Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Category: Peace

2023 Poetry Contest Winners
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The 2023 Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards

Poetry, a medium that transcends mere facts, has the power to immerse us in profound experiences. The Barbara Mandigo Kelly Peace Poetry Awards, an annual celebration of poetic excellence, invites poets from around the world to embark on this enriching journey. We are pleased to announce the winners of our 2023 Poetry Contest. These poets have skillfully woven words to craft verses that not only resonate with the essence of peace but also inspire us to reflect upon the beauty of the human spirit.

First Place, Adult Category:
- Yael Hacohen for “Amos 3:5”
Honorable Mention, Adult Category:
- Matt Hohner for “Sowing Begins in Eleven Regions of Ukraine”
First Place, Ages 13-18 Category:
- Sophia Hall for “THE FLAG SPEAKS”
First Place, Ages 12 and Under Category:
- Helene Yang for “Hunger and Hope”
Honorable Mention, Ages 12 and Under Category:
- Elaina Wang for “Weight of Words”
Congratulations to all of our winners! We want to extend our gratitude to all the poets who participated in the 2023 Poetry Contest—your creativity and dedication to promoting peace through poetry are truly inspiring. We are also deeply appreciative of our Poetry Contest Selection Committee, led skillfully and with passion and care, by the NAPF Board Member Perie Longo, and consisting of Laure-Anne Bosselaar, Christine Kravetz, David Starkey, and Chryss Yost, as well as our staff Carol Warner and Sandy Jones, without whom the contest would not be possible. The winning poems can be found below.

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First Place – Adult Category

Amos 3:5
By Yael Hacohen

Of course, it wasn’t the landmine’s fault. The young couple parked
their car on the hem of the road. It was a wheat field. No, it was
barley. Wild and green stems swayed like birds in summer.
The oak promised some shade. She grabbed the picnic basket
from the car’s trunk. There was an afternoon breeze, and the air
smelled of gravel. His handgun rested in the glove compartment.
It was quiet. They ducked under and through the wire-braided fence.
The yellow signs hung like lanterns. They spread the blanket, and
brought out the avocadoes, olive-oil, black bread, pieces of cheese.
He was humming to himself an army chant from his nights
in the paratroopers, and she tucked a lose strand of her curls behind
her ear. When he stood, she caught a glint of something but didn’t
know if it was sunlight. The cicadas didn’t stop their clicking.
Not even the moment the white blast filled the sky.
The sound was metal itself fulfilling its position.
A plume of earth flowered open like a chute. It’s possible
that he was so close to its break, he became the sound,
and she watched him become it. It’s possible some migrant birds
ruptured the sky, briefly, before returning to their perch.

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Honorable Mention – Adult Category

Sowing Begins in Eleven Regions of Ukraine¹
By Matt Hohner

Farmers are busy clearing Russian mines
and bodies, towing abandoned tanks to town
behind their tractors, while late winter’s mass
graves in village after village yield a harvest
of sorrow, such ruined promise, bone after bone,
where the roots of a people grow under shadows
of smoldering high rises hollowed like ribcages,
black smears on sidewalk pavement and bridges
where humans exploded into echoes, into sighs
the future will hear in the quiet countryside,
birds flitting between silos and cemeteries,
families out for a stroll in the capital, lovers
leaning into each other’s breath beneath open
windows, everywhere the odor of fresh paint
and concrete curing in the sun, coffee and tea
and wine in cafés, each spoken word composing
a new chapter in a story someone once tried to erase.

^{¹Title taken from a Tweet by The Kyiv Independent, March 25, 2022}

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First Place – Age 13-18 Category

THE FLAG SPEAKS
By Sophie Hall

I am red white and bruised blue from the beating of batons
against Black bodies. I am starred with bullet holes, spangled
with broken glass and tear gas, white milk and white tears
forming rivers, flowing from city streets into sewers. Betsy Ross
embroidered me with the fear that you call freedom, my stripes
like fields of farmland, Emmet tilled that soil with his own blood,
red pin-pricked on cotton that is picked, plucked, then woven
into cloth that forms me, flimsy unless puppeteered by politicians,
flow in a sky shrouded in smoke. My white lines like the string wrapped
around wrists and wringed around necks. I bear witness
to that lynching, that school shooting, that border crossing turned burial—
but I bear no responsibility. I wave welcomes to tourists
and wave away weary travelers just as easily, I wave good riddance
with glee. Though I have no voice, many speak for me, through me,
use me to put more profit in their pockets.
Fight over me, fight wars for me, kneel protests
on sore knees, forge crowns of grabbed glory. I am just
another form of currency. They praise me, promising false
liberty, so much for land of the free, oh say can’t you see
me plastered on stolen indigenous land like an eviction notice.
There is no end to what can be colonized, even on the pock
marked moon I fly. I am the armor wrapped
around soldiers shoulders, I am the sign
that sparks surrender. America, you hold me
like a lover, yet wield me like a weapon.
I am the anthem, the sound of shots fired,
the ghosts of the Bison stampede, glass breaking,
and here I emerge, above rockets
and ruckus and riots, my gleaming whiteness
becomes my innocence.
they can be together in perfect harmony that creates a space for everyone

