When the USSR representatives walk out of arms control talks, President Regan vilifies them and the U.S. press provides front page coverage to their militant posture. But when the USSR makes a detailed public proposal to remove the threat of nuclear war, it seems to fail on deaf’ ears.
Such a proposal was made on October 5, 1983, by Andrei Gromyko, First Deputy Chairman of the USSR Council of Ministers and USSR Minister of Foreign Affairs, in two letters to Javier Perez de Cuellar, Secretary-General of the United Nations. Along with the letters were draft resolutions for freezing nuclear weapons and condemning nuclear war.
The draft resolution for a nuclear freeze included the following points
“Urges all states having nuclear weapons to agree to freeze, under appropriate verification, all nuclear arms in their possession both in quantitative and qualitative terms, namely:
— To cease the buildup or all components of nuclear arsenals, including all kinds of nuclear-weapons delivery system and all kinds of nuclear weapons
— Not to deploy nuclear arms of new kinds and types
— To establish a moratorium on all tests of nuclear weapons and on tests of new kinds and types of delivery systems
— To stop the production of fissionable materials for the purpose of creating nuclear weapons.”
It also called for the “USSR and the USA, which possess the largest nuclear arsenals, to freeze, in the first place and simulÂtaneously, their nuclear arms on a bilateral basis by way of example to the other nuclear states.”
The draft resolution on nuclear war expressed alarm on the growing threat of nuclear war and condemned it as being contrary to human conscience and reasons … a violation of the foremost human right — the right to life.
It would seem that Gromyko’s words echo the sentiments of U.S. scientists like Carl Sagan and Paul Ehrlich as well as millions of Americans increasingly concerned about nuclear war.
Gromyko’s nuclear freeze proposal and peace offering were published in detail in Soviet Life Magazine, a Russian periodical distributed in the United States.
When an “enemy” makes a detailed public proposal for peace and understanding, it deserves to be discussed and tested for sincerity. This did not happen to Gromyko’s proposals of October 5, 1983.
SOURCE:
SOVIET LIFE MAGAZINE, December, 1983, Page 15.