Tales of our Times
By JOHN BARTLIT
Los Alamos

People are a mixed bag. All told, we view big problems from different perspectives. Our priorities differ. Issues involve a range of concerns. Issues change forms when people exchange their kits of beliefs, in hopes that their beliefs alone will prevail.

But you never know. Turns of phrasing come along, partly by chance, which yield notably opposite results. So many turns have ways to make matters worse. Yet, the next turn might remedy a persistent problem.

My column a month ago cited two national issues that have gotten worse with time. You might remember the two. The first was immigration: In 1995, both parties in Congress had warm applause for our being a nation of immigrants and a nation of laws; both parties had applause also for Clinton’s citing the costs of taking in illegal immigrants. Today, neither party dares applaud all three of these same key concerns. Immigration problems have grown worse.

The second matter I wrote of a month ago was our voting systems. Since its founding in December 2000, the Caltech/MIT Voting Technology Project has pursued improved voting systems. A priority of the VTP is “examining ways to make the process of voter registration more secure and more accessible.” As a crutch for its voter turnout, each big party talks up just one of a hardy voting system’s two touchstones—that is, needing to be (1) more secure and (2) more accessible. Neither party spotlights the range of engineering that goes into both needs. The campaign messages in the news about voting issues omit the findings published by those whose careers focused on voting technology systems.

This month, aspects of other national issues moved forward. The widely-heralded “Oppenheimer” movie happened to bring new chances to make progress. The movie renewed public interest in the title character and the varied concerns that he and others initially had (toward the end of World War II) about controlling nuclear weapons. Likewise, the movie renewed public discourse in and around Los Alamos.

The mixed bag brought the expected scramble. Out came the mix of perspectives, priorities, and concerns that people hold, all told in turns of phrases. Some people looked at death tolls in wars; others would have us dwell on who should apologize to whom; still others have prioritized theology. As a rule, few people, whatever their views, grapple with underlying details in the mix of concerns. But recent events around town have sought a more thorough exchange of views on the long-running nuclear issues.

Some ideas to move forward came “out of the blue” you might say. By good fortune, parcels of concerns happened to use similar phrases. These lucky turns create further possibilities for useful discourse on the control of nuclear weapons. The key terms are “universal, verifiable” nuclear disarmament.

An earlier pastoral letter (2022) from the Archbishop of Santa Fe said it this way: “I believe that we need to rejuvenate a sustained serious conversation about universal, verifiable nuclear disarmament.” The archbishop’s words faintly recall President Ronald Reagan’s repeated appeals (1980s) to the Soviets for nuclear disarmament. Reagan’s concise phrasing came from a Russian proverb, “Trust, but verify.” In more than one local venue, employees and allied retirees from Los Alamos National Laboratory voiced concerns in varying degrees of agreement. These promising agreements about nuclear disarmament are all rooted in those two special criteria— “universal, verifiable.”

So, will they catch on? And for how long? You never know.