Chapter 17
The nuclear peril represented a danger which was likely to last as long as governments possessed nuclear weapons, and perhaps even longer if such destructive objects get into private hands. At first I imagined that the task of awakening people to the dangers should not be very difficult. I shared the general belief that the motive of self-preservation is a very powerful one which, when it comes into operation, generally overrides all others. I thought that people would not like the prospect of being fried with their families and their neighbours and every living person that they had heard of. I thought it would only be necessary to make the danger known and that, when this had been done, men of all parties would unite to restore previous safety. I found that this was a mistake. There is a motive which is stronger than self-preservation: it is the desire to get the better of the other fellow. I have discovered an important political fact that is often overlooked, as it had been by me: people do not care so much for their own survival - or, indeed, that of the human race - as for the extermination of their enemies. The world in which we live is one In which there is constant risk of universal death. The methods of putting an end to this risk are obvious to all, but they involve a very tiny chance that someone may play the traitor, and this is so galling that almost everybody prefers running the risk of nuclear war to securing safety. I thought, and I still think, that, if the risk of total destruction were made sufficiently vivid, it would have the desired effect. But how was an individual, or a collection of individuals, to bring about this vividness? In company with those who thought like me, I tried various methods with varying degrees of success. I tried first the method of reason: I compared the danger of nuclear weapons with the danger of the Black Death. Everybody said, 'How true,' and did nothing. I tried alerting a particular group, but though this had a limited success, it had little effect on the general public or Governments. I next tried the popular appeal of marches of large numbers. Everybody said, 'These marchers are a nuisance'. Then I tried methods of civil disobedience, but they, too, failed to succeed. All these methods continue to be used, and I support them all when possible, but none has proved more than partially efficacious. I am now engaged in a new attempt which consists of a mixed appeal to Governments and public. So long as I live, I shall continue the search and in all probability I shall leave the work to be continued by others. But whether mankind will think itself worth preserving remains a doubtful question.
For many years I had been interested in the persecuted minorities and those people in many countries who, I thought, had been unjustly imprisoned. I tried to help, for instance, the Naga and Sobell about whom I have already told. A little later, I became concerned with the plight of the Gypsies, being especially interested in the efforts of Grattan Puxon to give them a fit abiding place with at least the necessary amenities, such as decent sanitation and opportunity to obtain at least a minimum of proper education.
My scutcheon on the score of liberating prisoners, I confess, is not entirely unsmirched. Many years ago a young German Jewish refugee came to me asking for help. The Home Office had decreed that he was to be returned to Germany and, if he were returned, he would be executed. He seemed a silly young man but harmless enough. I went with him to the Home Office and said, 'Look, do you think that he is dangerous?' 'Well,' they said, 'no.' They agreed not to dispatch him to his homeland but said that he must lave a fresh passport. They started at once putting him through the questions to be answered for this purpose. 'Who was your father?" 'I do not know.' 'Who was your mother?' 'I do not know.' 'Where and when were you born?' 'I do not know.' The Officials quailed. The only thing he was sure of was that he was a Jew. Seeing my stubborn and grim, if by this time slightly pink, visage, the officials persisted and gave him his passport. The last thing I heard of him was a message to the effect that to remain in England he knew that he had to pay his way and he had learnt that the surest means of obtaining money was to get an English girl pregnant. He could then apply for and receive a governmental hand-out. I was only slightly reassured by the comment that, up to date, he had failed in this scheme.
Many years ago, too, a young Pole appealed to me for help against imprisonment on the charge of writing obscene verse. I thought, 'A poet gaoled! Never! This cannot be!' And again I appealed to the Home Office. I then read some of his verse and found it so thoroughly disgusting that my sympathies were with the earlier verdict. But he was allowed to stay in England.
Though both these cases are somewhat embarrassing to remember, I cannot regret them. It seems to me nonsense to imprison people for silliness that is unlikely to harm the general public. If it were carried to its logical conclusion, there are few men who would be free. Moreover, to deal with obscenity by means of the law and the threat of imprisonment does more harm than good. It merely adds an aura of delightful and enticing wickedness to what may be only foolish or may be evil. It does nothing to curtail it. I feel even more strongly in the matter of political prisoners and for similar reasons. To gaol a man merely for his political views, however tempting it may be, is more likely to spread than to stop the dissemination of those views. It adds to the sum of human misery and encourages violence, and that is all. In recent years I have become, as I have said, more and more involved in work against the incarceration and the persecution of individuals and groups because of their political and religious opinions. I have received a continually increasing number of written appeals for help from individuals and organisations all over the world and almost daily visits from representatives of the latter. I have been unable to travel to distant countries myself, so, in order to have as nearly as possible firsthand objective information, I have been obliged to send representatives to the various countries.
In 1963, my interests in the resistance fighters in Greece came to a head. They bad opposed the Nazis there but were still languishing in prison because most of them had been 'Communists'. A number of their representatives came to see me, among them the Greek MPS who visited England in April and May. A 'Bertrand Russell Committee of 100" had been formed in Greece and they held a march, or tried to hold one, towards the end of April to which I sent a representative. Then came the murder of the MP Lambrakis at Salonika, with, it was fairly clear, the connivance of the Authorities. This deeply shocked me, in common with other liberal-minded people. Again, at request, I sent my representative to the funeral of Lambrakis in Athens. He returned with a very moving story. By the time that the Greek Royal visit to Buckingham Palace took place in July, feeling here had mounted to boiling point, I shared it. I spoke in Trafalgar Square against the visit and took part in a demonstration. The press were shocked at such unseemly doings on the part of Her Majesty's subjects, Cabinet Ministers gobbled, and the police planted bricks in the pockets of arrested demonstrators and charged them with carrying offensive weapons. One of the most persistent and bravest of British demonstrators was Betty Ambatielos whose Greek husband had been held a prisoner for many years. Two years later, he was freed and visited us in London, but others of the prisoners remained in gaol. Later he and, for a time, his wife were re-imprisoned and many more prisoners were thrown into concentration camps by the Greek Authorities. The contemplation of what their lives must be in these camps, herded together in the blazing sunlight, without water, without sanitation, with no care of any sort, is sickening.
That same April, 1963, I seat a representative to Israel to look into the situation of the Palestine Arab refugees. We wished to form some assessment of what, if anything, might most effectively be urged to help to settle matters between Jews and Arabs concerning the question of the Palestine refugees. Since then I have, often at request, sent other representatives to both Israel and Egypt to discuss the separate and the joint problems of those countries. In turn, they have sent their emissaries to me. I was also much concerned, and still am, with the plight of the Jews in the Soviet Union, and I have carried on a considerable and continuing correspondence with the Soviet Government in regard to it. In addition, a very large number of Jewish families in Eastern Europe have been separated by the Second World War and wish to rejoin their relations abroad, usually in Israel. At first I appealed for permission for them to emigrate individually, but later, under the pressure of hundreds of requests, I began to make appeals on behalf of whole groups. As such work developed, I found myself working for the release of political prisoners in over forty countries where they are held, half forgotten, for deeds which were often praiseworthy. Many prisoners in many lands have been freed, we are told, as a result of my colleagues' and my work, but many remain in gaol and the work goes on. Sometimes I have got into difficulty about this work and had to bear considerable obloquy, as in the case of Sobell and, later, in regard to the freeing of Heintz Brandt. The abduction and imprisonment by the East Germans of Brandt, who had survived Hitler's concentration camps, seemed to me so inhuman that I was obliged to return to the East German Government the Carl von Ossietsky medal which it had awarded me. I was impressed by the speed with which Brandt was soon released. And perhaps it was my work for prisoners, in part at any rate, that won me the Tom Paine award bestowed upon me by the American Emergency Civil Liberties Committee in January, 1963.1
1 In seeking to liberate prisoners, my colleagues and I made no distinction of party or creed, but only of the justice or injustice of the punishment inflicted and the unnecessary cruelty caused by the imprisonment.
Through the last years, and especially recently, since I have been able to act in this work as part of an organisation, I have sent fact-finding representatives to many parts of the world. They have gone to most European countries, 'East' and 'West', and to many eastern countries Cambodia, China, Ceylon, India, Indonesia, Japan, Vietnam. They have gone to Africa - Ethiopia and Egypt and the newer countries of both East and West Africa. And, of course, they have gone to countries of the Western Hemisphere, both north and south. These investigators have been generously welcomed by the Heads of the countries to which they journeyed and by many of the Government officials and heads of organisations dealing with problems in which they are interested. And, naturally, they have talked with members of the general public. I have myself carried on prolonged correspondence with the various Heads of State and officials, and have discussed in London a variety of international problems with them, particularly with those from Eastern Europe and Asia and Africa. The gatherings for the Commonwealth Conference, especially, made possible many of these meetings. Some of them were entertaining and adorned with the proper trappings - flashing eyes, robes, scimitars, jewels and tall, fierce attendants - as was my meeting with die Sheikh of Bahrein in 1965, the memory of which I rejoice in. On special subjects, of course, I am in frequent touch with the Embassies in London.
All this work steadily mounted in demand. By 1963, it was rapidly becoming more than one individual could carry on alone even with the extraordinarily able and willing help that I had. Moreover, the expenses of journeys and correspondence - written, telegraphed and telephoned - and of secretaries and co-workers was becoming more than my private funds could cover. And the weight of responsibility of being an entirely one-man show was heavy. Gradually the scheme took shape, hatched, again, I think, by the fertile mind of Ralph Schoenman, of forming some sort of organisation. This should be not just for this or that purpose. It should be for any purpose that would forward the struggle against war and the armaments race, and against the unrest and the injustices suffered by oppressed individuals and peoples that in very large part caused these. Such an organisation could grow to meet the widely differing demands. It could, also, reorientate itself as circumstances changed. A good part of my time, therefore, in 1963, was taken up with discussing plans for the formation of such an organisation. Many of my colleagues in these discussions had been working with me since the early days of the Committee of 100.
My colleagues were inexperienced in organisation and I myself am not at all good at it, but at least we brought our aims into some sort of cohesive progression, and, where we erred, it was on the side of flexibility which would permit of change and growth. We faced the feet that in the early days of the organisation our work must be carried on much as it had been, with me bearing most of the public responsibility and holding the position of final arbitrator of it. We hoped to strengthen the organisation gradually. We felt that not only the day-today work for it, but the responsibility and the planning should, in time, be borne by it as an entity. As I look back upon our progress, it seems to me that we achieved far more than we had dared to hope to do in its first three years.
Many people have worked to build up the Foundation, but I wish to stress not only my own but the Foundation's debt to Ralph Schoolman. He has carried on its work sometimes almost single-handed and many of its most fertile ideas are owing to him. His ingenuity, moreover, and his almost super-human energy and courageous determination have been largely responsible for carrying them out. I should like to record, also, something of both the Foundation's and my debt to another recent friend, Christopher Farley. Without his judgement and thoughtfulness we should be hard put to it to keep on as even a keel as we manage to keep. But he is reticent and unassuming and too often remains in the background. He takes a point quickly, and I thought at first that his occasional hesitation in pronouncing upon it was owing to timidity. I now know that it is owing to his extreme scrupulousness. It was some time before I realised the depth of feeling with which he pursues justice or the compassion and patience with which this pursuit is tempered. I learned only gradually that his obvious knowledge of present-day men and affairs is enriched by wide reading and a very considerable study of the past. The tendency to dogmatism and claptrap and humbug which this combination might induce in a more superficial mind is burnt away by his intense perception of ironies and absurdity and the liveliness of his many interests. His observations are both sensitive and his own. All this makes him a helpful, interesting and delightful companion.
During the spring and early summer of 1963 we sent out letters over my name to a number of people who we thought might be willing to be sponsors of the new Foundation. By the end of the summer nine of these had agreed. With such backing, we felt ready to make our plans public, especially as there was reason to expect others to join us soon. And, in fact, soon after the establishment of the Foundation was announced, seven others did join.
We knew our aims - chief of which was to form a really international organisation - and the long-term means towards them that we must strive to achieve, and the outlines of work that we must carry on, work such as we had been carrying on for some sime. We also recognised the fact that the attainment of our purposes necessitated vast sums of money. Rather against my will my colleagues urged that the Foundation should bear my name. I knew that this would prejudice against die Foundation many people who might uphold our work itself. It would certainly prejudice well-established and respectable organisations and, certainly, a great number of individuals in Britain, particularly those who were in a position to support us financially. But my colleagues contended that, as I had been carrying on the work for years, helped by them during the last few years, and my name was identified with it in many parts of the world, to omit my name would mean a set-back for the work. I was pleased by their determination, though still somewhat dubious of its wisdom. But in the end I agreed. When, however, we decided to seek charitable status for our organisation, it became evident to my friends as well as to myself that it would be impossible to obtain it in Great Britain for any organisation bearing my name.
