I strongly agree with
the critical views against President Trump’s misogyny, racism and anti-Muslim
policies expressed by your multi-authored letter (“We stand together against
Trump’s toxic agenda,” 2 February; https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/01/we-stand-together-against-donald-trump-toxic-agenda)
But, as someone who has
been a member and supporter of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament for nearly
40 years, I cannot understand why Dr Kate Hudson, national general secretary of
CND signed this letter in the name of the
campaign she leads, rather than in a personal capacity.
To be sure, Just before Christmas last year, he tweeted,
as President –elect: “The
United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until
such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes.” (https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/dec/22/donald-trump-tweets-expand-nuclear-weapons
But Trump has made many
more comments opposing nuclear weapons, which
CND must know.
For example, on 16
January, he asserted:“I think nuclear weapons should be way down and reduced
very substantially ( “How
President Trump Could Bring About A Safer Greater World Peace,” Forbes, 20 January, www.forbes.com/sites/ralphbenko/2017/01/20/how-president-trump-could-bring-about-a-safer-greater-world-peace/#58c18d476724)
Over a year
ago, on15 December 2015 he said “The biggest problem we have is nuclear—nuclear
proliferation and having some maniac, having some madman go out and get a
nuclear weapon. That's in my opinion that is the single biggest problem that
our country faces right now.” (“Distorting Trump on nuclear war,” National
Review, 6 September 2016, http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/439744/distorting-trump-nuclear-war)
Trump’s
views on nuclear weapons are maverick, like many other of his policies, and
they stretch back over three decades, as an
article published in US news web site, Slate, on 1st
March last year, demonstrates with extraordinary
insight. (Trump’s Nuclear Experience: In 1987, he set out to solve the world’s
biggest problem www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/the_spectator/2016/03/trump_s_nuclear_experience_advice_for_reagan_in_1987.html)
Written
by senior Slate magazine writer, Ron Rosenbaum,
it revealed: “Trump is not new to nuclear matters. He
has been thinking about how he’d handle nuclear weapons and
nuclear proliferation for more than a quarter-century, at least since 1987,
when he claimed to me that he was “dealing at a very high level” with
people in the White House (that would have been the Reagan White House) on
doomsday questions.
Trump wanted to begin a crusade to find a
way to halt a national security policy based on nuclear mutually assured
destruction (MAD) “before a wild-card nuke deals death to millions.”
Trump foresaw a
situation soon when “hair-trigger” heads of state will have their hands on
multiple nuclear triggers. And, Rosembaum observed, it drives him crazy that
nobody in the White House senses the danger.
In the middle of last month it was revealed in the media
that Trump wants to recreate the US-Russia presidential summit that US president Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev held in Reykjavik,
in Iceland in January 1986, where they very nearly came to an extraordinary agreement
to outlaw all nuclear weapons. (“Trump wants Putin summit in Reykjavik, Sunday
Times, 15 January, http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/trump-wants-putin-summit-in-reykjavik-rc909n9t0)
CND and others campaigning against nuclear weapons
should take some encouragement from this positive aspect of Trump’s outpouring
of negative policies, and read the US
National Archive on Gorbachev’s Nuclear
Initiative of January 1986 and the Road to Reykjavik, (Electronic briefing
book 563, 12 October 2016, http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB563-Gorbachev-nuclear-abolition-1986-and-Reykjavik-summit/)
to see how Trump could be, as were
Reagan and Nixon with China, the Republican president who made a big difference
in east-west relations
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