(Talk at a meeting at the First Unitarian Church of Los Angeles, 8 P.M., Thursday 15 April 1954. Arranged by the Unitarian Church - I was invited by Mr. Fritchman.)

THE WORLD PROBLEM AMD THE HYDROGEN BOMB, by Linus Pauling

During the last few months some hydrogen bombs were exploded, and information about the destructive power that they have been shown actually to possess has been released to the public*

We - everybody in the world - must consider this information, and decide what its significance is, and what must be done if the world is to be saved for posterity.

The time has come when man must show whether he is properly called homo sapiens, or whether he is still an unthinking brute.

First, I may mention that the hydrogen bomb itself is not the worst weapon that could be built - it is outdone as a death-dealing instrument by the cobalt bomb, which has not yet been tried out on a large scale. But the hydrogen bomb itself is enough to force us to consider the direction in which the world is moving, and to reach a decision about the future of the world.

Let me summarize our present situation. In 1939, through the work of scientists in England, Italy, France, Germany, the United States, and other countries, it became evident that it was possible to release the energy locked up in the nuclei of heavy atoms* The leading scientists in Germany decided that the release of the energy would probably be so slow that, although it could be used as a source of power, it could not be used in a bomb. The leading scientists in the United States, England, and France felt that it was likely that the energy could be released in the time of a millionth of a second, and that bombs equivalent to thousands of ordinary block-busters could be made. The atom-bomb project was begun, and it resulted in the manufacture of atom bombs by 1944.

The atom bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima consisted of a small amount - a few pounds - of uranium 235, which had been separated from ordinary uranium in a plant in Oak Ridge. An ordinary explosive is used to compress suddenly the mass of the ball of uranium 235 into a smaller volume; when this is done, the nuclei react, in a millionth of a second, splitting into half nuclei, and releasing a quantity of energy around a million times that released in the explosion of the same amount of nitroglycerine or TNT. You know that a pound of TNT exploded in this room would kill many people. A ton of TNT - a block-buster bomb, as it used to be called - would destroy most of the buildings in this block. The atom bomb exploded at Hiroshima killed eighty thousand people, and injured many more - this bomb had the explosive power of twenty thousand tons of TNT. The atom bomb detonated a few days later over Nagasaki destroyed the center of this city and killed another hundred thousand people - this bomb was of a different kind, made from plutonium 239.

Scores of atom bombs have been detonated since then, in the United States, South Pacific, Australia, and Russia. It has been reported that the latest models of atom bombs are around ten or twenty times as destructive as the original ones.

No announcement has been made as to the number of atom bombs that are stored up in the arsenals of the leading countries of the world, but a recent newspaper report said that the informed guesses lie in the region of five thousand atom bombs in the United States, five hundred atom bombs in Russia.

Scientists recognized early that still more destructive bombs could be made. The energy radiated by the sun arises not from the fission of the nuclei of heavy atoms, but from the fusion of light nuclei - the reaction of four protons, the nuclei of hydrogen atoms, to form a helium nucleus. The first serious mention of fusion bombs in the literature, so far as I know, was in a book by an Austrian physicist, Dr. Hans Thirring, published in Vienna in 1946. In this book he gave a detailed description of several kinds of hydrogen bombs, which might possibly be made. One of them consists of say a ton of heavy hydrogen surrounding an ordinary Plutonium atom bomb. The ordinary atom bomb is to serve simply as the detonator of the hydrogen bomb - to raise the hydrogen to a high enough temperature to cause it to react. The reaction leads to the formation of helium, and to the evolution of energy, for about a ton of hydrogen, one thousand times as great as that for an atom bomb. Thirring also described the lithium hydride bomb, in which a lithium nucleus and a hydrogen nucleus fuse together and split to form two helium nuclei. The materials for the heavy hydrogen bomb are expensive; lithium hydride, however, is a cheap substance, and hydrogen bombs made of it might cost far less, per unit of destructive power, than ordinary atom bombs.

I have seen a statement that the hydrogen bombs that have already been exploded in the South Pacific have an explosive power between two and fourteen million tons of TNT; the largest one is thus described as a fourteen megaton bomb, meaning equivalent to fourteen million tons of TNT.

This bomb would destroy practically everything within an area of one thousand square miles - that is, within a circle about thirty-five miles in diameter. One of these bombs detonated over New York would destroy the whole city, out to the suburbs, and might kill five million people. One of them detonated over Los Angeles would destroy this city, perhaps killing two million people.

It is possible, simply by using larger amounts of material, to make a single hydrogen bomb many times as powerful as the fourteen megaton bomb. President Eisenhower has announced, a few days ago, that the United States does not intend to make larger hydrogen bombs, because there is no need to have any larger bombs. This is, of course, true - there is no city in the world that would not be completely destroyed by a single hydrogen bomb of the size of the largest one already tried out.

Part of the danger from atom bombs and hydrogen bombs lies in the radioactive material that they produce. Japanese fishermen eighty miles from the hydrogen bomb explosion were burned by radioactive ash that fell on their ship. Many radioactive fish had to be destroyed in Japan - even fish caught by fishermen two thousand miles from the scene of the explosion. The effect of radioactivity can be very greatly increased by a simple process -just the addition of some cobalt to the atomic bomb or hydrogen bomb. A few years ago there was published an article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which contains many valuable and illuminating articles, by a scientist in the University of Chicago, who asked whether the cobalt bomb might not be used to wipe out life on the earth. He calculated that for an expenditure of about thirty billion dollars enough cobalt bombs could be made to kill everybody on earth. For two or three billion dollars enough cobalt bombs could be made to kill everybody - animals too - in the United States, simply by detonating them off the western coast, and in other suitable places, and allowing the winds to carry the products of detonation across the country. Probably some millions of people would be killed elsewhere too. What is the answer to the problem posed by the existence of great arsenals of atom bombs and the existence of the hydrogen bomb? Is it that the United States must be overwhelmingly powerful, as said a few days ago by ex-Vice President Barclay? No, this is not the answer, because if our policy were for us to be overwhelmingly powerful, we could expect that the Russian policy would be for Russia to be overwhelmingly powerful. Then the world would surely see the third world war - a hydrogen-bomb war. No matter how quickly this war got under way, neither side could expect to avoid devastating hydrogen-bomb damage or atom-bomb damage.