Finally, our solicitors suggested that we compromise by forming two Foundations: The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and the Atlantic Peace Foundation, for the second of which we obtained charitable status. These two Foundations were to work, and do work, in co-operation, but the latter's objects are purely educational. Its purpose is to establish research in the various areas concerned in the study of war and peace and the creation of opportunities for research and the publication of its results. As the Charity Commission registered this Foundation as a charity, income tax at the standard rate is recoverable on any subscription given under a seven-year covenant, which, in turn, means that such subscriptions are increased by about sixty per cent.
The Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation was to deal with the more immediately political and controversial side of the work, and contributions to it, whether large or small, are given as ordinary gifts. During its first three years of existence many thousands of pounds have been contributed to it, some from individuals, some from organisations, some from Governments. No contribution with strings tied to it is accepted. Particularly in the case of Government contributions, it is made clear to the donors that the source of the money will not in any way prejudice the methods or results of its expenditure.
Unfortunately, I fell very ill at the beginning of September when we had decided to make our plans public, but by the end of the month, on September 29, 1963, we were able to release them. After I had made a vehement statement, we gave the press men the leaflet that my colleagues had prepared about each Foundation. That concerning the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation gave a list of the then sponsors, and a letter that U Thant had written for the purpose on the outside. I had talked with him about our plans among other things and written to him about them. He had been warmly sympathetic, but explained that he could not be a sponsor because of his position as Secretary-General of the United Nations. He offered, however, to write the carefully worded but encouraging letter which we printed.
Reading a list of our ambitious projects, the journalists asked whence we proposed to obtain the funds. It was a pertinent question and not unexpected. Since we had not wished to divulge our plans till September 29th, we had been unable to campaign for funds. Our answer could only be that we were determined to raise the necessary funds and were sure that we could, in time, do so - a reply naturally received with acid scepticism.
Looking back upon the occasion, I cannot say that I blame the assembled pressmen for their attitude, nor the press in general for the anything but encouraging start that was given us. Anyone who is willing to back his vision of the future by action should be prepared to be thought a 'crack-pot', and we were prepared. Moreover, we were elated. It was a kind of freedom to be able to work again publicly towards the ends that we had in view. And, of course, our first efforts were towards obtaining funds to carry on with.
We approached an endless number of individuals; with singularly little success among the rich: 'Oh yes', they said more often than not, 'we think that you are doing a wonderful work. We entirely believe in it and wish it success. But, of course, we already have so many commitments...' Though all such financial begging is always awkward and distasteful, we only occasionally met with unpleasantness and only once with virulent discourtesy. This was at a party of rich Jews given in order that I might speak of our work for the Jews in Soviet countries in whom they professed themselves mightily interested. The unpleasant occasions were unexpected since they occurred when, upon apparently knowledgeable advice, we approached people who had expressed themselves passionately interested in the special project about which we approached them and to be friendly towards us, to 'greatly admire' me and my work as it was always put. We received many surprises, both pleasant and exasperating: one morning a message came that two people were leaving in their wills their very considerable estate on the continent to the Foundation; another morning came a letter from Lord Gladwyn, a former British Ambassador in Paris, that I append to this chapter along with my reply, as it gives the tone and reasoning of part of the huge correspondence that building up the Foundation had entailed. I believe that this exchange of letters, in spite of Lord Gladwyn's suggestion, has not before been published. In his letter, it will be noted, he advocated my advancing my proposals in the House of Lords 'where they could be subjected to intelligent scrutiny'. I refrained, in my reply, from remarking that on the occasions when I had advanced proposals in the House of Lords, I had never perceived that my audience, with a few exceptions, showed any peculiar degree of intelligence - but perhaps the general level has risen since the advent of Lord Gladwyn.
However, many people in many parts of the world Helped us. Artists - painters and sculptors and musicians - of different countries have been especially generous. Indeed, one of our first money-raising ventures was an art sale of their paintings and sculpture given by the artists, which took place, through the kindness of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn Abbey. I could not attend the opening of the sale, but I went some time later, arriving, to my amusement, on the same day that the Miss World beauties were being entertained at Woburn and I was privileged to meet them. The sale was fairly successful and we have since then been given other works of art and sold them to the great profit of our work. Though musicians were generous to us, their generosity was more often than not, thwarted by their agents or impresarios and the managers of concert halls. Actors and playwrights made us many promises of benefit performances or special plays of one sort or another, but nothing came of them. We had better fortune with the Heads of Governments, perhaps because they were better able to understand what we were doing. One of the difficulties in our begging was that much of our work - that concerning special prisoners or broken families and minority groups, for instance - could not be talked of until it was accomplished, if then, or it would be automatically rendered ineffective. The same was even more true of discussions and schemes concerning international adjustments. When asked, therefore, precisely what we had to show for our work, we had to speak chiefly in vague and general terms, which carried conviction only to the astute and the already converted.
The drawback to this more or less haphazard gathering of money was that it was impossible to be sure what monies we should have when. No huge sum came in at one time which could be used as a backlog, and promises were not always kept promptly. The result was that we sometimes had enough to go ahead with fairly ambitious schemes, but sometimes we had next door to nothing. The latter periods would have been impossible to weather had it not been for the dedication to the idea and ideas of the Foundation and the dogged determination of the people working with me, especially of Ralph Schoenman and Christopher Farley and Pamela Wood. These three in their different ways held the work together and pulled it through bad as well as good times. Many others from many different countries aided our work, some as volunteers and some on the payroll, but, for one good reason or another, until the present time, they have proved to be transient workers and sometimes too dearly paid for. Now, however, a staff of colleagues has been built up that appears stable and quite capable of dealing, each with one or more of the various aspects of the work.
For the most part the British press has done very little to help us. They have treated us with silence or, if they can find something to make us look ridiculous or wicked, with covert jeers. Perhaps this is not astonishing, since we have been working, though quite legally, against our country's established policies - not those which Mr Harold Wilson's Government promised before it came to office both for the first and second time, but against the policies which it has adopted in office. For the same reason at different times the press of other countries have railed at us or refused to mention us. And, of course, journalists and commentators are apt to deal with me personally by saying that I am senile. The journalists in the United States, especially, do this since for years I have been worrying over the increase of violence in that country and most of my recent writing has been very vehemently against their Government's warlike policies. This method of diminishing my effectiveness alarms and angers my friends and affronts me, but, from the point of those who differ with me, I dare say it is about their only retort. In any case, if the charge is true, I fail to see why anyone troubles to remark on my babblings.
Those who wish to make up their own minds as to whether or not I am senile or, even, sillier than they had formerly believed me to be, have been given ample opportunity to do so as I have given countless newspaper and TV interviews and made several films. The general rule to which I adhere in determining to which requests for interviews to accede to is to refuse all those that show signs of being concerned with details of what is known as my 'private life' rather than my work and ideas. The latter, I am glad to have publicised, and I welcome honest reports and criticisms of them. The best of these TV interviews that I have seen during the last years seemed to me to be one in early October, 1963, with John Freeman; one made in early April, 1964, in which Robert Bolt was the interlocutor (there is also a later one, made in 1967, with him, but I have not seen it); and one made in September, 1965, with Ralph Milliband. But many, of course, I have never seen. The two most important public speeches that I have made have been those concerned with the perfidy of the Labour Government under the premiership of Harold Wilson, one in mid-February 1965, and one eight months later. The first deals with the general international policies of the Government, the second dwells upon its policies in regard, especially, to Vietnam and is, therefore, reprinted in my book War Crimes in Vietnam. At the end of the second, I announced my resignation from the Party and tore up my Labour card. To my surprise, this intensely annoyed two of the other speakers on the platform, a Member of Parliament and the Chairman of the CND. The latter remarked to the press that I had stage-managed the affair. If I had been able to do so, I do not know why I should not have done so, but, in actual fact, all the management was in the hands of the Youth CND under whose auspices the meeting was held. The MP, who had often expressed views similar to mine on Vietnam, arrived late at the meeting and stalked out because of my action. I was rather taken aback by this singular behaviour as both these people had been saying much what I said. The only difference seemed to be that they continued in membership of the Party they denounced.
There are four other charges brought against me which I might mention here since I suppose they are connected, also, with 'The folly of age'. The most serious is that I make extreme statements in my writings and speeches for which I do not give my sources. This is levelled, I believe, against my book War Crimes in Vietnam. If anyone cares to study this book, however, I think that they will find it well documented. If I occasionally make a statement without giving the basis of it, I usually do so because I regard it as self-evident or based upon facts noted elsewhere in the book or so well known that there is no need to name the source.
Another charge, allied to this one, is that I myself compose neither speeches nor articles nor statements put out over my name. It is a curious thing that the public utterances of almost all Government officials and important business executives are known to be composed by secretaries or colleagues, and yet this is held unobjectionable. Why should it be considered heinous in an ordinary layman? In point of fact, what goes out over my name is usually composed by me. When it is not, it still presents my opinion and thought. I sign nothing letters or. more formal documents - that I have not discussed, read and approved.
Two other rumours which I have learned recently are being put about, I also find vexatious. They are that letters and documents sent to me are withheld by my secretaries lest they trouble me, and that my secretaries and colleagues prevent people who wish to see me from doing so. But I myself open and read all that is addressed to me at home. My mail, however, is so large that I cannot reply to everything, though I indicate to my secretary what I wish said and read the replies drafted by my secretary before they are sent. Again, it is the number of people who wish to see me about this or that which makes it impossible to see them all. During a week, for instance, that I spent in London towards the end of 1966 in order to open the preparatory meetings of the War Crimes Tribunal, I received visits each day, morning, afternoon and evening, from people wishing to talk with me. But, as well over one hundred people asked to talk with me during this week, many, over a hundred, had to be refused.
I have remarked upon these charges at such length not only because I dislike being thought to be silly, but because it exasperates me to have my arguments and statements flouted, unread or unlistened to, on such grounds, I also dislike my colleagues coming under fire for doing, most generously, what I have asked them to do.
Less than two months after the Foundation was established I, in common with the rest of the world, was shocked by the news of the murder of President Kennedy. Perhaps I was less surprised by this vicious attack than many people were because for a number of years I had been writing about the growing acceptance of unbridled violence in the world and particularly in the United States. Some of my articles on this subject were published, but some were too outspoken for the editors of the publications that had commissioned them.
As I read the press reports in regard to the President's assassination and, later, the purported evidence against Oswald and his shooting by Ruby, it seemed to me that there had been an appalling miscarriage of justice and that probably something very nasty was being covered up. When in June, 1963, I met Mark Lane, the New York lawyer who, originally, had been looking into the affair on behalf of Oswald's mother, my suspicions were confirmed by the facts which he had already gathered. Everyone connected with the Foundation agreed with my point of view, and we did everything that we could, individually and together, to help Mark Lane and to spread the knowledge of his findings. It was quite clear from the hushing-up methods employed and the facts that were denied or passed over that very important issues were at stake. I was greatly impressed, not only by the energy and astuteness with which Mark Lane pursued the relevant facts, but by the scrupulous objectivity with which he presented them, never inferring or implying meanings not inherent in the facts themselves.
We thought it better if the Foundation itself were not involved in supporting those who were ferreting out the facts of the matter and propagating knowledge of them. We therefore started an autonomous committee with the unsatisfactory name of 'The British Who Killed Kennedy? Committee'. We got together a fair number of sponsors and even a secretary, but not without difficulty, since many people thought the affair none of our British business, A few understood what skulduggery on the part of American Authorities might portend, not only for the inhabitants of the United States, but for the rest of the world as well. Those few had a hard time. We were well and truly vilified. A threatening telephone call from the United States Embassy was received by one of our number. Committees similar to ours were set up in some other countries and some of their officers received similar warnings. Finally, the Foundation had to take our Committee under its wing, and its members toiled both night and day in consequence of this extra work. By August, when I wrote an article called '16 Questions on the Assassination', meetings were being held, and other statements and articles were being issued. Feeling ran high. Mark Lane himself travelled about this country as well as about others, including his own, recounting the facts that he was unearthing which refuted the official and generally accepted pronouncements concerning the matter. I was sent the Warren Commission's Report before it was published in September, 1965, and at once said, to the apparent annoyance of many people, what I thought of it. Word went about that I was talking through my hat and had not even read the report, and could not have done so. In point of fact, Lane had sent me an early copy which I had read and had time to consider. Now that the Warren Commission Report has been examined minutely and it is 'respectable' to criticise it, many people agree with me and have blandly forgotten both their and my earlier attitudes. At the time, they were too timid to listen to or to follow the facts as they appeared, accepting blindly the official view of them. They did all that they could to frustrate our efforts to make them known.
Since shortly before April, 1963, more and more of my time and thought has been absorbed by die war being waged in Vietnam. My other interests have had to go by the board for the most part. Some of my time, of course, is spent on family and private affairs. And once in a blue moon I have a chance to give my mind to the sort of thing I used to be interested in, philosophical or, especially, logical problems. But I am rusty in such work and rather shy of it. In 1965, a young mathematician, G. Spencer Brown, pressed me to go over his work since, he said, he could find no one else who he thought could understand it, As I thought well of what little of his work I had previously seen, and since I feel great sympathy for those who are trying to gain attention for their fresh and unknown work against the odds of established indifference, I agreed to discuss it with him. But as the time drew near for his arrival, I became convinced that I should be quite unable to cope with it and with his new system of notation. I was filled with dread. But when he came and I heard his explanations, I found that I could get into step again and follow his work. I greatly enoyed those few days, especially as his work was both original and, it seemed to me, excellent.
One of the keenest pleasures of these years has been my friendship, a friendship in which my wife shared, with Victor Purcell, and one of the losses over which I most grieve is his death in January, 1965. He was a man of humour and balanced judgement. He had both literary appreciation and attainment, and very considerable learning as well as great knowledge of the present-day scene. He had achieved much both as a Government administrator in South East Asia and as a Don at Cambridge. His talk was a delight to me. For many years I had known him through his political writings which he used to send to me from time to time and about which I would write to him. A little later I rejoiced in his witty verses written under the pseudonym of Myra Buttle (a pun for My Rebuttal). I had never met him till he spoke at the birthday party given for me at the Festival Hall in 1962. I did not even begin to know him till he was drawn into discussions with us about the Foundation's doings in relation to South East Asia. He spoke at a meeting at Manchester in April, 1964, under the auspices of the Foundation at which I spoke also, and, soon afterwards, he did an admirable pamphlet for us surveying 'The Possibility of Peace in South East Asia'. During this time we saw something of him in London, but it was not until May, 1964, that we really came to know each other when he paid us a short visit in North Wales. We talked endlessly. We capped each other's stories and quotations, and recited our favourite poems and prose to each other. We probed each other's knowledge especially of history, and discussed serious problems. Moreover, it was a comfort to find someone who understood at once what one was driving at and, even when not entirely in agreement, was willing to discuss whatever the subject might be with tolerance and sympathy. He came again to visit us in December, little more than a fortnight before his death, and suddenly we felt, as he said, that we were old friends, though we had seen each other so little. I remember, especially, about this last visit, his suddenly bursting into a recitation of Lycidas, most beautifully given, and again, reading his latest work by Myra Buttle, singing those lines parodied from song. He was a brave and thoughtful, a compassionate and boisterous man. It startles me sometimes when I realise how much I miss him, not only for the enjoyment but for the help that he could and, I feel sure, would have given me. It is seldom, I think that one of my age makes a new friend so satisfying and so treasured, and astonishing that all this affection and trust and understanding should have grown up in so short a time.
My book on the situation in Vietnam and its implications, called War Crimes in Vietnam, appeared early in January, 1967, in both cloth and paper editions. It was published in Britain by Allen & Unwin, to whose generosity and liberal attitude, in the person of Sir Stanley Unwin especially, I have owed much ever since the First World War. The book is comprised of a few of the innumerable letters, statements, speeches and articles delivered by me since 1963. To these are added an Introduction giving the general background of the situation at the beginning of 1967 and of my own attitude to it; a Postcript describing briefly the War Crimes Tribunal for which I had called; and an appendix containing some of the findings of Ralph Schoenman during one of his visits of many weeks to Vietnam. War Crimes in Vietnam is so thorough an account of my attitude towards the war and the facts upon which I base it, and, in any case, I have published and broadcast so much on them during the past few years, that I shall not go into them here. The book was reviewed with considerable hostility in some journals, so it was a pleasure to learn that the paperback edition was sold out within a fortnight of its publication and that the book has been published in the United States and translated and published in many languages throughout the world.
Schoenman's reports were of extreme importance since they contain not only first-hand observation but verbatim accounts given by victims of the war attested to both by the victims themselves and by the reliable witnesses present at the time the accounts were given. The reports also paved the way for the more formal investigations conducted in Indo-China by teams sent by the International War Crimes Tribunal. It was in part upon such reports as Schoenman's and of those of Christopher Farley who, in November, 1964, was the first member of the foundation to go to Vietnam to obtain first-hand impressions, that I base my attitude and statements in regard to the Vietnam war, as well as upon reports of other special investigators. Chiefly, however, I base my opinions upon the facts reported in the daily newspapers, especially those of the United States. These reports seem to have been published almost by chance since they appear not to have affected editorial policy.
Occasionally I have been invited by the North Vietnamese to give my opinion about various developments in the war. They asked my advice as to the desirability of permitting Mr Harrison Salisbury, Assistant Managing Editor of the New York Times, to visit Hanoi as a journalist. Mr Salisbury had previously attacked me in his introduction to the Warren Commission's Report, in which he wrote of the Commission's 'exhaustive examination of every particle of evidence it could discover'. These comments were soon seen to be ridiculous, but I suspected that he would have great difficulty in ignoring the evidence of widespread bombardment of civilians in North Vietnam. I recommended that his visit was a risk worth taking, and was pleased to read, some weeks later, his reports from Hanoi, which caused consternation in Washington and probably lost him a Pulitzer Prize.
I have been, of course, in close touch with the two representatives of North Vietnam who are in London and with the North Vietnamese Charge d'Affaires in Paris. I have corresponded with various members of the South Vietnam National Liberation Front and with members of the United States armed forces as well as with American civilians, both those who support and those who oppose the war. There is no lack of information if one wishes to have it. But there is great difficulty in making it known to the general public and in persuading people to pay attention to it. It is not pleasant reading or hearing.
The more I and my colleagues studied the situation, the more persuaded we became that the United States' attitude on Vietnam was wholly indefensible and that the war was being conducted with unprecedented cruelty by means of new methods of torture. We concluded, after careful examination of the great body of facts that we had amassed, that the war must be ended quickly and that the only way to end it was to support the North Vietnamese and the Liberation Front unequivocally. Moreover, we feared that so long as the war continued it would be used by America as an excuse for escalation which was likely to end in a general conflagration. We set up the Vietnam Solidarity Campaign, which brought together those groups which saw the Vietnam war as flagrant aggression by the world's mightiest nation against a small peasant people. Supporters of the Campaign held that justice demanded that they support the Vietnamese entirely. I delivered the opening address to the founding of the Solidarity Campaign in June, 1966, and this was later published in my book on Vietnam. The Campaign sent speakers all over the country, together with the Foundation's photographic exhibition on the war, and formed a nucleus of support in Britain for the International War Crimes Tribunal.
The Tribunal, of which my Vietnam book told, caught the imagination of a wide public the world over. For four years I had been searching for some effective means to help make known to the world the unbelievable cruelty of the United States in its unjust attempt to subjugate South Vietnam. At the time of the Korean War I had been unable to believe in the allegations brought by Professor Joseph Needham and others charging the Americans with having used that war as a proving-ground for new biological and chemical weapons of mass destruction. I owe Professor Needham and the others my sincere apologies for thinking these charges too extreme. By 1963, I had become convinced of the justice of these allegations since it was clear that similar ones must be brought against the United States in Vietnam. Early in that year, I wrote to the New York Times describing American conduct in Vietnam as barbarism 'reminiscent of warfare as practised by the Germans in Eastern Europe and the Japanese in South-East Asia.' At the time this seemed too strong for the New York Times, which first attacked me editorially, then cut my reply and finally denied me any access to its letters columns. I tried other publications and determined to find out more about what was at that time a 'secret war'. The more I discovered, the more appalling American intentions and practice appeared, I learned not only of barbaric practices, but also of the most cynical and ruthless suppression of a small nation's desire for independence. The destruction of the Geneva Agreements, the support of a dictatorship, the establishment of a police state, and the destruction of all its opponents were intolerable crimes. The following year I started sending observers regularly to Indo-China, but their reports were continually overtaken by lie enlargement of the war. The pretexts for the 'escalation', particularly the attack upon North Vietnam, reminded me of nothing less than those offered a quarter of a century earlier for Hider's adventures in Europe, It became clear to me that the combination of aggression, experimental weapons, indiscriminate warfare and concentration camp programmes required a more thorough and formal investigation than I was able to manage.
In the summer of 1966, after extensive study and planning, I wrote to a number of people around the world, inviting them to join an International War Crimes Tribunal. The response heartened me, and soon I had received about eighteen acceptances. I was especially pleased to be joined by Jean-Paul Sartre, for despite our differences on philosophical questions I much admired his courage. Vladimir Dedijer, the Yugoslav writer, had visited me earlier in Wales, and through his wide knowledge of both the western and Communist worlds proved a valuable ally. I also came to rely heavily on Isaac Deutscher, the essayist and political writer, whom I had not seen for ten years. Whenever there were too many requests for television and other interviews about the Tribunal, I could rely on Deutscher in London to meet the press and give an informed and convincing assessment of world affairs and of our own work. I invited all the members to London for preliminary discussions in November, 1966, and opened the proceedings with a speech to be found at the end of this chapter. It seemed to me essential that what was happening in Vietnam should be examined with scrupulous care, and I had invited only people whose integrity was beyond question. The meeting was highly successful, and we arranged to hold the public sessions of the Tribunal over many weeks in the following year, after first sending a series of international teams to Indo-China on behalf of the Tribunal itself.
When the Tribunal first proposed to send a selection of its members to investigate atrocities, the proposal was ridiculed on the ground that there were no atrocities on the American side. When this contention was shown up, it was said that American military authorities would deal with this. When this was shown up, it was said that eminent legal authorities made themselves a laughing-stock by undertaking such work. Far better, it was argued, to let the atrocities go unpunished. The Press, the military authorities, and many of the American and British legal luminaries, consider that their honour and humanity will be better served by allowing their officers to burn women and children to death than by adopting the standards applied in the Nuremberg Trials. This comes of accepting Hitler's legacy.
When our opponents saw the seriousness of what we were preparing, there was the sort of outcry to which, over the years, I have become accustomed. Three African Heads of State who had sponsored the Foundation resigned, and it was not difficult to discover the hand behind their defection. One of them even sent me a photostat of a letter which I had sent about the Tribunal to President Johnson at the White House, a piece of clumsiness which even the Central Intelligence Agency must have deplored. The next move was for various journalists to question the impartiality of our Tribunal. It amused me considerably that many of these same critics had shortly before this been among the staunchest supporters of the Warren Commission on the Assassination of President Kennedy.1 Their new found interest in impartiality did, however, give us the opportunity to explain our own position. Clearly, we had all given considerable thought to some of the evidence we were about to assess. Our minds were not empty, but neither were they closed. I believed that the integrity of the members of the Tribunal, the fact that they represented no state power and the complete openness of the hearings would ensure the objectivity of the proceedings. We also decided to accept possible evidence from any source, so I wrote to President Johnson inviting him to attend the Tribunal. Unfortunately, he was too busy planning the bombardment of the Vietnamese to reply.
1 Prominent members of that Commission had been the former director of the CIA and an associate of the FBI.
All this stir concerning the Tribunal naturally caused fresh interest in the Foundation itself. The Atlantic Peace Foundation remained a registered charity; the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation became a company limited by guarantee, and has branches in several countries: Argentina, Australia and New Zealand, France, India, Italy, Japan, the Philippines, and the United States. In London it not only retained the small central offices off the Haymarket, which it had from its inception, but it provided a larger office for the War Crimes Tribunal. It also bought a larger freehold property into which much of the work has been transferred. All this placed the work on a firmer footing and prepared the way for further developments. For perhaps the first time, I was conscious of activity, centred on the Tribunal, involving worldwide support.
In the late forties and early fifties, I had been profoundly impressed by the horror of Stalin's dictatorship, which had led me to believe that there would be no easy resolution of the cold war. I later came to see that for all his ruthlessness, Stalin had been very conservative. I had assumed, like most people in the West, that his tyranny was expansionist, but later evidence made it clear that it was the West that had given him Eastern Europe as part of the spoils of the Second World War, and that, for the most part, he had kept his agreements with the West. After his death, I earnestly hoped that the world would come to see the folly and danger of living permanently in the shadow of nuclear weapons. If the contenders for world supremacy could be kept apart, perhaps the neutral nations could introduce the voice of reason into international affairs. It was a small hope, for I overestimated the power of the neutrals. Only rarely, as with Nehru in Korea did they manage to add significant weight to pressures against the cold war.
The neutrals continued to embody my outlook, in mat i consider human survival more important than ideology. But a new danger came to the fore. It became obvious that Russia no longer entertained hope of world-empire, but that this hope had now passed over to the United States. As my researches into the origins and circumstances of the war in Vietnam showed, the United States was embarking upon military adventures which increasingly replaced war with Russia as the chief threat to the world. The fanaticism of America's anti-communism, combined with its constant search for markets and raw materials, made it impossible for any serious neutral to regard America and Russia as equally dangerous to the world. The essential unity of American military, economic and cold war policies was increasingly revealed by the sordidness and cruelty of the Vietnam war. For people in the West, this was most difficult to admit, and again I experienced the silence or opposition of those who had come to accept my views of the previous decade. In the third world, however, our support was very considerable. Cruelty has not gone wholly unchallenged.
My views on the future are best expressed by Shelley in the following poem:
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past,
O might it die or rest at last!
