INTERVIEW, Page 76America's Last PeacenikThe Rev. WILLIAM SLOANE COFFIN says the U.S. should takeadvantage of the Gorbachev era by dismantling NATO andnuclear armsBy 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,
