DOI: 10.4324/9781315824499-15
More important than anything in pulling me through the dark apprehensions and premonitions of these last two decades is the fact that I had fallen in love with Edith Finch and she with me. She had been a close friend of Lucy Donnelly whom I had known well at the turn of the century and had seen something of during my various American visits as I had of Edith during my years in the United States in the thirties and forties. Lucy was a Professor at Bryn Mawr, where Edith also taught. I had had friendly relations with Bryn Mawr ever since I married a cousin of the President of that College. It was the first institution to break the boycott imposed on me in America after my dismissal from the City College of New York. Paul Weiss of its Department of Philosophy wrote asking me to give a series of lectures there, an invitation which I gladly accepted. And when I was writing my History of Western Philosophy, the Bryn Mawr authorities very kindly allowed me to make use of their excellent library. Lucy had died and Edith had moved to New York where I met her again during my Columbia lectures there in 1950.
Our friendship ripened quickly, and soon we could no longer bear to be parted by the Atlantic. She settled in London, and, as I lived at Richmond, we met frequently. The resulting time was infinitely delightful. Richmond Park- was full of reminiscences, many going back to early childhood. Relating them revived their freshness, and it seemed to me that I was living the past all over again with a fresh and happier alleviation from it. I almost forgot the nuclear peril in the joys of recollection. As we walked about the grounds of Pembroke Lodge and through Richmond Park and Kew Gardens, I recalled all sorts of things that had happened to me there. There is a fountain outside Pembroke Lodge at which the footman, employed to make me not afraid of water, held me by the heels with my head under water. Contrary to all modern views, this method was entirely successful: after the first application, I never feared water again.
Edith and I each had family myths to relate. Mine began with Henry VIII, of whom the founder of my family had been a protégé, watching on his Mount for the signal of Anne Boleyn's death at the Tower. It continued to my grandfather's speech in 1815, urging (before Waterloo) that Napoleon should not be opposed. Next came his visit to Elba, in which Napoleon was affable and tweaked his ear. After this, there was a considerable gap in the saga, until the occasion when the Shah, on a State visit, was caught in the rain in Richmond Park and was compelled to take refuge in Pembroke Lodge. My grandfather (so I was told) apologised for its being such a small house, to which the Shah replied: 'Yes, but it contains a great man.' There was a very wide view of the Thames valley from Pembroke Lodge marred, in my grandmother's opinion, by a prominent factory chimney. When she was asked about this chimney, she used to reply, smiling: 'Oh, that's not a factory chimney, that's the monument to the Middlesex Martyr.'
Edith's family myths, as I came to know them, seemed to me far more romantic; an ancestor who in 1640 or thereabouts was either hanged or carried off by the Red Indians; the adventures of her father among the Indians when he was a little boy and his family for a short time lived a pioneering life in Colorado; attics full of pillions and saddles on which members of her family had ridden from New England to the Congress at Philadelphia; tales of canoeing and of swimming in rocky streams near where Eunice Williams, stolen away by the Indians in the great massacre at Deerfield, Massachusetts, was killed. It might have been a chapter from Fennimore Cooper. In the Civil War, Edith's people were divided between North and South. Among them were two brothers, one of them (a Southern General) at the end had to surrender his sword to his brother, who was a Northern General. She herself had been born and brought up in New York City, which, as she remembered it, seemed very like the New York of my youth of cobbled Streets and hansom cabs and no motor cars.
All these reminiscences, however entertaining, were only some of the arabesques upon the cake's icing. Very soon we had our own myths to add to the collection. As we were strolling in Kew Gardens one morning, we saw two people sitting on a bench, so far away that they seemed tiny figures. Suddenly, one of them jumped up and ran fast towards us and, when he readied us, fell to his knees and kissed my hand. I was horrified, and so abashed that I could think of nothing whatsoever to say or do; but I was touched, too, by his emotion, as was Edith, who pulled herself together enough to learn that he was a German, living in England, and was grateful to me for something; we never knew for what.
We not only took long walks in the neighbourhood of Richmond and in London, along the River and in the Parks and in the City of a Sunday, but we sometimes drove farther afield for a walk. Once on the Portsmouth Road we met with an accident. Through no fault of ours we were run into by a farm lorry and our car was smashed to bits. Luckily, at the time there were plenty of observers of our guiltlessness. Though shaken up, we accepted a lift from some kind passers-by into Guildford where we took a taxi to Blackdown to have our intended walk. There I recalled my infant exploits. My people had taken Tennyson's house during a summer's holiday when I was two years old, and I was made by my elders to stand on the moor and recite in a heart-rending pipe,
O my cousin, shallow-hearted! O my Amy, mine no more!
O the dreary, dreary moorland! O the barren, barren shore!
We went to plays, new and old. I remember particularly Cymbeline, acted in Regent's Park, Ustinov's Five Colonels, and The Little Hut. My cousin Maud Russell invited us to a party celebrating the achievement of the mosaic floor designed by Boris Anrep in the National Gallery. My portrait summoning Truth from a well occurs there with portraits of some of my contemporaries. I enjoyed sittings to Jacob Epstein for a bust that he asked to make of me which I now have.
These small adventures sound trivial in retrospect, but everything at that time was bathed in the radiant light of mutual discovery and of joy in each other. Happiness caused us for the moment to forget the dreadful outer world, and to think only about ourselves and each other. We found that we not only loved each other entirely, but, equally important, we learned gradually that our tastes and feelings were deeply sympathetic and our interests for the most part marched together. Edith had no knowledge of philosophy or mathematics; there were things that she knew of which I was ignorant. But our attitude towards people and the world is similar. The satisfaction that we felt then in our companionship has grown, and grows seemingly without limit, into an abiding and secure happiness and is the basis of our lives. Most that I have to relate henceforth may be taken, therefore, to include her participation.
Our first long expedition was to Fontainebleau when tne only reminder of public squabbles was owing to Mussadeq's attempt to secure a monopoly of Persian oil. Apart from this, our happiness was almost as serene as it could have been in a quiet world. The weather was sunny and warm. We consumed enormous quantities of fraises du bois and crime fraîche. We made an expedition into Paris where, for past services, the French radio poured unexpected cash upon me that financed an epic luncheon in the Bois, as well as solemner things, and where we walked in the Tuileries Gardens and visited Notre Dame. We never visited the Château at Fontainebleau. And we laughed consumedly - sometimes about nothing at all.
We have had other holidays in Paris since then, notably one in 1954 which we determined should be devoted to sight-seeing. We had each lived in Paris for fairly long periods, but I had never visited any of the things that one should see. It was pleasant to travel up and down the river in the bateaux mouches, and to visit various churches and galleries and the flower and bird markets. But we had set-backs: we went to the Ste Chapelle one day and found it full of Icelanders being lectured to on its beauties. Upon seeing me, they abandoned the lecture and crowded about me as the 'sight' of most importance. My remembrance of the Ste Chapelle is somewhat garbled. We retreated to the terrace of our favourite restaurant opposite the Palais de Justice. The next day we went to Chartres which we both love. But, alas, we found it turned so far as it could be - into a tourists' Mecca full of post-cards and souvenirs.
In the spring of fifty-two we visited Greece where we spent some time in Athens and then ten days or so driving through the Peloponesus. As everyone does, we at once set off for the Acropolis. By mistake and thinking to take a short cut, we approached it from the back. We had to scramble up a cliff by goat paths and through barbed wire to get there. We arrived scratched and breathless, but triumphant. We returned again often by more orthodox routes. It was very beautiful by moonlight. And very quiet; till suddenly, at my elbow, I heard a voice say: 'Mis-ter Russ-ell, is it not?', with the accent portentous upon each syllable. It was a fellow tourist from America.
The mountains were still snow-capped, but the valleys were full of blossoming fruit trees. Kids gambolled in the fields, and the people seemed happy. Even the donkeys looked contented. The only dark spot was Sparta which was sullen and brooding beneath Taygetus from which emanated a spirit of frightening evil. I was thankful to reach Arcadia. It was as Arcadian and lovely as if born of Sidney's imagination. At Tiryns, the guardian of the ancient citadel bemoaned the fact that it had been very badly restored. Upon being asked when this distressing renovation had taken place, he replied, 'During the Mycenaean times'. Delphi left me quite unmoved, but Epidaurus was gentle and lovely. Oddly enough its peace was not broken by a busload of Germans who arrived there shortly after us. Suddenly, as we were sitting up in the theatre dreaming, a beautiful clear voice soared up and over us. One of the Germans was an operatic Diva and, as we were, was enchanted by the magic of the place. On the whole, our fellow tourists did not trouble us. But the United States army did. Their lorries were everywhere, especially in Athens, and the towns were noisy with the boisterous, cock-sure, shoutings and demands of their men. On the other hand, the Greeks whom we met or observed in passing, seemed gentle and gay and intelligent. We were impressed by the happy way in which they played with their children in the Gardens at Athens.
I had never before been in Greece and I found what I saw exceedingly interesting. In one respect, however, I was surprised. After being impressed by the great solid achievements which everybody admires, I found myself in a little church belonging to the days when Greece was part of the Byzantine Empire, To my astonishment, I felt more at home in this little church than I did in the Parthenon or in any of the other Greek buildings of Pagan times. I realised then that the Christian outlook had a firmer hold upon me than I had imagined. The hold was not upon my beliefs, but upon my feelings. It seemed to me that where the Greeks differed from the modern world it was chiefly through the absence of a sense of sin, and I realised with some astonishment that I, myself, am powerfully affected by this sense in my feelings though not in my beliefs. Some ancient Greek things, however, did touch me deeply. Among these, I was most impressed by the beautiful and compassionate Hermes at Olympia.