Final stanza of 'Hellas' (478. 1096-1101)
Letters
On 'The Free Man's Worship'
27 July 1962
Dear Professor Hilts
Thank you for your letter of June 27. As regards your 3 questions: (1) I have continued to think 'The Free Man's Worship' 'florid and rhetorical' since somewhere about 1920; (2) This observation concerns only the style; (3) I do not now regard ethical values as objective, as I did when I wrote the essays. However, my outlook on the cosmos and on human life is substantially unchanged.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
Thanks to Julian Huxley for his pamphlets: 'Psychometabolism'; 'Eugenics in Evolutionary Perspective'; 'Education and the Humanist Revolution'.
Plas Penrhyn 10 March, 1963
My Dear Julian
Thank you very much for sending me your three papers which I have read with very great interest. I loved your paper about psychometabolism, explaining why peacocks dance and women use lipstick, both of which had hitherto been mysterious to me. I do not know enough about the matters of which this paper treats to be able to offer any criticism. You touch occasionally on the mind-body problem as to which I have very definite views which are acceptable to some physiologists but are rejected with scorn and contempt by practically all philosophers, none of whom know either physics or physiology. You might find it worth your while to read a short essay of mine called 'Mind and Matter' in Portraits from Memory.
What you say about eugenics has my approval up to a certain point, but no further. You seem to think that governments will be enlightened and that the kind of human being they will wish to produce will be an improvement on the haphazard work of nature. If a sperm-bank, such as you envisage, had existed during the régime of Hitler, Hitler would have been the sire of all babies born in his time in Germany. Exceptional merit is, and always has been, disliked by Authority; and obviously Authority would control the sperm-bank. Consequently, in the degree to which eugenics was efficient, exceptional merit would disappear. I am entirely with you as to what eugenics could achieve, but I disagree as to what it would achieve.
I have somewhat similar criticisms to make on what you say about education. For example: you dismiss silly myths which make up orthodox religion, and you do not mention that throughout the Western world nobody who openly rejects them can be a schoolmaster. To take another point: education has enormously facilitated total war. Owing to the fact that people can read, while educators have been at pains to prevent them from thinking, warlike ferocity is now much more easily spread than it was in former times.
You seem to think that governments will be composed of wise and enlightened persons who will have standards of value not unlike yours and mine. This is against all the evidence. Pythagoras was an exile because Policrates disliked him; Socrates was put to death; Aristotle had to fly from Athens as soon as Alexander died. In ancient Greece it was not hard to escape from Greece. In the modern world it is much more difficult; and that is one reason why there are fewer great men than there were in Greece.
Best wishes to both of you from both of us.
Yrs. ever B. R.
From Sir Julian Huxley
31 Pond Street Hampstead, N.W.3 13th March, 1963
Dear Bertie
So many thanks for your fascinating letter. I can hear you chuckling about peacocks and lipstick!
As regards the mind-body problem, I think it must be approached from the evolutionary angle. We are all of us living 'mind-body' organisations, with a long history behind us, and related to all other living organisations. To me this implies that mind and body in some way constitute a single unity.
Of course you are right as to the dangers inherent in eugenic measures or approved educational measures. On the other hand, one must do something! My attitude is neither purely optimistic nor purely pessimistic - it is that we and our present situation are far from perfect, but are capable of improvement, and indeed are liable to deteriorate unless something is done. This is to me the real point - that something must be done, though of course we must try to see that it is, in principle, the right thing, and also must try to safeguard it as far as possible from abuse.
Again, we must have an educational system of sorts - & I should have thought we ought to try to improve it, in spite of possible dangers
Juliette sends her best wishes,
Yours ever Julian H.
To and from Alice Mary Hilton
Plas Penrhyn 9 June, 1963
Dear Miss Hilton
My warm thanks for your book on Logic, Computing Machines and Automation. I have, so far, only had time to read parts of it, but what I have read has interested me very much. In particular, I am grateful for the nice things you say about Principia Mathematica and about me. The followers of Gödel had almost persuaded me that the twenty man-years spent on the Principia had been wasted and that the book had better been forgotten. It is a comfort to find that you do not take this view.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
405 East 63rd Street New York 21, New York July 2, 1963
Dear Lord Russell
Thank you very much for your kind letter about my book on Logic, Computing Machines and Automation. It was very thoughtful of you to write to me and I can hardly express my appreciation for your interest and your kindness. Although I am aware of the fact that it doesn't matter very much what I think of Principia Mathematica, I am convinced that future generations of mathematicians will rate it one of the two or three major contributions to science. I have the feeling that the criticism stems from a lack of understanding rather than anything else. I cannot claim that I understand this tremendous work fully but I have been trying for several years now to learn enough so that I can at least understand basic principles. I am quite certain no great mathematician (which I am certainly not) could possibly have read the Principia and think that 'the twenty man-years spent on the Principia had been wasted and that the book had better be forgotten'. I am quite certain that it won't be forgotten as long as there is any civilisation that preserves the work of really great minds.
I mentioned to you in the past that I am planning to edit a series which is tentatively called The Age of Cyberculture and which is to include books by thinkers - scientists, philosophers, artists - who have a contribution to make to the understanding of this era we are entering. It seems to me that humanity has never been in so critical a period. Not only do we live in constant danger of annihilation, but even if we do survive the danger of nuclear extinction, we are standing on the threshold of an age which can become a paradise or hell for humanity, I am enclosing a very brief outline of the series. Because I believe so strongly that understanding and communication among the educated and thinking human beings of this world are so important I am presuming to ask you to write a contribution to this series. I am going further than that. I would like to ask you to serve on the editorial board. I know that you are a very busy man, and I am not asking this lightly. But I also know that you make your voice heard and I believe very strongly that this series will make a contribution and possibly have considerable impact to further the understanding among people whose work is in different disciplines and who must cooperate and learn to understand one another. It is through the contributors and the readers of this series that I hope that some impact will be made upon the political decision makers of this society and through them upon all of us who must realise our responsibility for choosing the right decision makers.
It would give me personally the greatest pleasure to be allowed to work with the greatest mind of this - and many other - century.
I would like you to know that your recording has just become available in this country ('Speaking Personally, Bertrand Russell') and that we have listened to it with great enjoyment and have spent several happy and most wonderful evenings in the company of friends listening to your words.
Thank you again for all of your kindness.
Sincerely Alice Mary Hilton
To John Paulos
2nd August, 1966
Dear Mr Paulos
Thank you very much for your letter.
My reason for rejecting Hegel and monism in general is my belief that the dialectical argument against relations is wholly unsound. I think such a statement as 'A is west of B' can be exactly true. You will find that Bradley's arguments on this subject pre-suppose that every proposition must be of the subject-predicate form. I think this the fundamental error of monism.
With best wishes,
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
To Marchesa Origo
19 January, 1966
Dear Marquesa
I have been reading your book on Leopardi with very great interest. Although I have long been an admirer of his poetry, I knew nothing of his life until I read your book. His life is appallingly tragic and most of the tragedy was due to bad institutions.
I cannot agree with Santayana's remark: 'The misfortunes of Leopardi were doubtless fortunate for his genius.' I believe that in happier circumstances he would have produced much more.
I do not know Italian at all well and have read most of his poetry in Italian; as a result I have probably missed much by doing so. I am grateful to your book for filling many gaps in my knowledge.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
To Mr Hayes
25.11.1963
Dear Mr Hayes
Thank you for your letter of November 18. The idea which has been put about to the effect that I am more anti-American than anti-Russian is one of ignorant hostile propaganda. It is true that I have criticised American behaviour in Vietnam, but I have, at the same time, been vehemently protesting against the treatment of Soviet Jews. When the Russians resumed Tests I first wrote to the Soviet Embassy to express a vehement protest & then organised hostile demonstrations against the Soviet Government. I have described the East German Government as a 'military tyranny imposed by alien armed force'. I have written articles in Soviet journals expressing complete impartiality. The only matter in which I have been more favourable to Russia than to America was the Cuban crisis because Khrushchev yielded rather than embark upon a nuclear war. In any crisis involving the danger of nuclear war, if one side yielded & the other did not, I should think the side that yielded more deserving of praise than the other side, because I think nuclear war the greatest misfortune that could befall the human race.
In view of your letter, I am afraid I cannot write an article that would be acceptable to you as I have always expressed in print my criticisms of Russia as often & as emphatically as my criticisms of the West.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
From Arnold Toynbee
At 273 Santa Teresa Stanford, Calif. 94305 United States 9 May, 1967
Dear Lord Russell
Your ninety-fifth birthday gives me, like countless other friends of yours who will also be writing to you at this moment, a welcome opportunity of expressing some of the feelings that I have for you all the time: first of all, my affection for you and Edith (I cannot think of either of you without thinking of you both together), and then my admiration and my gratitude.
I met you first, more than half a century ago, just alter you bad responded to the almost superhuman demand that Plato makes on his fellow philosophers. You had then stepped back out of the sunshine into the cave, to help your fellow human beings who were still prisoners there. You had just come out of prison in the literal sense (and this not for the last time). You had been put in prison, that first time, for having spoken in public against conscription.
It would have been possible for you to continue to devote yourself exclusively to creative intellectual work, in which you had already made your name by achievements of the highest distinction - work which, as we know, gives you intense intellectual pleasure, and which at the same time benefits the human race by increasing our knowledge and understanding of the strange universe in which we find ourselves. You could then have led a fairly quiet life, and you would have been commended unanimously by all the pundits. Of course, ever since then, you have continued to win laurels in this field. But you care too much for your fellow human beings to be content with your intellectual career alone, a splendid one though it is. You have had the greatness of spirit to be unwilling to stay 'above the battle'. Ever since, you have been battling for the survival of civilisation, and latterly, since the Invention of the atomic weapon, for the survival of the human race.
I am grateful to you, most of all, for the encouragement and the hope that you have been giving for so long, and are still giving as vigorously and as fearlessly as ever, to your younger contemporaries in at least three successive generations. As long as there are people who care, as you do, for mankind, and who put their concern into action, the rest of us can find, from the example that you have set us, courage and confidcnce to work, in your spirit, for trying to give mankind the future that is its birthright, and for trying to help it to save itself from self-destruction.
This is why Thursday, 18 May 1967, is an historic date for the hundreds of millions of your contemporaries who are unaware of this, as well as for the hundreds of thousands who do know what you stand for and what you strive for. You have projected yourself, beyond yourself, into the history of the extraordinary species of which you are so outstanding a representative. Every living creature is self-centred by nature; yet every human living creature's mission in life is to transfer the centre of his concern from himself to the ultimate reality, whatever this may be. That is the true fulfilment of a human being's destiny. You have achieved it. This is why I feel constant gratitude to you and affection for you, and why 18 May, 1967, is a day of happiness and hope for me, among your many friends.
Yours ever Arnold Toynbee
From Field Marshal Sir Claude Auchinleck, GCB
Oswald House Northgate Beccles, Suffolk 1 May 64
My dear Lord Russell
I apologise for not having written earlier to thank you for your hospitality and, for me, a most interesting and inspiring visit. I have read the paper you gave me - 'A New Approach to Peace' which I found most impressive. There is nothing in it with which I could not whole-heartedly agree and support. I understand the relationship and functions of the Atlantic Peace Foundation and the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation and I hope to be able to make a small contribution to the expenses of the former.
If I can be of help in any other way, perhaps you or your Secretary will let me know. It is an honour to have met you.
With best wishes and hopes for your success.
Yours sincerely C. J. Auchinleck
From U Thant on the formation of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
Secretary General
It is good to know that it is proposed to start a Foundation in the name of Lord Russell, to expand and continue his efforts in the cause of peace.
Lord Russell was one of the first to perceive the folly and danger of unlimited accumulation of nuclear armaments. In the early years he conducted practically a one-man crusade against this tendency and he now has a much larger following. While there may be differences of views about the wisdom of unilateral disarmament, and other similar ideas, I share the feeling of Lord Russell that the unrestricted manufacture, testing, perfecting, and stock-piling of nuclear armaments represent one of the greatest dangers to humanity and one of the most serious threats to the survival of the human race.
I hope, therefore, that this effort to put on an institutional basis the crusade for peace that Lord Russell has conducted for so long and with such dedication will be crowned with success.
U Thant
Sponsors of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation
|
H.I.M. Haile Selassie |
Dr Max Born, Nobel Prize for Physics |
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Prof. Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize for Chemistry and for Peace |
Lord Boyd Orr, frs, Nobel Peace Prize |
|
Pablo Casals, Puerto Rico, Cellist |
|
|
Danilo Dolci, Sicily |
|
|
Pres. Kenneth Kaunda |
Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth of the Belgians |
|
Pres. Kwame Nkrumah |
|
|
Pres. Ayub Khan |
Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru |
|
Pres. Julius K. Nyerere |
Vanessa Redgrave, Actress |
|
Pres. Leopold Senghor |
Dr Albert Schweitzer, Lambarene, Nobel Peace Prize |
|
The Duke of Bedford |
February 1964
A New Approach to Peace
BERTRAND RUSSELL
The nuclear age in which we have the misfortune to live is one which imposes new ways of thought and action and a new character in international relations. Ever since the creation of the H-bomb, it has been obvious to thoughtful people that there is now a danger of the extermination of mankind if a nuclear war between two powerful nations or blocs of nations should break out, Not only would such a war be a total disaster to human hopes, but, so long as past policies persist, a nuclear war may break out at any minute. This situation imposes upon those who desire the continuation of our species a very difficult duty. We have, first, to persuade Governments and populations of the disastrousness of nuclear war, and when that has been achieved, we have to induce Governments to adopt such policies as will make the preservation of peace a possibility.
