IT IS ALL TOO EASY for Americans to get last in the details of the re-called nuclear debut government statements on the issue usually feature enough factual distortions and demagoguery to leave the populace hopelessly confused. Among students have, comprehension of the arms race is often who make like tough-minded, sophisticated arms control negotiators-to-be. It is a tribute to the propaganda powers of the Reagan Administration that it has, with little or no effort, convinced some of the Beat and the Brightest to accept and regurgitate the overtopping series of lies at the core of American nuclear weapons policy.

the distortions begin with the almost exclusive analytic attention given to the possibility of nuclear war in Europe. a typical "Euroshima" doomsday scenario starts with the Soviet Union attacking West Germany. But in reality, the likely site of superpower confrontation is not Europe but somewhere in what has come to be known as the third World.

The Middle east, south Africa, and other "hotspots" are much more volatile, and thus more likely to cause itchy trigger fingers to edge toward The Button. Of the several dozen western nuclear alerts since the invention of atomic weapons, the majority have been in response to perceived threats in the Third World--not Europe.

Exploring further the notion that Europe is the most probable arena of nuclear disaster, we encounter a second myth: that the U. S. can be trusted by the rest of the world not to engage in nuclear blackmail or launch as aggressive "first strike" on another country. Just weeks ago, the President told a Revelry Hills audience that "When the United States was the only country in the world possessing these awesome weapon we did not blackmail others with threats to use them."

Not only is this untrue, but a brief survey of past nuclear blackmail shows much of it used in response to confrontation sites outside of Europe. First came Japan, where the U.S. first made vague threats, then initiated the world's only distance of nuclear warfare. Against noncombatants, including American citizens Twice.

In 1946, President Truman threatened to use atomic bombs if the Soviets did not withdraw their troops from Iran. In 1950, with American marines trapped by Chinese forces at Korea's Chosin reservoir. Eisenhower, trying to force a settlement in Korea, threatened the Chinese with nuclear weapons in 1953.

When the Vicinamese were demolishing French troops during the siege of Dien Bien Phu in 1954. Secretary of State John Paster Dulles offered three nuclear bombs to the French government. The threat was repeated move directly in 1968, when the U.S. considered nuclear attack an a means of relieving the seige of Khe Sanh.

THE ACTUAL THREAT to Europe has not only been magnified, it has also been blurred by the government's frequent use of falsehood as a basis of foreign policy. We hear, for example, that Soviet SS-20 missiles pointed westward are a grave and imminent threat, and that hundreds of new Pershing II missiles must immediately be deployed to offset the SS-20s. Even by the logic of the arms race--if such a thing can be said to exist--the current provocative stance of the U.S. government is absurd.

There are said to be 351 Soviet SS-20s aimed at Western Europe, each of which has three warheads. In fact, it is only assumed that each missile has three warheads: it has been acknowledged that there is no real way to tell how many destructive weapons are inside each missile, although a 1980 West German intelligence report indicates that t significant number of the weapons have only one warhead, not three.

Reagan also says that western nuclear-launching missiles and planes are "obsolete and badly in need of modernization," compared to Soviet forces. Actually, all soviet missiles except one type are fueled with liquid propellant, a volatile and dangerous substance scrapped by the U.S. decades ago. By comparison, American technology has in the last 15 years alone produced the multiple warheads reentry vehicle, the Trident submarine-launched missile, the air-launched Cruise missile and Mark 12 and 12A warheads (to be placed on the MX missile). And reliance on the much chastised B-52 intercontinental bomber ignores Soviet reliance on the Bear plane, which is also propeller-driven and just as old as the B-52.

It is time to change the terms of debate. By focusing of Europe, we end up ignoring the frighteningly routine nuclear provocation set off in other parts of the world. By clinging to the utterly fantastic notion that the U.S. would never provoke a nuclear war, the American public accepts an unreality that the rest of the world will not. And by not challenging the myths of the arms race perpetuated by demagogues in the government and their unquestioning followers in the universities, we allow the most bizarre of policies to continue unabated.