In 1953, Edith and I spent three weeks in Scotland. On the way we visited the house where I was born on the hills above the Wye valley. It had been called Ravenscroft, but is now called Cleddon Hall. The house itself was kept up, but during the war the grounds had got into a sorry condition. My parents had, at their own instructions, been buried in the adjoining wood, but were later at the family's wish, transported to the family vault at Chenies. On the way, too, we visited Seatoller in Borrowdale, where I had spent five weeks as a member of a reading party in 1893. The party was still remembered, and the visitor's book contained proof of a story that I had told Edith without obtaining belief, namely that Miss Pepper, who had waited on us, subsequently married a Mr Honey. On arriving at St Fillans (our destination) I told the receptionist that I had not been there since 1878. She stared, and then said: 'But you must have been quite a little boy.' I had remembered from this previous visit various landmarks at St Fillans such as the wooden bridge across the river, the house nest to the hotel which was called 'Neish', and a stony bay which I had imagined to be one of the 'sun-dry places' mentioned in the Prayer Book. As I had not been there since 1878, the accuracy of my memories was considered established. We had many drives, sometimes along no more than cart tracks, and walks over the moors that remain memorable to us. One afternoon, as we climbed to the crest of a hill, a doe and her fawn appeared over the top trotting towards us and, on our way down, on die shore of a wild little tarn, a proud and very tame hoopoe alighted and looked us over. We drove home to St Fillans through the gloomy valley of Glencoe, as dark and dreadful as if the massacre had just taken place.
Two years later we went again to St Fillans. This time, however, we had a far less carefree time. We had to stop on the way in Glasgow for me to make a speech in favour of the Labour candidate for Rotherglen, a tireless worker for World Government. Our spirits were somewhat damped by the fact that I had gradually developed trouble with my throat which prevented me from swallowing properly, a trouble which I take pleasure in saying, resulted from my efforts to swallow the pronouncements of politicians. But much more distressing than any of this was the fact that my elder son had fallen seriously ill. We were beset by worry about him during the whole of this so-called 'holiday'. We were worried, too, about his three young children who were at that time more or less, and later almost wholly, in our care.
When Peter left me I had continued to live at Ffestiniog, happily working there in a house on the brow of the hill with a celestial view down the valley, like an old apocalyptic engraving of Paradise. I went up to London only occasionally, and when I did, I sometimes visited my son and his family at Richmond. They were living near the Park in a tiny house, much too small for their family of three little children. My son told me that he wanted to give up his job and devote himself to writing. Though I regretted this, I had some sympathy with him. I did not know how to help them as I had not enough money to stake them to an establishment of their own in London while I lived in North Wales. Finally I hit upon the scheme of moving from Ffestiniog and taking a house to share with my son and his family in Richmond.
Returning to Richmond, where I spent my childhood, produced a slightly ghostly feeling, and I sometimes found if difficult to believe that I still existed in the flesh. Pembroke Lodge, which used to be a nice house, was being ruined by order of the Civil Service. When they discovered, what they did not know until they were told, that it had been the home of famous people, they decided that everything possible must be done to destroy its historic interest. Half of it was turned into flats for park-keepers, and the other half into a tea shop. The garden was cut up by a complicated system of barbed wire, with a view, so I thought at the time, to minimising the pleasure to be derived from it.1
I had hoped vaguely that I might somehow rent Pembroke Lodge and install myself and my family there. As this proved impossible, I took a largish house near Richmond Park, turning over the two lower floors to my son's family and keeping the top two for myself. This had worked more or less well for a time in spite of the difficulties that almost always occur when two families live at close quarters. We had a pleasant life there, living separately, each having our own guests, and coming together when we wished. But it made a very full life, with the family coming and going, my work, and the constant stream of visitors.
Among the visitors were Alan and Mary Wood who came to see me about a book that he wished to write on my philosophical work. He soon decided to do a life of me first. In the course of its preparation we saw much of both him and his wife and came to be very fond of them and to rely upon them. Some of the encounters with visitors, however, were odd. One gentleman from America who had suggested coming to tea, turned up accompanied by a mistress of the American McCarthy whose virtues she extolled. I was angry. Another was an Indian who came with his daughter. He insisted that she must dance for me while he played her accompaniment. I had only a short time before returned from hospital and did not welcome having all the furniture of our sitting-room pushed back and the whole house shake as she cavorted in what, under other circumstances, I might have thought lovely gyrations.
That visit to the hospital became one of the myths to which I have already referred. My wife and I had gone on a long walk in Richmond Park one morning and, after lunch, she had gone up to her sitting-room which was above mine. Suddenly I appeared, announcing that I felt ill. Not unnaturally, she was frightened. It was the fine sunny Sunday before the Queen's coronation. Though my wife tried to get hold of a neighbour and of our own doctors in Richmond and London, she could get hold of no one. Finally, she rang 999 and the Richmond police, with great kindness and much effort, came to the rescue. They sent a doctor who was unknown to me, the only one whom they could find. By the time the police had managed to get hold of our own doctors, I had turned blue. My wife was told by a well-known specialist, one of the five doctors who had by then congregated, that I might live for two hours. I was packed into an ambulance and whisked to hospital where they dosed me with oxygen and I survived.
The pleasant life at Richmond had other dark moments. At Christmas, 1953, I was waiting to go into hospital again for a serious operation and my wife and household were all down with flu. My son and his wife decided that, as she said, they were 'tired of children'. After Christmas dinner with the children and me, they left, taking the remainder of the food, but leaving the children, and did not return. We were fond of the children, but were appalled by this fresh responsibility which posed so many harassing questions in the midst of our happy and already very full life. For some time we hoped that their parents would return to take up their rôle, but when my son became ill we had to abandon that hope and make long-term arrangements for the children's education and holidays. Moreover, the financial burden was heavy and rather disturbing: I had given £10,000 of my Nobel Prize cheque for a little more than £11,000 to my third wife, and I was now paying alimony to her and to my second wife as well as paying for the education and holidays of my younger son. Added to this, there were heavy expenses in connection with my elder son's illness; and the income taxes which for many years he had neglected to pay now fell to me to pay. The prospect of supporting and educating his three children, however pleasant it might be, presented problems.
For a time when I came out of the hospital I was not up to much, but by May I felt that I had recovered. I gave the Herman Quid Memorial Lecture to the pen Club called 'History as an Art'. We were asked to supper afterwards by the Secretary of the Club and I enjoyed indulging my literary hates and loves. In particular, my great hate is Wordsworth. I have to admit the excellence of some of his work - to admire and love it, in fact - but much of it is too dull, too pompous and silly to beborne. Unfortunately, I have a knack of remembering bad verse with ease, so I can puzzle almost anyone who upholds Wordsworth.
A short time later, on our way home to Richmond from Scotland, we stopped in North Wales where our friends Rupert and Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams had found a house, Plas Penrhyn, that they thought would make a pleasant holiday house for us and the children. It was small and unprententious, but had a delightful garden and little orchard and a number of fine beech trees. Above all, it had a most lovely view, south to the sea, west to Portmadoc and the Caernarvon hills, and north up the valley of the Glaslyn to Snowdon. I was captivated by it, and particularly pleased that across the valley could be seen the house where Shelley had lived. The owner of Plas Penrhyn agreed to let it to us largely, I think, because he, too, is a lover of Shelley and was much taken by my desire to write an essay on 'Shelley the Tough' (as opposed to the 'ineffectual angel'). Later, I met a man at Tan-y-Ralt, Shelley's house, who said he had been a cannibal - the first and only cannibal I have met. It seemed appropriate to meet him at the house of Shelley the Tough. Plas Penrhyn seemed to us as if it would be an ideal place for the children's holidays, especially as there were friends of their parents living nearby whom they already knew and who had children of their own ages. It would be a happy alternative, we thought, to cinemas in Richmond and 'camps'. We rented it as soon as possible.
But all this was the daily background and the relief from the dark world of international affairs in which my chief interest lay. Though the reception accorded Human Society in Ethics and Politics was so amiable, its publication had failed to quiet my uneasiness. I felt I must find some way of making the world understand the dangers into which it was running blindly, head-on. I thought that perhaps if I repeated parts of Human Society on the BBC it would make more impression than it had hitherto made. In this, however, I was thwarted by the refusal of the BBC to repeat anything that had already been published. I therefore set to work to compose a new dirge for the human race.
Even then, in the relatively early days of the struggle against nuclear destruction, it seemed to me almost impossible to find a fresh way of putting what I had already, I felt, said in so many different ways. My first draft of the broadcast was an anaemic product, pulling all the punches. I threw it away at once, girded myself up and determined to say exactly how dreadful the prospect was unless measures were taken. The result was a distilled version of all that I had said theretofore. It was so tight packed that anything that I have since said on the subject can be found in it at least in essence. But the BBC still made difficulties, fearing that I should bore and frighten many listeners. They asked me to hold a debate, instead, with a young and cheerful footballer who could offset my grim forebodings. This seemed to me utterly frivolous and showed so clearly that the BBC Authorities understood nothing of what it was all about that I felt desperate. I refused to accede to their pleadings. At last, it was agreed that I should do a broadcast in December by myself. In it, as I have said, I stated all my fears and the reasons for them. The broadcast, now called 'Man's Peril', ended with the following words: '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? I appeal, as a human being 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, nothing lies before you but universal death.'
The broadcast had both a private and a public effect. The private effect was to allay my personal anxiety for a time, and to give me a feeling that I had found words adequate to the subject. The public effect was more important. I received innumerable letters and requests for speeches and articles, far more than I could well deal with. And I learned a great many facts that I had not known before, some of them rather desolating: a Battersea County Councillor came to see me and told me of the provisions that the Battersea Council had promulgated that were to be followed by all the inhabitants of that district in case of nuclear attack. Upon hearing the warning siren, they were to rush to Battersea Park and pile into buses. These, it was hoped, would whisk them to safety in the country.
