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Nuclear Winter puts freeze
on Reagan’s N-war plans

‘The Reagan administration has decided to ‘‘freeze”’
Nuclear Winter. Declaring that the concept requires
“*much more study”’, the White House has ordered at
least five years of further research before any policy
recommendations will be considered.

The Nuclear Winter hypothesis, however, already

represents the consensus of the world scientific commu- |

nity. Most scientists who had objections abandoned
them after last October’s Conference on the World After
Nuclear War. Attended by many of the most eminent
U.S. scientists, the conference brought together the re-
sults of 13 separate studies on the environmental impact
of various nuclear war ‘‘scenarios’’. The meeting’s
finding was dire, but unanimous: a nuclear conflict
involving as little as one per cent of existing nuclear
weapons would so severely destabilize global climate
and ecology as to make humankind’s continued exis-
tence highly doubtful.

A Nuclear Winter — widespread and prolonged freez-
ing of the earth’s surface, even in midsummer — would
result from smoke and dust thrown-high into the atmos-
phere by the blast and fires created by nuclear explo-
sions. The plume of particles would remain in the
stratosphere for months, or even years, blocking out
sunlight and causing temperatures all over the planet to
plummet sharply with catastrophic consequences for all
life.

Evidence has recently emerged that the Reagan Pen-
tagon has been actively trying to suppress Nuclear
Winter data for more than two years. The liberal Ameri-
can newsmagazine, the Nation, charges that the
Department of Defence used financial threats and other
pressures to prevent a number of U.S. scientists from
presenting the Nuclear Winter thesis at a meeting of the
American Geophysical Union in 1982.

~ Now that the information is finally public, the Reagan
administration has adopted the “acid rain’’ tactic, and
attempted to bury the matter in ‘“‘further studies’’.

Why? Because if the Nuclear Winter findings are cor-
rect, the entire strategic policy currently being pursued
by the U.S. is revealed as a deadly fraud.

In recent years, American strategic theorists have
moved away from the old concept of MAD (Mutual
Assured Destruction), in which deterrence was achieved
by aiming large, single-warhead nuclear missiles at
Soviet cities. Instead, they now advocate the
*‘Counterforce”’ doctrine, which involves smaller but
much more accurate and numerous warheads directed
against Soviet military, key industrial, and ‘‘command”’
(i:e., governmental) targets.

Thus, they argue, a nuclear war can be ‘‘won’’ by
destroying Soviet ‘‘war-making potential’, without

News
Analysis |@
Fred Weir

necessarily obliterating any population centres.

The weapons the U.S. had been building of late are
designed to operate under the ‘‘Counterforce’’ doctrine.
What the MX, Cruise, Pershing II, and Trident have in
common is the ability to deliver large numbers of rela-
tively ‘‘small’’ nuclear warheads with great precision —
what the generals call ‘“‘house-address accuracy”’> —
against individually pin-pointed targets. For that reason,
this new generation of weapons is described as
“‘first-strike capable’’, because they can be used to
launch a crippling pre-emptive blow against the defen-
sive and retaliatory potential of the other side.

The majority of the world’s scientists are now telling
us, however, that any significant use of nuclear weap-
ons, no matter where they are aimed, may well result in
the extinction of life on earth. U.S. astronomer, Dr. Carl
Sagan, addressed this point at last October’s conference,
noting that even if it were possible to execute a perfect
“surgical strike’’ in which all of the enemy’s war-making
capacities were neatly destroyed, the winner would

‘‘win’’ for only about two weeks before himself being
engulfed by the planetary Nuclear Winter.

“There is’’, said Sagan, ‘‘a rough threshold of 100
megatons, more or less, at which this climatic effect can
be triggered .. . Inother words, these climatic results are
independent of the kind of nuclear war we’re talking
about’’.

The Nuclear Winter conclusion represents a dovetail-
ing of data from every relevant scientific discipline. In-
terestingly, the same basic picture was arrived at by U.S.
and Soviet scientists working independently of each
other. Following last October’s conference, a number of
the participants round-robined by electronic hook-up
with Soviet colleagues in Moscow. They were amazed to
find that Soviet research has covered the same ground,
and come to virtually identical conclusions: Nuclear
Winter above a certain threshold of nuclear weapons-
use.

Even historians, it turns out, have something impor-
tant to tell us about the danger of Nuclear Winter. A new
book by Henry and Elizabeth Stommel, Volcano Weath-
er, documents what happened in 1815 when Mount
Tambora in Indonesia erupted, spewing huge quantities

were kept, unprecedented low temperatures were noted.

1. The single dot in the center of the chart represents
three million tons of explosive power, the total amount
dropped by the Allied powers during the six years of World -
Warll.

2. The other five thousand dots represent fifteen billion
tons of explosive power, the total in U.S. and Soviet nuc-
lear arsenals today.

3. Leading American and Soviet scientists now agree that
explosion of as little as one hundred million tons (as shown
in shaded area) might well turn the earth into a dark, frozen
planet on which the extinction of the human species could
not be excluded. They call this the “nuclear winter’.

of dust and soot high into the stratosphere.
Throughout the following year, wherever records

In the northeast U.S. it snowed all summer. Crops
failed, livestock froze; people died of hunger, cold and
disease. The memory of that catastrophe still lingers in
the New England states, where people speak of it as the
year ‘‘eighteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death’’. Yet
Mount Tambora’s impact was several orders of mag-
nitude less than that of even a limited nuclear exchange.

