Nuclear Age Peace Foundation

Tag: nuclear abolition

  • An Appeal to the Religious Communities of America

    “The warhorse is a vain hope for victory, and by its great might it cannot save.” –Psalm 33

    Nuclear weapons merit unequivocal and unhesitating condemnation. The 30,000 around the globe have more than 100,000 times the explosive power of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. These are doomsday arms-genocidal, ecocidal and suicidal.

    It is our belief that only God has the authority to end all life on the planet; all we have is the power, and it is past time to surrender it.

    To live in a world within minutes of possible annihilation is to defy God’s will, not to do God’s will. Therefore, we turn to you, our fellow believers. We want, we need your help to end this deadly peril to humanity and its habitat.

    Some important history. When the cold war ended, many thought the nuclear danger had ended with it. It did not, and now, having assumed a more sinister shape, it is mounting again.

    Scores of admirals and generals from many countries have come to believe that nuclear weapons invite far more than they deter catastrophic conflict. Recently, Robert McNamara described them as “illegal, immoral, militarily unnecessary, and dreadfully dangerous.”

    Among other Americans who agree are General Andrew Goodpaster, former Supreme Allied Commander in Europe; and General Lee Butler, once Commander-in-Chief of the Strategic Air Command (SAC).

    To these military leaders it is clear beyond denial that the possession of nuclear weapons by some states is the strongest incentive for other states to acquire them. They are also painfully aware that nuclear weapons, while most useful to terrorists, are utterly useless against them.

    Consequently, these leaders now advocate, as do we, the abolition of all nuclear arsenals. As General Butler declared five years ago, “A world free of the threat of nuclear weapons is necessarily a world devoid of nuclear weapons.”

    All Americans should know that the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty was a grand design struck in 1970. Since that time, over one hundred eighty non-nuclear countries have promised to forego nuclear weapons provided the nuclear powers abolished theirs.

    In other words—and this is crucial—non-proliferation was, from the beginning, inextricably linked to nuclear disarmament.

    But instead of honoring their obligations under Article VI of the treaty, the nuclear powers have substituted a double standard for the single one intended.

    For 35 years, they have practiced nuclear apartheid, arrogating to themselves the right to build, deploy, and threaten to use nuclear weapons, while policing the rest of the world against their production. It was a policy too blatantly unjust to be politically sustainable.

    There was a hopeful moment in 2000, when the five initial nuclear powers, including the United States, pledged “an unequivocal undertaking to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” But our government today refuses to honor this and other past pledges. As a result, the Non-Proliferation Treaty is unraveling. Other countries may soon follow the lead of North Korea, which withdrew from the treaty in 2003.

    A perilous situation now confronts humanity. The possibility of abolishing nuclear weapons is an opportunity we must seize, for time is running out. The tyranny of the urgent is today’s reality.

    A world free of nuclear weapons would represent a giant step towards the ultimate goal of a world free of war. People would become much less fearful, far more peace-minded, and the change would be reflected in military budgets.

    It is dispiriting to learn that, led by the United States, global military spending last year rose by six percent to top one trillion dollars. As a result, this year millions of people in the Third World will continue not only to be killed in wars but also to die in greater numbers from preventable and treatable diseases, while the children of the poor in America will continue to have their medical and educational needs untended. It is heartbreaking.

    Therefore, on this 60th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, leaders from several religious traditions formed an ‘Interreligious Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons.’ Its aim is to work with all Americans—and people abroad—who agree with the statement:

    “No country shall have nuclear weapons.”

    We call on all members of America’s religious communities, as a testament of our common faith, to sign this appeal and take the concrete steps suggested in the accompanying addendum.

    Fellow believers, we know how often justice appears a weary way off, peace a little further. But if we give up on justice, if we give up on peace, we give up on God.

    So let us resolve to labor mightily for what we pray for fervently, confident in the poet’s contention that “we are only undefeated because we go on trying” and in the vision of the prophet that “the earth shall be filled with the knowledge of God as the waters cover the sea.”

    God bless you all.

    To sign on or request information, please contact:

    Jessica Wilbanks sign-on@nuclearlockdown.org 202-587-5232

    Addendum: Taking Action

    We invite you to join the Interreligious Network to Eliminate Nuclear Weapons by signing onto this appeal and joining in the following actions.

    1. Demand that the President and the Secretary of State frame and publish a plan outlining the steps whereby the American unequivocal commitment to eliminate nuclear arms can be realized.

    This plan would be preparatory to convening a conference of nuclear powers to set landmarks and deadlines by which, again under the most stringent international control, all nuclear weapons will be eliminated from the face of the earth. We reason that by building momentum now, we may make possible tomorrow what may seem improbable today.

    2. Circulate and study the educational and organizing materials that the Interreligious Network will send to all seminaries in America for distribution among their students and graduates.

    As part of this effort, we will also circulate an Urgent Call outlining steps to elimination, as well as statements and information from members of the medical, legal, and environmental communities.

    3. Encourage religious peoples to lobby Congress to stop funding any more nuclear weapons projects, specifically the Administration’s designs for “bunker-busters” and for the further weaponization of outer space.

    It is demeaning to our democracy that Congress keeps postponing or repressing public debate on a subject as morally compelling as our nuclear weapons policy.

    4. Meet with members of Congress, hold public meetings, meet with editors, reporters, columnists, and talk show hosts.

    Do everything possible to remind Americans that we are all in the race of our lives and we are not running fast enough.

  • The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

    The 2005 Nobel Peace Prize

    In this 60th anniversary year of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Nobel Committee chose to again focus its award, as it had in 1985 and again in 1995, on abolishing nuclear weapons. The Nobel Committee announced that its Peace Prize for 2005 will go to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and its Director General, Mohamed ElBaradei. Ten years ago, the Prize went to Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, and ten years before that to the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

    The Nobel Committee is right to focus on nuclear dangers and the need to abolish these weapons, and Mohamed ElBaradei has been courageous in speaking out for both sides of the non-proliferation bargain: preventing the spread of nuclear weapons and achieving nuclear disarmament. He has repeatedly pointed to the hypocrisy of the nuclear weapons states for their double standards and their failure to move resolutely in fulfilling their nuclear disarmament obligations.

    ElBaradei has argued, for example, “We must abandon the unworkable notion that it is morally reprehensible for some countries to pursue weapons of mass destruction yet morally acceptable for others to rely on them for security – and indeed to continue to refine their capacities and postulate plans for their use.” For his outspokenness, he earned the wrath of the Bush administration, which tried unsuccessfully to block his appointment to a third four-year term at the IAEA.