Of these two tasks, the first has been very largely accomplished. It has been accomplished by a combination of methods of agitation: peace marches, peace demonstrations, large public meetings, sit-downs, etc. These were conducted in Britain by the CND tod the Committee of 100, and in other countries by more or less similar bodies. They have testified - and I am proud that I was amongst them - that nuclear war would be a calamity for the whole human race, and have pointed out its imminence and its dangers. They have succeeded in making very widely known, even to Governments, the dangers of nuclear war. But it is time for a new approach. The dangers must not be forgotten but now the next step must be taken. Ways and means of settling questions that might lead to nuclear war and other dangers to mankind must be sought and made known, and mankind must be persuaded to adopt these new and different means towards securing peace.
The culmination, so far, of the conflict between rival nuclear groups was the Cuban crisis. In this crisis, America and Russia confronted each other while the world waited for the destruction that seemed imminent. At the last moment, the contest was avoided and it appeared that neither side was willing to put an end to the human race because of disagreement as to the politics of those who would otherwise be living in Cuba. This was a moment of great importance. It showed that neither side considered it desirable to obliterate the human race.
We may, therefore, take it that the Governments of the world are prepared to avoid nuclear war. And it is not only Governments, but also vast sections, probably a majority, of the populations of most civilised countries which take this view.
The first part of the work for peace has thus been achieved. But a more difficult task remains. If there is not to be war, we have to find ways by which war will be avoided. This is no easy matter. There are many disputes which, though they may begin amicably, are likely to become more and more bitter, until at last, in a fury, they break out into open war. There is also the risk of war by accident or misinformation. Furthermore, there are difficulties caused by the one-sided character of information as it reaches one side or the other in any dispute. It is clear that peace cannot come to the world without serious concessions, sometimes by one side, sometimes by the other, but generally by both. These difficulties in the pursuit of peace require a different technique from that of marches and demonstrations. The questions concerned are complex, the only possible solutions are distasteful to one side or both, and negotiators who discuss such questions will need to keep a firm hold of their tempers if they are to succeed.
All this should be the work of Governments. But Governments will not adequately do the necessary work unless they are pushed on by a body or bodies which have an international character and are especially concerned with a search for peaceful solutions. It is work of this kind that we hope to see performed by the new Foundations, which I hereby recommend to you.
Of the two Foundations one is called The Atlantic Peace Foundation. Being a Foundation for purposes of research in matters of war and peace, it has been registered as a charity and is recognised as such by the British Inland Revenue. Income Tax at the standard rate is, therefore, recoverable on any subscription given to it under a seven-year contract, which means that such subscriptions are increased by about sixty per cent. This Foundation works in co-operation with the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation. The latter implements the purposes of the Atlantic Peace Foundation. For this reason, I shall refer to only a single Foundation in the rest of this discussion.
It may be said: 'But such work as that is the work of the United Nations.' I agree that it should be the work of the United Nations and I hope that, in time, it will become so. But the United Nations has defects, some of them remediable, others essential in a body which represents an organisation of States. Of the former kind of defect, the most notable is the exclusion of China; of the latter kind, the equality of States in the Assembly and the veto power of certain States in the Security Council. For such reasons the United Nations, alone, is not adequate to work for peace.
It is our hope that the Foundations which we have created will, in time, prove adequate to deal with all obstacles to peace and to propose such solutions of difficult questions as may commend themselves to the common sense of mankind. Perhaps this hope is too ambitious. Perhaps it will be some other body with similar objects that will achieve the final victory. But however that may be, the work of our Foundation will have ministered to a fortunate ending.
The problems which will have to be settled are two kinds. The first kind is that which concerns mankind as a whole. Of this the most important are two: namely, disarmament and education. The second class of problems are those concerning territorial adjustments, of which Germany is likely to prove the most difficult. Both kinds must be solved if peace is to be secure.
There have been congresses concerned with the subject of disarmament ever since nuclear weapons came into existence. Immediately after the ending of the Second World War, America offered to the world the Baruch Proposal. This was intended to break the American monopoly of nuclear weapons and to place them in the hands of an international body. Its intentions were admirable, but Congress insisted upon the insertion of clauses which it was known the Russians would not accept. Everything worked out as had been expected. Stalin rejected the Baruch Proposal, and Russia proceeded to create its own A-bomb and, then, its own H-bomb. The result was the Cold War, the blockade of Berlin, and the creation by both sides of H-bombs which first suggested the danger to mankind in general. After Stalin's death, a new attempt at complete disarmament was made. Eisenhower and Khrushchev met at Camp David. But warlike elements in the Pentagon continued their work of spying, and the Russian destruction of U-2 put an end to the brief attempt at friendship. Since that time, disarmament conferences have met constantly, but always, until after the Cuban Crisis, with the determination on both sides that no agreement should be reached. Since the Cuban Crisis there has again been a more friendly atmosphere, but so far, without any tangible result except the Test-Ban Treaty. This Treaty was valuable, also, as showing that agreement is possible between East and West. The success of the negotiations involved was largely due to Pugwash, an international association of scientists concerned with problems of peace and war.
The present situation in regard to disarmament is that both America and Russia have schemes for total nuclear disarmament, but their schemes differ, and no way has, so far, been discovered of bridging the differences. It should be one of the most urgent tasks of the Foundation to devise some scheme of disarmament to which both sides could agree. It is ominous, however, that the Pentagon has again allowed one of its planes to be shot down by the Russians over Communist territory.
If peace is ever to be secure, there will have to be great changes in education. At present, children are taught to love their country to the exclusion of other countries, and among their countrymen in history those whom they are specially taught to admire are usually those who have shown most skill in killing foreigners. An English child is taught to admire Nelson and Wellington; a French child, to admire Napoleon; and a German child, Barbarossa. These are not among those of the child's countrymen who have done most for the world. They are those who have served their country in ways that must be forever closed if man is to survive. The conception of Man as one family will have to be taught as carefully as the opposite is now taught. This will not be an easy transition. It will be said that boys under such a regimen will be soft and effeminate. It will be said that they will lose the manly virtues and will be destitute of courage. All this will be said by Christians in spite of Christ's teaching. But, dreadful as it may appear, boys brought up in the old way will grow into quarrelsome men who will find a world without war unbearably tame. Only a new kind of education, inculcating a new set of moral values, will make it possible to keep a peaceful world in existence.
There will, after all, be plenty of opportunity for adventure, even dangerous adventure. Boys can go to the Antarctic for their holidays, and young men can go to the moon. There are many ways of showing courage without having to kill other people, and it is such ways that should be encouraged.
In the teaching of history, there should be no undue emphasis upon one's own country. The history of wars should be a small part of what is taught. Much the more important part should be concerned with progress in the arts of civilisation. War should be treated as murder is treated. It should be regarded with equal horror and with equal aversion. All this, I fear, may not be pleasing to most present-day educationists. But, unless education is changed in some such way, it is to be feared that men's natural ferocity will, sooner or later, break out.
But it is not only children who need education. It is needed, also by adults, both ordinary men and women and those who are important in government. Every technical advance in armaments has involved an increase in the size of States. Gunpowder made modem states possible at the time of the Renaissance by making castles obsolete. What castles were at that time, national States are now, since weapons of mass destruction have made even the greatest States liable to complete destruction. A new kind of outlook is, therefore, necessary. Communities, hitherto, have survived, when they have survived, by a combination of internal co-operation and external competition. The H-bomb has made the latter out of date. World-wide co-operation is now a condition of survivial. But world-wide co-operation, if it is to succeed, requires co-operative feelings in individuals. It is difficult to imagine a World Government succeeding if the various countries of which it is composed continue to hate and suspect each other. To bring about more friendly feelings across the boundaries of nations is, to begin with, a matter of adult education. It is necessary to teach both individuals and Governments that as one family mankind may prosper as never before, but as many competing families there is no prospect before mankind except death. To teach this lesson will be a large part of the educative work of the Foundation.
There are throughout the world a number of territorial questions, most of which divide East from West. Some of the questions are very thorny and must be settled before peace can be secure. Let us begin with Germany,
At Yalta it was decided that Germany should be divided into four parts: American, English, French and Russian. A similar division was made of Berlin within Germany. It was hoped that all would, in time, come to agree and would submit to any conditions imposed by the victorious allies. Trouble, however, soon arose. The city of Berlin was in the midst of the Russian zone and no adequate provision had been made to secure access to the Western sector of Berlin for the Western allies. Stalin took advantage of this situation in 1948 by the so-called 'Berlin Blockade' which forbade all access to West Berlin by road or rail on the part of the Western allies. The Western allies retorted by the 'Air Lift' which enabled them to supply West Berlin in spite of the Russian blockade. Throughout the period of the Berlin blockade both sides were strictly legal. Access to West Berlin by air had been guaranteed in the peace settlement, and this the Russians never challenged. The whole episode ended with a somewhat ambiguous and reluctant agreement on the part of the Russians to allow free intercourse between West Berlin and West Germany. This settlement, however, did not satisfy the West. It was obvious that the Russians could at any moment occupy West Berlin and that the only answer open to the West would be nuclear war. Somewhat similar considerations applied, rather less forcibly, to the whole of Western Germany, In this way, the problem of Germany became linked with the problem of nuclear disarmament: if nuclear disarmament was accepted by the West without adequate assurances as to disarmament in regard to conventional weapons, then Germany's defence against the East would become difficult if not impossible.
The German problem also exists in regard to Eastern Germany and here it represents new complexities. What had been the Eastern portion of the German Reich was divided into two parts. The Eastern half was given to Russia and Poland, while the Western half was given to a Communist regime in East Germany. In the part given to Russia and Poland all Germans were evicted. Old and young, men, women and children were ruthlessly sent in over-crowded trains to Berlin, where they had to walk from the Eastern terminus to the Western terminus in queues which were apt to take as much as thirty-six hours. Many Germans died in the trains and many in the Berlin queues, but for the survivors there was no legal remedy.
And how about the part of Germany which was assigned to the East German Government? The East German Government was a Communist Government, while the population was overwhelmingly anti-Communist. The Government was established by the Russians and sustained by their armed forces against insurrection. Eastern Germany became a prison, escape from which, after the construction of the Berlin Wall, was only possible at imminent risk of death.
It cannot be expected that Germany will tamely accept this situation. The parts of the old German Reich which were given to Russia or Poland were, for the most part, inhabited by Poles and must be regarded as justly lost to Germany whatever may be thought of the hardships suffered by excluded Germans. But the position of the Germans in what is now the Eastern portion of Germany is quite different. Eastern Germany is virtually a territory conquered by the Russians and governed by them as they see fit. This situation, combined with the natural nationalistic sympathy felt by the West Germans, is an unstable one. It depends upon military force and nothing else.
So far, we have been concerned with the German case, but the Nazis, during their period in power, inspired in all non-Germans a deep-rooted fear of German power. There is reason to dread that, if Germany were reunited, there would be a repetition of the Nazi attempt to rule the world. This apprehension is apparently not shared by the Governments of the West, who have done everything in their power to strengthen West Germany and make it again capable of another disastrous attempt at world dominion. It cannot be said that this apprehension is unreasonable.
What can be done to secure a just and peaceful solution of this problem? The West might suggest that Germany should be free and reunited and the East might, conceivably, agree, if Germany were disarmed. But the Germans would never agree to a punitive disarmament inflicted upon them alone. Only general disarmament would make German disarmament acceptable to the Germans. In this way, the question of Germany becomes entangled with the problem of disarmament. It is difficult to imagine any solution of the German problem which would be acceptable both to Germans and to the rest of the world, except reunification combined with general disarmament.
The next most difficult of territorial disputes is that between Israel and the Arabs. Nasser has announced that it is his purpose to exterminate Israel and that, within two years, he will be in possession of missiles for this purpose. (Guardian, 16.3.64.) The Western world is sure to feel that this cannot be allowed to happen, but most of Asia and, possibly, Russia would be prepared to look on passively so long as the Arabs continued to be victorious. There seems little hope of any accommodation between the two sides except as a result of outside pressure. The ideal solution in such a case is a decision by the United Nations which the countries concerned would be compelled to adopt. I am not prepared to suggest publicly the terms of such a decision, but only that it should come from the United Nations and be supported by the major powers of East and West.
In general, when there is a dispute as to whether the Government of a country should favour the East or the West, the proper course would be for the United Nations to conduct a plebiscite in the country concerned and give the Government to whichever side obtained a majority. This is a principle which, at present, is not accepted by either side. Americans do not accept it in South Vietnam, though they conceal the reason for their anti-Communist activities by pretending that they are protecting the peasantry from the inroads of the Vietcong. The attitude of the United States to Castro's Government in Cuba is very ambiguous. Large sections of American opinion hold that throughout the Western Hemisphere no Government obnoxious to the United States is to be tolerated. But whether these sections of opinion will determine American action is as yet, doubtful. Russia is, in this respect, equally to blame, having enforced Communist Governments in Hungary and Eastern Germany against the wishes of the inhabitants. In all parts of the world, self-determination by hither-to subject nations will become very much easier if there is general disarmament.
