Re: “Trump appears to suggest the US will resume testing nuclear weapons for first time in 30 years” (Oct. 29, Nation & World):
President Donald Trump announced that we will resume nuclear testing. He also said that we have more nuclear weapons than any other nation. Please note:
• Russia has more nuclear weapons than we do.
• The United States has detonated more nuclear bombs than any other nation. Between 1945 and 1992, we conducted 1,030 nuclear tests. The Soviet Union was next with 715.
• Nuclear testing is horrific for the environment and disastrous for populations exposed to radioactive fallout, causing increased cancer rates, especially leukemia and thyroid cancer, and higher rates of miscarriages, stillbirths and various birth defects.
A president seeking a Nobel Peace Prize would do well to try to get all nuclear-weapon nations to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty and the more recent Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. That president would also immediately bring us back from the brink of a nuclear disaster by getting nuclear nations:
• To reduce their nuclear stockpiles.
• To renounce the option of using nuclear weapons first.
• To take nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert (and)
• To end the sole, unchecked authority of any single person to launch a nuclear attack.
Pat Henry, Walla Walla