    In making their announcement of the 2005 prize, the Nobel Committee stated: “At a time when the threat of nuclear arms is again increasing, the Norwegian Nobel Committee wishes to underline that this threat must be met through the broadest possible international cooperation. This principle finds its clearest expression today in the work of the IAEA and its Director General. In the nuclear non-proliferation regime, it is the IAEA which controls that nuclear energy is not misused for military purposes, and the Director General has stood out as an unafraid advocate of new measures to strengthen that regime. At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, IAEA’s work is of incalculable importance.”

    Mr. ElBaradei is deserving of the Nobel for his clear and persistent challenge to the policies of the nuclear weapons states. The Nobel Committee, however, sends the wrong message to the world in making the award to the IAEA. The IAEA is an international agency that serves two masters. On the one hand, it seeks to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. But, on the other hand, it seeks to promote nuclear energy. Although these dual goals are enshrined in the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, they are not compatible. The spread of nuclear reactors carries with it the potential for the spread of nuclear weapons.

    Nuclear reactors have always been, and remain, a preferred path to nuclear weapons. It was the path taken secretly by Israel, India, Pakistan, North Korea and South Africa. It is the path once pursued by Brazil, Argentina, Iraq and Libya, and which now raises concerns with Iran. It is the path that has made Japan a virtual nuclear weapons state.

    The Nobel Committee had another and, in my view, better choice before it than the IAEA to promote the abolition of nuclear weapons. Also nominated for this year’s Nobel Peace Prize was the Nihon Hidankyo, the Japan Confederation of A- and H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations. By selecting Nihon Hidankyo, along with Mr. ElBaradei, the Committee could have chosen to shine a light on the hibakusha, the aging victims of Hiroshima and Nagasaki who have devoted much of their lives to seeking to assure that no one in the future will ever again suffer their fate.

    In a letter sent in December 2004, I wrote to the Nobel Committee: “As individuals and collectively, the hibakusha, survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have reflected the spirit of peace in turning their personal tragedies into an enduring plea to rid the world of these most terrible weapons of mass destruction. To honor them with the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize in the 60th anniversary year of the bombings would, in a sense, be to honor all victims of war who fight for peace, but it would have special meaning for the aging hibakusha. It would recognize the human triumph in their alchemy of turning despair and bitterness into hope on the path to nuclear sanity and disarmament.”

    Once again, the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have been passed over for the world’s most prestigious peace prize. When the Nobel Committee chooses to make its award to the hibakusha, it will be a sign that there is an expanding recognition that the only safe number of nuclear weapons in the world is zero and that the fate of the world depends upon eliminating these omnicidal weapons as rapidly as possible. It will also recognize the truth of the oft-repeated position of the hibakusha that “human beings and nuclear weapons cannot co-exist,” and that we must eliminate these weapons before they eliminate us.

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of a recent book of peace poetry, Today Is Not a Good Day for War.

  • Statement of an Atomic Veteran 60 Years After the Atomic Bombing of Nagasaki

    My name is Eduardo Pablo Zaragoza and I am 79 years-old. I was born and raised in a coal mining community, Dawson, in Northern New Mexico. Life with my family was good. I had wonderful parents, and four sisters and two brothers, a harmonious family in every way. I liked school and excelled at sports.

    In January, 1945, when I was 17 years-old, I joined the Navy. I served in the South Pacific on the USS Wayne, an attack amphibious transport. Our first destination was Guam, where we unloaded Navy personnel and Marines who were replacement troops. We then went on to Saipan, where we picked up the 3rd Battalion, 6th Marines of the 2nd Division, who were to be the occupation forces in Nagasaki.

    On September 23, 1945, we anchored in Nagasaki Harbor, then loaded small boats with Marine troops, and transported them onto land. I spent four days in Nagasaki. As our boat was landing, I saw steel ships, burned up and destroyed, in the water. Everywhere I looked everything was destroyed, melted. I also saw a horrible sight: many, many bloated bodies floating on the water. These were the bodies of dead Nagasaki citizens who had died in the days and weeks after the bomb was dropped. The Japanese people had disposed of them in the water. I could not believe what I saw! Even today I can still see the bloated bodies floating in the harbor.

    Once ashore in Nagasaki, we walked all over the place and we saw the devastation of the city and its inhabitants. I was numb. At 17 years of age, I could not take it all in! It was overwhelming. It didn’t help that we soldiers were in no way prepared by the Navy for what we would see there in Nagasaki. I walked all around. They allowed us to walk up to one mile from the hypocenter. Everything was burnt to the ground, burnt material everywhere. The only buildings I remember seeing left standing were a church and a hospital. Besides us U.S. military, there were also Japanese crews cleaning up the debris. As I looked around, I saw many imprints of bodies in the cement where charred bodies had been removed. I could smell flesh all over the place. To my amazement, I also saw the shadows of people who had been vaporized by the bomb. All over the city, Japanese vendors were selling rice balls with sardines to anyone who would buy it from them. I can still remember the smell of the rice with sardines.

    My first day in Nagasaki, I walked through the hospital there which housed the victims of the bomb. I walked through two wards: one for men and one for babies and children. It seemed to me they were all dying. The nurses were removing maggots from the patients’ burnt and rotting flesh. The men were crying out in agony, reaching out to me, moaning and pleading with me in their language, a language I did not know at all. All the time I was thinking, “They want me to help them. What can I do? I can do nothing!” I was shocked to see so many children badly burned and bandaged, in so much pain and dying. I have thought about this horrible scene over and over in my mind for 60 years. I try to forget it, but I can’t. I still see people in that hospital, even today remembering their faces, their burned bodies, reaching their hands out to me, as though it was yesterday.

    I was honorably discharged in 1966. I came back a changed man. I have experienced depression and PTSD my whole life since then. Ever since my discharge from the Navy, I have had awful nightmares, flailing my arms, thrashing in bed. I hear the children crying and I go outside the house to look for them, but they are not there. In other nightmares, I see the bodies all bloated in the water. And that has stayed with me all these years.

    The bomb on Nagasaki was a plutonium bomb. I have read much about the effects of radiation on the body, especially the lifelong effects of expose to Plutonium. I have experienced all of these medical conditions which are designated by the VA on their list of conditions caused by exposure to radiation: hemorrhaging nostrils (a few days after leaving Nagasaki), severe tonsillitis (2 years after Nagasaki), non-malignant thyroid disease, subcapsular cataracts, prostate cancer, diabetes, chronic fatigue and anemia.

