Stan Pollack: Negotiations with Russia must resume

I was glad to start the new year off reading the Jan. 2 guest column by John Berkowitz [“Negotiate Ukraine peace now, not risk nuclear war with Russia”].

I’m worried that the Ukraine war, if it escalates into a direct confrontation between the U.S./NATO and Russia, won’t just mean another few hundred thousand Ukrainian and Russian soldiers’ lives, plus further devastation of Ukraine. It could easily become a nuclear war. Not just “over there,” across the ocean and half a world away, but here where we live.

JFK negotiated with the Soviets to avoid war in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. Reagan communicated with them in the 1980s to sign the largest treaty ever, called START, to reduce nuclear weapons. Biden has made a huge and dangerous mistake to cut off all communication with the Russians over the Ukraine war, which now puts us closer to nuclear war than in the past 62 years.

So I hope you’ll join me in contacting President Donald Trump in his first week in office, and urge him to stop playing Russian roulette with his and our children’s and grandchildren’s future by immediately resuming negotiations with Russia to reduce nuclear weapons and bring the Ukraine war to an end. Also contact President Biden in his final 10 days in office and ask him to think about his legacy to his children and grandchildren, and urge him to stop letting Ukraine use our ATACM missiles to bomb deep inside Russia.

Stan Pollack

Florence