A Time for Protest
TTHOUGH much will be said about peace ^ this Easter, and first and foremost by those whose actions most endanger it, the cause for alarm was never greater.
In Vietnam, the United States still strives for the military victory it cannot win. On this continent, the Nixon administration's decision to proceed with construction of the Sentinel anti-ballistic missile system creates a crisis for Canadians, for we shall be its victims if it is ever called into use.
Prime Minister Trudeau's statement that he neither has opposed nor agreed to installation of the system is, in effect, tacit consent. Clearly, Canada's only security lies in nuclear disarmament and military non-alignment and from this standpoint, the U.S. plan to establish ABM bases along our borders constitutes not a defence of but a threat to our security—a threat that demands the most resolute opposition.
It is in this context that we reprint here excerpts from an address given on March 4 to a gathering of scientists and others at Massachusetts Institute of Technology by George Wald, professor of biology at Harvard and Nobel Prize winner. Speaking on the theme, "A Generation in Search of a Future", this, in part, is what Dr. Wald said:
I
THINK that this whole generation of students is beset with a profound uneasiness, and I don't think that they have yet quite defined its source. I think I understand the reasons for their uneasiness even better than they do. What is more, I share their uneasiness.
What's bothering those students? Some of them tell you it's the Vietnam war. I think the Vietnam war is the most shameful episode in the whole of American history.
The concept of war crimes is an American invention. We've committed many war
crimes in Vietnam—but I'll tell you something interesting about that. We were committing war crimes in World War II, before the Nuremberg trials were held and the principle of war crimes was stated. The saturation bombing of German cities was a war crime. Dropping those atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki was a war crime. If we had lost the war, it might have been our leaders who had to answer for such actions.
I've gone through all that history lately, and I find that there's a gimmick in it. It isn't written out, but I think we established it by precedent. That gimmick is that if one can allege that one is repelling or retaliating for an aggression, after that everything goes.
And, you see, we are living in a world in which all wars are wars of defence. All war departments are now defence departments. This is all part of the doubletalk of our time. The aggressor is always on the other side. I suppose this is why our ex-secretary of state Dean Rusk went to such pains to insist, as he still insists, that in Vietnam we are repelling an aggression. And if that's what we are doing—so runs the doctrine—everything goes. If the concept of war crimes is ever to mean anything, they will have to be defined as categories of acts, regardless of alleged provocation. But that isn't so now.
I think we've lost that war, as a lot of other people think, too. The Vietnamese have a secret weapon. It's their willingness to die beyond our willingness to kill. In effect, they've been saying, you can kill us, but you'll have to kill a lot of us; you may have to kill all of us. And, thank heaven, we are not yet ready to do that . . .
But the Vietnam war, shameful and terrible as it is, seems to me only an immediate incident in a much larger and more stubborn situation . . .
Militarization of U.S.
. . . That bigger thing, of course, is the militarization of our country. Ex-President Eisenhower, in his farewell address, warned us of what he called the military-industrial complex. I am sad to say that we must begin to think of it now as the military-industrial-labor union complex. What happened under the plea of the cold war was not alone that we built up the first big peacetime army in our history but that we institutionalized it. We built, I suppose, the biggest government
building in our history to run it, and we institutionalized it.
I don't think we can live with the present military establishment, and its $80 billion a year budget, and keep America anything like the America we have known in the past. It is corrupting the life of the whole country. It is buying up everything in sight: industries, banks, investors, scientists—and lately it seems also to have bought up the labor unions . . .
No Nuclear Defence
A lively debate is beginning again on whether or not we should deploy anti-ballistic missiles, the ABM. I don't have to talk about them — everyone else here is doing that. But I should like to mention a curious circumstance.
In September 1967, or about a year and a half ago, we had a meeting of MIT and Harvard people, including experts on these matters, to talk about whether anything could be done to block the Sentinel system —the deployment of ABMs. Everyone present thought them undesirable, but a few of the most knowledgeable persons took what seemed to be the practical view: 'Why fight about a dead issue? It has been decided, the funds have been appropriated. Let's go on from there.' Well, fortunately, it's not a dead issue.
An ABM is a nuclear weapon. It takes a nuclear weapon to stop a nuclear weapon. And our concern must be with the whole issue of nuclear weapons.
There is an entire semantics ready to deal with the sort of thing I am about to say. It involves such phrases as 'Those are the facts of life.' No—these are the facts of death. I don't accept them, and I advise
you not to accept them. We are under repeated pressure to accept things that are presented to us as settled — decisions that have been made. Always there is the thought: Let's go on from there. But this time we don't see how to go on. We will have to stick to these issues.
We are told that the United States and Russia, between them, by now have stockpiled nuclear weapons of approximately the explosive power of fifteen tons of TNT for every man, woman and child on earth. And now it is suggested that we must make more. All very regrettable, of course, but 'those are the facts of life.' We really would like to disarm, but our new secretary of defence has made the ingenious proposal that now is the time to greatly increase our nuclear armaments, so that we can disarm from a position of strength.
