Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: leadership

Judith Lipton | In Her Own Words

How has your background in medicine, evolutionary biology and science shaped your worldview?
My family subscribed to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists from my early childhood. We lived in Hyde Park, Chicago, near the University of Chicago where my parents taught, and also near the first nuclear reactor at Stagg Field. My parents were both psychiatrists, and my father (Morris Lipton, MD/PhD) taught me how to write molecular structures on dinner table napkins before I was 8. He was someone who loved science, with almost religious fervor, and I was raised knowing chemistry and physics from childhood. I played Go with Marshall Nirenberg in the 1950s. He won the Nobel Prize in 1968 for discovering the DNA triplets. I did research on serotonin receptors and LSD at Yale (before LSD was made illegal). I was a chemistry major at Reed College, but I enjoyed quantum physics and held a license to operate the nuclear reactor at Reed. As I grew up, I maintained a commitment to science, tinctured by zoophilia, love of animals. As the Cold War became increasingly ominous, “our friend the atom” didn’t look so friendly. I was raised in perpetual fear of nuclear war in the context of scientific literacy.

What is the salience of gender in discussions and negotiations related to peace and nuclear disarmament?
I have co-authored with my husband, David Barash, four books about sex: Making Sense of Sex: The Biology of Male-Female Differences (1998); The Myth of Monogamy: Fidelity and Infidelity in Animals and People (2001); Strange Bedfellows: the Surprising Connection between Sex, Evolution and Monogamy (2009) and How Women Got Their Curves and Other Just-So Stories (2009). Based on my knowledge of the biology of sex differences, I would have to say that the differences are more political than biological. There is no doubt that in general, critters (like people) that make XY chromosomes, or a large number of small gametes like sperm, are more violent than critters who make XX chromosomes, encased in a small number of large gametes like eggs. Reproductive success depends on whether you are male or female. XX females have a virtual certainty of making as many babies as they choose, while XY critters may not prevail. If you are an elephant seal male, your chances of being a father could be zero, while if you are female you will likely get pregnant every season. This differential reproductive success creates a tendency for males to be more competitive with one another. Females compete as well, for social success (like “catty undermining”) or access to rich males. However, in general, males tend to be larger, more aggressive, and much more violent than females.

Whether this matters at all in discussions of peace and nuclear disarmament, I don’t know. I think Missile Envy, and phallic images of missiles are overrated. I don’t think peace depends on taking the toys away from the boys. Everyone loses in nuclear war. You or your family cannot maximize your reproductive success or be fruitful and multiply if there is a nuclear war.

I don’t know if there is any good data to the effect that males have more “psychic numbing” than females. However, as I suggested in The Caveman and the Bomb (1985, McGraw-Hill), insofar as women – unlike men – are guaranteed relatedness to their children and therefore appear to be more maternally inclined than men are paternal, it is possible that we would all benefit from less patriotism and more matriotism.

Female leaders such as Helen Caldicott and Beatrice Fihn have made enormous contributions to peace, but other females such as Phyllis Schlafly helped to create the US right wing, with its sexism and nationalism. Females can be as brainwashed as males. Hopefully, with access to information, economic equality, and reproductive rights, females should be as capable of doing the nuclear math as males. Nobody wins a nuclear war.

Can you point to a particular experience or person that has most influenced your recent book, Strength Through Peace (2018, Oxford University Press)?
There was no one particular experience or person. My husband and I were living in Costa Rica, and I was intensely happy there. Then I read Nicholas Kristoff’s article about Costa Rica in the New York Times, 2010. Kristoff’s first sentence is “Hmmm. You think it’s a coincidence? Costa Rica is one of the very few countries to have abolished its army, and it’s also arguably the happiest nation on earth.” David and I went on a long intellectual journey trying to find out whether indeed Costa Rica is the happiest nation on earth, and concluded that happiness is elusive and not easily quantified. We gave up on happiness. What we did find is that Costa Rica is perhaps the most successful nation on earth with a moderate GDP, a modest economy, and only 4.8 million people in a country the size of West Virginia. Nicoya, a part of Guanacaste, where we lived, is a Blue Zone, a place where people, especially men, live much longer than average. Costa Rica has universal healthcare, universal access to education, and low birth mortality. We couldn’t put our fingers on happiness, but we could understand health and literacy, and the big correlation is: Costa Rica has abolished its military! They have not spent a colón on the military since 1948.

In general, my life changed in 1980, when Helen Caldicott came to Seattle and stayed with me for 5 days while she did approximately 30 talks, interviews, and meetings She transformed me. She is my mentor and role model.

How do you see the relevance of psychological studies playing out in international relations? Do you think these kinds of studies can affect decisions related to nuclear weapons?
I’m not sure whether academic psychology or psychiatry has much to do with international relations. There have been important psychologists and psychiatrists whose work is pertinent to international history. Robert J. Lifton’s lifelong studies of evil, from Hiroshima to Nazi doctors, has been of ongoing, incalculable benefit. He coined the term “psychic numbing,” as well as “exterminism,” and he dilated upon nuclearism. Eric Fromm’s studies of evil, especially The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness, is important, as is Hannah Arendt’s work on the origins of totalitarianism. Victor Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, and Jerome Frank’s book Sanity and Survival in the Nuclear Age are very important. The problem is, who reads these authors now? Who cares about nuclearism?

One very important area of contribution and collaboration between psychologists, and psychiatrists pertaining to international relations is in game theory. Daniel Ellsberg notes that the theory of deterrence was derived at Harvard from the work of Thomas Schelling, an economist. For decades the Games of Prisoner’s Dilemma and Chicken have dominated nuclear scheming. The problem is that those games do not include provisions for psychosis, evil, and sociopathy. The mental health fields could contribute to debunking deterrence by explaining the deep fallibility of human rationality.

I am more impressed by Masha Gessen and Jill Lepore, historians who write for the New Yorker, than any contemporary psychologists. I find Stephen Pinker’s optimism nauseating. Robert Sapolsky’s work on stress is quite wonderful – but he is a contemporary evolutionary biologist.

When I think of which people helped most to form my worldview, the list would contain Albert Camus, a philosopher (The Plague and The Myth of Sisyphus); Thomas Merton, a monk (A devout meditation on Adolf Eichmann) and Paul Robeson, an opera singer and athlete. Tom Lehrer, the composer and singer, and Bertolt Brecht, The Three Penny Opera. The psychologists Karen Pryor (Don’t Shoot the Dog) and horseman, Philippe Karl, have shaped my approach to training both animals and people.

Recently Bandy X. Lee, a forensic psychiatrist at Yale, who along with Robert J. Lifton have edited a book and promoted the use of the 25th amendment to remove Donald Trump from office. Forensic psychiatrists and psychologists who work on the issue of dangerousness and involuntary commitment have discussed Trump’s apparent mental status and unfitness for duty. They are stepping up to the plate, using their professional knowledge to try to forestall catastrophe.

Other than that, I don’t think contemporary academic psychology has much except common sense to offer international relations: there is no way that 9 countries in the north of the planet should be able to destroy the life on earth. Not as groups or individuals.