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First Place – Age 12 and Under Category

Hunger and Hope
By Helene Yang

All families have their own unique problems
Our family’s main trouble is starvation

A lot of times when there is not enough food to go around
My parents will give up their shares
So me and my siblings
Won’t starve
Even if it means
They have to go days surviving on leaves
And drops of rainwater
And I can’t help feel like
It’s all my fault
The war
The guns
The famine
It’s all because of me
Even with a few extra grains of rice
It’s not enough to fill our tummies

But every night
I sit up watching the stars
And draw very special pictures
In my very special notebook
That my papa bought for me
Back when we still had some extra money
I draw beautiful pictures of forests
People laughing and dancing
Just like our village was before everything was engulfed in sorrow

But my drawings have sparked a tiny little flame of hope
That the light will overcome the darkness
And that happiness and tranquility will roam our lands once more

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Honorable Mention – Age 12 and Under Category

Weight of Words
By Elaina Wang

What is war?
Two men want something
Yet the two men don’t get it
The men make friends enemies to each other
The men make enemies friends to each other
The men kill families and murder cities
Until crimson is their favorite color–

The men crush their hearts till there’s nothing left to tell
The men fall, fall so deep into hell
they don’t even realize till they’re half
way
down
And when they meet again?
They scream and cry and stab and shoot

Until they were
both
drowned
under
the weight of words
they weren’t saying

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October 4, 2023
Youth Statement on Humanitarian Law and the Use of ICTs

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In November 2020, the General Assembly, by means of Resolution A/RES/75/240, authorized the creation of the Open-ended Working Group (OEWG) focused on the security aspects of information and communications technologies (ICTs). The OEWG’s activities began in 2021 and its final report is scheduled for submission to the General Assembly in 2025.

The OEWG held its fifth substantive session from July 24 till July 28. Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos, our summer intern and current student at Williams College, delivered a youth statement at the NGO session of the meeting on July 26, 2023. The remarks were made on behalf of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation as a stakeholder to the OEWG. Grahm’s statement focused on the need for youth engagement in ICT discussions and application of International Humanitarian Law in governing the use of ICTs. Watch and read the statement below!

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“My name is Grahm Tuohy-Gaydos, and I am a youth activist with the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. We have delivered multiple interventions in the past this working group, and I appreciate the opportunity to be here today. I specifically want to speak to youth views regarding emerging technologies and international humanitarian law and the importance of youth inclusion within decision-making processes.

Chair and distinguished delegates, emerging technologies within ICTs are a critical concern in light of recent developments in areas such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. These advancements contain boundless possibilities to positively or negatively transform our world’s shared information and communications pathways, potentialities both good and bad. Avoiding negative outcomes requires active engagement and guidance. We hope this working group will continue to proactively explore and consider these technologies in ways that will go beyond what is currently outlined within the annual progress reports.

Chair and distinguished delegates, the challenges ahead necessitate a comprehensive framework for the digital arena, and we believe that the UN Charter and International Humanitarian Law must be central to these discussions. A shared unified understanding of how human rights law applies within the information realm will help regulate competition and ensure that safety privacy and security are always at the forefront of system design. We take note of points 31 and 32 in the draft APR as critical next steps in outlining a substantive framework for the application of international law to Information and Communications Technologies. This will necessitate collective action and collaboration to ensure all benefit from these developments. We welcome the emphasis on capacity building and greater information sharing within point 34 in sections E and F as a first step towards a safe and collaborative digital space.

Honorable chair and delegates, allow me to close my remarks by emphasizing that the OEWG should consider avenues and methodologies through which to amplify and integrate youth voices in ICT discussions, including within the text of the report that this body will submit at the end of the week. Youth contributions will enhance and facilitate a broader understanding and analysis of ICT challenges, as currently performed by this working group. Now, our inclusion will help ensure that a safer future awaits us all. Thank you.”

