‘New weapons threaten
arms talks’ — coalition

e A call from Canada for an early com-
pletion of a United Nations comprehensive
program of disarmament, coupled with a re-
quest for a world disarmament confernce.

In a workshop earlier local Science for
Peace member Luis Sobrino warned that
although the former MAD (Mutually
Assured Destruction) system was
““unstable’’, the new counterforce strategy
whereby the Reagan administration is
pushing for clear superiority in nuclear
weapons presents an even greater danger to
human survival.

UBC professor Michael Wallace noted
that the development of new weapons such
as the Perishing II missile, which along with
the cruise is slated for deployment in Europe
this fall, will force the Soviet Union to adopt
a ‘Jaunch on warning’ policy. The
Perishing II, fired from sites in Western
Europe, can reach Soviet territory in less

0 minutes.
a aie to B.C., delegates adopted a mo-

tion calling on the provincial government
‘to ban the production of all weapons of
mass destruction, components or systems,
whether such work was done for the Cana-
dian ministry or defence “‘or any other
government,” noting recent meetings bet-
ween B.C. companies seeking military
related contracts and the Pentagon.

The conference also pledged support fora
labor campaign ‘‘informing the public and
educating the politicians” on the economic
consequences of the arms race and for “‘con-
tinued co-operation’? with unions seeking
conversion of military-oriented production

Participants from dozens of B.C. peace
8t0ups met amidst a sense of urgency
around the federal government’s anticipated
C $10n allowing cruise missile testing in
; oe and the lack of progress in arms

Uction talks, at the Coalition for World

sarmament annual conference last
weekend,
peo 100 representatives of church,
in rie Scientist and educators’ groups ham-
ne €d out several resolutions for the final
i nary, many of which emphasized the
: annng of the cruise and other new weapons
*ystems, in line with the conference’s theme,
New steps towards nuclear disarmament.”
we € have rough equality in nuclear arms
Wan (between the U.S. and the USSR), and
e Soe have equality for arms negotiations
meaningful — otherwise, it’s
blackmail,?? said conference organizer Bob
€ afterwards,
reales ratified, with a few amend-
» 4n eight-point program for disarma-
Ment, ich mnehidea: 4
: Tee vote on the proposed cruise tests
mn ite House of Connon
ae “early treaty’ ratifying a com-
, usive nuclear-weapons test ban;
- Prohibition of all testing of nuclear
“aPons delivery systems;
ne Ontinued pressure on the Canadian
*tnment to refuse cruise testing here;
: ban on “‘outer space” weapons;
A no-first-strike policy for NATO;
. 4A Summit meeting among prime
Rover Pierre Trudeau, U.S. president
Onald Reagan and Soviet leader Yuri An-

oe Seeking a ‘‘major reduction’’ in the

BRITISH COLUMBIA

orld arsenal of nuclear weapons;

®0ples Co-op Bookstore.

os if they were a material manifesta-
ae a just-released federal government
a Y into racism across Canada,
ets of two racist organizations con-
eee Outside the Peoples Cooperative
Sat. Store in downtown Vancouver
turday,
= Our men and two women — some
f Tting T-shirts identifying the wearers.
nae of the B.C. ‘‘Realm”’ of the
Whoe Ux Klan—handed out literature to
O€ver would take it, infront of the pro-

D me bookstore between 1 and 1:30

Co We're here because we're against
man nunism,” said one black-shirted
leaftey 1° WS distributing a single-page
KS €t emblazoned with the slogan,
Bee Communism.”
Rees the reverse side of the sheet showed
as Immigrants — described as mainly
‘ n-whites’? — were the chief target of
Klan’s hatred.
Chief , and anti-Semitism were the
tWo mes Of another handout, from
stituted — one wearing a shirt that con-
headin a self-made uniform — under the
Any, 8 “The British Commonwealth of

Nazi-saluting KKK and “Aryan Nations’ racists peddle hate literature outside

to production for peaceful purposes.

Racists hit bookstore

subheading, ‘‘Church in the Valley of
Jesus Christ, Christian,” and gave a Fort
st office box address.
ne Klan, whose members also hand-
ed out a tabloid publication called The
Spokesman, gave a post office box
number in New Westminster as their ad-
dress.

Some passers-by who accepted the
literature-did so without comment, but
others reacted angrily to the distribution.
One woman turned around briefly to tell
the group, ‘‘What you’re doing is illegal,
you know.”

The response was a scornful laugh —
and that reply spoke volumes about ex-
isting legislation concerning the
dissemination of hate literature in -
Canada and B.C. in particular.

Public activities by racist organizations
had virtually ceased over the last year —a
testimony to several strong, anti-racist
demonstrations — but those outside the
bookstore said there would be further
such demonstrations at_ other,
unspecified institutions, indicating step-
ped-up activity at a time of frustration
caused by high unemployment.

first-use’ on presidential election ballot.

