REGULATION-I OF ARMkMENTSI3


as the weapons of mass destruction and the others. But.I believe that
there is such a distinction. It may be ,ýan inexact and imperfect
one;
but if we were to reject all distinctions in life on .the basis of in-
exactness and imperfection, no civilization would be possible. The
distinction lies in the way in which a weapon can be applied. By and
large, the conventional weapons of warfare have admitted and recog-
nized the possibility of surrender and submission. For that reason,
they have traditionally been designed to spare the unarmed and help-
less non-combatant, who was assumed already to be in a state of sub-
mission When confronted with military force, as well-as the combatant
prepared to lay down his arms. This general quaity of the conven-
tional weapons, of,, warfare implied a still more profound and vital
recognition: namely that warfare should be a means to an end other
than warfare, an end connected with the beliefs and the feelings and
the attit ud1s of people, an end marked by submission to a6 new political
will and perh.aps to a new regime of life, but an end which at least
did not negate the principle of life itself.
   The weapons of mass destruction do not have this quality. They
reach backward beyond the froitiers of western civilization, to the
concepts of warfare which were- once familiar to the Asiatic hordes.
They cannot really be reconciled with a political purpose directed to
shaping, rather than destroying, the lives of the adversary. They fail
to take account of'the ultimate responsibility of men for one another,
and even for each other's errors and mistakes. They imply the admis-
sion that man not only ean be butJiS his Own worSt and m0st terrible
eneiny.
   It is entirely possible thatt war may be waged against us again, as
 it has been waged against us and other nations within our time, under
 these concepts and bythese weapons. If-so, we shall doubtless have to
 reply. in kind, for-that may be the price of survival. I till think it
 vital to our own understanding of what it is we are about that we
 not fall into the error of initiating, or planning to initiate, the employ-
 ment of these weapons and concepts, thus hypnotizing ourselves into
 the belief that they may ultimately serve some positive national pur-
 pose. I doubt our ability: to hold the respective weapons in our national
 arsenal, tofit them into our military and political plans, toagree with
 our allies.on the circumstances of their-use, and to entertain theipros-
 pect of their'continued cultiva'tion by our adversaries* without bak-
 sliding repeatedly into this dangerous, and possibly mortal, error.
 Ini other" words,, even if w~ewere to concludetoday that "firstuse"
 would not be advantageous, I would not'trust 'the steadfastness of
 this outlook inRa situation . where the shadow of uncontrolled mass
 destruction weapons continues to lie across the peoples of the world.


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