Article

A Universal Concern

APRIL 1983 Steve Famsworth '83
Article
A Universal Concern
APRIL 1983 Steve Famsworth '83

There is a new movement of hope in America today, and nowhere can it be seen better than on the Dartmouth campus. The conscience of the thousands here and of the millions beyond the Hanover Plain has given rise to an old dream. This time, however, the circumstances of the present have shown that this vision must become a reality. The luxury of an unfulfilled dream such as this no longer exists.

The issue that has been so rudely forced upon us is the threat of nuclear war, and the dream for which we reach that of peace is now more important than ever. The U.S. government's plan to rearm this nation (as if we weren't armed to the teeth already) has given an added urgency to reversing the arms race. And Dartmouth, for all its conservative reputation, is one of those places where people aim to make a difference on this issue.

Let there be no mistake at this point. The new peace movement that exists in Hanover and across the nation is not the product of some new generation of wildeyed visionaries or bearded incendiaries. Throughout the land, this movement is being fueled by the energies of farmers, union workers, businesspeople, lawyers, doctors, bishops, housewives, and children. At Dartmouth, too, one finds this diversity; those working on the arms issue spring from all sections of the undergraduates (except, of course, The Review), from the faculty, and even from the highest levels of the Parkhurst bureaucracy. In fact, President McLaughlin and the trustees have helped to generate this debate by expressing their concerns about the threat of nuclear war, and have allocated some of the College's resources to thinking about the most serious threat to humanity in any era.

Let me take you, for a moment, into one this winter's new courses dealing with 'this most troubling issue. Entitled "Nuclear Weapons: Technology, Politics, and Ethics," the course one of the term's most popular was team-taught by the chairman of the government department and an engineering professor at the Thayer School. But they were not the only ones to lecture to the students, administrators, and elder community members who made up the class. Other department heads were in for special sessions, as were William Sloane Coffin, Arthur Macy Cox '42 (a former intelligence officer), Sanford Gottlieb '46 (director of United Campuses to Prevent Nuclear War), and various past government officials. By the end of the tenweek seminar, students had begun educating their peers about issues such as the role of civil defense, possible future arms control treaties, halting of the proliferation of weapons, and the possibility of international control of the superpowers' arsenals. During the final class meeting, students interrupted each other in their intensity to tell others about ways one can act to help make a more secure world; that is, one with fewer weapons of mass destruction.

• For those not enrolled in that particular course, the Program for Education on the Threat of Nuclear War (a student/faculty committee) has brought numerous arms control speakers to Dartmouth and will continue to do so throughout the spring. Besides Coffin, who spoke to an overflow crowd at 105 Dartmouth, the campus community was treated to the first college appearance by the Soviet ambassador to the United Nations, Oleg Troyanovsky. Indeed, the ambassador's speech filled Spaulding Auditorium and most of Alumni Hall, where the overflow could see the speech via large-screen closed-circuit TV. The attendance figures are particularly significant considering the speech was given hardly a week before final exams, the time when visitors often address nearly empty halls. No doubt about it, Dartmouth students are concerned about the arms race. President McLaughlin, who is a fixture at most arms control speeches, coordinated the evening's events and introduced the ambassador.

But in truth, the energy that powers the campus and its concern over the arms race is not so much that of the president or of the faculty; rather it springs from the convictions of so many students. For those who feel the need to do more than take classes or attend speeches on the arms race, there is a two-year-old group for concerned students, faculty, and community members. Here, Medical School members of the Physicians for Social Responsibility rub elbows with folks at the Hanover Friends Meeting and work with undergraduates. The Dartmouth Area Committee on the Threat of Nuclear War, now coordinated by Jon Howland '83 and Ann Schonfxeld '85, has taken a leading role in the on-campus atomic education of their peers. The group, which coordinated the past two Convocations on the Threat of Nuclear War (a nationwide teach-in), invites speakers to the campus, sponsors films, and initiates group discussions in dormitories and fraternities.

For those students interested in a more scholarly pursuit of arms control solutions, there is the upcoming Ivy League Conference on Nuclear Arms, as well as this spring's Senior Symposium. At the Ivy Conference, 80 or so undergraduates (selected on the basis of 20-page academic research papers), will travel from their respective schools to Hanover to discuss the arms race. The conference, coordinated byDan Zelikow '83 and by Dave Sadcfi '83, will also feature speeches by former Secretary of State Alexander Haig Jr., Senator Paul Tsongas '62 (D-Mass.), author Kurt Vonnegut, and Dr. Herbert York. The goal of this effort, to be held at Dartmouth on April 29—May 1, is "to stimulate scholarship on the challenges which nuclear arms post to human society by soliciting undergraduate papers on the subject," Sadoff said.

The conference follows the Senior Symposium, which will also address the arms race earlier that week. In its sixth year, the symposium has been designed to dovetail with the conference. According to Tory Rogers '83, who is a coordinator of the symposium, "both programs are committed to a similar set of objectives. They want to raise social, moral, and political consciousness, to provide forums for discussion of these critical issues, and to lay the groundwork from which public action can spring."

Both Sadoff and Rogers insist that the Program and Symposium will include remarks from very different political perspectives, specifically including representatives from the left and right.

According to Zelikow (who also works as an intern in President McLaughlin's office), the College has been very helpful in working with the student groups. In fact, the president has agreed to introduce General Haig and offer remarks of his own on the arms race. Response from Dartmouth students to the paper-writing contest has also been excellent, he said. Thirty-seven 20-page manuscripts were entered into the competition, and from them, 10 representatives will be selected.

After the conference and the symposium, you can be sure that more such events will follow as this college and this nation continue to grapple with the planet-ending weapons.

So, if you pass through Hanover in the coming months, feel free to join the community that is springing up on this most important issue. People from all parts of the campus, regardless of their ideological predilections, have united for this universal concern. Though people differ as to actual solutions, the groups are joined in the common cause of educating their peers. With the fate of humanity hanging in the balance, thinking about reversing the arms race may be the most important question any of us will ever have to face. Thanks to the efforts of concerned brothers and sisters be they in Hanover or beyond we need not be alone in facing the danger of ultimate destruction. And that is the first part of the solution.