    I have also read that Plutonium, an incredibly dangerous substance, settles in men’s testes. Doctors have told me that my wife, Lily’s illnesses could be attributed to the radiation I received in Nagasaki. She has experienced cervical cancer, heart disease, diabetes, and kidney shutdown. Lily suffered 3 miscarriages and we had one stillborn baby. Of our 4 children, all but one died at a young age. Jose Maria, our son, lived only 24 hours. The doctor said he had incredibly delicate skin. Our son, Ron, died at 32, ending his long ordeal with myasthenia gravis. Our daughter, Rita, also was afflicted with myasthenia gravis, and died at the age of 45. Our doctor told us that it is extremely rare for two members of the same family to have the disease. Our only living child, daughter, Theresa, has had thyroid cancer.

    To anyone who would say that our family just experienced more than our share of “bad luck” with all of these medical problems, I would point out that Lily’s and my parents lived to a ripe old age and there is no history of cancer, birth defects or serious disease in either of our families. Radiation is the weapon that keeps on killing through one’s lifetime, and our family sadly has found this to be true over these many years.

    What I want people to know about the atomic bombing of Nagasaki is that it never should have happened! I would like the people to know that it is so hard to live a happy life after you’ve gone through something like this. You have to actually see it to comprehend it. I went through it, I’ve lived it, and to this day, after 60 years, I still carry radiation in my body. As far as I know, there’s no medical cure for it.

    And I know the Japanese people have really suffered from these nuclear bombings that they experienced, up to today. There’s many, many Japanese who are worse off than I am. They have severe medical problems, cancers and so many different diseases that were caused by the radiation, and keloids from the horrible burns all over their bodies. The Japanese survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki have really, really suffered, including those people who went back into the city to look for their relatives, and were contaminated by the radiation. Some of these people lived 1 year, 2 years, 5 years. And those who have survived, the Hibakusha, are still having medical problems caused by nuclear radiation 60 years ago.

    It seems to me that the Japanese now want the people all over the world to know how bad this experience was. The Japanese want people to unite to stop all of these governments from making any more nuclear weapons, because they know that most of the people in the world are for stopping the governments from making nuclear weapons.

    Right now, the United States has the biggest supply of bombs, and especially here in Albuquerque, where we have more than 2,400 nuclear bombs stored at Kirtland AFB. And Sandia and Los Alamos labs are thinking of making a more powerful bomb, a bomb that penetrates deep into the ground. What we have to do is unite and see if we can stop them from proceeding and getting these powerful, powerful bombs. And if we unite, I know that we can stop them.

    We want the United States government, and all governments, to stop producing any more weapons of mass destruction, because if they don’t, our future generations will suffer like the Hibakusha of Japan. It’s a crime to leave this inheritance for our children and our grandchildren. May they live in peace.

  • The Political Rehabilitation of Joseph Rotblat

    By the time of his death, which occurred on August 31, 2005, Joseph Roblat was a revered figure. A top nuclear physicist, Rotblat received—among many other honors and awards–a British knighthood and, together with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs (an organization that he had helped to found), the Nobel Peace Prize (1995). As the president of the Pugwash conferences recalled: “Joseph Rotblat was a towering figure in the search for peace in the world, who dedicated his life to trying to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and ultimately to rid the world of war itself.”

    But Rotblat’s steadfast support for nuclear disarmament and peace did not always receive such plaudits, as I discovered when I conducted two interviews with him and did extensive research in formerly secret British government records.

    Born in Warsaw in 1908, Rotblat moved to Britain in 1939, where he became a promising young physicist. During World War II, when he feared that Nazi Germany might develop the atomic bomb, he came to the United States to work on the Manhattan Project, America’s own atomic bomb program that he—like many other scientists—hoped would deter Germany’s launching of a nuclear war. But, in late 1944, when Rotblat learned that the German bomb program had been a failure, he resigned from the Manhattan project and returned to London to engage in nonmilitary work. This decision, taken for humanitarian reasons, plunged him into hot water with the authorities. Shortly after telling his U.S. supervisor of his plan to leave Los Alamos, he was accused by U.S. intelligence of being a Soviet spy. The charge, totally without merit, was eventually dropped.

    Back in Britain, Rotblat engaged in peaceful research and, in the postwar years, helped to organize the Atomic Scientists’ Association (ASA), which drew together some of that country’s top scientists. Much like America’s Federation of American Scientists, the ASA promoted nuclear arms control and disarmament. However, British government officials, then more interested in building nuclear weapons than in eliminating them, looked askance at its activities. In 1947-48, when the ASA organized an Atomic Train to bring the dangers of nuclear weapons (and the supposed benefits of peaceful nuclear power) to the attention of the British public, Prime Minister Clement Attlee objected strongly to plans for government cooperation with it. In March 1948, when Rotblat invited Attlee to visit the Atomic Train during its stay in London, the foreign secretary and the defense minister advised the prime minister to reject the offer, which he did.

    Rotblat’s relations with the British government continued on a difficult course in the 1950s. Working closely with the philosopher Bertrand Russell, Rotblat signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of July 9, 1955, which warned nations that if they persisted in their plans for nuclear war, civilization would be utterly destroyed. This venture, in turn, led to the Pugwash conferences—so named because they began in 1957 at a private estate in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Designed to bring together scientists on both sides of the “iron curtain” for serious, non-polemical discussions of the nuclear menace, these conferences were low-key operations, with little publicity outside of scientific circles. Nevertheless, British officials were deeply suspicious of the Pugwash conferences and of Rotblat, who did most of the organizational work for them and, in 1959, became Pugwash secretary-general.

    Convinced that “the Communists” wanted to use the 1958 Pugwash conference “to secure support for the Soviet demand for the banning of nuclear weapons,” the British Foreign Office initially sought to promote an attitude of skepticism toward it. But, when Rotblat asked J.D. Cockcroft, a member of Britain’s Atomic Energy Authority, to suggest who might be invited to it, Cockcroft and the Foreign Office decided that a better strategy would be to go with the flow and arrange for the participation of a staunch proponent of the British government’s position in the meeting, which they did.

    Although one British diplomat noted that the conference “passed off quietly enough, and not too unsuccessfully from our point of view,” the British government remained on guard. Learning of plans for another Pugwash conference, in Vienna, the Foreign Office warned of the possibility “that this will be more dangerous from our point of view than its predecessors.” Communist participants might launch “a major propaganda drive against nuclear weapons,” and “the organizing committee consists of Lord Russell and Professor Rotblat.” From the British government’s standpoint, the Pugwash conferences were little better than “Communist front gatherings.”

