Just
as Bertrand Russell, the famed British philosopher, mathematician,
historian, polymath, activist, and Nobel
Prize Winner in Literature, had hoped the name of his pal Albert Einstein helped attract a big crowd to the press
briefing in London announcing
the latest assault on the nuclear arms
race. Einstein, the most famous scientist since Isaac
Newton, had died on April 18, 1955 just days after signing the document that the two had been collaborating on for more than a year.
Now
on July 9 of the same year the planned press
conference at Caxton Hall had to
be moved three times from
a small meeting room to a large conference room, and finally to
the Great Hall as journalists from Great Britain and around the world flocked to hear the announcement. By in large, it was, at first, a hostile crowd already writing stories
with an egghead/pacifist/traitor slant in
their heads. Then the 3rd Earl Russell stepped to the microphones and began his introduction
of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto,
which had also been co-signed by nine other world class intellectuals, all but one of them like Einstein and
Russell, were or would become Nobel
Laureates.
After
his introduction Russell began:
I am bringing the warning pronounced by the signatories to the notice of
all the powerful Governments of the world in the earnest hope that they may
agree to allow their citizens to survive.
Despite all the fuss
and time taken to wordsmith
of the Manifesto, it was straight
forward and clear on its message and call to action. The existential threat to the survival of humanity by the development, spread, deployment, and
likely use of the weapons of
mass destruction—the first use of that term—made their limitation
and ultimate the concern of all people and not
just the belligerent powers in possession
of them. It proposed a world conference of scientists and intellectuals of all nationalities
to be held at a neutral location to
discuss the situation and propose
solutions. Invitations were extended also to all governments who were exhorted to “Remember your humanity
and forget the rest.”
At the end of his statement, the
early barrage of questions from the
press was quite hostile. But
Russell, noted not only for his simple eloquence
as a speaker, but for the clear lucidity of his arguments, calmly responded and won most of the reporters over. The result was almost unanimously positive
coverage in the news columns of
even conservative and nationalistic publications.
The other distinguished signatories to the manifesto were:
Max Born—German physicist and mathematician who pioneered quantum mechanics, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1954.
Percy Williams
Bridgman—American physicist and philosopher of science,
Nobel Prize in Physics, 1946.
Leopold Infeld—Polish/Canadian
physicist and collaborator with Einstein. The only signatory without a Nobel Prize.
Jean Frédéric
Joliot-Curie—French chemist and physicist,
former assistant to Marie Currie and
the husband of her daughter, Irène
Joliot-Curie, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1935.
Hermann Joseph Muller—American
geneticist, early expert on the effects of radiation on
organisms, Nobel Prize in Medicine, 1946.
Linus Pauling—American
chemist, biochemist,
architect, and polymath, Nobel Prize in Chemistry, 1954. Would go on to win second Nobel Prize—the Peace
Prize, 1962.
Cecil Frank Powell—British physicist, developer of the photographic method of studying nuclear
processes, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1950.
Joseph Rotblat—Polish/British
physicist, only scientist with the Manhattan Project to develop an American atomic bomb who
resigned out of conscience,
specialist in the effects of fall-out, Nobel Peace Prize, 1995.
Hideki Yukawa—Japanese
theoretical physicist, pioneer in the theory of sub-atomic
particles, Nobel Prize in Physics, 1949.
Such a powerful brain trust, missing only the leading
scientists working on the American and Soviet
nuclear weapons programs, was hard
to ignore.
The road to
establishing the international conference was bumpy. Russell had long had a close relationship
with members of the Indian Congress
Party especially with future Indian Defense
Minister V. K. Krishna Menon, the long-time
head of the India League in
Britain. Menon, the architect of
what would become known as the movement of
unaligned nations as a third force in
world affairs, helped secure an
invitation from Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal
Nehru to host the proposed
conference in New Delhi. Such a location would have boosted both the conference’s
vaunted neutrality and India’s status
as the leader of the emerging Third World and unaligned movement.
But the 1956 Egyptian closure of
the Suez Canal and subsequent crisis in an era when many
of the European delegates would have
still sailed rather than flown to
India scrubbed those plans.
The Greek shipping tycoon Aristotle Onassis,
of all people, offered to finance
the conference in Morocco but suspicions about his motivation
let Russell and his associates to turn
him down.
Immediately after the
original press conference Canadian
financier and philanthropist Cyrus Eaton was so enthused by the Manifesto that he offered to fund and host the conference at his personal retreat in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. Russell returned to that offer after his
other difficulties.
The first Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs convened in July 1957 with twenty-two
top scientists representing nine countries—the U.S., Soviet Union, Japan, the
United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Austria, and Poland. No national governments sent official representatives, although the
Russians, Chinese, and Poles could not
have attended without their governments’ explicit approval and support. The relatively remote location discouraged
attendance by other noted
supporters of the movement and Russell himself was too ill to attend. His closest associate in the creation and
planning of the conference, Joseph
Rotblat was elected as Secretary
General of the on-going Pugwash Conference international
organization.
