New book on Nicaragua!

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CANI ASTI 6 SOCIALIST ACTION JUNE 1989 Available June 15 A penetrating analysis of 10 years of the Nicaraguan Revolution.

"Nicaragua: Dynamics of an Unfinished Revolution" provides the key to understanding the grave perils facing the revolu tion in the aftermath of the military defeat of the contras and the signing of the Arias peace plan.

Written by Socialist Action editor Alan Benjamin (in collaboration with researchers at the ITZTANI Institute in Managua with an introduction by Jeff Mackler. 186 pp., glossary and index, $7.95.

To order, write to: Walnut Publishing Co., 3435 Army St., Rm. 308, San Francis co, CA 94110. Include $1 for postage. doing leads ultimately to the same thing. They talk in terms of "extended deterrence." What that means is they need Star Wars to make our nuclear weapons usetul again.

By allowing us to even theoretically have the capability of nuking the Russians and protecting ourselves from retaliation and surviving, it means the threat to use nuclear weapons has to be taken more seriously by the Soviets.

The proponents of SDI point out that in 1956 Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev threatened to intervene in the Suez crisis. In 1973 Soviet leaders threatened to send troops to the Middle East. And in both these instances, the United States was able to stand off the Soviets with threats of nuclear reprisal. In other words we were able to tell the Russians, "If you do that, we're going to nuke you." And they would back down. We could control their behavior because we had sufficient superiority. Our willingness to use nuclear weapons was believable.

As the Soviets approached parity with us, that threat got less and less believable. Today when our margin of superiority over the Soviets is relatively small, maybe 3000 strategic nuclear weapons, and with neither side having the shield to accompany the sword, neither side can make such threats believable. But if we had Star Wars, then that situation might be changed.

That is perhaps the most prevalent rationale for Star Wars—to make our nuclear weapons useful again, at least as instruments of political coercion. So that once again we can dictate Soviet behavior, threaten them with nuclear attack, and get away with it.

S.A.: What about the argument that the Soviets are really ahead in the arms race?

Bowman: Well, we are told that the Soviets have achieved superiority in nearly every measure of military (continued to page 7)

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'The American people are being lied to on a massive scale about practically everything.' Socialist Action Summer Educational Conference (continued from page 6) strength. We're told the Soviets have overwhelming conventional superiority, nuclear superiority, and that they're ahead of us in Star Wars—so we don't have any choice but to catch up. All of those assertions are lies. The American people are being deliberately deceived. That's the kindest way I can put it.

Secretary [of Defense] Caspar Weinberger used to use this line all the time. Yet he knew better. I was in the same room with Weinberger when he heard his top military advisers tell him that the United States has a 10-year lead in Star Wars technology. Furthermore, the Soviets have never started testing bits and pieces of such systems in space-in violation of the ABM [Anti-Ballistic Missile] Treaty—the way we have for the last eight years. And finally, the Soviets have agreed to on-site inspection of everything that goes into space before it's launched. So there's absolutely no threat of deployment of Star Wars weapons from the Soviets-only from the United States.

Now what about nuclear superiority? The graphs and charts that President Reagan used to show the American people on television involved selective statistics which showed a very misleading picture. If you take the entire strategic nuclear arsenals of the two sides, then you find that the United States has always been ahead in total strategic nuclear weapons. We're still ahead now by some 3000, at least. Moreover, ours are more accurate. Soviet missiles and nuclear payloads tend to be bigger. Both characteristics tend to cancel each other out as far as military utility goes.

The only factor where there is a real striking difference between the arsenals of the two sides is in survivability. And there we have a staggering edge. The United States has 10 times as many strategic nuclear weapons and submarines at sea in survivable basic modes; that is, a situation where these weapons are not vulnerable to a first strike.

Finally there's a difference in the technological sophistication of the missiles of the iwo sides. Our submarines are better than the Russian submarines. Our bombers are better. Most important, Soviet missiles are the antiquated liquidfuel variety that the United States discarded about a quarter of a century ago.

These antiquated missiles cannot be fired at the turn of a key like ours can. They have to be refueled, they have to spin up their gyros, and they have to initialize the guidance systems. This means that it takes them up to three days to prepare a missile for launch. And these activities can be detected by our spy satellites. The joint chiefs of staff have testified to Congress that we know up to three days in advance every time the Russians are going to launch a missile.

So not only are the Soviets more vulnerable to a first strike than we are, but they are incapable of launching a massive surprise attack because of all the preparations they would have to make to launch their missiles.

S.A.: You have said that with the announcement and the publicizing of the Star Wars program, the nuclear freeze movement went into a tailspin because of illusions people had that SDI was a peaceful system and that it would perhaps be offered to the Soviets.

Bowman: The whole purpose of Reagan's Star Wars speech on March 23, 1983, was to destroy the freeze movement. It was not to announce a new program because the program was already going full speed ahead. It was essentially the same program that I had directed in the 1970s. But starting in 1981, under President Reagan, its objectives changed from being a research program to a crash program to develop and deploy weapons as part of the overall drive for military superiority.

The speech did what it was designed to do—which was to destroy the nuclear freeze movement, seize the moral high ground, and confuse the arms control community.

The Reagan administration argued, "Isn't it better to save lives than avenge them?" —which of course was a total falsehood. And by doing that and making an argument for Star Wars, it allowed the rest of the Reagan buildup to proceed without opposition.

