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small awareness of that which promotes them. I must confess that I am deeplytroubled. I fear that human beings are intent upon acting out a vast deathwishand that it lies with us now to make every e?ort to promote resistance to theinsanity and brutality of policies which encompass the extermination ofhundreds of millions of human beings.In this country we are having a much greater success than seems evidentin the United States, although it is obvious that protest in the United Statesrequires far greater courage and dedication than its equivalent here. None-theless; I am hopeful that the e?ect of our minority resistance may growand ?nd a co-ordinated international expression. We are holding a greatdemonstration at the Air Ministry in Whitehall involving civil disobediencethis coming September 9th, and I shall be taking part in the physicaldemonstration itself. I believe that men are starved for an answer to theterror and that they will respond if their sense of helplessness can beovercome.I am sincerely grateful to you for your kindness in writing and I wish youearnestly success in your great work.With my good wishes and respectBertrand Russelltrafalgar square 605From The Observer, May 13, 1962???? ??? ???? ?? ???????? ??????byBertrand RussellThere are both advantages and disadvantages in being very old. The dis-advantages are obvious and uninteresting, and I shall say little about them.The advantages seem to me more interesting. A long retrospect gives weightand substance to experience. I have been able to follow many lives, both offriends and of public characters, from an early stage to their conclusion.Some, who were promising in youth, have achieved little of value; othershave continued to develop from strength to strength through long lives ofimportant achievement. Undoubtedly, experience makes it easier to guess towhich of these two kinds a young person is likely to belong. It is not only thelives of individuals, but the lives of movements that come, with time, to formpart of personal experience and to facilitate estimates of probable successor failure. Communism, in spite of a very di?cult beginning, has hithertocontinued to increase in power and in?uence. Nazism, on the contrary, bysnatching too early and too ruthlessly at dominion, came to grief. To havewatched such diverse processes helps to give an insight into the past ofhistory and should help in guessing at the probable future.To come to more personal matters; it is natural for those who are energeticand adventurous to feel in youth a very passionate and restless desire forsome important achievement, without any clear prevision of what, with luck,it may be. In old age, one becomes more aware of what has, and what has not,been achieved. What one can further do becomes a smaller proportion ofwhat has already been done, and this makes personal life less feverish.It is a curious sensation to read the journalistic clichés which come to befastened on past periods that one remembers, such as the ‘naughty nineties’and the ‘riotous twenties’. Those decades did not seem, at the time, at all‘naughty’ or ‘riotous’. The habit of a?xing easy labels is convenient to thosewho wish to seem clever without having to think, but it has very little relationto reality. The world is always changing, but not in the simple ways that suchconvenient clichés suggest. Old age, as I am experiencing it, could be a time ofvery complete happiness if one could forget the state of the world. Privately, Ienjoy everything that could make life delightful. I used to think that when Ireached old age I would retire from the world and live a life of elegant culture,reading all the great books that I ought to have read at an earlier date. Perhapsit was, in any case, an idle dream. A long habit of work with some purposethat one believes important is di?cult to break, and I might have foundelegant leisure boring even if the world had been in a better state. Howeverthat might have been, I ?nd it impossible to ignore what is happening.the autobiography of bertrand russell 606Ever since 1914, at almost every crucial moment, the wrong thing hasbeen done. We are told that the West is engaged in defending the ‘FreeWorld’, but freedom such as existed before 1914 is now as dim a memory ascrinolines. Supposedly wise men assured us in 1914 that we were ?ghting awar to end war, but it turned out to be a war to end peace. We were told thatPrussian militarism was all that had to be put down; and, ever since, militar-ism has continually increased. Murderous humbug, such as would haveshocked almost everyone when I was young, is now solemnly mouthed byeminent statesmen. My own country, led by men without imagination andwithout capacity for adaptation to the modern world, pursues a policywhich, if not changed, will lead almost inevitably to the complete extermin-ation of all the inhabitants of Britain. Like Cassandra, I am doomed to proph-esy evil and not be believed. Her prophecies came true. I desperately hopethat mine will not.Sometimes one is tempted to take refuge in cheerful fantasies and toimagine that perhaps in Mars or Venus happier and saner forms of life