The Conference
declared its main objective purpose as and methods as:
…the elimination of all weapons of mass destruction (nuclear, chemical and biological)
and of war as a social institution to settle international disputes. To that
extent, peaceful resolution of conflicts through dialogue and mutual
understanding is an essential part of Pugwash activities, that is particularly
relevant when and where nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction
are deployed or could be used…The various Pugwash activities (general
conferences, workshops, study groups, consultations and special projects)
provide a channel of communication between scientists, scholars, and
individuals experienced in government, diplomacy, and the military for in-depth
discussion and analysis of the problems and opportunities at the intersection
of science and world affairs. To ensure a free and frank exchange of views,
conducive to the emergence of original ideas and an effective communication
between different or antagonistic governments, countries and groups, Pugwash
meetings as a rule are held in private. This is the main modus operandi of
Pugwash. In addition to influencing governments by the transmission of the
results of these discussions and meetings, Pugwash also may seek to make an
impact on the scientific community and on public opinion through the holding of
special types of meetings and through its publications.
Although the
activities of the Pugwash Conference were not well known to the
general public, it proved quite influential in a number of ways in the
turbulent and dangerous Cold War years that followed. Pugwash played a useful role in opening
communication channels during a time of otherwise-strained
official and unofficial relations. It provided background and technical work for
the Partial Test Ban Treaty of 1963,
the Non-Proliferation Treaty of1968,
the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of
1972, the Biological Weapons Convention
in the same year, and the Chemical
Weapons Convention of 1993.
Former US Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara
acknowledged that a backchannel Pugwash initiative
laid the groundwork for the negotiations
that ended the Vietnam War. Mikhail Gorbachev admitted the influence of
the organization on him as leader
of the Soviet Union. Pugwash was credited with being a groundbreaking and innovative transnational organization and a
leading example of the effectiveness
of Track II diplomacy.
Despite these
successes, the U.S. government
frequently publicly accused the
Pugwash Conference of being a Soviet
Front organization, which it always vigorously
denied. Rotblat in a 1998 Bertrand Russell Lecture said that that
there were a few participants in the conferences from the Soviet Union “who
were obviously sent to push the party line, but the majority were genuine scientists and behaved as
such.” Independent modern scholars of the movement confirm that view.
Rotblat and the
Pugwash Conference were jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work
in 1994. The Conference continues its work to this day with
offices in Rome, London, Geneva, and Washington and independent,
supportive Pugwash groups in more than fifty countries.
Aside from the
creation of the Pugwash Conference, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto had a significant impact on public opinion, particularly
in Britain where it, and the ongoing activities of Russell and others, inspired
the Ban the Bomb movement which reached the status of a mass movement
involving both huge demonstrations and
acts of civil disobedience. Similar movements sprang up in the United
States but were constrained by the oppressive and lingering shadow of the Red
Scare from becoming so wide-spread. But the anti-nuclear
movement proved to be an important
springboard in the mid-Sixties for
a wider American peace movement and opposition to the Vietnam
War.
Interestingly, before
the Manifesto both Einstein and Russell had complex and sometimes contradictory histories with atomic
and nuclear weapons.
Einstein first
heard from refugee scientists Leó Szilárd, Edward Teller, and Eugene
Wigner about the feasibility of an atomic weapon—something he had never previously considered—and warnings
that the Nazis were already in the early stages of research and development. Alarmed, Einstein wrote his famous letter to President Franklin D. Roosevelt in August of 1939 alerting him to the dangers. This is widely
viewed as the impetus for the creation of the Manhattan Project. Although Einstein, a pacifist, took no active part in the development of
the Bomb, after the explosions at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, he was guilt
ridden by his role. He dedicated much of the rest of his life to opposition to nuclear arms.
Russell was
born in 1872 into one of the most
aristocratic and liberal families in Britain. He early rose
to prominence as a mathematician
and logician but was best known to the public as a socialist—an
associate of Sydney and Beatrice Webb and
George Bernard Shaw in the Fabian Society—and as well as a pacifist. Unlike many British
socialists and pacifists, he did not abandon his anti-war stance during World War I.
He was a prominent critic of the war and led demonstrations against it resulting in him being sacked from Trinity College following his
conviction under the Defense of the
Realm Act. He played a prominent
role in the Leeds Convention of
1917, a gathering of thousands of
anti-war socialists and radical members
of the Liberal Party. His speech
to the convention drew a huge ovation
and was widely reported in
the press, marking him as an enemy of the state.