    But British policy gradually began to shift, as the government grew more interested in nuclear arms controls. Asked by Rotblat if he would like to join the advisory body of the British Pugwash committee, Cockcroft referred the matter to the Foreign Office, which responded that he should do so, as it would help prevent Pugwash from “being exploited for propaganda purposes.” Although the Foreign Office did not think he should attend the next Pugwash conference, in Moscow, during 1960, it reversed course that summer and urged him to recruit additional politically reliable scientists to attend. Indeed, it now sought to take over the Pugwash movement for its own purposes. In response to a suggestion by Cockcroft, a Foreign Office official opined that “it would be most helpful if the Royal Society could be persuaded to sponsor British participation . . . and if this were to lead to the winding up of the present Pugwash Committee.”

    But the plans for a takeover failed. When the British government suggested topics for Pugwash meetings and more government officials who should be invited to them, Rotblat resisted, much to government dismay. In October 1963, a Foreign Office official complained that “the difficulty is to get Prof. Rotblat to pay any attention to what we think. . . . He is no doubt jealous of his independence and scientific integrity.” Securing “a new organizer for the British delegation seems to be the first need, but I do not know if there is any hope of this.”

    Nonetheless, despite lingering resentment at Rotblat’s independence and integrity, the British government had arrived at a positive appraisal of the Pugwash conferences. As a British defense ministry official declared in January 1962: Pugwash was “now a very respectable organization.” When the Home Office, clinging to past policy, advised that Pugwash was “a dirty word,” the Foreign Office retorted that the movement now enjoyed “official blessing.” Explaining the turnabout, a Foreign Office official stated that “the process of educating” Soviet experts is “bound to be of some use to us.” Furthermore, “we ourselves may pick up some useful ideas from our own scientists . . . and are not likely to be embarrassed by anything which they suggest.” Finally, “if there is ever to be a breakthrough, it is not inconceivable that the way might be prepared by a conference of this kind.”

    In fact, there soon was a breakthrough: the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963—a nuclear arms control measure that the Pugwash conferences played a key part in generating. The British government had no doubt about the connection, and in 1964 it honored Rotblat with a CBE—Commander of the British Empire—for his organization of the Pugwash conferences.

    And so it goes. Today’s dangerously peace-minded heretic is tomorrow’s hero. Abraham Lincoln—that staunch critic of the Mexican War—became America’s best-loved President. Robert LaFollette—reviled and burned in effigy for his opposition to World War I—emerged as one of this nation’s most respected senators. Martin Luther King, Jr.—condemned for his protests against the Vietnam War—is now honored as this country’s great peacemaker.

    Perhaps today, when governments promise us endless military buildups and wars, opposition politicians should take note of this phenomenon.

    Lawrence S. Wittner, a Nuclear Age Peace Foundation Associate, is Professor of History at the State University of New York at Albany. His latest book is Toward Nuclear Abolition: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement, 1971 to the Present (Stanford University Press). He is a member of POTUS, HNN’s presidential history/politics blog.

  • A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It is good to be back at All Saints. This church represents what a Peace Church should be. I appreciate that Reverend Bacon has gone to Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas in support of Cindy Sheehan and in opposition to the illegal war in Iraq.

    We are still in the season of Hiroshima. Sixty years ago that city was devastated by a single US nuclear weapon, and three days later the city of Nagasaki was devastated by another US nuclear weapon.

    What most Americans don’t know is that in between those two bombings, which took place on August 6th and 9th, 1945, the US and the other Allied powers in World War II agreed to hold the Nuremberg Tribunals at which they held the Axis leaders to account for crimes against peace, war crimes and crimes against humanity. Between these two great crimes of slaughtering civilian populations at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we agreed to the Nuremberg Tribunals. The most basic principle of these Tribunals is that no one stands above international law, no matter how high his or her position – not presidents, not prime ministers, no one.

    We Americans have a lot of ambiguity about nuclear weapons. We somehow think that they protect us, but they don’t. They make us more vulnerable. So long as the US continues to rely upon nuclear weapons for security, other countries will do so as well, and new countries will find it in their national interests to follow our example. If the most powerful country in the world demonstrates by its policies that it needs nuclear weapons, other countries will choose this route as well.

    The greatest threat, though, lies with terrorists. If they get their hands on a nuclear weapon – a possibility made more likely by our policies of retaining large numbers of these weapons – they will not hesitate to use them against us. Extremist groups cannot be deterred by nuclear threats. You cannot deter those you cannot locate and you cannot deter those who are suicidal. Deterrence has major flaws, and it has zero value against extremist groups.

    The US has not fulfilled its obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Back in 1968, we promised good faith negotiations for nuclear disarmament. Those negotiations have yet to take place. We still have some 10,000 nuclear weapons in our arsenal. We and the Russians still have some 2,000 nuclear weapons each on hair trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. It is 15 years since the end of the Cold War. Our continued reliance on nuclear weapons is insane. It looks like the reflection of a “death wish” for the planet.

    In the year 2000, the US, along with all other parties to the Non-Proliferation Treaty, agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament. This would be a great step forward, except for the fact that the US has fulfilled none of these, and is now the major obstacle to nearly all of them. The Bush administration does not like to even see mention of nuclear disarmament in international documents. They held up agreement on the agenda for the 2005 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference for some ten days because they did not want to see reference to these 13 Practical Steps, nor of any of the components, such as the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, a verifiable Fissile Material Cut-off Treaty, and the promise of an unequivocal undertaking to achieve total nuclear disarmament – all points to which the US had previously agreed.

    A Responsible US Nuclear Weapons Policy

    It’s long past time for a responsible US nuclear weapons policy, not only to fulfill our legal obligations and to uphold reasonable moral standards, but also to enhance the security of the US and the world. I would suggest that, at a minimum, a responsible US nuclear policy would include the following Ten No’s and a Yes.

    Ten No’s

    1. No new nuclear weapons
    2. No research and development of new nuclear weapons.
    3. No new plutonium pit production.
    4. No resumption of nuclear testing.
    5. No use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear weapons states.
    6. No first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstances.
    7. No maintaining nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert.
    8. No strategy of launch on warning.
    9. No nuclear weapons on foreign soil.
    10. No double standards.

    And a Yes

    Provide affirmative leadership to achieve existing obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including the 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament set forth at the treaty’s 2000 Review Conference. Above all, initiate good faith negotiations for a Nuclear Weapons Convention, as called for in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty for the phased elimination of nuclear weapons under strict and effective international control within a reasonable period of time.

    This does not mean unilateral disarmament. It means multilateral disarmament for all states with US leadership. It would constitute a major change of direction in US policy.

