healthier counterparts.

6. Suetonius, Gaius. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars (2nd century, A.D.), bk. IV.

7. Al-Khalil, Samir. Republic of Fear (1990).

a) p. 275. b) p. 110. 8. Miller, Judith, and Mylroie, Laurie. Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf (1990), pp. 37-38.

9. The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism, 1964 reprinting, p. 11. Russell goes on to say: "If a more just economic system were only attainable by closing men's minds against free inquiry, and plunging them back into the intellectual prison of the Middle Ages, I should consider the price too high."

In the text I occasionally follow Russell's characterization of Marxism as a religion, and for the same reasons (see his Chapter VIII, p. 70).

10. The Christian Science Monitor, November 15, 1983, p. 20.

11. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook 1983, p. 117.

12. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1982, pp. 62-63.

13. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander I. The Gulag Archipelago (1974), vol. I, p. 69.

14. Vanity Fair, February 1990, p. 124.

15. Taubman, William, and Taubman, Jane. Moscow Spring (1989).

a) p. 185. b) p. 119.

16. Melville, Andrei and Lapidus, Gail W. (eds). The Glasnost Papers (1990), p. 161

17. Democritus, who flourished in the fifth century, B.C., puts it this way: "Poverty in a democracy is as much to be preferred to what is called prosperity under despots as freedom is to slavery." Quoted in: Russell, Bertrand. A History of Western Philosophy (1945), pt. I, chap. IX, p. 72.

18. Cited in: Kennedy, Robert and Weinstein, John M. (eds). The Defense of the West (1984), p. 43.

19. Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality (1986), p. 142.

20. Smith, Hedrick. The Russians (1976).

a) p. 495. b) Stalin, quoted on p. 25.

21. CIA 1982 statistics, cited in: Dibb, Paul. The Soviet Union (1986), p. 2.

22. The Current Digest of the Soviet Press (selections from the Soviet press, translated into English).

a) Vol. 35, no. 25, (1983), p. 19.

b) Vol. 35, no. 33, (1983), pp. 26-27.

c) Vol. 35, no. 33, (1983), pp. 19-20. A Rude Bravo article condensed and paraphrased in Pravda, August 20, 1983.

23. For a more vivid example of the havoc such a system can create in some people's souls, see Yuri Trifonov's sensitive short story, The Exchange. In: Proffer, Carl and Proffer, Ellendea (eds). The Ardis Anthology of Recent Russian Literature (1976).

24. Statistical Abstracts of the United States (1988; 108th edition).

a) p. 808. b) p. 809.

c) Calculated from data in sections 13, 23. This comparison does not imply an endorsement of anti-ecological and anti-humanitarian agricultural practices in the USA. But these practices could also be found in the USSR, and the governments of both agreed that agricultural excellence could be best measured in terms of labor productivity and total output. Given these shared practices and assumptions, a comparison of the two systems tells us much about their relative efficiencies.

25. The Detroit News, December 23, 1990, pp. 3A, 7A.

26. Arthur Young, quoted in: Mill, J. S. Principles of Political Economy (1871 edition), bk. II, chap. VI, section 7.

27. May, Brian. Russia, America, the Bomb and the Fall of Western Europe (1984).

a) On pp. 69-70 May argues that while Soviet agriculture still suffers from "chronic Russian inefficiency, it is vastly more productive than the old system." For instance, farm workers made up 75 percent of the labor force before the revolution, but only 25 percent in the early 1980s, and grain production has, roughly, doubled. But he altogether misses the point when he concludes from this that "Soviet agriculture has been misrepresented." His comparison ignores the leaps made in agricultural technology since the October Revolution. The correct question is why were the improvements in Russia comparatively slight, not whether some improvements took place. Also, the meaningful comparison is not to the pre-revolutionary archaic system, but to contemporaneous agricultural systems. For instance, why was Israeli agriculture, which had its beginning roughly in the same period as Soviet agriculture, more efficient?

b) John Kenneth Galbraith in a 1981 article, cited on p. 136.

28. Miller, Wright. Who are the Russians? (1973), p. 159.

29. Developments in China lend additional support to this assertion. Privatization of Chinese agriculture contributed to steady and dramatic increases in total agricultural output. For example, in 1980 total output was 2.6 larger than in 1978. Bialer, Seweryn. The Soviet Paradox (1986), p. 252.

30. My sources, Hedrick Smith (above), and Andrei D. Sakharov (My Country and the World, 1976, p. 47), give a few conflicting details. According to Sakharov, for instance, Khudenko was sentenced for eight years. Note also that when writing about these and other specific events I don't try to adhere to scientific standards of admissible evidence. At least until 1985, deliberate lies and large-scale cover-ups often left no choice but to rely on hearsay. So any individual story could be incorrect in many details, and, for all I know, might have never taken place. But despite the inaccuracies and uncertainties, there is little doubt that the rough sketch I am portraying reflects historical realities.

31. Miller, William Green (ed). Toward a More Civil Society? (1989).

a) p. 5. b) p. 86. c) p. 201. d) p. 279. e) p. 157.

32. Survival, March 1990, pp. 108-109.

33. Quoted in: Aristotle. Nicomachean Ethics, book VI.

34. Morris, Charles R. Iron Destinies, Lost Opportunities (1988), p. 84.

35. Orwell, George. Homage to Catalonia (1938).

36. Medvedev, Zhores. Soviet Science (1978).

a) pp. 146-147.

b) Medvedev's view of the quality of Soviet science is far more favorable than the view presented in the text. His book also provides detailed descriptions of the thoroughgoing politicization of Soviet science.

37. Rubin, Barry. Paved with Good Intentions (1980), pp. 30-33. For a more favorable view of Soviet conduct during this episode, see Abrahamian, Ervand. Iran Between Two Revolutions (1982), pp. 210, 228.

38. Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (1990), p. 55.

39. My account of the Winter War and of Finnish history is based on: Wuorinen, John H. A History of Finland (1965); Kirby, D. G. Finland in

the Twentieth Century (1979); Upton, Anthony F. Finland in Crisis, 1940-41 (1964).

40. Detroit Free Press.

a) October 26, 1989, p. 6A. b) October 27, 1989, p. 14A.

41. Bialer, Seweryn. The Soviet Paradox (1986), pp. 270-1. See also: Luttwak, Edward. The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union (1983).

42. Dibb, Paul. The Soviet Union (1986).

a) pp. 33, 39.

b) p. 238. Another calculation arrives at an even higher estimate of Soviet subsidies-$100 billion between 1972 and 1981. Cited in: Luttwak, Edward N. The Grand Strategy of the Soviet Union (1983), p. 161.

43. A more recent calculation suggests that 1974 was a turning point from an economic asset to liability; that after peaking in 1980, the costs of empire declined; and that the importance of these costs has been exaggerated. See the Spechlers' article in: Menon, Rajan and Nelson, Daniel N. (eds). Limits to Soviet Power (1989).

44. Parade Magazine, March 4, 1984, pp. 10-11.

45. Earth Island Journal, Fall 1990, p. 10.

46. Asia Watch Committee. Quoted in: Szulc, Tad. Then and Now (1990), p. 466.

47. Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War (Benjamin Jowett's translation), bk I, 19.

48. Mikhail Gorbachev. Cited in: Lifton, Robert Jay and Markusen, Eric. The Genocidal Mentality (1990), p. 267.

49. Motyl, Alexander J. Sovietology, Rationality, Nationality (1990), p. 187.

50. Heisbourg, Francois (ed). The Strategic Implications of Change in the Soviet Union (1990), p. 21.

51. The causal link between democracy and social justice was already evident at the dawn of Athenian democracy. For example, Solon's reforms prohibited the enslavement of Athenian citizens who were unable to pay their debts. Later, legislative reforms provided for regular welfare payments to the poor.

52. Walt Whitman might have had something like this in mind when he wrote about "the democratic wisdom underneath, like solid ground for all" (see his poem, "The Commonplace").

53. As far as I am aware, the first clear repudiation of the myth of authoritarian efficiency, and the most powerful theoretical explanation of democracy's greater observable efficiency, can be found in Karl R. Popper's The Open Society and its Enemies. My discussion of this myth has been strongly influenced by Popper's work.

 

Chapter 2: CONSEQUENCES OF NUCLEAR WAR

1. From his poem: "A New World."

2. Barnaby, Frank and Thomas, Geoffrey (eds). The Nuclear Arms Race-Control or Catastrophe? (1982).

a) pp. 7-16. b) p. 15. c) p. 170.

3. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Nuclear Radiation in Warfare (1981). a) pp. 4-11. b) p. 14. c) p. 12. d) p. 88.

4. United States Department of Defense and Department of Energy (Glasstone, Samuel and Dolan, Philip J., eds). The Effects of Nuclear Weapons (1977; 3rd edition).

5. Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment. The Effects of Nuclear War (1979).

a) p. 21. b) p. 35.

6. United Nations Report A/35/392. Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons (1981).

a) parag. 152. b) parag. 153. c) parag. 163. d) parag. 260.

7. Goodwin, Peter. Nuclear War, the Facts on Our Survival (1981), p. 31.

8. A more pessimistic assessment of the wartime medical effects of ionizing radiation can be found in: Institute of Medicine, National Institute of Health. The Medical Implications of Nuclear War (1986).

9. Kazutoshi Hando in: The Pacific War Research Society. The Day Man Lost: Hiroshima, 6 August 1945 (1972), p. 14.

10. The Committee for the Compilation of Materials on Damage Caused by the Atomic Bombs in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Physical, Medical, and Social Effects of the Atomic Bombings (1981).

a) p. 14. b) pp. 7-11.

11. Peterson, Jeannie (ed). The Aftermath (1983).

a) p. 16. b) p. 19.

12. Hachiya, Michihiko. Hiroshima Diary (1955).

a) p. 4. b) p. 8.

13. Lifton, Robert J. Death in Life (1967).

a) p. 27. b) p. 29.

14. McNamara, Robert. Blundering into Disaster (1986), p. 5.

15. O'Keefe, Bernard J. Nuclear Hostages (1983).

a) p. 197. b) p. 231.

16. Clarke, Magnus. The Nuclear Destruction of Britain (1982).

17. United States Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State. The Global 2000 Report to the President of the U.S. (1980), vol. II.

a) p. 356. b) p. 248.

18. Medvedev, Zhores. A. Soviet Science (1978), p. 95.

19. Medvedev, Zhores. A. The Legacy of Chernobyl (1990), p. 280.

20. Komarov, B. The Destruction of Nature in the Soviet Union (1980), p. 103.

21. Miller, G. Tyler, Jr. Living in the Environment (1987; 5th edition), p. 371.

22. Suvorov, Viktor. Inside the Soviet Army (1982), p. 59.

23. H. J. Muller, quoted in: Moody, Paul, A. Genetics of Man (1975; second edition), p. 427.

24. New York Times, January 23, 1990, p. B5.

25. National Research Council. The Effects on the Atmosphere of a Major Nuclear Exchange (1985).

26. London, Julius and White, Gilbert F. (eds). American Association for the Advancement of Science Selected Symposium: The Environmental Effects of Nuclear War (1984).

a) p. 125. b) p. 91 c) p. 123. d) p. 128.

27. Environment, June 1988, p. 13. 28. American Chemical Society. Cleaning our Environment: A Chemical Perspective (1978; 2nd edition), p. 131.

29. Scientific American, January 1988, pp. 30-36.

30. Earth Island Journal, Fall 1990, p. 8.

31. United States Surgeon General. Healthy People (1979).

32. Historical Statistics of the United States, Colonial Times to 1970, Part 1, p. 55.

33. Levi, Werner. The Coming End of War (1981), p. 8.

34. Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction (1990).

a) p. 127.

b) p. 4. The number of cities depends on the number of missiles (24 in the new submarines, 16 in the older ones) and the area which can be covered by warheads launched from a single missile. Hence, the number of missiles (with 7 warheads for new missile submarines, 10 for the old) must be taken into account when calculating the number of targeted cities. Schwartz et al.'s calculation of 168 is probably too high.

c) pp. 210-211. d) pp. 128-129.

e) pp. 212-213. All quotes are Raymond Garthoff's.

35. Pringle, Peter and Arkin, William. SIOP, the Secret U.S. Plan for Nuclear War (1983), p. 239.

36. Polmar, Norman. The American Submarine (1983; second edition), p. 131.

37. Catudal, Honore M. Nuclear Deterrence-Does it Deter? (1985), pp. 480-481.

38. See Nikita S. Khrushchev's fascinating account in: Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (1990). Some analysts believe that practical nuclear parity existed in 1962 (e.g., Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction, 1990, pp. 52-53).

39. Former U.S. Senator J. W. Fulbright, quoted in: The Sunday Oregonian, November 20, 1983, p. F3.

40. Kennedy, Robert. Thirteen Days (1969).

a) p. 111. b) pp. 111-112. c) p. 48. d) quoted on p. 210.

41. Dillon, G. M. (ed). Defence Policy Making (1988), p. 76.

42. John Steinbruner persuasively argues that such incidents "cannot be explained away simply as unusual mistakes . . . They reflect rather the sort of thing that must be expected to happen when high crisis strikes the very complicated, inevitably decentralized, very large organizations that constitute modern strategic forces." In: Griffiths, Franklyn and Polanyi, John C. (eds). The Dangers of Nuclear War (1979), p. 39.

43. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival (1988).

a) p. 446. b) p. 444.

44. Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions (1989), p. 274.

45. A similar series of coincidental events took place during the 1956 Suez crisis. See: Bracken, Paul. The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (1983), pp. 65-68.

46. Gregory, Shaun. The Hidden Cost of Deterrence (1990).

a) p. 196.

47. Cox, John. Overkill (1977).

a) p. 118. b) p. 115.

48. Parade Magazine, August 14, 1983.

49. Common Cause Magazine, 1984, vol. 10, no. 1, p. 15. 50. Miller, William Green (ed). Toward a More Civil Society? (1989), pp. xvi-xix.

51. A few other variations of accidental war are described in: Wilson, Andrew. The Disarmer's Handbook (1983), Chapter 15. For an attempt at a theoretical study of conditions which might lead to unintentional nuclear war, see: Frei, Daniel, with Catrina, Christian (United Nations Institute for Disarmament Research). Risks of Unintentional Nuclear War (1982).

52. In: Egner, Robert E. and Denonn, Lester E. The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (1961), p. 732. See also Pierre Elliott Trudeau's comments in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, February 1985, p. 13.

 

Chapter 3: COSTS OF THE ARMS RACE

1. From the Brothers Karamazov, Book V, Chapter IV. Alyosha Karamazov's answer to this question is: "No, I wouldn't consent."

2. Newsweek, July 11, 1988, pp. 42-44.

3. Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction (1990), p. 177.

4. Gregory, Shaun. The Hidden Cost of Deterrence (1990), p. 60.

5. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook.

a) 1982; pp. 363-389. b) 1984; p. 69. c) 1989; p. 10.

6. Natural History, November 1990, p. 35.

7. The International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 1987/88, p. 238.

8. Statistical Abstracts of the United States (1988, 108th edition).

a) pp. 43, 314. b) p. 323.

9. Vidal, Gore. At Home (1988), pp. 127-128.

10. Brown, Harold. Thinking About National Security (1983), pp. 216-217.

11. Jacobsen, Carl G. The Nuclear Era (1982), p. 112.

12. Ruth Sivard, cited in: Corvallis Gazette-Times, March 29, 1984.

13. Miller, G. Tyler, Jr. Living in the Environment (1990; 6th edition).

a) estimated from data on pp. 267, 270.

b) p. 268. c) p. 466. d) pp. 270-271.

14. Some economists agree with my more cautious conclusions. For instance,

There is a strong temptation to link the poor performance of both Western and socialist economies in recent years with the size of their military budgets. There is always an attraction in simple, single explanations for a miscellany of troubles. . . . However, except when there are major changes in trend in military expenditure, it is a mistake to consider that the military sector is responsible for such macro-economic developments as upswings in prices or in unemployment. In particular, the worsening economic performance in the industrial economies during the last decade cannot properly be attributed to changes in military spending. . . . The main economic point to make about military expenditure is a very simple one: it uses up resources which might alternatively be employed to provide consumer satisfactions.

Frank Blackaby in: Ball, Nicole and Leitenberg, Milton (eds). The Structure of the Defense Industry (1983), pp. 7, 19, 20.

15. Medvedev, Zhores A. Nuclear Disaster in the Urals (1979). For an update, see: Medvedev, Zhores A. The Legacy of Chernobyl (1990), pp. 279-286.

16. Detroit Free Press, December 7, 1988, p. 9A.

17. Worldwatch Institute. State of the World 1991.

a) p. 139. b) p. 143.

