Good Guys All

In the patio behind the Orante Intourist Hotel at the Black Sea resort of Sochi, an American scholar and a leading Soviet physicist were skimming a Frisbee at each other. The Russian, Mikhail Dmitrievich Millionshchikov, had approached the game hesitantly, perhaps because the American. Columbia University's Marshall Shulman, a specialist in Russian affairs, had demonstrated such skill. But soon Millionshchikov was lunging enthusiastically after the elusive plastic saucer.

The game was the most striking example of peaceful coexistence at the 19th Pugwash conference of scholars from East and West. In the meeting halls, the delegates, not so frolicsome, sailed rhetorical missiles—though there was general agreement that arms reduction would be wonderful (see p. 21). Georgy Arbatov, head of Moscow's Institute of American Studies, put the issue in perspective: "As long as the U.S.A. has superiority over the U.S.S.R., it is considered that everything is all right. For Americans are sure they are the good guys, intending no harm to anybody. But I assure you that we in the Soviet Union also consider ourselves the good guys and feel not very comfortable if the opponent stubbornly strives for superiority." Just who is trying for nuclear supremacy is of course debatable. But Arbatov's main point has merit.

Americans in years past have found it unthinkable that they might be cast as anyone's bad guys. Today, a sizable enough minority, especially among the young, sees the Establishment—notably the military—as uniformly villainous. It would be helpful for everyone to demythologize his thinking instead of nourishing absolute images of good guys and bad guys. Or better yet, to settle all disputes between the two with Frisbees instead of missiles.