    Who Are We?

    I’ve thought a lot about the relationship of the war in Iraq to US nuclear weapons policies. I think what they have in common are these points: arrogance, double standards, disrespect for international law (and therefore the international community), and unilateralism. These characteristics are undermining what is decent and just about us. They are destroying us, and they have the potential to destroy the world.

    We need to ask ourselves the question: Who are we? Have we become people of the bomb? Is the bomb more important to us than our humanity? The Russell-Einstein Manifesto in 1955, emphasized: “Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.” We need to return to our roots and regain our souls. The starting point is remembering our humanity.

    Take Action

    We can’t just recognize the problems intellectually. We must do something about them. We must all become part of the force for change. We can’t just sit back while illegal and immoral actions are committed in our names. We need to take heart and take action. We need to become involved and do our part.

    The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation has some resources that may be helpful at our www.wagingpeace.org website.

    First, you can sign up there for our free monthly e-newsletter, The Sunflower. It will keep you up-to-date on nuclear issues and provide action alerts.

    Second, at the website you can become involved in our Turn the Tide Campaign, and send letters to your elected representatives on key nuclear issues.

    Third, we have an excellent Speakers’ Bureau that can help you get the word out.

    Above all, use your creativity and your special talents to help others “remember their humanity” and take part in turning around US nuclear policy.

    Choose Hope

    There are times when the world looks pretty bleak, but we can take heart from all the great peace leaders who have preceded us. Here is my list of Fifty-One Reasons for Hope. I’m sure you can add to it, and I hope that you will.

    1. Each new dawn.

    2. The miracle of birth.

    3. Our capacity to love.

    4. The courage of nonviolence.

    5. Gandhi, King and Mandela.

    6. The night sky.

    7. Spring.

    8. Flowers and bees.

    9. The arc of justice.

    10. Whistleblowers.

    11. Butterflies.

    12. The full moon.

    13. Teachers.

    14. Simple wisdom.

    15. Dogs and cats.

    16. Friendship.

    17. Our ability to reflect.

    18. Our capacity for joy.

    19. The Dalai Lama, Desmond Tutu and Oscar Romero.

    20. The gift of conscience.

    21. Human rights and responsibilities.

    22. Our capacity to nurture.

    23. The ascendancy of women.

    24. Innocence.

    25. Our capacity to change.

    26. Mozart, Beethoven and Chopin.

    27. The internet.

    28. War resisters.

    29. Everyday heroes.

    30. Lions, tigers, bears, elephants and giraffes.

    31. Conscientious objectors.

    32. Tolstoy, Twain and Vonnegut.

    33. Wilderness.

    34. Our water planet.

    35. Solar energy.

    36. Picasso, Matisse and Miro.

    37. World citizens.

    38. Life.

    39. The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

    40. The King of Hearts.

    41. Rain.

    42. Sunshine.

    43. Pablo Neruda.

    44. Grandchildren.

    45. Mountains.

    46. Sunflowers.

    47. The Principles of Nuremberg.

    48. A child’s smile.

    49. Dolphins.

    50. Wildflowers.

    51. Our ability to choose hope.

    It is our ability to choose hope, even in dark times, that can keep us going. I urge you to never stop fighting for a more decent world. We will not attain peace by making war, and we will not end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity by continuing to rely upon these most destructive and cowardly of all weapons for our security.

    Nothing will change if we are complacent and accept the status quo. We need to rise to our full stature as human beings, and exert our full human powers to change the world and create a more decent future for ourselves and for those who follow us on this miraculous life-supporting planet.

    David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of a recent book of anti-war poetry, Today Is Not a Good Day for War.

  • Overcoming the Obstacles to a Nuclear Weapons-Free World

    As we gather in this historic location to observe the 60th anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, my first thoughts turn to the hibakusha. I pay my respect to these brave people who have suffered so much and who have taught the world. The stories of the hibakusha must never be lost. Future generations must understand the reality of nuclear weapons. They must continue to learn from these brave people who overcame Armageddon and chose the path of life. The hibakusha rejected retaliation and embraced reconciliation as their guiding force. That is a lesson for the ages.

    I also wish to pay my deepest respect to Mayor Akiba for his world-wide leadership in building Mayors for Peace into a vibrant organization in the campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons. The 20/20 Vision Campaign, articulated so brilliantly by Mayor Akiba, has provided new hope for all those who desire to live in a nuclear weapons-free world. I congratulate the people of Hiroshima for having selected such an outstanding world figure to represent their interests. I pledge today the continuing support of the Middle Powers Initiative for Mayor Akiba and the Mayors for Peace campaign.

    * * *

    The framework for a nuclear weapons-free world is coming into view even as the daily news seems discouraging. It is perhaps paradoxical that a light can be seen, by those with vision, even in the darkness of the moment.

    My experience tells me that it is reasonable to hope for, and to work for, a world beyond the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. As a parliamentarian, diplomat and educator, I have worked on nuclear disarmament issues for more than 30 years. I understand the lassitude and obstinacy of governments all too well. But I also see the developments taking place in civil society where increasing numbers of highly informed and deeply committed activists are cooperating with like-minded governments to get things done to improve human security. The Anti-Personnel Landmines Treaty, the International Criminal Court, and the new surge of government commitment to Official Development Assistance have come about because of civil society’s input into government machinery.

    We stand on the threshold of the construction of a viable plan for a nuclear weapons-free world resulting from the active cooperation of knowledgeable leaders of civil society working with those politicians and officials of like-minded governments who truly want to move forward.

    The day will arrive when either nuclear weapons abolition takes effect or the world will be devastated by a nuclear attack. One or the other will happen. No person, informed on the gravity of the situation, can deny it.

    * * *

    Dear friends, the eyes of the world are on Hiroshima today. It is our task to ensure that political decision-makers stay focused on solving the problems at the epicenter of Hiroshima. We must have national policies that ban the production, deployment and use of nuclear weapons by countries in all circumstances for all time. There can be no more equivocation. We must project our message for all to hear: nuclear weapons are immoral, they are illegal, they are the ultimate evil. No civilized person can any longer defend the possession of nuclear weapons. They must be banished from the face of the earth.

    We who are assembled here today must gather new energy for our struggle. It is not yet too late to prevent a nuclear catastrophe – the third use of nuclear weapons. But the hour is late. The nuclear weapons States refuse to negotiate the elimination of their nuclear arsenals. Proliferation of nuclear weapons is occurring. Nuclear weapons have become part of war-fighting strategies. Terrorists seek nuclear weapons. The Second Nuclear Age has begun. This is the message we must get out to all those who think the nuclear weapons problems went away with the end of the Cold War.