S.A.: On a related question, it United States and the Soviet Union sign a treaty such as the ABM Treaty, it is portrayed to the world as another great step toward peace. When one evaluates what weapons are negotiated in regard to disarming or removing them, it seems that the agreements over the past decades simply codify the abolition of weapons that are obsolete, that are not a threat. The door is left open for future weapons.

How would you assess the last treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union in this regard? Have any of these negotiations actually resulted in the lessening of the danger of nuclear war—-or are they part of the Star Wars peace scenario to psychologically disarm a public that has grown to fear and hate nuclear war and all those who propose that it is a realistic policy alternative?

Bowman: Actually, arms control has never ended the arms race. The INF Treaty will result in some 3 to 4 percent of our nuclear weapons being disassembled. I won't say destroyed because the warheads won't be destroyed. They'll be there to be put into new kinds of weapons.

But I support arms control nevertheless because I think it has accomplished its primary objective of making nuclear war less likely. There are several possible objectives for arms control. One is to control the nature of weaponry so that you eliminate those weapons that give enormous advantage to the aggressor and thereby make war less likely.

That is the most important objective of arms control. The other objectives are to reduce the cost of preparing for war and to make one's losses in war less catastrophic. In the nuclear age, I think those last two objectives of arms control are relatively meaningless.

To my mind the major objective of arms control is to make nuclear war less likely. And I think it has succeeded in doing that to a certain extent, particularly the ABM Treaty, which prevented both sides from getting into the deployment of destabilizing [anti-missile] defenses.

The 1972 ABM Treaty, which was part of Salt I, is a permanent treaty that is still in force and is supposed to be in force forever. And it was a very significant advance. The other part of Salt I was a limit on the number of launchers on either side for intercontinental missiles. This was relatively innocuous—-meaningless.

Salt II was a little better. Again the limitation on nuclear weapons on the two sides was relatively meaningless. It sort of gave official blessing to the existing arsenals of both sides and allowed both sides to continue developing the weapons systems they had in progress. But it did impose numerical limits that have caused both sides to have to throw away some obsolete weapons as they put new weapons in.

The failure of these agreements has been that they do not outlaw other kinds of weapons that are also destabilizing— for example MIRVs (Multiple Intercontinental Re-entry Vehicles). In 1972, in Salt I, we had the opportunity to ban multiple warheads on missiles, and if we had done so we would have been much more secure today-and the possibility of a first strike by either side would have been lessened considerably.

S.A.: Again it seems that the real effect and goal of these arms agreements is to disarm public opposition to nuclear weapons.

Bowman: I think that was the reason why the Reagan administration was engaging in the Geneva negotiations. They were going through this charade to shut up the peace movement. They wouldn't have even been at the bargaining table if there hadn't been a public outcry for it.

The INF Treaty was just enough to keep the arms-control process alive while making practically no progress in the larger scheme of things from the military point of view.

The next one that seems to be coming up is the START Treaty—a 50 percent cut in nuclear weapons. And everybody thinks, "Wow, if we could get that! That really means that this business is over and we can go to sleep." That's not true.

The START agreement would provide lower numerical limits on nuclear weapons on both sides while allowing both sides to continue to modernize within those numerical limits. This means that both sides have fewer weapons but they're modern, accurate weapons, with first-strike capability. Instead of START, the peace movement should demand a complete halt to nuclear testing and a halt to the testing of new delivery systems-submarines, missiles, and bombers.

With these two steps we cripple the nuclear arms race and make it difficult to design new nuclear warheads—because they can't do nuclear testing. We make it difficult for them to design new delivery systems, to put the old warheads in because they can't test them.

But it's almost impossible to get together and work out safe and stable ways of getting rid of existing weapons when there's always new weapons even more dangerous being lied to on a deployed all the really why next first step.

S.A.: What was the central reason for the formation of your institute and what are its central priorities today?

Bowman: The original purpose of the Institute for Space and Security Studies was to bring the truth to the American people on Star Wars. I knew the incredible dangers of these weapons in space; how they would make nuclear war more likely.

But while I've been doing this-I've been doing this for the last nine years, seven years full time-I have found that it is but one piece in a much larger puzzle. The deception of the American people, perpetrated by announcing the Star Wars program, was but a part of a pattern that encompasses the Challenger explosion, the KAL 007 shootdown, the descriptions of the Soviet threat, the characterizations of Soviet treaty compliance, the hiding of our CIA activities in the Third World and even in friendly governments like Australia and New Zealand.

What I uncovered in my research into the government is that all these other things were interrelated and that the American people were being lied to on a massive scale about practically everything. Some of it has come to light recently. For example, the way the government with its nuclear-weapons production activities has poisoned our land, our water, our air. It's probably caused thousands of cases of cancer while denying responsibility.

And so the mission of our institute has gradually grown to where I guess it is broader today. Originally we described ourselves as an independent, non-profit, tax-exempt organization providing research and education—an independent voice to the American people on high-tech issues involving space and other areas of national security.

Our activities are geared toward demystifying the arms race and attempting to provide the American people with the knowledge and understanding they need as a basis for informed democracy and common security. Common security meaning more than just military security but environmental security, and economic security as well.

This is a new concept that's spreading like wildfire in the United States and indeed around the world among the peace groups, the social-justice groups, and the environmental groups as they find each other and find that the causes that they work for are one and the same.