Almost all the response to the broadcast of which I was aware was serious and encouraging. But some of my speeches had farcical interludes. One of them I remember with some smug pleasure: a man rose in fury, remarking that I looked like a monkey; to which I replied, 'Then you will have the pleasure of hearing the voice of your ancestors'.
I received the prize given by Pears' Cyclopaedia for some outstanding work done during the past year. The year before, the prize had been given to a young man who ran a mile in under four minutes. The prize cup which I now have says 'Bertrand Russell illuminating a path to Peace 1955'.
One of the most impressive meetings at which I spoke was held in April, 1955, in memory of the Jews who died at Warsaw in February, 1943. The music was tragic and beautiful, and the emotion of the assembled company so deep and sincere as to make the meeting very moving. There were records made of my speech and of the music.
Among the first organisations to show a pronounced interest in my views were the World Parliamentarians and, more seriously perhaps, the Parliamentary World Government Association with whom I had many meetings. They were to hold joint meetings in Rome in April, 1955, at which they invited me to speak. We were put up, oddly enough, in the hotel in which I had stayed with my Aunt Maude on my first trip to Rome over a half century before. It was a cold barracks that had ceased to provide meals for its guests, but was in a pleasant part of the old city. It was Spring and warm. It was a great pleasure to wander about the city and along the Tiber and up the Pincio for the otherwise unprovided meals. I found the Roman meetings very moving and interesting. I was happy that my speeches seemed to affect people, both at the meeting in the Chamber of Deputies and elsewhere. At all of them there were very mixed audiences. After one, I was held up by a man almost in tears because he had not been able to understand what had been said because he spoke no English. He besought me to translate what I had said into Esperanto. Alas, I could not. I enjoyed, too, meeting a number of friendly and notable literary and political figures in whose work I had been interested but with whom I had never before had a chance to discuss matters.
I had hoped, on the way north from Rome, to pay a visit to Bernard Berenson at Settignano. In this I was prevented by the pressure of work. Later, I learned that he took my defection very ill, especially as he had felt me, he said, to be arrogant and unfriendly at our last meeting. I was extremely sorry for this since my feelings towards him were, as they had always been, most friendly and I felt anything but arrogant towards him. But the last meeting to which he alluded had been a somewhat trying occasion to me. His wife Mary had asked me to lunch with them and I had gone. At the time of my separation from her sister Alys, she had written me a cutting letter saying that they did not wish to have anything further to do with me. Her invitation to lunch came many years later. I was glad to accept as I had never wished any break in our friendship, but I felt a little awkward and shy as I could not forget entirely her previous letter. Bernard Berenson had evidently never known of the letter or had forgotten it. I myself had felt that the luncheon had healed the breach and had been glad when he begged me to come to I Tatti again as I should have liked to do.
Meantime, as I assessed the response that my broadcast had achieved and considered what should be done next, I had realised that the point that I must concentrate upon was the need of co-operation among nations. It had occurred to me that it might be possible to formulate a statement that a number of very well-known and respected scientists of both capitalist and communist ideologies would be willing to sign calling for further joint action. Before taking any measures, however, I had written to Einstein to learn what he thought of such a plan. He had replied with enthusiasm, but had said that, because he was not well and could hardly keep up with present commitments, he himself could do nothing to help beyond sending me the names of various scientists who, he thought, would be sympathetic. He had begged me, nevertheless, to carry out my idea and to formulate the statement myself. This I had done, basing the statement upon my Christmas broadcast, 'Man's Peril'. I had drawn up a list of scientists of both East and West and had written to them, enclosing the statement, shortly before I went to Rome with the Parliamentarians. I had, of course, sent the statement to Einstein for his approval, but had not yet heard what he thought of it and whether he would be willing to sign it. As we flew from Rome to Paris, where the World Government Association were to hold further meetings, the pilot announced the news of Einstein's death. I felt shattered, not only for the obvious reasons, but because I saw my plan falling through without his support. But, on my arrival at my Paris hotel, I found a letter from him agreeing to sign. This was one of the last acts of his public life.
While I was in Pans I had a long discussion about my plan with Frederic Joliot-Curie. He warmly welcomed the plan and approved of the statement except for one phrase: I had written, 'It is feared that if many bombs are used there will be universal death - sudden only for a fortunate minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration'. He did not like my calling the minority 'fortunate'. 'To die is not fortunate', he said. Perhaps he was right. Irony, taken internationally, is tricky. In any case, I agreed to delete it. For some time after I returned to England, I heard nothing from him. He was ill, I learned later. Nor could I induce an answer from various other important scientists. I never did hear from the Chinese scientist to whom I had written. I think the letter to him was probably misaddressed. Einstein had advised me to enlist the help of Niels Bohr who, he thought, would certainly be in favour of my plan and my statement. But I could achieve no reply from him for many weeks in spite of repeated letters and telegrams. Then came a short letter saying that he wished to have nothing to do with either plan or statement. The Russian Academicians, still suspicious of the West, also refused to sign, although they wrote commending the plan with some warmth. After some correspondence, Professor Otto Hahn refused to sign, because, I understood, he was working for the forthcoming 'Mainau Declaration' of scientists. This declaration was already in preparation, but seemed to me to be somewhat emasculated by the fact that it was intended to include among its signatories only scientists of the West. Fortunately, others who signed the Mainau Declaration agreed with me and signed both. My most personal disappointment was that I could not obtain the signature of Lord Adrian, the President of the Royal Society and Master of my College, Trinity. I knew that he agreed with die principles in my broadcast, which were those of the manifesto that I hoped he would sign. He had himself spoken publicly in similar vein. And I had been pleased when I learned that Trinity wished to have in its Library a manuscript of 'Man's Peril'. But when I discussed my statement or manifesto with him I thought I understood why he was reluctant to sign. 'It is because it is too eloquent, isn't it?' I asked. "Yes', he said. Many of the scientists to whom I wrote, however, at once warmly agreed to sign, and one, Linus Pauling, who had heard of the plan only at second hand, offered his signature. I was glad to accept the offer.
When I look back upon this time I do not see how the days and nights provided time to get through all that I did. Journeys to Rome and Paris and again to Scotland, family troubles, arrangements to settle in North Wales for the holidays, letters, discussions, visitors, and speeches. I wrote innumerable articles. I had frequent interviews and much correspondence with an American, R. C. Marsh, who was collecting and editing various early essays of mine which appeared the following year under the title Logic and Knowledge. And I was also preparing my book Portraits from Memory for publication in 1956. In January, 1955, I gave a lecture at the British Academy on J. S. Mill, which I had considerable difficulty in composing. I had already spoken so often about Mill. But the speech had one phrase that I cherish: in speaking about the fact that propositions have a subject and a predicate, I said it had led to 'three thousand years of important error'. And the speech was acclaimed in a most gratifying manner. The audience rose, thumped and clapped.
June came and still all the replies to my letters to the scientists had not been received. I felt that in any case some concrete plan must be made as to how the manifesto should be publicised. It seemed to me that it should be given a dramatic launching in order to call attention to it, to what it said and to the eminence of those who upheld it. After discarding many plans, I decided to get expert advice. I knew the editor of the Observer slightly and believed him to be liberal and sympathetic. He proved at that time to be both. He called in colleagues to discuss the matter. They agreed that something more was needed than merely publishing the fact that the manifesto had been written and signed by a number of eminent scientists of varying ideologies. They suggested that a press conference should be held at which I should read the document and answer questions about it. They did far more than this. They offered to arrange and finance the conference with the proviso that it not become, until later, public knowledge that they had done so. It was decided finally that the conference should take place on July 9th (1955). A room was engaged in Caxton Hall a week before. Invitations were sent to the editors of all the journals and to the representatives of foreign journals as well as to the BBC and representatives of foreign radio and TV in London. This invitation was merely to a conference at which something important of world-wide interest was to be published. The response was heartening and the room had to be changed to the largest in the Hall.
It was a dreadful week. All day long the telephone rang and the doorbell pealed. Journalists and wireless directors wanted to be told what this important piece of news was to be. Each hoped, apparently, for a scoop. Three times daily someone from the Daily Worker rang to say that their paper had not been sent an invitation. Daily, three times, they were told that they had been invited. But they seemed to be so used to being cold-shouldered that they could not believe it. After all, though they could not be told this, one purpose of the manifesto was to encourage co-operation between the communist and the non-communist world. The burden of all this flurry fell upon my wife and my housekeeper. I was not permitted to appear or to speak on the telephone except to members of the family. None of us could leave the house. I spent the week sitting in a chair in my study trying to read. At intervals, I was told later, I muttered dismally, 'This is going to be a damp squib'. My memory is that it rained during the entire week and was very cold.
The worst aspect of the affair was that not long before this I had received a letter from Joliot-Curie saying that he feared that, after all, he could not sign the manifesto. I could not make out why he had changed. I begged him to come to London to discuss the matter, but he was too ill. I had been in constant touch with Dr E. H. S. Burhop in order that the manifesto should not in any way offend those of communist ideology. It was largely due to his efforts that the night before the conference was scheduled to take place Monsieur Biquard came from Paris to discuss with Burhop and myself Joliot-Curie's objections. Monsieur Biquard has since taken Joliot-Curie's place in the World Federation of Scientific Workers. They arrived at 11.30 p.m. Sometime after midnight we came to an agreement. The manifesto could not be changed from the form it had had when Einstein had signed it and, in any case, it was too late to obtain the agreement of the other signatories to a change. I suggested, therefore, that Joliot-Curie's objections be added in footnotes where necessary and be included in my reading of the text the following morning. I had hit upon this scheme in dealing with an objection of one of the Americans. Joliot-Curie's emissary at last agreed to this and signed the manifesto for him, as he had been empowered to do if an agreement could be reached.
