In view of the agreement being pounded out for a test-ban treaty and the hope that we are entering a new stage of East-West understanding, it may seem academic at this point to re-open discussion of die morality of nuclear war. There are substantial reasons for thinking otherwise.

The first is that the apocalyptic weapons which have driven fear into the heart of humanity remain present and poised for firing. Their number, in fact, continues to increase even as the peaceful effects of the understanding at Moscow move across the earth giving rise to men's joy and hope. Without discouraging such profound hopes, for which there are good reasons, we must nevertheless recognize the unlikelihood of a test-ban generating so rapid an agreement on disarmament that we shall see the great weapons removed and destroyed in the near future.

Since the end of World War II, the United States has aimed at deterring aggression against this country or its allies by a judicious combination of longlange nuclear striking forces and other forces armed with both nuclear and conventional weapons. (The verb "to deter" is defined as "to inhibit" or, in a more absolute usage, as "to prevent." One of the ambiguities of the concept of deterrence is that no one, including ourselves, is clear as to which usage is meant, much less which may prevail.) Of late years, as the Soviet Union achieved and developed a nuclear capability, deterrence has increasingly rested on the ability of the United States to launch a devastating retaliatory blow against anyone attacking the U.S. or, by extension, our allies.

The dilemma which confronts us today is that to maintain the peace we must threaten millions of men, women and children with destruction. And if our efforts to maintain the peace fail, there is an increasing possibility that these people will form the only feasible targets for our retaliatory strikes.

Although there may be those who can face such a situation with equanimity, they are few and far between.

Actually there can be no constructive thinking respecting history apart from culture, Since history is always the history of a people, it is reasonable that the historical event-a political movement, a style of art, a technological innovation, a scientific discovery -should be prepared by the ambience of culture. It is only possible to speak, therefore, with generality of the contours of culture, but not to fix them with finality, for culture is the latency of history, the actuality given and the possibilities implicit but unrealized.

Who can now recall those remote days—in the early 1960s—when Democratic Senator Thomas J. Dodd charged the UN with "naked aggression" in the Congo, when Republican Senator Barry Goldwater called American policy in the Congo "suicidal," and Premier Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe, demanding a troika to harness UN movements in the Congo and elsewhere, since "there are no neutral men"? Who now pays attention to the Congo? It is united, peaceful, and productive again, and a free election for a multi-party parliament is approaching. There are still serious problems of political and technical skill, capital, and public security—Premier Adoula would like the UN forces to stay another 18 months—but before we discharge the Congo into the ranks of the new international majority of states (they and we, each in our way, to feel a burdensome pride), we ought to pause long enough to assess die moral and political cost of UN intervention in the Congo.

Archaeological studies indicate that human beings have killed each other during all the period of time that they have been on earth History tells us that wars have been waged for is long is records run. This penchant of human beings for conflict whether as individuals as members of social groups or as citizens of the communities which we call nations has been variously explained. Some have characterized conflict as a basic human instinct while others have extolled combat—and especially war— as ennobling the individual ind purifying the race. In more pragmatic terms war his been waged for territorial and economic gains and has been justified in terms of its contribution to the growth of peoples and the development of states.

When Izvestia published in full President Kennedy's speech at American University, and it was announced that three-power negotiations would soon open in Moscow on a test-ban treaty, there was hope that a breakthrough to an agreement might still be found. These hopes were dampened when Khrushchev withdrew the concession Russia seemed to have made in agreeing at Geneva to three on-site inspections a year. In the context of the President's declaration that the United States will not be the first to resume atmospheric testing, this is going to continue to put pressure on our demand for live inspection.

As in treating the ilis of a single body, so even more in treating the ills of the body politic, one of the commonest mistakes "physicians" make is to waste time by concerning themselves with symptoms rather than with causes. This, in a nutshell, is what is wrong with the campaign to save mankind from war through disarmament. If a substantial curtailment of armaments could be accomplished, it would certainly reduce the incidence of death and destruction should a war break out. But it has almost no bearing, in and of itself, on the actual prevention of war.

Whatever the final outcome of the Cuban confrontation, it cannot be doubted that the decisive action taken by the United States has scuttled, for the present at least, the Soviet Union's offensive military base in the Western hemisphere. That it has not settled the “Cuban problem” is, in terms of the intent of the recent action, true but irrelevant. It was not designed to settle the problem of Cuba but to eliminate the menacing military presence of the Soviet Union in Cuba.

The decision to check this dramatic extension of Soviet military capability met with substantial popular approval, however varied and incompatible the reasons, however strange the bedfellows.

After a long, productive and continuously active life, Dr. Arthur J. Brown died early this year at the age of 106. He was the sole surviving charter trustee of The Church Peace Union, the previous name of the Council on Religion and International Affairs, and he remained active as treasurer until his death. He was a pioneer in the ecumenical movement and maintained a constant interest in international affairs. Only last November the editor of worldview received a friendly letter from him commenting on the policies of this journal.