exist,but our frantic skill is making this a vain dream. Before long, if we do notdestroy ourselves, our destructive strife will have spread to those planets.Perhaps, for their sake, one ought to hope that war on earth will put an end toour species before its folly has become cosmic. But this is not a hope in whichI can ?nd any comfort.The way in which the world has developed during the last ?fty years hasbrought about in me changes opposite to those which are supposed to betypical of old age. One is frequently assured by men who have no doubt oftheir own wisdom that old age should bring serenity and a larger vision inwhich seeming evils are viewed as means to ultimate good. I cannot acceptany such view. Serenity, in the present world, can only be achieved throughblindness or brutality. Unlike what is conventionally expected, I becomegradually more and more of a rebel. I was not born rebellious. Until 1914, I?tted more or less comfortably into the world as I found it. There were evils –great evils – but there was reason to think that they would grow less. Withouthaving the temperament of a rebel, the course of events has made me grad-ually less and less able to acquiesce patiently in what is happening. A minor-ity, though a growing one, feels as I do, and, so long as I live, it is with themthat I must work.From Mrs Roosevelt55 East 74th StreetNew York CitySeptember 22, 1960My LordI am most grateful to you for taking part with me in our televisiontrafalgar square 607program on British defence policy in London. It was a lively and excitingdiscussion and I feel the result was satisfying.SincerelyEleanor RooseveltFrom and to Max BornHaus FilserFreibergstrasseObersdorf (Allg?u)Germany12.7.51Dear Professor RussellYour book A History of Western Philosophy which I never had time to read athome has accompanied me on my holiday journey and given me so muchpleasure that I take the liberty to write to you a few words of thanks.I confess that before putting the book into my suitcase I asked a few of myphilosophical friends in Scotland about it, and was warned not to read it as itwould give me a distorted picture of the actual men and events. When I was,a few weeks ago, in G?ttingen I discussed your book with one of the localphilosophers and found a still stronger negative attitude, based mainly onyour treatment of Plato and of the German idealistic school. This encouragedme greatly to read your book. For I have been tortured at school with Plato,and I have always thoroughly disliked German metaphysics, in particularHegel. Thus I decided to read your last chapter ?rst, and as I wholeheartedlyagreed to your own philosophy, I started cheerfully with page 1 and con-tinued reading with ever increasing fascination and pleasure until I reachedyour moderate, though decided refutations of some of the modern schools of‘subjectivistic madness’. I was myself once a pupil of Edmund Husserl butfound his ‘phenomenology’ unsatisfactory and its modern version byHeidegger rather disgusting. I suppose you found it not worth while tomention it.My son and his wife who are with us on this journey share my admirationfor your work and have gone so far to call their new-born boy Max Russellcombining thus my name with yours.On my way out I stayed a week with Niels Bohr at Copenhagen and hadsome most interesting talks with him on the philosophical foundations ofquantum theory.Yours sincerelyMax Bornthe autobiography of bertrand russell 608Marcard str. 4Bad Pyrmont18 March, 1958Dear Professor RussellI have read Khrushchev’s long declaration in the New Statesman. I ?ndit just as depressing as the letter from Dulles published some weeks ago.The commentary by Kingsley Martin that these fellows are amazinglysimilar in their mental make-up is quite correct. One could just as wellcall them Khrushless and Dullchev, and, what they believe in, not an ideol-ogy, but an idiotology. I wonder whether you will write a summarycontaining your impressions of this exchange of opinions which you haveoriginated.Meanwhile we ‘Eighteen’ here are involved in the ?ght against rocket andnuclear armament of West-Germany. Von Weizs?ecker is in Pugwash and willbe back on April 17th when we meet again on the Rhine.I have stirred up another ugly matter, concerning space travel, which isused by the military party to camou?age the expensive development ofrocket missiles. All newspapers, the radio, the cinemas are full of this a?airand I have a lively time. The great majority of the people are on our side butthe Government (Adenauer, Strauss) are clever and use all means.Yours sincerelyM. BornPlas Penrhyn22 March, 1958Dear Dr BornThank you very warmly for your letter of March 18 which expressedfeelings exactly similar to mine as regards Khrushless and Dullchev and whatyou so aptly call their idiotology. I am sending my re?ections on this matterto the New Statesman where they will be published shortly.I wish you all success in your campaign about space travel.Yours sincerelyBertrand RussellPlas Penrhyn25 November, 1961Dear Max BornBefore it is too late for any of us to say anything, I wish to tell you that I feelfor you a profound admiration, not only for your intellect which I haverespected