18. Earth Island Journal, Fall 1990, p. 8

19. Pringle, Peter and Arkin, William. SIOP, the Secret U.S. Plan for Nuclear War (1983), p. 231.

20. General Maxwell D. Taylor, quoted in: Brodie, Bernard. War and Politics (1973), p. 193.

21. Yarmolinsky, Adam and Foster, Gregory D. Paradoxes of Power (1983).

a) p. 68. b) p. 94.

22. At times the diminution in academic freedom is blatant. Can we really expect the truth to emerge from the pen of scholars who accepted the Defense Intelligence Agency's invitation "to bid on contracts for third-world research"? (The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 8, 1985, p. 1).

23. Fulbright, J. W. The Pentagon Propaganda Machine (1970).

a) p. 11. b) pp. 157, 141, 142.

 

Chapter 4: WEAPONS OF THE COLD WAR

1. From the Foreword to the 1969 Perennial Classic edition (Harper & Row) of Brave New World, p. xi.

2. United Nations Report A/35/392. Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons (1981).

a) parag. 11. b) parag. 74.

3. Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction (1990), p. 183.

4. The U.S. military was exploring the use of recombinant DNA technology in biological warfare as early as 1982. Nature (1982), vol. 297, pp. 527; 615-616. See also: Piller, Charles and Yamamoto, Keith R. Gene Wars (1988).

5. U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report. Fiscal Year 1982, p. 37.

6. Tsipis, Kosta. Arsenal (1983), p. 122.

7. Bracken, Paul. The Command and Control of Nuclear Forces (1983).

8. Jasani, Bhupendra (ed). Outer Space-A New Dimension of the Arms Race (1982).

a) p. 239. b) p. 119. c) pp. 41-63.

 

Chapter 5: STRATEGIC THINKING IN

THE UNITED STATES

1. Mill, J. S. Principles of Political Economy (1871, 2nd edition); from the section: Preliminary Remarks. 2. Frankel, C. The Specter of Eugenics. In: Ostheimer, N. C. and Ostheimer, J. M. (eds). Life or Death-Who Controls? (1976), pp. 23-24.

3. Popper, Karl R. The Open Society and its Enemies (1966; 5th edition), vol. 1, chap. 10, section v, p. 189.

4. Bottome, Edgar. The Balance of Terror (second edition; 1986), p. xiv.

5. Detroit Free Press, June 9, 1990, p. 1A.

6. San Francisco Chronicle, May 30, 1990, p. 1A.

7. Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions (1989).

8. Rumble, Greville. The Politics of Nuclear Defence (1985), p. 123.

9. Luttwak, Edward. Strategy (1987), p. 206.

10. Holdren, John P. in: Cohen, Avner and Lee, Steven. Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity (1986), p. 46.

11. Gray, Colin S. and Payne, Keith. Foreign Policy, vol. 39 (summer 1980), p. 14.

12. Ronald Reagan, quoted in: The Oregonian, November 27, 1983, p. A2.

13. Quoted in: Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival (1988), p. 573.

14. The Chronicle of Higher Education, May 4, 1988, p. A8.

15. USA Today, September 27, 1989.

16. If they managed to develop them at all-by the late 1980s, for instance, the good Soviets were just overcoming the challenge of solid fuels.

17. United States Department of Defense. Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1982, p. 44.

18. Such as the cruise missiles he seemed to be so fond of, again ignoring nuclear overkill and the likeliest outcome: more cruise missiles and less security for both sides.

19. A more detailed exposition of Harold Brown's doctrine of appearances can be found in his Thinking About National Security (1983), pp. 83-84, 265. Brown's views are shared by many others. For example, a former head of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency testified in a 1983 Senate hearing: "The nuclear weapon is primarily a political, not a military force . . . the risk of nuclear war is far less today than the risk that the unity of the West will be destroyed . . . by psychological and political pressures emanating from the nuclear balance." But despite its many well-paid adherents, this concern is plainly illogical: "If . . . there was indeed a political wound from the alleged Soviet superiority . . . it was a self-inflicted wound. Instead of constantly referring to a non-existent . . . vulnerability, US spokesmen could simply have pointed out that . . . superiority, if it existed, had no military value . . . The political effect, such as it is, was created by the same people who then proceeded to stress its importance." See: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook 1984, p. 42.

20. Question: How many bombs would have hit Moscow in a retaliatory strike after the Soviets have destroyed in a disarming first strike all the American nuclear bombs and delivery vehicles they possibly could? Answer: 60. See McGeorge Bundy, in: Bertram, Christoph (ed). Strategic Deterrence in a Changing Environment (1981), p. 112.

21. General Brent Scowcroft, Chairman. Report of the President's Commission on Strategic Forces (1983). 22. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World Armaments and Disarmament; SIPRI Yearbook (1984).

a) p. 383.

b) pp. 417, 418. Raymond L. Garthoff (in: Neidle, Alan F. Nuclear Negotiations, 1982, p. 24), former U.S. disarmament negotiator and ambassador to Bulgaria, is equally blunt on this point.

[The] theoretical possibility that about 90 percent of American ICBMs could be destroyed by a Soviet first strike . . . would by no means eliminate a very substantial American capability to strike the Soviet Union in retaliation . . . [and] is less damaging to our strategic position than would be the reverse for the Soviet Union.

23. Hachiya, Michihiko. Hiroshima Diary (1955), p. 48.

24. Time, January 1, 1990, pp. 67-68.

25. Garthoff, Raymond L. Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine (1990), pp. 199-200.

26. Catudal, Honore M. Soviet Nuclear Strategy from Stalin to Gorbachev (1988), pp. 165-173.

27. A brief review of American strategic thinking by the late Bernard Brodie-the most highly regarded American strategist-can be found in his: The development of nuclear strategy. In: Brodie, Bernard, et al. (eds). National Security and International Stability (1983), pp. 5-22. Until fairly recently, this book has been one of a handful in which Soviet officials were invited to air their views. Like religion and love, democracy is easy to preach but exceedingly hard to practice.

28. Detroit Free Press, March 2, 1990, p. 9A.

 

Chapter 6: THE MILITARY BALANCE

1. Quoted in: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1983, p. 2.

2. Cox, Arthur M. Russian Roulette (1982).

a) quoted on p. 101.

b) Excerpted from Arbatov's commentary, pp. 179-180.

3. Quoted in: O'Keefe, Bernard J. Nuclear Hostages (1983), p. 161.

4. Quoted in: Issues in Science and Technology, Spring 1988, p. 26.

5. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

a) October 1983, p. 29. b) October 1983, pp. 28-32. c) April 1983, pp. 45-46. d) June 1988, p. 56. e) July/August 1988, p. 56. f) December 1982, p. 48. g) October 1983, p. 30.

6. According to President Carter, "Just one of our relatively invulnerable . . . [missile] submarines-less than two percent of our total nuclear force of submarines, aircraft, and landbased missiles-carries enough warheads to destroy every large and medium-sized city in the Soviet Union. Our deterrent is overwhelming." Quoted in: Capra, Fritjof. The Turning Point (1982), p. 240.

7. Pringle, Peter and Arkin, William. SIOP, the Secret U.S. Plan for Nuclear War (1983), p. 163.

8. Suvorov, Viktor. Inside the Soviet Army (1982).

a) pp. 232-233. b) p. 245. c) p. 239. d) pp. 239-245.

9. According to the Association of American Universities, "the Reagan Administration's efforts to restrict public access to various types of information have hindered scientific progress, damaged the nation's economy and security, and eroded academic freedom." Report summary in: The Chronicle of Higher Education, March 30, 1988.

10. Holloway, David. The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983).

a) see for example, pp. 84-86. b) pp. 134-140. c) quoted on p. 14.

11. Jacobsen, Carl G. The Nuclear Era (1982), pp. 25-26.

12. According to former President Carter, if the President's goal "is to rapidly escalate the American defense budgets, then those are the kind of estimates he will get." (New York Times, March 2, 1986, p. 32.) A few other examples of institutional distortions are given in Chapter 7. Additional instructive examples can be found in: Daniel, Donald C. (ed.) International Perceptions of the Superpower Military Balance (1978), pp. 21-28.

13. Collins, John M. and Cordesman, Anthony H. Imbalance of Power (1978).

a) All quotations are from Cordesman's analysis, pp. xv-xxviii.

b) cited on pp. 108-109. c) pp. 23-24. d) p. 172.