    Let us take heart as we renew our work today. We who stand for the abolition of nuclear weapons are not some isolated minority. Unthinking politicians may try to marginalize us. But we are part of a growing majority. An international poll of citizens in 11 countries showed that 86 percent of people either strongly agree or agree to some extent that all nations should sign a treaty to ban nuclear weapons. In Japan, the figure was 97 percent. The people of Japan want the abolition of nuclear weapons. We must tell the Government of Japan to work harder to obtain what the Japanese people so ardently desire.

    In the United States, 76 percent of the people favour a treaty to ban all nuclear weapons. Yet the government of the United States stands today as the biggest obstacle to nuclear disarmament. I make that statement as a Canadian, a next-door neighbour of the United States, one who has lived among and loves the American people. But my parliamentary and diplomatic experience has shown me how the present Administration of the U.S. is undermining the rule of law. By refusing to accept today the commitments made in 1995 and 2000 to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the government of the U.S. is weakening the non-proliferation regime. They have the ill-conceived idea that they can reserve to themselves the right to continued possession of nuclear weapons while proscribing their acquisition by other countries.

    We must say clearly to the U.S.: you cannot have a two-class world on nuclear weapons. You owe it to humanity to work with other countries in a constructive manner to negotiate the complete elimination of all nuclear weapons. As Chairman of the Middle Powers Initiative, I approach this work in a positive and constructive spirit, not one of recrimination. I want to help the U.S. understand that, together, the world community can build the architecture to provide security in a nuclear weapons-free world.

    I am announcing today that the Middle Powers Initiative will sponsor an “Article VI Forum” for like-minded States to start work on identifying the legal, political and technical requirements for the elimination of nuclear weapons. We will invite senior representatives of 28 countries to a special meeting in early October at the United Nations to specify steps that could be taken unilaterally, bilaterally, regionally and multilaterally to enhance security without relying on nuclear weapons. This process may well produce the outline of how negotiations, as called for in Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty and reinforced by the International Court of Justice, can proceed. A framework for negotiations could be started. The Article VI Forum, with its ongoing work, will, of course, pay attention to non-proliferation issues, but the focus will be principally on nuclear disarmament issues, which are at the true center of the nuclear weapons crisis.

    The MPI cordially invites the Government of Japan to join the Article VI Forum. Membership in the Forum, in the opening stages, will be confined to like-minded non-nuclear weapons States. They need to spend some time working together and allow their creativity and commitment to surface. At some point in the new deliberations, the nuclear weapons States interested in joining a new process to fulfil their Article VI commitments could be invited to join.

    All of this work is intended to strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty so that negotiations for the elimination of nuclear weapons will not only be pursued but concluded. I see this work as a direct contribution to the Mayors for Peace campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Convention to come fully into effect by 2020. The immediate steps of Mayors for Peace to stimulate productive work at the United Nations First Committee and to get talks started early in 2006 is highly commendable. Governments must begin to work together on specific issues leading to nuclear disarmament, as Mayors for Peace has stated. It is the duty of middle power states to lead the way. The Article VI Forum would help them to fulfil this function.

    The MPI work in building some momentum through having like-minded States concentrate on preparing the way for a nuclear weapons-free world and the Mayors for Peace work in driving the First Committee work forward go hand-in-hand. Together, the Middle Powers Initiative and Mayors for Peace can contribute to progress. We can show all the nuclear weapons States that the world can work together in addressing this greatest of all security problems. However, MPI and M4P cannot do this alone. Much will depend on public backing and political support for these new initiatives. A rising public demand for nations to get on with negotiating and implementing a Nuclear Weapons Convention to ban the production and deployment of all nuclear weapons may take hold in the future. The work of Mayors for Peace, with its growing and extensive network around the world, could stimulate that demand.

    It can be expected that one or more of the nuclear weapons States will resist and continue to claim that it still needs nuclear weapons. But such claims would have less and less credibility in a world where the architecture for security without nuclear weapons became better understood and where the universal norm against the possession of nuclear weapons was growing in stature.

    * * *

    Let us always remember: we have the historical momentum for the abolition of nuclear weapons on our side. The Non-Proliferation Treaty, the International Court of Justice, the votes of the majority of nations are all calling for an “unequivocal undertaking” and systematic progress towards the elimination of nuclear weapons. The proponents of nuclear weapons have been reduced to ridiculous arguments to justify nuclear retention. Not only are nuclear weapons immoral and illegal, they are devoid of any intellectual standing. Those who defend nuclear weapons should be laughed at – as one day they will, when humanity discovers it has the strength to overcome the merchants of evil. Future generations will look back on our time and say without hesitation that nuclear weapons were an anachronism, the obsession of old men trapped in the past. It will be a source of wonder to future generations how humanity ever tolerated the means to its own mass destruction.

    It is our job to work towards this future of enlightenment. The people of the world want us to succeed in building true human security. We must feel confident that we can do the job. We must know that we can respond to our historical calling. We must be forever determined to build a nuclear weapons-free world. Hiroshima gives me that strength and hope.

    Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C., a former Canadian Senator, is Chair of the Middle Powers Initiative and serves on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council. Hon. Douglas Roche, O.C. is the recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2005 Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Peace Leadership.

  • David Lange’s Peace Legacy Lives On

    David Lange, former Prime Minister of New Zealand and a courageous leader in the global effort to eliminate nuclear weapons, was the recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s1988 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award and a long time member of the Foundation’s Advisory Council. He was honored for his commitment to creating and protecting New Zealand’s nuclear-free status. He died in New Zealand on August 13, 2005 at the age of 63. The article below by New Zealander Kate Dewes is a tribute to David Lange’s remarkable life and legacy of peace.

    A few days before David Lange left home for his final journey to hospital, he phoned to encourage us in the peace movement to maintain our vigilance regarding nuclear-free policy; to thank us for our work and to say goodbye. It was also an opportunity for us to thank him for his outstanding contribution to peace both in Aotearoa/ New Zealand and the world. Between bouts of coughing and voice loss, he apologised for being too emotional when opening the Gandhi photographic exhibition in Christchurch in August 2002 — the very day he had learned he might have only a few months to live. Gandhi was his guru; India his ‘second home’ (he’d been there 28 times), and he had been determined to come.

    The 200-strong audience experienced vintage Lange: no notes, a perfect balance of heart and head, enriched with personal anecdotes and humour. As he described how Gandhi was “shot dead with three shots, and died with God’s name on his lips”, the tears flowed. Full of emotion, he concluded: “We have the capacity to love and be loved. They’re pretty old fashioned words. That’s the guts of it; and that’s why I’m here tonight”.