for forty years, but for your character of which my knowledge ismore recent. I have found in you a kind of generosity and a kind of freedomfrom self-assertion which is very rare even among those whom, on thetrafalgar square 609whole, I admire. You appear to me a man possessed of nobility – unfortunatelya rare quality.Forgive me for writing so openly, but what I have said is said in profoundsincerity.Yours very sincerelyBertrand RussellThe following statement launched the Committee of 100 in the autumn of 1960ACT OR PERISHA call to non-violent actionby Earl Russell and Rev. Michael ScottWe are appealing for support for a movement of non-violent resistance tonuclear war and weapons of mass extermination. Our appeal is made from acommon consciousness of the appalling peril to which Governments of Eastand West are exposing the human race.DISASTER ALMOST CERTAINEvery day, and at every moment of every day, a trivial accident, a failure todistinguish a meteor from a bomber, a ?t of temporary insanity in one singleman, may cause a nuclear world war, which, in all likelihood, will put an endto man and to all higher forms of animal life. The populations of the Easternand Western blocs are, in the great majority, unaware of the magnitude of theperil. Almost all experts who have studied the situation without being in theemployment of some Government have come to the conclusion that, if pres-ent policies continue, disaster is almost certain within a fairly short time.PUBLIC MISLEDIt is di?cult to make the facts known to ordinary men and women, becauseGovernments do not wish them known and powerful forces are opposedto dissemination of knowledge which might cause dissatisfaction withGovernment policies. Although it is possible to ascertain the probabilities bypatient and careful study, statements entirely destitute of scienti?c validity areput out authoritatively with a view to misleading those who have not time forcareful study. What is o?cially said about civil defence, both here and inAmerica, is grossly misleading. The danger from fall-out is much greater thanthe Authorities wish the population to believe. Above all, the imminence ofall-out nuclear war is ignorantly, or mendaciously, underestimated both inthe statements of politicians and in the vast majority of newspapers. It isthe autobiography of bertrand russell 610di?cult to resist the conclusion that most of the makers of opinion considerit more important to secure defeat of the ‘enemy’ than to safeguard thecontinued existence of our species. The fact that the defeat of the ‘enemy’must involve our own defeat, is carefully kept from the consciousness ofthose who give only a ?eeting and occasional attention to political matters.ACTION IMPERATIVEMuch has already been accomplished towards creating a public opinion opposedto nuclear weapons, but not enough, so far, to in?uence Governments. Thethreatening disaster is so enormous that we feel compelled to take everyaction that is possible with a view to awakening our compatriots, and ulti-mately all mankind, to the need of urgent and drastic changes of policy. Weshould wish every parent of young children, and every person capable offeelings of mercy, to feel it the most important part of their duty to secure forthose who are still young a normal span of life, and to understand thatGovernments, at present, are making this very unlikely. To us, the vast schemeof mass murder which is being hatched – nominally for our protection, butin fact for universal extermination – is a horror and an abomination. What wecan do to prevent this horror, we feel to be a profound and imperative dutywhich must remain paramount while the danger persists.CONSTITUTIONAL ACTION NOT ENOUGHWe are told to wait for the bene?cent activities of Congresses, Committees,and Summit meetings. Bitter experience has persuaded us that to follow suchadvice would be utterly futile while the Great Powers remain stubbornlydetermined to prevent agreement. Against the major forces that normallydetermine opinion, it is di?cult to achieve more than a limited success byordinary constitutional methods. We are told that in a democracy only lawfulmethods of persuasion should be used. Unfortunately, the opposition tosanity and mercy on the part of those who have power is such as to makepersuasion by ordinary methods di?cult and slow, with the result that, ifsuch methods alone are employed, we shall probably all be dead before ourpurpose can be achieved. Respect for law is important and only a very pro-found conviction can justify actions which ?out the law. It is generally admit-ted that, in the past, many such actions have been justi?ed. Christian Martyrsbroke the law, and there can be no doubt that majority opinion at the timecondemned them for doing so. We, in our day, are asked to acquiesce, pas-sively if not actively, in policies clearly leading to tyrannical brutalities com-pared with which all former horrors sink into insigni?cance. We cannot dothis any more than Christian Martyrs could acquiesce in worship of thetrafalgar square 611Emperor. Their steadfastness in the end achieved victory. It is for us to showequal steadfastness and willingness to su?er hardship and thereby