14. Garthoff, Raymond, L. Perspectives on the Strategic Balance (1983).

a) p. 7. b) pp. 17, 18, 21.

c) pp. 27-28. All this is not meant to dismiss static indicators, but merely to place in them in a proper perspective. After all, they did decide the outcome of the Winter War and they undoubtedly contributed to Soviet victory in World War II.

15. The International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Military Balance.

a) 1982/83. b) 1987/88, p. 230.

16. Peterson, Jeannie. The Aftermath (1983).

17. United Nations Report A/35/392. Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons (1981).

18. Barnaby, Frank and Thomas, Geoffrey (eds). The Nuclear Arms Race-Control or Catastrophe? (1982).

19. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Nuclear Radiation in Warfare (1981).

20. Gervasi, Tom. The Myth of Soviet Military Supremacy (1986).

a) p. 338. In late 1985, according to Gervasi, the Soviet Union had some 7,865 deliverable strategic warheads and the U.S. had 13,761; giving the U.S. a 75 percent advantage.

b) p. 397. Assuming a complete surprise attack by either side and neither side firing its missiles before the first wave of incoming missiles reaches its targets, Congressional Budget Office statistics suggest that the survivability ratio in 1982 was one to nine (601/5316) in favor of the U.S.

21. Garthoff, Raymond L. Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine (1990), p. 131.

22. Brodie, Bernard et al. (eds). National Security and International Stability (1983), p. 14.

23. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival (1988), pp. 353-354. 24. Snow, Donald M. The Nuclear Future (1983), pp. 49-50.

25. Menon, Rajan and Nelson, Daniel N. (eds). Limits to Soviet Power (1989).

a) pp. 11-12. b) p. 212. c) p. 171. d) p. 11.

26. Polmar, Norman. The American Submarine (1983; second edition), p. 131.

27. Scientific American, November 1982, p. 57.

28. In fact, one could argue that the Soviets' strategic "triad" consisted of only one whole leg (land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles, one half leg (submarines), and one quarter leg (bombers), yielding a total of less than two legs. Conversely, one could argue that the West's "triad" was in reality a seven-legged monster: the three traditional legs; cruise missiles; bombers stationed at sea, Western Europe and Korea; the French nuclear arsenal; and the British arsenal.

29. Israel reportedly developed "a ballistic missile able to reach the Soviet Union." Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction (1990), p. 175.

30. National Academy of Sciences. Nuclear Arms Control (1985), p. 137. See also: Tsipis, Kosta. Arsenal (1983), pp. 164-166.

31. United States Department of Defense. Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1982.

a) p. 47. b) p. 29. c) p. 89.

32. Luttwak, Edward. Strategy (1987).

a) p. 206.

33. Time, January 1, 1990, p. 67.

34. See Michael T. Klare's article in: Menon, Rajan and Nelson, Daniel N. (eds). Limits to Soviet Power (1989).

35. "Static peacetime inputs alone are very poor indicators of dynamic wartime . . . performance." Epstein, Joshua M. Measuring Military Power (1984), p. 131.

36. Steven L. Canby in: Harkavy, Robert and Kolodziej, Edward A. (eds). American Security Policy and Policy-Making (1980), p. 98.

37. Commander of the U.S. Army in Europe was disappointed "to hear people talk about the overwhelming Soviet conventional military strength. We can defend the borders of Western Europe with what we have. I've never asked for a larger force." Quoted in: Knelman, F. H. Reagan, God, and the Bomb (1985), p. 197. For more detailed discussions of the myth of Soviet conventional superiority see: Cockburn, Andrew. The Threat (1983). Dibb, Paul. The Soviet Union (1986), pp. 156-167. Catudal, Honore M. Nuclear Deterrence-Does it Deter? (1985), pp. 224-233. The International Institute for Strategic Studies. The Military Balance 1987/88, pp. 226-232. Morris, Charles R. Iron Destinies, Lost Opportunities (1988), pp. 418-434.

38. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook (1983).

a) pp. 154-157. b) p. 265.

39. Stanley Sienkiewicz, in: Brown, James and Snyder, William P. (eds). The Regionalization of Warfare (1985), pp. 85-86. In Sienkiewicz' view, the following factors contributed to this outcome: the superior training, professionalism, and motivation of Israeli pilots and soldiers, superiority of

U.S.-manufactured weapons, better surveillance and warning systems, and the element of surprise.

Another analyst goes farther. The chief cause of the "continued overwhelming success of the Israelis against enormous numerical odds" is not, he suggests, "Arab incompetence," but the "enormous fighting edge" Israel's Western weapons had over Syria's Soviet weapons (Morris, Charles R. Iron Destinies, Lost Opportunities, 1988, p. 390). The West's decisive superiority in the Persian Gulf War lends further support to this view.

40. Bertram, Christoph (ed). America's Security in the 1980s (1982).

a) p. 41

b) p. 42. Similarly, in 1981 the Navy Secretary stated that the U.S. Navy was "far superior in both numbers and quality." Quoted in: Knelman, F. H. Reagan, God, and the Bomb (1985), p. 197.

41. The Boston Study Group. The Price of Defense (1979), p. 24.

42. Jacobsen, Carl G. Soviet Strategic Initiatives (1979), p. 135.

43. Bialer, Seweryn. The Soviet Paradox (1986).

a) p. 69. b) p. 63. c) p. 263.

44. Herodotus. The Persian Wars (George Rawlinson's translation), bk. v, parag. 78.

45. Alone, the British, French, or Chinese nuclear forces "would be capable of inflicting tremendous damage against urban targets." National Academy of Sciences. Nuclear Arms Control (1985), p. 16.

46. "It is fair to regard the Warsaw Pact as more a symbol of Soviet weakness than of Soviet strength. . . . there is little about which Moscow or East European rulers can be fully assured in the Warsaw Pact." Daniel N. Nelson in: Nelson, Daniel N. (ed). Soviet Allies (1984), pp. 266-267.

47. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander I. The Gulag Archipelago (1974), vol. 1.

a) pp. 261-262. This could be a conservative estimate. Another writer believes that, by war's end, one million Russian soldiers and officers were fighting against the Soviet Army (Suvorov, Viktor. Inside the Soviet Army, 1982, p. 239).

b) We may note, in passing, history's strange ways. According to Solzhenitsyn (p. 159), Khrushchev's oldest son died in a penal battalion, a personal tragedy which probably contributed to Khrushchev's de-Stalinization campaign.

48. Luttwak, Edward N. The Pentagon and the Art of War (1986).

a) p. 191.

b) Quotations are from pages 21, 18, 188, 191, 192, 19, 20. For two actual examples of the American military's state of decay, see Luttwak's description of the 1983 Grenada invasion (pp. 51-58) and his analysis of the Air Force Systems Command (pp. 166-180). It is too early to tell whether the swift victory in the Persian Gulf War was achieved despite this decay.

49. McPherson, Karen A. in: Edmonds, Martin. (ed). Central Organizations of Defense, pp. 213, 218, 219.

50. Dillon, G. M. Defence Policy Making (1988), p. 67.

51. Parkinson, C. Northcote. Parkinson's Law (1957).

52. Cockburn, Andrew. The Threat (1983). All quotations are from pp. 184, 44, 86, 236.

53. Medvedev, Zhores A. Soviet Science (1978), pp. 146-147.

54. Khrushchev Remembers (translated by Strobe Talbott, published by Little, Brown and Company; Boston, 1970), p. 343.

55. Such misinformation is occasionally found in surprising quarters. See, for example, Bottome, Edgar. The Balance of Terror (1986 revised edition); Medvedev, Zhores A. Soviet Science (1978).

56. Armed Forces Journal International, August 1983, p. 68.

 

Chapter 7: HISTORY OF THE COLD WAR

1. Wallace, Henry A. Toward World Peace (1948), pp. 4, 46.

2. Quoted in: Nathan, Otto and Norden, Heinz (eds). Einstein on Peace (1960), pp. 538-539.

3. Berlin, Isaiah. Historical Inevitability (1954), p. 53.

4. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander. Warning to the West (1976), p. 74.

5. Reported by Jerome B. Wiesner in: Tsipis, Kosta et al. (eds). Arms Control Verification (1986), p. xiv.

6. Krass, Allan S. Verification: How Much Is Enough? (1985), p. 253.

7. Zuckerman, Solly. Nuclear Illusion and Reality (1982).

a) pp. 122-125. b) p. 118.

