Regarding the Prospect of War

By Hugh Sidey

We are talking about war again. President Carter talks about it almost every hour. A few mornings ago, at the Cabinet table, he reddened at the deep uneasiness expressed by members of the Committee on the Present Danger, who pressed their demands for greater military preparedness. Later, he listened to other critics from the Coalition for a Democratic Majority. He heard citations of history, reminders of his misconception of Soviet intentions, recitations of our military inadequacies. "We're committed," he said about the assertion of U.S. interests in the Persian Gulf. "If we have to, we will do it alone."

One man looked at Carter and thought, "The guy has come of age." Another recalled studying the President and musing, "My God, it is true, we cannot ignore the prospect of war." We have not exactly ignored it through the past 35 years. But the idea of a big war has receded in the past decade. Few seem to recall that during the Cuban missile crisis in 1962, many Americans stocked food in their basements and believed a nuclear exchange possible. John Kennedy in 1961 wept at the prospect of a nuclear confrontation, which he considered likely if the Soviets pressed their plan to consume West Berlin.

Security has been so easy for the last generation. A peace marcher now working in Carter's White House says, "I hate to even talk about it. The old 1960s measuring rods are useless. Concerns are so different. I have no moral yardstick. We must consider what we can do that will work, that will prevent war."

Most statesmen agree that history suggests that the best chance for peace is massive preparedness. General Matthew Ridgway, 84, our Korean commander and later Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, stood straight and proud before a group in Pittsburgh the other day and said that the trouble with all the war talk is that we do not have the hardware to carry out our intentions.

Talk is our intention now. And not a bad one if understood as a prelude to change in our national attitude. Change. That is what we must understand, says Author William Manchester, who has written about convulsions in civilization. Wars are fought for the status quo, which never survives. No nation or man has entered a large war with the thinnest idea of the horror of it, or the aftermath, Manchester insists. But maybe this time we have a better notion of what might happen. The thought of nuclear war is so ghastly that in a perverse way it has given more meaning to the preliminary maneuverings. Change in both the U.S. and the Soviet Union could come without battle.

Twice in the past week Washington power figures have quoted Sir Edward Grey, British Foreign Secretary, standing at his window in 1914. "The lamps are going out all over Europe; we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime." But it is different down on the floor of the Senate, Ted Stevens ("How can we defend ... ?") and Robert Byrd ("Let the Soviets guess...") argue. So do others.

From it all, a consensus seems to be developing. More arms we must have. And we must keep building world opinion against the Soviets. And we must recognize the need to change our lives, to conserve energy, to battle inflation. And we must keep talking to the Soviets about disarmament. "One thing we may all learn," declared one of the participants in the President's seminars. "We cannot keep living in a world where we do nothing else but build weapons."

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