Another difficulty that had beset me was the finding of a chairman for the meeting who would not only add lustre to the occasion but would be equipped to help me in the technical questions that would surely be asked. For one reason or another everyone whom I approached refused the job. I confess that I suspected their refusal to have been the result of pusillanimity. Whoever took part in this manifesto or its launching ran the risk of disapproval that might, for a time at any rate, injure them or expose them to ridicule, which they would probably mind even more. Or perhaps their refusal was the result of their dislike of the intentional dramatic quality of the occasion. Finally, I learned that Professor Josef Rotblat was sympathetic. He was, and still is, an eminent physicist at the Medical College of St Bartholomew's Hospital and Executive vice-President of the Atomic Scientists' Association. He bravely and without hesitation agreed to act as Chairman and did so when the time came with much skill. From the time of that fortunate meeting I have often worked closely with Professor Rotblat and I have come to admire him greatly. He can have few rivals in the courage and integrity and complete self-abnegation with which he has given up his own career (in which, however, he still remains eminent) to devote himself to combating the nuclear peril as well as other, allied evils. If ever these evils are eradicated and international affairs are straightened out, his name should stand very high indeed among the heroes.
Amongst others who encouraged me at this meeting were Alan Wood and Mary Wood who, with Kenneth Harris of the Observer, executed a variety of burdensome and vexatious drudgeries to make the occasion go off well. And in the event it did go well. The hall was packed, not only with men, but with recording and television machines. I read the manifesto and the list of signatories and explained how and why it had come into being. I then, with Rotblat's help, replied to questions from the floor. The journalistic mind, naturally, was impressed by the dramatic way in which Einstein's signature had arrived. Henceforth, the manifesto was called the Einstein-Russell (or vice versa) manifesto. At the beginning of the meeting a good deal of scepticism and indifference and some out and out hostility was shown by the press. As the meeting continued, the journalists appeared to become sympathetic and even approving, with the exception of one American journalist who felt affronted for his country by something I said in reply to a question. The meeting ended after two and a half hours with enthusiasm and high hope of the outcome of the call to scientists to hold a conference.
When it was all over, however, and we had returned to our flat at Millbank where we were spending the weekend, reaction set in, I recalled the horrid fact that in making various remarks about the signatories I had said that Professor Rotblat came from Liverpool. Although he himself had not seemed to notice the slip, I felt ashamed. The incident swelled to immense proportions in my mind. The disgrace of it prevented me from even speaking of it. When we walked to the news hoardings outside of Parliament to see if the evening papers had noted the meeting and found it heralded in banner headlines, I still could not feel happy. But worse was to come. I learned that I had omitted Professor Max Bern's name from the list of signatories, had, even, said that he had refused to sign. The exact opposite was the truth. He had not only signed but had been most warm and helpful. This was a serious blunder on my part, and one that I have never stopped regretting. By the time that I had learned of my mistake it was too late to rectify the error, though I at once took, and have since taken, every means that I could think of to set the matter straight. Professor Born himself was magnanimous and has continued his friendly correspondence with me. As in the case of most of the other signatories the attempt and achievement of the manifesto took precedence over personal feelings.
Word continued to pour in of the wide news coverage all over the world of the proclamation of the manifesto. Most of it was favourable. My spirits rose. But for the moment I could do nothing more to forward the next step in opposition to nuclear armament. I had to devote the next few weeks to family matters. During the dreadful week before the proclamation when the telephone was not ringing about that subject it was ringing to give me most distressing news about my elder son's illness. I now had to devote all my mind to that and to moving my family for the summer to our new house in North Wales. The latter had been painted and refurbished during our absence under the kind auspices of Rupert and Elizabeth Crawshay-Williams. The necessary new furnishing to augment what we had bought from the estate of the former tenant had been bought in London during five afternoons at the end of June. So all was more or less ready for us. We went there to prepare for the coming of the three grandchildren as soon as possible. I was glad to escape from London. Most people seem to think of me as an urban individual, but I have, in fact, spent most of my life in the country and am far happier there than in any city known to me. But, having settled the children with the nurse who had for some years taken care of them at Richmond, I had to journey to Paris again for another World Government Conference. It was held in the Cite Universitaire and the meetings proved interesting. There were various parties in connection with it, some official and some less so. One was at the Quai d'Orsay. At one, a cocktail party held in the house of the great couturière Schiaparelli, I went out into the garden where I was quickly surrounded by a group of women who thought that women should do something special to combat nuclear warfare. They wished me to support their plans. I am entirely in favour of anyone doing what they can to combat nuclear warfare, but I have never been able to understand why the sexes should not combat it together. In my experience, fathers, quite as much as mothers, are concerned for the welfare of their young. My wife was standing on a balcony above the garden. Suddenly she heard my voice rise in anguished tones: 'But, you see, I am not a mother!' Someone was dispatched at once to resale me.
Alter this Fans conference at the end of July, we returned to Richmond for another congress. The Association of Parliamentarians for World Government had planned in June to hold a congress for both Eastern and Western scientists and others if they could manage it during the first days of August. They, as I did, believed that the time had come for communists and non-communists to work together. I had taken part in their deliberations and was to speak at the first meeting. Three Russians came from the Moscow Academy as well as other people, particularly scientists, from many parts of the world. The Russians were led by Academician Topchiev of whom I was later to see much and whom I grew to respect and greatly like. This was the first time since the war that any Russian Communists had attended a conference in the West and we were all exceedingly anxious to have the meetings go well. In the main they did so. But there was a short time when, at a committee meeting towards the end of the second day, the Russians could not come to agreement with their Western colleagues. The organisers telephoned me and asked if I could do anything to soothe matters. Fortunately agreement was managed. And at the final meeting I was able to read the resolutions of the conference as having been reached unanimously. Altogether, the conference augured well for co-operation. I could return to Wales for a few weeks of real holiday with the happy feeling that things were at last moving as one would wish.
Naturally, all work did not stop even during the holiday. I had already been considering with Professors Rotblat and Powell how we could implement the scientists' manifesto which had called for a conference of scientists to consider all the matters concerning and allied to the nuclear dangers. Professor Joliot-Curie, who was himself too ill to take active part in our plans, encouraged us at long distance. We were fairly sure by this time of being able to get together a good group of scientists of both East and West.
In the early days of preparing the manifesto, I had hoped that I might be supported in it by the Indian scientists and Government. At the beginning of Nehru's visit to London in February, 1955, my hope of it soared. Nehru himself had seemed most sympathetic. I lunched with him and talked with him at various meetings and receptions. He had been exceedingly friendly. But when I met Dr Bhabha, India's leading official scientist, towards the end of Nehru's visit, I received a cold douche. He had profound doubts about any such manifesto, let alone any such conference as I had in mind for the future. It became evident that I should receive no encouragement from Indian official scientific quarters. After the successful promulgation of the manifesto, however, Nehru's more friendly attitude prevailed. With the approval and help of the Indian Government, it was proposed that the first conference between Western and Eastern scientists be held in New Delhi in January, 1957.
Throughout the early part of 1956, we perfected, so far as we could, our plans for the conference. By the middle of the year we had sent off invitations over my name to about sixty scientists. But 1956 was a year of bits and pieces for me, taken up chiefly by broadcasts and articles. An endless and pleasant stream of old friends and new acquaintances came and went. We decided to sell our Richmond house and move permanently to North Wales. We kept, however, as a pied à terre in London, our flat in Millbank, with its wonderful view of the river in which I delighted. Later, we were turned out of this flat for the modernisation of Millbank. Politically, I took part in numberless meetings concerned with a variety of affairs, some to do with the troubles in Cyprus, some to do with World Government. (The World Government Association gave a dinner in my honour in February at the House of Commons. I have never felt sure how many of the people at the dinner knew that it had been announced as a dinner in my honour. At any rate, some of the speeches might have turned my head happily if only I could have believed them.) I was especially concerned with a campaign about the imprisonment of Morton Sobell in the United States.
At the time of the Rosenbergs' trial and death (one is tempted to say assassination) in 1951, I had paid, I am ashamed to say, only cursory attention to what was going on. Now, in 1956, in March, my cousin Margaret Lloyd brought Mrs Sobell, Morton Sobell's mother, to see me. Sobell had been kidnapped by the United States Government from Mexico to be brought to trial in connection with the Rosenberg case. He had been condemned, on the evidence of a known perjurer, to thirty years' imprisonment, of which he had already served five. His family was trying to obtain support for him, and his mother had come to England for help. Several eminent people in America had already taken up cudgels on his behalf, but to no avail. People both here and in the United States appeared to be ignorant of his plight and what had led up to it. I remember talking of the case with a well-known and much admired Federal Court Judge. He professed complete ignorance of the case of Morton Sobell and was profoundly shocked by what I told him of it. But I noted that he afterwards made no effort to get at the facts, much less to do anything to remedy them. The case seemed to me a monstrous one and I agreed to do all I could to call people's attention to it. A small society had already been formed in London to do this, and they agreed to help me. I wrote letters to the papers and articles on the matter. One of my letters contained the phrase 'a posse of terrified perjurers', which pleased me and annoyed those who did not agree with me. I was inundated by angry letters from Americans and others denying my charges and asking irately how I could be so bold as to call American justice into question. A few letters came from people, including members of the above-mentioned London group, who agreed with me, though no one in England, so far as I know, upheld my point of view publicly. I was generally and often venomously charged with being anti-American, as I often have been when I have criticised adversely any Americans or anything American. I do not know why, since I have spent long periods in that country and have many friends there and have often expressed my admiration of various Americans and American doings. Moreover, I have married two Americans. However - ten years later it had come to be generally agreed that the case against Morton Sobell did not hold water. The Court of Appeals pronounced publicly on the case in 1962-63. On reading the judges' verdict, I understood them to say that it was not worth granting Sobell a new trial. On appealing for advice from Sobell's defence lawyers on my interpretation of the verdict, I was informed: 'It was terrible, though not quite as crude as you'd imagined.' The defence lawyers had argued that 'Ethel Rosenberg's constitutional Fifth-Amendment rights had been violated during the trial, and that this had been fully established in a subsequent Supreme Court decision, known as the "Grunewald" decision. This decision indicated that Ethel Rosenberg had been entitled to a new trial; and since her innocence would have established her husband's and Sobell's, they too were entitled to new trials ... The Rosenbergs, alas, were no longer around, but Sobell should have his day in court.' Although his family continue their long, brave fight to obtain freedom for him, Morton Sobell remains in prison.
