The U.S. as No. 1 World Armorer

Not infrequently one finds more cogent common sense contained in one letter from a reader than in all the word-laden columns of so-called “experts” such as the ponderous, self-serving Henry Kissinger. A case in point was the Aug. 11 letter in which Edmund Morris described the Cold War as a “paranoiac arms race” that left its chief contestants in the depths of “disarray and dissolution.”

The 46 years of counterproductive competition proved costly to the rest of the world as well. Military-related expenditures have reached closed to a trillion dollars a year--and it is useful to remind ourselves that one trillion is a thousand billion; one billion is a thousand million. We and the Soviets have been pouring about two-thirds of this obscene total down the military rat hole while problems of the most pressing nature remain unattended.

Our global body politic suffers from a malady which is potentially terminal. Perhaps we should attach a name, such as toxic militarism. Defining a dread disease does not create a cure. But it can become a first step toward mobilizing the will and the human intelligence that can control and reverse the threat of disaster before time runs out.

HAROLD WILLENS

Los Angeles