8. The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1985, p. 9.

9. Seaborg, Glenn T. Kennedy, Khrushchev, and the Test Ban (1981).

a) Averell W. Harriman, quoted on p. 242. b) p. 4. c) p. 9.

10. Leontief, Wassily W. The distribution of work and income. Scientific American, September 1982, pp. 188-204.

11. Friedman, Milton. Capitalism and Freedom (1962).

12. Heilbroner, Robert L. The Limits of American Capitalism (1966).

13. Ball, Nicole, and Leitenberg, Milton. (eds). The Structure of the Defense Industry (1983), p. 47.

a) Judith Reppy on p. 47. b) David Holloway on p. 75.

14. Quoted in: Collins, John M. U.S.-Soviet Military Balance 1980-1985 (1985), p. 9.

15. Time, January 1, 1990.

a) p. 69. b) p. 72. c) p. 68. d) p. 70.

16. Garthoff, Raymond L. Deterrence and the Revolution in Soviet Military Doctrine (1990).

a) for a brief review, see pp. 186-189. b) pp. 199-200.

17. Brown, Harold. Thinking about National Security (1983), p. 187.

18. Strobe Talbott, diplomatic correspondent for Time Magazine, summarized the record (see: Nye, Joseph S., Jr. The Making of America's Soviet Policy, 1984, p. 205):

Only . . . when they have felt less threatened by their external enemies have the Soviet leaders decided that they could be more lenient toward . . . their own people . . . Only in such moments have they been able to tolerate cultural innovations, economic experimentation, and some very rudimentary political pluralism. The possibility that the United States can contribute to the amelioration of the Soviet system by the reduction of Soviet-American tensions is one of the few positive

lessons for the future that emerges from the otherwise erratic, perplexing, and rather dismal history of the relationship.

Sovietologist Seweryn Bialer (The Soviet Paradox, 1986, p. 120) concurs: "In the Soviet Union, hard international times almost always produce hard domestic lines."

It is thus possible to argue that the mellowing of Soviet domestic and foreign policies in the mid 1950s and 1980s took place despite the harsh international climate the Eisenhower and Reagan years created. Still other analysts believe that Soviet immigration policies are shaped for the most part by domestic, rather than international, factors. See Laurie P. Salitan's article in: Bialer, Seweryn (ed). Politics, Society, and Nationality Inside Gorbachev's Russia (1989).

19. Smith, Hedrick. The Russians (1976), chap. 20, p. 500.

20. Holloway, David. The Soviet Union and the Arms Race (1983).

a) p. 15. b) Margaret Gowing, 1977, quoted on p. 20. c) pp. 26-27.

21. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival (1988), p. 117.

Despite the pleas on his behalf by some of Churchill's closest associates and advisors, Bohr waited more than a month before being granted an interview with the British Prime Minister. The rude ending was characteristic of the meeting as a whole. Churchill's reply to Bohr's request for permission to send him a memorandum on the subject was: "It will be an honour for me to receive a letter from you, but not about politics." (Cited in: Lieberman, Joseph I. The Scorpion and the Tarantula, 1970, p. 35). If nothing else, Churchill's conduct, and this reply, should give pause to those of us who have been taught to uphold Churchill as an exemplary champion of freedom.

This episode is characteristic of the tragic schism between politicians and their scientists-servants. In a book written before the outbreak of World War I, H. G. Wells presciently wrote:

Destruction was becoming so facile that any little body of malcontents could use it; it was revolutionising the problems of police and internal rule. Before the last war began it was a matter of common knowledge that a man could carry about in a handbag an amount of latent energy sufficient to wreck half a city. These facts were before the minds of everybody; the children in the streets knew them. And yet the world still . . . "fooled around" with the paraphernalia and pretensions of war. It is only by realising this profound, this fantastic divorce between the scientific and intellectual movement on the one hand and the world of the lawyer-politician on the other that the men of a later time can hope to understand this preposterous state of affairs. (Wells, H. G. The World Set Free, 1914, Chapter 2, Section, 5).

Bertrand Russell:

It is the custom among those who are called "practical" men to condemn any man capable of a wide survey as a visionary: no man is thought worthy of a voice in politics unless he ignores or does not know nine tenths of the most important relevant facts. (In: Nathan, Otto and Norden Heinz, eds. Einstein on Peace, 1960, p. xv.)

Martin J. Sherwin believes that Bohr's proposals "reveal more than the insights and oversights of an individual scientist; they represent the transfer of the scientific ideal into the realm of international politics." In: Graebner, Norman A. (ed). The National Security (1986), p. 111.

Albert Szent-Gyorgyi (in: Annual Review of Biochemistry, 1963, vol. 32, p. 13) goes farther:

I have touched upon two facets of science, its ways of thinking and the tools it creates. The danger of our days is that politics has run away with the tools, leaving the way of thinking behind. The forces created by science can be handled only by the mentality which created them.

22. O'Keefe, Bernard J. Nuclear Hostages (1983).

a) p. 122. b) Harry Truman, quoted on p. 130. c) p. 218.

23. Lieberman, Joseph I. The Scorpion and the Tarantula (1970).

a) pp. 194-195. b) p. 273.

24. Hamilton, Michael P. (ed). To Avoid Catastrophe (1977).

a) p. 27. b) p. 36. c) p. 40.

25. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival (1988).

a) p. 177. b) p. 203.

26. Herken, Gregg. The Winning Weapon (1980), p. 171.

27. Myrdal, Alva. The Game of Disarmament (1976).

a) p. 75. b) pp. 76-77.

28. Brodie, Bernard et al. (eds). National Security and International Stability (1983).

a) pp. 327-356. b) paraphrased on p. 336.

29. Stein, Jonathan B. From H-bomb to Star Wars (1984).

30. Noel-Baker, Philip. The Arms Race (1958).

a) The title of this section is taken from Chapter 2 of Noel-Baker's book.

b) quoted on pp. 21-22. c) p. 234.

31. Paterson, Thomas G. et al. American Foreign Policy (1977).

a) p. 489. Khrushchev's explanation for reaching this accord can be found in: Khrushchev Remembers: The Glasnost Tapes (1990), pp. 72-80.

b) quoted on p. 490.

32. Quoted in: Cox, John. Overkill (1977), p. 177.

33. A case by case refutation of mainstream historians' inventions of reality will take a few lifetimes, thousands of pages, and voluminous yearly updates. One typical concoction can be found in: Stoessinger, John G. The Might of Nations (1979; sixth edition), pp. 395-396.

34. Frankland, Mark. Khrushchev (1967).

a) p. 166. b) p. 169.

35. Graebner, Norman A. (ed). The National Security (1986), p. 71.

36. Memories, April/May 1990, pp. 64, 66.

37. Neal, Fred W. (ed). Detente or Debacle (1979).

a) George Kistiakowsky, p. 63. b) p. 100.

38. Suvorov, Viktor. Inside the Soviet Army (1982).

39. National Academy of Sciences. Nuclear Arms Control (1985).

a) p. 193. Including the number of unmanned seismic stations, pro.pa cedures for their installation and operations, and practical rules governing on-site inspections.

b) p. 203. c) p. 86.

40. Alan F. Neidle (in: Neidle, Alan F., ed. Nuclear Negotiations, 1982, p. 77), a former ACDA official, believes that the Soviets made "some very extraordinary concessions." Those involved in these negotiations, he adds, "including myself, believe that the Soviets were genuinely serious."

41. Sykes, Lynn R. and Evernden, Jack F. The verification of a comprehensive test ban. Scientific American, October 1982.

42. Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook.

a) 1983; p. 568. b) 1983; p. 569. c) 1990; p. 51. d) 1983; pp. 533-534.

43. Sane World, September/October, 1985.

44. Kaufmann, William W. and Korb, Lawrence, J. The 1990 Defense Budget (1989), p. 3.

45. Piller, Charles and Yamamoto, Keith R. Gene Wars (1988).

a) p. 25. b) p. 43.

46. Cited in: Chronicle of Higher Education, May 4, 1988, p. A8.

47. U.S. Department of Defense. Annual Report, Fiscal Year 1982, pp. 60-61.

48. Garthoff, Raymond L. Perspectives on the Strategic Balance (1983), p. 9.

49. Miller, William Green (ed). Toward a More Civil Society? (1989).

a) p. xviii. b) p. 182.

50. Smith, Hedrick. The Power Game (1988).

a) p. 576. b) p. 640. c) p. 639. d) p. 640-641.

