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the autobiography of bertrand russell 664I am not going to Moscow but I am sending a personal representative andfour members of the Committee of 100 are going as delegates. I should verymuch wish to see you in London. I shall be in London until around July 10when I expect to be returning to Wales. I should be delighted to see you inLondon at my home. Please contact me as soon as you come to London. Goodwishes.Yours sincerelyBertrand RussellTo Nikita Khrushchev4 July, 1962Dear Mr KhrushchevI am venturing to send to you a copy of a letter which I have written to theMoscow Conference on Disarmament, dealing with the case of Heinz Brandt.I hope you will agree with me that clemency, in this case, would further thecause of peace.My warmest thanks for your kind letter on the occasion of my 90th birth-day, which gave me great satisfaction.Yours sincerelyBertrand RussellTo the President of the Moscow Conference on Disarmament4 July, 1962SirI wish to bring to the attention of this Conference the case of Heinz Brandtwho has been sentenced in East Germany to thirteen years of prison withhard labour. I do not know the exact nature of the charges against him. At?rst, he was to have been charged with espionage, but, when he was broughtto trial, this charge was dropped. Heinz Brandt has been throughout hisactive life a devoted and self-sacri?cing worker for peace and against WestGerman re-armament. For eleven years during Hitler’s regime, he was inprisons and concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Buchenwald.To all friends of peace and disarmament in West Germany, his arrest andcondemnation by the East German Authorities were a severe blow, while tothe militarists of West Germany they supplied new arguments and newreasons for bitterness. I have no doubt that, in the interests of disarmamentwith which this Congress is concerned, his release would be profoundlybene?cial. I hope that the Congress will pass a resolution asking for hisrelease on these grounds.Bertrand Russellthe foundation 665To Walter Ulbricht12 August, 1963Dear Herr UlbrichtRecently I was honoured with an award for peace by your government inthe name of Carl von Ossietzky. I hold Ossietzky’s memory in high regardand I honour that for which he died. I am passionately opposed to the ColdWar and to all those who trade in it, so I felt it important to accept the honouraccorded me.You will understand, therefore, the motives which lead me to, once more,appeal to you on behalf of Heinz Brandt. I am most deeply disturbed thatI have not received so much as an acknowledgement of my previous appealson his behalf. Heinz Brandt was a political prisoner, placed in concentrationcamp along with Ossietzky. He has su?ered many long years of imprison-ment because he has stood by his political beliefs. I do not raise the questionhere of the comparative merit or demerit of those beliefs. I but ask you toconsider the damage that is done to the attempts to improve relationsbetween your country and the West and to soften the Cold War by thecontinued imprisonment of Heinz Brandt. I appeal to you, once more, ongrounds of humanity, to release this man, and I should be grateful if youwould inform me of your intentions with regard to him.Although I value the Ossietzky Medal, I am placed in an ambiguousposition by the continued imprisonment of Heinz Brandt.Yours sincerelyBertrand RussellOn October 30, 1963, the Secretary of the East German State Council wrote to me at greatlength to explain that ‘the spy Brandt’, ‘condemned for treason’ had received the ‘justi?ed sentence’of thirteen years’ hard labour, the sentence to expire in June, 1974. Brandt had served only twoyears of this sentence, and no long sentence could be conditionally suspended until at least half of ithad been served. ‘Reduction of the sentence by act of grace’ was not justi?ed because of theseriousness of the crimes. Herr Gotsche’s letter concluded: ‘I may assume that you, too, dear MrRussell, will appreciate after insight . . . that in this case the criminal law must be fully applied. . . in the interests of humanity.’To Walter Ulbricht7 January 1964Dear Mr UlbrichtI am writing to you to tell you of my decision to return to your Govern-ment the Carl von Ossietzsky medal for peace. I do so reluctantly andafter two years of private approaches on behalf of Heinz Brandt, whosecontinued imprisonment is a barrier to coexistence, relaxation of tension andunderstanding between East and West.the autobiography of bertrand russell 666My representative, Mr Kinsey, spoke recently with o?cials of your govern-ing council in East Berlin and he carried a message from me.I regret not to have heard from you on this subject. I hope that you will yet?nd it possible to release Brandt through an amnesty which would be a boonto the cause of peace and to your country.Yours sincerelyBertrand Russell29 May 1964Dear Premier UlbrichtI am writing to convey my great pleasure at the news of the release ofHeinz Brandt from prison. I realise