Star Wars
Re David Parnas, U of Victoria Prof, the Toronto-based Globe and Mail asked: “How does someone so strongly identified with opposition to Star Wars get asked to sit on an evaluating committee for the program in the first place?”
Parnas stated that he was persuaded to serve on the panel after a government recruiter asked him, “How would you like to help save the world from nuclear conflagration?”
Parnas: “How do you say NO to a question like that, especially when they add, ‘and we will pay you $1000 a day’?”
Asked to reconsider his resignation from the project he was told there was a lot of money to be spent,“and don’t you think you should help us spend it well?” He has been told by colleagues that the money is good for the field.
“I don’t know if Star Wars is good for the country, but it is certainly good for my company.” .
At The Ninth Annual Meeting Of The US-USSR Trade And Economic Council:
“Many US businessmen are known for their well-developed spirit of enterprise, a knack for innovation and an ability to identify untapped growth opportunities. I am convinced that today the best, genuinely promising possibilities of that kind are to be found not in pursuit of destruction and death but in the quest for peace and in a joint effort for the sake of equal and mutually beneficial cooperation among all countries and peoples.”
– Mikhail Gorbachev, Moscow December 10, 1985
Children’s Perceptions of the Nuclear Threat
Results of a questionnaire study of Children’s Perceptions of the Nuclear Threat made by members of Toronto Psychologists for Social Responsibility in Toronto and Hamilton have been published in the October issue of the American Journal of Orthopsychiatry. A nationwide study now being run out of McMaster University in Hamilton, again involves children aged 7-13.
Still in the early stages of development are plans to conduct in-depth interviews with a sample of Toronto children regarding their views on nuclear war.
Members Rosalie Bertell, Dr. Dorothy Goresky (also national President of PSR) and Luis Sobrino are participating in a public inquiry Jan. 18-19 in Nanaimo, B.C., into activities at the Canadian Forces Maritime Experimental and Test Ranges at Nanoose Bay, B.C. The purpose of the inquiry is to increase and improve public knowledge as a basis for judging the desirability of renewal of the Canada/US agreement on the use of CFMETR after April 1986. Proceedings are to be published.
International Year Of Peace
The UN General Assembly in resolution 37/16 of 16 Nov1982 and by proclamation on 24 Oct 1985 has declared 1986 as the International Year of Peace. Goals of the year are to stimulate concerted and effective action by the United Nations (and its constituent parts) in promoting peace, international security and cooperation on the basis of the Charter and in resolving conflict by peaceful means; to strengthen the UN; and to focus attention and encourage reflections on the basic requirementsof peace in the contemporary world.
assembled by Science for Peace was presented in December to Laidlaw Library (University College) at the University of Toronto. According to Librarian Epp, this will be the beginning of the University’s special “peace library”. The Soka Gakkai (International Buddhist Assoc’n.) will present another gift in January.
University College will launch its four-year Peace and Conflict Studies Program in fall, 1986. The program will be listed in the 86-87 calendar. A. Rapoport will teach the basic course in this program as well as at McMaster University next year.
Papers Invited
The annual conference of CPREA will be held, as always, in conjunction with other learned societies, this year at the University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, June 4,5,6. Deadline for submission of papers is March 15. For the second year a conference banquet will honour an outstanding Canadian peace researcher, educator, or peacemaker. Program chairman is Prof. M.V. Naidu, CPREA president, Dept. of Political Science, Brandon Univ., Brandon, Man. R7A 6A9.
Toronto, 4 Dec.
De Havilland Aircraft of Canada has been sold to Boeing. Most Canadians probably think of this as a nice company in Seattle“which builds only large jet transport aircraft”. Boeing is the largest single contractor for the US Department of Defense. It draws all its profitability from that source and its chief works, under the label ‘Boeing Military Aircraft Corporation’ are in Wichita, Kan. An investigative reporter might care to inquire into the military agenda behind this sale.
– Ian Hacking
Chomsky on tape
Noam Chomsky, The Global War, Tape, $5. National Office.
The final report of the hearings held last year in the Interfaith Program for Public Awareness of Nuclear Issues is available from Ontario Hydro, Social and Community Studies Section H19, 700 University Ave., Toronto, Ont. MSG 1X6. Tel: (416)592-3868
Members contributing to the hearings through briefs or oral testimony were Phyllis Creighton, Gordon Edwards, Mark Goldberg, George Ignatieff, Rosalie Bertell, Ernie Regehr, Derek Paul, Hanna Newcombe, Joseph Reid, R. B. Byers, Norman Rubin, Anatol Rapoport, Grant Sheng, Arnold Simoni.
The Hydro-Tritium report, announced in the December BULLETIN is available from the same source. Ontario Hydro’s director of the community in-put program is David Hardy. Science for Peace input is being solicited for the deadline of January 15. A national committee of Norman Rubin, Lynn Trainor, John Brenciaglia, John Dove and Anatol Rapoport is coordinating submissions.
Science Policy
Federal, provincial and territorial ministers responsible for science and technology policy agreed to convene a forum to discuss major issues for Canada in the development of a Canadian Policy for Science and Technology. The forum is expected to take place in the spring.
The Board of Science for Peace has taken steps to consider a research policy for the organization and to consider, in particular, programs in space research that Science for Peace might endorse and participate in. Derek Paul and Chandler Davis are assembling ideas on research policy and Lynn Trainor is doing the same for space research.
Contact any of the three through the national office.
MORE ON ISMA: A 1982 contribution to the Pugwash Symposium in Versailles, France, by Lynn Trainor, On An Inter – national Satellite Agency for the Use of Satellite Observation Data for Security Purposes”. Available from SfP.
About half a million scientists and technologists – a high proportion of total scientific expertise – are directly employed on military research and development.
“The nuclear arms race feeds on the continuous input of scientific innovation,and there is a growing belief that the momentum of this arms race is determined by actions of scientists…. The introduction of any new weapon is an irreversible step, and in this sense the role of the scientists in the arms race is of crucial importance.”
– from the Pugwash (1982) Symposium on “Scientists, The Arms Race and Disarmament”
Chapters
The Toronto Chapter honored the IPPNW at its December 18 weekly seminar — and Xmas party. The seminar was addressed by Frank Sommers, founding president of PSR Canada.
Committee for the “Peace Award” in.:. the Youth Science Fair Program is Wm. McGowan, J. Neelin, R. Morris and A. Mingarelli, representing the Ottawa Chapter. Leroy Sanders will serve as secretary of the new chapter, Angelo Mingarelli as chairman and James Neelin as Treasurer. Wm. McGowan spoke on Nuclear Winter at the November monthly meeting. Planned for February is a meeting with Wolfgang Behrends, West German Ambassador to Canada.
James Gardner has prepared a position paper on the Ontario Hydro-tritium sales issue for the Waterloo Chapter.
If you would like to become more involved in Science for Peace activities, contact the Chapter in your area.
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