DR. JOHN SOMERVILLE . . . veteran peace activist leading campaign to put ‘no

‘Policy of no first use
could avert holocaust’

Nearly 20 years ago, U.S. author and
philosophy professor Dr. John Somer-
ville wrote a play entitled ‘‘The Crisis:
The True Story of How the World
Almost Ended.”? A documentary play
about the Cuban missile crisis in 1962
when the U.S. pushed the world to the
abyss of nuclear holocaust, it has been
produced by leading theatres in Japan
and Sweden.

But it has never been produced in his
own country.

In the past 20 years since the play was
written, the threat of “the end of the
world’? has come to. occupy. Somerville
very much. And in sense, the blackout of
his play has come to symbolize the
foreign policy of his own government
‘which provoked the 1962 conflict that
could have ended the world, and since
that time, has refused to take the crucial
step — the renunciation of first use of
nuclear weapons — that could reduce the
threat of holocaust.

“On four different occasions — in
1976, in 1979, in 1980 and again in 1981
— the Soviet Union has sent the U.S. a
proposal that the two military alliances,
the Warsaw Pact and NATO, sign a
mutual pledge renoucing first use of
nuclear weapons,”’ he told about 500
people at a public meeting in Christ
Church Cathedral Friday night.

“But on each of these occasions, the
proposal was rejected by our government
behind closed doors, without reference to
Congress or the people,’ he said.

Yet if the U.S. were to follow the
Soviets’ June, 1982 unilateral pledge of
no first use, it would prevent the ultimate
catastrophe.

“‘Obviously if no one makes first use of
nuclear weapons, they will never be
used,’’ he said, underscoring a point that
he made repeatedly in meetings and inter-
views during a brief stop in Vancouver to
take part in the Coalition for World
Disarmament conference.

For Somerville, a peace activist for
four decades and an internationally ac-
claimed authority on the philosophical
issues of peace, the policy of no first use is
central to world peace.

It has prompted him to undertake the
latest in a series of campaigns that have
taken up many of his 70-odd years. Call-
ed the California Campaign for No First
Use, it is aimed at putting an initiative on
the ballot in the 1984 elections in Califor-
niaso that electors have an opportunity to
vote in favor of a national policy of no-
first-use of nuclear weapons.

Until a few years ago, he explained,
most Americans assumed that nuclear
weapons were a deterrent threat, and
would never be used. But that all changed

in the mid-70s — even before the Reagan
administration took office.

Somverville noted that in 1975, the
then defense secretary James Schlesinger
stated publicly, ‘‘under no circumstances
would the U.S. disavow first use of
nuclear weapons.”

But successive U.S. administrations
have refused to debate that policy, in
Congress, as was exemplified in a state
department communique to U.S. Con-
gressman Patton, who had introduced a
no first use motion into the House. The
communique stated that it was “not in
the public interest that Congress debate
this motion.”’

“Tf the issue of whether we end the
world cannot be discussed in Congress
then what kind of leaders do we have?”’
Somerville asked. ‘‘Is this a dictatorship
of the few that can punish the world to its
final end?’

And it is the end of the world that is at
issue, he emphasized repeatedly, noting
that with the advent of nuclear weapons,
‘““we can no longer talk about the concept
of war.

‘*War implies winners and losers; it im-
plies that majority of the human race will
survive in.a different world — perhaps
even a better world.

‘‘But in the event of a nuclear conflict,
the only result would be omnicide — the
destruction of all life,’’ he told the au-
dience.

Somverville emphasized that the
refusal of the U.S. administration to res-
pond to the Soviets’ proposal and to
discuss the issue in Congress ‘‘has
brought the danger of omnicide that
much closer.”’

Because of that, he said, a public cam-
paign to compel the U.S. government to
make a renunciation of first use of
nuclear weapons a national policy is of
critical importance.

He called: on the Coalition of World
Disarmament to support the campaign
for the ballot initiative and urged Cana-
dians to press prime minister Trudeau to
call on NATO to renounce first use.

He also emphasized that whether or
not people thought the Soviets were
sincere in their no first use pledge was not
an issue.

‘*So long as one side refuses to ‘re-
nounce first use, the other side never
knows whether the other if bluffing. It in-
creases tension and makes the threat of
ee conflict that much greater,’’ he
said.

On the other hand, ‘the U.S. has
nothing to lose by declaring a no-first-use
policy. It still has its nuclear weapons.”’

“Tf both sides sign a mutual pledge not
to bethe first, it buys some time — and we
can use that time to negotiate reductions
in arms.”

a ” The leaflet also bore the
me TRIBUNE—JUNE 3, 1983—Page 3