Tag: nuclear disarmament

Leveraging the Anti-Nuclear Majority: How to Create a Serious Nuclear Disarmament Coalition (NDC)

When Dryden penned the phrase “War is the trade of kings,”1he was simply coining a tragic truism of his day. Kingship was hereditary in 1691, and the king’s subjects did his bidding, in particular the waging of war. By 1961, with the growth of democracies and human rights, things were supposed to be different. Yet the “kings” of the modern era—the victors of WWII— were, and still are “trading in war,” still producing and profiting from all manner of weaponry designed to wound, dismember, blind, burn and kill enemy populations. And the trump card in their deck for the last sixty years has been nuclear weapons.

Given how drastically the nature of war has changed, it is time question the lofty assumptions conveyed in Dryden’s dictum. Who still believes that modern war is capable of being honorably conducted by virtuous leaders? Is it not rather time to talk of a new kind of “trade,” based on peace? Robust foreign trade in a climate of peace may be, in fact, the “trade of the just,” as opposed to the trade of kings. And that very commerce, if wisely managed to further the goals of world peace and nuclear disarmament, could have a decisive effect in convincing the current “kings” of this world and their citizens that nuclear arms are no longer a useful asset.

Today there are nine nation-states capable of “trading” in nuclear war. God help us if they ever do! They polish and prime their arsenals in the vain belief that such weapons will make them more secure, more prestigious, more “kingly” if you will. They fail to realize that nobody wins if there is even a single nuclear exchange. They seem unwilling to “lock down” and eventually give up their thermonuclear bombs—even under the strictest of controls.

The possession of a nuclear arsenal, alas, has been seen as conferring special status within the United Nations on the oldest of the nuclearized states (the P5 in the Security Council: China, France, the Russian Federation, the U.K. and the USA). Their undeserved status has had the unfortunate effect of encouraging imitator-states, so that now there are four more in that club of dubious distinction (India, Pakistan, Israel, and North Korea). Other countries may be planning to join. The aim of this paper is to suggest strategies and methods that could be effective in convincing the nuclear-weaponized states, and any others that aspire to be such, that they would lose more than they gain by developing and/or maintaining their arsenals.

In 1943, the year I was born, the world was at war; but at that time at least there were no nuclear weapons. Incendiary bombs were bad enough; yet there was still a limit to how much death and destruction a single bomb could visit on mankind. Ever since 1945, however, when I was two years old, I and my generation, and eventually my children’s and grandchildren’s generation— we have all been subject to a threat of almost Biblical proportion and resonance. We have been living—and still live—just minutes away from either inflicting or suffering the worst blasphemy, the worst insult to God’s creation, the most horrendous and indiscriminate waste of human life, and the most lethal and persistent poisoning of the environment that the world has ever known.

The dream that I am sharing with you today is that we who are over 60 should be able to leave this world as free of nuclear weapons as it was when we entered it, so that those who are born in 2013, 2023, or 2033, will be able to look back over their lives and say:

“Yes, I was born into a world with many problems, but nuclear war was not one of them. Thanks to a coalition of non-violent, visionary states back in the early 21 st century, with the ability to see thermonuclear weapons for what they really were, and the courage to stand up for sanity and our common humanity, the nuclear-armed states were persuaded to give up their reliance on those terrible weapons. Planet earth, our lifeboat in the vastness of empty, cold, and lifeless space, still faces many problems, but anti-population warfare with environmentally catastrophic weapons. thank God, is not one of them.”

Some recent history—high notes and low notes

The United Nations charter was already signed in San Francisco, on June 26, 1945, weeks before we entered the nuclear age by exploding the first atomic bomb, July 16, 1945. A few months after the atomic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, the very first resolution of the UN General Assembly, meeting in London on January 24, 1946, called for “the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.” It was passed unanimously… and nothing happened. Au contraire, within fifty years, the number of nuclear weapons in the superpowers’ arsenals had grown to more than 60,000. There still remain more than 30,000 today – equivalent in destructive force to some 200,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs.

General Assembly resolutions

The UN General Assembly has continued, year after year, to pass a wide variety of passionate resolutions on the subject of nuclear weapons: how to limit their development, testing, and use; and how to achieve disarmament. A search that I conducted in September 2005 of the information system at the Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN, seeking General Assembly resolutions involving the keyword-phrase “nuclear weapons,” found 158 such documents online. They date mostly from 1983 forward. Given these results within just a twenty-year period, I would estimate that the member states of the UN have passed resolutions in the General Assembly to limit, reduce, or eliminate nuclear weapons on more than 200 occasions already, usually with a wide majority bordering on unanimity. (Later we shall review the pattern of voting.) But still no real progress toward a serious Nuclear Weapons Convention has been made at the UN. Alas, the Review Conference of the Non-Proliferation Treaty at the UN in May 2005 was deeply disappointing, in that it “did little to tighten control over the spread of nuclear arms.”2

UN Security Council resolutions

Along with the 200-plus UN General Assembly resolutions, eloquent if weak, there have been at least seven Security Council resolutions on the subject of nuclear weapons (see Appendix A). They have generally dealt with specific issues of concern to the nuclear superpowers, like the behavior of India or Iraq. But none has hit home. None has resulted in the abandonment of thermonuclear weapons by any state that already had them. And none has prevented other states who were determined to acquire them from getting them. So much for the best efforts of UN diplomats. They can certainly sing the high notes, but they haven’t shattered any glass yet. The record shows that even the most sincere diplomatic efforts made at the UN, given its power structures and forums favoring the nuclear-armed states, have met with no significant nuclear disarmament successes.

Non-governmental voices

At the other end of the political gamut, we are hearing today more and more a chorus of “low notes,” that is, voices from grass-roots organizations like the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation,, Abolition 2000, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, and Mayors for Peace. They are part of a worldwide network of over thirty professional, civic, and non-governmental organizations – all with links to and from the wagingpeace.org Web site. They are doing great work to keep alive the conversation about the sacredness of human life and the utter waste and moral bankruptcy that building, storing, deploying, arming, and targeting nuclear weapons represents. But still, these groups are at best only raising awareness of a continuing problem and threat. By using words alone, even by speaking (as St. Paul says) with “the tongues of men and angels,” those of us who sing the “low notes” will probably never be able to persuade the nuclear-weaponized states, no matter how eloquently we speak, to collectively relinquish their supposedly sovereign right to stockpile and use weapons of mass destruction. So what will put those countries on a path to nuclear disarmament? How can we use appropriate leverage to make this dream a reality?

A new kind of chorus

The answer, I believe, lies neither in the “high notes” of UN diplomacy (always hampered by Security Council vetoes and the resistance of nuclear-armed states to any change in the status quo), nor in the “low notes” of grass roots mobilization alone. Rather, what we need to do is mobilize the already extant majority of nation-states, those 180-odd that are non-nuclear, in particular the 110 to 150 who consistently vote in favor of nuclear limitation and disarmament at the General Assembly. We need to encourage them to create their own worldwide coalition, celebrating and favoring their fraternal humanity and their restraint in “the trade of kings” in every conceivable peaceful way, and in like measure shunning and disfavoring for cause the nuclear-weapons-bearing states, their governments, and their business delegations, until they reform.

If the anti-nuclear majority could be brought together to form an effective coalition—perhaps called the Nuclear Disarmament Coalition (NDC)—its member states could provide the crucial leverage needed to achieve real progress toward disarmament. They could create the necessary conditions worldwide (not just rhetorically, in the halls of the UN) that would make it manifestly less advantageous, less convenient, less acceptable, more troublesome, and patently more costly for the nuclear states to cling to their warheads than to get rid of them. Somehow the nuclear-weapons-free governments need to get organized, and to start seeing themselves in a new light: as the “most favored nations” of planet earth… as “the new common market” of planet earth.

They need to be encouraged to use every non-violent means at their disposal to confront any states that are out of line.
They need to be encouraged to dream up the most colorful, most provocative, most imaginative of non-violent means to discourage the nuclear-weapons-club states from renewing their membership in that club.
Keeping a nuclear weapons arsenal must come to be understood as:
- no longer fashionable (imagine how the entertainment industry could help here!),
- no longer economically advantageous (imagine having to pay more for everything if your country is not part of the NDC),
- no longer the way to get ahead in the world (imagine your delegations and cultural and industrial exports being shunned),
- no longer even socially acceptable (imagine not being invited to World conferences, fairs, and festivals!)