51. Yarmolinsky, Adam and Foster, Gregory D. Paradoxes of Power (1983), p. 137.

52. Campbell, Christopher. Nuclear Weapons Fact Book (1984), p. 53.

53. Quoted in: The Sunday Oregonian, 1983, November 20, p. F3. Other insiders put it this way: This new plan was totally nonnegotiable since it "required basic restructuring of Soviet strategic forces while meshing perfectly with Reagan's modernization plans." See: Destler, I. M. et al. Our Own Worst Enemy (1984), p. 234.

54. Scientific American, November 1982, p. 61.

55. Morris, Charles R. Iron Destinies, Lost Opportunities (1988).

a) p. 405. b) pp. 120-126.

56. Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction (1990), p. 190.

57. Detroit Free Press, June 20, 1990, p. 6A.

58. Bosworth, Barry P. et al. (eds). Critical Choices (1989), p. 82.

59. Detroit Free Press, June 5, 1990, p. 9A.

60. Detroit Free Press, March 2, 1990, p. 1A.

61. Cited in: Dillon, G. M. Defence Policy Making (1988), p. 113.

62. Gorbachev, Mikhail S. Toward a Better World (1987), pp. 12-13.

63. James B. Conant, cited in: Lilienthal, David E. The Journals of David E. Lilienthal. Vol. II. The Atomic Energy Years (1964), p. 581.

64. Richard Ned Lebow in: Hanrieder, Wolfram F. (ed). Technology, Strategy, and Arms control (1986), p. 66.

65. For instance: "The composition and policy of the Reagan administration constitute a radical discontinuity in American political history." Knelman, F. H. Reagan, God, and the Bomb (1985), p. 14.

66. Mandelbaum, Michael (ed). The Other Side of the Table (1990), p. 189

67. Brodie, Bernard. War and Politics (1973), p. 216.

68. Gelb, Leslie H. with Betts, Richard K. The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (1979), pp. 100-104.

69. For a more detailed documentation and analysis of Hardline Supremacy, see: Barnet, Richard J. Roots of War (1972), pp. 109-115.

70. For a recent review, see Judith Ann Thornton's article in: Menon, Rajan and Nelson, Daniel N. (eds). Limits to Soviet Power (1989).

71. Luttwak, Edward N. The Pentagon and the Art of War (1984), p. 286.

72. Commoner, Barry. The Closing Circle (1974; Bantam edition).

73. John P. Holdren. In: Cohen, Avner and Lee, Steven (eds). Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity (1986), p. 76. Edward N. Luttwak agrees (Strategy: The Logic of War and Peace, 1987, p. 186): "Arms control . . . does not restrain the competitive impulse but merely diverts it."

74. Both candidates possibly believed that the gaps they were talking about actually existed, but this is not the point. The point is: of the millions of competent Americans who might have been willing to serve a stint in the White House, how did we come to select men with such dangerous and incorrect opinions?

According to Daniel Elsberg (in: Thompson, E. P. and Smith, Dan, eds. Protest and Survive, 1981, pp. vii, viii): "In mid-1961, the year of the projected 'missile gap' favoring the Russians, the United States had within range of Russia about 1000 tactical bombers and 2000 intercontinental bombers, 40 ICBMS, 48 Polaris missiles, and another 100 intermediate range missiles based in Europe. The Soviets had at that time some 190 intercontinental bombers and exactly four ICBMs: four 'soft,' nonalert, liquid-fueled ICBMs at one site at Plesetsk that was vulnerable to a small attack with conventional weapons." In Elsberg's view, this represented American nuclear superiority "so overwhelming as to amount to monopoly."

75. See Michael T. Klare's article in: Menon, Rajan and Nelson, Daniel N. (eds). Limits to Soviet Power (1989).

76. A more recent illustration of this and other tactics can be found in: Rosefielde, Steven. False Science (1987).

77. Cox, Arthur M. Russian Roulette (1982), pp. 104-105.

78. Taubman, William, and Taubman, Jane. Moscow Spring (1989), p. 57.

Chapter 8: BRINKMANSHIP AND IMPERIALISM?

1. Cited in: Haldeman, Harry R. (Bob) The Ends of Power (1978), p. 83.

2. Quoted in: Wittner, Lawrence S. Rebels Against War (1969), pp. 180-181.

3. Capek, Karel. War with the Newts (first published in 1936; the text gives a slightly modified version of M. & R. Weatherall's translation), p. 340. 4. Malcolmson, Robert W. Nuclear Fallacies (1985).

a) Bernard Brodie, quoted on p. 13. b) Bernard Brodie, quoted on p. 44. c) John Foster Dulles, quoted on p. 44. d) General Curtis LeMay, quoted on p. 53. e) Colin S. Gray, quoted on p. 15. f) p. 16.

5. Quoted in: Bottome, Edgar. The Balance of Terror (1986; 2nd edition), p. 34.

6. Pericles in a 430 B.C. speech to his fellow Athenians. Paraphrased in: Thucydides. The Peloponnesian War (Benjamin Jowett's translation), bk. II, 63.

7. Henry Kissinger, cited on p. 117 of: Rumble, Greville. The Politics of Nuclear Defence (1985).

8. Laird, Robbin F. The Soviet Union, the West and the Nuclear Arms Race, (1986), p. 53.

9. Luttwak, Edward N. The Pentagon and the Art of War (1986).

a) p. 231. b) pp. 122-123.

10. John P. Holdren in: Cohen, Avner and Lee, Steven (eds). Nuclear Weapons and the Future of Humanity (1986), pp. 41-83.

a) p. 46. b) p. 48.

11. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival (1988).

a) p. 94. b) pp. 239; 278-80.

12. Leitenberg, Milton. In: Eide, Asbjorn and Thee, Marek. Problems of Contemporary Militarism (1980).

a) p. 395. b) p. 389.

13. Schwartz, William A. et al. The Nuclear Seduction (1990).

a) p. 225. b) quoted on p. 137. c) p. 138. d) p. 64.

14. Blechman, Barry M. and Kaplan, Stephen S. Force without War (1978), pp. 48, 51.

15. Joseph J. Romm. In: Tsipis, Kosta et al. (eds). Arms Control Verification (1986), p. 37.

16. Dillon, G. M. Defence Policy Making (1988), p. 66.

17. Chaliand, Gerard. Report from Afghanistan (1982), pp. 7-8.

18. I cannot document this statement in this book. It is distilled from documents of the State Department, from the writings of many former State Department officials, and from the writings of a large random sample of Western scholars. Interested readers can simply study in detail American relations with any poor country and judge for themselves. Alternatively, they can begin with the following factual accounts. Greece: Wittner, Lawrence, S. American Intervention in Greece; 1943-1949 (1982); Stavrianos, L. S. Greece: American Dilemma and Opportunity (1952). Vietnam: The best study I have come across is Bernard Brodie's brief account in his War and Politics (1973). Other accounts of this tragedy can be found in: Karnow, Stanley. Vietnam: A History (1983); Lederer, William, J. Our Own Worst Enemy (1968).

19. Whetten, Nathan L. Guatemala: The Land and the People (1961).

a) p. 211. b) p. 86. c) p. 160.

20. Fried, Jonathan L. et al. (eds). Guatemala in Rebellion (1983).

a) p. 104. b) p. 43.

21. Immerman, Richard H. The CIA in Guatemala (1982).

a) p. 24. b) p. 44. c) pp. 49-50. d) p. 86. e) p. 5. f) pp. 171-172.

g) Daniel Graham, quoted on p. 186. 22. Findling, John E. Close Neighbors, Distant Friends (1987).

a) p. 92. b) p. 90. c) p. 109. d) p. 112. e) p. 180. f) p. 178.

23. Blasier, Cole. The Hovering Giant: U.S. Responses to Revolutionary Change in Latin America (1976).

a) p. 55. b) p. 154. c) pp. 59-60. d) pp. 62-63. e) p. 158 (quoting a Soviet publication).

24. Grieb, Kenneth J. Guatemalan Caudillo, the Regime of Jorge Ubico (1979), pp. 7, 8, 248-250.

25. It should come to us as no great surprise that in 1954, when the oligarchs regained power, they decreed the burning of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables on the ground of subversiveness. What is surprising, however, is that they left intact the Bible, which is, after all, far more subversive. See for example the laws in the Old Testament regarding debtors (Leviticus 25: 39-43) and gleaning (Leviticus 19:9-10), or Jesus' strong egalitarian sentiments (Matthew 19:21-24).

