cas@l5.uucp (Curtis Spangler) (10/22/85)
#
#for the line eater
October 1, 1985
Dear Friend,
The Summit Meeting in November may provide the last window of
opportunity we will have to reverse and end the arms race. The
enormous sums of money and human ingenuity wasted on the arms
race inhibits and even reverses human progress and brings a
planetary catastrophe closer with each new weapon built and each
dollar spent.
President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev, quite literal
ly, will carry the fate of all of us behind those closed doors
with them. But the jockeying for position between the two super
powers resembles the sideshow hype that precedes a heavyweight
championship fight more than responsible and informed diplomacy.
If there is no agreement to freeze the ever more dangerous arms
race and to significantly reduce the current arsenals, there will
be a tremendous acceleration in the development and buildup of
offensive and defensive weapons, and an acceleration in the level
of conflict and fear in the world. The fate of the world will be
determined by a computer chip and the instability of a runaway,
budget breaking arms race. These two men will be deciding my
future and yours; they will be determining who will prosper or
decline, live or die in the developed world and especially in the
underdeveloped world, and ultimately they will decide, in that
unobserved formality of secret diplomacy, whether all planetary
life will survive.
I would like to be in that room to reason, to argue, to plead, to
cry, to renounce the awful vanity that has brought the world to
this moment, to ask for sacrifice and to sacrifice and finally
with a joyous laughter to agree to end the cold war of hatred and
the mad accumulation of immeasurable power and to abolish nuclear
weapons from the face of the earth, forever. Is there any way to
bring our hopes for disarmament and peace to bear upon these
negotiations? If we share this dream, let's do something, in lieu
of being in that room, to at least make our voices heard.
There are four basic steps that will be on the table for discus-
sion at the summit:
1) A comprehensive test ban treaty.
2) An agreement to limit "Star Wars" to limited research,
while banning testing and deployment.
3) Verifiable bilateral Freeze in the development, testing
and deployment of nuclear weapons and delivery systems.
4) Deep cuts in existing nuclear weapons and delivery
systems.
Each of us could send this letter to five or more of our friends
and a card or letter listing the four points to our two senators,
our congressional representative, President Reagan and General
Secretary Gorbachev. The card might say, "this is what I want
accomplished at the forthcoming summit. I hope you agree that the
future of the world depends upon the completion of these first
steps."
If this letter is sent to five people and each sends a card to
their representatives, and those five send to five, etc., the
letter will be received in 12 progressive steps, i.e. 12 sets of
mailings, by 48,828,125 people, and they will have each sent
cards to their representatives.
We all know that this is only a mathematical projection, but we
can come closer to that number the more letters we send. Do send
at least 5 letters (and the cards to your reps). Urge those to
whom you send it to cooperate, and try to send more letters in
order to start more chains. We have seen many chain letters based
upon greed and superstition. This chain letter is intended to
break the chains that bind us to fear, poverty and world suicide.
It is a long shot but maybe it's the only shot we have .
P.S. In order to help us determine if this idea works would you
also send a card indicating the number of letters you sent out
to:
Summit Letter
1827 Haight St
Box 18
San Francisco,Ca. 94117
Of course, you need not put your return address or name on the
card. Thank you.
Allen Cohen
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The above letter was posted as a request from a friend who is not network
active. If there is a need to flame/comment/etc please send mail to me,
and I will forward to Allen for his comments and post to net or mail directly.
Curtis Spangler l5!cas@lll-crg.ARPA
cas%umunhum@SU-CSLI.ARPA
cas@SU-SHASTA.ARPA
{sun decvax lll-crg}!l5!cas That is ell-five, not fifteen