It is a ridiculous power imbalance. As Weird Al Yankovic puts it, in Happy Birthday: “It doesn’t take a military genius to see that we’ll all be crispy critters after World War 3.”

What has been one of the most controversial discoveries in your research?
Probably the most controversial finding in our work had to do with sex, not directly with nuclear weapons. But I would say this: There is no instinct, no “hard wiring” for war. There are indeed normal mammalian instincts for sex, aggression, territoriality, competition and cooperation. There are multiple examples in animal behavior of deception and cheating. People are perfectly good mammals, with one intriguing feature: we can override the whisperings within. We don’t have visible heat cycles that make us want to copulate like crazy like cats, dogs, and horses, We can make choices. When we are angry, we can practice mindfulness. We have a huge capacity for patience and deliberation, if we learn to use our frontal lobes. We don’t have to lie, cheat, and scheme. The take home message is that while violence or aggression may be natural, nuclear war is not. But given human propensities, we had best get rid of the damn things.

If you could leave our readers with one insight, whether in connection with health, relations, peace, sexuality, choice etc., what would you like to say?
Look around you at this very moment. Where are you? What do you treasure? The scenery? The features of a building where you sit or stand or see? Creatures, great and small, near and far. Your friends, relatives, children, grandchildren, Your food. Your body, with its breaths and heartbeats? Your future? That of others?

Now try to imagine nothingness. Extinction. Everything totally gone forever. We are trying to save life on earth. There is nothing more important.

Dr. Judith Eve Lipton is a renowned psychiatrist, author and blogger who practiced psychopharmacology and psychosomatic medicine for 30 years. She, along with her husband, David Barash, has co-authored 8 books about war, sex, human nature and nuclear weapons. She is passionate about animals, peace, and the prevention of nuclear war and believes, “There is no way that nine countries in the north of the planet should be able to destroy the life on earth. Not as groups or individuals. It is a ridiculous power imbalance.”

March 8, 2019
Remarks at Occidental College

Acceptance speech for Alumnus of the Year award at Occidental College on June 14, 2008

Thank you. It’s great to be back at Oxy after these many years, and I am very honored to be recognized in this way. Being here brings back wonderful memories.

I’d like to begin by sharing a poem.

THE ONE-HEARTED

The one-hearted walk a lonely trail. They hold the dream of peace between the moon’s eclipse and the rising sun. They set down their weapons, carrying instead the spirits of their ancestors, a collection of smooth stones.

At night, they make fires, and watch the smoke rise into the starlit sky. They are warriors of hope, navigating oceans and crossing continents.

Their message is simple: Now is the time for peace. It always has been.

Since the Vietnam War, when I was a soldier by chance, not by choice, I have fought against militarism, against the needless slaughter of innocents in the false name of security, against the induction of young men, and now young women, into the military on the false premises of valor and necessity. I have fought for justice, for there can be no peace without justice, and I have fought for conscience, for conscience above all else makes us human, and no military machine has the right to dictate or suppress the conscience of any person.

During our lifetimes, our country has initiated aggressive war on far too many occasions, including the current wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, for which there has been no accountability. Even worse, if this is possible, our country and others have engaged in a mad nuclear arms race, preparing for omnicide, for the annihilation of all, in naïve reliance on the theory of deterrence. Even now, with the Cold War nearly two decades behind us, with no explanation but lethargy and inertia, leaders of the nuclear weapons states, and particularly leaders of the United States, continue to hold the world, including our own children and all future generations, hostage to the furious and untamed nuclear might we have created and unloosed upon the world.

There is no goal more worthy of our attention and action than that of ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity. I have had the privilege of friendship with Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project as a matter of conscience and the 1995 Nobel Peace Laureate. His great refrain until he died at the age of 96, echoed from the 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto, to which he was the youngest signer, was this: “Remember your humanity and forget the rest.”

I have had the privilege of knowing many hibakusha, survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, who have warned repeatedly that nuclear weapons and human beings cannot coexist. If we must choose, must we not choose humanity, the vitality of life, all the great accomplishments of the past and the future’s rich potential, over the raw, indecent and murderous power of nuclear arms?

What is it that breeds ignorance and apathy in our country, a country that claims to be the world’s greatest democracy? What is it in our makeup and education that allows us to remain complacent in the face of world-ending weapons of our own making? What is it that makes us celebrate our genius in creating the tools of our own demise? Are our imaginations too weak and our vision too blurred to understand the fate that awaits us if we do not control and eliminate this threat to our common future?

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, which I helped to found and have led for the past 26 years, works to abolish nuclear weapons, strengthen international law and empower a new generation of peace leaders. You can find out more at www.wagingpeace.org. I urge you to join us in this work to build a better future for humanity.

There is an Indian Proverb which states, “All of the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” We must nurture, with all our human capacities, the seeds of peace and human dignity which have been tended so poorly for so long.

The time has come for new energy and leadership to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity, to restore and maintain peace, to live up to the highest standards of human rights, and to repair America’s tattered image in the world. This is a moment of hope for our country and the world. Change is coming, if we choose it. Now is the time for the one-hearted: “Their message is simple: Now is the time for peace. It always has been.”

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He was recognized on June 14, 2008 as the Occidental College Alumnus of the Year.

June 14, 2008
Leadership and Social Change: Making a Difference in the World

Leadership is a concept that can be confusing because it has both institutional and individual dimensions. Institutional leadership is generally based upon role and rank. Think of organizations like government, corporations and the military. The higher you rise in the organizational structure, the more authority that vests in the leadership role. There is a hierarchical structure, and power vests in the upper ranks. At its worst, organizational leadership is authoritarian and dictatorial. At its best, it has open channels of communication for a broad range of ideas to influence decisions and policies.

A good question to consider in thinking about institutional leadership is: To whom is the leader responsible? If the answer is no one, you may have a serious problem. Think of Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini and Joseph Stalin. Think of Augusto Pinochet, the former Chilean dictator. Even in a government with checks and balances, like our own, institutional restraints can be repressed and diminished by leaders bent on concentrating power, bending rules and seeking to stand above the law.

Now, let’s shift from the institutional stage, and look at the qualities of leadership in an individual. The three most important qualities in achieving success for an individual leader are vision, commitment and persistence. A leader must have a vision – a goal or set of goals to be obtained. A leader must be committed to achieving this vision. And a leader must be prepared, if necessary, for a long-term struggle. Think of the Dalai Lama, who repeatedly advises, “Never give up!” That is the spirit of every strong leader.

Vision often will exceed one’s life span, and the commitment to a cause may put one’s life in jeopardy. Think of Martin Luther King, Jr., of Gandhi, or of Cesar Chavez. But think as well of Hitler and Mussolini, who also had visions that exceeded their own life spans, and were committed and persistent.

These qualities, then, by themselves, may be necessary for strong leadership, but not sufficient for decent leadership. To these qualities must be added integrity and honesty, as well as compassion and courage in seeking a greater good for humanity. As Horace Mann, a noted educator, said, “Be ashamed to die until you have won some victory for humanity.”

