Bombs raise no special fear

IN HIS op-ed "Learning to Love the Bomb" (March 18), Adam Lowther demonstrates - again - that love is blind. He argues "conventional capabilities will never effectively substitute for nuclear weapons. Yes, they can destroy the same target. But, they lack the same capacity to generate fear in the heart of an adversary." Lowther is wrong on both the theory and the facts.

As a general rule ends are always more important than means. The end is murder no matter what means you use, be it pillow or shotgun. Destroying a city is fundamentally the same whether it's with a nuclear weapon, conventional bombs, artillery shells, or flaming pots of Greek fire.

The notion that nuclear weapons are especially fearsome is based on the belief that the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki so shocked Japan's leaders that they said they would surrender the next day. This myth has been discredited, and a new interpretation is increasingly gaining acceptance with historians. The Japanese surrendered as a result of the Soviet Union's declaration of war on Aug. 9, 1945, coincidentally the same day we bombed Nagasaki. Opinion among Japanese historians is now split, the British official history of World War II flatly declares the Soviet declaration of war was the decisive event, and an increasing number of US historians are discovering that the facts are on the side of the Soviet invasion.

Lowther wants us to rely on weapons with a single test in their track record. Can the US afford to rely on weapons whose effectiveness is open to doubt?

WARD WILSON
Trenton, N.J.