Letters
Holding heavy water
Sir: Well yes, it is true that the theory of nuclear deterrence now appears to hold more (heavy?) water than it did to some of us, like Geoffrey Strickland (5th November), who were members of the Committee of 100 during the Sixties; but if garnering wisdom with the years is a live process there is surely something to be added.
What seems so odd to me about my ac- tions during that period was my blithe assumption that the vast crisis of civilisa- tion which had engendered the bomb, en passim as it were, could be countered by a few slogans, marches, demonstrations and so forth.
None of us in the Committee of 100 or in CND seemed to be remotely aware that by our actions we were simply trivialising this momentous crisis, or that it called for ex- tensive adjustments in our habitual assump- tions, to say nothing of the structures and institutions of our societies, which matched at least in scale the gigantic nature of the crisis itself.
I distance myself from the antics of CND today because it still seems quite oblivious to this consideration and because, by leading so many people up the Greenhana Common garden path, it is leading them away from the genuinely constructive and ameleorative tasks of peace, and those enor- mous political and economic adjustments needed to achieve it.
Rev. John Papworth
24 Abercorn Place, London NW8
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