I think that this film presents a very simple-minded notion of the nuclear problem and it deals with the most obvious question that a general nuclear war aimed at cities is a disaster and a catastrophe. I wrote a book on the subject 30 years ago when the notion of general nuclear war first arose. The problem of our period, the problem we have to grapple with is how to avoid such a war, how to preserve freedom while seeking to avoid such a war, how to establish, how to create a military establishment that reduces the dangers of such a war, what arms control policies are compatible with this policy, how we handle crises. Those are serious questions. To engage in an orgy of demonstrating how terrible the casualties of a nuclear war are, and translating it into pictures from statistics that have been known for three decades, and then to have Mr. Sagan say it’s even worse than this... I would say: what are we to do about this? Are we supposed to make policy by scaring ourselves to death, or is somebody going to make some proposals about where we are supposed to go? And if people don’t make them, then I do not believe we are making any contribution. That’s my objection to this film. It took this most simple-minded problem that everybody will agree upon. There’s nobody in this room who disagrees with the fact that this must not happen. It’s how to avoid it that we should be discussing.

What It Means

This is a placeholder explanation generated by the low-overhead model. It interprets "I think that this film presents a very simple-minded notion of the nuclear problem and it deals with the most obvious question that a general nuclear war aimed at cities is a disaster and a catastrophe. I wrote a book on the subject 30 years ago when the notion of general nuclear war first arose. The problem of our period, the problem we have to grapple with is how to avoid such a war, how to preserve freedom while seeking to avoid such a war, how to establish, how to create a military establishment that reduces the dangers of such a war, what arms control policies are compatible with this policy, how we handle crises. Those are serious questions. To engage in an orgy of demonstrating how terrible the casualties of a nuclear war are, and translating it into pictures from statistics that have been known for three decades, and then to have Mr. Sagan say it’s even worse than this... I would say: what are we to do about this? Are we supposed to make policy by scaring ourselves to death, or is somebody going to make some proposals about where we are supposed to go? And if people don’t make them, then I do not believe we are making any contribution. That’s my objection to this film. It took this most simple-minded problem that everybody will agree upon. There’s nobody in this room who disagrees with the fact that this must not happen. It’s how to avoid it that we should be discussing." in the context of "Henry Kissinger" to mean that wisdom is timeless.