SIR,—In his article 'The Question of the Bomb' Mr. Irving
Kristol has committed the naive error of con- fusing two quite different moral issues. He equates 'killing' with 'dying for.' He rightly states that 'The question is, always has been and always will be : are the values we die for really worth dying for?' From this he argues that we may be justified in kil- ling, and killing on a scale unpreCedented in human history, for the sake of the values of the Western world we hope to preserve.
For me to choose to give my life in defence of moral and spiritual values in which 1 believe is one thing, it is quite another thing for me to choose that others should die rather than submit to what 1 believe to be evil. I do not question that many of those who gave their lives in the last war did so because they believed they were fighting to preserve worthwhile values; they sought also to save others from suffering and destruction. But, in so far as fighting to save values and to give to other people the chance of a full life involves 'killing' as well as 'dying for,' another question Mr. Kristol ought to ask himself,(as all non- pacifists should ask themselves) is : to what extent and on what conditions arc we morally justified in killing others, including those on whose behalf we take up arms? For myself, I believe that, whatever mayor may not be justifiable in terms of conventional warfare, even to contemplate the use of hydrogen bombs in defence of any value, however worth while that value may be, is wicked and destroys what it sets out to defend. 1 believe that it could never in any circumstances whatsoever be right for me to choose for others, not only the living but also the yet unborn, the dreadful and wholly indiscriminate results of nuclear warfare.
I beg Mr. Irving Kristol to think again concerning the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and to realise that there is much in terms of reason as well as emotion which he seems so far to have neglected.— Yours faithfully,
I.. JOHN COLLINS Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament,
146 Fleet Street, EC4
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