Anthony St.

John
Versus

Dora
Russell--
Once Wife of
Twentieth-Century
English Philosopher
 Bertrand
Russell
The Ides of March 1984
The Members of
The Bertrand Russell Society
3802 North Kenneth Avenue
CHICAGO IL 60641
United States
My fellow members of The Bertrand
Russell Society of which I hope
soon to be a paid-up-in-full distinct
offshoot and to which I pray—but not
to a god!—one fine day I might be
able to donate a sum to help assist
your tireless efforts to disseminate
most of the teachings and ideals of
Bertrand Russell:
I am writing today to seek your
assistance and insight on behalf of
the alleviation of a tremendous
intellectual woe with which I am
afflicted and out of which I endeavor
to attain, sincerely, phrenic
resuscitation and exactitude in as
many matters as I am able to satisfy
this my mind’s quest for rationality
and truth.
My dilemma concerns itself with my
unsettled opinion—when so many
more intelligent, wiser individuals
surround me with certitude—that not
that atomic/hydrogen bombs do not
exist, but that tens and tens of
2
thousands of them are poised, on
both sides of the enormous
ideological fence, to set in motion the
repeated overkill of the human race.
I sustain my belief with the following
notions which perhaps might come to
be interpreted by most as proofs:
I.
I have never seen an
atomic/hydrogen bomb (to be
referred to as “Item[s]” below).
II.
I have known not one individual in
my thirty-nine years of life who has
admitted—upon request or not—that
he or she has seen an Item.
III.
I know not pictures of an Item or
Items.
IV.
Not once in one year, when I, a
graduate of the United States Army
Artillery and Missile School, served as
a missile/rocket training officer at
Fort Sill, Oklahoma, did I see an Item,
nor did I encounter one individual
who could hint at where an Item or
Items might be deposited or could
say that he (no shes!) had even ever
seen one! Yet, we were trained to
use Items.
V.
If so many Items have existence, why
have they not been used again—in
more than forty years of their
presence—“to thwart the suffering
that has obviously arisen from the
domination of an enemy whose evil
would maybe create a greater
spiritual peril than perhaps the
physical deaths of the victims of that
enemy?” (This is not my reasoning
but that purported by those who
deem the Items intrinsic to some
national security.)
VI.
If such large quantities of Items have
being—with so great high-potential
attack capability—why has not an
Item accident occurred? Are we to
trust that the composite intelligence
and integrity of the Item Users and
Item Threateners (the United States
of America has been docketed as the
“First Item User”; some
Northamerican Item Threateners now
clamour for a “No First Item Use”! ) is
sufficient to avoid a third real
strategic or non-strategic Item Use or
Items Use or Accidental Item Use or
Accidental Items Use which might
annihilate the total population of the
world in minutes?
I for one do not trust, for example,
the United States Army to possess
the intelligence and probity to
prevent an Item or Items Accident. I
will say why to exasperate my
discussion in which I have vented
disagreement in the Item debate.
Please support my observation from
personal experiences?
My two-year service in the United
States Army in Fort Sill, Oklahoma
and Vietnam, as a missile/rocket
training officer and a forward
observer and battalion/brigade
liaison officer, afforded me one of the
grandest invigorations of my life, and
I am inclined to believe that of the
countless thousands of others who
also served in the armed forces of
the United States of America: an
abrupt suspension of continuity. For
me, this was effectuated in the
following manner: After one year of
working for diehard William F.
Buckley, Jr.’s National Review, after
four years of studying philosophy,
3
after twenty-one years of believing
that the United States of America
was the most principled nation in the
world, after four years of studying
military science in the Reserve
Officers’ Training Corps, I was thrust
into the mainstream of one of
Northamerica’s aspects of violence-
let-loose: the United States Army. I
met men drug-addicted, Jim Beam-
addicted, Librium-addicted, Stars &
Stripes-addicted, Playboy-centerfold-
addicted, Item-addicted, God-
addicted, power-addicted, addicted-
addicted…. I was ordered to “zero”
women and children, and when I
refused protesting on behalf of the
requirements of the Geneva
Convention—which I attested, by
signature, that I had read in Pleiku,
Southvietnam—I was called a
coward. (I waited anxiously to
separate myself from the United
States Army, and since then I have
been utterly ashamed that I ever put
on the uniform of that violence-
prone, abusive organization.)
It strikes me as totally odd that the
many disparate components of the
armed forces of the United States of
America—for me, extremely unjust in
their exercises of power, often
