Abstract
My generation grew up in a hair-trigger world. Tens of thousands of nuclear weapons were poised, ready to wipe away the days of our charmed superpower childhood and we knew nothing about them and other events that were changing the world. Vietnam to me was hushed silences around flashing TV news screens and a defiant orange neon peace sign in my teenage brother’s room. I vaguely remember seeing the first moon walk, Nixon resign, and the horrible helicopter crash when President Carter tried to free the hostages. Throughout my primary and secondary education, nuclear weapons barely made it onto my radar screen. I didn’t know about MX or Trident missiles. One of my school’s top students, I somehow was sixteen before I learned about the Holocaust. I graduated from high school in 1983. President Reagan was warming up, AIDS was breaking out, and my generation began to wake up.
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Notes and References
Albert Einstein, in a letter to the Queen Mother of Belgium, March 28, 1954, two weeks after his 75th birthday, in Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, Einstein on Peace, New York: Avenel Books, 1981, p. 604.
Robert McNamara is a former US Secretary of Defense; General Lee Butler is a former head of the US Strategic Air Command; Admiral Stansfield Turner is a former head of the Central Intelligence Agency; and Joseph Rotblat is a former member of the Manhattan Project. All of these men have called for eventual nuclear disarmament.
Serguei Kapitza, ‘Social consciousness and education for disarmament (how to learn to think in a new way),’ Scientists, the Arms Race and Disarmament: A UNESCO/Pugwash Symposium, ed. Joseph Rotblat, London: Taylor and Francis, 1982, p. 253.
Joseph Rotblat, ‘Pugwash — The Social Conscience of Scientists,’ Closing Address, 47th Annual Pugwash Conference, Lillehammer, Norway, August 7, 1997.
Joseph Rotblat, Preface, Jobs You Can Live With: Working at the Crossroads of Science, Technology, and Society, Washington D.C.: Student Pugwash USA, 1996.
Joseph Rotblat, interviewed in Student Pugwash USA’s newsletter, Tough Questions, Summer 1991.
Bertrand Russell Archives, McMaster University. www.web.apc.org/~pgs/pages/russell.html, revised 7/28/96.
Albert Einstein, in a ‘Message on Human Rights,’ dated December 5, 1953, played before the Decalogue Society, February 20, 1954, in Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, Einstein on Peace, p. 600.
Joseph Rotblat, Preface, Jobs You Can Live With …
This pledge states simply: ‘I pledge to thoroughly investigate and take into account the social and environmental consequences of any job opportunity I consider.’
For more information about this pledge, contact Student Pugwash USA, 815, 15th Street, NW, Suite 814, Washington, DC 20005. Information is also available on the Student Pugwash USA Web site: www.spusa.org/pugwash/.
Joseph Rotblat, ‘Pugwash — The Social Conscience of Scientists.’
Albert Einstein, in a letter to the Jewish Peace Fellowship in NY, September 21, 1953, Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, Einstein on Peace, p. 595.
Albert Einstein, in a ‘Message on Human Rights,’ dated December 5, 1953, played before the Decalogue Society, February 20, 1954, Otto Nathan and Heinz Norden, Einstein on Peace, p. 601.
Harper’s Index, 5/97, quoted in a 1997 brochure by Global Connections: A National Conversation About a Changing World, an initiative of Inter Action.
Joseph Rotblat, Preface, Jobs You Can Live With …
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© 1999 Palgrave Macmillan, a division of Macmillan Publishers Limited
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Ionno, S.J. (1999). A Bridge to the Twenty-First Century. In: Bruce, M., Milne, T. (eds) Ending War. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230508606_14
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