Real progress in nuclear disarmament, I am suggesting, will only come quickly if the nuclear-weaponized states are persuaded, in the face of resounding worldwide public opinion, that it is in their own best interest to disarm and rejoin the rest of the world. The NDC states will need to make a convincing case of how serious they are about obtaining a safer world, and clearly outline the geopolitical and commercial realignments and consequences that will result if nothing is done.

When I say “the rest of the world,” I’m talking about the true world majority in terms of:

sovereign states (182 vs. 9), and even
population (3.3 billion vs. 3.1 billion)(see Appendix B);
potential developing markets, and even access to
raw materials and essential commodities

These are the very factors that will be most important for the stimulation of growing economies and for improving the standard of living of the world’s citizens in the years to come.

On the subject of population: One should neither be unduly impressed nor discouraged over the coincidence of high-population countries and large nuclear weapons arsenals. It really has nothing to do with population. Nuclear weapons are usually a by-product of an overdeveloped military-industrial complex, coupled with a leadership living in fear, or needing to instill fear in order to be reckoned with. This is as true for tiny Israel and N. Korea as it is for giant Pakistan and India. It is possible, however, that the large populations of many nuclear countries currently assumed to be quietly favoring nuclear weapons will turn out to be the very vocal masses demanding disarmament from within. The more the merrier! This will be especially true if their imaginations can be fired by the dramatic steps the rest of the world might soon be taking to shun and disfavor nuclear-weapons-armed states.

Economic Leverage

One persuasive way to get the attention of rich nuclear countries may, in fact, be via their pocket books. When it comes to raw materials, the stuff that keeps the first world happy, the anti-nuclear majority of countries just might have a few cards to play.

Petroleum and Natural Gas

Only about a quarter of the world’s states, 46 of some 200-odd oil-producing states and protectorates, produce petroleum in quantities over 100,000 barrels a day. The top 46 producers (which include the 11 OPEC countries) account for nearly 75 million of the 76 million barrels produced daily. Saudi Arabia leads the world with 9 million bbl./day. Four of the nuclear-armed states—Pakistan (61,000 bbl), France (35,000 bbl), Israel (just 80 bbl) and North Korea (0)—are not in the league of major producers. Only the remaining five of nine nuclear-armed states are in that league: Russia, the U.S., China, the U.K., and India; but none is among OPEC’s eleven members. The five in question only produce collectively 22 million barrels/day—far from enough to meet their own needs. (See Appendix C)

The point of this discussion is to make clear that leverage for serious progress towards nuclear disarmament in fact is in the hands of about 40 major, nuclear-weapons-free, oil-producing states at this time, and will continue to be for the next twenty years. A polite, principled, and firm confrontation of the few (the 9 nuclear-armed, oil-consuming states) by the many—the 40 major oil producing states, with the promise of graduated price hikes for any states that refuse to adhere to an NDC-approved nuclear disarmament timetable, would certainly get the attention of the nuclear-armed states and their citizens. It would become a tremendous internal political issue. (See also Appendix C for similar figures regarding natural gas supply and demand worldwide.)

Coffee – 55 of the 56 countries that produce coffee worldwide are in the nuclear-weapons-free camp. The only exception is India,3 whose coffee production amounts to less than 4% of world production, and is largely consumed domestically. Imagine how the American, French, and British public would react if they woke up one morning to learn that the NDC states, which may include virtually every coffee producing country in the world, were instituting a new, dramatically higher price structure for coffee beans going to non-NDC states. Could Americans swallow that? How would they vote, if they had the ability to vote, on the one issue potentially keeping them from affordable and plentiful coffee every day?

Critical and Strategic Minerals — Although the nuclear-armed states recycle varying proportions of chromium, cobalt, manganese and platinum group metals, they are almost completely dependent on imports for new supplies. World production of these metals is dominated by a few countries, including South Africa and the Democratic Republic of Congo, none of which is part of the nuclear-armed camp. Here is an interesting table about rare metals used in jet fighter engines. It was produced by Doug Davidson, a scientist with the Biosphere 2000 project. I think the implications are clear enough.4

Amount of Strategic Minerals Used in One Jet-Fighter Engine and Percentage Supplied by Imports
Mineral	Amount Used (in tons)	Percent Imported
Titanium	2.7	35
Nickel	2.6	73
Chromium	0.8	91
Cobalt	0.5	93
Aluminum	0.4	94
Columbium	0.1	100
Tantalum	3 pounds	90

Commodities — According to figures published in the current CIA Factbook online,5 US commodity imports account for the following percentages of our consumption: agricultural products 4.9%, industrial supplies 32.9% (crude oil 8.2%), capital goods 30.4% (computers, telecommunications equipment, motor vehicle parts, office machines, electric power machinery), and consumer goods account for 31.8% (automobiles, clothing, medicines, furniture, toys).

It would not be unreasonable to suggest that Nuclear Disarmament Coalition countries could decide to favor other NDC member states dramatically with their exports and pricing structures, and to do just the opposite in dealing with the nuclear-armed states that continue to hold out. The message to the few remaining states in the nuclear-armed club would be clear enough: Keeping nuclear weapons, besides being wholly unacceptable to the majority of your own country’s informed citizens, to the majority of the world’s citizens, and to the political leaders of the NDC, is bad for business, bad for trade, and will be detrimental to your supply of basic commodities.

How might the Nuclear Disarmament Coalition get started?

If it’s going to happen, I believe that it’s going to happen directly and multilaterally among interested states. We may continue for several more years to hear the “high notes” of UN resolutions, and the “low notes” of grassroots movements, but we probably won’t hear or see at the outset the “middle voices”—the quiet diplomacy that gets this movement started. As I have suggested in the attached one-page summary (Appendix E): “Imagine a non-nuclear host country inviting the foreign ministers of nearly all 180 other non-nuclear states to a meeting to create and celebrate a new alliance of countries fully committed to nuclear sanity and non-military dispute resolution.” Realistically the host country could be Ireland, Canada, Australia, Spain, Japan, or a Nordic country. It could even be France, the U.K., or India if one of them would kindly surprise the world soon by unilaterally ridding itself of its WMDs—a stunning possibility not to be ruled out!

I see the job of those who may be moved to action by this scenario, if indeed we are able to make common cause on this strategy, to be one of quietly and credibly pitching this plan to a series of most-likely host countries, one at a time, until we find one who will take the ball and run with it. We could even raise money for the initial founding conference of the NDC. I’ll bet that quite a few private foundations and businesses would contribute significant sums to help launch this humanity-saving initiative.6 After all, a peaceful world will be much better for business than one that remains on the brink of nuclear desolation, with the Doomsday Clock teetering at a mere seven minutes to midnight.

What about unanticipated consequences?

Would a serious, proactive NDC provoke unacceptable or dangerous consequences?This is an interesting question, because aside from economic blockades at various times, there has never been the use of principled, consciously non-violent confrontation tactics on the world stage before, especially in support of something which is manifestly in the interest of all humankind. Here are some random thoughts on this subject:

1. There could be nuclear isolationism. Isolationist elements in the nuclear-armed states could end up cheering that finally the rest of the world is separating itself from them. But when they began to encounter a divided and indignant world in which they themselves were in the decided minority, facing rationed coffee, heating oil and gasoline, I wonder if they wouldn’t reconsider their relative position, and ask themselves what they are really afraid of.

2. There could be trade wars. The nuclear-armed states could arguably launch trade sanctions of their own against particular NDC states, including the freezing of assets, military threats, and outright seizure of terrain and resources in those states. I would never minimize the economic damage that the world’s largest economies could wreak. But I do not think that world public opinion and domestic public opinion will stand for selfish gunboat diplomacy in the 21 st century. The bitterness and the human cost of American adventurism in Vietnam and Iraq will not soon be forgotten.

3. There could be accusations of blackmail. The nuclear-armed states could condemn NDC actions and threats as a form of blackmail, and “refuse to give in to blackmail” on principle, the merits of nuclear disarmament aside. It would be incumbent on the NDC states, therefore, to use the clearest possible language and the most persuasive communication models in waging its public relations campaign. It would need to make the world’s governments, media, and populations understand clearly its motives (the sacredness of life, human survival), and its methods: use of the very best models of non-violent resistance, as given to the world by none other than two current nuclear powers: India (Gandhi) and the USA (M. L. King).

