TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/060589/06058900.069

Text File | 1992-09-23 | 9.5 KB | 197 lines

                                                                                INTERVIEW, Page 76

America's Last Peacenik


The Rev. WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN says the U.S. should take
advantage of the Gorbachev era by dismantling NATO and nuclear
arms

By Frederick Ungeheuer


    Chaplain at Yale, leader in the civil rights struggle and
the anti-Viet Nam War movement, pastor at New York City's
Riverside Church, he is now the head of sane/freeze: Campaign
for Global Security. Once a cia operative, Coffin has been a
political contrarian for 30 years, seeing himself as the voice
of moral opposition to much of what he believes is wrong with
his country.

    Q. At the moment, Moscow seems to be winning the propaganda
war on disarmament, both nuclear and conventional. How can the
U.S. regain the initiative?

    A. I wish we'd drop the notion of propaganda war. It's
clear that President Gorbachev has a greater sense of drama than
does Secretary Baker. He also has more ideas. It's a pity that
we have not analyzed their substance and tested his sincerity
earlier. I'm glad that the Administration is finally taking
seriously the latest Soviet proposal for sweeping reductions of
their conventional forces in Europe. The truth of the matter is
that for the same economic reasons as the Soviets, we too need
disarmament. Eisenhower was right to say the problem of defense
is how far can you go without destroying from within what you're
trying to protect from without. Already we've gone too far when,
on any given night, 100,000 American children go to sleep
homeless. And we house our missiles so much better than we do
our homeless.

    We have a genuine reformer in the Soviet Union today, and
those who know anything about Russian history know that
reformers come rarely and rarely last long. And after every
reformation comes counterreformation. So to make the most of
Gorbachev is exceedingly important.

    Q. How should that be done?

    A. We now have a new opportunity to end the arms race. But
where Gorbachev is bold, Bush is cautious to a fault. I wish he
would agree that we have a lot to fear today, but not a Soviet
Union prepared to negotiate. So I wish he'd press ahead. What
we need is a 50% reduction in the ICBMs. We need a reduction in
the conventional forces. We need a comprehensive test ban.

    Frankly, I don't understand Bush. If he thinks we are going
to get a neo-Stalinist successor to Gorbachev, how much better
it would be for that successor to have far fewer weapons. I do
not think he is waiting around for Gorbachev to be overthrown
by students the way students are doing it in China. So I don't
see what's holding Bush back, except that over the past 40 years
the U.S. has, narrowly speaking, profited from a divided and
armed Europe. It has given us a lot of political and military
leverage. It is clear that if Europe is disarmed and united, we
will lose that leverage. But the benefits of a united and
disarmed Europe are so enormous that it just shows an incredible
poverty of politics not to give up this leverage for something
that would be better for the whole world.

    Q. NATO commander General John Galvin, on the other hand,
maintains that nuclear arms are indispensable in keeping peace,
especially in Europe.

    A. In other words: No nukes, no peace. Well, no nukest, no
peace means nukes on both sides, which doubles the already high
risk of miscalculation and accident. I do not think we are any
more prepared for a nuclear weapons accident than was Exxon for
the ecological disaster it produced in Alaska. What the general
seems also to forget is that NATO was organized to thwart a
perceived Soviet threat, not to keep Europe permanently divided
and armed. Germany and France were traditional enemies. Today
their border is like Sweden and Norway's. Wouldn't it be
wonderful to have similar borders all over Europe. I have yet
to meet a Hungarian who does not want the Warsaw Pact
dismantled.

    There's only one way to do that. And that is to dismantle
NATO. I think it can be done. We can dismantle the Warsaw Pact
and NATO gradually, responsibly, so that at each step both sides
feel militarily far more secure.

    Q. Have you any indication that anyone on the Soviet side
shares those views?

    A. Many indications. Major General Yuri Lebedev was one of
a Soviet delegation that was here for ten days at the invitation
of our organization. I could not find a single point on which
we were not in full agreement. He said to me, "My patriotic
military duty is to make sure my country never again engages in
any war."

