Woman: You and your husband, of course, vigorously oppose the continuance of nuclear testing.
Could you tell me a little bit about that? What you have done?
Ava Helen Pauling: Well of course there's been no nuclear bomb testing for over two years.
Woman: Do you feel that you aided in some way?
Ava Helen Pauling: I think perhaps we did, a bit. I think when peopole learned that even the testing
of these bombs was doing damage, not only to themselves but to their unborn children,
and to the future children, everyone realized that "This is foolish, we must put an
end to this." And as more and more people became aware of this, then they used enough
pressure on their government so that the governments themselves decided that there
should be no more testing.
Woman: Sometime ago, Mrs. Pauling, I remember that your husband managed to get a petition
on which were signed I believe, over 11,000 names of scientists in 49 countries to
ban nuclear testing. Whatever became of that? As I recall, he was in some trouble
with the security, internal council.
Ava Helen Pauling: Well, it's true that in 1958 my husband did present to the United Nations a petition
signed by over 11,000 scientists from 49 countries of the world, asking that the governments
stop the testing of nuclear weapons and pointing out the damage that even the testing
of these weapons was doing to mankind. You know in that fall, then, of 1958, the governments
stopped testing weapons and the three governments - the United States, the USSR and
Great Britain - met in Geneva to try and get a treaty worked out which would ban the
testing of nuclear weapons for all time. This has not yet been signed, but great progress
has been made. And that's one of the things that women could do, would be to insist
that this agreement be signed.
