Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace
This book is dedicated to the life of Sir Joseph Rotblat, a British physicist who died at the age of 96 on August 31, 2005. He was a prominent critic of the nuclear arms race and one of the “towering figures of the 20th century in the domain of the social responsibilities of scientists” (John Holdren). For his efforts towards nuclear disarmament, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995 in conjunction with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which he headed at the time
This book contains contributions by scientists, politicians and other scholars, among them Nobel Laureates, who from their own perspective highlight the life and work of Joseph Rotblat. After a preface by the editors, seven central articles cover different aspects of his biography, the impact of his work on science and peace and the activitities of the international Pugwash movement. This is followed by over 20 short personal essays, among them Paul J.Crutzen, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mohamed ElBaradei, John Holdren, Mairead Corrigan Maguire, Martin Rees and Jack Steinberger.
The book provides comprehensive accounts of Rotblat’s life and the entanglement with the history of the atom bomb. Born in Warsaw, Poland, November 4, 1908, he worked there at the Radiological Laboratory and the Physics Institute, when nuclear fission of uranium was discovered in Berlin. Quite early Rotblat realized the potential military implications of this discovery. In April 1939 he left for England to take up a fellow-ship at the University of Liverpool with James Chadwick (the discoverer of the neutron), who wrote about Rotblat: “He is an extremely able man, one of the best I have come across for some years.’’ Due to the war Rotblat’s wife was not able to leave Poland and died in the Holocaust.
Concerned that Hitler could acquire nuclear weapons first, Rotblat joined the British team in the Manhattan Project and moved to Los Alamos in early 1944. His main motive was to deter a Nazi bomb, but when he learned that Germany would not succeed, he resigned from the project on moral grounds at the end of 1944, being the only scientist who took this step. Since then, he worked in medical research at St Bartholomew’s Hospital, London. Aiming for positive applications of science, he became a pioneer in radiological medicine.
Better known is Rotblat’s tireless work for peace and cooperation, devoting much of his efforts to putting the nuclear genie back into the bottle. Shortly after the war he organized the Atom Train Exhibition in England to inform the public about the dangers of nuclear weapons, which was a major success. He became the youngest of the 11 signatories of the 1955 Russel-Einstein Manifesto which called upon scientists to “assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction.” Many of the signatories had received a Nobel Prize for their scientific achievements, including Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell, Max Born, Frederic Joliot-Curie, Linus Pauling, and Hideki Yukuwa, and 40 years later Rotblat himself was awarded. The Manifesto became the founding document of the Pug-wash movement which he helped to organize since 1957 and celebrated its 50th anniversary this year. During the Cold War Pugwash played a key role in influencing the political leaders of the superpowers and made substantial contribution to arms control and disarmament agreements.
The book provides access to several of Rotblat’s writings. He vehemently criticized the doctrine of deterrence which “is known under the name of mutual assured destruction: M.A.D. It is indeed a mad system in which survival depends on the threat of total annihilation.” Until the end of his life, Rotblat questioned the moral justification of nuclear weapons, e.g. in his address to the delegates of the 2005 NPT Review Conference: “Nuclear weapons are fundamentally immoral: their action is indiscriminate, affecting civilians as well as military, innocents and aggressors alike, killing people alive now and generations as yet unborn.” To prevent the ultimate disaster, the culture of violence needs to be replaced by a culture of peace.
This view is echoed in many of the book chapters. Recalling Rotblat’s invaluable contribution to discussions of nuclear disarmament, Mikhail Gorbachev writes: “We must put the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons back on the agenda … These weapons are immoral, and their use should inconceivable for any political leader.”
Rotblat suffered from the fact that it was science that provided the means of destruction: “It is indeed the supreme irony that the very intellectual achievements of humankind have provided the tools of self-destruction, in a social system ready to contemplate such destruction.” He was aware of the dual use of modern science, extending from nuclear physics to space science and biotechnology and he recognized that scientists are part of society and that their work affects, and is affected by, the context in which they live. He strongly argued that scientists must endeavor to work for the benefit of mankind, and avoid research that might lead to harmful applications.
In his 1995 Nobel Lecture Rotblat quoted the statement made by Hans Bethe on the 50th anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing. Bethe who was also involved in the Manhattan Project called upon “all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and biological weapons.” In the same lecture, Rotblat not only reiterated the immorality of nuclear weapons but also the need to abolish war: “The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival.” The ensure this survival, “we have to extend our loyalty to the whole of the human race.”
Joseph Rotblat’s remains an inspiration for the young generations, facing a future of great uncertainties and risks. As the editors of the book point out: “For decades his courage and optimism inspired the actions of scientists and citizens working to prevent nuclear catastrophe. His optimism was contagious. His name was, and still is, synonymous with moral courage and ethically responsible action, both as a person and as a scientist. A modest man, he provides us with a shining example of how to live one’s life. We hope that this book will help to perpetuate his example.”
Joseph Rotblat: Visionary for Peace, edited by Reiner Braun, Robert Hinde, David Krieger, Harold Kroto & Sally Milne. Wiley-VCH: 2007.
371 pp. $45, £27.50,
ISBN-10: 3527406905,
ISBN-13: 978-3527406906.
Jürgen Scheffran
is Senior Research Scientist and lecturer in the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security (ACDIS) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, USA. He has worked with Joseph Rotblat and others in the mid-1990s on developing concepts for nuclear disarmament in Pugwash and the International Network of Engineers and Scientists Against Proliferation (INESAP). Email: