—G -68

On Atomic Weapons

I am, writing in’ connection
with an important possible
ambiguity in Dr. Lederberg’s
Feb, 17 column in The Wash-
ington Post on the use of tac-
tical atomic weapons in South
Vietnam.

The word “suggest” can ei-—
ther be interpreted to mean to
advocate or to hypothesize, I
trust that the operative sen-
tence is meant to be read as
follows: “Lf, in desperation, we
hypothesized even the mildest
possible policy of the use of
tactical weapons in Vietnam
such as: defensive use of tacti-
eal weapons within the bound-
aries of South Vietnam and
only with the support of its
recognized government, this
would have disastrous predict-
able consequences.” This dis-
tinction and certainly the
point of the column seems to
have been missed by the head-
line writer. I wish to prevent
additional distortion so that
we do not next read, “Nobel
Laureate recommends limited
use of A-Bomb in Vietnam.”

A consequence that Leder-
berg failed to point out is that
such a use of tactical weapons,
or even their successful non-
use as a deterrent, would
foreclose any possibility of a
nonproliferation treaty. Fur-
ther escalation will be a more
distant but no less certain fu-
ture prospect.

Whatever stability there is
to a nuclear stalemate cer-
tainly doesn’t rest on the cred-
ibility of the prospect of our
using tactical nuclear weapons
in Vietnam. The impact of such
use on a nonproliferation trea-

ty already establishes quite the
contrary. The stalemate argu-
ment pertains to the situation
in which both adversaries
have a nuclear capability. In
sum, there should be a clear
and immediate’ danger to the
nation’s survival and security
before nuclear weapons of any
kind could be considered an
appropriate deterrent or reac-
tion to non-nuclear provoca-
tion. Even Secretary of State
Rusk doesn’t yet make this
claim for our involvement in
Vietnam as a whole, let alone
our position in Khesanh.
ELLIOTT C. LEVINTHAL,
' Director, Department of Genetics,
fara ord Medical School, Stan-
Palio Alto, Calif,