Early in 1947 I had said in the House of Lords that in America 'any person who favours the United Nations is labelled as a dangerous "Red"'. I was alarmed by such uncritical anti-communism, especially as it was adopted increasingly by organisations purporting to be liberal. For this reason I felt obliged, early in 1953, to resign from the American Committee for Cultural Freedom. I remained Honorary President of the International Congress for Cultural Freedom. Three years later I was sent the proof of a book called Was Justice Done? The Rosenberg-Sobell Case by Malcolm Sharp, Professor of Law at the University of Chicago. It made it quite clear to me, and I should have thought to anyone, that there had been a miscarriage of justice. I denounced in the press the hysteria and police-state techniques which had been used against the Rosenbergs and Sobell. The response of the American Committee for Cultural Freedom seems even more absurd in the light of the evidence which has mounted during the intervening years than it seemed at the time. 'There is no evidence whatsoever', the American Committee pronounced, 'that the Federal Bureau of Investigation committed atrocities or employed thugs in the Rosenberg case. There is no support whatever for your charge that Sobell, an innocent man, was the victim of political hysteria. There is no ground whatever for your contention that either Sobell or the Rosenbergs were condemned on the word of perjurers, terrified or unterrified . . . Your remarks on American judicial procedure, the analogy you draw between the technique of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the policy [sic] methods of Nazi Germany or Stalin's Russia, constitute a major disservice to the cause of freedom and democracy.' Having learned that the American branch approved of cultural freedom in Communist countries but not elsewhere, I resigned from the Congress for Cultural Freedom.
But in the summer of 1956 things seemed to be moving in our direction so far as the proposed conference of scientists was concerned. Then, in October, two misfortunes overtook the world: the first was the Hungarian Revolt and its suppression;1 the second was the Suez affair. In relation to the latter I felt shocked, as I said publicly, and sickened by our Government's machinations, military and other. I welcomed Gaitskell's speech, dry and late in coming though it was, because it said more or less officially a number of things that should have been said. But the loss of influence in international affairs which Great Britain must suffer in consequence of this ill-advised Suez exploit seemed to me well-nigh irreparable. In any case, it was obviously impossible to take the Western participants in the conference by the round-about route than necessary to arrive in India in January 1957. So we had to re-plan our next move.
The problem was how the work was to be carried out and where such a conference should be held and, above all, how it could be financed. I felt very sure that the conference should not be bound by the tenets of any established body and that it should be entirely neutral and independent; and the other planners thought likewise. But we could find no individual or organisation in England willing, if able, to finance it and certainly none willing to do so with no strings attached. Some time before, I had received a warm letter of approbation for what I was doing from Cyrus Eaton in America. He had offered to help with money. Aristotle Onassis, the Greek shipping magnate, had also offered to help if the conference were to take place at Monte Carlo. Cyrus Eaton now confirmed his offer if the conference were to be held at his birthplace, Pugwash in Nova Scotia. He had held other sorts of conferences there of a not wholly dissimilar character. We agreed to the condition. Plans went ahead fast under the guidance of Professors Rotblat and Powell. They were greatly helped by Dr Burhop and, then and later, by Dr Patricia Lindop, a physicist of St Bartholomew's Medical College. Her informed and dedicated devotion to the causes of peace and co-operation among scientists was, I found, comparable even to Professor Rotblat's. She managed her work, her children and household and the scientists with apparently carefree grace and tact. And the first conference took place in early July, 1957, at Pugwash.
I was unable to go to this first conference because of my age and ill health. A large part of my time in 1957 was devoted to various medical tests to determine what was the trouble with my throat. In February, I had to go into hospital for a short time to find out whether or not I had cancer of the throat. The evening that I went in I had a debate over the BBC with Abbot Butler of Downside which I much enjoyed, and I think he did also. The incident went off as pleasantly as such a trying performance could do and it was discovered conclusively that I did not have cancer. But what did I have? And so the tests continued and I continued to have to live on baby's food and other such pabulum.
Since that time I have made several journeys abroad, though none so long as that to Pugwash. I fight shy of longer journeys partly because I fear if I go to one country people in other countries who have pressed me to go there will be affronted. The only way around this, for one who is not an official personage, is to renounce distant travels. In 1958, however, I journeyed to a Pugwash conference in Austria. I stayed on after the meetings and, with my wife, made a journey by motor car. We drove along the Danube to Durnstein which I had wished to see ever since my boyhood delight in Richard Coeur de Lion. I was greatly impressed by the magnificent bleak grandeur of Melk on its bluff about the river and by the beauty of its library. Then we drove in a large circle through the mountains back to Vienna. The air was delicious and spicy. It seemed like a journey into the story books of my youth, both in the countryside, which is that of fairy books, and in the kindness and simplicity and gaiety of the people. Above one little village there was a great lime tree where the villagers gathered to gossip of an evening and on Sunday. It was a magical tree in a magical meadow, calm and sweet and full of peace. Once, as we drove along a narrow lane beside a dashing stream at the foot of a mountain, we were held up by a landslide. Great trunks of fir trees were piled up across the road. We stopped, wondering how to turn or to pass it. Suddenly, men and women appeared, as if sprang from the ground, from the nearby farms and set to work, laughing and joking, to move the obstruction. In a trice, it seemed to me, the road was free and we were being waved on by smiling people.
But to return to Pugwash - I was kept in close touch by letter ana telephone with the proceedings of the first conference and was pleased with what I heard. We had decided that not only physicists but biological and social scientists should be invited to attend. There were twenty-two participants in all - from the United States, the Soviet Union, China, Poland, Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Great Britain, and Japan. The meetings were carried on in both English and Russian. It pleased me especially that it showed that real co-operation such as we had hoped, could be achieved among scientists of extremely divergent 'ideologies' and apparently opposing scientific as well as other views.
The conference was called the Pugwash Conference of Scientists and for the sake of continuity the movement has continued to be identified by the name Pugwash. It established among other things a 'Continuing Committee' of five members of which I was the Chairman to organise further conferences. More important, it established a form that future conferences followed. A number of plenary meetings were held at which important papers were read. There were a greater number of meetings of the small committees set up at the start, at which particular aspects of the general subjects were discussed and decided. Most important of all, it was held in an atmosphere of friendliness. Perhaps the unique characteristic of this and subsequent Pugwash Conferences was the fact that the members consorted with each other in their spare time as well as during the scheduled meetings and grew to know each other as human beings rather than merely as scientists of this or that potentially inimical belief or nation. This most important characteristic was in large part made possible by the astute understanding by Cyrus Eaton of the situation and what we wished to accomplish and by his tactful hospitality.
As I was not present, I shall not attempt to describe in detail the action or findings of this or any of the other conferences. Professor Rotblat compiled an excellent and comprehensive history of this and the following seven conferences that were held up to the time of its publication in 1962. Suffice it to say here, that there were three committees at the first conference: (1) on the hazards arising from the use of atomic energy; (2) on the control of nuclear weapons, which outlined the general objectives of disarmament which subsequent conferences discussed in detail; and (3) on the social responsibilities of scientists. The findings of the first, as Professor Rotblat points out, probably comprise the first agreement reached between scientists of East and West on the effects of nuclear tests. The third committee summarised its findings in eleven items of common belief which became, little more than a year later, the basis of what is known as the 'Vienna Declaration'. This first Pugwash conference published a statement that was formally endorsed by the Soviet Academy of Sciences and warmly welcomed in China, but less publicised and more slowly in the West.
The Continuing Committee first met in London in December, 1957, and a further and similar conference, again made possible by Cyrus Eaton, was held at Lac Beauport in Canada in the spring of 1958. Then came a more ambitious endeavour: a large conference in September, 1958, at Kitzbühel in Austria. It was made possible through the good offices of Professor Hans Thirring, under the auspices of the Theodor-Koerner Foundation. It was followed by meetings held in Vienna. At the former conferences no press or observers had been permitted to attend. At this third conference not only were observers present but they included members of the families of the participants. At the great meetings at Vienna the press was in evidence. At the meeting in the Austrian Academy of Sciences on the morning of September 20th the Vienna Declaration was promulgated. It was a statement that had been accepted with only one abstention by all the members of the conference at Kitzbühel and it forms, as Professor Rotblat has said, the credo of the Pugwash movement. It is too long to be included here, but may be found in his history. The meeting was opened by the President of Austria, Dr Adolf Schaef, for the conference had been given a very generous welcome by the Austrian State. Amongst others of both East and West I spoke in my capacity of president of the movement and chairman of the Continuing Committee. It seemed to me an impressive and unforgettable formal occasion. In my speech I recalled my grandfather's speech at a Congress (also in Vienna) during the Crimean War in which he spoke in favour of peace, but was overruled. Following the great meeting, we attended the President's lunch in the Alter Hof. Then came an important meeting when ten of the participants in the conference addressed ten thousand people at the Wiener Stadthalle but this I could not attend.
