Volume 31, Number 4 · March 15, 1984
Nuclear Policy
By Stanley Diamond, Dell Hymes, Eleanor Leacock, Ashley Montagu, Rayna Rapp
In response to Good Rule (January 19, 1984)
To the Editors:
Joseph Skvorecký's letter advising the anthropologists associated with the anti-nuclear protest ad that ran recently in The New York Review that they are endangering their colleagues in Russia and China by calling upon them to act against nuclear policies within their own states has very serious implications. We respond as follows:
One: We have the deepest respect for our colleagues who have fought totalitarian regimes wherever they have emerged. We assure them that we would hope to act in the same way under similar conditions.
Two: We conceive the anti-nuclear movement as an international movement. It is now necessary for people to join hands across the arbitrary borders of nuclear states.
Three: An unacceptable implication of Mr. Skvorecký's argument is that none of us should endanger ourselves in response to a call from outside in the name of human emancipation or, for that matter, that we ourselves should remain silent within our own borders should our lives or well-being be threatened.
Stanley Diamond
Distinguished Professor of Anthropology
New School for Social Research
Dell Hymes
Professor of Folklore and Linguistics
University of Pennsylvania
Eleanor Leacock
Professor of Anthropology
City College, City University of New York
Rayna Rapp
Associate Professor of Anthropology
New School for Social Research
Ashley Montagu
Princeton, New Jersey