The ultimate goal will be a world in which national armed forces axe limited to what is necessary for internal stability and in which the only forces capable of acting outside national limits will be those of a reformed United Nations. The approach to this ultimate solution must be piecemeal and must involve a gradual increase in the authority of the United Nations or, possibly, of some new international body which should have sole possession of the major weapons of war. It is difficult to see any other way in which mankind can survive the invention of weapons of mass extinction.
Many of the reforms suggested above depend upon the authority of the United Nations or of some new international body specially created for the purpose. To avoid circumlocution I shall speak of the United Nations to cover both those possibilities. If its powers are to be extended, this will have to be done by means of education which is both neutral and international. Such education will have to be carried out by an organisation which is, itself, international and neutral. There are, at present, in various countries, national associations working towards peace, but, so far as we are aware, the Foundation with which we are concerned is the first international association aiming at the creation of a peaceful world. The other Foundations are limited in scope - being either national or aimed towards dealing with only one or two aspects or approaches to peace. We shall support them where we can, and shall hope for their support in those areas of our work which impinge upon theirs. We shall also endeavour to diminish the acerbity of international controversy and induce Governments and important organs of public opinion to preserve at least a minimum of courtesy in their criticism of opponents.
The Government of this Foundation will be in the hands of a small body of Directors. This body is, as yet, incomplete, but should as soon as possible be representative of all the interests concerned in the prevention of war. It is supported by a body of Sponsors who approve of its general purposes, but, for one reason or another, cannot take part in the day to day work. There is to be a Board of Advisers, each having special knowledge in some one or more fields. Their specialised knowledge shall be drawn upon as it may be relevant. The Headquarters of the Foundation will remain in London, which will also house the International Secretariat. In the near future, it is intended to establish offices in various parts of the world. Probably the first two, one in New York and one in Beirut, will be established in the immediate future. Others will follow as soon as suitable personnel can be recruited This is, in many parts of the world, a difficult task. Many Governments, although they do not venture publicly to advocate nuclear war, are opposed to any work against it in their own territories, and many individuals, while genuinely desirous of peace, shrink from such national sacrifices as the Foundation's general policy may seem to make desirable. It is obvious that a general peace policy must demand moderation everywhere, and many friends of peace, while admitting the desirability of concessions by countries other than their own, are apt to shrink from advocating necessary concessions by their own country. Willingness for such concessions is a necessary qualification for membership of the Secretariat and for the Head of any subsidiary office. Each subsidiary office will have to collect information and first-hand knowledge on all local matters from both the ordinary population and the authorities. They will have to assess this knowledge with a view to its importance in work towards peace. And they will have to disseminate accurate knowledge and to educate both authorities and the public in attitudes and actions desirable in work towards peace. Each office will also have the task of finding suitable workers to support its own part of the general work and to collect money both for its own and the general work. It should be part of the work of the subsidiary offices to pass on information and advice so that the Central Secretariat can draw up soundly based schemes for the settlement of disputes that stand a good chance of being accepted by the disputants.
To accomplish these tasks will not be possible without a considerable expenditure in secretarial help, in offices, in means of travel, in means of publicising findings and, ultimately, when and if funds permit, in establishing a radio and newspaper of our own. Until such funds permit, the exploration of possibilities and estimates of location, plant and personnel for these needed means of publicity - in itself no mean task - must occupy the Foundation.
It will be seen that the Foundation as we hope it may become must be a gradual work. It cannot spring into being full-armoured like Athene. What exists at present is only a small seed of what we hope nay come to be. We have a Head Office in London. We have a small Secretariat which is international, neutral and energetic, but too small for the work what has to be done. We have pamphlets and leaflets stating our views on various topical issues. These we supplement, when we can, by letters and articles in the Press. But what can be done in this way is, as yet, very limited since most newspapers are opposed to what must be done in this or that disturbed region if peace is to be secured there. Nevertheless, even now, we have found that there is much that we can accomplish. We can collect information, partly by means of already published facts, and partly by travels in the course of which we visit the Governments and learn their point of view. In the short five months of its existence, the Foundation has sent emissaries to various troubled spots and to the Governments concerned. We have already an enormous correspondence, partly with sympathisers in all parts of the world, and partly also, with Heads of States. From all these we derive both information and advice. Partly, too, our correspondence has been concerned with appeals for the liberation of political prisoners and the amelioration of the lot of minorities in various countries, East and West, South and North. In these last respects, our work has already met with great and unexpected success. In recounting the success of the Foundation during these first five months, however, we labour under the handicap of being unable to be specific. Negotiations such as we are conducting, as will readily be understood, cannot be talked of, since to talk of them would nullify their efficacy.
As everybody who has ever attempted to create a large organisation will understand, our chief effort during these early months has been concerned with obtaining funds, and this must continue for a considerable time since much of the work we wish to do involves very considerable expense. We are opening accounts in various countries to pay for local expenditure. We have done various things to raise money, such as a sale of paintings and sculpture generously donated to us by their creators. We are sponsoring a film. We have hope of money from various theatrical performances. But these alone will not suffice, unless supplemented by gifts from individuals and organisations. It is obvious that the more money we can collect the more nearly and adequately we can carry out our aims. We are firmly convinced that the Foundation can achieve the immense work it has undertaken provided sufficient funds become available. We are working for a great cause - the preservation of Man. In this work one might expect to have the support of every human being. This, alas, is not yet the case. It is our hope that, in time, it will become so.
From and to Erich Fromm
Gonzalez Cosio No. 15 Mexico 12, D.F. May 30th, 1962
Lord Bertrand Russell care of Mrs Clara Urquhart London, W.1
Dear Bertrand Russell
I know how frightfully busy you must be before the Moscow Conference, but I also believe that you will understand it if I approach you for your advice and help with regard to the fate of a man, Heinz Brandt, who was arrested last June by the East German police in East Berlin, or Potsdam, and was sentenced to thirteen years of hard labour (Zuchthaus) on the 10th of May at a secret trial for espionage against the DDR.
Brandt was a German communist before Hitler, for eleven years was in Hitler's prisons and concentration camps and severely tortured in the latter. After the War he went to East Germany and was a journalist there for the communist party. He got more and more into opposition with that party, and eventually fled to West Germany where he took a job in Frankfort as a journalist on the newspaper of the Metal Workers' Union. He was sent last year by his union to attend a union conference in West Berlin, and apparently was kidnapped or lured into East Berlin by the East German police, since nobody who knows him believes that he would have gone voluntarily to East Germany. The remarkable thing about him is that, in spite of having turned against communism he did not do what so many others have done, to become a rabid spokesman against communism in West Germany. On the contrary, he was one of the most passionate and ardent fighters against West German rearmament, for peace and for an understanding with the Soviet Union. Although his union in Frankfort is not only the biggest but also the most peace-minded union in West Germany, his courageous stand made him enemies in many places and yet he fought for his ideals without the slightest compromise.
I know that Brandt was left in a nervous condition from the tortures he underwent in the Nazi camps, he has a wife and three young children, and the sentence amounts to a life-long one or even a death sentences considering his present age of around 55 and his condition...
There was a great deal of protest and indignation going on since he was arrested and again now after he was sentenced. Naturally his case has been used for fanatical anti-communist propaganda by various circles. We, on the other hand, have done all we could to prevent this kind of misuse, and we have addressed ourselves in cables to Khrushchev and Ulbricht asking-for Brandt's release. (These cables were signed by a number of American pacifists and leading peace workers and also by some from France (Claude Bourdet) and Germany (Professor Abendroth).) After being sentenced, it seems that the only hope for his liberation would lie in the fact that enough people, and sufficiently influential ones from the Western Hemisphere, would approach the Soviet people with the request to exert influence on the Ulbricht government to pardon Brandt and return him to his family in West Germany. I thought myself that the coming Congress in Moscow would be a good opportunity for such an attempt. I intend to go there as an observer. I cabled Professor Bernal some time ago and asked him whether, if I went, I would be free to bring up the Brandt case, and he cabled back that this was so. Naturally, the success of this action depends on one fact: How many other noncommunists and Western peace people will support this step? I hope very much that you could decide to lend your support also.
I enclose the declaration of the West German Socialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund. Similar declarations have been signed by Professor W, Abendroth, Professor H. J. Heydorn, H. Brakemeier and E. Dähne. (It may be known to you that the Socialistischer Deutscher Studentenbund has been expelled from the West German Democratic Party precisely because of its stand against West German rearmament.)
I would have liked very much to talk with you before the Moscow conference, about how one could best organise a step in favour of Brandt. (I assume you will go to Moscow.) Would you be kind enough to drop me a line how long you will be in London, and when you will be in Moscow, and if you could see me for an hour to discuss this case either before you leave or in Moscow?
Yours sincerely Erich Fromm
Encl. cc - Mrs Clara Urquhart
1 July 1962
Dear Erich Fromm
I wish to apologise to you most sincerely for leaving your letter of May 30th unanswered until now. I shall do anything you advise with respect to Brandt. I have recently received two communications from Khrushchev and can easily incorporate the question of Brandt in my reply.
I am not going to Moscow but I am sending a personal representative and four members of the Committee of 100 are going as delegates. I should very much wish to see you in London. I shall be in London until around July 10 when I expect to be returning to Wales. I should be delighted to see you in London at my home. Please contact me as soon as you come to London. Good wishes.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
To Nikita Khrushchev
4 July, 1962
Dear Mr Khrushchev
I am venturing to send to you a copy of a letter which I have written to the Moscow Conference on Disarmament, dealing with the case of Heinz Brandt. I hope you will agree with me that clemency, in this case, would further the cause of peace.
My warmest thanks for your kind letter on the occasion of my 90th birthday, which gave me great satisfaction.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
To the President of the Moscow Conference on Disarmament
4 July, 1962
Sir
I wish to bring to the attention of this Conference the case of Heinz Brandt who has been sentenced in East Germany to thirteen years of prison with hard labour. I do not know the exact nature of the charges against him. At first, he was to have been charged with espionage, but, when he was brought to trial, this charge was dropped. Heinz Brandt has been throughout his active life a devoted and self-sacrificing worker for peace and against West German re-armament. For eleven years during Hitler's regime, he was in prisons and concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Buchenwald. To all friends of peace and disarmament in West Germany, his arrest and condemnation by the East German Authorities were a severe blow, while to the militarists of West Germany they supplied new arguments and new reasons for bitterness. I have no doubt that, in the interests of disarmament with which this Congress is concerned, his release would be profoundly beneficial. I hope that the Congress will pass a resolution asking for his release on these grounds.
Bertrand Russell
To Walter Ulbricht
12 August, 1963
Dear Herr Ulbricht
Recently I was honoured with an award for peace by your government in the name of Carl von Ossietzky. I hold Ossietzky's memory in high regard and I honour that for which he died. I am passionately opposed to the Cold War and to all those who trade in it, so I felt it important to accept the honour accorded 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 that I have not received so much as an acknowledgement of my previous appeals on his behalf. Heinz Brandt was a political prisoner, placed in concentration camp along with Ossietzky. He has suffered many long years of imprisonment because he has stood by his political beliefs. I do not raise the question here of the comparative merit or demerit of those beliefs. I but ask you to consider the damage that is done to the attempts to improve relations between your country and the West and to soften the Cold War by the continued imprisonment of Heinz Brandt. I appeal to you, once more, on grounds of humanity, to release this man, and I should be grateful if you would inform me of your intentions with regard to him.
Although I value the Ossietzky Medal, I am placed in an ambiguous position by the continued imprisonment of Heinz Brandt.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
On October 30, 1963, the Secretary of the East German State Council wrote to me at great length to explain that 'the spy Brandt', 'condemned for treason' had received the 'justified sentence' of thirteen years' hard labour, the sentence to expire in June, 1974. Brandt had served only two years of this sentence, and no long sentence could be conditionally suspended until at least half of it had been served. 'Reduction of the sentence by act of grace' was not justified because of the seriousness of the crimes. Herr Gotsche's letter concluded: 'I may assume that you, too, dear Mr Russell, will appreciate after insight... that in this case the criminal law must be fully applied ... in the interests of humanity.'
To Walter Ulbricht
7 January 1964
Dear Mr Ulbricht
I am writing to you to tell you of my decision to return to your Government the Carl von Ossietzsky medal for peace. I do so reluctantly and after two years of private approaches on behalf of Heinz Brandt, whose continued imprisonment is a barrier to coexistence, relaxation of tension and understanding between East and West.
My representative, Mr Kinsey, spoke recently with officials of your governing 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 find it possible to release Brandt through an amnesty which would be a boon to the cause of peace and to your country.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
29 May 1964
Dear Premier Ulbricht
I am writing to convey my great pleasure at the news of the release of Heinz Brandt from prison. I realise that this was not an easy decision for your Government to make but I am absolutely convinced that it was a decision in the best interests of your country and of the cause of peace and good relations between East and West.