that this was not an easy decision for yourGovernment to make but I am absolutely convinced that it was a decision inthe best interests of your country and of the cause of peace and good rela-tions between East and West.I wish to o?er my appreciation and approval for this important act ofclemency.Yours sincerelyBertrand RussellFrom and to Tony and Betty AmbatielosFilonos 22Piraeus, Greece7 May 1964Dear Lord RussellIt will give my husband and I the greatest pleasure if, during a visit wehope to make to Britain soon, we are able to meet you and thank youpersonally for all your support over the years. Meantime, however, we sendyou this brief letter as a token of our deep gratitude and esteem.We will be indebted to you always for assisting in bringing about Tony’srelease and we know that his colleagues who were freed at the same timewould wish us to convey their feelings of gratitude towards you also. It isunfortunate that when so many hundreds were at last freed, nearly onehundred were and are still held. But we are all con?dent that with thecontinued interest and support of such an esteemed and stalwart friend asyourself, they too can be freed in the not too distant future.With kind regards to Lady Russell and all good wishes and thanks,Yours sincerelyBetty AmbatielosDear Lord RussellI wish to send you these few lines to express my very deep gratitude andrespect to you for the way you championed the cause of the political prisoners.the foundation 667Your name is held in very high esteem among all of us.Please accept my personal thanks for all you have done.Yours sincerelyTony Ambatielos13 May, 1964Dear Mr and Mrs AmbatielosThank you very much for your letter. I should be delighted to see you bothin Wales or London. I have been corresponding with Papandreou, pressinghim for the release of remaining prisoners and the dropping of recentcharges in Salonika.With kind regards,Yours sincerelyBertrand RussellFrom and to Lord Gladwyn30, Gresham StreetLondon, E.C.23rd November, 1964Dear Lord RussellI have read with great interest, on my return from America your letter ofSeptember 11th which was acknowledged by my secretary. It was indeedkind of you to send me the literature concerning the ‘Bertrand Russell PeaceFoundation’ and the paper entitled ‘Africa and the Movement for Peace’ andto ask for my views, which are as follows:—As a general observation, I should at once say that I question your wholemajor premise. I really do not think that general nuclear war is getting moreand more likely: I believe, on the contrary, that it is probably getting less andless likely. I do not think that either the ??? or the ???? has the slightestintention of putting the other side into a position in which it may feel it willhave to use nuclear weapons on a ‘?rst strike’ for its own preservation (if thatvery word is not in itself paradoxical in the circumstances). Nor will theChinese for a long time have the means of achieving a ‘?rst strike’, and whenthey have they likewise will not want to achieve it. We are no doubt in for adi?cult, perhaps even a revolutionary decade and the West must standtogether and discuss wise joint policies for facing it, otherwise we may welllapse into mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism. If we do evolve an intelligentcommon policy not only will there be no general nuclear war, but we shallovercome the great evils of hunger and overpopulation. Here, however, to mymind, everything depends on the possibility of organising Western unity.Nor do I believe that ‘war by accident’, though just conceivable, is atenable hypothesis. Thus the so-called ‘Balance of Terror’ (by which I meanthe autobiography of bertrand russell 668the ability of each of the two giants to in?ict totally unacceptable damage onthe other even on a ‘second strike’) is likely to result in the maintenance ofexisting territorial boundaries (sometimes referred to as the ‘Status Quo’) inall countries in which the armed forces of the East and West are in physicalcontact, and a continuance of the so-called ‘Cold War’, in other words astruggle for in?uence between the free societies of the West and the Com-munist socieities of the East, in the ‘emergent’ countries of South America,Africa and Asia. I developed this general thesis in 1958 in an essay called ‘IsTension Necessary?’ and events since then have substantially con?rmed it. TheBalance of Terror has not turned out to be so ‘delicate’ as some thought; withthe passage of time I should myself say that it was getting even less fragile.In the ‘Cold War’ struggle the general position of the West is likely to bestrengthened by the recent ideological break between the Soviet Union andChina which seems likely to persist in spite of the fall of Khrushchev. Next tothe ‘Balance of Terror’ between Russia and America I should indeed place thesplit as a major factor militating in favour of prolonged World Peace, in thesense of an absence of nuclear war. The chief feature of the present landscape,in fact (and it is a reassuring one), is that America and Russia are becomingless afraid of each other. The one feels that the chances of a subversion of itsfree economy are substantially less: the other feels that no attack can nowpossibly be mounted against it by the Western ‘Capitalists’.Naturally, I do not regard this general situation as ideal, or even as onewhich is likely to continue for a very long period. It is absurd that everybody,and more particularly the ??? and the ????, should spend such colossal sumson armaments, though it seems probable that, the nuclear balance havingbeen achieved, less money will be devoted to reinforcing or even to maintain-ing it. It is wrong, in principle, that Germany should continue to be divided.Clearly general disarmament is desirable, though here it is arguable that itwill not be achieved until an agreed settlement of outstanding political prob-lems, and notably the reuni?cation of Germany is peacefully negotiated. Thetruth may well be that in the absence of such settlements both sides are inpractice reluctant to disarm beyond a certain point, and without almostimpossible guarantees, and are apt to place the blame for lack of progresssquarely on the other. What is demonstrably untrue is that the West are toblame whereas the Soviet Union is guiltless. In particular, I question yourstatement (in the African paper) that the Soviet Union has already agreed todisarm and to accept adequate inspection in all the proper stages, and thatfailure to agree on disarmament is solely the responsibility of the West. Thefacts are that although the Soviet Government has accepted full veri?cation ofthe destruction of all armaments due for destruction in the various stages ofboth the Russian and the American Draft Disarmament Treaties, they have notagreed that there should be any veri?cation of the balance of armamentsthe foundation 669remaining in existence. There would thus, under the Russian proposal, be noguarantee at all that retained armed forces and armaments did not exceedagreed quotas at any stage. Here the Americans have made a signi?cant con-cession, namely to be content in the early stages with a system of verifying ina few sample areas only: but the Soviet Government has so far turned a deafear to such suggestions. Then there is the whole problem of the run-downand its relation to the Agreed Principles, as regards which the Soviet inten-tions have not, as yet, been fully revealed. Finally the West want to havethe International Peace-Keeping Force, which would clearly be required inthe event of complete disarmament, under an integrated and responsibleCommand, but the Soviet Government is insisting, for practical purposes, onthe introduction into the Command of a power of veto.It follows that I cannot possibly agree with your subsequent statementeither that ‘if we are to alter the drift to destruction it will be necessary tochange Western policy (my italics)’ – and apparently Western policy only.At the time of the Cuba crisis you circulated a lea?et entitled ‘No Nuclear Warover Cuba’, which started o? ‘You are to die’. We were to die, it appeared,unless public opinion could under your leadership be mobilised so as to alterAmerican policy, thus allowing the Soviet Government to establish hardenednuclear missile bases in Cuba for use against the United States. Happily, nonotice was taken of your manifesto: the Russians discontinued their suicidalpolicy; and President Kennedy by his resolution and farsightedness saved theworld. We did not die. Some day, all of us will die, but not, I think in the greatholocaust of the Western imagination. The human animal, admittedly, hasmany of the characteristics of a beast of prey: mercifully he does not possessthe suicidal tendencies of the lemmings. What we want in the world is lessfear and more love. With great respect, I do not think that your campaign iscontributing to either objective.These are matters of great moment to our people and indeed to humanity.I should hope that you would one day be prepared to advance your proposalsin the House of Lords where they could be subjected to intelligent scrutiny.In the meantime I suggest that we agree to publish this letter together withyour reply, if indeed you should feel that one is called for.Yours sincerelyGladwynPlas Penrhyn14 November, 1964Dear Lord GladwynThank you for your long, reasoned letter of November 3rd. I shall take upyour points one by one.I. You point out that the danger of a nuclear war between Russia and thethe autobiography of bertrand russell 670West is less than it was a few years ago. As regards a direct clash between???? and the Warsaw Powers, I agree with you that the danger is somewhatdiminished. On the other hand, new dangers have arisen. All the Powers ofEast and West, ever since Hiroshima, have agreed that the danger of nuclearwar is increased when new Powers become nuclear. But nothing has beendone to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. France and Belgium, Indiaand China and Brazil have or are about to have nuclear weapons. WestGermany is on the verge