Oregon daily . _
emerald
Winter
sports
Page 1B
Wednesday, November 10, 1982
Eugene, Oregon
Volume 84. Number 49
It would be nice...
Emerald photo editor Bob Baker (not pictured) was on
assignment‘ in Hawaii last week, covering the weather. He
reports balmy blue skies with temperatures hitting 85 degrees
in Honolulu — a stark contrast to Eugene 's expected high today,
which the National Weather Service predicts will be in the mid
40s. The low in Honolulu Tuesday sank to a chilly 71 degrees,
whereas lows in the 20s are expected in the Eugene-Springfield
area today. Foggy skies with partial clearing in the late
afternoon and a 10 percent chance of precipitation are also in
the works for Eugene today.
Arms control talks ‘useless,’
claims anti-nuclear speaker
By Frank Shaw
OfVw EmaraM
The Reagan administration's
Strategic Arms Reductions
Talks are almost useless in
terms of reducing the arms race
and the threat of nuclear war.
said Tom Lynch, a Citizen
Action for Lasting Security
member
Lynch criticized the admin
istration's START negotiations
in comparison with the
proposed nuclear freeze in a
Tuesday speech sponsored by
Students for a Nuclear Free Fu
ture
The Soviet Union has far more
land-based weapons than the
United States and the START
agreement would limit the
number tor both sides to 2.500,
forcing the Soviets the to cut
their arsenal by half, he said
The United States would be able
to add 300 missiles to the
svstem
Lynch said the proposed
basing of the Pershing II and
Cruise missiles in Europe is a
good example of the difference
between START and the
nuclear freeze proposals
While the Soviets have
medium-range missiles based in
Europe — the SS-20 — the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization
alliance has none, he said
Tom Lynch used a variety of visual aids is his speech
comparing Reagan's START plans to the nuclear freeze
proposal.
‘ (NATO) looked at just a small part of the
arms race," Lynch said, "and decided we were
behind."
In reality, he said, the Pershing II and Cruise
missile give NATO an incredible edge, because
both missiles can reach the Soviet Union in
four to six minutes from the previous 30 min
utes, cutting the time the Soviets have to
respond to a potential attack
“What looks on paper like a balance," Lynch
said, “is in fact a gross imbalance.”
This imbalance forces the Soviets to rely
more heavily on their computers, and com
puters often make mistakes, he said For
example, computer errors mobilized the armed
forces in the United States three times within
18 months from 1979-80.
"We re being asked to put our faith in the
Soviet computer system when our own has
been proven so fallible," he said
Lynch said the four most important United
States additions to the nuclear arsenal are the
Pershing II, the Cruise missile, the MX missile
system and the Trident missiles, all of which
have the features of being first-strike, non
verifiable weapons.
A first-strike weapon is one designed to
destroy enemy missiles before they are
launched, and a non-verifiable weapon is one
that is difficult or impossible to detect once it
has been installed
None of these would be affected by the
START talks, but all would fall under the
jurisdiction of a nuclear freeze, Lynch said
“These weapons are the future of the arms
race and START deals with none of them,” he
said.
Lynch said a nuclear freeze would reduce
world tension, stop the development of first
strike weaponry, stop the development of
non-verifiable weapons, maintain nuclear
parity, set the stage for reductions and
strengthen the economy of both countries.
In a recent study it was estimated that over a
five year length of time the U S. would save
$200 billion, he said.
The administration’s proposals would retire
the Poseidon missiles and replace them with a
lesser number of Trident missiles, giving the
appearance of reductions but in reality only
replacing a large number of relatively inac
curate missiles with a lesser number of highly
accurate ones, Lynch said.
“It's not really a numbers game," he said,
“It’s a race of technology, and that's a race the
U S. is winning."
Surgeon general zaps unsafe video games
PITTSBURGH (AP) - Video games
may be hazardous to the health of young
people, said U S. Surgeon General C.
Everett Koop on Tuesday
Koop, a Philadelphia pediatric surg
eon who became surgeon general in
January, said "more and more people
are beginning to understand' adverse
mental and physical effects of video
games on pre-teenage and teenage
children
"They are into it body and soul," Koop
said. "Their body language is
tremendous and everything is zap the
enemy. There's nothing constructive in
the games.
“There are educational video games,”
Koop said, “but the kind the kids like and
the kind they are addicted to are
Martians coming in that have to be killed
The enemy is coming here (and) you
have to zap them.
“Everything is eliminate, kill, destroy,"
Koop said
The surgeon general, speaking at the
University of Pittsburgh's Western Psy
chiatric Institute and Clinic, said doctors
and psychiatrists are just now seeing
"aberrations of childhood behavior” due
to video games
He described symptoms brought on by
the games as “tensions, sleeplessness in
kids and dreams that have to do with the
things they have been doing all day.”
Koop said he had no scientific
evidence on the effect of video games on
children, but he predicted statistical
evidence will be forthcoming soon from
the health care fields.
Electronic games and television may
also make some children too ready to
accept real violence — or even willing to
copy it, Koop said.
“We have no evidence of a cause
and-effect relationship,” said Charlene
Margaritis, spokesperson in Los Angeles
for Mattel Electronics, which makes the
Intellevision home video system.
"Most of the top-selling games are
non-violent and involve sports, science
fiction and fantasy themes," said Jack
Wayman, spokesperson for the
Washington-based Electronic Industries
Association, which represents home
video game manufacturers.
"Very, very few of the games can be
called violent," Wayman said. "Most are
done with cartoon characters, a far cry
from the violence seen on television,
television news or a football game."