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The Superpowers' Joint Responsibility for the Arms Race

I appreciate it as an honor that my book The Game of Disarmament has been reviewed by no less an expert than Gerard Smith (International Security, Summer 1977). There are in his article several specific points where we differ in judgment but also some where he misrepresents my position. I leave the major part of those points uncommented, referring the readers to my book. I want, however, to object to the general criticism for bias implied already in his title “A Double Standard.” The data on armaments and the discussion of these data, including those referring to the Soviet Union, almost wholly originate from what is revealed in the United States, through official records and published literature. In the Soviet Union there are few facts revealed and practically no analysis of these facts above the level of propaganda. This is clearly stated already in the Preface to my book. And as Smith points out: “The absence of Soviet debate is shown by the fact that of the 570 notes referred to at the book’s end only a handful refer to Soviet documents” (p. 61). This “imbalance” in regard to sources available is regrettable but unavoidable and is not any testimony of a biased opinion on my part. It conditions the discussion of the disarmament problem everywhere, including the lively and often critical debate of aspects of that issue in the United States. It is in the United States, which is an open society, that I am free to publish my book. Let me add that having throughout my life and work come to love America and, indeed, identify myself with its inherited ideals, it is natural for me to expect more of disarmament initiatives by its government, and to appeal for even more. So it is for all America’s friends in the world and, as a matter of fact, in a general way for all Americans themselves. If that is applying a “double standard,” it is based on a correct assessment of the character of the two superpowers. But Smith accuses me of applying a “double standard” in another sense. Just one quotation: “She gives the impression of a lonely figure up against the forces of evil represented by the United States-and to a lesser extent the Soviet Union” (p. 59). This accusation is not correct. And it is, I am sorry to have to state, unfair to summarize as ”the central theme of the book, that the United States is as much to blame as the Soviet Union for the dangerous state of the world” (p. 60). Smith has, regrettably, written his whole comment as a search for quotes which can be screwed into a preconceived pattern of my holding to “an equality of culpability.” I have not set out to measure the amount of blame in toto. But it is well to point out that none can be exonerated. Proposals for disarmament have had faint success with any of the two governments-of which the breathtaking arms race is full proof. A forward-looking, and quite pungently expressed, demand for more action on disarmament measures is the major theme of my book and, in essence, I believe Gerard Smith and I are in agreement in principle. That we may, and do, differ in regard to the degree of boldness needed for such action is a different point. And here I must, in my turn, raise a major criticism. Smith in this particular article takes up the role of a