I think all of you know there is no adequate defence against massive nuclear attack. It is both easier and cheaper to circumvent any known nuclear-defence system than to provide it. At the very moment we talk of deploying ABMs, we are also building the MIRV, the weapon to circumvent the ABMs ...
It's Our Responsibility
I think I know what is bothering the students. I think that what we are up against is a generation that is by no means sure that it has a future . . .
About two million years ago, man appeared. He has become the dominant species on the earth. All other living things, plant and animal, live by his sufferance. He is the custodian of life on earth, and in the solar system. It's a big responsibility.
The thought that we're in competition with Russians or with Chinese is all a mistake, and trivial. We are one species, with a
world to win. There's life all over this universe, but the only life in the solar system is on earth, and in the whole universe we are the only men.
Our business is with life, not death. Our challenge is to give what account we can of what becomes of life in the solar system, this corner of the universe that is our home; and, most of all, what becomes of men—all men, of all nations, colors and creeds. This has become one world, a world for all men. It is only such a world that can now offer us life, and the chance to go on.
The Dispatcher
FISH AND SHIPS
WE HAD hoped to receive more information before now on the life and work in the B.C. fishing industry of Melvin (Hup) Stauffer, whose death last month at the age of 87 broke another link with the past.
According to the North Island Gazette, Hup Stauffer was born in Ontario and came west as a young man in gold rush days, later sailing on a sealing schooner to Japan and Hawaii before settling in Alert Bay in 1911.
The father of well known UFAWU fishermen Mel and Harry Stauffer had worked in virtually every section of the industry and was ABC Packing Company net boss for many years.
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Many people throughout the industry also will have been saddened to learn of the death last week at the age of 79 of Axel Anderson, another UFAWU veteran whose life was part of the fabric of the industry and its trade union organizations.
UFAWU secretary Homer Stevens represented the Union at funeral services held for the longtime tenderman and fisherman on March 28 and we hope to carry more on his life in our next issue.
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The Halibut Farewell Dance sponsored by Vancouver Fishermen's Local and Women's Auxiliary on March 14 not only provided a good evening's entertainment but also raised $300 which was donated to the union's general funds.
A good deal of credit, we're told, is due to members of Steveston Fishermen's Local whose donation of salmon for the event helped make it a success.
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Engine room trouble hit Olaf Wick's Caamano Sound out in the Gulf of Alaska last week while she was heading for Bering Sea halibut fishing. Skipper Herman Gulbransen and the gang aboard the longliner had words of praise for the U.S. Coast Guard which, once again, was on the spot when needed and towed the disabled vessel into Sitka.
The towline went aboard the Caamano Sound at 3 a.m. on March 28 and she was safe in port at Sitka by midnight the following day. Repairs were expected to be completed by this weekend in time for the long-liner to make the April 12 opening in Area 3B.
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UFAWU Campbell River secretary Norman Lysne was one of three contenders seeking nomination as NDP candidate for Comox in the next provincial election. The nominating meeting, held at Campbell River last Sunday, saw the nomination go to Courtenay alderman Harry Harris.
Norm still has plenty of work to do on the political front as an officer of the Campbell River NDP club which, he told us this week, has won many new members over the past few months.
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To UFAWU business agent Jack Nichol and his wife. Rose, this week go hearty congratulations on the birth of a baby girl at Vancouver General Hospital on April 1.
The new addition, the Nichol's third daughter in a family of four boys and three girls, weighed in at eight pounds. 12 ounces.
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Union vice - president Cliff Cook, meanwhile became a grandfather for the third time— and the second time this year— by the birth on March 30 at Grace Hospital. Vancouver, of a baby girl, Kathleen Diane, to his daughter, Mrs. Danielle Busch. Son in law Garry Busch works for the B.C. ferry authority.
Earlier this year, Cliff's son, Leonard and daughter in law, Sharon, became proud parents of a son, James Peter Cook, who was born at Peace Arch Hospital, where Leonard works as office manager, on January 30.
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We had word this week about two North Delta Local gillnet-ters who are on the sick and injured list. John Plester is in St. Mary's Hospital, New Westminster, where he was scheduled to undergo surgery. His condition was listed as satisfactory when we called the hospital this week.
R. K. Dietterle has been laid up at Royal Columbian Hospital with a broken leg incurred in a fall on the floats but, we were told, was expected to be home again sometime this week.
* * * Honorary membership in the
UFAWU was granted recently to John Howard, longtime shore-worker at B.C. Packers Imperial plant in Steveston. Recently retired, John first became a UFAWU member 22 years ago and in the intervening period has served in a number of union posts, including those of shop steward and executive member of Steveston Shoreworkers Local.
THE FISHERMAN — APRIL 3, 1969
HieTI/herman
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Published by the Fisherman Publishing Society every second Friday Deadline: Wednesday prior to publication.