planes per year in order to keep people working. “In Japan it’s the same way. Japan sees that people work.” Mun- singer noted that although unemployment figures are quoted at about 8 percent, everyone knows that the real figure is closer to 15 percent unemployment in this country. “If necessary, the federal government could become the employer of last resort, hiring people to rebuild roads and bridges.” Rep. Dick Nelson also made the connection between Boeing and national policy. “We have such a strongly entrenched military industrial effort locally that it tends to ride out some of the inherent instability. Boeing’s military programs remain rather stable. The argument has to be more global—that our survival and security does not depend on those weapon systems. “The Boeing Company has no difficulty converting if it wants to,” Nelson added. “It knows how to marshall resources in a variety of areas. It there’s money to be made, they can do it. The difficulty is in the minds of Congress, the federal government, and business people who are wed to those military projects because they turn a buck and make a good profit.” In The Impact of Military Spending on the Machinists Union, Marion Anderson points out that a proposed cut from the Pentagon budget of $14.3 billion is substantially less than what the American taxpayer has been promised since 1970. The problem with conversion is not a lack of technical flexibility but rather a form of monopoly by certain business and defense sectors but on the beliefs of all of us who are conditioned to think that preparation for war will somehow prevent one. During the Vietnam War we were promised a $20 billion “peace dividend” when the war was over. At war’s end, the military budget was $80 billion. Four years later, the Pentagon was receiving $105 billion. And two years after Presidentelect Carter had promised an annual reduction of $5-7 billion, he was asking for $127 billion. “The 14.3 billion needed for a serious start on conversion,” Anderson notes, “is less than 14 month’s increment for the Pentagon. This is the capital which could give us a major start on solar energy, bring our railroads and mass transit into the late twentieth century, reduce our dependence on foreign oil and give hundreds of thousands of our people jobs.” The problem with conversion is not a lack of technical flexibility but rather a form of monopoly by certain business and defense sectors not only on economic production but on the beliefs of all of us who are conditioned to think that preparation for war will somehow prevent one. It is doubtful that those who make bombs on a day-to-day basis actually believe that this production will contribute to our security as a nation or as a species. One is reminded of a line in a recent play by Arthur Kopit, produced recently by Seattle’s A Contemporary Theater. The playwright (within the play) asks another character about people who work on weapons, “If they know it (the policy of deterrence) doesn’t work, why do they work on it?” Answer: “Because they don’t believe what they know.” The notion of economic conversion may be fanciful at a place like Boeing where a variety of military agendas are so deeply entrenched. However, economic necessity may generate the trend in other companies, and Boeing would then likely choose to compete for the new markets, especially in the conversion industries in which Boeing has already developed expertise. There are a variety of future scenarios, which, though impossible to predict, could enhance the appeal of conversion, even for Boeing. One instance involves Japan’s increasing expertise in the aircraft business. This alone might encourage Boeing to seek a broader market. In such a case it would be wise for conversion advocates to have laid some of the appropriate groundwork. For conversion to succeed as a longterm alternative to the country’s current economic (and moral) dilemma it must involve citizens on the local level. And pressure woufd have to come from the rank and file of Boeing’s workforce, as well as those engineering and professional employees with vision. To say that economic conversion ultimately requires a major shift in national policy seems to be true; but the path to communicating with officials at the federal level may be covered with some definitive grassroots. Writer Melissa Laird lives in Seattle. Her last story in CSQ was the award-winning “Radiation on the Rocks,” on the proposed nuclear waste depository at Hanford. Dan McMillan studies Journalism at the University of Oregon. All photos courtesy of the Boeing Company. 774-1961 ^THEOLDHOMESTEAD W MARKET&GALLERY 4 1 2 1 S.E. 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