Regional Spotlight: Nuclear arsenals: The forgotten threat

Why has it taken so long for the world to decide to get rid of our most ghastly invention, one that could obliterate most of the life on the planet with the push of a button? To paraphrase John F. Kennedy, why can't the world agree to abolish these weapons of mass destruction before they abolish us?

The scientists who developed the atomic bomb in the 1940s immediately understood the awful consequences of their brain child. When J. Robert Oppenheimer watched the first bomb explode in the desert near Alomogordo, N.M., he has said he thought of a line from the Bhagavad Gita: "Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds."

Yet almost 70 years later, we are still saddled with the reality that our lives and all those we love could be quickly obliterated, deliberately or by mistake. We have undergone such a complete psychic numbing that the issue almost never arises in political debate or the media. Instead, we are encouraged to worry about our weight and which mobile phone to buy.

Mere mortals

As a result, most Americans don't realize that at least one hydrogen bomb is aimed at every city in the United States with a population of 50,000 or more. There are about 40 aimed at New York and 60 at Washington. Russian cities are similarly targeted. Since the Cold War ended, the Pentagon has decided to target China as well, while Russia targets all the major cities in Australia, Canada, Europe, and Britain.

Most people also seem to have forgotten that we nearly reached a point when the two superpowers agreed to abolish nuclear weapons. During a weekend in ReykjavÃk, Iceland, in 1986, Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev, two mere mortals, almost achieved that unthinkable goal. They failed because Reagan was attached to his "Star Wars" missile-defense plan, while Gorbachev refused to allow the fantastical system to proceed, even though he suspected it was doomed never to work.

Mote and beam

But we can abolish nuclear weapons, just as we did chemical and biological weapons. It is a matter of political will.

Politicians, however, are obsessed with terrorists - even as Russia targets the United States with more than a thousand hydrogen bombs on hair-trigger alert, and even as the United States could retaliate or initiate in a similarly deadly fashion. It's no wonder we can't successfully control the acquisition of nuclear weapons by other countries; Russia and the United States own 97 percent of the 23,000 H-bombs in the world today.

The Bible encourages us to heed the beam in our eye instead of the mote in another's. That principle, as well as humility, humanity, courage, commitment, and common sense, must prevail if we are to have a future to contemplate. The United States can lead the way.

Dr. Helen Caldicott is a physician, author, and longtime nuclear-disarmament advocate who will receive the Haas International Peace and Social Justice Award in Philadelphia on Thursday. She was a cofounder and president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. For information on attending the ceremony, call 215-546-3030 or e-mail infopna@gmail.com.