to per-suade the world that our cause is worthy of such devotion.TOWARDS WORLD PEACEWe hope, and we believe, that those who feel as we do and those who maycome to share our belief can form a body of such irresistible persuasive forcethat the present madness of East and West may give way to a new hope, anew realisation of the common destinies of the human family and adetermination that men shall no longer seek elaborate and devilish ways ofinjuring each other but shall, instead, unite in permitting happiness and co-operation. Our immediate purpose, in so far as it is political, is only topersuade Britain to abandon reliance upon the illusory protection of nuclearweapons. But, if this can be achieved, a wider horizon will open before oureyes. We shall become aware of the immense possibilities of nature whenharnessed by the creative intelligence of man to the purposes and arts ofpeace. We shall continue, while life permits, to pursue the goal of worldpeace and universal human fellowship. We appeal, as human beings tohuman beings: remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can doso, the way lies open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, nothing lies beforeyou but universal death.The following is the text of my lea?et ‘On Civil Disobedience’??????? ?? ????? ????????????On April 15th, 1961, Earl Russell addressed the ?rst Annual Conference of theMidlands Region Youth Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, in Birmingham.In putting the case for Civil Disobedience, Earl Russell makes a balancedappeal for nuclear disarmament in the interests of humanity, and his wordswill be of interest to all who support the Campaign and to those whoseminds are open to rational persuasion.FriendsMy main purpose this afternoon is to set out the case for non-violent civildisobedience as one of the methods to be employed in combating the nuclearperil. Many people believe that this method is not likely to achieve its pur-pose, and some have moral objections to it on principle. Most of them willadmit that non-violent civil disobedience is justi?ed when the law demandsthe individual concerned to do something which he considers wicked. This isthe case of conscientious objectors. But our case is a somewhat di?erent one.the autobiography of bertrand russell 612We advocate and practise non-violent civil disobedience as a method ofcausing people to know the perils to which the world is exposed and inpersuading them to join us in opposing the insanity which a?ects, at present,many of the most powerful Governments in the world. I will concede thatcivil disobedience as a method of propaganda is di?cult to justify except inextreme cases, but I cannot imagine any issue more extreme or more over-whelmingly important than that of the prevention of nuclear war. Considerone simple fact: if the present policies of many great powers are not radicallychanged, it is in the highest degree improbable that any of you here presentwill be alive ten years hence. And that is not because your peril is exceptional.It is a universal peril.‘But’, objectors will say, ‘why cannot you be content with the ordinarymethods of political propaganda?’ The main reason why we cannot be con-tent with these methods alone is that, so long as only constitutional methodswere employed, it was very di?cult – and often impossible – to cause themost important facts to be known. All the great newspapers are against us.Television and radio gave us only grudging and brief opportunities for statingour case. Politicians who opposed us were reported in full, while those whosupported us were dubbed ‘hysterical’ or were said to be actuated by personalhostility to this or that politician. It was very largely the di?culty of makingour case known that drove some of us to the adoption of illegal methods. Ourillegal actions, because they had sensational news value, were reported, andhere and there, a newspaper would allow us to say why we did what we did.It was a most noteworthy fact that not only was our demonstration ofFebruary 18th very widely reported in every part of the world but, as animmediate consequence, all sorts of newspapers – both here and abroad –demanded and printed statements of our case which, until then, they wouldhave rejected. I think also that the spectacle, even in photographs, of so verymany serious people, not looking like freaks as newspapers had said we did,caused a widespread belief that our movement could not be dismissed as anoutbreak of hysterical emotionalism.Both popular and o?cial ignorance of the main facts concerned has begunto grow less, and we hope that, in time some members of the Government,and perhaps one or two great newspapers may acquire some knowledge as tothe terrible problems about which they light-heartedly dogmatise.Some of our critics who oppose non-violent civil disobedience on prin-ciple say that we rely upon bullying and not upon persuasion. Alas, we arevery far removed from being strong enough to bully anybody; and, if we everwere strong enough, present methods would have become unnecessary. I willtake as typical of the arguments of our opponents a letter in The Guardian ofMarch 29th from the Bishop of Willesden. You