On the Right

New York, Oct. 4—The other day, batting around the subject of SALT II with Senator George McGovern, I flushed out what emerges, I take it, as the major paradox of the SALT-Sellers—as Paul Nitze, defense specialist and former arms negotiator and Secretary of the Navy, refers to them. It is this: On the one hand, the SALT people give us, again and again, the argument of redundancy (“We have enough nuclear weapons right now to kill everybody in the world twenty times over”—is the standard version). On the other hand, they tell us that if we don’t sign a SALT agreement, the Soviet Union will proceed in the next three years—I cite Senator McGovern’s figures—to construct another seven hundred missiles.

The question is, why? Why would they build more weapons, having more than enough already? An examination of exactly that question is the beginning of wisdom in the consideration of the horribly complicated business of arms control.

About the Author

William F. Buckley Jr.

William F. Buckley Jr. founded National Review magazine in 1955.

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New York, Oct. 4—The other day, batting around the subject of SALT II with Senator George McGovern, I flushed out what emerges, I take it, as the major paradox of the SALT-Sellers—as Paul Nitze, defense specialist and former arms negotiator and Secretary of the Navy, refers to them. It is this: On the one hand, the SALT people give us, again and again, the argument of redundancy (“We have enough nuclear weapons right now to kill everybody in the world twenty times over”—is the standard version). On the other hand, they tell us that if we don’t sign a SALT agreement, the Soviet Union will proceed in the next three years—I cite Senator McGovern’s figures—to construct another seven hundred missiles.

The question is, why? Why would they build more weapons, having more than enough already? An examination of exactly that question is the beginning of wisdom in the consideration of the horribly complicated business of arms control.