of acquiring a share in Nato weapons. As for China,you say that it will be a long time before China will be e?ective, but I see noreason to believe this. The West thought that it would be a long time beforeRussia had the A-bomb. When Russia had the A-bomb, the West thought itwould be a long time before they had the H-bomb. Both these expectationsturned out to be illusions.You consider war by accident so improbable that it can be ignored. Thereis, however, the possibility of war by mistake. This has already almostoccurred several times through mistaking the moon for Soviet planes or somesuch mis-reading of radar signals. It cannot be deemed unlikely that, sooneror later, such a mistake will not be discovered in time.Moreover, it is a simple matter of mathematical statistics that the morenuclear missiles there are the greater is the danger of nuclear accident. Vastnumbers of rockets and other missiles, primed for release and dependentupon mechanical systems and slight margins in time, are highly subject toaccident. Any insurance company would establish this where the factorsinvolved relate to civilian activity such as automobile transport or civilianaviation. In this sense, the danger of accidental war increases with each daythat the weapons systems are permitted to remain. Nor is the danger whollymechanical: human beings, even well ‘screened’ and highly trained aresubject to hysteria and madness of various sorts when submitted to theextreme tensions and concentration that many men having to do with nuclearweapons now are submitted to.Another danger is the existence of large, adventurous and very powerfulgroups in the United States. The ?? Government has run grave risks in attackson North Vietnam forces. In the recent election some 40%, or thereabouts, ofthe population voted for Goldwater, who openly advocated war. Warlikegroups can, at any moment, create an incident such as the U2 which put anend to the conciliatory mood of Camp David.In estimating the wisdom of a policy, it is necessary to consider not onlythe possibility of a bad result, but also the degree of badness of the result. Theextermination of the human race is the worst possible result, and even if theprobability of its occuring is small, its disastrousness should be a deterrent toany policy which allows of it.II. You admit that the present state of the world is not desirable and suggestthe foundation 671that the only way of improving it is by way of Western unity. Your letterseems to imply that this unity is to be achieved by all countries of the Westblindly following one policy. Such unity does not seem to me desirable.Certainly the policy to which you appear to think the West should adhere – apolicy which upholds the present United States war in South Vietnam and theeconomic imperialism of the ?? in the Congo and Latin America – cannotpossibly avoid a lapse into mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism, which you sayyou wish above all to avoid.The United States is conducting a war in Vietnam in which it has toleratedand supervised every form of bestiality against a primitively armed peasantpopulation. Disembowelments, mutilations, mass bombing raids with jelly-gasoline, the obliteration of over 75% of the villages of the country andthe despatch of eight million people to internment camps have characterisedthis war. Such conduct cannot be described as an ordered bulwark againstmediocrity, anarchy or barbarism. There is a large body of opinion in theUnited States itself that opposes this war, but the Government persists incarrying it on. The unity that you advocate would do little to encourage the?? Government to alter its policy. The ?? policy in the Congo promises to besimilar to that in Vietnam in cruelty. The Western nations show no signs ofencouraging any other policy there. (I enclose two pamphlets dealing withVietnam and the Congo in case you have not seen them.)Universal unity, however, such as might be achieved by a World Govern-ment I am entirely persuaded is necessary to the peace of the world.III. You ?nd fault with me on the ground that I seem to hold the Westalways to blame and the Soviet Union always guitless. This is by no means thecase. While Stalin lived, I considered his policies abominable. More recently, Iprotested vigorously against the Russian tests that preceded the Test BanTreaty. At present, I am engaged in pointing out the ill-treatment of Jews inthe Soviet Union. It is only in certain respects, of which Cuba was the mostimportant, that I think the greatest share of blame falls upon the UnitedStates.IV. Your comments on the Cuban crisis are, to me, utterly amazing. Yousay that the way the solution was arrived at was that ‘the Russians dis-continued their suicidal policy; and President Kennedy by his resolution andfarsightedness saved the world’. This seems to me a complete reversal of thetruth. Russia and America had policies leading directly to nuclear war.Khrushchev, when he saw the danger, abandoned his policy. Kennedy didnot. It was Khrushchev who allowed