Great leaders who seek victories for humanity are usually not individuals who only fill institutional roles. They are individuals who have a great vision that will benefit humanity, are committed to achieving it with integrity and honesty, and persist in their efforts with compassion and courage despite seemingly insurmountable obstacles. How many US presidents can you think of who have been great leaders? How many even come close in the quality of their leadership to Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr.?

In our society, leadership is too often dedicated to accumulating wealth and power. Wealth and power are not “a victory for humanity.” They are means to an end. The end may be something decent, such as combating poverty and hunger, but it may also be something selfish, such as personal aggrandizement, or something criminal, such as aggressive war. We must judge leaders not only by what they say, but by what they do, and we must hold them accountable for their actions.

There is much that needs changing in our world. A large percentage of the world’s population lives in dire poverty, without safe drinking water or adequate nutrition. A billion people live on less than one dollar a day. Another billion live on less than two dollars a day. Some 25,000 children under the age of five die daily of starvation and preventable diseases. At the same time, the world spends over a trillion dollars annually on military forces, with the United States alone spending well over half the global total.

We are not living sustainably on the planet. Climate change may result in submerging large portions of the earth under water, causing enormous dislocations, destruction and death. The survival of the human species is endangered due to global warming. It is also endangered, even more urgently, by nuclear weapons – weapons capable of omnicide, the death of all.

And what do we do as a species? The answer is very little. We are mostly ignorant and apathetic. Is this not a situation crying out for leadership? We cannot just continue with business as usual. We are on a collision course with disaster. For many inhabitants of Earth, disaster has already arrived. The world cannot continue to tolerate the myopic visions and cowardly and testosterone-driven actions of some of our most prominent leaders. We need change. We need new vision and hope. We need leadership that points our country and the world in a new direction.

We need to rethink what it means to be number one. We are all perishable, and we live on a perishable planet. The minimum responsibility of each generation is to pass the planet on, if not better than it was inherited, at least intact to the next generation. The power of our technologies, when combined with our capacity for complacency and our penchant for militarism, casts doubt on our ability as a species to continue to fulfill this responsibility.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is a civil society organization that educates and advocates for a world free of nuclear weapons and for strengthening international law. It also seeks to empower a new generation of peace leaders.

The Foundation educates people about the continuing danger of nuclear weapons, and the tragedies that await us if we do not come together to abolish these devices of indiscriminate mass murder. It seeks to awaken people to a real and present danger, a danger that did not go away with the end of the Cold War nearly two decades ago. To end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity will require US leadership, so we must work to awaken Americans to act to abolish these weapons.

The Foundation currently has an Appeal to the Next President for US Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World. We are gathering one million signatures. The Appeal asks the next president to take seven steps that will make the world safer on the way to achieving the total global elimination of nuclear weapons. This is not a call for unilateral disarmament. It is a call for the phased, irreversible, verifiable and transparent global elimination of nuclear weapons. To succeed will require a far stronger commitment to international law. It will also require that people throughout this country snap out of their apathy and lethargy and get involved. It is an awesome challenge and it is a necessary one. It is also achievable.

How does the Foundation empower youth? Actually, we don’t. We encourage young people to empower themselves. We have held a series of Think Outside the Bomb conferences for university students. These conferences teach leadership skills to make a difference, as well as provide information on the enormous nuclear dangers that threaten all of us living on the planet as well as future generations.

We also have a campaign called UC Nuclear Free. It is about awakening students to the fact that the University of California provides management and oversight to the two major nuclear weapons laboratories in the country. Every nuclear weapon in the US arsenal has been designed and developed under the auspices of the University of California. If these weapons are ever used, the death and destruction that ensues will be a foreseeable consequence of the University of California’s involvement. The fact that a great university would lend its name and prestige to the creation, development and improvement of the most deadly weapons ever invented shows how deeply embedded militarism and nuclearism are in our society. The Foundation also has internships and volunteer opportunities for young people. You can find out about these and much more at our www.wagingpeace.org website.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is now 25 years old. We have accomplished a lot in that period, and we still have much more to do. We are gaining in strength, and our work is becoming much more widely embraced. We will not give up and we will attain our goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. When we do, we will have taken a large step for humankind.

We must all live as though the future matters. Since we have technologies capable of foreclosing the future, we must act today to assure that there is a future. An Indian proverb states, “All the flowers of all the tomorrows are in the seeds of today.” Shall we plant the seeds for a future of peace and decency in which we live sustainably on the planet and respect the human rights and dignity of all people and other forms of life? Or, shall we continue to plant the seeds of unsustainability, injustice and war? The latter may be the weeds that overtake the garden due to indifference and apathy.

It is up to each of us. I ask you to commit today to taking three steps. First, envision a better future for humanity. Second, commit yourself to being a leader to create that better future. Third, never give up.

David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org) and has served as its president since 1982. This article is based upon remarks made to the Phi Theta Kappa Honors Society at Santa Barbara City College on May 5, 2008.

May 10, 2008
US Leadership for Global Nuclear Disarmament
“The road from the world of today, with thousands of nuclear weapons in national arsenals to a world free of this threat, will not be an easy one to take, but it is clear that US leadership is essential to the journey and there is growing worldwide support for that civilized call to zero.” Thomas Graham Jr. and Max Kampelman

There will be no substantial progress on nuclear disarmament without the active participation and leadership of the United States. I recognize that many countries and individuals throughout the world are rightly skeptical of US leadership after nearly four decades of noncompliance with Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, and particularly after the past seven years of US nuclear policy under the Bush administration.

But on the issue of nuclear disarmament, there is no choice. If the US does not lead on nuclear disarmament, no substantial progress will be possible, mainly because without US leadership, Russia will not move and this will block the UK, France and China from taking significant steps.

The US has thus far been the limiting factor in progress on nuclear disarmament. It has promoted nuclear double standards and it has provided leadership in the wrong direction, toward long-term reliance on nuclear arms. In 15 votes on nuclear disarmament issues in the 2007 United Nations General Assembly, the US cast a negative vote on every one of the resolutions.

The US has engaged in a preventive war against Iraq, based on the now undisputed lie that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program. The US has threatened Iran because it pursues uranium enrichment. At the same time, the US has supported the transfer of nuclear technology to nuclear-armed India, shielded Israel’s possession of nuclear arms, and sought to replace every thermonuclear warhead in its own arsenal with more “reliable” weapons.

The issues I mention are just the tip of the iceberg, but they demonstrate how nuclear weapons deeply undermine democracy. A small group in power, even a single leader, such as Mr. Bush, can thwart both US and global opinion on nuclear disarmament and, in a worst case, plunge the world into a devastating nuclear war by accident, miscalculation or design.

Kissinger, Shultz, Perry, Nunn and other US foreign policy elites have awakened to the dangers that continued reliance on nuclear weapons pose to the United States. They understand that such reliance makes nuclear proliferation and nuclear terrorism more likely, threatening the cities of the US, its European Allies and others. They understand that deterrence no longer works (if it ever really did) and cannot be relied upon, particularly in the case of extremists in possession of nuclear weapons.

