Yes, we should pay attention to atomic bombs in the wrong hands (“The new nuclear threat,” Editorial, May 31).
But let us not pass over too quickly the old nuclear threats.
Four decades ago, the world watched, with baited breath, as the Cuban missile crisis unfolded.
Now Americans watch, with equal anxiety, as the Indian-Pakistani crisis plays itself out, with what we fervently hope will be equal success in dodging the nuclear bullet.
But what happens when the world’s luck runs out at the next crisis, or the next?
And there is something grimly hypocritical about sending American envoys to plead with India and Pakistan not to use their most potent weapons even as Pentagon strategists talk of integrating small, “usable” nuclear weapons into our conventional forces.