4. The UN could be undermined. In fact, an effective Nuclear Disarmament Coalition could certainly be well represented in the present UN General Assembly. It could use that forum to great advantage. But NDC-introduced resolutions would be non-binding, and would probably never fly in the Security Council. Whether a strong NDC would undermine the UN, sidestep the UN, or cause its transformation for the better is an open question.

It would not be the first time that the countries of the world acted multilaterally outside the UN, if it came to that. Many landmark international treaties and settlements have been made, in fact, bilaterally or multilaterally without UN auspices, and only later ratified by most other states with little or no direct UN involvement. The creation of Israel (1945), the crafting of the Antarctic Treaty (1956), the creation of Bangladesh (1971), and the Oslo Accords (1993) are cases in point.
The empowering of up to 180 non-nuclear nations to make the most of their common agenda for humanity by embarking on an ambitious program of foreign trade, cultural exchanges, joint scientific ventures, and international development could well lead them to create their own successor UN-like forum. It might be called the United Non-Nuclear Nations (UN2) or United Non-nuclear States (UNS). And UN2/UNS Headquarters could spring up in a nuclear-weapon-free host country. I would especially love to see the successor host country be France or the UK, after either one unilaterally disarmed, breaking with the “gang of nine.” Only then could it, in fact, take the lead in creating and hosting the NDC.

The major nuclear-weapon-armed state that is first to rid itself of its arsenal would send a shock-wave of possibility-thinking and a challenge to geopolitical inherited widsom echoing ‘round the world. Its government would richly deserve the moral-leadership status among the nations that it would acquire. And if it capitalized on its leadership to create and host a genuinely proactive Nuclear Disarmament Coalition, it would reap enormous rewards in terms of international trade and good will. As the probable host to a new and reformed United Nations, it could well usurp the place of the United States as leader of the peace-loving world—a position to which the United States can no longer lay claim, considering its leadership in the conduct of overseas wars since the 1960s.

Which countries would probably make up the NDC?

On average there are about 110 to 150 countries whose UN representatives actually vote consistently in favor of most any resolution to limit, ban, or dismantle nuclear weapons. Appendix D conveys a sense of the voting records of those countries, showing how often they agree on this important matter. It also suggests which nuclear-armed states usually oppose the GA’s non-binding resolutions… if they bother to vote at all.

Sample votes in G. A.:

Resolution 55/33 R (2000), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Australia and Japan, was adopted 155-1 (India opposed), with 12 abstentions.

Resolution 55/33 C (2000), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 154-3 (opposed by India, Israel, Pakistan), with 8 abstentions.

Resolution 56/413 (2001), United Nations conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers in the context of nuclear disarmament, was adopted 115-7 (4 nuclear powers opposed, including USA, Israel, France, and the UK), with 37 abstentions.

Resolution 59/76 (2004), A path to general and complete disarmament, was adopted 165-3 (UK and Russian Federation in favor! India & USA, against), with 16 abstentions (including China and Israel)

Again, which countries would probably make up the NDC? No doubt all of the countries which regularly vote in favor of nuclear-weapons control and disarmament. These would be the core NDC member states.

Have other international coalitions been working to eliminate nuclear weapons?

There have been a few limited attempts in recent memory to organize both states and NGOs with a view to persuading the major nuclear-armed countries to work seriously toward disarmament. Perhaps the most significant of these on the geopolitical landscape has been The New Agenda Coalition, launched in Dublin in June 1998, with a Joint Declaration by the Ministers for Foreign Affairs of Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand, Slovenia, South Africa and Sweden (alas, Slovenia later withdrew in order to position itself for NATO membership). Its efforts have been endorsed by the European Parliament; a copy of that statement is available on the www.wagingpeace.org web site.

In the NGO arena there have been two significant recent developments, each with impressive memberships, agendas, and Web presences:

1. The Middle Powers Initiative. Through the Middle Powers Initiative, eight international non-governmental organizations (Global Security Institute, International Association of Lawyers Against Nuclear Arms, International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, International Peace Bureau, International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, State of the World Forum, and Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom) have been able to work primarily with “middle power” governments to encourage and educate the nuclear weapons states to take immediate practical steps that reduce nuclear dangers, and commence negotiations to eliminate nuclear weapons.

Middle power countries are politically and economically significant, internationally respected countries that have renounced the nuclear arms race, a standing that gives them significant political credibility. The campaign is guided by an International Steering Committee, chaired by Senator Douglas Roche, O.C., former Canadian Disarmament Ambassador.7

2. The Parliamentary Network for Nuclear Disarmament (PNND) is dedicated to providing parliamentarians worldwide with up-to-date information on nuclear weapons policies and to helping parliamentarians become engaged in nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament initiatives. PNND is a non-partisan forum for parliamentarians, nationally and internationally, to share resources and information, develop cooperative strategies and engage in nuclear disarmament issues, initiatives and arenas. It is a program of the Global Security Institute and is guided by the steering committee of the Middle Powers Initiative.8

Have they made any significant progress in furthering nuclear disarmament? Certainly the awareness of the gravity of the situation among the general public has been raised by these efforts. Yet for all their wisdom, creativity, and passion, these coalitions (to my way of thinking) have still lacked the leverage necessary to move their crucial agenda forward. It is likely that they would align themselves with and support in a heartbeat any country that took the lead in organizing a Nuclear Disarmament Coalition.

In Conclusion

Strong medicine is desperately needed. A gesture to capture the world’s imagination is desperately needed, coupled with a new experiment in geopolitics: non-violent resistance among nation-states, on the international stage. That is what this paper is urging. Whether it begin with unilateral disarmament by one of the P5 states, or with an unprecedented organizing conference by the nuclear-weapons-free states, or with a carefully staged walkout by 190 states at the UN—something that is both dramatic and principled must be done to move our planet beyond its fatal complacency in the face of these awful weapons.

Every single nuclear weapons on earth today was created by flawed human beings—men with strong minds and strong patriotic emotions, but utterly lacking in what Norman Cousins called “moral imagination.” We reject their legacy. The time has finally come to do away with it. A serious Nuclear Disarmament Coalition using strong, non-violent confrontation tactics will provide the leverage needed to accomplish this goal within a decade.

Let me end by quoting what Joseph Rotblat said on this subject:

“Morality,” he wrote, “is at the core of the nuclear issue: are we going to base our world on a culture of peace or on a culture of war? Nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral: their action is indiscriminate, affecting civilians as well as military, innocents and aggressors alike, killing people alive now and generations as yet unborn. And the consequence of their use could bring the human race to an end.” He ended his appeal with his oft-repeated plea, “Remember your humanity.”

Humanity should be proud to have had a dissenting nuclear scientist like Rotblat. David Krieger’s recent tribute to his passing states, “When he learned in late 1944 that Germany would not succeed in developing an atomic bomb, he believed there was no longer reason to continue work on creating a US bomb. For him, there was only one reason to create an atomic weapon, and that was to deter the German use of such a weapon during World War II. If the Germans would not have an atomic weapon, then there was no reason for the Allies to have one. Joseph was the only scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds.”9

What the world now needs is a dissenting nuclear state to take a moral stand like Rotblat: to disarm unilaterally, and to start a chain reaction of a whole new sort: a Nuclear Disarmament Coalition that will finally provide the practical leverage needed to persuade the few remaining nuclear powers to put down their nuclear swords and shields, convert them to plowshares, stop threatening humanity, and study war no more!