There is no effective defense against these great weapons of destruction. We might hope that fifty percent of the airplanes or guided missiles carrying atom bombs or hydrogen bombs that are launched against American cities could be shot down. The most optimistic estimate that I have seen is that possibly ninety percent could be shot down. If we accept this, all that would be necessary would be for around ten or twenty missiles carrying hydrogen bombs to be launched toward New York probably one or two of them -more probably still, several - would escape being shot down and would explode over the city. Then New York would be destroyed. While we were losing our major cities, we might be able to cause equally great damage in Russia.

Is this a prospect that we should look forward to? It is not. We cannot allow the world to move forward to this end. The United States should be proud to take the lead in averting this greatest of all world disasters.

A few years ago Henry L. Stimson, former Secretary of War, said "No American can contemplate what Mr. Churchill has referred to as 'this terrible means of maintaining the rule of law in the world' without a determination that after this war is over this great force shall be used for the welfare and not the destruction of mankind."

We must agree with Mr. Stimson that atomic energy should be used for the welfare and not the destruction of mankind. The statement of Mr. Churchill that "atom bombs are a terrible means of maintaining the rule of law in the world" is no longer valid. The atom bomb and the hydrogen bomb have become powerful weapons of destruction in the hands of powerful nations, opposed to one another. If international affairs continue along the lines characteristic of the whole past history of the world, we shall sooner or later see the outbreak of a hydrogen-bomb war. No nation will benefit from such a war - it may be expected confidently that a hydrogen-bomb war, if it comes, will result in the destruction of most of the cities in the world, the death of hundreds of millions of people, the end of the present civilized world.

There is only one way in which this end can be avoided. This way is to work for peace in the world. In the past each great nation has attempted, in its diplomatic negotiations with other nations, to achieve results which benefit itself preferentially over other nations. Negotiations between nations have not in general been carried out on a high ethical plane. The representatives of a nation do not ask whether an agreement that is being made - or a declaration of war - will benefit the world as a whole, but only whether the act will benefit one's own nation. The time has now come when it is to the advantage of everybody in the world, of every nation in the world, to solve international problems in a peaceful manner - which necessarily means in a just and ethical manner - and not to solve them by force, by that ultimate resource of powerful injustice, war.

We have not yet seen either the Russian diplomats or the American diplomats attacking world problems in this way. Bluster, the issuance of ultimatums, and threats of war are still the approved methods of world diplomacy. The United Spates has a get-tough policy against Russia - last week there was an official announcement which mentioned hydrogen bombs and instant and massive retaliation if the Communists were to intervene in any way in Indo-China.

We shall have war in the world - hydrogen-bomb war, leading to the destruction of civilization - unless the decision is made to give up war as the method of decision in international affairs.

Continued negotiation, arbitration, analysis of international problems will have to be carried out - year after year. We should be willing to spend billions of dollars every year to achieve permanent peace. The machinery of arbitration – the United Nations in particular - is as yet not large enough to meet the needs in the modern world. We need a stronger United Nations, and ultimately a World Government.

Because our point of view is different from that of the Russians, we must expect arbitration to result in what seems to each side to be appeasement of the other side. We must work through the United Nations, to find what actions we can take to meet the needs and desires of Russia, and what actions Russia can take to meet the needs and desires of the United States and other nations. There are many other ways - liberation of oppressed colonial peoples, raising the standard of living - in which effective action can be taken for the avoidance of war; we should have a Department of Peace, in Washington, to attack this problem in a broad way.

I am sure that peace can be achieved if the effort is made - and the hydrogen bomb requires that the effort be made. For eight years there has been discussion about international control of atomic energy. The position of the United States and the position of Russia on this question do not differ very much. The Russians have asked for abolition of atomic weapons, and for international control. The United States has asked for international control of atomic weapons and energy, with inspection of all countries. The Russians have asked for universal disarmament or reduction in armaments - this step would, of course, be of the greatest value to the world, in releasing materials and labor needed for improving the standard of living of the people of the world, and thus combating one of the principal causes of war. The differences between the East and the West about disarmament and international control of atomic energy are relatively minor ones, which could in time be settled by discussion and arbitration if there were a strong enough desire to settle them.

During the preceding hundreds and thousands of years the world has seen the steady development of more and more powerful weapons of destruction. At each stage the opinion was expressed that war had at last become so terrible that it would have to be abandoned as a means of settling differences among nations. This belief has in the past been found to be false, even though twenty million people were killed in the first world war, one hundred million in the second world war. Now, however, we are forced to accept the conclusion that atom bombs and hydrogen bombs can destroy civilization on earth. War must be outlawed, be abandoned as a means of settling differences among the nations of the earth. The time has come for man to show that he has the power of reason, that he can behave in accordance with high ethical and moral principles, that, recognizing the universal brotherhood of man, and putting into practice the teaching of the world’s great religious leaders, he can take action that will preserve civilization and humanity.