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August 17, 2023
Richard Falk on Daniel Ellsberg in CounterPunch

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filter_contrast_hover=”100″ filter_invert_hover=”0″ filter_sepia_hover=”0″ filter_opacity_hover=”100″ filter_blur_hover=”0″]https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/11/2016_symposium_participants.jpg[/fusion_imageframe][fusion_text columns=”” column_min_width=”” column_spacing=”” rule_style=”” rule_size=”” rule_color=”” hue=”” saturation=”” lightness=”” alpha=”” content_alignment_medium=”” content_alignment_small=”” content_alignment=”” hide_on_mobile=”small-visibility,medium-visibility,large-visibility” sticky_display=”normal,sticky” class=”” id=”” margin_top=”” margin_right=”” margin_bottom=”” margin_left=”” fusion_font_family_text_font=”” fusion_font_variant_text_font=”” font_size=”” line_height=”” letter_spacing=”” text_transform=”” text_color=”” animation_type=”” animation_direction=”left” animation_color=”” animation_speed=”0.3″ animation_delay=”0″ animation_offset=””]

Daniel Ellsberg (chair on the left) with NAPF friends and family, including Richard Falk, in 2016.

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The following essay first appeared in CounterPunch on June 23, 2023

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Celebrating an Extraordinary American Life: Daniel Ellsberg

Points of Departure

Daniel Ellsberg’s death like his life occurred with flair and purpose. Dan (a cherished fried for more than 65 years) had taken the unusual step of sharing with the world the deeply personal news that he had only a few months to live, and even less to be active, as he was diagnosed as suffering from inoperable pancreatic cancer. It was clear that Dan was not seeking pity or adulation by the release of this sad news. His obvious purpose of such a public message was to let be known to all who care that he would continue to devote his energy as long as he could to the struggle to make the world less prone to nuclear mega-catastrophes. Dan firmly believed that we humans are living at a unique time of ominous global danger, and he felt the urgency of action. This inspirational message personified Daniel Ellsberg’s special human qualities of belief, courage, and commitment that made him a heroic figure for so many of us. And Dan’s love of life and people made him far more humanly lovable than if he had confined himself to being an austere political crusader.

I had the opportunity to have two long phone conversations at that fragile interface between Dan’s intense engagement with world history and the ravages of the disease, and found that Dan had lost none of his cerebral brilliance or weakened in his resolve to warn humanity of an increasingly imminent nuclear danger if geopolitics as usual continued on the path taken since the outbreak of the Ukraine War. Besides the warning, Dan also believed there many things of a political and technical nature could and should be done to reduce immediate risks. Yet his fundamental vision was to realize the imperative of safely achieving a denuncearized and demilitarized world.

In our talks, Dan’s was preoccupied, in his relentlessly exhausting probing mental style to depict root causes, with an anguished awareness that the threat extinction was now present on the horizon of likely human futures. Dan wondered aloud as to whether the disasters he feared, would in fact result in the literal end of our species. He seemed to believe rather that unprecedented global catastrophes, such as ’nuclear winter’ would be devastating on a civilizational level and yet still leave as survivors a remnant of humanity. Dan was never content with vague generalities, but to get to the concrete bottom of things. In this spirit he went on to speculate as I recollect, ‘that likely 8 or 10% of humanity would survive, and that’s still a lot of people.’ Not that he envied the survivors, but he wanted to stress that dire as the situation was it should not be assumed to be an extinction event. It was through ‘the glass darkly’ of these grim reflections that he viewed the situation confronting humanity. These dark shadows, more than anything else, led Dan to lament the utter recklessness of Biden’s seeming resolve to engage in a geopolitical war with Russia and to teach Moscow and Putin a lesson in the aftermath of its aggressive, if provoked, attack against Ukraine.

With news of Ellsberg’s imminent demise broadcast widely the mainstream media was finally awakened to write and interview him extensively, and generally sympathetically, about Dan’s life, focusing quite naturally on the drama and legacy of the 1971 release for publication in the NY Times and Washington Post of the Pentagon Papers, and how this ‘invention’ of whistleblowing left behind a precedent seized upon, whether knowingly or not, by others. Yet unlike these subsequent notable whistleblowers, Dan’s work did not cease with the disclosure of specific official dirty deeds hidden from the citizenry by secrecy regulations and dragnet espionage laws, but barely began. In the course of the next half century Dan distinguished himself as both a tireless activist and as an author producing two pedagogical memoirs of lasting value. [Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers (2003); The Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner, 2017].

Dan deserves all the praise he is receiving, and even more, yet I find that two major elements of his strikingly original mental and humanistic qualities have been so far largely missing in the many recent valuable assessments of his life and death. At most Dan’s unusual career journey from being a star consultant to the Pentagon and RAND on the Vietnam War and nuclear war plans to becoming a world renowned anti-nuclear activist who was arrested and imprisoned numerous times over the years, but little commentary on what made personal trajectory so remarkable, taking such courage, insight, persistence, and a truth-telling sense of mission. From my vantage point I will do my best to fill in this gap.