    Like Gandhi, he reminded us of the spirituality which had sustained him to withstand death threats, ridicule from the media and ostracism from colleagues and officials for his peacemaking leadership. So it became urgent to seek formal international recognition for David – our ‘giant kauri’. As a result of our nomination, 15 months later he went to Stockholm to receive the honorary Alternative Nobel Peace Prize for his “steadfast work over many years for a world free of nuclear weapons”.

    As Prime Minister from 1984-1989, he travelled extensively throughout the world exploding the myths of nuclear deterrence. His government helped negotiate a South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone and demanded compensation from the French for the Rainbow Warrior atrocity. He addressed the UN General Assembly three times and was the first Prime Minister ever to address the Conference on Disarmament.

    The celebrated 1985 Oxford Union debate, where he argued that “nuclear weapons are morally indefensible”, was seminal in the creation of a more independent foreign and defence policy. As he warned at the time, the speech “would change everything. We would cut ourselves adrift economically, militarily, culturally — the umbilical cord to our past would be severed.” With great pride he articulated what many New Zealanders felt: “This is who we are, this is what we believe, and damn the consequences!”

    The experience of leading New Zealand as the first Western-allied state to legislate against nuclear weapons bolstered him later to call for formal withdrawal from the ANZUS Treaty; rejection of the frigate purchase from Australia; reform of the United Nations; a moratorium on all nuclear tests; and respect for international law. Later, he was highly critical of the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, and the “war on terror”.

    He also championed the causes of ordinary Kiwi peace activists and citizens. In 1976 he defended Peace Squadron activists in the Auckland courts following protests against visits by United States nuclear warships. In 1990 he risked his life by going to Iraq to negotiate successfully for the release of some 30 New Zealand hostages. In 1991 he sent a statement to a US Court about the importance of “demonstration as an instrument of international political betterment”, in support of Moana Cole’s direct action against US bombers during the Gulf War.

    He became a strong advocate for the Christchurch-led international campaign to obtain an advisory opinion from the World Court on the legal status of nuclear weapons. He officially launched the World Court Project in Auckland in 1992, and led the challenge to the National government to argue strongly for their illegality in the World Court. In 1996 the Court confirmed that it was generally illegal to threaten or use nuclear weapons.

    There is a need for David Lange’s peace legacy to be formally documented so that future generations can be inspired by his visions for a nuclear free and peaceful planet, his intellectual understanding of issues of disarmament, and how small states can make a difference.

    One of my daughters, who was six when she first corresponded with David in 1989 opposing the frigate purchase, was able to thank him recently for giving her the courage to become a youth outreach worker for the Peace Foundation, and to address a youth rally of 3,000 in Hiroshima.

    With the nuclear-free legislation again under threat, let us be sustained by David’s powerful closing words from his Oxford Union debate speech: “The appalling character of nuclear weapons has robbed us of our right to determine our destiny and subordinates our humanity to their manic logic. They have subordinated reason to irrationality and placed our very will to live in hostage. Rejecting the logic of nuclear weapons does not mean surrendering to evil; evil must still be guarded against.

    “Rejecting nuclear weapons is to assert what is human over the evil nature of the weapon; it is to restore to humanity the power of the decision; it is to allow a moral force to reign supreme. It stops the macho lurch into mutual madness.”

    (David Lange, Nuclear Free: The New Zealand Way, Penguin, 1990).

    Kate Dewes is a Christchurch based peace educator and campaigner. She holds a doctorate in peace studies. Website: www.disarmsecure.org

  • Nagasaki Peace Declaration 2005

    Today the bells of Nagasaki echo in the sky, marking 60 years since the atomic bombing. At 11:02 a.m. on August 9, 1945, a single atomic bomb was dropped from an American warplane, exploding in this same sky above us, instantly destroying the city of Nagasaki. Some 74,000 people were killed, and another 75,000 wounded. Some of the victims never knew what happened. Others pleaded for water as death overtook them. Children, so burned and blackened that they could not even cry out, lay with their eyes closed. Those people who narrowly survived were afflicted with deep physical and mental wounds that could never be healed. They continue to suffer from the after-effects of the bomb, living in fear of death.

    To the leaders of the nuclear weapons states: Nuclear weapons must never be used for any reason whatsoever. This we know from painful experience. For sixty years we have repeated our plea, “No more Hiroshima! No more Nagasaki!” International society has also been exerting effort for the prohibition of nuclear weapons tests and the establishment of nuclear-weapon-free zones. In 2000, the nuclear weapons states themselves promised an “unequivocal undertaking” for the “elimination of their nuclear arsenals.”

    Nevertheless, at the end of the Review Conference of the Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons held at United Nations headquarters in May of this year, no progress was achieved. The nuclear weapons states, and the United States of America in particular, have ignored their international commitments, and have made no change in their unyielding stance on nuclear deterrence. We strongly resent the trampling of the hopes of the world’s people.

    To the citizens of the United States of America: We understand your anger and anxiety over the memories of the horror of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Yet, is your security actually enhanced by your government’s policies of maintaining 10,000 nuclear weapons, of carrying out repeated sub-critical nuclear tests, and of pursuing the development of new “mini” nuclear weapons? We are confident that the vast majority of you desire in your hearts the elimination of nuclear arms. May you join hands with the people of the world who share that same desire, and work together for a peaceful planet free from nuclear weapons.

    To the government of Japan: Our nation deeply regrets the last war, and our government has supposedly resolved not to engage in actions that might lead to the tragedy of war again. The peaceful ideals of our constitution must be upheld, and the threefold non-nuclear principle of neither possessing, manufacturing, nor allowing nuclear arms within our borders must be enacted into law without delay. The efforts of concerned countries for nuclear disarmament on the Korean peninsula, combined with the concomitant results of the threefold non-nuclear principle, will pave the way for a Northeast Asia nuclear-weapon-free zone. We urge you to adopt a stance that does not rely upon the “nuclear umbrella,” and to take a leading role in nuclear abolition.

    We would also point out that the atomic bomb survivors have become quite elderly. We further call upon the Japanese government to provide greater assistance to those who continue to suffer from the mental anguish caused by the bombing, and to extend sufficient aid to survivors who now reside overseas.

    Here in Nagasaki, many young people are learning about the atomic bombing and about peace, and are engaged in activities that they themselves have originated. To our young people: Remember always the miserable deaths of the atomic bomb victims. We ask each of you to earnestly study history and to consider the importance of peace and the sanctity of life. The citizens of Nagasaki stand behind your efforts. May you join hands with the world’s citizens and NGOs, that the bells of peace will ring loud and clear in the sky over Nagasaki.