may think it rash to oppose aBishop on a moral issue, but – greatly daring – I will attempt the task. Thetrafalgar square 613Bishop says that our demonstrations are intended to force our views upon thecommunity, rather than merely to assert them. He has not, himself, experi-enced, as we have, the di?culty of asserting anything loud enough to beheard when all the major organs of publicity are combined in an attempt toprevent our case from being known. Non-violent civil disobedience, accord-ing to the Bishop, is a use of force by a minority to compel the majority tosubmit. This seems to me one of the most far-fetched and absurd argumentsthat I have ever heard. How can a minority of unarmed people, pledged tonon-violence, impose their will against all the forces of the Establishmentbacked by public apathy? The Bishop goes on to say that such methods canlead to anarchy or dictatorship. There have, it is true, been many instances ofminorities acquiring dictatorship. The Communists in Russia and the Nazis inGermany are outstanding examples. But their methods were not non-violent.Our methods, which are non-violent, can only succeed by persuasion.There are two arguments which are often employed against non-violentcivil disobedience. One is that it alienates people who might otherwise besupporters, and the other is that it causes dissension within the anti-nuclearmovement. I will say a few words about each of these. I have no wish what-ever to see non-violent civil disobedience adopted by all opponents of nuclearweapons. I think it is well that organisations both practising and abstainingfrom non-violent civil disobedience should exist to suit di?erent tempera-ments. I do not believe that the existence of an organisation practising non-violent civil disobedience prevents anybody from joining an organisationwhich does not. Some may say that they are deterred by distaste for fanaticalextremists, but I think these are all people who would in any case ?ndsomething to deter them. I think, on the contrary, that our movement has avigour and magnetism which attracts large numbers who might otherwiseremain indi?erent.As for dissensions, they, I agree, are regrettable, but they are totally unneces-sary. There is no reason why societies practising di?erent techniques shouldnot exist side by side without ?nding fault with each other. I think this hascome to be recognised. I have, for my part, a very great admiration for what the??? has done and I hope its work will continue to prosper. But I think thework of those who believe in non-violent civil disobedience is at least equallyvaluable, especially while to the newspapers it has the attraction of novelty.Many people say that, while civil disobedience may be justi?ed wherethere is not democracy, it cannot possibly be right where everybody has ashare of political power. This sort of argument is one which is wilfully blindto very obvious facts. In practically every so-called democratic country thereare movements similar to ours. There are vigorous movements in the UnitedStates. In Canada they are not far from acquiring power. Naturally the move-ment in Japan is very powerful and very convinced. Moreover, take thethe autobiography of bertrand russell 614problem of people under 21. If the Governments have their way, these peoplewill all be slaughtered without having any legal means of giving weight totheir wish to survive. Consider, again, the way in which opinion is manu-factured in a nominally democratic country. Great newspapers belong to richand powerful people. Television and radio have strong reasons for not o?end-ing the Government. Most experts would lose their position and their incomeif they spoke the truth.For these reasons the forces that control opinion are heavily weighted uponthe side of the rich and powerful. Those who are neither rich nor powerfulcan ?nd no ways of counter-balancing this over-weight except such as theEstablishment can decry with the support of all who pro?t by the status quo.There is in every great modern State, a vast mechanism intended to preventthe truth from being known, not only to the public, but also to the Govern-ments. Every Government is advised by experts and inevitably prefers theexperts who ?atter its prejudices. The ignorance of important public men onthe subject of nuclear warfare is utterly astounding to those who have madean impartial study of the subject. And from public men this ignorance tricklesdown to become the voice of the people. It is against this massive arti?cialignorance that our protests are directed. I will give a few instances of thisastonishing ignorance:The Daily Mail in a report on civil defence stated that fall-out decays rapidlyonce it is down on the ground and that, therefore, people who had takenrefuge in shelters would not have to stay there very long. As a matter of fact, totake only two of the most dangerous ingredients of fall-out – Strontium 90has a half life of 28 years and Carbon 14 has a half life of 5,600 years. Thesefacts make it seem as if people would have to stay in the shelters as long asfrom the building of the Pyramids to the present day.To take a more important example, the Prime Minister recently stated