Daniel Ellsberg’s Trajectory

I first encountered Dan during 1957-58, a year we both at Harvard, he was already a rising star, making his name as a strategic wizard who even while a student was doing pioneering work in exploring the use of nuclear weapons as a potent weapon by which to threaten and blackmail adversaries, aside from its roles in preventing or fighting war.

We had initially been brought together for a dinner by an engaging apolitical journalist who convinced me that I should meet Dan because we were in her judgment soulmates. How wrong, or at any rate, premature she was, as we sparred throughout the evening about Cold War issues and I regarded Dan as a gifted, but dangerous, ‘defense intellectual’ of the sort I would be later surrounded by in my early years at Princeton. Yet looking back on that mutually unpleasant evening, I now realize there was one element of Dan’s hawkishness that set him apart from his likeminded cohort, a quality that would a decade later be the bedrock of his highly congenial progressive behavior. He was already in 1958 as he was after he switched sides, someone who deeply enjoyed both friendship and comradery, based on consistent solidarity, believing deeply that he was doing the right thing. Later at Princeton when I had antagonistic contact with several leading defense intellectuals, I noted their careerist motivations and amoral, often cynically playful intellectuality that contrasted with Dan’s intense moral convictions that were his lifelong anchor, making him always a person driven by responsiveness to the dictates of conscience rather than of naked ambition or indulging a cavalier attitude of many leading ‘war thinkers’ toward the menace of nuclear war, perhaps to hide from the horror of it all.

Endowed with an amazingly gifted, quirky mind and astonishing energy, Dan was further animated by an ardent passion to make a difference in all that he undertook. This lineage starts with his outstanding academic record from high school (and maybe earlier) through graduate school, reinforced ever after by performative excellence in whatever he chose to do.

Even taking account of his mainstream Cold War outlook as a young man it was rather unusual for someone with his background, interests, and professional opportunities to seek enlistment in the U.S. Marines as Dan did in 1954, serving as a junior officer for several years including an overseas assignment in the Middle East during the Suez Operation, earning him a promotion by the time he de-enlisted. This military service was followed by a period as an influential consultant to Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense, who sent Dan to Vietnam in 1964 to evaluate U.S. so-called ‘civilian pacification programs’ (really killing machines at the village level) in order to advise him on the conduct of the war. This stint was followed by working for 18 months alongside Major Gen. Edward Lansdale, the most famous counterinsurgency specialist. Dan’s role included going on extremely risky combat patrols in Vietnamese jungles and remote villages. He would later talk about his growing doubts about the way the war was being fought and the suffering inflicted on the Vietnamese people, but was not ready to break with the U.S. policies in the Vietnam War. Yet again, Dan was motivated by doing the right thing. He reasoned, during his advising years, that even if the war was not going well or proved unwinnable, the U.S. campaign was benevolent, aiming at giving the Vietnamese a better life than they could expect under communism and being a justifiable part of an American military effort to prevent World War III by containing Sino-Soviet expansion in Asia. These were views that I never shared, and Dan would soon himself reject.

Then came the remarkable change from his posture as an expert trying to figure out a winning strategy in Vietnam to a rejection of the whole undertaking, and thus in harmony with various strands of the growing Vietnamese peace movement. His disillusionment with the Vietnam War that intensified over time after he returned to the U.S. during a period when he continued working as a top consultant at the RAND corporation, then the prime venue of ‘war thinkers.’ In collaboration with my former Princeton graduate student, Tony Russo, another convert to radical anti-war activism due to what he experienced in Vietnam, especially in working on RAND’s prisoner interrogation program. It was in that alien militarist atmosphere at RAND that the pair spent their evenings copying the Pentagon Papers.

Of course, copying itself was a daring act, given the highly classified character of many documents comprising the 3,000 pages of Pentagon material brought together in a classified study entitled “U.S. Decision Making in Vietnam Policy, 1945-68” on which Ellsberg had himself worked on briefly while an employee at the Department of Defense. The drama of arranging publication and the post-publication pushback by the Nixon presidency has received much commentary and is widely treated as the highlight of Dan’s turn toward activism.

Dan became utterly convinced that the American people deserved to know that they had been lied to by their elected leaders for years about the progress in the war, as the war went on year after year and the casualty figures for Americans and Vietnamese rose higher and higher, but he had no appetite for martyrdom. The keystone of his initial effort was to make the copied documents discreetly available to anti-war Congressmen and trusted media platforms whom he felt had a constitutional duty to make public use of the Pentagon study in furtherance of the public interest. At first, he imposed a strict condition on those he handed the documents, including myself, that his identity as source not be disclosed. This condition was notoriously breached by Neal Sheehan of the NY Times, but Dan’s role was already known by the FBI in any event. I was visited by two agents at my home a few days after I received the Papers, before newspaper publishing began. Needless to say, I refused to cooperate.