The most obvious achievement of the Pugwash movement has been the conclusion, for which it was largely responsible, of the partial Test-ban Treaty which forbade nuclear tests above ground in peace time. I, personally, was not and am not happy about this partial ban. It seems to me to be, as I should expect it to be, a soother of consciences and fears that should not be soothed. At the same time, it is only a slight mitigation of the dangers to which we are all exposed. It seemed to me more likely to be a hindrance than a help towards obtaining the desired total ban. Nevertheless, it showed that East and West could work together to obtain what they wished to obtain and that the Pugwash movement could be effective when and where it desired to be. It was rather a give-away of the bona fides of the various 'Disarmament Conferences' whose doings we have watched with some scepticism for a good many years.
The Pugwash movement now seems to be firmly established and part of the respectable progress of scientific relations with international affairs. I myself have had little to do directly with its progress in the last years. My interest turned to new plans towards persuading peoples and Governments to banish war and in particular weapons of mass extermination, first of all nuclear weapons. In the course of these fresh endeavours, I felt that I had become rather disreputable in the eyes of the more conservative scientists. The Pugwash movement held a great meeting of scientists from all over the world in London in September, 1962. I was to speak about the founding of the movement and I warned my friends that I might be hissed - as I was fully convinced that I should be. I was deeply touched by being given a standing ovation when I rose to speak which included, I was told, all the participants, all, that is, save Lord Hailsham. He was present in his capacity as the Queen's Minister of Science. He was personally, I think, friendly enough to me, but, weighed down by office, he sat tight. That was the last occasion on which I have taken public part in a Pugwash conference.
From Bernard Berenson
I Tatti Settignano Florence March 29, 1945
Dear Bertie
Mary died the 23d, & as I know that she remained very fond of you to the end, I wish you to hear of her end. It was a liberation, for she suffered distressingly, & increasingly in recent years.
Not many months ago, I read out to her yr. article in Horizon about America. It delighted her & me as well.
Of other publications of yours we have seen nothing in years, we have been cut off from the Western World for a good five years. I learned with pleasure that you had returned to your Cambridge & to Trinity. It makes me believe that we may meet again some day. It will have to be here, as I doubt whether I shall get to England soon.
You must have a grown up son by now. What of him?
With affectionate remembrance.
Sincerely yours B.B.
Hotel Europa e Britannia Venezia June 1, 54 till July
Dear Bertie
I hear from Mrs Sprigge that you would like to revisit I Tatti. It would give me real pleasure to see you again, and your wife whom I remember. I propose your coming for ten days or a fortnight at any time between Dec. 1 and April 1. The other months we are either away or too crowded & I want you to myself. For many years I have been reading what you published about things human, feeling as if nobody else spoke for me as you do.
Do not delay, for in these weeks I shall be reaching my 90th year & le Grand Peut-être may want me any day.
With affectionate remembrance.
Ever yrs B.B.
I Tatti Settignano Florence July 12 '54
Dear Bertie
Thank you for Nightmares. I have enjoyed yr. wit, your evocation, your Galgenhumors. Continuez!
Yes, any time between Jan, 10 & March 1 would suit me best. I should by happy if you could stay a fortnight.
Sincerely yours B.B.
P.S. Later, you will give me precise dates. B.B.
I Tatti Settignano Florence Nov. 16, '54
Dear Bertie
Your note of the 12th grieves me. I looked forward to seeing you, the last of my near-contemporaries, & one with whom I have so much in common.
Unless work chains you to London you could carry it on at least as well here as at home. I never see guests except at meals, or if they want to join me in my now so short walks.
If Jan. 15-March 15 are impossible is there another time that would suit you better.
Could you come in the summer? We three are at Vallombrosa in a paradise but rustic, & far less roomy & comfy.
Incline yr. heart toward my proposal.
Sincerely B.B.
P.S. I never shall cross the Alps again. London, Pans, New York etc. are far, far too tiring for me now.
Saniet Volpi-Tripoli May 8, 55
Dear Bertie
Of course I knew you were in Rome, & I had a faint hope that you might find time to spend a day or two with me in Florence. I was disappointed that you could not make it.
Let me urge you again to come for a fortnight or so any time between Nov. 15 & March 15, preferably Jan. 15 to March 15. You could work as well as at home for I never see guests except at meals & evenings - if they care to keep me company after dinner.
It would be a joy to live over the remembered days of so long ago. Of your wife too I retain pleasant remembrance & should be happy to renew our acquaintance.
Do you really hope that disaster can be averted? I fear experiments can not be avoided, & damn the consequences.
Sincerely yrs. B.B.
I wrote the following soon after going to live in Richmond tn the house which I shared with my son and his family.
May 12th, 1950
I have been walking alone in the garden of Pembroke Lodge, and it has produced a mood of almost unbearable melancholy. The Government is doing great works, all bad. Half the garden is incredibly lovely: a mass of azaleas and bluebells and narcissus and blossoming may trees. This half they have carefully fenced in with barbed wire (I crawled through it), for fear the public should enjoy it. It was incredibly like Blake's Garden of Love, except that the 'priests' were bureaucrats.
I suffer also from entering into the lives of John and Susan. They were born after 1914, and are therefore incapable of happiness. Their three children are lovely: I love them and they like me. But the parents live their separate lives, in separate prisons of nightmare and despair. Not on the surface; on the surface they are happy. But beneath the surface John lives in suspicious solitude, unable to believe that anyone can be trusted, and Susan is driven beyond endurance by sharp stabs of sudden agony from contemplation of this dreadful world. She finds relief in writing poetry, but he has no relief. I see that their marriage will break up, and that neither will ever find happiness or peace. At moments I can shut out this terrifying intuitive knowledge, but I love them both too much to keep on thinking about them on a level of mundane common sense. If I had not the horrible Cassandra gift of foreseeing tragedy, I could be happy here, on a surface level. But as it is, I suffer. And what is wrong with them is wrong with all the young throughout the world. My heart aches with compassion for the lost generation lost by the folly and greed of the generation to which I belong. It is a heavy burden, but one must rise above it. Perhaps, by suffering to the limit, some word of comfort may be revealed.
To Charles W. Stewart, the illustrator of my Nightmares of Eminent Persons. I longed to find a Daumier or, better still, a Goya to point up the savage irony of this book as well as the warning contained in my Human Society in Ethics and Politics.
20 NOV. 1953
Dear Mr Stewart
Thank you for the roughs. I like them very much and shall be glad to have you do the pictures. I note what you say about Stalin and am assuming that the picture will be somewhat different from the rough. I particularly like the existentialist's nightmare and the one in Zahatopolk where the lady is being burnt. In the other Zahatopolk picture I like it all except that I think the valley ought to be more smiling and full of flowers, but perhaps it will be so when you have finished the picture. In the picture of Dr Southport Vulpes I suppose the things in the sky are aeroplanes, and I think it might be a good thing if they were somewhat larger and more emphatic. I quite agree to your suggestion of a single heading for every other nightmare, and I have no objection to having Vulpes put between Eisenhower and Acheson as you suggest. I am looking forward with pleasure to a picture of the quarrel between the two ladies in Faith and Mountains. As this story is at the printers, I am sending you a spare typescript which, however, I should like to have back when you have finished with it.
I am engaged on another book, not of stories, but on ethics and politics, to be called Human Society: Diagnosis & Prognosis. I want in this book to have three pictures, or one picture in three parts, like a triptych, illustrating the uses of intelligence in the past, present and future. If you feel inclined to undertake this and if Stanley Unwin is agreeable, I shall be very glad. Any time within the next four months would do. I should like all three as savage and bitter as possible.
I return the roughs herewith.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
From Ion Braby about The Good Citizen's Alphabet
Queensland St Nicholas-at-Wade near Birchington, Kent March 31 1953
Dear Lord Russell
Thank you so much for the book. It Is delightful. I am not sure whether the drawings are worthy of the text or the text worthy of the drawings. In either event they could hardly be better. I think foolish, greedy and jolly are my favourites, but I am very fond of unfair, erroneous and diabolic and many more. And, also, of the opening address (I feel that is the word) and its illustrations. I am sure you and the artist will be due for a triple dose of hemlock, for you will be accused of corrupting not only the young but the middle-aged and elderly too - and corrupting the latter two is very wrong, as they have less time to recover. Anyway, I am very glad to be subverted by it; thank you again.
I sent my book off to The Bodley Head at the end of the week before last, and hope to get an answer soon. I need hardly say once more how much I appreciate your interest and help.
With best wishes Yours sincerely Ion
From Rupert Crawshay-Williams
Castle Yard Portmeirion Penrhyndeudraeth Merioneth August 1, 1953
Dear Bertie
I was so delighted by your story - and especially as I read most of it in a remarkably dingy cubicle in a Divinity students' hostel in Dublin that I determined to write you a letter long enough for comment on the particular bits I liked; and I've been putting this off - largely because my holiday in Ireland did not do as a holiday is supposed to, but somehow put me into a state of mind in which all my work was worse - and much slower - than it had been before. (But this may have been a bit because revising, and particularly cutting down, is so much more boring than the actual working out of ideas.)
