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An open letter to George W. Bush

by Ian Waldron-Mantgani, July 7, 2001

President Bush,

At the end of this year, assuming we are all still here, I will be putting "Thirteen Days" on my list of the ten best films of the year. You have seen the movie, and hopefully you have dwelled on its powerful demonstration of just how close we came to nuclear annihilation over the course of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It's not impossible for the bomb to drop.

General Curtis LeMay, who features in "Thirteen Days", once wrote "In my opinion, a general war will grow through a series of political miscalculations and accidents rather than through any deliberate attack by either side. Let me stress the point -- I said political accidents, not military accidents."

It would be a mistake to dismiss LeMay's opinion as "a relic of the Cold War", as you have dismissed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. All his theory depends on is world leaders being nervous rather than complacent about the nuclear threat, and therefore it is still relevant; the world has not become such a relaxed place that people do not take weapons of mass destruction seriously.

I am aware that in your presidential campaign you declared "I will work to persuade Russia that it is in both our nations' best interests to amend the anti-ballistic missile treaty to allow these defence systems to protect our people from rogue attacks. If Russia refuses, we will withdraw from the treaty."

But now that Vladimir Putin and Jiang Zemin have shaken hands in opposition to your missile defence plans, it is time to cease this policy of ploughing ahead regardless. The superpowers of the world will not be assuaged by way of a smooth smile and a gentleman's promise that the system does not pose a threat to them. They need firm, official assurance that if the system is ever operational in the United States, it will be set up in their countries also -- if they don't get it, then sooner or later someone is going to reach for a little red button. How could they not?

Why would Russia and China sit still because of unwritten promises? What message does it send that your co-operation with them does not extend to helping them too protect themselves against 'rogue states'? If the US does install a missile defence system for itself alone, even one that could not fend off the volume of missiles Russia and China are capable of, the mere principle of America having an advantage in the nuclear game would have these countries in fatally dangerous panic. They're already nervy, and we're at the stage where the technology has yet to be perfected!

Your father once spoke of "the chance to rid our children's dreams of the nuclear nightmare". Carving out your own legacy is fair enough, but perhaps this should be an area of agreement.

Yours truly,
Ian Waldron-Mantgani, The UK Critic

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