    Today, as we mark 60 years since the atomic bombing, we pray for the repose of the souls of those who died, even as we declare our commitment, together with Hiroshima, never to abandon our efforts for the elimination of nuclear weapons and the establishment of lasting world peace.

    Iccho Itoh Mayor The City of Nagasaki

  • Lessons from Hiroshima, 60 Years Later

    The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki 60 years ago were stunning and sobering events. They brought World War II to an end, and everyone was thankful for that. Not too many of us stopped to think about the full implications of those bombs for our future. We were too busy celebrating the end of that terrible war.

    One of the people who had it absolutely right at the very beginning about the meaning of Hiroshima was the great French writer Albert Camus. He wrote in a French resistance newspaper: “Our technological civilization has just reached its greatest level of savagery. We will have to choose, in the more or less near future, between collective suicide and the intelligent use of our scientific conquests.” We are still facing that choice.

    Both the US and the USSR tested nuclear weapons in the atmosphere until the early 1960s, while they continued to create more efficient weapons. It didn’t take either country long to get those weapons on intercontinental ballistic missiles and then submarine-launched ballistic missiles. They created a situation in which the world could be destroyed in a matter of minutes. This threat of a massive nuclear exchange was thought to provide an ad hoc policy to prevent nuclear war. It was called the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction, for which the acronym was M.A.D. or MAD. Never was an acronym more accurately descriptive.

    We came very close to a nuclear exchange between Washington and Moscow in 1962 with the Cuban Missile Crisis. It was a very frightening time, and we can all be thankful that sanity managed to prevail. There were high-ranking US officials at the time who were pressing for bombing Cuba, which would have meant a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. That was one of many close calls during the Cold War.

    With the end of the Cold War, there seemed to be a real chance again to put nuclear dangers behind us, and once again the opportunity was largely missed. Today, in the 60th year of the Nuclear Age, we still have some 30,000 nuclear weapons in the world, and some 4,000 of these are on hair-trigger alert. You have to wonder about a species that seems so incapable of eliminating the greatest danger to its own survival. Not so incidentally, the United States has more nuclear weapons in its arsenal than any other nation.

    There has been much emphasis in the news about the dangers of nuclear proliferation in such countries as North Korea. All countries should abide by the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Few Americans are aware, however, that the treaty also provides that the US and other nuclear-weapons states must reduce their numbers of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, disarmament by nuclear-weapons states receives limited attention in news reporting, at least within the United States. I think this might be because the continuing existence of our own vast arsenal doesn’t seem to Americans, even if they are aware of it, to be nearly as dangerous as the threat of new nations acquiring the ghastly weapons.

    The survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki — the hibakusha — have continually warned, “Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot coexist.” In the end, I believe this is the most important lesson of Hiroshima. We must eliminate nuclear weapons before they eliminate us.

    The best security, perhaps the only security, against nuclear weapons being used again, or getting into the hands of terrorists, is to eliminate them. Most of the people of the world already know this. Now it is up to the world’s people to impress the urgency of this situation upon their governments. We must act now. The future depends upon us.

    Anything less would be to abandon our responsibility to future generations.

    Walter Cronkite is an eminent broadcast journalist and serves on the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s Advisory Council. He was anchor of the CBS Evening News from 1962-1981, and currently hosts “Lessons from Hiroshima, 60 Years Later,” now airing on public radio stations nationwide.

  • To the Inheritors of the Manhattan Project

    In national research laboratories, such as Los Alamos or Livermore in the USA, Chelyabinsk or Arzamas in Russia, and Aldermaston in the UK, many thousands of scientists are employed doing pure and applied research for specific purposes, cloaked in secrecy, purposes that I see as the negation of scientific pursuit: the development of new, or the improvement of old weapons of mass destruction. Among these thousands there may be some scientists who are motivated by considerations of national security. The vast majority, however, have no such motivation; in the past they were lured into this work by the siren call of rapid advancement and unlimited opportunity. What is going on in these laboratories is not only a terrible waste of scientific endeavour but a perversion of the noble calling of science.

    The Nobel Laureate Hans Bethe, who was a most distinguished physicist, and one-time leader of the Manhattan Project, said:

    “Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues. Whether and when the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding their skills.

    Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons – and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.”

    I would like to see an endorsement of this call by the scientific community. I will go further and suggest that the scientific community should demand the elimination of nuclear weapons and, in the first instance, request that the nuclear powers honour their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

    Let me, in conclusion, remind you that the basic human value is life itself; the most important of human rights is the right to live. It is the duty of scientists to see to it that, through their work, life will not be put into peril, but will be made safe and its quality enhanced.

    Joseph Rotblat

    About Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat KCMG, CBE, D.Sc., FRS, Nobel Peace Laureate, 1995: Professor Rotblat, now 97 years old, was born in Warsaw in 1908, and has been a British citizen since 1946. He is Emeritus Professor of Physics, University of London, and Emeritus President of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. During World War II, Professor Rotblat initiated work on the atom bomb at LiverpoolUniversity, and later joined the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos. When it became clear that Germany was not working on the bomb, he resigned from the project, the only scientist to do so before the bomb was tested. He then changed his line of research to medicine and was Chief Physicist at St. Bartholomew’s Hospital in London. He is the only living signer of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto of 1955. He has devoted his life to averting the danger posed by nuclear weapons, working with the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, the organization he helped to found, and with which he shares the Nobel Peace Prize. He is the author of some 400 publications. Professor Rotblat can be reached at Pugwash Conferences On Science And World Affairs, London Office, Ground Floor Flat, 63A Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3BJ, tel 020-7405, fax 020-7831 5651, e-mail: pugwash@mac.com website: www.pugwash.org

    Background to the letter: In Geneva in April 2003, Pamela Meidell mentioned to Professor Rotblat that she once told the story of his walking away from the Manhattan Project in an interview with New Mexico Public Radio. She asked any nuclear scientist who was listening to the show to listen to his/her conscience and follow in Professor Rotblat’s footsteps. He was very eager to know if anyone had responded. Sadly, she didn’t know. Perhaps this message directly from him will bring forth a response.

    On 6 July 2005, the Atomic Mirror wrote a letter to Professor Joseph Rotblat, the only nuclear scientist to walk away from the Manhattan Project, asking if he would like to send a message back to Los Alamos for the 16 July remembrance of the birth of the nuclear age. He graciously responded with the message above.