Appendix A

UN Security Council Resolutions on Nuclear Weapons (in reverse chronoloical order)

7. Title: Security Council resolution 1540 (2004) [on non-proliferation of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/1540(2004) Vote Date: 20040428. Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

6. Title: Security Council resolution 1172 (1998) [on nuclear tests conducted by India on 11 and 13 May 1998 and by Pakistan on 28 and 30 May 1998] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/1172(1998) Vote Date: 19980606 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

5. Title: Security Council resolution 984 (1995) [on security assurances against the use of nuclear weapons to non-nuclear-weapon States that are Parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/984(1995) Vote Date: 19950411 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

4. Title: Security Council resolution 825 (1993) [on the decision of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/825(1993) Vote Date: 19930511 Voting Summary: Yes: 013, No: 000, Abstentions: 002

3. Title: Security Council resolution 707 (1991) [on Iraqi violation of Security Council resolution 687 (1991) with regard to inspection of its biological, chemical and nuclear weapons capabilities] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/707(1991) Vote Date: 19910815 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 000

2. Title: Security Council resolution 487 (1981) [on the Israeli military attack on Iraqi nuclear facilities]. UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/487(1981) Vote Date: 19810619 Voting Summary: Yes: 015, No: 0

1. Title: Security Council resolution 255 (1968) [on measures to safeguard non-nuclear-weapon States parties to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons] UN Resolution Symbol: S/RES/255(1968) Vote Date: 19680619 Voting Summary: Yes: 010, No: 0, Abstentions: 005

Source: Dag Hammarskjöld Library at the UN, UBISNET Bibliographic Information System. Search terms were “Security Council” and “Nuclear.” Date was Sept. 2005.

Appendix B

Populations in Nuclear-Armed Countries vs. Populations in Nuclear-Weapon-Free (potential NDC) Countries

With China, India, and Pakistan currently in the nuclear-armed camp, one could well wonder whether the citizens of those states might actually outnumber citizens in the nuclear-free countries today. In fact they do not, but they come close. Here are the latest (9 August 2005) population figures from the online CIA Factbook. With a current world population of 6.4 billion, the nuclear cloud overshadows 3.1 billion; while 3.3 billion of earth’s inhabitants still live happily without the “protection” that such weapons afford.

Nuclear-armed countries Population Nuclear-free countries

China

India

United States

Pakistan

Russia

France

North Korea

Israel

1,306,313,812

1,080,264,388

295,734,134

162,419,946

143,420,309

60,656,178

60,441,457

22,912,177

6,276,883

3,138,439,284

180-odd

nuclear-weapons-

free

countries account for a population of:

3,308,026,699

World population (Aug. 2005) = 6,446,465,983

Appendix C

The Growing Petroleum and Natural Gas Dependency of the United States

The USA alone consumes nearly 20 million barrels of oil per day, so we depend on imports from OPEC. But we’ve got competition. While only 46 countries are producing more than 100,000 bbl/day, 70 countries are already consuming more than that each day… and China’s demand seems to be growing the fastest (see chart below). Those 70 countries’ economies require 74 million bbl/day every day, just to keep steady, with no increase in GDP. The eight most developed nuclear-armed powers (not counting N. Korea) together consume 33.4 million bbl/day of petroleum. As previously noted, they only produce 22 million bbl/day among themselves, and are not very good about sharing it.

The projected dependence on external oil markets in the Asia-Pacific world alone should give us all pause as we contemplate a consumption vs. production table like this one, published in the Energy Information Administration’s International Energy Outlook 2005:

Natural Gas

Five of the states currently in the nuclear-weapons club are even less well endowed with natural gas than they are with petroleum. China, Pakistan, India, N. Korea, and Israel export zero natural gas, but collectively consume 75 billion cu. m. annually. Russia leads the world in the production and sale of this resource, exporting 171 billion cu m annually, followed by Canada, exporting nearly 92 billion. The United States by comparison, with its huge production and domestic consumption of gas (640 billion cu m. annually), only manages to export 11 billion cu m. One can already envision the U.S. developing a natural-gas dependency on foreign imports in the next few years,. Once again the suppliers could well be countries having a decided preference to trade with other nuclear-weapons-free states.

Appendix D

Select UN General Assembly Votes since 1998 on Nuclear Disarmament: How do the Votes Tally?

[For]-[Against]-[Abstentions] Non-voters are not recorded.

Resolution 53/77 X (1998), Nuclear disarmament, sponsored by Myanmar on behalf of the NAM (Non-Aligned Movement), was adopted, 110-41-18
Resolution 53/77 U (1998), Nuclear disarmament with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Japan, was adopted, 160-0-11
Resolution 53/77 Q (1998), Nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas, introduced by Brazil, was adopted 154-3 (France, USA, UK)-10
Resolution 53/77 W (1998), Advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice on the legality of the threat or use of nuclear weapons, introduced by Malaysia, was adopted 123-25-25
The New Agenda Coalition (NAC) , launched in June 1998, consists of seven States, Brazil, Egypt, Ireland, New Zealand, Mexico, South Africa, and Sweden. At the 54th Session of the UN General Assembly, on 1 December 1999, a resolution (54/54 G) put forward by the NAC, “Towards a Nuclear-Weapon-Free World: the Need for a New Agenda,” was adopted by 111 votes to 13 with 39 abstentions.
Resolution 54/54 D (1999), Nuclear disarmament with a view to the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons, spons. by Belgium, Japan, etc., was adopted 153-0-12
Resolution 54/57 (1999), on The risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, was adopted 149-3 (opposed by Israel, USA, and Micronesia)-with 9 abstentions.
Resolution 54/63 (1999), for a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 158-0-6
Resolution 55/31 (2000), for the Conclusion of effective international arrangements to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, was adopted 111-0, with 54 abstentions.
Resolution 55/33 C (2000), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, sponsored by 63 States, was adopted 154-3 (India, Israel, Pakistan), with 8 abstentions. (Favorable votes were way up from 111 in 1999.)
Resolution 55/33 N (2000), Reducing nuclear danger, was adopted 110-45, with 14 abstentions.
Resolution 55/33 R (2000), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Australia and Japan, was adopted 155-1 (India), with 12 abstentions.
Resolution 55/36 (2000), aimed at averting the risk of nuclear proliferation in the Middle East, was adopted 157-3, with 8 abstentions. (Up from 149-3 in 1999!)
Resolution 55/41 (2000), for a Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty, sponsored by 74 nations, was adopted 161-0 with 6 abstentions.
Resolution 56/24 N (2001), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, was adopted 139-3 (India, the USA, Micronesia against), with 19 abstentions.
Resolution 56/24 O (2001), supporting preparatory work on the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons: 2005 Review Conference, was adopted 156-1 (India) with 3 abstentions.
Resolution 56/24 R (2001), calling for Nuclear Disarmament, sponsored by 48 nations, was adopted 149-3 with 6 abstentions.
Resolution 56/413 (2001), United Nations conference to identify ways of eliminating nuclear dangers in the context of nuclear disarmament, was adopted 115-7 (4 nuclear powers opposed, including USA, Israel, France, and the UK), with 37 abstentions.
Resolution 57/59 (2002), Towards a nuclear-weapon-free world: the need for a new agenda, with its stronger language condemning nuclear weapons, was adopted 125-6 with 36 abstentions.
Resolution 57/78 (2002), A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons, was adopted 156-2 (India and the USA against), with 13 abstentions.
Resolution 58/35 (2003), to assure non-nuclear-weapon States against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, with its stronger language condemning nuclear weapons, was adopted 119-0 with 58 abstentions.
Resolution 58/50 (2003), for the reduction of non-strategic nuclear weapons, was adopted 128-4 (France, Russia, UK, and USA against), with 43 abstentions.
Resolution 59/64 (2004), Assuring non-nuclear-weapons states against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, sponsored by Pakistan and 20 other countries, adopted 118-0 with 63 abstentions.
Resolution 59/65 (2004), Verifiable treaty banning the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons , was adopted 179-2 (Palau and the USA against), with 2 abstentions (Israel and UK).
Resolution 59/85 (2004), Calling for a nuclear-weapon-free southern hemisphere and adjacent areas, sponsored by New Zealand, Costa Rica, and 34 other countries, adopted 171-4 (USA, UK, France, Palau) with 7 abstentions.
Resolution 59/76 (2004), a path to general and complete disarmament, was adopted 165-3 (UK and Russian Federation in favor! India & USA, against), with 16 abstentions (including China and Israel).

Anti-nuclear votes at the UN General Assembly continue, with similar margins in favor (and patterns of opposition from the USA, Israel, India, China, etc.)

Appendix E

ONE-PAGE SUMMARY

LEVERAGING THE ANTI-NUCLEAR MAJORITY: HOW TO CREATE A SERIOUS NUCLEAR DISARMAMENT COALITION (NDC)

Imagine most of the 180-odd non-nuclear [10] states of the world, on their own, without the permission of the superpowers, being invited to create a serious coalition of progressive nations, proud to reject nuclear weapons, and committed to the worldwide elimination of all WMDs.

