RK - This is the Rob Kall Bottom Radio Show WJNC 1360 AM out of Washington Township reaching Metro Philly sponsored by opednews.com. If you came in late to this conversation I've been talking with Ward Wilson, the author of Five Myths about Nuclear Weapons and a Senior Fellow at the British American Security Information Council. With the website rethinkingnuclearweapons.org. We've been talking about how even members of the military don't like nuclear weapons and the idea that they're a seventy year-old technology that have never proven to actually do what they're claiming to do. Which is win wars or deter wars. Which is what Ward is spending his life working on, really. Talking to people in different nations' militaries and foreign services. You recently had a very interesting experience in France. What happened there?
WW - France, we used to laugh about France (Laughs), in the anti-nuclear world people are kind of scornful about France because we used to say that when the world gets rid of all their nuclear weapons the last country to abandon nuclear weapons won't be Israel and it won't be Pakistan, it will be France. The problem is that in France nuclear weapons are so tightly identified with what it is to be French--with the French nation. They're part of France's identity. With the force de frappe France is a world power and, you know, France with a capital F. But without them they're just a middle-sized country with great cuisine and a history of having once been great. We used to talk about France that way but recently three guys organized a conference in France that was just amazing. It was in the National Assembly, their Congress. It opened with a speech by the President of the National Assembly. There was a former Prime Minister in attendance who spoke. There were three former Defense Ministers. Retired Foreign Ministers from Austria and Israel, think-tank people, people from the Red Cross.
It was really an impressive group of people and more than 200 attendees, registered attendees. For the first time, in the heart of French officialdom there was conversation about the things that we've been talking about. The economic cost of nuclear weapons, their military disutility, debates about deterrence. Some of the people who spoke, some of the former defense ministers still think that nuclear deterrence is essential. And they said so. But this is a debate that has never been had in France before. It was an enormous step for them to even begin discussing it. I gave a talk and I was startled at how carefully and closely they listened. in particular one fellow that listened was a former French defense minister who is the leader of one of the center right parties in France. He ran for President last time and he might run again. He really liked what I said and he stood up and gave a very strong speech afterwards and said, "We have to support nuclear disarmament. Nuclear weapons are not useful weapons and Europe has to lead the way in nuclear disarmament. Russia and United States have been in charge but now it's time for Europe to lead." To watch the leader of a center right party in France go on the record of strongly favoring disarmament was amazing experience and I really think that those three guys--Paul Quiles, a fixture in French government who's held several cabinet posts including defense minister, Bernard Norlain, who's the former Commander of their Air force, and Jean-Marie Collin--those three guys are doing amazing things in France. I would've said that France was impossible before I went there. But now I think there is - you know France could surprise us.
RK - You sent an email out with a little anecdote that something you said in your speech was later used. What was that?
WW - Oh yeah. The guy who spoke, Herve Morin, the center right leader, picked up on something I said. Part in my presentation was about the fact that we could have a revolution in thinking about nuclear weapons. After all, the Ptolemaic view of the universe (which had the earth at the center and everything revolving around it) was the standard belief for 1,500 years and then Copernicus comes along in 1543 and says, "No, no. The sun is at the center." In a few years that sweeps the old view into the dustbin of history. So Morin was interviewed in Le Monde, the national French newspaper the next day, and he said, "We need a Copernican revolution when it comes to thinking about nuclear weapons." It's an amazing experience to be supplying talking points to a guy - however indirectly - to supplying to talking points to a guy who might be running for President of France. And since he's center right, he has the potential to win.
RK - Congratulations.
WW - (Laughs) its very strange. Thank you. I just hope that it's possible to do something on this issue before we have some kind of calamity. It's wonderful to go to conferences and imagine that you have influence but the important issue is whether we get something sensible done about nuclear weapons.
RK - How long has it been that you've really been speaking about nuclear weapons?
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