(Sent by Dr. Gene Sosin, Radio Liberty)
3/8/62 Linus Pauling (Telephone Recording)
I am Professor Linus Pauling.
Six months ago, I broadcast to the Soviet people over Radio Liberty. I said that I am a scientist, and that I am happy to have been elected a foreign member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences. This is a great honor for me.
I also urged that the Soviet government reconsider its decision to resume the testing of nuclear weapons. I said that the militaristic act of resuming the testing of these terrible weapons of mass destruction and death would be a dreadful blow to peace and morality and to the hope of people all over the world for achieving the goal of general and complete disarmament. I said that I strongly condemn the militaristic actions of any government that increased the danger of war and make it harder to achieve general and complete disarmament and peace throughout the world.
Despite my protests and the protests of many other people from many nations, the Soviet government carried out its great series of atmospheric tests, described by our Atomic Energy Commission as totalling 120 megatons, of which 25 megatons is fission and 95 fusion.
I have calculated that these tests were made at the sacrifice of 20 million unborn children of future generations, children born with gross physical or mental defects caused by the radioactive fission products and carbon-14, and including the neo-natal, embryonic and childhood deaths caused by these radioactive substances.
Now, a few days ago, our President Kennedy has announced that the United States is planning to carry out atmospheric tests in about two months.
On learning about this plan, I immediately sent the President a telegram urging that the tests not be made, that the United States not take this act of increased militarism, which will increase the danger of nuclear war and make it more difficult to achieve disarmament. I pointed out that these tests, carried out primarily for political purposes, not for defense, would be made at the sacrifice of millions of unborn children and I urged him not to be guilty of the great immorality of ordering these tests to be carried out.
Now, President Kennedy, in his announcement, said that the recent Soviet tests of last fall have not given the Soviet Union superiority over the United States in nuclear power. Instead, if these tests are carried out, it will be for the purpose of permitting the United States to increase the lead that it still holds over the Soviet Union.
The history of the last 17 years is that the United States has taken the lead in militarism at each stage. We made and exploded the first atomic bombs. The Soviet Union then followed. We made the first hydrogen bomb, the Soviet Union followed. We built up the first 1000-megaton stockpile, we carried out the first 100-megaton series of nuclear tests. Each time, the Soviet Union has followed our example.
I hope now that the United States will not carry out the announced series of nuclear tests...month after next. I think that we may have hope that the international agreement to stop the testing of all nuclear weapons will be made and signed during the next few weeks. I hope that the proposal that President Kennedy said will be made will represent an acceptable compromise to the Soviet Union, a compromise between the schemes, the plans for inspection and control - international inspection and control - that were proposed last year by the Soviet Union and those plans that were proposed by the United States and Great Britain. And I hope that the Soviet government will make a great effort to achieve the solution of this problem of formulating an acceptable bomb-test agreement and that no further tests of nuclear weapons will be made.
Let us all work together - the Soviet people and the American people, the Soviet government and the American government, the people of all nations in the world and all of the governments in the world - to achieve the goal of general and complete disarmament with international controls and inspection and to eliminate the immorality of war from the world.
March
8, 1962