26. John Weeks in: Di Palma, Giuseppe and Whitehead, Laurence (eds). The Central American Impasse (1986).

a) p. 114. b) p. 123. c) p. 117. d) p. 126.

27. Schlesinger, Stephen and Kinzer, Stephen. Bitter Fruit (1982), p. 181.

28. Alan Riding, quoted in: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, October 1983, p. 12.

29. Organization of American States. Report on the Situation of Human Rights in the Republic of Guatemala (1983).

a) p. 1. b) p. 41. c) p. 69.

30. Excerpted from letters of Stuart Gold and Marc Grant to the New York Times, November 30, 1990, p. A14

31. Natural History, November 1990, p. 35.

32. Wilkie, James W. and Lowey, James (eds). Statistical Abstracts of Latin America, 1987, vol. 25.

33. Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions (1989), p. 268.

34. Organization of American States. The Situation of Human Rights in Cuba, Seventh Report (1983).

a) p. 181. b) p. 182.

35. Menon, Rajan and Nelson, Daniel N. (eds). Limits to Soviet Power (1989), p. 193.

36. Lederer, William, J. Our Own Worst Enemy (1968), pp. 66-67.

37. Ramazani, Rouhollah K. The United States and Iran (1982), pp. 69-70.

38. Bialer, Seweryn. The Soviet Paradox (1986), p. 278.

 

Chapter 9: ROOTS OF COLLECTIVE MISBEHAVIOR

1. Quoted in: The Metro Times (Detroit), July 13-19, 1988, p. 11.

2. Myrdal, Alva. The Game of Disarmament (1982 Pantheon Books revised edition), pp. xv, xvi.

3. This passage is taken from a 1776 letter by Adam Smith to William Strahan, recounting a conversation with David Hume seventeen days before

Hume's death. See: Hume, David. Essays: Moral, Political and Literary (an 1898 reprinting, edited by Green, T. H. and Grose, T. H.).

4. Djilas, Milovan. The New Class (1957), p. 56.

5. T. R. Malthus, 1798, cited in: Meek, Ronald L. Marx and Engels on Malthus (1953), p. 15.

6. Dubos, R. Man Adapting (1965), p. 359.

7. Richard Peto in: Peto, R. and Schneiderman, M. (eds). Quantification of Occupational Cancer (1981), p. xiv.

8. Herbert York (Race to Oblivion, 1970, p. 235), a former Director of Defense Research and Engineering in the Department of Defense, provides extensive documentation for his assertion that "when the principal programs or activities of . . . [defense-related] organizations are threatened, they react as if endowed with the instincts of living beings."

According to historian Richard J. Barnet (Roots of War, 1972, p. 137), the decisions made by the men who define the national interest "can be understood only by relating them to the struggles of bureaucratic politics. Bureaucracies respond to their own inner logic and to their own laws. Bureaucracies lose touch with the original purposes for which they are founded, and bureaucratic momentum often carries men far beyond the point to which they originally intend to go." See also: Capra, Fritjof. The Turning Point (1982), pp. 22l-222. Jacobsen, Carl G. The Nuclear Era (1982), p. 118.

9. Yarmolinsky, Adam and Foster, Gregory D. Paradoxes of Power (1983).

a) p. 31. b) p. 44. c) p. 39.

10. Quoted in: Gelb, Leslie H. with Betts, Richard K. The Irony of Vietnam: The System Worked (1979), p. 310.

11. Fallows, James. National Defense (1981), pp. 76-77.

12. Brodie, Bernard. War and Politics (1973), pp. 481-483.

On the question of brilliance, another analyst observes: "I was struck by how little 'edge' most of the generals seemed to have to their characters, how bland most of them seemed, not only in comparison with the captains and colonels beneath them, but also compared to successful men and women in other fields." (Fallows, James. National Defense, 1981, p. 122).

13. Smith, Hedrick. The Power Game (1988).

a) p. 196. b) p. 156. c) p. 155. d) Lloyd Cutler on p. 253. e) pp. 188-189.

14. Egginton, J. The Poisoning of Michigan (1980).

15. Congress of the United States, Office of Technology Assessment. Technologies and Management Strategies for Hazardous Waste Control (1983), p. 6.

16. Miller, G. Tyler, Jr. Living in the Environment, (1987; 5th edition), p. 503.

17. Newsweek, July 11, 1988, p. 22.

18. Detroit Free Press, May 10, 1990, p. 12A.

19. This is a widely shared view. For instance, according to a Justice Department study, nearly three out of four retired corporate executives believe that government regulations of industry are necessary (cited in Common Cause Magazine, May/June 1983, p. 8).

20. Parkinson, C. Northcote. Parkinson's Law (from Preface to the 1957 edition). 21. Collingridge, David. The Social Control of Technology (1980).

a) pp. 16-17. b) pp. 12, 183.

22. Popper, Karl. The Open Society and its Enemies, vol. 2. Hegel and Marx, (1966; 5th edition).

a) Arthur Schopenhauer, quoted in Chap. 12, I, p. 33.

23. Robert Cahn and Patricia L. Cahn. In: United States Council on Environmental Quality and the Department of State. The Global 2000 Report to the President of the U.S. (1980), vol. II, p. 685.

24. Quarles, John. Cleaning Up America: An Insider's View of the Environmental Protection Agency (1976), excerpted from pp. xv, xvi, 174, 242, 243.

25. Public Citizen.

a) Fall 1983, p. 6. b) Spring 1984, p. 6.

26. Malbin, Michael J. (ed). Money and Politics in the United States (1984).

a) David Adamany, p. 105. b) Gary C. Jacobson, p. 65.

27. Adams, Gordon. The Politics of Defense Contracting (1982).

a) quoted on p. 112. b) p. 77. c) p. 24.

28. Cox, Arthur M. Russian Roulette (1982), pp. 63-64.

29. Senators Barry Goldwater and John Stennis, quoted in: The Wall Street Journal, July 18, 1986, p. 1.

30. Richard Reeves in: Detroit Free Press, March 22, 1990, p. 11A.

31. The Sunday Oregonian (November 27, 1983), p. A16.

32. Greene, Robert W. The Sting Man: Inside Abscam (1981), p. 6.

33. James P. Gannon. The Detroit News, November 16, 1990, pp. 1A, 6A.

34. Adamany, David W. and Agree, George E. Political Money (1975), pp. x, 7, 42.

35. David Cortwright in a letter to Sane supporters.

36. Huxley, Aldous. Brave New World Revisited (1958).

a) pp. 54-55. b) quoted on p. 32. c) pp. 33-35. d) p. 107.

37. Newsweek, September 12, 1988, pp. 22-23.

38. Steinbeck, John. Cannery Row (1945), Chapter XXIII.

39. From James Barton Adams' poem: "Bill's in Trouble."

40. Statistical Abstracts of the United States (1987; 107th edition).

41. Paraphrased in Thucydides, The Peloponnesian War, bk. II, 39.  The translation is Karl R. Popper's (The Open Society and its Enemies).

42. Albert Einstein (1948), quoted in: Nathan, Otto and Norden, Heinz (eds). Einstein on Peace (1960), p. 502.

43. Frankland, Mark. Khrushchev (1967), pp. 159-160.

44. William Dorman and an anonymous co-author, quoted in: Rubin, Barry. Paved With Good Intentions (1980), p. 339.

45. Lederer, William, J. Our Own Worst Enemy (1968), p. 86.

46. Bagdikian, Ben H. The Media Monopoly (1987; second edition).

a) pp. 169-173. b) p. xvi. c) p. 4.

47. Life on the Mississippi, Chapter XIV.

48. Like so many other uncomfortable truths about our ailing democracy, my portrayal of the media is "controversial." See, for example, S. Robert Lichter and Stanley Rothman in: Pfaltzgraff, Robert L., Jr. and Ra'anan, Uri

(eds). National Security Policy (1984), pp. 265-282. See also: Bozell, L. Brent, III and Baker, Brent H. (eds). And That's the Way It Is(n't) (1990).

But I shall not tire the reader with the media's countless apologists. Laying their various claims to rest would, for one thing, require a whole book. There is in fact an organization-Fair-dedicated to Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting. See, for instance, its January/February 1988 newsletter, Extra, regarding the New York Times' coverage of Central America.

