Montgomery County Sentinel

Right of Self-Defense
By David Scull

TV westerns take great pains to keep their Good Guys clear of any possible suggestion of murder by making the Bad Guys draw their guns first. This frees our hero at once because he is then acting in self-defense. Fortunately for him he always proves to be quicker on the draw, and hence survives to do it all over again on the next show. It is not necessary for the Bad Guy to fire. For obvious reasons it would be highly undesirable to let him get that far. All he has to do is unmistakably signal intent to kill by drawing his gun or even move his hand in the direction of drawing his gun. Every moppet in the audience at that point is satisfied that our boy has to move and move quick.

What makes it all right for you to kill a man in self-defense? He clearly has not committed the crime for which you are exacting the supreme penalty. And yet, by virtue of your analysis of his intentions you are not guilty of murder when you kill him on the spot. True, you must convince a jury that his actions were of such a hostile nature that your own death would have resulted had you not intervened with counter action to prevent it. But this is not too hard to prove: The facts sustain themselves. No reasonable person is troubled by the moral situation involved when a TV hero kills the current varmit under these provocative conditions, but the sequence of events must follow the script.

The right to kill, if necessary, in self-defense is a right that has been conceded by every code or system of laws in all of recorded history. And yet, as a nation, we have proudly renounced this right in the matter of nuclear warfare. If Khrushchev moves to draw his gun, we insist that the bullet must hit us or be unavoidably on the way before we will permit ourselves the right to say we are attacked. In other words, we demand proof of our own murder before we would be willing to let the Butcher of Budapest be charged with the crime. Fortunately for him, his intended victim also happens to be the judge and only effective member of the police force.

The situations are admittedly not quite parallel, but the principle involved is the same. Perhaps one could say that both parties have drawn and pointed their guns. One could even believe that both contestants have their fingers on the trigger. But nothing can happen until the trigger is squeezed. Here is where fair warning must be invoked.

There are technical preparations that would logically be executed preparatory to launching a nuclear attack. Many of these are detectable thru espionage and thru devices such as our Samos satellite. For example, Khrushchev in advance of pushing the button could be expected to evacuate his cities, he would not have to but this could seriously blunt our retaliatory damage and increase his chances of coming out on top. If he were put on notice that such an action at the height of the present Berlin crisis would be interpreted as proof of intent to strike us, we could, like the TV Marshall, give him the business at that point. And make no mistake, the overwhelming advantage in a nuclear war goes to the side that strikes first. In point of fact, if we do not announce some such point of no return, Khrushchev will be able to creep into an almost invulnerable position, from which he will be able to demand and almost assuredly get our surrender. No President could push the button if he knew it could bring limited and insufficient damage to the Soviet, and at the same time insure almost total destruction of his own country.

Informed readers will remember that Khrushchev, on the pretext of "war games" has moved his rocket equipped Atlantic fleet west to Greenland and his Pacific fleet east toward Hawaii. Boys will be boys and games are games, but at some point, this thing should enter the realm of "provocation," sufficient to invoke our inalienable right to strike first in self-defense, before it becomes too late.