3500 Fairpoint Street

Pasadena, California

20 October 1957

Academician A. N. Nesmeyanov, President

Academy of Sciences

Moscow

U.S.S.R.

Dear Academician Nesmeyanov:

I thank you very much for your letter of 28 August, which had to be forwarded to me after it had been returned to you from Oslo. I am glad to have your letter, and the expression of your opinion that your statement and the one that my colleagues and I have signed asking that an international agreement be reached to stop nuclear tests have a common spirit and a common objective.

I am writing now to ask you if it would be possible for you to help me attain another objective. I have decided to try to get signatures from scientists in all of the member countries of the United Nations to our appeal to the governments and people of the world to stop the testing of nuclear weapons.

I am now sending letters to scientists in these countries. I do not, however, have reliable information about the leading scientists in the countries of the Soviet Union, and for this reason I am appealing to you.

I enclose 20 copies of the appeal, and 20 copies of a letter that I have written, to be sent with the appeal to a leading scientist in each nation.

May I ask you if it would be possible for you and Academician Topchiev to select a leading scientist in each of the member nations of the Soviet Union, and to send to him one copy of my letter and one copy of the appeal, in the hope that he and other scientists in his nation will sign the appeal and send the names of the signers to me.

It is my belief that the appeal with the signatures of scientists from the majority of the nations of the world will have a significant influence on public opinion all over the world, and I shall be grateful to you for your help in obtaining these signatures.

I should be glad also to have your opinion as to whether the statement in your letter would justify me in saying that the 186 scientists who are listed in the letter have signed my appeal. If you think that this is not justified, would you consider the possibility of obtaining some signatures to the appeal, and sending them to me?

I am glad to take this opportunity of expressing to you and the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. the sincere thanks of my wife and me for the opportunity of taking part in the International Symposium on the Origin of Life in Moscow, and of visiting many scientific laboratories in Moscow, Leningrad, and Dubno, and becoming better acquainted with Soviet scientists.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling:w