The Russell-Einstein Manifesto: A Choice for Humanity
// October 14th, 2005 // World Issues
In 1939 the Allies knew that the Nazi government was hoarding uranium from their Czech mines and were investigating the development of atomic weapons. The prospect of the Nazi government having nuclear weapons was, and still is, terrifying for humanity. In light of this darkest of dangers, on August 2nd 1939, and before the U.S entered WW2, Einstein wrote to President Roosevelt.
“In the course of the last four months it has been made probable – through the work of Joliot in France as well as Fermi and Szilard in America – that it may become possible to set up a nuclear chain reaction in a large mass of uranium, by which vast amounts of power and large quantities of new radium-like elements would be generated. Now it appears almost certain that this could be achieved in the immediate future. This new phenomenon would also lead to the construction of bombs, and it is conceivable – though much less certain – that extremely powerful bombs of a new type may thus be constructed. A single bomb of this type, carried by boat and exploded in a port, might very well destroy the whole port together with some of the surrounding territory.”
And so began the Manhattan Project resulting in US developing the first nuclear technology -and the devastating use of these weapons upon humanity in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. If any blame can be attributed to Einstein, it is perhaps for the difficult choice of the lesser of two evils. Despite the destruction of the Nazi terror, a new and very real fear had arisen- the prospect of nuclear global annihilation from the next global war. As his last public act, and just days before his death in 1955, he signed the Russell-Einstein Manifesto. It was written by Bertrand Russell- Einstein’s fellow great public intellectual and Nobel Laureate- and forms one the great humanist charters of the 20th Century.
Excerpted paragraphs from the Manifesto read-
“We are speaking on this occasion, not as members of this or that nation, continent, or creed, but as human beings, members of the species Man, whose continued existence is in doubt. The world is full of conflicts; and, overshadowing all minor conflicts, the titanic struggle between Communism and anti-Communism… 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 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?…
It is stated on very good authority that a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2,500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radio-active particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rainÂ… No one knows how widely such lethal radio-active particles might be diffused, but the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death, sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegrationÂ…
Here, then, is the problem which we present to you, stark and dreadful and inescapable: Shall we put an end to the human race; or shall mankind renounce war? People will not face this alternative because it is so difficult to abolish war. The abolition of war will demand distasteful limitations of national sovereignty. But what perhaps impedes understanding of the situation more than anything else is that the term “mankind” feels vague and abstract. People scarcely realize in imagination that the danger is to themselves and their children and their grandchildren, and not only to a dimly apprehended humanity…
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? 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.”
The Manifesto was taken as the founding charter for The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an international organization that brings together scholars and public figures to work towards reducing the danger of armed conflict and to seek solutions to global security threats. In 1995 The Pugwash, and surviving founder Joseph Rotblat, won the Nobel prize “for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and, in the longer run, to eliminate such arms”.
