Here’s a Thought: Let’s Not be the First to Use Nuclear Weapons


 
Barry Goldwater was widely considered to be sort of a hybrid between a loose cannon and an out-and-out nut when he ran for President in 1964. He lost in a remarkable landslide.

Today he is remembered with some affection as a conservative who, in many respects, went beyond dogma to morality.

His conservatism was not so much cultural, or racial, as it was libertarian.

He was solidly for abortion rights. Gay rights as well.

In 1993, he wrote to the New York Times advocating for gay people in the military:

You don’t need to be ‘straight’ to fight and die for your country. You just need to shoot straight.

He had no kind words for Jerry Falwell types.

I said all good Christians should kick him in the ass.

Barry Goldwater, July, 1981

Well, he was direct.

Yeah, quite the lovable old fellow.

But I still remember 1964. Especially the Civil Rights Vote. As Senator, Barry Goldwater opposed it. He had nothing against black people. He just thought it was wrong to tell employers whom they could hire, and to tell hotels and restaurants and bus lines whom they must serve.

1964 was part of the season of violence against black people who wanted to vote and to be treated equally. Southern conservatives consigned still-warm corpses into secret shallow holes, decorated trees with cindered bodies, blew up churches, murdered little girls, beat peaceful protestors marching across bridges.

Having nothing against black people did not strike me then as a moral stand. Still doesn’t.

Senator Goldwater’s benign indifference, I-have-nothing-against, was not simply theoretical. He was passive as Republican delegations from Texas to Georgia were purged of black representation. For the first time in half a century, Tennessee was represented at the Republican convention by an all-white delegation.

It was his attitude toward Civil Rights, I think, that did him in. But Hiroshima and Nagasaki sealed the deal. It had been just 19 years since the terrible swift sword of nuclear death flashed its image around the world.

Later, when Russia got the bomb, the world became a chessboard of sudden death.

I remember reading occasional bombast, so to speak, from conservatives about nuclear war. It was okay, good even, as long as the last survivor was an American.

Satirist Tom Lehrer made fun of the singular nightmare that kept children of my generation, and their parents, awake at night. What if:

I’ll look for you
When the war is over

…pause…
An hour and a half from now!

Most of those who were around then, those who still remember that campaign, recall Goldwater’s off-the-cuff comments.

I’d like to lob one into the men’s room in the Kremlin.

It was a simple joke, a throwaway line, that morphed into something emblematic after he gave an interview to a German magazine. He talked about using tactical nuclear weapons in Vietnam to defoliate large areas. As President he would not need to authorize their use. He wanted to leave the decision in the hands of the military people doing the fighting.

There is real need for the supreme commander to be able to use judgment on the use of these weapons, tactical nuclear weapons, more expeditiously than he could by telephoning the White House. And I would say that in these cases the supreme commander should be given great leeway in the decision to use them or not to use them.

By then we knew, we all knew, what mutual deterrence, the delicate balance of power, meant. Two years before, the Cuban Missile Crisis became 13 days of sober reflection. John F. Kennedy brought us through. But in 1964, John F. Kennedy was no longer with us. And we had paid an emotional price for a bitter education, the memory of harsh days and nights of a near end to humanity.

Tactical nuclear weapons could still transport us to that end.

Barry Goldwater managed to get 38% of the popular vote, carrying much of what had once been the Confederacy. Nothing beyond that.

Today, Hiroshima and Nagasaki are a long way in the past. Those very few who remember are near the end of their time on earth. The Cuban Missile Crisis is now the occasional entry in a crossword, a jeopardy question, an item on a grade school history quiz.

I was panicked a bit because I really know nothing about the Cuban Missile Crisis. It had to do with Cuba and missiles, I’m pretty sure.

I came home and I asked my husband. I said, ‘Wasn’t that like the Bay of Pigs thing?’

And he said, ‘Oh, Dana.’

Dana Perino, former Press Secretary to President George W. Bush, December, 2007

With time, memory fades. And with memory, fear. The caution of half a century ago seems to have disappeared.

Joe Scarborough recounted in August, the summer before the campaign win of Donald Trump:

Several months ago, a foreign policy expert went to advise Donald Trump. And three times he asked about the use of nuclear weapons — three times he asked. At one point, ‘If we have them, why can’t we use them?’

To be fair, Joe Scarborough was not a witness to the briefing. We listened on television to Joe say he heard from a foreign policy expert who told Joe he heard those questions from Donald Trump.

Prominent Trump spokespeople were quick to respond. He had asked no such thing. Each denial was more angry than the last. Rudy Giuliani was in a near rage at the smear.

This is the Goldwater — this is the same Goldwater garbage they tried with the nuclear cloud and all that stuff.

His host was Fox personality Brian Kilmeade.

Does he really ask questions like a 12-year-old? Why don’t we use nuclear weapons?

There would be no way he’d ask that question. I believe that’s a total lie made up in order to make him look bad.

Rudy was joined in outrage by spokesperson Hope Hicks and, later, Donald Trump himself. He had never asked any such thing. Not three times, not once. Never.

Then came the television interview. Chris Matthews pressed the candidate.

The trouble is, when you said that, the whole world heard it. David Cameron in Britain heard it. The Japanese, where we bombed them in ’45, heard it. They’re hearing a guy running for president of the United States talking of maybe using nuclear weapons. Nobody wants to hear that about an American president.

And Mr. Trump asked again, this time before a television audience.

Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?

Indeed. If we have them, why aren’t we using them.

The denials floated away like a fart in the wind.

Did the issue influence the election? Hard to say. Trump did lose among voters by over three million ballots, winning only through an electoral fluke, a constitutional provision left over from slavery days. But the vote against him was probably ordained more from a rejection of red hot ethnic and religious bigotry.

Fear of crossing a nuclear threshold seems to have gone into obscure history lessons. Mushroom clouds over cities happened too long ago to remember.

Remind me, what were those great grandparents scared of again?

We may be closer to finding out. From Politico:

The Trump administration is considering proposing smaller, more tactical nuclear weapons that would cause less damage than traditional thermonuclear bombs — a move that would give military commanders more options but could also make the use of atomic arms more likely.

Let’s use nuclear weapons. In fact, why bother with all that red tape? Those supposed safeguards?

Does he really ask questions like a 12-year-old?

Then why are we making them? Why do we make them?

Sweet Jesus!

God help us all.


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