Simple And Compelling

AFTER TWO YEARS of working behind the seenes to build support among the public and members of Congress, the Boston-based Nuclear Weapons Freeze Campaign has won a breakthrough in its tight to bring nuclear proliferation under control Last week. after intense lobbying by the Campaign Sens. Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass) and Mark O. Hatfield (R-Ore) and Reps Edward Markey (D-Mass) and Silvio Conte (R-Mass) introduced resolution in their respective chambers calling for a freeze on the arms race.

The non-binding measure asks the Soviet Union and the United States to negotiate "a mutual and verifiable freeze on the testing. Production, and further deployment of nuclear warheads, missiles, and deliver system "The resolution also calls for an early resumption of arms reduction talks after the freeze begins: as the Campaign's slogan notes, a freeze is only "step one. "We urge every legislator to join with the 15 senators and 120 congressmen from both parties who have already endorsed the freeze It is an idea whose time has come And it is an idea that enjoys growing grass-roots support--several state legislatures have already endorsed a freeze, as have 80 Vermont town meetings.

The best argument for a freeze is simply the acceleration of the arms race itself Attitudes are hardening on both sides. The American Administration refused to even consider modifying its plans to build thousand of new nuclear weapons during the next decade And, in a recent official pamphlet. Marshall Nikolai V. Orgakov, the highest-ranking officer in the Soviet military, vowed that the Soviets will keep pace with the United States no matter what the cost.

A freeze on the arms race would let each side take a breather from its dash toward the elusive goal of mutually assured destruction: It has been a long time since we and the Russians did not have to worry about building and deploying nuclear arms. Who knows? We might actually enjoy having billions of extra dollars available to provide for education, health care, and environmental clean-up. Moreover, it is just possible that, by providing both sides the new experience of not racing, a freeze could produce the psychological breakthrough needed to case growing mutual suspicion. And for those who despair of ever seeing such mutual trust between the United States and Russia in these post-SALT II days, it is worth remembering that arms agreements between the United States and Soviet Union have ample precedent. Previous pacts include the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban treaty, the 1972 ban on anti-ballistic missile systems, and SALT I. Moreover, recent advances in satellite technology increase the chances that a freeze would be verifiable.

Opponents of a freeze, like Secretary of State Alexander Haig and Harvard's own Conservative Club--which picketed a Freeze Campaign benefit concert earlier this month--argue that the idea of a freeze is naive and simplistic. In Haig's words, "This resolution is not only bad defense policy, but it is bad arms control policy as well. "Haig and the conservatives argue that a freeze would lock the United States into its present position of "military disadvantage and dangerous vulnerability," doing away with-both the incentive for the Soviets to negotiate arms reduction and the chance for America to redress the imbalance.

To bolster this claim, Haig cites only one example of U.S. "disadvantage"--the alleged "6-1" superiority of Soviet land based missile forces in Europe. But taking into account all the missiles in the European theater pointed at the Soviets--including those of France and Britain, as well as American submarine-based weapons--the "6-1"edge vanishes. In fact, the freeze would actually accomplish a key Administration goal in Europe: the prevention of Soviet deployment of any new SS-20 missiles to modernize Russian nuclear forces. And in any case, freeze opponents who point only to the European situation are forgetting that the freeze applies to all nuclear weapons everywhere,. This means that the U.S. lead over the Soviets in total nuclear warheads--30,000 for us, 20,000 for them--remains as a sizable deterrent to Soviet attack.

After all the talk of "missile gaps" and "windows of vulnerability," simplicity might be exactly what we need to deal with the arms race. The artful language of military apologists on both sides of the Iron Curtain has served mainly to confuse the issue. The beauty of the freeze proposal is that it grasps the essential nature of the problem--we have built too many nuclear weapons and we should stop building them. That is a fact that John F. Kennedy '40 realized almost 20 years ago. "Our problems, "he said in his famous 1963 speech on arms control, "are man-made. Therefore they can be solved by man." Approval of the freeze resolutions by Congress would affirm Kennedy's belief that we can exercise ultimate control over our own destiny.