A new US president will be chosen in November. There will be change. The new president will need to hear from the American people and from people throughout the world. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we are partnering with other groups throughout the world to present the new president with one million signatures on an Appeal calling for US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world. The Appeal calls specifically for the new president to take the following steps:
- De-alert. Remove all nuclear weapons from high-alert status, separating warheads from delivery vehicles;
- No First Use. Make legally binding commitments to No First Use of nuclear weapons and establish nuclear policies consistent with this commitment;
- No New Nuclear Weapons. Initiate a moratorium on the research and development of new nuclear weapons, such as the Reliable Replacement Warhead;
- Ban Nuclear Testing Forever. Ratify and bring into force the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
- Control Nuclear Material. Create a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty with provisions to bring all weapons-grade nuclear material and the technologies to create such material under strict and effective international control;
- Nuclear Weapons Convention. Commence good faith negotiations, as required by the Non-Proliferation Treaty, to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention for the phased, verifiable and irreversible elimination of nuclear weapons;
- Resources for Peace. Reallocate resources from the tens of billions currently spent on nuclear arms to alleviating poverty, preventing and curing disease, eliminating hunger and expanding educational opportunities throughout the world.
For all of these points, and others that could be added, political will is more critical than technological skill. The possibility of US leadership on nuclear abolition will be greatly enhanced if the US government is pressured from abroad. The US government needs to hear from its friends. It needs to be pressured by its friends. If NATO continues to buckle under and go along with US opposition to nuclear disarmament due to US pressure, and that of the UK and France, it only enables their nuclear addiction.

We have a saying in the US, “Friends do not let friends drive drunk.” US nuclear policy endangers not only other drivers. It endangers the world. It is time to take away the keys. This can only be done by friends who care enough to act for the good of the drunk and the good of others on the road.

An additional benefit to strong public pressure for nuclear weapons abolition by US allies is that it helps those of us in the US that are seeking to move our own government to take responsible action on this issue. The opening for US leadership created by the Kissinger-Shultz group can be bolstered by strong statements from US friends abroad. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Appeal to the Next President will also be furthered by such support. And, of course, it will matter greatly who is chosen as the next president. Friends from abroad can help us to choose wisely by emphasizing the decisive importance of US leadership for global nuclear disarmament.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a member of the Executive Committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.
April 2, 2008
The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Needs You

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (NAPF) is a civil society organization, made up of and supported by individuals who care about its goals. Like thousands of other civil society organizations throughout the world, the Foundation tries to accomplish goals that will make the world a better place.

The principal goal of NAPF is to abolish nuclear weapons. This is a goal that it cannot accomplish directly. It is a goal, for example, that differs from the direct assistance of providing food or medical supplies to disaster victims or people living in extreme poverty. To achieve its goal of abolishing nuclear weapons, NAPF must exert influence on public policy, leading to creating a world free of nuclear weapons. The Foundation works by educating and advocating. For its work, the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has been recognized by the United Nations as a Peace Messenger organization.

Since the goal of creating a world free of nuclear weapons requires a broad international effort and the Foundation has limited resources, it must be strategic in fulfilling its mission. Thus, NAPF has concluded that it is best to direct its efforts for change by working with international networks of like-minded civil society organizations and by focusing specifically on changing US nuclear policy.

In its networking, NAPF helped found the Abolition 2000 Global Network for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons, a network now linking over 2,000 organizations and municipalities worldwide. It was also a founding member of the Middle Powers Initiative, a coalition of international organizations that works with middle power governments to apply pressure to the nuclear weapons states for nuclear disarmament. NAPF helped found the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility. The Foundation also maintains an office in Washington, DC where it networks with US arms control and disarmament organizations on nuclear policy issues coming before the Congress. The Foundation continues to be active in all of these networks, providing leadership where it can.

The Foundation is a US-based organization, and it has concluded that US leadership is necessary in order to make significant progress in eliminating nuclear weapons. Thus, NAPF puts special emphasis on educating the US public on issues of nuclear weapons dangers and the need to abolish these weapons. It also seeks to influence US policy makers to assert greater leadership in this policy area.

More than 60 years into the Nuclear Age, there is today not one US Senator that champions the abolition of nuclear weapons as one of his or her principal legislative goals. Nor has such leadership been exerted by any US President, although many have noted the importance of this issue.

The Foundation has concentrated on building its base by educating the public on the need to abolish nuclear weapons and by advocating positions that the public can press for with their elected representatives. The Foundation believes that public pressure is needed to move policy makers to take stronger positions on the elimination of nuclear weapons.

There are many obstacles to achieving change in the area of US nuclear policy. First, the mainstream media are not highly receptive to the Foundation’s message. Second, psychological factors of fear, denial and apathy make this a difficult issue for attracting widespread public involvement. Third, the public most likely also feels that their voices do not count on this issue and that policy makers do not pay attention to them. Fourth, there are corporate interests with profit motivations exerting a strong counterinfluence on the US government.

Despite these obstacles, public opinion polls show that over 70 percent of Americans favor nuclear disarmament. It is significant that there is a major disconnect between the majority of people in the US and their government on the issue of eliminating nuclear arsenals. The US government, for reasons having more to do with power and profit than security, finds it preferable to continue to rely upon nuclear weapons, even in light of the dangers of these weapons falling into the hands of terrorists who could not be deterred from using them.

A number of former high-level US policy makers – including Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn – have concluded that the world is at a nuclear “tipping point,” and that it is strongly in the US interest to provide leadership for a world free of nuclear weapons. This is the position that the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation reached 25 years ago.

The Foundation has been a voice of conscience and sanity on the nuclear threat confronting humanity for 25 years. It has also been a voice largely in the wilderness. NAPF has been right, but it has been ignored. It is time for new leadership in America. The Foundation’s vision of a world free of nuclear weapons and US leadership to obtain this goal should be at the forefront of a new direction for the country.

Without US leadership, the goal of a nuclear weapons-free world is not a possibility. With US leadership, the US can take important steps to assure its own future security, as well as that of humanity, and can free up resources for constructive pursuits.

The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s work is more critical than ever. But to succeed as a civil society organization, the Foundation needs greater personal and financial support from civil society. Those who give low priority to abolishing nuclear weapons are rolling the dice on the future of their children, grandchildren and all generations to follow. Abolishing nuclear weapons is the Foundation’s mission; it is also a responsibility of all of us alive on the planet today.