Again, Dan was determined to do the right thing, but prudently. Subsequently, this resolve was always centermost and without further second thoughts. Contrary to his earlier beliefs Dan grew convinced that the U.S. government definitely could not be counted on to do the right thing, and in fact was doing the wrong thing. At the same time, Dan steadfastly refrained from releasing material that would expose intelligence sources or impart inflammatory material to foreign adversaries.

Special Qualities of Mind, Spirit, Dramatization, and Obsessive Dedication

Moral Compass: What I mainly want to impart is through it all Dan impressively never lost trust in his moral compass or his political identity. He wanted to do the right thing always, and was willing, although not eager, to pay heavy costs for doing so, earning him high profile defamatory attacks from the likes of Kissinger and Nixon. Yet he remained an American patriot throughout his life, who drew vivid no-go lines in his mind when it came to anti-government activism and civil disobedience. Unlike many radical activists Dan knew the difference between civil disobedience (to the law) and espionage (against his country, as typified by those documents in among the Pentagon Papers he refused to release).

Mastery reinforcing brilliance. Another notable feature in Dan’s way of taking political stands was his refusal to commit his illuminating energy until he had mastered a subject with penetrating, memorable precision. He spent his activist life on opposing the Vietnam War by every non-violent means at his disposal including insider knowledge and extensive field experience in combat zones. During the last several decades his concern mainly focused multi-faceted opposition to the way the U.S, government addressed risks of nuclear war with both the knowledge of a brilliant insider and someone who penetrated below the surface to uncover the terrifying nature of nuclear war plans.

Dramatization of Knowledge and Action And finally, Dan had a natural disposition to dramatize knowledge and action that had the effect of maximizing the impact of whatever he undertook, whether in public or private. Without doubt, the saga of the Pentagon Papers is the most publicized drama of his life, but throughout, no other public intellectual was so publicly articulate and poised about why he was doing what he did. He once told me during the media frenzy after the Papers were finally released, “I wish I could always be the way I am on television.” For me, a scary prospect, for him, not a matter of vanity, but of an infection passion to make a difference by what he did, especially when his reputation or life were at risk.

Love and Politics Well Mixed. As the outpouring of grief exhibits, Dan will be as remembered for his loving modes of relating to family, friends, and co-activists as for his political engagements, exploits, and achievements. Unlike many in the peace movement who were personally detached or narrowly focused on daunting political challenges, working with Dan was a warm, emotionally satisfying experience of someone that lived daily a belief in the transformative power of love whether for peace, justice, a good time, and a fulfilled life.

Completing the Thoreau legacy

Dan will be rightly long remembered for his seminal role in enriching the legacy of the anti-slave, anti-war civil disobedience associated with the work and life of the New England transandentalist, Henry David Thoreau (who exerted a major influence on Gandhi, Martin Luther King, Jr., Tolstoy). It was this courtly writer, poet, and wilderness seeker who by choosing jail over paying taxes funding government policies that struck him as deeply immoral gave to democratic governance an added vitality. As a private person Thoreau chose conscience over obedience to law as the most essential quality of citizenship, which is the golden thread that runs through the fabric of Dan’s rich and varied life.

The release of the Pentagon Papers could be seen as Ellsberg’s dramatic enactment of Thoreau’s imperative, but taking the crucial and more dangerous form of whistleblowing about systemic governmental abuse of its unrestricted control of information by permissively classifying it as ‘secret.’ Dan never disputed the need for legitimate state secrets, but he acted to expose the misuse of secrecy by elected leaders to lie and mislead citizens on vital matters of war and peace in Vietnam and with respect to Pentagon planning for nuclear war. Balancing the governmental right to keep secrets against the rights of the citizenry to know the truth, especially on matters of life and death pertaining to the nation’s future.

I think it not an overstatement to conclude that if democracy survives the digital age, it will be thanks to brave whistleblowers, starting with Ellsberg, and continuing with such heroic followers as Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Jack Teixeira, individuals currently hounded as criminals by the U.S. government. Whistleblowing being honored the world over by progressive forces in civil society, and shamefully marginalized by the mainstream media that waited until Ellsberg was dying before belatedly and grudgingly acknowledging his greatness.

Richard Falk is Albert G. Milbank Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University, Chair of Global law, Queen Mary University London, and Research Associate, Orfalea Center of Global Studies, UCSB. He is the Senior Vice President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

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June 23, 2023
It is 90 seconds till midnight

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Yesterday, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a pre-eminent organization founded in 1945 with the goal to publish and pronounce upon the dangers of the nuclear arms race, and more recently other existential threats, such as climate change, announced their latest Doomsday Clock reading. The clock’s history dates back to 1947, when the Bulletin asked the artist Martyl Langsdorf to create a cover for the magazine; Langsdorf proceeded to draw a picture of a clock, with its hands at seven minutes till midnight. Her choice of image was meant to reflect the urgency of the moment and the fact that very little time was left to prevent a human-made global catastrophe before it happened. By 1949, the Bulletin started using the image yearly to ascertain the current state of global affairs and to indicate whether things have indeed gotten better or worse compared to the previous year and compared to all of the prior clock readings. Along the way, the Doomsday Clock became a symbol of all that is wrong in today’s world and a widely anticipated gauge of global risks and threats.

