Nuclear Policy

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