David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

February 4, 2008
The Case for US Leadership for a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
1. Continued reliance on nuclear weapons by powerful countries will lead to nuclear proliferation and increase the possibility of nuclear weapons falling into the hands of terrorist groups.
2. Terrorists cannot be deterred from using nuclear weapons. Terrorist groups do not have a fixed territory, and it isn’t credible to threaten retaliation against a group that you cannot locate.
3. A terrorist use of nuclear weapons against a powerful country could destroy cities and have many other detrimental effects on the social, political and economic fabric of the state.
4. Graham Allison, an expert at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, thinks there is a 50 percent chance of terrorists using nuclear weapons over the next ten years.
5. The only way to assure that terrorists do not obtain and use nuclear weapons is to dramatically reduce the number of nuclear weapons in the world and bring all nuclear weapons and the material to make them under strict international control.
6. To achieve this goal will require US leadership. If the US does not lead, there is no incentive for Russia to substantially reduce its arsenal, and consequently other states will not join in.
7. US leadership for a nuclear weapons free world is very much in its own interest – to assure that terrorists do not obtain the only weapons that could inflict major damage on the US population, and to assure that major nuclear states do not use nuclear weapons by accident or design.
8. A further reason that the US should provide leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world is that the US was the first country to develop nuclear weapons and to use them.
9. An even more important reason for US leadership for a nuclear weapons-free world is to move toward creating a safe and sustainable world of opportunities for our children, grandchildren and generations to follow.
10. Already some US leaders have seen the need for US leadership for a nuclear weapons free world and attempted to exercise such leadership. Ronald Reagan did so at a summit with Mikhail Gorbachev in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1986. Former high-level US officials Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn are calling now for such leadership.
David Krieger is President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.
January 30, 2008
Leader or Follower? Powell Chose the Latter

Colin Powell is coming to Santa Barbara to give a talk on “Leadership: Taking Charge.” His presence in the community and his topic provide an opportunity to consider what it means to be a leader.

In the military model, with which Mr. Powell is most familiar, leaders give orders and followers obey. It is a hierarchical structure in which one must be an obedient follower as well as an order giver or relayer of orders from above. In this model, leadership is based principally upon the authority of one’s role. Generals give orders to colonels; colonels to majors; and so on. In the hierarchical chain of command, the commander-in-chief is at the top of the ladder, and the young recruits at the bottom of the ladder. The private who efficiently follows orders will move up the ladder. Military leadership places a premium on obedience and loyalty: doing what one is told to do. Armies run on obedience to orders.

In the US military, as with most militaries, soldiers are, however, also subject to the law. They are informed in military handbooks that they have a duty to refuse to obey illegal orders. Examples of such orders might be to kill prisoners of war, commit torture or to bomb civilian populations. What is a soldier to do when confronted with such illegal orders? Obey or disobey? Remain silent and carry out the order, or speak out and inform the world of the illegal orders?

A tension is created between the hierarchical following of orders and the duty to break the chain of command when it comes to illegal orders. It is easier to build a career within the military by going along and not challenging orders from above. To speak out and challenge orders, on any grounds, runs the risk of ending one’s career within a hierarchical system. One cannot be both a “good soldier” who follows orders, regardless of their legality, and also one who does his duty to refuse illegal orders.

Colin Powell has always been a good soldier. He impressed his superiors in the military and in the upper reaches of government sufficiently to become the head of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and was then appointed Secretary of State by George W. Bush. He was also well regarded by the public as a man who was both reasonable and responsible. When Mr. Bush initially took his case for war against Iraq to the United Nations, the Security Council balked at giving Mr. Bush the authority to go to war against Iraq, and chose instead to “remain seized” of the matter. Despite the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq was engaged in programs developing weapons of mass destruction, the United Nations inspectors were not finding such weapons or related programs on the ground in Iraq.

To Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State who was widely regarded by the general public as the most trustworthy member of Bush’s cabinet, fell the task of making the case for war against Iraq at the UN Security Council. On February 6, 2003, Powell went before the Security Council and presented the members with false and misleading evidence of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction. Relying upon the clearly faulty intelligence about aluminum tubing for a uranium enrichment program, Powell told the Council, for example, “We have no indication that Saddam Hussein has ever abandoned his nuclear weapons program. On the contrary, we have more than a decade of proof that he remains determined to acquire nuclear weapons.”

There are times when being a leader means doing what is right, regardless of the consequences. Powell could, perhaps, have stopped a needless and illegal war. He chose, instead, to use his goodwill as a messenger presenting the Bush administration’s case for war to the United Nations Security Council and, at the same time, to the American people. He chose obedience to authority and loyalty to his “chain of command” over respect for truth, human life and international law.

In the end, Powell must carry a heavy weight on his shoulders, for he might well have prevented the invasion of Iraq by taking the bold and courageous step of resigning his office. He could have then told the truth to the American people, rather than making a false case for war, even if it meant simply reflecting the ambiguity and doubts of the intelligence on which he drew. Ironically, Powell’s assertions at the UN met with strong rebuttals by UN inspectors, but his prestige and the public’s confidence in him seemed to reassure the American people and the Congress.

The American people should be highly skeptical of General Powell. He had a critical moment to be a leader and he chose instead to be a follower. Rather than leadership for peace, he joined in promoting misrepresentations that led the United States into a war that has now resulted in the deaths of over 2,000 American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians. Sadly, Mr. Powell has proven that he is not a man to look to for leadership, nor one to pontificate about it. He owes the country an apology, which would require self-reflection and courage, two other traits of a good leader.

Mr. Powell is now free from the constraints of military hierarchy and enjoys the rights and responsibilities associated with being a US citizen. Even if he had been in some way convinced of the truthfulness of his statements about Iraq at the time they were made, he must by now surely have serious doubts about their veracity. With these doubts arises a solemn responsibility (and opportunity) to express them publicly, thereby breaking his silent assent to the continuing tragedy of the Iraq war and reasserting his claim to leadership.

David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of many studies of peace in the Nuclear Age, and has been a leader in the global effort to abolish nuclear weapons. This article was published in the Santa Barbara News-Press on February 12, 2006.

February 12, 2006
From Hiroshima to Humanity

The first test of a nuclear weapon occurred on July 16, 1945. The test took place in the New Mexico desert at a place called Jornada del Muerto, the “Journey of Death.” The head of the scientific research effort for the Manhattan Project, Robert Oppenheimer, quoted these lines from the Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita, when he saw that first nuclear explosion turn the sky white: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.”

Within a month, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japan, first at Hiroshima and then at Nagasaki, on August 6th and 9th respectively. While there was general elation in the US at the subsequent ending of the war, some American leaders expressed misgivings about the necessity and morality of the use of nuclear weapons.

General Dwight Eisenhower was critical of the use of the bomb and voiced his concerns to Secretary of War Stimson. Eisenhower later wrote, “ Japan was at that very moment seeking some way to surrender with minimum loss of ‘face.’ It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.”

Admiral William Leahy, President Truman’s Chief of Staff, was even stronger in his condemnation of the use of atomic weapons on Japan. “My own feeling,” he said, “was that in being the first to use it, we had adopted an ethical standard common to the barbarians of the Dark Ages. I was not taught to make war in that fashion, and wars cannot be won by destroying women and children….”

This year marks the sixtieth anniversary of the first use of atomic weapons. In Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the aging hibakusha, survivors of the bombings, will gather to again make their plea that nuclear weapons be abolished. Many of these survivors have made it their life work to assure that their past is not humanity’s future. They are convinced that nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist, and that we must eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us.

Sixty years after Hiroshima and nearly fifteen years after the end of the Cold War, there are still some 20,000 to 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world. The US and Russia have over 95 percent of these weapons, and each still maintain some 2,000 nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. In all, nine countries are believed to have nuclear weapons: US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea. Japan is a virtual nuclear weapons state, having both the plutonium and the technology to become a major nuclear power in a matter of weeks. There is much concern that Iran is on its way to also becoming a nuclear weapons state.