Anyway Faith and Mountains is certainly my favourite of all your stories so far. I suppose this is partly because its theme is a cup of tea just up my street. But I think you have worked it out beautifully, with just the right amount - not too much - of pastiche and exaggeration. The pseudo-scientific plausibility of the two opposing doctrines is delightful, especially in the light of Mr Wagthorne's later point about man's ability to believe what afterwards appears to have been nonsense. Incidentally, that whole paragraph on p. 43 builds up with beautifully timed comic effect to all the names beginning with M. The timing of your effects in general - for instance, the moments you choose for understatement or for sharp statement - is now technically most efficient. (The Professor's opening speech at the grand meeting; the conciseness of the paragraph at the beginning of Chapter VII in which his future is outlined - nice bit about Tensing!; 'And with that they fell into each other's arms'.)
Also there are a nice lot of sly digs put over with a straight face (which is one of your finger-prints, of course): The Magnets' dismissal of mere brawn; the believers finally remaining in out of the way suburbs. And I liked the conceits about the very narrow valley and about Mr Thorney's use of a sextant. And the TLS pastiche, with its 'shallow certainty' and 'deeper sources of wisdom' and 'the coldly critical intellect'.
Your 'message' of course is highly commendable; and as a matter of fact Zachary's answer to his father at the end is most concise and decisive. But, for me, even more decisive - because it made me laugh out loud (and also Elizabeth, who sends her love and entire agreement) - is the last paragraph. You have caught so neatly and ludicrously the dingy commonplaceness of so many hymns. (Now I come to think of it, part of the effect comes from the slight confusion of thought between third and fourth lines: diseases of the chest and Makes our muscles grow.) And then comes - perfectly correctly - the word 'Sublimities' in the last line.
I was glad to see, by the way, your emphasis, in a review in the Sunday Times some weeks ago, upon the role of power politics rather than ideologies - and also your re-emphasis upon the way in which science and scientific method have conditioned (all that is 'best' in) Western Values. It is maddening the way in which the opposite 'soupy' belief is accepted even by most unsoupy people.
My word 'soupy' was used the other day - in exactly my sense - by a novelist called Angus Wilson when reviewing a book on Georges Sand in the Observer. I very much hope this is a sign that it is spreading; Angus Wilson is I believe a friend of Cyril Connolly's to whom I did once introduce the word.
The names Tomkins and Merrow (together) ring a faint bell in my mind. Should it be a loud bell, and should I recognise it?
Yours ever Rupert
It's now Sunday, and I've just remembered that the local post office box won't take large envelopes. So I'll send the MS back to-morrow.
From J. B. S. Haldane
University College London Department of Biometry 5th November, 1953
Dear Russell
Thank you very much for your information. I have, of course, altered the passage to bring it into line with the facts. In my old age I am getting rather interested in animal behaviour, and have even done something to 'decode' the bees' language (of which a fair account is to be found in Ribband's The Behaviour and Social Life of Honeybees). As you know, bees returning from a rich source of food dance. The class of all dances is a prepositional function with four variables, which may be rendered
'There is a source of food smelling of A, requiring B workers, at a distance C in direction D.'
A is indicated by demonstration, B, C, and D symbolically. I have brought a little precision into the translation of the symbols for C. The paper will be sent you in due course. If, however, bees are given honey vertically above them they cannot communicate this fact, though they dance in an irregular manner. There are undanceable truths, like the ineffable name of God.
The political system of bees, discovered by Lindauer. ts even more surprising. He has records of a debate as to a nest site which lasted for five days.
You will perhaps correct me if I am incorrect in describing a propositional function as a class of propositions. If one comes to them 'from outside' as in the observation of bees, this seems a natural way of looking at the matter.
Meanwhile various Germans (not v. Frisch and Lindauer) are plugging the fixity of animal behaviour in a rather Nazi manner (v. reprint by my wife). The word 'imprinting', due to Thorpe, is used for long-lasting changes in conduct due to a juvenile experience (e.g. the following of Spalding by chickens).
Yours sincerely J. B. S. Haldane
From H. McHaigh Esq.
87 Orewa Rd. Auckland, N.Z. 17/viii/'51
Dear Sir
I had the pleasure of lecturing you last year: while you were in Sydney. But, one evening this week you were closer: here, in Auckland, I heard your voice - reproduced from 1.Y.A. Auck. Radio broadcast.
Now I understand how, or why, the 'Bulletin' artist was able to depict so terribly the vile personality shewn in that Weekly's columns labelled with your name: as well as seeing you in the flesh, he must have heard you speak.
Frequently, while the radio is turned on, I have wondered whether members of Broadcasting Boards have ears; or, whether, having ears, they have a grain of good taste amongst them. But, as soon as the announcer named you as the person emitting those dreadfully disgusting sounds, I knew that, ears or no ears, those men are utterly careless about inflicting pain - and about disclosing the shocking ruin that (as in your case) a human being can make of himself. For unless thoroughly bestialised, no man could possibly give out such sounds from his mouth.
When, or if, you ever entertain shame and self-disgust (and I pray it may be soon), I suggest that you gather and destroy every sound-record of your voice: you owe that reparation at least.
God help you.
Yours truly H. McHaigh
From and to H. N. Brailsford
37 Belsize Park Gardens London N.W.3 19 May 1952
My Dear Russell
You have been overwhelmed, I'm sure, with congratulations, and yet I would like to add mine, for few can have come from friends who knew you in the last century. I recall vividly our first meeting at the Courtneys during the Boer War. I welcome this birthday because it gives me a happy occasion to thank you for all I have gained from your writings. Best of all in these days were the courage and optimism of your recent broadcasts.
Evamaria joins me in sending you, with our gratitude, our warmest greetings.
Yours ever Noel Brailsford
[undated] May 1952
My dear Brailsford
Thank you for your letter of May 19. I owe much to you. Your review of my Social Reconstruction encouraged me more than any other at a time when I very much needed encouragement. I caused fury in Cambridge by quoting from your War of Steel and Gold a passage showing how much parsons and such were making out of armaments. The fury was of a sort of which I was glad to cause. I am very glad you have liked my recent broadcasts. Please convey my thanks to Mrs Brailsford as well as to yourself.
Yours ever Bertrand Russell
From Ernest Jones, the psycho-analyst
The Plat Elstedj Nr, Midhurst, Sx. February 20, 1955
Dear Bertrand Russell
What pleasure you have given to a host of people by your characteristically courageous, forthright and penetrating observations in today's Observer. You and W. K. Clifford greatly resemble each other in these attributes. I wonder how much the study of mathematics conduced to them in both of you. Your concluding paragraph might be a paraphrase of the concluding one in his Lectures and Essays, a copy of which I enclose in case you have mislaid his book. Many of his Essays could very well be reprinted to-day. It is sad to think that the eighty years since he wrote them have shown such little progress in the apprehension of the clear principles he enunciated.
By the way, he quotes elsewhere Coleridge's pungent aphorism: 'He who begins by loving Christianity better than Truth, will proceed by loving his own sect or Church better than Christiantiy, and end in loving himself better than all.'
Yours very sincerely Ernest Jones
The Plat Elsted, Nr. Midhurst. Sx. April 25, 1955
Dear Bertrand Russell
In your luminous essay on Einstein in the Observer there is one sentence which I am a little inclined to question: it is about his being surprisingly indifferent to empirical confirmations. The following is a quotation from a letter he wrote to Freud in April 1936:
'Bis vor Kurzem war mir nur die speculative Kraft Ihrer Gedanken-gänge some der gewaltige Einfluss auf die Weltanschauung der Gegenwart klar geworden, ohne mir über den Wahrheitswert Ihrer Theorien klar werden zu können. In letzter Zeit aber hatte ich Gelegenheit von einigen an sich geringfügigen Fällen zu hören, die jegliche abweichende Auslegung ('von der Verdrängungslehre abweichend) ausschliessen. Dies empfand ich als beglückend; denn es ist stets beglückend, wenn eine grosse und schöne Idee sich als in der Wirklichkeit zutreffend erweist.'1
I had taken the concluding sentence to be based on his own experience, such as the 1919 bending of light, etc.
If a subscription or the use of my name could make any contribution to the magnificent campaign you inaugurated in Rome pray command me.
Yours sincerely Ernest Jones
Miss Graves was a deeply religious lady who surprised me by her tolerance. I first came in contact with her over Chinese affairs. Afterwards she was chiefly concerned with Latin America.
From Anna Melissa Graves
921 Jahncke Ave. Covington, Louisiana USA February 24, 1957
Dear Lord Russell
I have not heard from Victor Haya de la Torre, that is I have not had a letter, but he sent me an account of himself which appeared in The Observer, and from that account or 'interview' he had evidently made the pilgrimage to see you. I am glad for I am sure that seeing you and meeting you was - or should have been - of real benefit to him. I hope you did not think the time you gave him wasted.
In this 'interview' he said you were so true and 'hopeful'. He does not need the example of optimism, having always been a believer in a better time coming; but most Latin Americans - perhaps all politicians of every land need the example of anyone to whom Truth means as much as it does to you. I am very glad he recognised that first of all in you.
I wonder if you remember I asked you if you could to return his letter to me, asking me to ask you to receive him. It was enclosed in my second note to you and you answered the first note. It would be very natural if you thought the second note did not need an answer; but if you have not destroyed or mislaid Victor's letter I should be grateful if you could return it; but if it is lost that would not be at all a serious matter.
I should also be grateful if you told me your impression of him. I think I am going to Los Angeles, California, to live with Anna Louise Strong. I think I can do more for the Negroes here after having lived here than I could if I stayed. If one does what one longs to do, one often gets them into trouble. I think the condition here is worse than it is (or rather worse than it was when Reginald Reynolds wrote his book) worse here than in South Africa, of course not worse than in Kenya, but in South Africa the non-Africans (British and Boers) who wish to treat the Africans justly seem freer to - seemed freer to - work for justice than one is here. Eastland is very determined to call all who are working for justice to the Negroes - 'Communists', 'Agents of Moscow'. But it is not the Eastlands who are so dangerous, it is the cultured charming 'White-Southerners'. They could end all the injustice, but then they would not be themselves if they did. They can't open their eyes, because they don't dare.