When he
refused to pay a £100 fine
under the Defense of the Realm Act
in a particularly vindictive action against a scholar with significant other assets, all of his books were seized and put up for sale. Most were bought by friends and returned to him. Later in the war after giving a speech
against pressure on the United
States to join the Allies, Russell was
jailed at Brixton Prison for six months during which time he wrote one of his most important
scholarly books, Introduction to Mathematical Philosophy.
In 1920, despite his opposition to the war Prime Minister David Lloyd George appointed Russell to a twenty-four member delegation sent to the Soviet
Union to investigate
the effects of the Russian
Revolution. Most
of the delegates went there, like Russell, generally
supportive of the Revolutionary regime when they went. But an hour private meeting
with Vladimir Lenin, who he found to
be “impishly cruel” and very like an arrogant “opinionated professor”,
Russell began to have his doubts.
Despite
being carefully shepherded on a tour by Communist
functionaries, Russell carefully
observed the conditions he found without preconceived notions. He noted an underlying fear in the population
almost everywhere he went, and he believed loud
pops he heard in the night were executions. His companions insisted they were simply car back-fires. Of course
Russell was right. The rest of the delegation returned with glowing reviews of the workers’
paradise. Russell became one of the first leftist critics of the
Soviet Union in the West and wrote The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism.
When accused of being a traitor by the British
left, he insisted that he remained
a socialist, but not an authoritarian.
Through the Twenties and Thirties, Russell continued to be active in pacifist causes and in promoting disarmament. He stepped
up his criticism of the
Soviet Union, particularly after the beginning of the Stalinist show trials. But
he was equally alarmed by the rise of the Nazis.
He marched and spoke against
both, seeing no contradiction
in it just as he marched and spoke against British brutality in
India. It was all one in the same to him.
But by 1940 Russell concluded
that the Nazis were by far the greatest threat. He reluctantly
publicly abandoned absolute pacifism and gave conditional support to the war
against Germany. By 1943 he had formulated what he called Practical Political Pacifism concluding
that war is always an absolute evil but
that under extreme circumstances it
might be the lesser of
two evils.
When the U.S. dropped atomic
weapons on Japan, Russell immediately grasped their threat
to humanity. He was also
concerned with the rise of the Soviet Union to what we would now call a superpower likely to dominate Europe. He also saw that the U.S. and Soviet Union would quickly be drawn into irreconcilable conflict and eventually all-out war. In 1946 he floated the notion that it might be
better, if war were to come while
the U.S. was in sole possession of
atomic weapons. After the Soviets inevitably developed them, any war would become a worldwide catastrophe
of mutual annihilation. Critics charged that he was advocating
a U.S. first strike. He insisted that he did not advocate it
but had merely put forward his analysis of the situation and its likely
outcome. By the late Forties he had completely
distanced himself from this position.
After the
Soviets, as he predicted, tested their first
bomb in August of 1949 Russell adopted a position of demanding complete mutual
nuclear disarmament and measures to prevent other countries, including the United Kingdom from joining the nuclear club.
Russell doggedly participated in the growing Ban the Bomb movement and
became its most visible spokesperson. His activities particularly alarmed the United States which stepped up propaganda against him charging him with being pro-Communist. Given his
long history of hostility to the Soviet Union and his participation in demonstrations against the suppression of the Hungarian Revolution and other Eastern Block repression, the charge was laughable.
In
September 1961, at the age of 89, Russell was jailed once again in Brixton Prison for
seven days after taking part in an anti-nuclear demonstration in London. He was charged, ironically with breach of peace. The magistrate offered to exempt him from jail if he pledged himself to good behavior, to which Russell replied: “No, I won’t.”
As the Sixties wore on he became a vocal opponent of the Vietnam War. Concluding that American action there was
drifting toward genocide in addition to his participation in street demonstrations, in conjunction
with French existentialist
philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre he established the Russell Tribunal,
also known as the International
War Crimes Tribunal, which held
sessions in Stockholm in 1967 an ’68.
Those sessions concluded that the U.S. and its allies had
perpetrated a war of aggression in contravention of international law, illegally targeted
civilian populations, used weapons
forbidden under international treaty, abused prisoners, and
committed acts of genocide.
The Tribunal has subsequently been convened
several times to investigate cases
including the Chilean Military Coup, the abuse of psychiatry
by various governments as a
means of suppressing dissent, Iraq and the Gulf War,
Palestine.
Russell was active in many causes
right up to his death, including opposition to what he regarded as Israeli
aggression against the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors
and the Soviet suppression of Czechoslovakia.
He died of influenza at his home in Penrhyndeudraeth, Merionethshire, Wales on February 2, 1970 at the age of 97. There was no religious ceremony, and his ashes
were scattered over the Welsh
mountains later that year.
No other public intellectual of the 20th Century or since has had such a profound influence on his times.
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