Nuclear proliferation is a serious problem, but so is the failure to achieve nuclear disarmament. In the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty, the non-nuclear weapons states agreed not to develop or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, and the nuclear weapons states agreed to assist them with developing peaceful nuclear technology and to engage in good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament.

Most of the parties to the treaty, nearly all countries in the world, believe that the nuclear weapons states have not fulfilled their obligation to achieve nuclear disarmament. At the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference in 2000, the nuclear weapons states agreed to move toward fulfilling their part of the bargain by adopting 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. The Bush administration has since disavowed these obligations.

In 2005, at the Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, the Bush administration’s policies of non-cooperation were made clear to the world, although not necessarily to the American people, when the US put up obstacles to even creating an agenda for the conference. The administration doesn’t seem to understand that nuclear proliferation and nuclear disarmament are inextricably interlinked: without nuclear disarmament, nuclear proliferation is virtually assured.

Nor is there a clear understanding of the ineffectiveness of a nuclear arsenal in defending against a terrorist nuclear threat. If terrorists succeed in obtaining nuclear weapons, they will not hesitate to use them. They will not be deterred by the thousands of nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nuclear weapons states because it is impossible to deter a group you can’t locate. Thus, nuclear weapons provide no defense against extremist nuclear threats or attacks. Additionally, a costly missile defense system offers no protection against a terrorist nuclear attack that is more likely to be delivered by a suitcase or van than by an intercontinental ballistic missile.

George Bush has pointed out that “free societies don’t develop weapons of mass terror and don’t blackmail the world.” This suggests that either he does not think the US is a free society, which is unlikely, or he doesn’t understand that nuclear weapons are weapons of mass terror. On the sixtieth anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing, it would be valuable for someone on his staff to explain to him that the US was the first country to develop such weapons of mass terror and the only country to have used them.

The American people need to wake up to the jeopardy we face due to the lack of US leadership toward nuclear disarmament. So long as the US holds onto these weapons, others will be encouraged and inspired to develop them. By taking seriously its legal and moral obligations to achieve the elimination of all nuclear weapons in the world, the US will be improving its own security, protecting its cities, and leaving behind the Journey of Death – the all too apt name of the birthplace of nuclear weapons – in favor of the path of peace.

David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of many studies of peace in the Nuclear Age. His latest books are Today Is Not a Good Day for War and Einstein – Peace Now!

August 6, 2005
It Is Up To Us

I am very honored by this award, and I accept it on behalf of all the people I work with and have struggled with to build a better world – particularly my colleagues at the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

When we founded the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we believed that we cannot sit back and wait for leaders like Mikhail Gorbachev. Such leaders – with his wisdom, vision and courage – are all too rare.

We believed that we ordinary citizens must step forward, and create the change we wish to see in the world.

My life was transformed when, shortly after graduating from college, I visited Hiroshima.

The Peace Memorial Museum in Hiroshima awakened me, as I had not been before, to the true extent of the dangers of the Nuclear Age.

Over the years since then, I have come to know many of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They are called hibakusha. With one voice, they say, “Never again! We will not repeat the evil.”

The hibakusha understand, as few others in this world do, that nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist, and that we must eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us.

That is our challenge. It is the challenge that I confront daily. It is the challenge of our time and of our generation. It is a challenge we cannot fail to accept and we cannot fail to accomplish.

I believe that each generation has a responsibility to pass the world on intact to the next generation. You might say that that is the least we can do for the future.

But for us in the Nuclear Age, this is a more difficult task than ever before. Nuclear weapons contain the potential to foreclose a human future.

If we succeed in eliminating these weapons of genocide, indeed omnicide, we will be viewed in the future as having done our part to save the world.

If we fail, there may be no future generations to remember us or to judge us.

We in the United States must press our government to stop being the greatest obstacle to nuclear disarmament. It is not in our interest, nor that of our children, for our government to cling tenaciously to these terrible weapons and even try, as it is doing now, to create new nuclear weapons for specific purposes.

Rather, the United States, as the world’s most powerful nation, should, in our own interest and that of humanity, lead the way to a world free of nuclear weapons.

It is up to us to change our country and the world.

Each of us can be as powerful as anyone who ever lived. All we need to do is set our intentions and take a first step. Without doubt, a first step will lead to a second, and we will be on our way.

We are all gifted with consciences to guide us, with voices we can raise, with arms to embrace, and with feet to take a stand. These are the gifts with which the future calls out to us to act.

We must fight ignorance with education, apathy with direction, complacency with vision, and despair with hope. We owe this to ourselves and to our children.

I’d like to conclude with an excerpt from a poem in my new book. The poem is about hibakusha, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and it is about silence. It is called Hibakusha Do Not Just Happen, and this is the way it ends:

For every hibakusha many must contribute For every hibakusha many must obey For every hibakusha many must be silent

It is up to us to break the silence – for each other, for humanity and for the future.

April 15, 2005
Hope in the Face of Darkness

I am very happy to be here with you. I want to thank the organizers of this conference and the members of the Youth Peace Conference.

I feel a great sense of hopefulness in this room, coming from your hearts. I know you have accomplished great things in the past and I know of your commitment to continue to meet the challenges that confront humanity.

I hold your president, Daisaku Ikeda, in the highest regard, and consider him to be one of the true world citizens and peace leaders of our time. It was my great privilege last year to present him with our Foundation’s World Citizen Award. It was also my privilege to engage in a dialogue with him, which was published this year on August 6th under the title, Choose Hope.

In our dialogue we discussed the route to achieving a world free of nuclear weapons and a world at peace. We also looked at the role of education, literature and poetry in shaping our lives. There was nothing we agreed upon more strongly than the importance of hope and of youth in shaping our common future. We share the belief that it is indeed possible to shape a peaceful future, and that youth must help lead the way.

The title for this talk was chosen in the aftermath of the September 11th terrorist attacks in New York and Washington. Those attacks were meticulously planned. They were attacks against symbols of US economic and military power, but they were far more than symbolic. They took some 3,000 to 4,000 innocent lives. The intentional taking of innocent lives is a mark of darkness on our planet.

Each life is a miracle. Each of us is a miracle. We cannot explain by logic or experience where we come from before birth or where we go after death. We have no way to comprehend the mystery of life or the mystery of our universe. We can only appreciate that we exist on this Earth at this time in this vast and expanding universe, and try to use our precious lives for good purposes.

As shocking as terrorism may be, it is far from our only problem or even our major problem. We still live in a world in which some 30,000 children die daily from starvation and preventable diseases.

We live in a world in which the richest 20 percent control 80 percent of the resources. Some 450 billionaires have combined incomes equal to over half of the world’s population. While some on our planet live in lavish abundance with every material advantage imaginable, others live in abject poverty, lacking even the basic resources needed to survive.

The world spends some $750 billion annually on military forces and weapons, while for a fraction of this amount everyone on the planet could have clean water, adequate food, health care, education, shelter and clothing.

