Conservative pacifism
Sir: I have been greatly intrigued by the advertisement on the last Page of your issue of 23 January (just received). Sixteen years ago I gave much thought and study to such a thesis. With the encourage- ment of the late Stephen King-Hall, Who was also involved in this de- fence logic, I wrote several studies on an internal resistance pro- gramme for Britain, in part aimed at the idealistic 'corruption' of a Soviet occupation force. None of this work was published and it has since been destroyed.
I believe that there is a strong case for unilateral British nuclear disarmament, for the UK deterrent IS not only superfluous but danger- ous. It invites a pre-emptive Soviet strike, against which our' reply would be but a pinprick to the Soviet giant, albeit a pinprick that would cause several million point- less casualties on both sides. But in the hypothetical event of unilateral US nuclear disarmament, it is my conviction that within a very few Years the rest of the world would be subject to various communist dictatorships under the usual guise of 'People's Democracies', installed
under the aegis of overwhelming Soviet power. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968 should have dispelled any doubts about the Soviet (or Chinese) will and ability to install and maintain in- definitely such a system where their military power is predominant. Ultimately the human spirit would probably break through such a modern world-wide dark a4e into a second renaissance, but It could well take several centuries to achieve this and with incalculable suffering. But then even this might be preferable to a nuclear holo- caust.
Turning from the hypothetical to the actual, my considered view after observing the international power play from the relative side- lines of the Canary Islands for the last ten years, is that we are head- ing for some horrible war involv- ing the super powers by proxy, and maybe even directly. But the odds are that they will remain below he threshold of nuclear conflict. Even so the supreme danger will become daily more spine chilling, and of course it could even happen.
J. Kane Villa Patricia, Ctra. de Atalaya, Km. 1, Santa Brigida, Las Palmas
Previous page