While the Reagan administration continues to plan and | ;
build for a ‘‘win-able”’ nuclear war, those people who are
in a position to scientifically project the consequences
have already spoken. What they have to tell us is stark,
chilling, and final: unless the arms race, and the ‘‘nuclear
metaphysicians’’ who direct it, are soon brought under
control, ‘‘nineteen-hundred-and-froze-to-death’’ may
well be the last entry in the human record.

(A full report on Nuclear Winter can be found in the
August, 1984 issue of Scientific American.)

Chilean CP meets under Pinochet’s nose -

only one battle but the result of.

struggles and in the centre of the

the people of Chile.

In May the Communist Party of Chile held its first national
conference within the borders of Chile. Because of the fascist
dictatorship of Pinochet the conference was held under strict se-
crecy. age neato irereapsere yeas cam om dS aa

We inform the workers and the
people that a National Confer-
ence of the Communist Party of
Chile has been held. The meeting
exemplifies the role played by the
party and the Communist Youth
of Chile in the struggle to put an
end to fascism and the effort that
is being made to unify all the so-
cial and political sectors in the
fight for democracy.

The conference re-elected Luis
Corvalan General Secretary of
the party.

* * *®

1. The Communist Party of
Chile sustains and carries out the
struggle for democracy. Around
this main task the immense major-
ity of Chileans are mobilizing and
unifying. The end of the dictator-
ship and the return to democracy
are of vital necessity for the coun-
try. These are the key elements to
resolve before initiating the solu-
tions to the problems that anguish
the people and workers.

2. Pinochet and his regime

have transformed Chile into an
imperialist dependency. Chile is
one of the countries with the
highest external debt per inhabit-
ant. This enormous debt chokes
the economy and holds back the
national economic recovery. The

agreement signed with the Inter-

national Monetary Fund and the
political and military subor-
dination to the. U.S. State
Department's and the Pentagon’s
anti-communist and anti-Soviet
orientation has reinforced this

dependency and confirms that .

Pinochet serves the local and
global interests of U.S.
imperialism.

3. We call to the workers and
all popular sectors to organize
new national protests and to put
all their forces in unison to insti-
gate the National Strike. The
dictatorship can and must be de-
feated in a short time. The end of
fascism will not be the product of

8 e PACIFIC TRIBUNE, SEPTEMBER 19, 1984

a ee, eee ea ee 5 Bi

successive battles and not the
product of only one opposition
force but the result of successive,
small and large, battles by the
whole Chilean people.

4. Pinochet has said more than
once that he is not thinking of
leaving power and that the
orientation of his government will
be maintained. The Communist
Party reiterates that with
Pinochet there is no dialogue pos-
sible. The Communists maintain
that any type of dialogue with

‘Pinochet will paralyze the mass

struggle. We say that this long
struggle has obtained some
changes in the situation and has
opened the prospect of victory.
The unity and resolve of the Chi-
lean people will be the deter-
mining factor in the drive for
democracy.

5. The Popular Democratic
Movement with its deep roots in
the whole of Chile represents the
most consistent revolutionary
force struggling for an advanced
democracy, struggling towards
socialism. At the same time the
purpose of the Communist Party
of Chile is to strengthen and de-

velop unity and agreement with
the other left and popular organ-
izations with whom we have. so
many common struggles. The
Communist Party salutes the out-
standing leaders of the Demo-
cratic Alliance and the Socialist
Bloc who have supported an

-agreement with the Democratic

Popular Movement.

_6. As Communists we are not
vulgar anti-militarists. We know
and will know how to distinguish
between those militaries that
maintain a democratic mentality,
and are consistent with this, and
those who are and will be with
Pinochet until the end. If the
military contributes to make real
the slogan ‘““Democracy Now!”’
which is supported by the vast
majority of Chileans, a demo-
cratic government would not
hesitate in giving them participa-
tion in the national recon-
struction. Moreover, we do not
reject the participation of an
Armed Forces, cleansed of high-
ranking fascists, in a future
government.

7. The Communist pady of

‘Chile is immersed in the Chilean

reality, present in all people’s

popular movement to oust
Pinochet. The dictatorship has.
filed to destroy the Communist
Party. The Communist Party has"
made a critical and self-critical
analysis between the time of the
coup and the present. The party |
has renewed itself by extracting
the most accurate conclusions
from practical experience. This
makes the party a firm and open |
revolutionary force better able to
contribute to leading the working -
class and the Chilean people as a
whole to victory over fascism.

The National Conference calls _
to all membership to strengthen, —
more and more, organically,
ideologically, politically, our
party and its Communist youth, -
to develop links with the masses _
and maintain the lead in their
struggles.

This conference was held in the
midst of the struggle and has re-
solved to develop it wider, to
achieve the unity and resolve
necessary to overthrow the
tyranny and establish democracy.
The conference has reaffirmed
the historic goal of the working
class and the Chilean people in
the advance towards socialism. —