Imagine a non-nuclear host country ( Ireland? Canada? Australia? Spain? Japan? a Nordic country?) [11] inviting the foreign ministers of nearly all 180 other non-nuclear states to a meeting to create and celebrate this new alliance of countries fully committed to nuclear sanity and non-military dispute resolution. This new, nonviolent diplomatic initiative might call itself something like the “Nuclear Disarmament Coalition” (NDC).

Representing the majority of UN member states, the NDC could raise the stakes for nuclear disarmament at the UN dramatically. Acting both within the present UN and independently, from headquarters in a non-nuclear host country, the NDC states could take strong actions like the following to achieve their objectives:

a. establish favorable trading agreements with other NDC states, and use their collective weight in international trade, markets, and raw materials to pressure nuclear states to abandon their WMDs;

b. work collectively by all available economic, diplomatic, and cultural means (including grassroots mobilizing, and media blitzes) to isolate nuclear states, conceivably even using trade and air travel embargoes;

c. in general force the issues of nuclear and other WMD disarmament and nonviolent dispute resolution in the interest of the world’s children and grandchildren—indeed, all humankind—by actively marginalizing the minority of states which still cling to these abominable relics of anti-population warfare.

If the nuclear minority at the UN blocked serious efforts to accomplish nuclear lockdown and a timetable for the elimination of nuclear weapons by a given date, NDC states could abandon the UN and create a successor diplomatic forum (perhaps called UN2, United Non-nuclear Nations). Full membership in the NDC and any successor forum would be offered only to nuclear weapons-free states, although nuclear-armed states could have observer status until they disarmed or began a NDC-monitored disarmament process. If successful, this initiative will lead the nuclear states to see the wisdom, indeed the urgency, of dismantling and destroying all nuclear weapons. It will ultimately induce them to join a new, more humane, more egalitarian world order, represented by the NDC (or UN2) charter—a diplomatic framework worthy of the 21 st century.

Creative nonviolence is at the heart of this proposal. Direct diplomatic, trade, and cultural confrontation of the minority (eight, including Israel, India, and Pakistan—perhaps nine or ten if N. Korea and Iran go nuclear) by the majority (180) could be our best and last hope for leveraging world nuclear disarmament. Carefully orchestrated, strong, non-violent words and actions, such as boycotts and media blitzes, trade embargoes, and other forms of confrontation on the international arena could create conditions of intolerable isolation for any and all nuclear nations, including aspiring ones. But time is of the essence!

Creating a new Nuclear Disarmament Coalition could send the necessary message to all actual and potential nuclear states: “Arm at your peril. You will lose more than you gain. The nations of the world will reject your goods, your services, and your leadership.” Were this all to occur, verifiable nuclear disarmament might be accomplished within five to ten years.

Thomas Heck, Emeritus Professor Ohio State University Phone: (805) 692-1969

1. King Arthur, act 2, sc. 2 (1691).

2. See the UN Press release of 27 May 2005 at <http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2005/dc2969.doc.htm>

3. Coffee production in the USA is negligible. According to the USDA, the US produced 170,000 bags of beans last year. Source: <http://www.fas.usda.gov/psd/complete_tables/HTP-table5-193.htm>

4. Davidson’s paper is entitled “Critical and Strategic Minerals,” and is published online at <http://www.environmentaleducationohio.org/Biosphere/Case%20Studies/minerals.html>

5. <http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/>

6. One can think not only of well-funded American charities, like the Gates Foundation, the Google Foundation, the Pew Charitable Trust, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, but also major international businesses and funds like Rotary International, OPEC, the Gulbenkian Foundation, and many UN-associated NGOs.

7. Source: <http://www.middlepowers.org/mpi/archives/000122.shtml>

8. Source: <http://www.gsinstitute.org/pnnd/about.html>

9. David Krieger, “Sir Joseph Rotblat: A Legacy of Peace (1908-2005),” at <https://wagingpeace.davidmolinaojeda.com/articles/2005/09/01_krieger_sir-joseph-rotblat.htm> (September 2005).

10. Non-nuclear in this document refers only to nuclear weapons, not to nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

11. The eventual host country could even be France, the U.K., or India if one of them would kindly surprise the world soon by unilaterally ridding itself of WMDs. (Imagine the consequences in terms of good will, media attention, and moral authority!)

September 12, 2005

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

August 14, 2005
The Time of the Bomb

When he was told on August 6, 1945, that America’s new atom bomb had destroyed its first target, the Japanese city of Hiroshima, U.S. President Harry Truman declared “This is the greatest thing in history.” Three days later, on August 9, another atom bomb destroyed the city of Nagasaki.

The coming of the bomb brought pain and death. A 1946 survey by the Hiroshima City Council found that from a civilian population of about 320,000 on the day of the explosion: over 118,000 were killed, over 30,000 seriously injured, with almost 49,000 slightly injured, and nearly 4,000 people were missing. In December 1945, the Nagasaki City Commission determined that because of the bombing there, almost 74,000 people had been killed and 75,000 injured. The injured continued to die for months and years later, one of the reasons being radiation sickness. Pregnant women who were affected produced children who were severely physically and mentally retarded. The Japanese created a new word — hibakusha, — a survivor of the atom bomb.

In the sixty years since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we have been spared the horror of a nuclear weapon attack on another city. But nuclear weapons have grown in their destructive power; each can now be tens of times, or even hundreds of times, more powerful that those used to destroy Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The number of nuclear weapons has grown; there are now tens of thousands. Where there was one country with the bomb, there are now perhaps nine (US, Russia, UK, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea). There are many more political and military leaders who, like Truman in 1945, see the bomb as “the greatest thing in history”.

From the very beginning, there has also been opposition to the bomb. The French writer and activist Albert Camus wrote on August 6, 1945: “technological civilization has just reached its final degree of savagery… Faced with the terrifying perspectives which are opening up to humanity, we can perceive even better that peace is the only battle worth waging.”

The American sociologist and critic Lewis Mumford wrote: “We in America are living among madmen. Madmen govern our affairs in the name of order and security. The chief madmen claim the titles of general, admiral, senator, scientist, administrator, Secretary of State, even President.” There are many more of these madmen now. They all mumble the same nonsense about “threats,” and “national security,” and “nuclear deterrence,” and try to scare everyone around them.

Protest and resistance against the madness of nuclear weapons has brought together some of the greatest figures of our times with millions of ordinary men and women around the world. Albert Einstein and the philosopher Bertrand Russell gave the reason most simply and clearly. They published a manifesto in 1955 in which they identified the stark challenge created by nuclear weapons: “Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war?”

The only way forward for humanity, Einstein and Russell said, was that “We have to learn to think in a new way. We have to learn to ask ourselves, not what steps can be taken to give a military victory to whatever group we prefer, for there no longer are such steps; the question we have to ask ourselves is: what steps can be taken to prevent a military contest of which the issue must be disastrous to all parties?” Their 1955 manifesto led to the formation of the Pugwash movement of scientists. It was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for its work against nuclear weapons in 1995. There are now Pugwash groups in 50 countries, including in India and Pakistan.

Global protests eventually forced an end to nuclear weapons testing in the atmosphere and under water. These explosions had been spewing radioactivity in the air, where it was blown around the world, poisoning land, water, food and people. But the “madmen” were blinded by the power of the ultimate weapon. They kept building more and bigger bombs and threatening to use them. They have been stopped from using them only by the determined efforts of peace movements and public pressure.

The bomb and the madmen came to South Asia too. India tested a bomb in 1974 and Pakistan set about trying to make one. There was protest too. In 1985, a small group of people in Islamabad organised an event for Hiroshima Day, August 6, at the Rawalpindi Press Club. There was a slide show and talk about nuclear weapons and their terrible effects, with pictures of the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Every picture brought gasps of horror and revulsion from the packed audience. The posters and placards and banners on the walls carried messages about the need to end war, to reduce military spending and increase spending on education and health, and to make peace between India and Pakistan. A small, short-lived peace group was born, the Movement for Nuclear Disarmament.

That was twenty years ago. The Cold War is long over, the Soviet Union long gone, but there has been little relief. The United States still has five thousand weapons deployed, 2000 of which are ready to use within 15 minutes, and there are another five thousand in reserve. Russia has over 7000 weapons deployed and 9000 in reserve.

