Activist Committed to Abolishing Nuclear Arms Says Cold War Is Over but Weapons Remain by John Shaw As a young reporter for the New Yorker magazine in the late 1970s, Jonathan Schell received an opportunity that many journalists can only dream about. Working under the legendary editor William Shawn, Schell was given as much time as he needed to write an article that could be as long as he wanted about a single topic: the threat of nuclear weapons. Schell plunged into the project, examining the scientific, moral and political aspects of the nuclear arms race. When he emerged from his research five years later, the New Yorker published his findings in a series of articles that rocked the American political world. The 90,000-word essay appeared in three installments in February of 1982 and was later assembled into a book called ìFate of the Earth.î In powerful, vivid language, Schell said that the nuclear arms race could lead to the extinction of the human species, that nuclear deterrence is a contradictory and unreliable doctrine to prevent war, and the globa l political system needed to be ìreinventedî to confront this huge challenge. The essay became a political and cultural event. It was celebrated by Time magazine, entered into the U.S. congressional record by several lawmakers, cited on the CBS Evening News by Walter Cronkite and praised as ìhistoricî by former Vice President Walter Mondale. It was called ìthe new Bible of our time, the White Paper of our ageî by the president of Physicians for Social Responsibility. Sen. Alan Cranston of California traveled to New York to meet with Schell and asked him to summarize his work for members of Congress. A member of the Vaticanís scientific advisory committee gave a copy of the book to the pope. In an interview, Schell clearly recalls that remarkable time and still seems surprised by the uproar that was provoked by his essay. ìI thought it would get some reaction, but I was wholly unprepared for the reaction it generated. Nothing could have prepared me for that,î he said. While Schellís life eventually returned to normal, he has remained committed to exploring all aspects of the nuclear question. Now a writer for the Nation magazine and a part-time university professor, he is one of the nationís foremost experts on nuclear issues and is a passionate proponent of abolishing all nuclear weapons. Through his writing and political activism, Schell is determined to force people to look at the threat posed by worldís 31,000 nuclear weapons in a fresh way. ìPeople love not to think about the nuclear issue. Itís not a pleasant topic. In fact, itís a disgusting subject. Itís always difficult to get people to think about this subject,î he said. ìAnd it seems anachronistic. People think itís a blast from the past. But the nuclear age is still with us. The Cold War may have ended but the nuclear age continues,î he added. Schell grew up in New York City in a family of talented children (his brother, Orville, is an expert on China) and activist parents. His mother protested against the war in Vietnam and the nuclear arms race while his father, a corporate lawyer, helped launch Helsinki Watch, a human rights group. After Schell graduated from Harvard University in 1965, he decided to spend a year of study and travel in Japan. On his way back to the United States, he stopped in Vietnam. Befriended by several journalists, he secured a press pass and traveled freely throughout the war zone. ìA press pass at that time was a ticket to a ring side seat to the war,î he said. While in Vietnam, Schell wrote an essay, ìThe Village of Ben Suc,î that was published by the New Yorker and later became a book. This began a 20-year career as a staff writer for the New Yorker, then the most prestigious and influential magazine in the United States. ìThe New Yorker was a kind of paradise for writers at that time. It was a paradise for me. It allowed you to do your very best work, to really explore topics in depth. It permitted you to learn and write about important subjects. I was free to propose articles on virtually any subject,î he said. Schell wrote frequently about the Vietnam war and also had long, probing conversations with Shawn about the nuclear arms race. ìThere was no single moment when I became interested in the nuclear question. There was no blinding moment of truth and light. It was very gradual,î he said. ìItís a very difficult subject to write about. Itís both blindingly obvious and, at the same time, very mysterious and subtle,î he said. He began to think about Americaís nuclear strategy in the context of the troubled experience of the United States in Vietnam. ìThe spectacle in Vietnam opened my mind to the notion that other vast enterprises could be equally self-defeating. What America did in Vietnam was self-defeating. It was not rational,î he said. Schell began to work on ìFate of the Earthî in 1978 and remained deeply immersed during his years of research. He knew that his articleís appearance in the New Yorker would ensure that it was read by a vast and influential audience. ìThe New Yorker had a fantastic capacity to put something across. It had iron-solid credibility. It had as its readership the best educated people in the United States. In had an unusual prestige,î he said. The ìFate of the Earthî was published as three articles. The first described in chilling detail the destructive effects of a nuclear exchange, arguing that even a limited nuclear war could lead to the extinction of mankind. The second installment analyzed in philosophical and ethical terms the implications of the extinction of the human race. The third article attacked the entire rationale of nuclear deterrence and suggested a new approach: a freeze on deploying nuclear weapons, a 50 percent reduction in nuclear arms, work toward conventional and nuclear disarmament, and an effort to overhaul a political system of warring states with a new arrangement that would be better able to resolve disputes. While some critics found Schellís arguments hyperbolic and melodramatic, many were overwhelmed by the power and logic of his thinking. ìThis is a work of enormous force,î declared a review in the New York Times. ìThere are moments when it seems to hurtle, almost out of control, across an extraordinary range of fact and thought. But in the end, it accomplishes what no other work has managed to do in the 37 years of the nuclear age. It compels usóand compel is the right wordóto confront head on the nuclear peril in which we all find ourselves.