    Furthermore, I wrote President Gorbachev last November
about my suggestion to shut down nuclear plants for good and
finally to end the production of all fissile materials. I got
a nice answer from him a couple of months ago. In fact, it was
just before he announced in London that he was going to shut
down two reactors. That suggestion has since been taken up by
eleven very prominent American scientists, who have written a
letter to Congress. It still seems to me possible to have a new
FREEZE movement to shut down the production of all fissile
materials.

    Q. Why do you think the old FREEZE movement collapsed?

    A. In part, it's a function of its success. What made
FREEZE was President Reagan. When he cut off negotiations with
the Soviet Union, increased the military budget by 44%, called
the Soviets "that evil empire," a lot of Americans got nervous.
And anxiety is what creates a protest movement. Then, after
1984, he began to change his rhetoric, finally called Gorbachev
his friend and signed the INF agreement. My own feeling is that
the FREEZE movement deserves a lot of credit for this.

    Now the popular perception in this country is that you
don't have to worry about peace anymore. That's something the
Government is taking care of. So the average American is more
concerned with Japanese cars, let's say, than with Russian tanks
and is more concerned with ecological disaster than with nuclear
disaster. But what the average American doesn't realize is that
the INF agreement in no way slows down the arms race. Until
there is a suspension of nuclear testing, research and
development on both sides, we will continue to produce ever more
lethal, ever more threatening first-strike weapons whose
technological sophistication will more than offset any benefit
to be derived from simple numerical reductions. Advances in
weaponry go much faster than does arms control. And unless we
stop research and development, we may end up with a nuclear bomb
that's barely larger than a softball. And then where's your arms
control?

    Q. There is a NATO summit this week to celebrate the 40th
anniversary of the alliance. But it too is in disarray. What's
your assessment?

    A. As these 16 nations prepare for their summit, we've sent
out word to all our branches to send a supporting statement for
the Bonn position, which we will deliver to the Bonn mission at
the United Nations. We're calling for the abolition of all
short-range nuclear weapons, East and West, and we're also
proposing reduction of Warsaw Pact and NATO forces, both nuclear
and conventional, to 50% of NATO's present strength. That is a
first step to a united and disarmed Europe. I'll be going to
Brussels myself, joining European members of the peace movement.

    Q. How much support for that position do you find among
Americans you speak to every week?

    A. I find enormous support. I would describe the peace
movement in America today as the "majority in the periphery."
Our voices used to be relegated to the remote periphery of the
political discourse. Now I think they are being heard at the
center. And I think those farthest from the seats of power tend
to be nearer to the heart of things. It was true in the civil
rights movement and in the antiwar movement. Now the same thing
is true of arms control.

    Q. Do the student protests in China remind you of the civil
rights movement in the U.S. during the Viet Nam War?

    A. To some degree, yes. We never were nearly so successful.
We were trying to stop a policy and didn't succeed. We raised
consciousness, but we didn't stop the war. We stopped its
further escalation. We stopped the further American commitment.
Nor did we change sufficient minds and hearts in America so that
operations similar to that in Viet Nam could not take place in
Central America. These Chinese students seem ready to change
very fundamental policies in China. It's something -- I can't
get over it.

    Q. Over the past 30 years you've established a reputation
as an almost professional refusenik yourself, and some would say
an anti-American. Why?

    A. I have a lovers' quarrel going on with America. If it
were a grudge fight, I would go to Canada. But it's a lovers'
quarrel. And civil disobedience is very much a part of our
religious and historical tradition: the abolitionists, the
suffragists, Martin Luther King Jr.

    And there are things in us today that we must bury, just as
the Soviets are trying to bury Stalinism, and the Chinese
Maoism. Probably the hardest thing for us is going to be the
understanding and feeling -- because it doesn't live in the
American mind so much as it lives under the American skin, deep
in the American gut -- that somehow the U.S. is morally superior
to every other country in the world. This innocence about our
misdeeds, not understanding that we've been accomplices in the
very evils we profess to abhor, that's got to be buried.