Conventional Nuclear Weapons

Many of Senator Goldwater’s views differ from his opponents’ not merely in explicit statement but in the assumptions and general outlook from which they spring. Sentences formulated in terms of familiar, generally accepted ideas and assumptions seem easy to understand even though their meaning may in truth be ambiguous or absurd. (“We are against any discrimination.” “Support of the UN is the first principle of U.S. foreign policy.” “We stand for the self-determination of all peoples.”) But the unfamiliar is likely to be difficult at first.

Take as example a phrase that many citizens found puzzling even before McNamara and the columnists got to work on it. What is Goldwater getting at when he speaks of “conventional nuclear weapons”? Apart from special problems of military tactics, he is, I think, trying to exorcise the tabu that has been laid on the whole field of nuclear weaponry. It is to the same purpose that he talks of giving theater commanders more voice in the use of nuclear weapons and of turning tactical nuclear weapons over to our allies.

JB

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James Burnham

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Many of Senator Goldwater’s views differ from his opponents’ not merely in explicit statement but in the assumptions and general outlook from which they spring. Sentences formulated in terms of familiar, generally accepted ideas and assumptions seem easy to understand even though their meaning may in truth be ambiguous or absurd. (“We are against any discrimination.” “Support of the UN is the first principle of U.S. foreign policy.” “We stand for the self-determination of all peoples.”) But the unfamiliar is likely to be difficult at first.

Take as example a phrase that many citizens found puzzling even before McNamara and the columnists got to work on it. What is Goldwater getting at when he speaks of “conventional nuclear weapons”? Apart from special problems of military tactics, he is, I think, trying to exorcise the tabu that has been laid on the whole field of nuclear weaponry. It is to the same purpose that he talks of giving theater commanders more voice in the use of nuclear weapons and of turning tactical nuclear weapons over to our allies.