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.cb THE PRESENT DANGER OF NUCLEAR WAR


	When the history of this era is written, I believe that
the most important event of the 1970s will be unannounced nuclear
proliferation.  Whether it will turn out to have been actually
secret is quite doubtful.  Although I have no-one's secrets,
the following seems quite likely:
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	#. Israel has posessed nuclear weapons since the 1960s -
perhaps since before 1967.  Israel is well aware of the uncertainties
of American politics, and there is every reason to believe its
announced principle of relying ultimately on itself for defense.
They have good reasons for not admitting nuclear weapons even
when both adversary and friendly intelligence services all know it.
First, those Arab leaders who must kid themselves about successful war
with Israel would have to pursue their own nuclear weapons if Israeli
weapons were demonstrated.  Second, holding their conquests would be
less justified.  Third, the U.S. prefers it that way.

	#. Since Johnson gave up running for a second term in 1968,
neither Taiwan nor South Korea can rely on the U.S. commitment to defend
them.  Most likely, they began investigating the possibility of
nuclear weapons before 1970 and were pursuing them seriously before
the fall of Vietnam.

	#. South Africa has apparently had some kind of nuclear
weapons program all through the 1970s.  Their recent increased
isolation can hardly have changed their minds about this.

	#. While these countries have an obvious requirement,
there are yet other possibilities arising from the retirement of
the United States as world peacekeeper.  For example, the distribution
of wealth in the Middle East does not correspond to the distribution
of population, and the wealthy states have reason to fear the
populous states.
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John McCarthy
Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
Computer Science Department
Stanford University
Stanford, California 94305

ARPANET: MCCARTHY@SU-AI
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