Born-again generals: too late for moral absolution.

On December 4, 1996, the Washington Post ran a front page story about a group of some sixty retired U.S. and non U.S. generals and admirals--led by G. Lee Butler, former commander in chief of the Strategic Air Command, and Andrew J. Goodpaster, former supreme allied commander in Europe--who were about to issue a public declaration calling for the global abolition of nuclear weapons. The story quoted Butler as saying, "Nuclear weapons are inherently dangerous, hugely expensive, militarily inefficient, and morally indefensible." Those who argue that such arms are still needed, he observed, "are victims of the `intellectual smog' that justified the absurd pressures" of Cold War nuclear practices and policies.

Two days later, both the Washington Post and the New York Times printed the group's manifesto, which stated in part:

We, military professionals, who

have devoted our lives to the

national security of our countries

and our peoples, are convinced

that the continuing existence of

nuclear weapons in the armories

of nuclear powers, and the ever

present threat of acquisition of

these weapons by others,

constitutes a peril to global peace

and security and to the safety

and survival of the people we are

dedicated to protect.... We know

that nuclear weapons, though

never used since Hiroshima and

Nagasaki, represent a clear and

present danger to the very

existence of humanity. . .

Where, we should ask, were these born again senior officers--particularly the Americans--when they were on active duty? Have they suddenly gotten religion, or have they belatedly mustered the energy or courage to come out of hiding now that they have nothing to lose?

The issue here is not the substance of what these once high ranking members of the profession of arms have put forth. Even if their proposal is challenged and discredited--as it assuredly will be--by their successors who now guard the martial flame, there is a truly compelling argument to be made that denuclearization--the emptying of nuclear arsenals, the neutralization of nuclear technology and know how, the ultimate rejection of Cold War "nukethink"--will be a necessary precondition to the universal demilitarization that logically must precede lasting global peace and security.

Rather, the issue is the ethics of the prolonged silence that kept these erst-while "warriors" from stepping forward to be counted when it really mattered. They and others of their cloistered fraternity--especially while in uniform- constantly preach the virtues of courage, honesty, and leadership. Such is the standard patois of those in authority, who invariably see themselves--and expect to be seen--as living embodiments of these traits. Yet here we have a classic, all too familiar example of virtue denied--of those who talked the talk but failed to walk the walk when the obligations of leadership demanded it, when it would have made a difference, when they still owed honor to their uniform.

Now permanently relegated to multi, these men risk nothing in their comfortable dotage. Neither their careers nor their substantial pensions are jeopardized by their dilatory public pronouncements. They need fear no accusations of, nor accompanying sanctions for, subversive disloyalty. For them, this is a no lose proposition--a bit of media age grand standing that, at best, may affect the policy process they no longer inhabit and, at worst, may bring them a measure of fleeting publicity that now eludes them.

Admittedly, if this call for global de nuclearization produces movement in that direction, the effort will deserve praise. Any such movement, though, can not help but be distressingly slow and even soulless. These are, after all, mere emeriti, no longer possessed of formal authority, no longer accountable for their words or actions. Because of their rank, they may be listened to, but they won't be heard. They may be courted and humored, but only just enough to mollify and quiet them so they will meekly herd themselves back out to pasture.

It is shamefully embarrassing that bold initiative--which a bona fide move to denuclearize would be--has to come from outside government. More the shame for a country whose chest thumping, self promoting political leaders persist in their off putting claims to "Lone Superpower" status. One would expect the world's only superpower to do more than lord it over others. One would expect it to lead, to provide vision, to be a source of initiative, to stand up to risk--both because it can afford to and because it has a duty to do so. But not the United States; so captive of the status quo are its leaders that they must be dragged kicking and screaming into the next century.

Even more the shame, therefore, that when the impetus for change comes from outside government, it so often comes from those who once held public office but failed to act when they had the chance. The retired senior officers of this episode, of course, have plenty of standard excuses for their inaction in uniform. Only of late, they will say, only in light of emerging post-Cold War conditions and the newfound luxury they now have to reflect, have they come to appreciate the irrationality, immorality, and costliness of nuclear weapons. General Butler's admissions of prior awakening--probably more representative of his caste than not--give the lie to such claims. But even if true, high ranking pleas of ignorance or innocence only betray the tragic intellectual vacuity and denial that typify the can do mentality.

Alternatively, they will say their job was strictly to carry out the mission at hand, however unpalatable or ambiguous, and to obey duly constituted civilian authority--not to question. Their common cry is that by keeping quiet they saved themselves to change the system from within. How lame. To say this, and thus to suggest that silence was their highest duty, is to rob the concept of duty of all meaning, to rationalize moral avoidance as somehow the only course open to those who operate in the "real world," to disguise careerism as some thing more principled than it is.

Unfortunately, civilian supremacy over the military in nuclear matters is much more facade than we care to ad mitt Rare is the civilian official who comes to the job sufficiently knowledge able of nuclear capabilities, effects, and procedures to be able to exercise discerning oversight of those who operate and maintain such weapons. In the final analysis, the military call the shots- usually by "educating" their ostensible civilian superiors in their own image.

Military professionals uniformly say they prize peace and abhor war. It's time they put their money where their mouth is. True peace will come only after nuclear weapons are abolished, not before. And no civilian, even a retired general or admiral, will ever have sufficient credibility with the military to issue such a call and then make it stick. That leaves open only one possibility: does anyone in uniform have the guts to step forward for something that really matters?

Gregory D. Foster is George C. Marshall Professor and former J. Carlton Ward Distinguished Professor and director of research at the Industrial College of the Armed Forces, National Defense University, in Washington, D.C.