drugged, so frequently drunk, and
ostentatiously stupid—have been
stable enough over the past four
decades to avoid an Item Accident.
Parenthetically, I am also of the
opinion that if so many Items existed,
it would take an enormous monetary
effort—at least equal to the very cost
of the Items to secure the Items; and,
it would take a larger military force
than that which now exists to protect
so many Items—perhaps at a cost of
many more billions and billions of
offence dollars allocated to insure
national security. An enormous effort
would have to be made to guarantee
the safeguard of the Items from
incompetent individuals and pseudo-
freedom fighters not in uniform but
earning much from the spending on
military armament.
VII.
Who tells me Items exist? Political
leaders and military strategists and
editors at National Review and
Harvard University political science
professors! Almost fifty percent of
the Northamerican people did not
vote in the last election—many
frustrated with what they often
describe as their motive the
deceptiveness of United States’
political leaders. Richard M. Nixon,
over national television, admitted to
me that the Items had, indeed,
reality. After his political, emotional
and physical downfall, he indicated to
me that it was sometimes necessary
to lie in politics. Am I being lied to
about the Items, too? (Can anyone
reveal to me the overall international
effect and expense account of the
Central Intelligence Agency for those
crucial years, let us say, of 1954 or
1967 or 1978?) It is not not possible
to assert that our political leaders
might be deceptive with us and with
others when they say they have
already been so. N’est-ce pas?
VIII.
Not all politicians are obtuse even
though the argument of common
consent (a flaccid first principle!) is
tempting in this case, under these
circumstances. Suffice it to say that
not all politicians are intelligent. But
has there ever been a politician of
international stature who denied the
Item—whether or not he might be
considered stupid or intelligent? Mao
Tse-Tung (1893-1976) in a talk with
Anna Louise Strong, August, 1946:
“The atomic bomb is a paper
tiger
which the United States
reactionaries
use to scare people. It looks
terrible,
but in fact it isn’t…All
reactionaries
are paper tigers.”
IX.
I wish to quote from my manuscript,
Politically Philosophical and
Philosophically Political Writings: A
Book of Essays, the following proof
against the existence of a god, a
supreme being:
“…d. I do not believe in God because
there are no facts to prove his
existence. I believe in cold winds,
headaches, restaurant bills, the need
4
to get up in the morning, work, and
the oxygen I breathe. If God existed,
it would be ridiculous to deny that he
did. Yet many people deny his
existence. They do not deny that
Paris exists even if they have never
visited Paris. God’s existence is not
taken for granted just as we take for
granted death or love of another
person. If God existed, there would
be absolutely no doubt about it—as
there is no doubt about the largeness
of the Atlantic Ocean which is
incomprehensible to most. God
“exists” in the same way Santa Claus
or a witch or the Easter Bunny
“exists.” We look for them, but we
never come upon them even
unexpectedly. We want the
spontaneity of invented fantasies.
(For children, this might be good.)
We want God; but, he does not exist.
We once needed God to explain the
reasons for night and day, to define
our limits in an unknown world, to
give reason for our fears and
loneliness, and to justify our
unchosen entrance into a world
whose rules and regulations will
decide our unchosen departure. All
of these things are now better
explained without any reference to
God, and the abracadabra of the
supernatural. Each day we find more
reason to believe in the naturalness
of our Earth and the things that
surround it. Before, we could only
speculate and we contrived reasons
which we thought had to be beyond
our own comprehension. I am happy
to know my life is controlled, for the
most part, by forces I know have
their bases in reality and fact, and
not in causes which I must accept are
beyond my reason and
understanding. And I know each day
brings me closer to knowing more
about my world and myself.”
Dear members of The Bertrand
Russell Society, has the Item
become the new god? Not fabricated
in the image of a kind, just Budda or
Christ, but made by man to remind
us—after, for example, the slayings
of World War I and World War II
(Where is World War III?)—of the
image of Man the Monster? Will the
“New God” itself back us into a
veritable “shit or get off the pot”
reaction to use, what I think are, the
very few, if any, Items which are said this object (Item?) into the shadowed
to exist? I beg your assistance. I beg woodlands, chased and mocked by
your clarifications. Forever, I the admirable band of watchful
demand, “Where are the Items?” women.

