Path: bloom-picayune.mit.edu!snorkelwacker.mit.edu!americast.com!americast.com!americast-post Newsgroups: americast.wpost From: americast-post@AmeriCast.Com Organization: American Cybercasting Approved: americast-post@AmeriCast.com Subject: LETTER FROM THE PEACE ZONE LETTER FROM THE PEACE ZONECAMBRIDGE, Mass.> The red-brick building at 126 Rogers Street looks much like any other in this industrial zone a few blocks from the campus of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. It has three stories, an abandoned rail spur and, like many of its neighbors, used to be a factory. It is hardly the kind of place one would expect to find eminent doctors from 21 countries having a four-day conference essential- ly to consider this question: What do the peaceniks do now that peace has broken out? Up the stairs and past the little IPPNW sign was a planning ses- sion, which was to conclude yesterday, by International Physi- cians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, which won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985 when the Cold War was still hot. At the time, IPPNW and its American and Soviet copresidents were praised for letting the world know about the very negative medi- cal consequences of nuclear war. Since then, much of the world has changed. But not all that much, according to Bernard Lown, the Boston car- diologist who helped to found the group in 1980 and remains a copresident. So he and his counterpart, Sergei Kolesnikov, an embryologist from Irkutsk in Asiatic Russia, were asked why, with the widely acknowledged end of the Cold War, did they not simply declare victory and disband? Lown, a genial, owlish figure, seemed delighted at the question. "Why are we pushing at an open door?" he asked. "I'll tell you. Victory is not yet here." He cited enormous stocks of nuclear weapons around the world, still available because, for all of the agreements approved, few nukes have been destroyed. Besides, he said, the nuclear issue has more dimensions than sim- ply the old superpower confrontation. "Nuclear weapons are a status symbol in the world today," he said. "We and the Russians made it that way." Then too, Lown noted, consider the medical consequences of the nuclear era, the legacy of a half-century of mining, fabricating, testing and "disposing" of uranium and plutonium. "What man can invent he can't disinvent," Lown said. "So, in ef- fect, you need sentinels who will eternally guard the nuclear flame. We have to develop an immunologic defense against it." Kolesnikov, who greatly resembles Vladimir Lenin in a navy-blue blazer, agreed. "It was a kind of euphoria," he said, referring to recent events being clustered under the heading: The End of the Cold War. "Now, it's a time to force, to push our politicians to new actions." For instance, he said, most former Soviet republics with nuclear weapons on their soil have agreed to become nuclear-free zones. But Kolesnikov said they have been slow to do so, sometimes for reasons familiar to Americans: politics, inertia and deep uncer- tainty about what to do with giant weapons-making industries. Lown also said he objects to a view expressed by President Bush, which has not been contradicted by the other presidential candi- dates and is fast becoming accepted wisdom: that the United States "won" the Cold War and did so because of a policy known as "peace through strength," with no help from peacenik groups such as the IPPNW. "It's a lie that we won," Lown said with a growl. "The American people lost the Cold War. . . . The Russian people lost the Cold War. There is no victory." Besides the dollars spent, the Cold War had other costs, Lown said, citing a second-rate economy, habitual government secrecy and a belief that national strength can be measured in terms of nuclear throw-weight. "If we have an educated society that loves our country, that is strength," Lown said. At that, a bell rang, and the physicians plunged back into an afternoon round of meetings, discussing IPPNW finances and plan- ning next year's meeting in Mexico, lack of a Cold War notwith- standing.02:29 10-26C9999----- Copyright 1992, The Washington Post. This story is from the Washington Post's Capitol Edition On-Line and is not to be ar- chived or redistributed. For more information, send-email to American Cybercasting Cor- poration (usa@AmeriCast.COM)