the human race to continue, notKennedy.Apart from the solution of the crisis, Russian policy towards Cuba wouldhave been justi?able but for the danger of war, whereas American policy waspurely imperialistic. Cuba established a kind of Government which the ??the autobiography of bertrand russell 672disliked, and the ?? considered that its dislike justi?ed attempts to alter thecharacter of the Government by force. I do not attempt to justify the estab-lishment of missiles on Cuban soil, but I do not see how the West can justifyits objection to these missiles. The ?? has established missiles in Quemoy, inMatsu, in Taiwan, Turkey, Iran and all the countries on the periphery of Chinaand the Soviet Union which host nuclear bases. I am interested in yourstatement that the Soviet Government was establishing hardened nuclear mis-sile bases in Cuba, especially as neither Mr Macmillan nor Lord Home statedthat the missiles in Cuba were nuclear, ?tted with nuclear warheads oraccompanied by nuclear warheads on Cuban soil.In view of the con?ict at the Bay of Pigs, it cannot be maintained that Cubahad no excuse for attempts to defend itself. In view of Kennedy’s words to thereturned Cuban exiles after the crisis, it cannot be said that Cuba still has noexcuse.You speak of ‘the free world’. Cuba seems a case in point. The West seemslittle freer than the East.You allude to my lea?et ‘Act or Perish’. This was written at the height ofthe crisis when most informed people were expecting universal death withina few hours. After the crisis passed, I no longer considered such emphaticlanguage appropriate, but, as an expression of the right view at the moment, Istill consider it correct.V. You say, and I emphatically agree with you, that what the world needs isless fear and more love. You think that it is to be achieved by the balance ofterror. Is it not evident that, so long as the doctrine of the balance of terrorprevails, there will be continually new inventions which will increase theexpense of armaments until both sides are reduced to penury? The balance ofterror consists of two expensively armed blocs, each saying to the other, ‘Ishould like to destroy you, but I fear that, if I did, you would destroy me.’ Doyou really consider that this is a way to promote love? If you do not, I wishthat you had given some indication of a way that you think feasible. All thatyou say about this is that you see no way except disarmament, but thatdisarmament is not feasible unless various political questions have ?rst beensettled.My own view is that disarmament could now come about. Perhaps youknow Philip Noel-Baker’s pamphlet ‘The Way to World Disarmament – Now!’In it he notes accurately and dispassionately the actual record of disarmamentnegotiations. I enclose it with this letter in case you do not know it. He hassaid, among other things that Soviet proposals entail the presence of largenumbers of inspectors on Soviet territory during all stages of disarmament. In1955 the Soviet Union accepted in full the Western disarmament proposals.The Western proposals were withdrawn at once upon their acceptanceby the Soviet Union. It is far from being only the West that cries out forthe foundation 673disarmament: China has pled for it again and again, the last time a fewdays ago.As to the expense of present arms production programmes, I, naturally,agree with you. Arms production on the part of the great powers is in excess ofthe gross national product of three continents – Africa, Latin America and Asia.I also agree that disarmament would be easier to achieve if various politicalquestions were ?rst settled. It is for this reason that the Peace Foundation ofwhich I wrote you is engaged at present in an examination of these questionsand discussions with those directly involved in them in the hope of workingout with them acceptable and feasible solutions. And it is with a view toenhancing the love and mitigating the hate in the world that the Foundationis engaged in Questions relating to political prisoners and members offamilies separated by political ruling and red tape and to unhappy minorities.It has had surprising and considerable success in all these ?elds during the?rst year of its existence.As to publication, I am quite willing that both your letter and mine shouldbe published in full.Yours sincerelyRussellenc:‘Vietnam and Laos’ by Bertrand Russell and William Warbey, ??‘The Way to World Disarmament – Now!’ by Philip Noel-BakerUnarmed Victory by Bertrand Russell‘The Cold War and World Poverty’ by Bertrand Russell‘Freedom in Iran’ by K. Zaki‘Oppression in South Arabia’ by Bertrand Russell‘Congo – a Tragedy’ by R. SchoenmanNo reply was ever received by me to this letter to Lord Gladwyn who, so far as I know, neverpublished either of the above letters.16 ????????? ?? ??? ?????????????The o?cial version of the assassination of President Kennedy has been soriddled with contradictions that it has been abandoned and rewritten no lessthan three times. Blatant fabrications have received very widespread coverage