The UK, France, and China are estimated each to have several hundred warheads, Israel may have almost as many, and India and Pakistan have a hundred or fewer. North Korea may have a handful. And, leaders are still mad; they send armies to attack and occupy other countries, and kill and maim tens of thousands. In America, they plan for newer and more useable nuclear weapons.

In the meantime, India and Pakistan have also tested their nuclear weapons — which are about as powerful as the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki. They have threatened to use their weapons in every crisis since then. They are making more weapons and missiles as fast as they can. A nuclear war between Pakistan and India, in which they each used only five of their nuclear weapons, would likely kill about three million people and severely injure another one and a half million. What more proof is needed that we are ruled by madmen?

If South Asia is to survive its own nuclear age, we shall need to have strong peace movements in both Pakistan and India. A beginning has been made. The Pakistan Peace Coalition was founded in 1999; it is a national network of groups working for peace and justice. In 2000, Indian activists established the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament and Peace. These movements will need all the help and support they can get to keep the generals and Prime Ministers in both countries in check. The leaders in both countries must be taught, over and over again, that the people will not allow a nuclear war to be fought. There should never be a word in any other language for hibakusha.

Zia Mian, peace activist, is a physicist at Princeton University.

A.H. Nayyar is a physicist, co-convener of Pugwash Pakistan, and president of the Pakistan Peace Coalition.

Originally published by The News International

August 6, 2005
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
Hiroshima, America, and Humanity’s Future
We are again in the season of Hiroshima. Many will gather at Hiroshima Peace Memorial Park to remember that fateful day 60 years ago when an atomic weapon was first used on a human population and obliterated the city of Hiroshima.

In America, unfortunately, far too few individuals will take note of this anniversary. Many of those who do remember Hiroshima will recall it as an event of triumph, not disaster.

Throughout most of the world, the name Hiroshima has come to represent man’s technological capacity for massive destruction. Hiroshima was the culmination of the high-altitude bombing and long-range killing that came increasingly to characterize World War II.

Hiroshima opened the door upon a new world, a world in which it is possible for humanity to destroy itself by its own inventions of highly destructive weaponry. Hiroshima was the world’s first look at a technology that could destroy countries, end civilization, and foreclose a human future.

Following the bombing on August 6, 1945, Hiroshima was a wasteland. It might have been left this way as a monument and reminder of the new dangers confronting humanity. But that wasn’t to be.

The bombed Hiroshima is the Hiroshima of death. It is a harbinger of what may befall humanity. It is a warning, but a warning that seems far distant in our fast-moving, materialistic world.

The physical evidence of the crime has been largely covered over and a thriving new Hiroshima has been built from the ruins – a Hiroshima that demonstrates humanity’s capacity for healing and rebuilding. Sixty years after the bombing, Hiroshima itself is a place of hope. It is a city resurrected, and filled with life.

What remains of the destroyed Hiroshima can now be found in the Hiroshima Peace Memorial Museum and in the hearts of the hibakusha, the survivors of the atomic bombings. They cling to the message, “Never Again! Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist.” They also cling to the hope that humanity can rise above its destructive impulses.

The rebirth of Hiroshima reflects the power of the human spirit, but the problem presented to humanity by Hiroshima has not gone away. As the leading scientists who signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto put it fifty years ago: “There lies before us, if we choose, continual progress in happiness, knowledge and wisdom. Shall we instead choose death, because we cannot forget our quarrels?”

Many of the scientists who created nuclear weapons in the Manhattan Project thought that they should not be used on human populations. They warned that if nuclear weapons were used on Japan, the result would be a nuclear arms race. They unsuccessfully tried to convince US political leaders that the atomic bomb should first be demonstrated to Japanese leaders in a remote, uninhabited place, in order to allow them a chance to surrender. But the pleas of the scientists were unsuccessful. They had lost control of their creation, and government leaders chose to use the bomb before the Soviets entered the war in the Pacific.

The atomic bombing of Hiroshima occurred at the end of a terrible war, but it marked the beginning of a new collective madness that would result in the US and USSR each threatening the other with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. Today the numbers of weapons is lower than at the height of the Cold War, but the collective insanity continues.

Fifteen years after the breakup of the Soviet Union, the US and Russia have friendly relations. Yet, each side still maintains more than 2,000 long-range nuclear weapons targeted on the other on hair-trigger alert, ready to be fired in moments. Can this be described in any other way than collective madness?

Do the people of the world, particularly Americans and Russians, understand what this means? Opinion polls indicate that 85 to 90 percent of people everywhere would choose to eliminate nuclear weapons, so long as all countries do so. They understand that it would improve their security, as well as be morally and legally correct. But among politicians, there is little movement toward a nuclear weapons-free world.

In the year 2000, the parties to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) agreed to 13 Practical Steps for Nuclear Disarmament, including an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals….” It seemed to be a significant breakthrough. Yet, five years later, at the 2005 NPT Review Conference, the United States had fulfilled none of its obligations under the 13 Practical Steps, and refused to allow an agenda for the conference that even made reference to them.

The Bush administration wants funding for new nuclear weapons, particularly earth penetrating nuclear weapons or “bunker busters.” They want a world in which there is no place outside the range of their nuclear weapons. It is a frighteningly dangerous world in which the United States would remain reliant upon nuclear weapons and continue to threaten their use for the indefinite future.

At Hiroshima, the bomb dropped by the United States killed 140,000 people, mostly civilians, and it was celebrated in the US as a military victory. In doing so, the US made victims not only of the people of Hiroshima, but of all humanity, including ourselves. In today’s world, any city anywhere is subject to being destroyed at a moment’s notice.

It is painful, yet necessary, to recall details of that fateful day. On the morning of August 6, 1945, people in Hiroshima set off to work or school. Earlier a US plane had flown over the city, and an alarm had sounded. Then came the all-clear signal. Then another plane, this one the US B-29, Enola Gay. It dropped its single bomb, which fell for 43 seconds, and at 8:15 a.m. the city of Hiroshima was destroyed. Individuals close to the epicenter were incinerated. Those further away were killed by blast and fire. Many of the initial survivors developed “radiation sickness,” and died in the coming days, weeks, months and years of cancers and leukemias.

On August 9, 1945, three days after the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki was bombed and destroyed with another atomic weapon. On the same day, Harry Truman told the American people about Hiroshima. He struck a religious note in talking about the bomb, “We thank God that it has come to us, instead of to our enemies; and we pray that He may guide us to use it in His ways and for His purposes.”

Herbert Hoover, a former American president, had a far different reaction: “The use of the atomic bomb, with its indiscriminate killing of women and children, revolts my soul.”

Leading American generals and admirals were equally appalled by the use of atomic weapons. Eisenhower later said, “It wasn’t necessary to hit them with that awful thing.” Admiral William D. Leahy, Truman’s Chief of Staff, wrote: “…the use of this barbarous weapon at Hiroshima and Nagasaki was of no material assistance in our war against Japan. The Japanese were already defeated and ready to surrender…. My own feeling 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….”

Nuclear weapons do not discriminate. They kill men, women and children. In this way, among others, they are illegal under International Humanitarian Law, as the International Court of Justice ruled in 1996.

Nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapon of cowards. Those who would possess nuclear weapons need only find men and women willing to make them, service them and press the button to release them.

Nuclear weapons destroy the destroyers. Reflecting on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Gandhi said, “What has happened to the soul of the destroying nation is yet too early to see. Forces of nature act in a mysterious manner.”

As Americans look back at the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we, too, should be reflecting on what has happened to our collective soul. We should be reflecting on who we are, as we cling to our weapons of massive destruction, and lead the world in opposing nuclear disarmament.

It may be a dangerous world, but our future lies in forgiveness and decency, not force of arms. In the US, we spend half of the world’s total military expenditure, more than $500 billion annually, and we still are not secure. We seek inexpensive sources of oil, and we pay the price in blood, our own but mostly that of others.

If we continue on the path we are on, an American Hiroshima will be in our future. It is inevitable. If the disillusioned and disaffected extremists of the world obtain nuclear weapons, they will use them and the US will be a likely target. The irony of this is that none of our thousands of nuclear weapons will make us any safer. In fact, they make us less secure by creating a situation in which others will also keep nuclear weapons and some of these may end up in the hands of extremists.