Since 1949, the minute hand of the clock has been changed 24 times, reaching 17 minutes to midnight or the farthest from midnight in 1991, at the end of the Cold War. Prior to 2020, the closest setting was two minutes till midnight during the time period of 1953 to 1959, when both the United States and the Soviet Union not only acquired but widely tested hydrogen bombs. Hydrogen bombs, by using fusion, the process that powers the Sun and the stars, instead of just fission, increased the energy yield and destructiveness of nuclear weapons by orders of magnitude. The United States tested – in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati – bombs that were up to 1000 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, while the Soviets tested hydrogen bombs that reached up to 50 Mtons or the equivalent of more than 3300 Hiroshima bombs. Most of those ultra high yield tests were conducted near Severny Island in the Arctic, with some taking place at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan.

In January 2020, just as the COVID pandemic was gaining speed, the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board set the clock at 100 seconds to midnight, the closest it had ever been, to reflect the deteriorating global security environment, as well as the accelerating impacts of global warming and the lack of meaningful progress on addressing climate change. The clock reading was unchanged in 2021 and 2022 and when the Ukraine War started last February, many began to wonder how the new and increased risk of nuclear exchange or worse would affect future clock readings. So like thousands of others, I was glued to my screen yesterday morning, anticipating with some trepidation what time the Bulletin experts would set for this year. The clock hands – clearly – do not impact the situation on the ground in Ukraine or globally, but I did have the sense that the reading would reflect the urgency of the moment, as it has for decades. Confronting this urgency in such a direct way did make me anxious.

When Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland, and others unveiled the clock to reveal 90 seconds till midnight, I breathed a sigh of relief. Yes, 90 seconds to midnight is awfully close and the closest the clock has ever been. I fully agree with this assessment, as the Ukraine War has undoubtedly increased the risk of use of nuclear weapons, which was already unacceptably high, while also causing other global problems and exposing our global interdependency. So I agree that we are worse off today than we have ever been. For those who discount the dangers, I would quote Prof. Marty Hellman from Stanford University, who says that “those who discount the risk of nuclear war stemming from the war in Ukraine are probably right, but probably is not good enough when our nation’s survival is at stake.” To this, I would add that nuclear war does not threaten just our nation and other individual countries, but human civilization as we know it and possibly the human species and other life on the planet. Assessing the risk as the highest it has ever been, seems right on the mark to me.

My relief at hearing and seeing 90 seconds till midnight was due to the fact that I could have imagined an even closer reading of say, one minute till midnight. I believe that 90 seconds is a better assessment as it reflects the numerous opportunities to make things better. Coming out of a worldwide pandemic, we should be better prepared to confront future pandemics individually and within our communities and societies. Global warming is having such visible impacts around the planet (I write this from New York City where we have yet to have our first snowfall of the 2022/2023 winter season) that denial is no longer even a viable strategy and optimism about the shift to renewables in places like China and India does not strike me as premature. Finally, the Ukraine War has at last woken many people up to the continued dangers of nuclear weapons, dangers they seemed to have put aside after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Those dangers in fact never went away and the hope is that by allowing the whole world to see them for what they are, we can finally reach the decades-long aspirations of nuclear abolition.

This brings me to my favorite point about why there is reason for hope. The Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) has now been in force for two years (we just celebrated its second anniversary on January 22), has 68 ratifications and 92 signatory states, and both lists of states continue to grow. I was fortunate to attend and participate in the First Meeting of States Parties last June in Vienna where I could soak in the optimism and the excitement of diplomats, civil society, academics, and youth, all working together to bring the promises of this historic treaty to reality. We at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation are hard at work on promoting, strengthening, and implementing the TPNW and are convinced that the treaty is our best hope for leaving a world free of nuclear weapons to our children. We must do everything we can to see it accomplish all of its objectives. After all, we only have 90 seconds to do so.