I wish to offer my appreciation and approval for this important act of clemency.
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
From and to Tony and Betty Ambatielos
Filonos 22 Piraeus, Greece 7 May 1964
Dear Lord Russell
It will give my husband and I the greatest pleasure if, during a visit we hope to make to Britain soon, we are able to meet you and thank you personally for all your support over the years. Meantime, however, we send you 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's release and we know that his colleagues who were freed at the same time would wish us to convey their feelings of gratitude towards you also. It is unfortunate that when so many hundreds were at last freed, nearly one hundred were and are still held. But we are all confident that with the continued interest and support of such an esteemed and stalwart friend as yourself, they too can be freed in the not too distant future.
With kind regards to Lady Russell and all good wishes and thanks,
Yours sincerely Betty Ambatielos
Dear Lord Russell
I wish to send you these few lines to express my very deep gratitude and respect to you for the way you championed the cause of the political prisoners.
Your name is held in very high esteem among all of us.
Please accept my personal thanks for all you have done.
Yours sincerely Tony Ambatielos
13 May, 1964
Dear Mr and Mrs Ambatielos
Thank you very much for your letter. I should be delighted to see you both in Wales or London. I have been corresponding with Papandreou, pressing him for the release of remaining prisoners and the dropping of recent charges in Salonika.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely Bertrand Russell
From and to Lord Gladwyn
30, Gresham Street London, E.C.2 3rd November, 1964
Dear Lord Russell
I have read with great interest, on my return from America your letter of September 11th which was acknowledged by my secretary. It was indeed kind of you to send me the literature concerning the 'Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation' and the paper entitled 'Africa and the Movement for Peace' and to ask for my views, which are as follows:—
As a general observation, I should at once say that I question your whole major premise. I really do not think that general nuclear war is getting more and more likely: I believe, on the contrary, that it is probably getting less and less likely. I do not think that either the USA or the USSR has the slightest intention of putting the other side into a position in which it may feel it will have to use nuclear weapons on a 'first strike' for its own preservation (if that very word is not in itself paradoxical in the circumstances). Nor will the Chinese for a long time have the means of achieving a 'first strike', and when they have they likewise will not want to achieve it. We are no doubt in for a difficult, perhaps even a revolutionary decade and the West must stand together and discuss wise joint policies for facing it, otherwise we may well lapse into mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism. If we do evolve an intelligent common policy not only will there be no general nuclear war, but we shall overcome the great evils of hunger and overpopulation. Here, however, to my mind, everything depends on the possibility of organising Western unity.
Nor do I believe that 'war by accident', though just conceivable, is a tenable hypothesis. Thus the so-called 'Balance of Terror' (by which I mean the ability of each of the two giants to inflict totally unacceptable damage on die other even on a 'second strike') is likely to result in the maintenance of existing territorial boundaries (sometimes referred to as the 'Status Quo') in all countries in which the armed forces of the East and West are in physical contact, and a continuance of the so-called 'Cold War', in other words a struggle for influence between the free societies of the West and the Communist societies of the East, in the 'emergent' countries of South America, Africa and Asia. I developed this general thesis in 1958 in an essay called 'Is Tension Necessary?' and events since then have substantially confirmed it. The Balance of Terror has not turned out to be so 'delicate' as some thought; with the 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 be strengthened by the recent ideological break between the Soviet Union and China which seems likely to persist in spite of the fall of Khrushchev. Next to the 'Balance of Terror' between Russia and America I should indeed place the split as a major factor militating in favour of prolonged World Peace, in the sense 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 becoming less afraid of each other. The one feels that the chances of a subversion of its free economy are substantially less: the other feels that no attack can now possibly be mounted against it by the Western 'Capitalists'.
Naturally, I do not regard this general situation as ideal, or even as one which is likely to continue for a very long period. It is absurd that everybody, and more particularly the us A and the USSR, should spend such colossal sums on armaments, though it seems probable that, the nuclear balance having been achieved, less money will be devoted to reinforcing or even to maintaining it. It is wrong, in principle, that Germany should continue to be divided. Clearly general disarmament is desirable, though here it is arguable that it will not be achieved until an agreed settlement of outstanding political problems, and notably the reunification of Germany is peacefully negotiated. The truth may well be that in the absence of such settlements both sides are in practice reluctant to disarm beyond a certain point, and without almost impossible guarantees, and are apt to place the blame for lack of progress squarely on the other. What is demonstrably untrue is that the West are to blame whereas the Soviet Union is guiltless. In particular, I question your statement (in the African paper) that the Soviet Union has, already agreed to disarm and to accept adequate inspection in all the proper stages, and that failure to agree on disarmament is solely the responsibility of the West. The facts are that although the Soviet Government has accepted full verification of the destruction of all armaments due for destruction in the various stages of both the Russian and the American Draft Disarmament Treaties, they have not agreed that there should be any Verification of the balance of armaments remaining in existence. There would thus, under the Russian proposal, be no guarantee at all that retained armed forces and armaments did not exceed agreed quotas at any stage. Here the Americans have made a significant concession, namely to be content in the early stages with a system of verifying in a few sample areas only: but the Soviet Government has so far turned a deaf ear to such suggestions. Then there is the whole problem of the run-down and its relation to the Agreed Principles, as regards which the Soviet intentions have not, as yet, been fully revealed. Finally the West want to have the International Peace-Keeping Force, which would clearly be required in the event of complete disarmament, under an integrated and responsible Command, but the Soviet Government is insisting, for practical purposes, on the introduction into the Command of a power of veto.
It follows that I cannot possibly agree with your subsequent statement either that 'if we are to alter the drift to destruction it will be necessary to change Western policy (my italics)' - and apparently Western policy only. At the time of the Cuba crisis you circulated a leaflet entitled 'No Nuclear War over Cuba', which started off 'You are to die'. We were to die, it appeared, unless public opinion could under your leadership be mobilised so as to alter American policy, thus allowing the Soviet Government to establish hardened nuclear missile bases in Cuba for use against the United States. Happily, no notice was taken of your manifesto: the Russians discontinued their suicidal policy; and President Kennedy by his resolution and farsightedness saved the world. We did not die. Some day, all of us will die, but not, I think in the great holocaust of the Western imagination. The human animal, admittedly, has many of the characteristics of a beast of prey: mercifully he does not possess the suicidal tendencies of the lemmings. What we want in the world is less fear and more love. With great respect, I do not think that your campaign is contributing 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 proposals in 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 with your reply, if indeed you should feel that one is called for.
Yours sincerely Gladwyn
Plas Penrhyn 14 November, 1964
Dear Lord Gladwyn
Thank you for your long, reasoned letter of November 3rd. I shall take up your points one by one.
I. You point out that the danger of a nuclear war between Russia and the West is less than it was a few years ago. As regards a direct clash between NATO and the Warsaw Powers, I agree with you that the danger is somewhat diminished. On the other hand, new dangers have arisen. All the Powers of East and West, ever since Hiroshima, have agreed that the danger of nuclear war is increased when new Powers become nuclear. But nothing has been done to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. France and Belgium, India and China and Brazil have or are about to have nuclear weapons. West Germany 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 effective, but I see no reason to believe this. The West thought that it would be a long time before Russia had the A-bomb. When Russia had the A-bomb, the West thought it would be a long time before they had the H-bomb. Both these expectations turned out to be illusions.
You consider war by accident so improbable that it can be ignored. There is, however, the possibility of war by mistake. This has already almost occurred several times through mistaking the moon for Soviet planes or some such mis-reading of radar signals. It cannot be deemed unlikely that, sooner or later, such a mistake will not be discovered in time.
Moreover, it is a simple matter of mathematical statistics that the more nuclear missiles there are the greater is the danger of nuclear accident. Vast numbers of rockets and other missiles, primed for release and dependent upon mechanical systems and slight margins in time, are highly subject to accident. Any insurance company would establish this where the factors involved relate to civilian activity such as automobile transport or civilian aviation. In this sense, the danger of accidental war increases with each day that the weapons systems are permitted to remain. Nor is the danger wholly mechanical: human beings, even well 'screened' and highly trained are subject to hysteria and madness of various sorts when submitted to the extreme tensions and concentration that many men having to do with nuclear weapons now are submitted to.
Another danger is the existence of large, adventurous and very powerful groups in the United States. The US Government has run grave risks in attacks on North Vietnam forces. In the recent election some 40%, or thereabouts, of the population voted for Goldwater, who openly advocated war. Warlike groups can, at any moment, create an incident such as the U2 which put an end to the conciliatory mood of Camp David.
In estimating the wisdom of a policy, it is necessary to consider not only the possibility of a bad result, but also the degree of badness of the result. The extermination of the human race is the worst possible result, and even if the probability of its occurring is small, its disastrousness should be a deterrent to any policy which allows of it.
II. You admit that the present state of the world is not desirable and suggest that the only way of improving it is by way of Western unity. Your letter seems to imply that this unity is to be achieved by all countries of the West blindly following one policy. Such unity does not seem to me desirable. Certainly the policy to which you appear to think the West should adhere - a policy which upholds the present United States war in South Vietnam and the economic imperialism of the us in the Congo and Latin America - cannot possibly avoid a lapse into mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism, which you say you wish above all to avoid.
The United States is conducting a war in Vietnam in which it has tolerated and supervised every form of bestiality against a primitively armed peasant population. Disembowelments, mutilations, mass bombing raids with jelly-gasoline, the obliteration of over 75% of the villages of the country and the despatch of eight million people to internment camps have characterised this war. Such conduct cannot be described as an ordered bulwark against mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism. There is a large body of opinion in the United States itself that opposes this war, but the Government persists in carrying it on. The unity that you advocate would do little to encourage the us Government to alter its policy. The us policy in the Congo promises to be similar to that in Vietnam in cruelty. The Western nations show no signs of encouraging any other policy there. (I enclose two pamphlets dealing with Vietnam and the Congo in case you have not seen them.)
Universal unity, however, such as might be achieved by a World Government I am entirely persuaded is necessary to the peace of the world.
III. You find fault with me on the ground that I seem to hold the West always to blame and the Soviet Union always guiltless. This is by no means the case. While Stalin lived, I considered his policies abominable. More recently, I protested vigorously against the Russian tests that preceded the Test Ban Treaty. At present, I am engaged in pointing out the ill-treatment of Jews in the Soviet Union. It is only in certain respects, of which Cuba was the most important, that I think the greatest share of blame falls upon the United States.
IV. Your comments on the Cuban crisis are, to me, utterly amazing. You say that the way the solution was arrived at was that 'the Russians discontinued their suicidal policy; and President Kennedy by his resolution and farsightedness saved the world'. This seems to me a complete reversal of the truth. Russia and America had policies leading directly to nuclear war. Khrushchev, when he saw the danger, abandoned his policy. Kennedy did not. It was Khrushchev who allowed the human race to continue, not Kennedy.
Apart from the solution of the crisis, Russian policy towards Cuba would have been justifiable but for the danger of war, whereas American policy was purely imperialistic. Cuba established a kind of Government which the US disliked, and the US considered that its dislike justified attempts to alter the character of the Government by force. I do not attempt to justify the establishment of missiles on Cuban soil, but I do not see how the West can justify its objection to these missiles. The US has established missiles in Quemoy, in Matsu, in Taiwan, Turkey, Iran and all the countries on the periphery of China and the Soviet Union which host nuclear bases. I am interested in your statement that the Soviet Government was establishing hardened nuclear missile bases in Cuba, especially as neither Mr Macmillan nor Lord Home stated that the missiles in Cuba were nuclear, fitted with nuclear warheads or accompanied by nuclear warheads on Cuban soil.
In view of the conflict at the Bay of Pigs, it cannot be maintained that Cuba had no excuse for attempts to defend itself. In view of Kennedy's words to the returned Cuban exiles after the crisis, it cannot be said that Cuba still has no excuse.
You speak of 'the free world'. Cuba seems a case in point. The West seems little freer than the East.
You allude to my leaflet 'Act or Perish'. This was written at the height of the crisis when most informed people were expecting universal death within a few hours. After the crisis passed, I no longer considered such emphatic language appropriate, but, as an expression of the right view at the moment, I still consider it correct.
V. You say, and I emphatically agree with you, that what the world needs is less fear and more love. You think that it is to be achieved by the balance of terror. Is it not evident that, so long as the doctrine of the balance of terror prevails, there will be continually new inventions which will increase the expense of armaments until both sides are reduced to penury? The balance of terror consists of two expensively armed blocs, each saying to the other, 'I should like to destroy you, but I fear that, if I did, you would destroy me.' Do you really consider that this is a way to promote love? If you do not, I wish that you had given some indication of a way that you think feasible. All that you say about this is that you see no way except disarmament, but that disarmament is not feasible unless various political questions have first been settled.