There are some 30 to 40 wars going on at any given time. Injustice, disparity and old and new hatreds give rise to these wars. The vast majority of the casualties are civilians. In these wars, some 300,000 child soldiers participate. These wars destroy the environment, the infrastructure in already poor countries, and produce new masses of refugees.

In many parts of the world, people suffer from massive human rights abuses. These abuses fall most heavily on women and children.

As a species, but particularly in the developed world, we are using up the resources of our planet at a prodigious rate. In doing so, we are robbing future generations of their ability to share in the use of these resources.

We are also polluting our land, air and water – our most precious resources that we need for survival – with chemical, biological and radiological poisons.

If all of this were not enough, we have developed and deployed tens of thousands of nuclear weapons capable of destroying humanity and most of life. Many people think that this problem has ended, but it has not. There are still more than 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world and some 4,500 of them are on hair-trigger alert.

We have reached a point where all of us should be concerned and responsive. Things could grow still worse, however. Nuclear, chemical or biological weapons in the hands of terrorists would multiply the dangers. Instead of buildings being destroyed, nuclear weapons could cause the destruction of whole cities. Imagine the damage that could be done if terrorists had nuclear weapons. This danger cannot be dismissed.

Humanity can no longer afford or tolerate the damage that hatred can cause. Nor can humanity afford or tolerate the suffering and premature death that has been the lot of the poor.

Far too many people on this Earth live in despair and hopelessness. These are afflictions of the soul that go beyond physical pain.

Others, who should know better, live in selfishness, ignorance and apathy. In many ways, these are even crueler afflictions of the soul. They are symptoms of the disease of selfishness of the Roman Emperor Nero, who fiddled while Rome burned.

It is not always easy to have hope in the face of darkness, but it is necessary. If we give up hope for bringing about change, we give away our power and diminish the possibilities for change.

Hope must be a conscious choice. There are always reasons for giving up and retreating into selfishness, ignorance and apathy. If you want hope, you must choose it. It will not necessarily choose you. The way to choose hope is by your actions to achieve a better world.

There are important reasons, though, to have hope.

The most important reason for me is the power of the human spirit. The human spirit is amazing. It is capable of achieving sublime beauty and overcoming tremendous obstacles. All greatness – in art, music, literature, science, engineering and peace – is a triumph of the human spirit. But the greatest triumph of the human spirit comes from choosing a compassionate goal and persisting in overcoming obstacles to achieve this goal. All worthy goals require persistence to achieve. They will not happen overnight.

We should celebrate the spirit of the hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings. They are fighting for a better world, a world in which nuclear weapons will never again be used. They have been proposed to receive the Nobel Prize for Peace. I would strongly support their nomination for this recognition and high honor.

Miyoko Matsubara was a young girl when the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima. She has had a dozen or more surgeries and has suffered from breast cancer, but her spirit is indomitable. She learned English and has traveled throughout the United States and Europe to tell her story to young people in the hope that they will understand nuclear dangers and not suffer her fate. When I think of Miyoko, I think of her humble but determined spirit. She is a woman who has suffered and who bows deeply.

Sadako Sasaki was two years old when the bomb fell on Hiroshima. When she was 12 years old she suffered from leukemia as a result of her exposure to radiation, and was hospitalized. She folded paper cranes with the wish of being healthy again. She folded some two-thirds of the 1000 paper cranes that she hoped would make her wish come true. On one of these cranes she wrote, “I will write peace on your wings and you will fly all over the world.”

After Sadako died, her classmates finished folding the cranes. Today Sadako’s statue stands in Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park. The base of the statue is always covered in thick layers of folded cranes that have been placed there by children from throughout Japan and from throughout the world. Children all over the world know of Sadako’s story and her courage.

Nelson Mandela fought for the rights of his people and an end to apartheid in South Africa. The government of South Africa put him in prison, where he remained for 27 years. Despite his imprisonment, he was able to maintain his spirit and his hope. When he was finally released from prison, he became the first black president of his country. Instead of seeking vengeance, he presided over a peaceful transition of power in South Africa, appointing a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to offer pardons to all who confessed their misdeeds during the period of apartheid.

The first two presidents of Soka Gakkai went to prison rather than fight as soldiers in a war they thought was wrong. I admire their spirits. Mr. Makiguchi died in prison, and Mr. Toda came out to re-build this organization dedicated to applying Buddhist principles to social action. Mr. Toda left a lasting legacy to Soka Gakkai when he called nuclear weapons an “absolute evil,” and called upon the youth of Soka Gakkai to join in ending this evil.

You responded magnificently to this challenge when you gathered more than 13 million signatures on the Abolition 2000 International Petition calling for ending the nuclear threat, signing a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons and reallocating resources from nuclear weapons to meeting human needs. This petition was presented to the United Nations, but much more needs to be done.

There are so many people whose lives reflect the best of the human spirit. Another is Hafsat Abiola, who was one of our Foundation’s honorees for our 2001 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award. Hafsat’s father was the first democratically elected president of Nigeria, but he was not able to serve even one day because he was imprisoned by the military. When Hafsat’s mother fought for democracy in her country and for her husband’s release from prison, she was assassinated. On the day before Hafsat’s father was to be released from prison, he, too, was killed.

Despite the pain of losing her parents, Hafsat is without bitterness or rancor. After graduating from Harvard University, she started an organization named for her mother, the Kudirat Initiative for Democracy (KIND). Hafsat works for democracy and for the rights of women and children throughout Africa.

One other example of the power of the human spirit is found in Nobel Peace Laureate Mairead Corrigan Maguire. Mairead was a young woman working as a secretary in Northern Ireland when disaster struck her family. Mairead’s sister and her sister’s three young children were hit by an out of control car when British forces shot an IRA getaway driver. Two of the children died and the pain was so great that Mairead’s sister later committed suicide.

Mairead debated what she should do. She considered taking up arms against the British, but she instead choose the course of non-violence. Mairead and another woman, Betty Williams, organized peace gatherings in Northern Ireland. They brought together hundreds of thousands of ordinary people calling for peace. The important thing for you to note is that Mairead herself was a very ordinary person, who became extraordinary because of her choices that reflected courage, compassion and commitment. Today she is the most active of the Nobel Peace Laureates, and often brings them together to speak and act on important peace issues.

A second reason for hope is that even improbable change does occur. Changes that no expert could predict sometimes occur with incredible speed. Relationships change and new possibilities for peace open up, such as occurred in US-China relations in the early 1970s. The Cold War ended after more than four decades of tension and conflict between East and West. This was symbolized by the fall of the Berlin Wall, which opened the way for a reunited Germany. Pieces of that wall with their graffiti are now souvenirs sold to tourists. I have such a small piece of the wall in my office. It reminds me that great barriers can come down.

Nelson Mandela went from being a prisoner of a repressive government to becoming president of South Africa. Similar stories mark the lives of Lech Walesa of Poland and Vaclav Havel of the Czech Republic. These changes are not predictable, and are usually the result of efforts that have been taking place over a long period of time by committed individuals, generally outside the glare of the media spotlight.

