April 11, 2000
The Cold War may be over, but the impending threat of nuclear warfare
continues to loom over us today, said activists against nuclear engineering during a panel discussion Sunday night at Sproul Hall.
Global Security Institute, an organization that advocates world peace, brought students and citizens together to inform them of the dangers of nuclear weapons and to encourage them to put pressure on the government for nuclear disarmament.
“This isn’t 1964 or the Cold War anymore, but this isn’t a nuclear-free world either,” said Tad Daley, vice president of GSI.
“The danger of nuclear annihilation is not ancient history,” he added.
The panel discussion – which featured Daley, former Canadian Prime Minister Kim Campbell, Los Angeles Times columnist Robert Scheer, and former UC Regent Stanley Sheinbaum – was followed by a screening of “Fail-Safe,” a CBS movie that reenacted the 1964 Cold War classic. Sunday’s movie starred George Clooney, who plays a U.S. bomber pilot mistakingly ordered to drop two 20-megaton nuclear warheads on Moscow.
During the speeches, Daley outlined three scenarios the world may face in the future involving nuclear arms: human miscalculations, nuclear
proliferation or an accident with an atomic weapon.
Campbell talked about Russia’s struggling economy and said that nuclear proliferation is likely, with scientists selling their designs for money.
“In many ways, we are a lot safer since the fall of the Berlin Wall,”
Campbell said. “But we are not to get complacent because of the dramatic changes we have undergone.”
Sheinbaum focused his speech on America’s credibility and said that other countries are losing their respect for America.
He condemned the U.S. government’s approval of the death penalty and its failure to ban nuclear testing.
“In this country, there’s a loss of a sense of not only what we are, but what we want to be,” Sheinbaum said. “It’s weakening our political process as a whole,” he said.
Sheinbaum ended his speech by saying that we should not be allowed to
possess a weapon we are not ready to handle.
“We do not have the wisdom to know what is essential to know,” he said.
The last of the panelists to speak was Scheer, who said that people should be more concerned with nuclear weapons today than ever.
“It’s a more dangerous moment because of nuclear proliferation,” Scheer said. “At least with the Cold War, there was rational handling of the weapons.”
Scheer said that because of the easy access to information on how to build a nuclear weapon, many religious and political extremists are able to get their hands on these sorts of weapons.
Some students said they did not know much about the issues surrounding
nuclear weapons before hearing the panelists speak, but said they left with a negative view of them.
“Now I’m completely against nuclear warfare,” said Shannon Mo, a first-year undeclared student. “Everything in our country has been taken to extremes.”
Mo said that she planned on participating in the National Call-In Day on Monday, when individuals called government officials to demand nuclear disarmament.
But not all students who attended the event were as moved by what they had heard that night.
“This movie might make people think about it, but people aren’t worried about nuclear weapons,” said Jeff Feger, a second-year mathematics and applied science student who said he had no intentions of calling the government.
The panel discussion followed by the movie screening also took place at nine other college campuses, including UC Berkeley, Stanford and Harvard.
Organizers said they decided to host the event on campuses, hoping to
generate enthusiasm among the younger generation.
“This is an issue that has been astonishingly neglected by college
campuses,” Daley said.
He added that he feels students today are less active than in past eras, but he still believes that college campuses can serve as a stage for political movements to rise, citing the number of campus movements during the 1960s.
Besides college students, activists are also concerned with what they
contend is an apathetic attitude many people hold toward nuclear warfare today.
“There’s an astonishing complacency of nuclear weapons,” Daley said. “People think the danger of nuclear warfare is over, but it is a great unfinished business of the Cold War.”
Some of the activists who attended the event in Sproul Hall Sunday said they were disappointed with the low student turnout. Of about 60 people who attended, only a dozen were students.
Cris Gutierrez, a peace activist who teaches high school in South Central Los Angeles, said that though she was disappointed with the low student turnout, she was encouraged by those who did come.
“I’m disappointed, but the few that did come have been intelligent and
receptive,” Gutierrez said. “Students that were here were thoughtful about the issue.”
Gutierrez, who stayed for the movie, said afterward that she hopes the
simultaneous screening of “Fail-Safe” at 10 campuses would stimulate student action.
“We can’t stop the knowledge of nuclear weapons, but we can stop the
development of it,” she said.
Nine countries today continue to have nuclear weapons as a part of their military defense, including the United States, Russia, Great Britain, France, North Korea, China, Israel, Pakistan and India, according to the movie.