Very sincerely yours, and gratefully for giving time to Victor
Anna Melissa Graves
From Clement Davies
31 Evelyn Mansions Carlisle Place London S.W.1 [Dec. 24, 54]
My dear Bertrand Russell
May I be allowed to say 'thank you' for your splendid broadcast speech last night. I say my 'thank you' most sincerely. What memories you stirred!! and how my thoughts went speeding along with yours at a super-sonic rate. Yes, we have accomplished much that I longed to see done 50 and more years ago - and how one battled in those days against great odds, while, today, those very opponents not only are on our side but actually are so enthusiastic about the reforms that they claim they originated them.
The remembrance of those days and the changes that have been brought about and secured, hearten me with regard to the International Situation. The odds against your and my ideals and against adopting Reason instead of Force as the arbiter in human differences are so apparently strong that our struggles might seem hopeless. But here again, we shall see and see soon a great change and if our experience in home affairs is repeated in International affairs, then those who today oppose us and reject our remedies, will not only accept the remedies but claim that they and they alone wore responsible for them and that they brought to suffering humanity the Peace which all men & women desire.
Well; I hope I am right, and I shall cheer them loud and long, just as I today cheer my opponents who long ago said they would not lick stamps.
Again my most grateful thanks. With our united warmest regards & wishes to you both
Very sincerely yours Clement Dairies
31 Evelyn Mansions Carlisle Place London, S.W.1 Sept. 19, 55
My dear Bertrand Russell
You have tempted me into reminiscence by recalling your excursion into the political arena against the redoubtable Joe Chamberlain and his raging tearing propaganda in favour of tariffs and ultra nationalism.
My first effort was also against the formidable Joe. It was in November 1899 and I was of the very ripe experienced age of 15. I went on the platform at a Tory meeting to denounce the South African War - my oratory was not allowed to last long in spite of a strenuous effort, and I returned home with black eyes (two) and a bloody nose. It was not so much an anti-war effort as a Defence of the Boers. Little did I dream that they would misuse the Freedom which we wanted them to have and which we restored to them in 1906 - to the disadvantage of the Black and Coloured Africans.
With warmest regards & best wishes from us to you both
Ever yours sincerely Clement Davies
at Caxton Hall, Westminster
on Saturday, 9th July, 1955
Professor J. ROTBLAT: Ladies and gentlemen, this conference was called by Lord Bertrand Russell in order to make public a statement signed by a number of scientists on the significance of nuclear warfare. I hope that each of you received a copy of the statement. I am going to call on Lord Russell to give you a short summary of this statement and afterwards it will be open to you to ask questions relating to this topic. Lord Russell.
Earl RUSSELL: Ladies and gentlemen, the purpose of this conference is to bring to your notice, and through you to the notice of the world, a statement signed by eight of the most eminent scientists in the field cognate to nuclear warfare, about the perils that are involved in nuclear warfare and the absolute necessity therefore of avoiding war.
I will just read you a brief abstract here which I think you already have:
'The accompanying statement, which has been signed by some of the most eminent scientific authorities in different parts of the world, deals with the perils of a nuclear war. It makes it clear that neither side can hope for victory in such a war, and that there is a very real danger of the extermination of the human race by dust and rain from radio-active clouds. It suggests that neither the public nor the governments of the world are adequately aware of the danger. It points out that an agreed prohibition of nuclear weapons, while it might be useful in lessening tension, would not afford a solution, since such weapons would certainly be manufactured and used in a great war in spite of previous agreements to the contrary. The only hope for mankind is the avoidance of war. To call for a way of thinking which shall make such avoidance possible is the purpose of this statement.
The first move came as a collaboration between Einstein and myself. Einstein's signature was given in the last week of his life. Since his death I have approached men of scientific competence both in the East and in the West, for political disagreements should not influence men of science in estimating what is probable, but some of those approached have not yet replied. 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.'
Now I should like to say just a little about the genesis of this statement. I think it was an outcome of a broadcast which I gave on the 23rd December last year on the BBC on the perils of nuclear war. I had appreciative letters from various people, among others from Professor Joliot-Curie, the eminent French man of science, and I was particularly pleased at getting an appreciative letter from him because of his being a noted Communist.
I thought that one of the purposes that I had in view was to build a bridge between people of opposing political opinions. That is to say, to unite men of science on a statement of facts which would leave out all talk of what people thought in the matter of politics. I wrote to Einstein suggesting that eminent men of science should do something dramatic about nuclear war, and I got a reply from him saying that he agreed with every word. I therefore drew up a draft, after consultation with a certain number of people, which I sent to Einstein and he being already not in very good health - suggested, I quote his own phrase, that I 'should regard myself as dictator of the enterprise' because I think chiefly his health was not equal to doing it. When I sent him the draft he replied, 'I am gladly willing to sign your excellent statement'. I received this letter on the very day of his death and after I had received news of his death, so that this was I suppose about the very last public act of his life.
The aims of drawing up the statement were to keep to what men of science as such can pronounce upon, to avoid politics and thus to get signatures both from the Right and from the Left. Science ought to be impartial, and I thought that one could get a body of agreement among men of differing politics on the importance of avoiding nuclear war, and I think that in that respect this document is fairly successful.
There are, apart from myself, eight signatories1 of the document. All eight are exceedingly eminent in the scientific world. Most of them are nuclear physicists, some in a field which is very important in this connection, geneticists, and men who know about mutations caused by radiation, a very important subject which arises when you are considering nuclear warfare. But they were chosen solely and only for their scientific eminence and with no other view.
I applied to eighteen, I think, altogether and of these, half, or nearly half, eight2 in fact, agreed. Some I have not yet heard from for various reasons. In particular, I applied to the most eminent of Chinese physicists, Dr Le Szi Kuang, and I have not yet had his answer. None of the answers I have received were unsympathetic. Those who did not sign had various good reasons, for instance, that they had official positions or were engaged in some official work which made it difficult, but nobody either of Right or of the Left replied in a manner that was unsympathetic.
I had one signature from Professor Infeld of the university or Warsaw, who was joint author with Einstein of two books. I had not a signature, but a very sympathetic letter, from Skobeltsyn of Moscow. Professor Joliot-Curie was, in the first-place, son-in-law of the discoverer of radium, but he does not depend on that for his fame, he is a Nobel prizewinner. He is the sixth of the eight who has got the Nobel Prize for work of scientific character; and the other two I think probably will get the Nobel Prize before very long! That is the order of eminence of these men.
Mr Joliot-Curie made two reservations, one of which was of some importance, the other not so important. I spoke of the necessity for limitations of sovereignty and he wants it added that these limitations are to be agreed by all and in the interests of all, and that is a statement which I entirely agreed to. Then there is another reservation that he made. I say, 'Shall we put an end to the human race: or shall mankind renounce war?' and he wants to say, 'Shall mankind renounce war as a means of settling differences between states?' With these limitations he agreed to sign the document.
Professor Muller also made a very small reservation that seemed only to be explaining what I had meant.
I will say just a few words about these men, some of whom possibly are not so well known in the journalistic world as they are in the scientific world. They consist of two British scientists, two Americans Einstein himself, whom I do not reckon among Americans, because Einstein's nationality is somewhat universal - one Pole, one Frenchman and one Japanese. Professor Rotblat I am very happy to have here. He is, as you know, Director of Research in Nuclear Physics in Liverpool.1 He did a very interesting piece of what you might almost call detective work about the Bikini bomb. Those of you who are old enough may possibly remember that in 1945 people were quite shocked by the atom bomb. Well that seems now ancient history if you think of the atom bomb as something like bows and arrows.
We advanced from that to the H-bomb which was very much worse than the atom bomb and then it turned out, at first I think through the detective work of Professor Rotblat and afterwards by the admission of the American authorities, that the bomb exploded at Bikini was very much worse than an H-bomb. The H-bomb now is ancient history. You have a twofold trigger arrangement. You have first uranium 235 to set off the hydrogen. Then you have the hydrogen to set off uranium 238, of which there are vast slag heaps discarded in producing uranium 235. Now we use uranium 238 for the purpose, it is very much cheaper to make, the bombs are very much more destructive when they are made, and so you see science advances rapidly. So far the Bikini bomb is the latest thing, but we cannot tell where we are going to come to.
I think that this statement, as I conceive it, is only a first step. It will be necessary to go on to get the men of science to make authoritative pronouncements on the facts and I think that should be followed by an International Congress of men of science from all scientific countries at which the signatories would, I hope, propose some such resolution as I have suggested at the end of this statement. I think resolutions with something of those terms could be suggested at the various national congresses that take place in due time. I think that the men of science should make the public and the governments of the world aware of the facts by means of a widespread popular campaign. You know it is a very difficult thing to get men of science to embark on popular campaigns; they are not used to that sort of thing and it does not come readily to them, but it is their duty, I think, at this time to make the public aware of things; they have to persuade the world to avoid war, at first by whatever expedients may suggest themselves, but ultimately by some international machinery that shall make the avoidance of war not a matter of day-to-day expedients but of world organisation. I think they should emphasise that science, which has come to have a rather sinister meaning in the minds of the general public, I think, if once this question of war were out of the way, would be capable of conferring the most enormous benefits upon mankind and making the world a very much happier place than it has ever been before. I think they should emphasise that as well as the dangers that arise through war.
I am here to answer questions, and I should be very happy to do my best to answer any questions that any of you may wish to ask.