Dr. Strangelove Is Not Needed

Let us hope that the new arms control team appointed by President Reagan goes to Geneva without the specter of Dr. Strangelove looking over their shoulders.

Dr.  Strangelove, you will recall, was the movie character much applauded by antinuclear protesters because he portrayed their vision of a mad scientist leading us to planetary destruction via the atom bomb.  It was the Dr.  Strangelove syndrome that stampeded us into a useless treaty with Russia and nearly nailed us again with SALT-II.  Only the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan kept the U.S. Senate from ratifying another one-sided agreement.

Now that reality has replaced fantasy we discover a great truth - there is not now, nor never was, any danger of all-out nuclear war.

Here, briefly, are the reasons why:

1 - The Soviets don't fight well armed and determined foes.  Their fear of war approaches phobia, as attested by travelers who describe the intense emotion of visitors at Russian war shrines.  They lost 20 million soldiers and civilians in World War II.  Every family suffered.  Memory of these deaths dampens their will to fight again soon.

The Soviet Union is a paper tiger.  It suppressed unarmed citizens of Eastern Europe with our shameful consent.  They send arms to surrogate revolutionaries. Their only invasion against armed resistance has been stalled for four years by Afghani tribesmen with antique muskets.

History will show that Soviet threats are mostly bluff.  The Russians removed their guided missiles from Cuba when challenged by President Kennedy.  They built a wall across Berlin when we lined up our tanks at Check Point Charley.  And they crept back to arms negotiations when NATO countries deployed Pershing missiles opposite the Soviet SS-20s.

2 - "There's just not enough fissionable material to blow up the world."  So says Richard Turco, the scientist who first studied the impact of nuclear explosions on the upper atmosphere and coined the phrase, nuclear winter."  From a military standpoint, the present world arsenal - of approximately 15,009 nuclear war heads - is required to destroy widely scattered targets in the northern hemisphere with known concussion and radiation forces.  Recently discovered secondary effects of just a few nuclear explosions, however, possibly are enough to decimate the populations of North America, Europe and Asia.  This would reduce civilization there to a primitive level and bring great political upheavals.  Catastrophic, but not the end of the world.

3 - Modern technology has made giant, silo-based missiles obsolete.  The first ballistic missiles were so vulnerable and inaccurate they required dooms-day power to make them credible deterrents.

Thus, the U.S. and Soviet Union relied on a policy of "mutually assured destruction" (MAD), spelled out in SALT.  It was an incredible agreement ignored by Russia, but it calmed both nations as they struggled to develop "sensible" engines of war.

Today, both sides have a range of nuclear weapons that are smaller, mobile and accurate.  Our cruise missile, for example, can be launched from planes, trucks, ships or submarines.  And it can follow a televised road map below enemy radar to specific buildings.  Russia has a similar device.

President Reagan's strategic defense initiative (SDI) derided as "star wars" by some, is the last step in eliminating intercontinental weapons.  SDI would place in space a cordon of satellites capable of throwing marbles, steel mesh or tiny firecrackers into the paths of incoming missiles.  As proof of good faith, Reagan proposes to share SDI technology with Russia!

4 - A once unknown force of nuclear explosions - electromagnetic pulse (EMP) -may make all guided missiles a quaint curiosity.  Information about the phenomena is secret.  This much is known: A U.S. stratospheric nuclear test in the South Pacific years ago blacked out Hawaii's electric system for three days.  Astonished scientists discovered that the atomic blast released 50,000 volts of gamma electrons which were spread by the earth's magnetic field and captured by metal conductors a mile or more in length.  Hawaii's nearby electric power and phone lines were perfect antennas.

Subsequent experiments indicate that a single one-megaton nuclear denotation at a height of 300 miles over the U.S. would knock out power and communication grids within a split second.  Micro chips, the heart of modern technology, are particularly susceptible with their spider-web circuitry.

America and Russia are working feverishly to install very low frequency "ground wave" and "laser glass" communication systems to counter EMP.  But long-range guided missiles are no longer reliable.

5 - The nuclear winter probability, outlined by Turco and other concerned scientists, appears to have stymied military planners here and abroad.  Supporting the theory are computer analyses of data from weather satellites, volcano eruptions and World War II air raids.

It is believed that as few as 100 small atom bombs exploded over major cities would create "fire storms."  These would push millions of tons of smoke into the stratosphere.  There the microscopic particles would float for six months above the entire northern hemisphere.  Shielded from sunshine, all life below supposedly would perish.  This scenario ignores the great ingenuity of humans to cope with adversity, but it is undoubtedly true enough to suggest a new policy of nuclear deterrence - self-assured destruction (SAD).

Under this new situation, a dozen nuclear bombs with which to play global chicken would be quite enough.  No one would dare set off a nuclear fire storm if darkness and slow death spread equally to the aggressor.

No holocaust, folks.  Just old fashioned Armageddon with the garden variety of bullets, bombs, tanks and planes.

PARTING SHOTS

• The inaugural parade in Washington was canceled because of sub-zero temperatures.  Walter Mondale told us it would be a cold day in Hell before President Reagan was re-elected.
• The National Organization of Women asserts it helps women "identify" themselves.  My wife is puzzled.  She knows who she is because I told her 40 years ago.
• When God created man She was only kidding.
• A woman's place is in the House - and the Senate.
• Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick is tired of the hassle at the United Nations and wants to quit.  No way.  If we can stand it, so should she.
• A necessity is something you can't get along without, but do.  A luxury is something you ought to get along without, but don't.

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