The Lead

Stopping Thermonuclear War: Now, the Next Step

by Dennis Speed (EIRNS) — Jun. 13, 2024

The Schiller Institute’s Wednesday, June 12 Washington, D.C., National Press Club Emergency Press Conference, “The Danger of Nuclear War Is Real, and Must be Stopped,” was, in several ways, highly successful. Panelists Scott Ritter, Col. Richard Black (ret.), Col. Larry Wilkerson (ret.), and Schiller Institute founder and chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche were heard by nearly 2,000 people live, and more than 30,000 over the subsequent 24 hours. Diplomatic embassies and news agencies from around the world attended in person and via social media.

At the same time, the war danger which required the emergency press availability to be so hastily organized, is escalating each day, almost by the hour. As the press conference was taking place on Wednesday, the United States imposed even more sanctions against Russia. Russia later responded by ending transactions at its financial exchanges in United States dollars, euros, or Hong Kong dollars—something that was coming, but has now, thanks to these recent actions taken by the United States, been accelerated. Meanwhile, Russian nuclear-capable (but unarmed) ships, (four in all), including the Russian frigate Admiral Gorshkov and the nuclear-powered submarine missile cruiser Kazan, visited the nation of Cuba, on what was referred to by United States National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan as “something we’ve seen before.”

Was Sullivan referring to October 1962? And more importantly, would Sullivan actually know what he meant, if he were? As Executive Intelligence Review’s military analyst Carl Osgood reported, “The U.S. is so unconcerned about the Russian task force, in fact, that the U.S. Navy deployed three guided-missile destroyers, joined by a French Navy frigate and a Canadian warship, as well as U.S. and Canadian aircraft, to monitor the passage of the Russian ships to Havana, just 90 miles off the tip of Florida. ‘Air and maritime assets under U.S. Northern Command have conducted operations to ensure the defense of the United States and Canada,’ the Pentagon said.…”

These are not, and will no longer be, normal days. We are, perhaps, no longer living in anything that will ever again resemble “normal times.” Our physical space-time has been permanently shifted, and “it is very possible,” as the late Dr. Fred Wills, former foreign minister of Guyana and close friend of Helga and Lyndon LaRouche, used to say, “to be caught below the level of historical events.” That is how nations, civilizations, and empires disappear. What each citizen must do, to not only survive, but also to grow and develop, is a “voluntaristic” approach to improving life by changing history.

A former member of the United States National Security Agency (NSA) who viewed yesterday’s event observed that Helga Zepp-LaRouche “tied it all together at the end. You need that, because, though I agree that it is necessary for people to be scared of the danger of an inevitable nuclear war, so that they will face it, it’s necessary to know what the world is that we are fighting for, if we are going to have the drive to win.” The Zepp-LaRouche Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture document may be the major reason why she has appeared on so many “hit lists” and “kill lists” issued by forces in Ukraine, and by extension, NATO. Her principles are revolutionary in their simplicity, and should be read and consulted as a short, intelligible declaration of “why we fight.” Speaking of “hit lists,” the U.S. Congress is now threatening to defund the Ukrainian “Data Journalism Agency” also known as “Texty,” a platform and non-governmental organization which had recently published a list with nearly 400 American citizens, including Harley Schlanger and Diane Sare and 76 organizations to be “hit.”

Zepp-LaRouche’s evaluation of what the press conference accomplished, and what now needs to be done, is partially reproduced here, and is otherwise available in the transcript of her weekly webcast, today, “The ‘Sole Superpower’ Heads Towards Bankruptcy and Irrelevance.” She was asked what her response was to the success of the Washington, D.C.-based panel with Ritter, Colonel Black, and Colonel Wilkerson:

Zepp-LaRouche: “Well, I think it was an important first step. I think that the competence of the speakers, who all have military or intelligence backgrounds: Colonel Wilkerson was the chief of staff for Colin Powell, very outspoken and eloquently insightful. Naturally, Richard Black has a huge international following. People have enormous respect for his integrity as an American patriot. And Scott Ritter is maybe at this point the most outspoken critic of the U.S. policy of confrontation against Russia, in particular, but also against China. So, I think the combination of these speakers, together with me, was important to get across the urgency. Scott Ritter said it repeatedly: He said that when people tell him he shouldn’t scare people, he said that is exactly what we have to do, because only if people are waking up—I’m now using my own words—in the middle of the night full of sweat, being afraid that they will die soon if the policy is not changed, this is much better than sleepwalking into a catastrophe from which nobody may be left if it occurs.

“So, I think this was very, very important. Immediately after we concluded this press conference, I turned on the German TV to watch the news. It was really like a completely different universe. Where people in our press conference were warning of what will happen if it comes to nuclear war and how real it is, the lack of reality in the German public debate, at least as it is transmitted by the mainstream media, is just mind boggling. Here you have Pistorius, the Defense Minister, calling for militarization of the German state, calling for a new draft army, which is fallen out of times completely; this is supposedly not the Cold War.

“So, I would really urge you, our viewers, the most important thing you can do is please watch this press conference if you haven’t done so yet, and then send it around as widely as possible to all possible people; elected officials, social media contacts, institutions. I think that that is a very important warning message.

“Is this enough already now to stop the train which, according to many military experts and leaders of Europe, East European states, has left the station already? I don’t think so. Because just today it was reported that the Deputy Foreign Minister of Russia Alexander Grushko, basically warned that there are very clear signs that NATO is preparing for a clash with Russia, including the option of involving nuclear weapons, and that the situation is completely dangerous. Therefore, I don’t think we have derailed this policy. I think we have given the people of good will a tool with which they can warn elected officials and their friends and associates, but a lot more has to be done.”