Friday, September 9, 1933
Daily Nebraskan
Pago 5
Russia's stupidity a victory
for mutual foe the bomb
My daughter called last Thursday
morning. A grim television bulletin had
told her the Russians had shot down a
Korean Air Lines Jumbo Jet with 269
people abroad.
She was crying. She cried like that
the day President Kennedy was killed.
like many, I was angry. The stupid
Russians. How incredibly stupid of
them! What could have been going
through the minds of those who gave
Q Arthur
'PX Hoppe
the orders to destroy an errant pas
senger plane? Paranoia, probably. The
Russians and their stupid suspicions.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
It was odd. I found I wasnt angry at
the Russians' callous disregard for
human life. Plenty of others would be
angry at that. I was angry solely at
their stupidity.
Then I thought of the New Yorker
magazine. I grew up on the New
Yorker. I look upon the lead essay in
"The Talk of the Town" as an enclave of
wisdom in a world of contention.
In an issue several months ago, the
New Yorker's anonymous essayist had
written about the enemy: The enemy
was not the Russians; the enemy was
the nuclear bomb which threatens the
extinction of our species.
It threatens the Russians Just as
much as it threatens us. So we and
they are tied by that strongest of
bonds: a common enemy.
Now I better understood my anger.
Because of the Russians' stupidity, we
and they had suffered another loss in
our mutual struggle against the com
mon enemy. They had stupidly
betrayed us both.
That struggle has been waged for 37
years. I was particularly frustrated
because it had seemed to be going bet
ter lately. .
Thanks to our greed, we had signed
a $10 billion grain deal with our Soviet
allies. Strategic arms negotiations
were to begin again in Geneva. Cultu
ral exchanges were being renewed. We
would compete with them in the
Olympics. Summit talks were in the
wind. Perhaps even President Reagan
would hold his tongue.
President Reagan scares me. If the
Russians are dangerously suspicious,
we Americans are dangerously brash.
And Reagan Is far brasher than most
"Better dead than red," he say3,
Implying that he would make that cho
ice for us all should the need arise. For
him, the struggle is not between the
bomb and humanity, it is a crusade
between us good guys in the white hats
who can do no wrong and the black
hearted denizens of the Evil Empire.
Sure enough, the moment the story
of the Russians' stupidity broke, those
who think as our president does began
demanding we cancel the grain deal or
delay the arms talks as though
Impoverishing our farmers or increas
ing the risks of nuclear war would
teach the Russians a lesson.
On Capitol Hill, an aide to right-wing
Congressman Larry McDonald, who
was killed in the crash, told the press:
"We think of him as the first victim of
World War III" as though a nuclear
holocaust were inevitable, as though
the bomb had already won.
Stupid, stupid, stupid.
I knew why my daughter was crying.
The same words came to mind as they
did the day Kennedy was killed. They
are the last lines of Matthew Arnold's
"Dover Beach:"
And we are here as on a darkling
plain
Swept with confused alarms of
struggle and flight
Where ignorant armies clash by
night
1983, Chronicle Publishing Co.
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