A third reason for hope is the Power of One. Individuals can and do make a difference in our world. The second person our Foundation honored with our 2001 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award was Craig Kielburger. Craig is 18 years old, but he is already an old hand at social change. What changed Craig’s life was reading about a 12-year-old Pakistani boy, Iqbal Masih, when Craig was himself only 12 years old. Iqbal had been sold into bonded labor as a carpet weaver and had been virtually a slave, chained to his carpet loom for 14 to 16 hours a day. Somehow he had been able to get free, and began speaking out against child labor. Iqbal was given the Reebok Human Rights Award, but when he returned to Pakistan he was murdered by the “Carpet mafia.”

Craig thought about Iqbal being the same age as he was. When Craig went to school that day, he told his friends about Iqbal and insisted that they do something to further the cause of children’s rights for which Iqbal had been fighting. That was the beginning of a new organization, Free the Children, founded by Craig Kielburger at the age of 12.

Today, six years later, Craig’s organization has grown to over 100,000 members. It is the largest organization of children helping children in the world. They have been responsible for freeing thousands of children from bonded labor, and they have built hundreds of schools in places where children were previously not able to obtain a basic education. Craig travels throughout the world to learn and to inspire young people to get involved and make a difference.

Let me review. Three important reasons to have hope are: the power of the human spirit; the fact that improbable change does occur; and the Power of One. The most important reason, though, is that hope is needed to change the world, and you cannot leave this job to others. Your hope and your help are needed.

The greatest enemies of change are selfishness, apathy and ignorance. These are the enemies of hope. I urge you to resist these at all costs.

Selfishness is a narrow way to live. It is about what you have, not what you do. Rich lives are not about the money we accumulate, but about the ways in which we interconnect and help others. The antidote to selfishness is compassion, built upon helping others.

Apathy is about not caring about others. It is a lack of interest and a failure to engage in trying to make a difference. The antidote to apathy is caring and commitment.

Ignorance in the midst of information is also about not caring – not caring enough to find out about the problems that confront us. I recently visited Sadako Peace Garden, the small garden that we created in Santa Barbara on the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima. Each year on August 6th we hold a commemoration at the garden for all who died and suffered in Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

It is a very beautiful natural garden. It has many wonderful trees, but there is one immense and dramatic eucalyptus tree at one end of the garden that is called the Tree of Faith. The garden also has large rocks in which cranes have been carved.

In that garden, people sometimes leave folded paper cranes and short messages hanging from the oak trees. On the day I visited, I found this message: “There are many things here I do not know, the knowing of which could change everything.” What a powerful message. The antidote to ignorance is knowledge.

We must be seekers of knowledge, not for its own sake but to better understand our world so that we can engage in it and break our bonds of selfishness with a compassionate response to life. I don’t think this is asking too much of ourselves or each other. It is the essence of being human.

Don’t be constrained by national boundaries. Recognize the essential equality and dignity of every person on the planet. This is the basic starting point of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

Don’t expect to change the world overnight. Change seldom occurs that way. Trees grow from seeds. They all begin small, and some grow large. Sometimes they become magnificent. Often they need care and nurturing. Most of what we do to achieve a better world will require patience and persistence.

I encourage you to plant seeds of peace by your engagement in issues of social justice, by your efforts to create a more decent world in which everyone can live with dignity.

I have with me a seed from the Tree of Faith in Sadako Peace Garden. It has within it all that is necessary to become a great magnificent tree, just as you have within you all that is needed to become a great human being and a leader for peace.

I want to conclude by asking you to take three specific actions.

First, take the pledge of Earth Citizenship: “I pledge allegiance to the Earth and to its varied life forms; one World, indivisible, with liberty, justice and dignity for all.” That is the world we need to create. I also want to encourage you to study two very important documents, The Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Earth Charter. Please be an active and responsible citizen of our planet. Nothing less will do.

Second, help to build schools in areas of great need. We have joined with Free the Children to raise funds to build schools in post-conflict areas, such as Chiapas, Mexico and Sierra Leone in Africa. For between $5,000 and $10,000 dollars a school can be built and a teacher provided for students who would otherwise not get a primary education. Free the Children has already built over 100 of these schools in poor countries. This is one of the best ways I can think of to make a difference in our world.

Third, make a commitment to work for a nuclear weapons free future. Recognize the essential truth that human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist. Choose life and a human future. In the past you helped gather 13 million signatures on the Abolition 2000 International Petition. Today I’d like to ask you to do even more.

Work to make your school, your community, your nation and our world nuclear weapons free zones.

Organize letter writing and petition campaigns to the media and to government leaders.

Promote the idea of a Nobel Peace Prize for the hibakusha of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to bring global attention to their cry of “Never Again!”

Use the sunflower as the symbol of achieving a nuclear weapons-free world.

I urge you also to join us in also gathering support for the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Appeal to End the Nuclear Weapons Threat to Humanity, and sending it to leaders of your country and other countries throughout the world. The Appeal, which has already been signed by some of the great peace leaders of our time, asks the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to take five critical actions for the benefit of all humanity. These are:

– De-alert all nuclear weapons and de-couple all nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles. – Reaffirm commitments to the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty. – Commence good faith negotiations to achieve a Nuclear Weapons Convention requiring the phased elimination of all nuclear weapons, with provisions for effective verification and enforcement. – Declare policies of No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and policies of No Use against non-nuclear weapons states. – Reallocate resources from the tens of billions of dollars currently being spent for maintaining nuclear arsenals to improving human health, education and welfare throughout the world. – Not one of these critical actions was even addressed by Presidents Bush and Putin at their summit in Crawford, Texas in November. Their pledge to unilaterally reduce their arsenals of strategic nuclear weapons to between 2,200 and 1,700 over a ten-year period is inadequate and represents their desire to continue to rely upon their nuclear arsenals. We must ask that these leaders take up again the issue of nuclear disarmament in a far more serious way when they meet again in Moscow next March. If they do not, they and we will face the risk that terrorists will be able to purchase, steal or develop nuclear weapons and destroy our cities.

I would encourage delegations of youth representatives to travel to Washington, Moscow, Tokyo and other key capitals to make the case for ending the nuclear weapons threat to humanity. We cannot rely upon the leaders of the nuclear weapons states to solve the problems themselves. They need the help and encouragement of all of us. This is part of our responsibility as citizens of planet Earth.

If serious progress on nuclear disarmament is not made soon, you will be inheriting the nuclear dangers that are left behind. Time is of the essence and we must approach nuclear disarmament now as if the future of civilization depended upon our success in convincing world leaders to adequately control and eliminate these weapons and the fissile materials needed to create them.

I hope that I have challenged you, particularly with the actions I have proposed. I have confidence that you will meet the challenge of being an active participant in creating a more just and decent future for humanity, a future you can be proud to pass on to your children and grandchildren.

I encourage you to choose hope and then never lose hope, even in the face of darkness. Your success in life will be something that only you can judge, but I believe the right criteria for you to use are compassion, commitment and courage. I hope that you will work to achieve a better world, and I know that you can and will make a difference.

*David Krieger is president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

December 24, 2001