Control of Nuclear Arms

56th General Assembly
December 1981
Boston, Massachusetts

The UAHC has consistently sought to apply the prophetic passion for peace to the great issues of our time. We have supported the ban on nuclear arms testing; we have encouraged the process of arms control and especially SALT I and SALT II; we have expressed alarm at the unchecked proliferation of nuclear technology and lethal arms.

Yet in l981 the world is caught up in an intensified and possibly calamitous escalation of the nuclear arms race, which is exhausting much of the world's resources, and impoverishing hundreds of millions of people.

Resolution:

Therefore, accordingly, the General Assembly of the UAHC:

  1. Commends President Reagan for his strong statement calling for the reduction of those nuclear weapons that could be used on the European continent.
  2. Urges the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics to renew with utmost urgency negotiations for a new SALT or START agreement aimed at significant cutbacks of intercontinental nuclear weapons in a phased and verifiable pattern of arms control.
  3. Calls on the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics to agree mutually to cut their existing nuclear stockpiles across the board by 50 percent under verifiable circumstances, thus beginning the imperative process of turning back the ever-increasing cycle of nuclear weaponry, with the ultimate goal of total elimination.
  4. Appeals to all nuclear powers, and especially the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialistic Republics, to agree mutually upon a freeze on the testing, production, and deployment of nuclear weapons.
  5. Calls upon the United States to take vigorous world leadership in the achievement of effective nonproliferation treaties. We support legislative proposals that would impose a moratorium on the transfer of nuclear technology to those nations that have not demonstrated the ability or intention to use that technology responsibly, until such time as genuinely effective safeguards can be established.