The debate between the media's defenders and critics provides just one more illustration of our old ugly friend, the phony controversy. Long ago, my students taught me a valuable lesson: a shift in one's way of viewing the world is rarely achieved through abstract logical refutations; besides intelligence and openmindedness, the key requirement is familiarity with a few representative episodes which cannot possibly be reconciled with textbook myths. So, instead of armchair discussions of intellectually dishonest apologetics, let me mention a small fraction of the distortional episodes which came to my attention during the single week I was revising this chapter:

I. A study by John D. H. Downing, Chairman of the Communication Department, Hunter College, reports parallels between Soviet press coverage of the Afghanistan War and American mainstream press coverage of the Civil War in El Salvador. "Neither superpower's media may be said to offer a remotely satisfactory account of these Third World wars in which they are deeply embroiled" (Chronicle of Higher Education, July 27, 1988, p. A7).

II. Fact #1: General Electric manufactures nuclear reactors. Fact #2: General Electric acquired National Broadcasting Corporation (NBC) in 1986. Prediction: NBC's coverage of nuclear power will be even more biased than is generally the case in the U.S. media. Test #1: you might wish to monitor future NBC's coverage of the nuclear power controversy. Test #2: a retrospective analysis of any previous coverage. Here you can begin with an NBC program about France's secretive, government-owned, nuclear power industry (Detroit Metro Times, July 13-19, 1988, pp. 10-13). Note that the issue is not the desirability of nuclear power, but the inevitable praise this NBC program lavished on the French massive project. NBC's one-sided coverage is evident, for instance, not only from the divergence between this program and the views of vehement opponents of nuclear energy, but from the sharp contrast between this program and such balanced academic reviews as Global 2000 Report to the President of the U.S. or most introductory ecology texts (e.g., Miller, G. Tyler Jr. Living in the Environment, 6th edition; 1990). An update: Despite growing signs that nuclear power is the "largest managerial disaster in U.S. business history" (Miller, p. 404), for NBC, nuclear power remains "a long-time solution to the energy problem" (Extra, November/December 1990, p. 7).

Many more representative episodes, and an unanswerable indictment of the U.S. mainstream media, can be found in: Parenti, Michael. Inventing Reality (1986). Herman, Edward S. and Chomsky, Noam. Manufacturing Consent (1988). Chomsky, Noam. Necessary Illusions (1989). Lee, Martin A. and Solomon, Norman. Unreliable Sources (1990).

49. Fulbright, J. W. The Pentagon Propaganda Machine (1970).

a) pp. 45-46. In 1986, the number of veterans still stood at some 28 million (Statistical Abstracts of the United States, 1988; 108th edition, p. 327). b) p. 12.

50. Brown, Harold. Thinking about National Security (1983), p. 60.

51. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States. Dwight D. Eisenhower, 1960-61, pp. 1038-1039.

52. Edward Thompson in: Barnaby, Frank and Thomas, Geoffrey. (eds). The Nuclear Arms Race-Control or Catastrophe? (1982), p. 68.

53. Marc Pilisuk in: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November 1982, p. 16.

54. O'Keefe, Bernard J. Nuclear Hostages (1983), pp. 228-229.

55. Lars-Erik Nelson in: Detroit Free Press, March 2, 1990, p. 9A.

56. Nature (1983), vol. 302, pp. 558, 560A.

57. Quoted in Galbraith, John K. (1983) The Anatomy of Power, p. 24.

58. Chomsky, Noam. Towards a New Cold War (1982), pp. 67, 80, 81.

59. Bury, J. B. A History of Greece (1900), IX, 5, p. 366.

60. Quoted in: Farley, Christopher and Hodgson, David (compilers). The Life of Bertrand Russell (1972), p. 31.

61. Shure, Gerald H. et al. Journal of Conflict Resolution, vol. 9, no. 1, March 1965, pp. 106-117.

62. Unfortunately, owing to this social pressure, this study fails to distinguish the relative contributions of conformity and callousness.

63. See his essay "An outline of intellectual rubbish." In: Egner, Robert E. and Dennon, Lester E. (eds). The Basic Writings of Bertrand Russell (1961), p. 87.

64. Steinbeck, John. The Winter of Our Discontent (1961), p. 115.

65. Darley, John M. et al. Psychology (1988; 4th edition), p. 166.

66. Festinger, Leon et al. When Prophecy Fails (1956).

67. At this writing, the exact date is still uncertain. The view which I shall (somewhat arbitrarily) assume to be true, is that the U.S. conducted its first H-bomb test in February of 1954 and that the USSR conducted its first test in November of 1955 (Holloway, David. The Soviet Union and the Arms Race, 1983, p. 24). A conflicting opinion can be found in Medvedev, Zhores A. Soviet Science (1978), pp. 52, 147. According to Medvedev, "the explosion of a thermonuclear device of military design took place in the USSR on September 12, 1953, about six months earlier than in the United States (March, 1954)."

68. Ernest Partridge, in: Kunkel, Joseph C. and Klein, Kenneth H. Issues in War and Peace (1989), p. 88.

69. Bundy, McGeorge. Danger and Survival (1988), p. 76.

70. George W. Ball in: Miller, William Green. (ed.) Toward a More Civil Society? (1989), pp. 247-248.

71. Gorbachev, Mikhail S. Toward a Better World (1987), pp. 18-19.

72. Kuhn, Thomas S. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions (1970; 2nd edition). Many other examples of conceptual conservatism in science can be found in: Asimov, Isaac. Asimov's New Guide to Science (1984).

73. De Kruif, Paul. Men Against Death (1932), chap. 1.

74. Nissani, M. and Hoefler-Nissani, D. M. 1992, Cognition & Instruction, Vol. 9, #2.

75. Nissani, M. Psychological Reports, 1989, vol. 65, pp. 19-24.

76. Asch, Solomon E. Psychological Monographs, 1956, vol. 70, no. 9.

77. Dillon, G. M. (ed). Defence Policy Making (1988) p. 76. 78. Milgram, Stanley. Obedience to Authority (1974), p. 123.

79. I cannot go here into the underlying causes of conformity and obedience. For my part, I am convinced that the contribution of conceptual conservatism in both cases has been underrated (see Nissani, M. American Psychologist, vol. 45, pp. 1384-1385, 1990). But regardless of causes, the laboratory and real life evidence for conformity and obedience seem strong enough to justify their inclusion in the text.

80. Bauman, Zygmunt. Modernity and the Holocaust (1989), pp. 152, 122.

81. Lisa Peattie in: The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March 1984, p. 34.

82. Solzhenitsyn, Alexander I. The Gulag Archipelago (1974), vol. I.

a) pp. 173-174. b) p. 298.

83. Quoted in: Ferrell, Robert H. American Diplomacy (1975; third edition), p. 501.

 

Chapter 10: A SURGICAL REFORM STRATEGY

1. The words are Pierre Bezukhov's, War and Peace's hero.

2. Iskander, Fazil. The Goatibex Constellation (translated into English in 1975 by Helen Burlingame), p. 43.

3. From his poem "Do Not Go Gently into that Good Night."

4. Vonnegut, Kurt Jr. Cat's Cradle, Chapter 110.

5. Alva Myrdal quoted in: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. World Armaments and Disarmament: SIPRI Yearbook (1986), p. v.

6. Frank Barnaby. In: Barnaby, Frank and Thomas, Geoffrey (eds). The Nuclear Arms Race-Control or Catastrophe? (1982), p. 35.

7. Quarles, John. Cleaning Up America: An Insider's View of the Environmental Protection Agency (1976), pp. 174, 242.

8. For example, Jeremy J. Stone (in: Forsberg, Randall et al. Seeds of Promise (1983), p. vi) puts it thus: "Only an outraged and vigilant public can secure meaningful arms control. . . . Conversely, when the public is not up in arms, even constructive treaties like the SALT II treaty have trouble securing Congressional passage."

9. Like so many other ills, the typical specific reformer's narrow vision and optimism could be traced in part to lack of information, which, in this case, included lack of familiarity with the history of early struggles. I know many dedicated and sincere peace activists, for example, but have yet to meet one who actually read Lawrence S. Wittner's excellent history (1933-1983) of the American peace movement (Rebels Against War, Revised Edition, 1984).

10. Quoted in: Bonhoeffer, Dietrich. The Cost of Discipleship (1963; translated from the German by R. H. Fuller, second edition), p. 22.

11. Kennedy, John F. Profiles in Courage (1956), Chap. 1.

12. Hubert Humphrey quoted in: Adamany, David W. and Agree, George E. Political Money (1975), p. 8.

 

Index Back to Main Menu Moti Nissani's Homepage