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January 25, 2023
Two new essays by Richard Falk, NAPF’s Senior Vice President

NAPF’s most recent Board meeting on August 8, was both a joyous and somber occasion, simultaneously. Welcoming our new President to Santa Barbara and to her first official meeting as President was cause for celebration, while the timing of the meeting – sandwiched between the anniversaries of the attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki – presented an invitation for reflection on the attacks and the continuing threat that nuclear weapons pose to humanity. Our discussion was wide-ranging and it inspired Richard Falk, our Senior Vice President, to write two essays that touch on the topics we discussed. We are as ever grateful to Richard for sharing his wisdom, insight, and knowledge with us and invite you to read the essays. The first, entitled Two Perspectives on the 10th NPT Review Conference, can be found HERE. This essay discusses the context of the conference taking place amidst the anniversaries of the atomic bombings in Japan, as well as following the entry into force of the TPNW, and the current heightened geopolitical tensions. The second essay, entitled Connecting the Dots 77 Years Later: Hiroshima and Nuremberg, can be found HERE. This essay is a contemplation on the meaning of the term “victors’ justice” and the normalization of nuclear weapons that arose out of this view of what justice is or should be. We hope the writing will inspire you as it has inspired us to continue to fight for a peaceful world, one that is free of nuclear weapons.

August 16, 2022
28th Annual Sadako Peace Day

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We held our 28th Annual Sadako Peace Day once again in the Sadako Peace Garden at La Casa de Maria to remember the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all innocent victims of war. The event took place on Tuesday, August 9, 2022, from 6:00 – 7:00 pm PT. It was the first time we were able to hold Sadako Peace Day at at La Casa de Maria since 2018, when the retreat center suffered terrible damage from the mudslides that took place after the Thomas Fires. Frank Bognar, NAPF Board Chair, welcomed everyone to this special event. This year, we introduced Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, our President, who gave a moving keynote talk about the humanitarian consequences of nuclear weapons. There were poetry readings by Emma Trelles, Sojourner Kincaid Rolle, Father Larry Gosselin, and Perie Longo, Chair of NAPF’s Poetry Committee. Hal Maynard and Sandy Jones, local singer/songwriters, played original music, Dr. Jimmy Hara spoke about Sadako’s short life and her inspiring wish for peace, and Bob Sedivy, a komusō monk, opened and closed the evening on the shakuhachi. Our poets read their own and the poetry of David Krieger, our Co-Founder and President Emeritus, reminding us of the need to care for each other and for our mother Earth. We were touched to see so many members of our wonderful community in attendance. Thank you to all who were able to join us! For a video of Dr. Hughes delivering her keynote, see HERE. For photos from the event by Rick Carter, see HERE.

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August 11, 2022
NAPF Statement at the UN

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Our President, Dr. Ivana Nikolić Hughes, delivered a statement on behalf of NAPF at the NGO Session of the 10th NPT Review Conference. The session took place in General Assembly Hall at the United Nations in New York on August 5, 2022. Our statement focused on the urgency of nuclear disarmament in the current moment and the legal obligations and other reasons for nuclear weapons states to pursue disarmament.

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Other Statements:

We are inspired by remarks from the Secretary-General of the United Nations, Antonio Guterres, who delivered his statement to the NPT Review Conference on August 1, 2022. Secretary-General stated that “humanity is just one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear annihilation. We need the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons as much as ever.” Watch the entire statement:

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President of Soka Gakkai International, Daisaku Ikeda, also issued a statement to the NPT Review Conference on July 26, 2022. The statement calls for No First Use of Nuclear Weapons and has NAPF’s full support. View statement HERE.

You can read all of the NPT Review Conference statements from States Parties and NGOs HERE.

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August 11, 2022
How you can help the people of Ukraine

Dear Friends of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,

The war in Ukraine continues. Its brutality has horrified the world; its dangers have forced a great and unpredictable shift in history. There is reason to worry, reason to mourn, but also reason to hope. The world community has rallied. There is a renewed sense of meaning and urgency to democracy. And Ukraine itself continues to offer a heroic resistance.

Still, the cost is enormous, and will only grow. We must continue to support those on the ground working to mitigate the humanitarian disaster brought about by outright war. The major charities like Save the Children, Médécins sans Frontières, Ukrainian Red Cross, and Polish Red Cross are operating across the conflict. Among Ukrainian organizations, Razom has also been operating at scale, and has been widely endorsed: https://razomforukraine.org/

In this email, however, we’d like once more to highlight for you some smaller organizations and initiatives that are also doing essential work on the frontlines.