Cordially… Now what better scheme could be

devised for holding the whole world
Anthony St. John to ransom than for the technological
Casella Postale 10 MEN of POWER to proclaim to the
51016 MONTECATINI TERME PT world their possession of these Items
Italia —holding them, and their guardians,
the while, shrouded in utmost
secrecy?
You are right—I have never seen one.
Two Items fell from the sky at
* * * Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since then
one or two warning flares in the sky
to frighten and keep humans in
subjection. The rest is secrecy and
silence! With occasional pretensions
1 August 1984 at negotiations to disarm. Perfect,
my dear Watson. Good on you,
Sherlock Holmes!

Yours sincerely,
Anthony St. John
Casella Postale 10 Dora Russell
51016 MONTECATINI TERME PT Carn Voel
Italia Porthcurno
Penzance
CORNWALL TR19 6LN
England

Dear Anthony St. John,

I have been long in replying to your

letter of 7 June 1984 asking if I have * * *
ever seen one of those “Items,”
nuclear missiles.

I have thought this matter over very

carefully! I think that, in view of 20 August 1984
what you say about your experiences
in the United States Army, these
Items possibly do not exist, since, if
they did, with such drunken and
drug-soaked guardians, one or more Dora Russell
of them would have gone off long Carn Voel
since. Many women of my country Porthcurno
have skilfully, as you may know, Penzance
stationed themselves at a place CORNWALL TR19 6LN
known as Greenham Common, for England
the purpose of observing and of
preventing, if necessary, the
emergence of one Item—known as a
Cruise missile—from its hiding place.
At times there emerges a long trail of Dora Russell:
motor cyclists, followed by a double
lorry like two dust carts, within which Thank you for replying to my letter of
a long object may be observed, if the 7 June 1984, for taking so much time
lid is lifted. A guard of cars follow to answer it (I received your 1 August

5
1984 one on 18 August 1984! Fancy
that!), and for thinking over very
carefully the matter I proposed to
you and others of The Bertrand
Russell Society. Perhaps you, Dora
Russell, should have pondered at
greater length?
I wish to make the following
comments on your awkward
response:
 You are unkind and
intellectually dishonest to
imply that the only reason I
offer for my belief is that
“such drunken and drug-
soaked guardians” as exist in
the United States Army would
be reason alone for the non-
existence of Items. Is this
point—the one you have
singled out of context—the
only you can discuss with me?
Do I win my argument on
points, alas?
 If you scan through your
history books, you will notice
that men and women,
throughout recorded time,
have chased and mocked,
more than occasionally, after
nonexistent entities. They
have all too frequently
followed the advice of
barbarians and
representatives of gods who
have lead them on to their
deaths millions and millions of
times over. If you walk in
Europe, you slosh in the blood
beneath your feet. (Women
congregated at Greenham
Common to chase things, that
exist only in their
imaginations, into the
shadowed woodlands are
Itemhunters, not Witch-
hunters.) There are, and have
been, schemes devised for
holding considerable parts of
the whole world to ransom,
and, regretfully, they have
been rather successful. May I
mention even one on the
roster of more than seven
thousand religions registered
—often tax-free!—throughout
this Earth? Even the scheme
of the English Monarchy plays
a significant role in your
6
country, Dora—does it not?—
in holding Subjects in
Subjection! (The two stamps
on your letter to me, with
images of The One and Only
Queen affixed to them, are
overlaid with this royal edict:
BE PROPERLY ADDRESSED!
Yes, Your Majestic Highness;
no, You Great and Royal
Sovereign Personage! Does
Prince Phillip cut Elizabeth’s
toenails, Dora?) Most humans
I know are frightened and
kept in one form of control or
another:
“A mark in every face I
meet,
Marks of weakness,
marks of woe,”
Two-thirds of the people in the
world have not running water
in their homes. And even
most middle-class creatures
are struggling tormentingly to
buy their food and pay their
rent. (Did you know it costs
12 Swiss francs to go from
Orselina to Cardada in an
eight minute, return included,
funivia?)
 Yes, two Items fell from the
sky at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. (I cannot believe
that you believe that this
observation makes my thesis
essentially self-contradictory!)
One has never fallen again
because one does not exist.
One does not exist in part
because two Items, in fact, fell
from the sky at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki. And if thousands
and thousands do have being,
my dearest Dora Russell, will
you kindly point the way for
me? Forever I demand:
Where are the Items? Dora
Russell, I suggest, earnestly,
that you start doing the same
damn thing yourself!
I am just trying to peel away some
onion skins.
Cordially…
Anthony St. John
Casella Postale 38
50041 CALENZANO FI
Italia