But when it comes to nuclear weapons, there are no moderates. All nuclear policies are dangerous and extreme, except those that contribute to the elimination of nuclear weapons. All possessors of nuclear weapons are extremists. If terrorism is threatening or killing innocent civilians, then nuclear weapons are the ultimate weapon of terrorism and those who possess them are the ultimate terrorists.

How are we to change? Perhaps Hiroshima provides a place to begin. The horrors of Hiroshima are not only the past, but potentially in the future as well. We can begin with finding our sorrow. We can begin with recognizing the suffering we have caused and are causing still. We can begin with apologies and forgiveness.

Hiroshima has largely recovered from its wounds. The city has been rebuilt. The flowers have returned. The survivors have made it their mission to end the nuclear weapons threat to humanity. They have forgiven the crime.

But America will not heal from the trauma of the devastation we have caused and continue to cause until Americans say No to wanton power, No to nuclear weapons, No to war and No to leaders who lie us into war. Until we summon the power to resist, we will continue to be victims of our own massive and unbridled power. It is within our power to change, but not without ending our addiction to power and our double standards that support this addiction. America must reassert its commitment to decency, not destruction.

The 1955 Russell-Einstein Manifesto – issued ten years after the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, as thermonuclear weapons were being developed and tested – concluded with these words: “We appeal as human beings to human beings: Remember your humanity and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death.”

We have a choice, and where there is choice there is hope. If we do nothing, we will remain on the path of universal death. If we choose to change the world, it is within our power to do so. Hiroshima is our past; it doesn’t need to be our future. We can join with the survivors of Hiroshima in committing ourselves to assuring that atomic weapons will never again be used by taking the sensible and reasonable step of abolishing these instruments of genocide.

Unfortunately what is reasonable is not always possible. To end the threat to humanity and other forms of life created by nuclear weapons, there are two different sets of problems to be solved. The first is to articulate what needs to be done. The second is to overcome the obstacles that stand in the way of accomplishing these goals.

Let us look first at what needs to be done. At the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, we have proposed the following eight commitments by the nuclear weapons states.
1. Commitment to good faith negotiations to achieve total nuclear disarmament.
2. Commitment to a timeframe for marking progress and achieving the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons.
3. Commitment to No First Use of nuclear weapons against other nuclear weapons states and to No Use against non-nuclear weapons states.
4. Commitment to irreversibility and verifiability of disarmament measures.
5. Commitment to standing down nuclear forces, removing them from high alert status.
6. Commitment to create no new nuclear weapons.
7. Commitment to a verifiable ban on the production of fissile materials, and placing existing materials under strict international control.
8. Commitment to accounting, transparency and reporting to build confidence and allow for verification of the disarmament process.
We view these as a minimal level of commitment to demonstrate the “good faith” effort to achieve the total elimination of nuclear weapons that is required by international law. Other commitments could be added to these, such as support for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and agreement to refrain from weaponizing outer space.

Essentially, the international community knows what needs to be done to achieve the phased elimination of nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, the larger problem is with not what is needed but what is politically possible. This leaves behind the realm of what is reasonable and sensible, and enters the realm of prerogatives of political decision makers.

Despite the threat to humanity and despite reason, none of the commitments above have been acted on by the United States, the world’s most powerful nuclear weapons state. Without US commitment to these goals, it is unlikely that less powerful nuclear weapons states will commit to them. Thus, progress on nuclear disarmament is stalled by US intransigency. The US is not the leader in nuclear disarmament, but rather its major obstacle. This was apparent at the 2005 nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, where the US pointed the finger at others, such as Iran and North Korea, but was unwilling even to discuss its own obligations to achieve nuclear disarmament under the treaty and under international law in general.

Within the US, democracy is the province of the people and their representatives, with the mass media playing a critical role in educating the people so that they may make reasoned political choices and give their informed consent to the actions of leaders. It is the political leaders of the US who have been the obstacle to global nuclear disarmament, and for the most part the people are unaware of this because they do not learn about it from the mass media.

The only way to change the policies of the government is for the people to voice their concerns, but largely the people are not informed of the positions of their government on nuclear issues. Nor are they given reasonable analyses of the pros and cons of US nuclear policies because the media has been lax in doing its job.

Humanity’s best hope for ending the nuclear weapons threat that confronts us all is for the American people to engage this issue as if their lives depended upon its outcome. The truth is that our lives, and those of people throughout the world, do depend upon US nuclear policies. We cannot wait for leaders who will recognize and solve these problems for us. We must speak up and we must educate our neighbors and our elected officials.

The choices are clear. One way is to continue on the disastrous path we are on, a path on which our nuclear arsenal plays a pivotal role in providing a false sense of security. Or we can change the direction of our policies, with the US seeking to strengthen its own security and global security by providing leadership to achieve the phased and total elimination of nuclear weapons. To move to this path, the American people are going to have to wake up and demand that their government, acting in their names, end its reliance on nuclear weapons and fulfill its moral and legal obligations to end the nuclear weapons era.

David Krieger is the President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (www.wagingpeace.org). He is the author of Today Is Not a Good Day for War.
August 5, 2005
Break the Nuclear Deadlock

UNITED NATIONS, New York
Regrettably, there are times when multilateral forums tend merely to reflect, rather than mend, deep rifts over how to confront the threats we face. The review conference of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which ended on Friday with no substantive agreement, was one of these.
For 35 years, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, or NPT, has been a cornerstone of our global security. With near universal membership, the treaty has firmly entrenched a norm against nuclear proliferation and helped confound predictions that today there would be 25 or more countries with nuclear weapons.
But today, the treaty faces a dual crisis of compliance and confidence. Delegates at the month-long conference, which is held once every five years, could not furnish the world with any solutions to the grave nuclear threats we all face. And while arriving at an agreement can be more challenging in a climate of crisis, it is also at such times that it is all the more imperative to do so.
Let me be clear: Failure of a review conference to come to any agreement will not break the NPT-based regime. The vast majority of countries that are parties to the treaty recognize its enduring benefits. But there are cracks in each of the treaty’s pillars – nonproliferation, disarmament and peaceful uses of nuclear technology – and each of these cracks requires urgent repair.
Since the review conference last met, in 2000, North Korea has announced its withdrawal from the treaty and declared itself in possession of nuclear weapons. Libya has admitted that it worked for years on a clandestine nuclear weapons program. And the International Atomic Energy Agency has found undeclared uranium enrichment activity in Iran. Clearly, the NPT-based regime has not kept pace with the march of technology and globalization. Whereas proliferation among countries was once considered the sole concern of the treaty, revelations that the Pakistani nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan and others were extensively trafficking in nuclear technology and know-how exposed the vulnerability of the nonproliferation regime to non-state actors.
The treaty’s framers could hardly have imagined that we would have to work tirelessly to prevent terrorists from acquiring and using nuclear weapons and related materials. And while progress toward disarmament has taken place, there are still 27,000 nuclear weapons in the world, many of which remain on hair-trigger alert. At the same time, the intergovernmental bodies designed to address these challenges are paralyzed.
In Geneva, the Conference on Disarmament has been unable to agree on a program of work for eight years. The UN Disarmament Commission has become increasingly marginal, producing no real agreement since 2000. And at the NPT review conference, nearlytwo-thirds of the proceedings were consumed by debate about agenda and logistics, instead of substantive discussions on how to strengthen the nonproliferation regime.
In my opening address to the conference, I argued that success would depend on coming to terms with all the nuclear dangers that threaten humanity. I warned that the conference would stall if some delegates focused on some threats instead of addressing them all. Some countries underscored proliferation as a grave danger, while others argued that existing nuclear arsenals imperil us. Some insisted that the spread of nuclear fuel-cycle technology posed an unacceptable proliferation threat, while others countered that access to peaceful uses of nuclear technology must not be compromised.
In the end, delegations regrettably missed the opportunity to endorse the merits of all of these arguments. As a result, they were unable to advance security against any of the dangers we face. How, then, can we overcome this paralysis? When multilateral forums falter, leaders must lead. This September, more than 170 heads of state and government will convene in New York to adopt a wide-ranging agenda to advance development, security and human rights for all countries and all peoples. I challenge them to break the deadlock on the most pressing challenges in the field of nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. If they fail to do so, their peoples will ask how, in today’s world, they could not find common ground in the cause of diminishing the existential threat of nuclear weapons.
To revitalize the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, action will be required on many fronts. To strengthen verification and increase confidence in the regime, leaders must agree to make the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Additional Protocol the new standard for verifying compliance with nonproliferation commitments.
Leaders must find ways to reconcile the right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy with the imperative of nonproliferation. The regime will not be sustainable if scores more countries develop the most sensitive phases of the fuel cycle, and are equipped with the technology to produce nuclear weapons on short notice.
A first step would be to create incentives for countries to voluntarily forgo the development of fuel-cycle facilities. I commend the nuclear agency and its director general, Mohamed ElBaradei, for working to advance consensus on this vital question, and I urge leaders to join him in that mission. Leaders must also move beyond rhetoric in addressing the question of disarmament.
Prompt negotiation of a fissile material cutoff treaty for all countries is indispensable. All countries also should affirm their commitment to a moratorium on testing, and to early entry into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty. And I hope leaders will think seriously about what more can be done to reduce – irreversibly – the number and role of nuclear weapons in the world.
Bold commitments at the September meeting would breathe new life into all forums dealing with disarmament and nonproliferation. They would reduce all the risks we face – of nuclear accidents, of trafficking, of terrorist use and of use by countries themselves. It is an ambitious agenda, and probably daunting to some. But the consequences of failure are far more daunting. Solutions are within are reach; we must grasp them.
Kofi A. Annan is Secretary General of the United Nations. Herald Tribune All rights reserved

