Nuclear Disarmament

During the 1970s, Sargent Shriver
found himself in a unique position to pursue
global peace. With business taking him frequently to Moscow, Sarge decided to
leverage this new-found connection with the Eastern superpower to de-escalate
the mounting tension of the Cold War and lobby for a reduction of the American
stockpile of nuclear arms.

Initially, Sarge sought to spread
his agenda through political channels, entreating Jimmy Carter to endorse a
peaceful “Common Existence” between the US and the Soviet Union. Sarge,
however, was losing sway within the Democratic party and was not able to have
much influence over Carter’s moderate position, particularly after the Soviet
Union invaded Afghanistan in December 1979. With Russia’s advance into Central
Asia threatening to seize control of oil supplies in the Persian Gulf, Carter
felt pressure to abandon his plan of limiting nuclear proliferation in the
United States in favor of a more aggressive stance.

What little influence Sarge might
have had during the Carter administration all but disappeared when Ronald
Reagan took office in 1981. Sarge signed a letter urging the new president to
take a more pacific stance on the use of nuclear arms, but the plea went
unacknowledged.

Deciding to take matters into his
own hands, Sarge set up a meeting on October 20, 1981, inviting a small group
of influential policymakers to Avondale. Present were Herbert “Pete” Scoville,
long-time expert on weapons technology, Robert McNamara, then head of the World
Bank, Paul Warnke, Carter’s chief negotiator during the Strategic Arms Limitation
Talks, George Kennan, author of “X” document, William Colby, former head of
CIA, Gerard Smith, a childhood friend and a national leader in arms-control
negotiation, and Father Bryan Hehir, director of policy for the National
Conference of Catholic Bishops.

The group ultimately agreed that any nuclear strike whatsoever would be a
catastrophic horror to be avoided at all costs. And so, after a thorough
discussion, the group decided their best approach to the issue would be to
publish an article promoting a “No First Strike” policy, whereby the United
States would pledge not to deploy a nuclear strike in an armed conflict unless
nuclear force had already been used by another power.

After months of back and forth (which
often seemed tedious and wasteful to Sarge), the group finally decided to
publish the article with Foreign Affairs,
a prominent foreign policy journal at the time. Bundy and McNamara would be
named as the article’s primary authors, with Kennan and Smith as named
coauthors. All said and done, the article was published April 7, 1982.

While promoting nuclear disarmament
in the political sphere, Sarge also considered the other avenues he had
available to him for advocating the idea of a “No First Strike” policy—in
particular, the Catholic Church. As Bundy, McNamara, Kennan, and Smith wrote
their article for Foreign Affairs, Bryan
Hehir (with Sarge’s encouragement) began drafting a pastoral letter to all
Catholic dioceses in the United States that would “echo the moral arguments
being made in the Foreign Affairs
article”. The first draft arrived at Sarge’s office in June of 1982 and, after
some thorough edits from Sarge himself, was released in early October of the
same year.

Many felt that it was not the
Catholic Churches place to weigh in on nuclear arms policy, but Sarge felt
strongly that the church not only had a right, but moreover had a duty to pay attention
to such global issues. He coauthored a letter with Gerard Smith to this affect
that was sent to Ben Bradlee and A. M. Rosenthal, editors of The Washington Post and the New York Times, on November 17.

As the controversy grew over the
Catholic Church’s involvement in the issue of nuclear disarmament, so too did Sarge’s
resolute belief that this was a necessary effort on the part of the Church to
make a statement toward the proliferation of peace on earth. On May 2, 1983, the
American bishops of the Catholic Church voted almost unanimously (238-9) to
endorse the letter written by Hehir, ensuring its publication in dioceses all
over the country.

Sargent Shriver’s effort to stop nuclear proliferation and
lobby for peaceful common existence was not only a true test of his political
will and acumen, but also allowed him to explore his political drive along a
central axis of faith. After all, to consider and promote a “No First Strike”
policy requires substantial courage, an iron commitment to upholding peace and
non-violence in the world, and a steadfast faith that others, given the choice,
will abide by that same promise.

REMEMBERING SARGENT SHRIVER

THE FUNERAL

TRIBUTE WALL

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LETTERS

After Sarge's passing, there was an overwhelming response from those whose lives he touched in so many ways. Heartfelt messages of remembrance, gratitude and sympathy to the Shriver family poured in from all over the world.