î The New York Times review called Schellís work ìnot only a statement. It is a summons, an alarm, a commotion.î Schell said his initial foray into the nuclear question convinced him that these issues required careful study and the imagination to see how the world can escape from the nuclear trap. Several years later, Schell wrote an article for the New Yorker that was published as a book, ìThe Abolition.î In it he argued that the only solution to the worldís nuclear predicament is a deliberate policy in which the nuclear powers negotiate to abolish all nuclear weapons. Then in 1998, he wrote ìThe Gift of Time,î a meditation on how the end of the Cold War has given humanity a new opportunity to peacefully defuse the nuclear threat. While some commentators contend that Schellís views are utopian and impractical, he is a respected expert on nuclear issues. He publish ed major articles last year in both Harperís and Foreign Affairs. ìJonathan Schell knows these issues very well. He has a very keen sense of the history, the evolution, of the nuclear age,î said Richard Butler, a former United Nations diplomat. Schell believes the United States and other nuclear powers are now at a point of historic decision in which compromise policies that defer fundamental choices are no longer acceptable. The real alternatives facing nuclear powers, he argues, are simple and stark: Either prepare for, and accept, the unrestricted proliferation of nuclear weapons across the world or launch a bold effort to abolish nuclear weapons by international agreement. ìThe current American policy is to try to stop proliferation while simultaneously continuing to hold on to its own nuclear arsenal indefinitely. But these objectives are contradictory. The current policy is a way of avoiding choice,î he said. Schell said that when the Cold War ended, the worldís nuclear arsenals were limited by a regime of treaties and agreements that, if they did not end nuclear peril, reduced it substantially. But he noted that the nuclear threat is growing again and that the restrictions spelled out in international law are eroding. A single missile test by a small nation could touch off a string of consequences that would place severe stress on almost every aspect of the global nuclear arms control regime, he said. ìA decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the startling fact is that nuclear arms control is faring worse than in the first days of the 21st century than it did in the last days of the Cold War,î he said. Schell laments that the nuclear powers, led by the United States, did not move aggressively to eliminate nuclear weapons when the Cold War ended. This decision to retain nuclear weapons quietly set a standard for the post-Cold War period. He said one of the key strategic changes has been that nuclear abolition is now seen as not only difficult to achieve, but even undesirable. A world free of nuclear weapons is perceived as intrinsically less secure than a world filled with nuclear weapons. In a strange twist, nuclear weapons are no longer seen as evil but as a positive benefit to the world, Schell said. But he believes nuclear powers now face a crucial decision between possession and non-proliferation. ìA policy that seeks to marry possession with non-proliferation lacks coherence, morally, but also militarily, diplomatically and legally,î he said. ìIt is getting harder by the day to imagine, given the tight connections between possession and proliferation, that the deterioration and even collapse of the fabric of nuclear arms control can be stopped absent a commitment to abolition.î Schell sees both perils and possibilities with the new Bush administration regarding nuclear issues. President George W. Bush has expressed skepticism about expanding nuclear arsenals, but he is also committed to building an anti-missile defense system that could ignite a new arms race. ìMissile defense is going to be the focus of a lot of attention during the Bush presidency. And this is a subject that can produce terrible mischief. It could be the ticket to many arms races. Thatís a terrible threat,î he said. Schell is determined to keep writing about nuclear issues and working to eliminate nuclear weapons. He is a strong supporter of Project Abolition, an effort by more than 900 groups to build support in civil society for the elimination of nuclear weapons. Schell is encouraged by the support of prominent global figures for abolishing nuclear weapons, including Mikhail Gorbachev, Helmut Schmidt, Rolf Ekeus, Robert McNamara and Michel Rocard as well as a number of former generals. ìIím committed to writing on the nuclear issue for the duration because it is so important. But not to the exclusion of everything else. Itís important to have something fresh to say. I donít want to keep repeating myself until Iím purple in the face,î Schell said. John Shaw is a contributing writer for The Washington Diplomat.