May 30, 2005
Reviving Nuclear Disarmament in the Non-Proliferation Regime Opening Remarks

This panel on “Reviving Nuclear Disarmament in the Non-Proliferation Regime” is of tremendous importance to the outcome of this Seventh Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference. Beyond that, it may prove vital to the present and future security of our planet. I am very pleased to be a part of it.

Although the public is largely unaware of this, it is no secret to any of you that nuclear disarmament is a central component of the non-proliferation bargain. On the one hand, this treaty provides obligations to halt nuclear proliferation; on the other, it provides obligations to achieve nuclear disarmament.

This makes perfect sense, of course, for the two obligations are highly interlinked. Without fulfilling disarmament obligations, it will not be possible to prevent proliferation. And should there be further nuclear proliferation, nuclear disarmament will be all the more difficult.

There has been much emphasis in the news – a subject with which I have some familiarity – about the dangers of nuclear proliferation. Unfortunately, the nuclear disarmament obligations of the nuclear weapons states receive far less attention in news reporting, (at least within the United States). This may well be simply because a degree of isolationism still exists across the breadth of our land. That manifests itself in a down-playing of international news. Too often there is only minimum attention given by our local news media, print and broadcast, to the deeper, more intricate stories about our global community, its problems and hopes.

I’m afraid that a far too large percentage of our population does not recognize that nuclear disarmament is an essential component of the non-proliferation bargain. It is reason for us to worry. It seems that the United States and the other nuclear weapons states are trying to evade their obligations and responsibilities under this critical treaty.

These countries have in the first instance behaved as though the “unequivocal undertaking” which they made five years ago at the 2000 Non-Proliferation Treaty Review Conference, was subject to being discarded at will. They commit a similar affront to the non-proliferation treaty community by ignoring other of their promises.

Such behavior strains the credibility of these countries and puts the outcome of this Review Conference in jeopardy of failure. That outcome, of course, would be a tragedy for the world.

In this 60th year of the Nuclear Age, we must all be thinking about what can be done to assure a future for human beings on our planet. As the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, have continually warned – “Nuclear weapons and human beings cannot co-exist.”

As a species, we are neither smart enough nor careful enough to continue to live with nuclear weapons in our midst. So far we have been lucky in that since the end of World War II, nuclear weapons have not been used again in war. But there is no telling how long this luck will last. We certainly cannot count on it to last indefinitely.

Therefore, we must get back to basics. We must return to the nuclear disarmament part of the Non-Proliferation Treaty bargain. And we must do so with clarity of purpose and determination to succeed. This is what my very distinguished fellow panelists are here to talk about today. The panelists include both representatives of civil society and of government. They all have worked on these issues with extraordinary dedication for a very long time.

I urge the delegates to this treaty conference to listen to them carefully – and to act with certainty that the future of humanity, including yet unborn generations, is dependent upon your success – right here and right now! You have a very important responsibility and the future is in your hands.

I trust that you will act with the foresight, courage and resolve that our current situation demands.

Walter Cronkite is an eminent broadcast journalist and recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

May 5, 2005
Cronkite: Media Failing on Nuclear Stories

United Nations – When it comes to reporting on nuclear arms, the U.S. news media let readers and viewers down, giving them only part of the story, former news anchor Walter Cronkite said Wednesday.

The celebrated CBS retiree, joining in a panel discussion on the sidelines of a U.N. conference on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, said narrow reporting means the U.S. public is “largely unaware” that the 1970 treaty obliges their government to move toward full nuclear disarmament.

“There’s been a lot in the news about nonproliferation,” Cronkite said, referring to Iran and North Korea, whose nuclear programs, under fire from the U.S. government, make daily headlines.

“But, unfortunately, the nuclear disarmament obligations of the nuclear weapons states receive far less attention in news reporting, at least in our United States,” he said.

Another panelist, Marian Hobbs, New Zealand’s minister for disarmament, also criticized media coverage of arms control.

“We need the media. We want a media that informs us of other people’s opinions, not just American opinion, or your country’s opinion,” she told the international audience.

Under the nonproliferation treaty, more than 180 countries commit to not pursuing nuclear arms, in exchange for a commitment by five nuclear powers — the United States, Russia, Britain, France and China — to negotiate toward nuclear disarmament.

North Korea has announced its withdrawal from the pact and says it has built nuclear weapons. Washington contends Iran’s nuclear program, which Tehran says is meant to produce electricity, is a cover for plans to build weapons.

Nonweapons states, on the other hand, complain increasingly that U.S. actions, such as talk of building new nuclear arms, run counter to treaty obligations.

Cronkite agreed.

“It simply seems the United States and other nuclear weapons states are actually trying to evade their obligations and responsibilities under the treaty,” he said, adding that he visited Hiroshima after the 1945 U.S. atomic bombing of that Japanese city and since then has been “a campaigner to get rid of every nuclear weapon.”

Walter Cronkite is an eminent broadcast journalist and recipient of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation’s 2004 Distinguished Peace Leadership Award.

May 4, 2005
Santa Barbara Nuclear Activist Leader Honored at Gala

Six people whose efforts have made significant contributions to the world’s environment, including Santa Barbaran David Krieger of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, were honored by Global Green USA at a gala ceremony Friday in Beverly Hills.

Global Green is the U.S. affiliate of Green Cross International, which aims to push the world toward more sustainable and safer use of its resources. The American group’s annual Millennium Awards recognize those who contribute professionally to that goal by addressing environmental and social problems.

Besides Mr. Krieger, others honored were actors and environmental advocates Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick; Sally Lilienthal, founder and president of Ploughshares Fund; Fred Buenrostro, CEO of the California Public Employees’ Retirement System; and Rob Feckner, president of the CalPERS board.

“We hope the awards inspire others to take similar paths and encourage our honorees to shine even brighter in their respective fields,” said Matt Petersen, president and CEO of Global Green USA.

Mr. Krieger, who received the International Environmental Leadership Award, has been a leader in the effort to abolish nuclear weapons. Global Green noted that he helped found several international coalitions, including Abolition 2000; the Middle Powers Initiative; and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists for Global Responsibility, based in Germany.

Mr. Krieger founded the Santa Barbara-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and has served as its president since 1982. A graduate of the Santa Barbara College of Law, Mr. Krieger also serves as a judge pro tem for the local Superior Court.

The link between green concerns and abating the nuclear threat was embodied by the ceremony’s keynote speaker, former Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, who asked that world leaders adopt a treaty guaranteeing clean water and sanitation.

“We were able to solve the nuclear arms race because of . . . political will,” he said before the awards banquet. “Today we don’t see that political will. But I think it will emerge that leaders will have to address this problem.”

Dwindling water supplies and political resistance have hampered efforts to bring fresh water to slum dwellers around the world, Mr. Gorbachev said Friday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Mr. Gorbachev, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate who led the Soviet Union for six years until its 1991 collapse, founded Green Cross International in 1993.

Originally published by the Santa Barbara News Press

April 16, 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