Cash for Refugees. A group of Americans with roots in Russian and Ukraine have organized an ad-hoc program to distribute small amounts of cash (in the hundreds of dollars) to refugees coming across the border to Romania. This allows people the dignity and flexibility of being able to spend some money as they make their way across Europe. https://www.cashforrefugees.org/

Children’s Corner at the Berlin Main Train Station (Hauptbahnhof). Thousands of refugees are pouring into the main train station in Berlin, many of them children, some of them unaccompanied. A group of volunteers in Berlin is raising funds to support a daycare: to care for the children, watch them, and distribute toys, snacks, and warm clothing. Donations can be made through this website (a European equivalent of GoFundMe):
https://www.betterplace.me/donations-for-childrens-corner-at-berlin-hbf

The 24.02 Fund. This is the brainchild of a small independent news outlet in Ukraine called Zaborona Media, which has long been at the forefront of critical journalism in the country (documenting everything from relations with Russia to corruption in the Ukrainian government). They are now raising funds to support Ukrainian journalists in the war, including buying them supplies and protective gear. https://2402.org/

Vostok SOS. This organization has been working in Ukraine to help resettle refugees displaced from eastern Ukraine since the beginning of the conflict with Russian in 2014. They are well-placed on the ground to expand their humanitarian efforts across the country. You can support them here via bank transfer:
https://vostok-sos.org/en/ukraine-under-fire-support-vostok-sos-aid-operation/
Or via credit card through their Swiss partner, Libereco: https://www.lphr.org/en/spenden/

It’s also important to continue to make your voices heard in the halls of power. Write your representatives (for instance, via the site democracy.io) to call for what your conscience dictates when it comes to supporting Ukraine, de-escalation, and diplomacy.

Thank you to you all for your generosity and passion for peace in this difficult time.

In Solidarity,
Matthew Spellberg for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

March 18, 2022
Where Are They Now? Lauren Lankenau

Interns have always played a vital role at NAPF and we love staying in touch with them after they leave us and begin their careers.

Lauren Lankenau interned with us during the spring of 2018, shortly before leaving Santa Barbara to attend Vanderbilt University Law School. This summer, Lauren will work with Keller Rohrback, L.L.P., the law firm that represented the Marshall Islands in the lawsuits we strongly supported.

We caught up with Lauren to find out how her time at NAPF has influenced her life thus far…

NAPF: In what ways did your internship at NAPF impact your life?

Lauren: My internship with NAPF allowed me to explore nuclear issues outside the classroom setting and ultimately gave me a type of solace knowing that I too can make a difference in this world.

NAPF: The Nuclear Zero Lawsuits were filed in 2014, just about six years ago. What was it about these lawsuits that interested you?

Lauren: The ability to give a voice to people harmed by government entities is what interested me about the Marshall Islands case. The tale of environmental exploitation without adequate recompense is far too common. I want to hold people accountable for their actions.

NAPF: Would you say that your time at NAPF furthered your interest in becoming an activist and using your voice for justice?

Lauren: I always had an interest in enacting change, but was unsure what mode would be most impactful. At the time of my internship, I was focusing primarily on science. Working at NAPF showed me that activism is actually a more effective way to prevent environmental harm. My internship coincided with my switch from science to activism.

May 14, 2020
Honoring My Dad, David Krieger, The Peace Dude

Dr. Mara Sweeney delivered these remarks at the 36th Annual Evening for Peace on October 20, 2019.

My name is Mara, and I am David Krieger’s daughter. It is an honor to be standing up here tonight speaking about my dad. My dad, David Krieger. (The Peace Dude.)

I grew up in a home where some of the finest people of our time came. The Dalai Lama, Jacques Cousteau, Daniel Ellsberg, and Linus Pauling to name a few, have all been to my house. In fact, a few times a year, someone was at our house, sitting at our dining table or in our living room with my dad. I knew this wasn’t normal, but it actually kind of was at my house. These people came to speak with my Dad. What I am really proud of and continue to be in awe of is my dad’s thoughtful, measured and deliberate responses and questions. He is wise.

My dad has a PhD in international relations and is also an attorney. He had opportunities to teach at university, to practice law…shoot he was almost the in house counsel to a little gaming company called Nintendo way back in the day…However, he could not turn away from the work of waging peace and nuclear abolition. I am so proud of his dedication.

When my son, Nat, and I joined my dad on a trip to Japan a few years ago, I was overwhelmed at the reception he received in so many places there. In Japan, where people sadly know the horrors of nuclear weapons, my dad is a hero. It was like a rock star had entered the room when he entered. It was wonderful to see the appreciation.

My dad has worked toward his goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and the threat they pose for as long as I can remember. He has worked toward a more peaceful world, a safer world for all of us, day after day, year after year because it is the right thing to do. It has not been easy. He has pushed back against complacency, ignorance and fear. He has dug in when others might have quit. He has never stopped writing, speaking, and thinking of how to accomplish this goal. I am proud of his perseverance.

Like so many daughters, my dad is my hero. He is wise, he is thoughtful, dedicated, creative.

On behalf of my family, my mom, my brothers, my husband, my kids, my niece and nephews and my uncle who are all here tonight, and those in the family who were unable to be here but are sending their love from afar, We congratulate you Dad!! Thank you for inspiring us all to be better people, for inspiring us to be global citizens.

October 20, 2019