My own view is that disarmament could now come about. Perhaps you know Philip Noel-Baker's pamphlet 'The Way to World Disarmament - Now!' In it he notes accurately and dispassionately the actual record of disarmament negotiations. I enclose it with this letter in case you do not know it. He has said, among other things that Soviet proposals entail the presence of large numbers of inspectors on Soviet territory during all stages of disarmament. In 1955 the Soviet Union accepted in full the Western disarmament proposals. The Western proposals were withdrawn at once upon their acceptance by the Soviet Union. It is far from being only the West that cries out for disarmament: China has pled for it again and again, the last time a few days 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 of the gross national product of three continents Africa, Latin America and Asia.
I also agree that disarmament would be easier to achieve it various political questions were first settled. It is for this reason that the Peace Foundation of which I wrote you is engaged at present in an examination of these questions and discussions with those directly involved in them in the hope of working out with them acceptable and feasible solutions. And it is with a view to enhancing the love and mitigating the hate in the world that the Foundation Is engaged in Questions relating to political prisoners and members of families separated by political ruling and red tape and to unhappy minorities. It has had surprising and considerable success in all these fields during the first year of its existence.
As to publication, I am quite willing that both your letter and mine should be published in full.
Yours sincerely Russell
enc:
1. 'Vietnam and Laos' by Bertrand Russell and William Warbey, MP
2. 'The Way to World Disarmament - Now!' by Philip Noel-Baker Unarmed Victory by Bertrand Russell
3. 'The Cold War and World Poverty' by Bertrand Russell
4. 'Freedom in Iran' by K. Zaki
5. 'Oppression in South Arabia' by Bertrand Russell
6. 'Congo - a Tragedy' by R. Schoenman
No reply was ever received by me to this letter to Lord Gladwyn who, so far as I know, never published either of the above letters.
16 Questions on the Assassination
The official version of the assassination of President Kennedy has been so riddled with contradictions that it has been abandoned and rewritten no less than three times. Blatant fabrications have received very widespread coverage by the mass media, but denials of these same lies have gone unpublished. Photographs, evidence and affidavits have been doctored out of recognition. Some of the most important aspects of the case against Lee Harvey Oswald have been completely blacked out. Meanwhile the FBI, the police and the Secret Service have tried to silence key witnesses or instruct them what evidence to give. Others involved have disappeared or died in extraordinary circumstances.
It is facts such as these that demand attention, and which the Warren Commission should have regarded as vital. Although I am writing before the publication of the Warren Commission's report, leaks to the press have made much of its contents predictable. Because of the high office of its members and the fact of its establishment by President Johnson, the Commission has been widely regarded as a body of holy men appointed to pronounce the Truth. An impartial examination of the composition and conduct of the Commission suggests quite otherwise.
The Warren Commission has been utterly unrepresentative of the American people. It consisted of two Democrats, Senator Russell of Georgia and Congressman Boggs of Louisiana, both of whose racist views have brought shame on the United States; two Republicans, Senator Cooper of Kentucky and Congressman Gerald R. Ford of Michigan, the latter of whom is leader of his local Goldwater movement, a former member of the FBI and is known in Washington as the spokesman for that institution; Allen Dulles, former director of the cia; and Mr McCloy, who has been referred to as the spokesman for the business community. Leadership of the filibuster in the Senate against the Civil Rights Bill prevented Senator Russell attending a single hearing during this period. The Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court, Earl Warren, who rightly commands respect, was finally persuaded, much against his will, to preside over the Commission, and it was his involvement above all else that helped lend the Commission an aura of legality and authority. Yet many of its members were also members of those very groups which have done so much to distort and suppress the facts about the assassination. Because of their connection with the Government, not one member would have been permitted under American law to serve on a jury had Oswald faced trial. It is small wonder that the Chief Justice himself remarked: "You may never know all of the facts in your life time.' Here, then, is my first question: Why were all the members of the Warren Commission closely connected with the US Government.
If the composition of the Commission was suspect, its conduct confirmed one's worst fears. No counsel was permitted to act for Oswald, so that cross-examination was barred. Later, under pressure, the Commission appointed the President of the American Bar Association, Walter Craig, one of the leaders of the Goldwater movement in Arizona, to represent Oswald. To my knowledge he did not attend a single hearing, but satisfied himself with representation, by observers. In the name of national security, the Commission's hearings were held in secret, thereby continuing the policy which has marked the entire course of the case. This prompts my second question: If, as we are told, Oswald was the lone assassin, where is the issue of national security? Indeed, precisely the same question must be put here as was posed in France during the Dreyfus case: If the Government is so certain of its case, why has it conducted all its enquiries in the strictest secrecy?
At the outset the Commission appointed six panels through which it would conduct its enquiry. They considered: (1) What did Oswald do on November 22, 1963? (2) What was Oswald's background? (3) What did Oswald do in the us Marine Corps, and in the Soviet Union? (4) How did Ruby kill Oswald? (5) What is Ruby's background? (6) What efforts were taken to protect the President on November 22? This raises my fourth question: Why did the Warren Commission not establish a panel to deal with the question of who killed President Kennedy?
All the evidence given to the Commission has been classified 'Top Secret', including even a request that hearings be held in public. Despite this the Commission itself leaked much of the evidence to the press, though only if the evidence tended to prove Oswald was the lone assassin. Thus Chief Justice Warren held a press conference after Oswald's wife Marina, had testified, he said, that she believed her husband was the assassin. Before Oswald's brother Robert, testified, he gained the Commission's agreement never to comment on what he said. After he had testified for two days, Allen Dulles remained in the hearing room and several members of the press entered. The next day the newspapers were full of stories that "a member of the Commission' had told the press that Robert Oswald had just testified that he believed that his brother was an agent of the Soviet Union. Robert Oswald was outraged by this, and said that he could not remain silent while lies were told about his testimony. He had never said this and he had never believed it. All that he had told the Commission was that he believed his brother was in no way involved in the assassination.
The methods adopted by the Commission have indeed been deplorable, but it is important to challenge the entire role of the Warren Commission. It stated that it would not conduct its own investigation, but rely instead on the existing governmental agencies the FBI, the Secret Service and the Dallas police. Confidence in the Warren Commission thus presupposes confidence in these three institutions. Why have so many liberals abandoned their own responsibility to a Commission whose circumstances they refuse to examine?
It is known that the strictest and most elaborate security precautions ever taken for a President of the United States were ordered for November 22 in Dallas. The city had a reputation for violence and was the home of some of the most extreme right-wing fanatics in America. Mr and Mrs Lyndon Johnson had been assailed there in 1960 when he was a candidate for the Vice-Presidency. Adlai Stevenson had been physically attacked when he spoke in the city only a month before Kennedy's visit. On the morning of November 22, the Dallas Morning News carried a full-page advertisement associating the President with communism. The city was covered with posters showing the President's picture and headed 'Wanted for Treason'. The Dallas list of subversives comprised 23 names, of which Oswald's was the first. All of them were followed that day, except Oswald. Why did the authorities follow as potential assassins every single person who had ever spoken out publicly in favour of desegregation of the public school system in Dallas, and fail to observe Oswald's entry into the book depository building while allegedly carrying a rifle over four feet long?
The President's route for his drive through Dallas was widely known and was printed in the Dallas Morning News on November 22. At the last minute the Secret Service changed a small part of their plans so that the President left Main Street and turned into Houston and Elm Streets. This alteration took the President past the book depository building from which it is alleged that Oswald shot him. How Oswald is supposed to have known of this change has never been explained. Why was the President's route changed at the last minute to take him past Oswald's place of work?
After the assassination and Oswald's arrest, judgement was pronounced swiftly: Oswald was the assassin, and he had acted alone. No attempt was made to arrest others, no road blocks were set up round the area, and every piece of evidence which tended to incriminate Oswald was announced to the press by the Dallas District Attorney, Mr Wade. In such a way millions of people were prejudiced against Oswald before there was any opportunity for him to be brought to trial. The first theory announced by the authorities was that the President's car was in Houston Street, approaching the book depository building, when Oswald opened fire. When available photographs and eye-witnesses had shown this to be quite untrue, the theory was abandoned and a new one formulated which placed the vehicle in its correct position.
Meanwhile, however, DA Wade had announced that three days after Oswald's room in Dallas had been searched, a map had been found there on which the book depository building had been circled and dotted lines drawn from the building to a vehicle on Houston Street. After the first theory was proved false, the Associated Press put out the following story on November 27: 'Dallas authorities announced today that there never was a map. Any reference to the map was a mistake.'
The second theory correctly placed the President's car on Elm Street, 50 to 75 yards past the book depository, but had to contend with the difficulty that the President was shot from the front, in the throat. How did Oswald manage to shoot the President in the front from behind? The FBI held a series of background briefing sessions for Life magazine, which in its issue of December 6 explained that the President had turned completely round just at the time he was shot. This, too, was soon shown to be entirely false. It was denied by several witnesses and films, and the previous issue of Life itself had shown the President looking forward as he was hit. Theory number two was abandoned.
In order to retain the basis of all official thinking, that Oswald was the lone assassin, it now became necessary to construct a third theory with the medical evidence altered to fit it. For the first month no Secret Service agent had ever spoken to the three doctors who had tried to save Kennedy's life in the Parkland Memorial Hospital. Now two agents spent three hours with the doctors and persuaded them that they were all misinformed: the entrance wound in the President's throat had been an exit wound, and the bullet had not ranged down towards the lungs. Asked by the press how they could have been so mistaken, Dr McClelland advanced two reasons: they had not seen the autopsy report - and they had not known that Oswald was behind the President! The autopsy report, they had been told by the Secret Service, showed that Kennedy had been shot from behind. The agents, however, had refused to show the report to the doctors, who were entirely dependent upon the word of the Secret Service for this suggestion. The doctors made it clear that they were not permitted to discuss the case. The third theory, with the medical evidence rewritten, remains the basis of the case against Oswald. Why has the medical evidence concerning the President's death been altered out of recognition?
Although Oswald is alleged to have shot the President from behind, there are many witnesses who are confident that the shots came from the front. Among them are two reporters from the Fort Worth Star Telegram, four from the Dallas Morning News, and two people who were standing in front of the book depository building itself, the director of the book depository and the vice-president of the firm. It appears that only two people immediately entered the building, the director, Mr Roy S. Truly, and a Dallas police officer, Seymour Weitzman. Both thought that the shots had come from in front of the President's vehicle. On first running in that direction, Weitzman was informed by 'someone' that he thought the shots had come from the building, so he rushed back there. Truly entered with him in order to assist with his knowledge of the building. Mr Jesse Curry, however, the Chief of Police in Dallas, has stated that he was immediately convinced that the shots came from the building. If anyone else believes this, he has been reluctant to say so to date. It is also known that the first bulletin to go out on Dallas police radios stated that 'the shots came from a triple overpass in front of the presidential automobile'. In addition, there is the consideration that after the first shot the vehicle was brought almost to a halt by the trained Secret Service driver, an unlikely response if the shots had indeed come from behind. Certainly Mr Roy Kellerman, who was in charge of the Secret Service operation in Dallas that day, and travelled in the presidential car, looked to the front as the shots were fired. The Secret Service have removed all the evidence from the car, so it is no longer possible to examine the broken windscreen. What is the evidence to substantiate the allegation that the President was shot from behind?
Photographs taken at the scene of the crime could be most helpful. One young lady standing just to the left of the presidential car as the shots were fired took photographs of the vehicle just before and during the shooting, and was thus able to get into her picture the entire front of the book depository building. Two FBI agents immediately took the film from her and have refused to this day to permit her to see the photographs which she took. Why has the FBI refused to publish what could be the most reliable piece of evidence in the whole case?
In this connection it is noteworthy also that it is impossible to obtain the originals of photographs of the various alleged murder weapons. When Time magazine published a photograph of Oswald's arrest - the only one ever seen - the entire background was blacked out for reasons which have never been explained. It is difficult to recall an occasion for so much falsification of photographs as has happened in the Oswald case.
The affidavit by police officer Weitzman, who entered the book depository building, stated that he found the alleged murder rifle on the sixth floor. (It was at first announced that the rifle had been found on the fifth floor, but this was soon altered.) It was a German 7.65mm. Mauser. Later the following day, the FBI issued its first proclamation. Oswald had purchased in March 1963 an Italian 6.5mm. carbine. DA Wade immediately altered the nationality and size of his weapon to conform to the FBI statement.
Several photographs have been published of the alleged murder weapon. On February 21, Life magazine carried on its cover a picture of 'Lee Oswald with the weapon he used to kill President Kennedy and Officer Tippett'. On page 80, Life explained that the photograph was taken during March or April of 1963. According to the FBI, Oswald purchased his pistol in September 1963. The New York Times carried a picture of the alleged murder weapon being taken by police into the Dallas police station. The rifle is quite different. Experts have stated that it would be impossible to pull the trigger on the rifle in Life's picture. The New York Times also carried the same photograph as Life, but left out the telescopic sights. On March 2, Newsweek used the same photograph but painted in an entirely new rifle. Then on April 13, the Latin American edition of Life carried the same picture on its cover as the US edition had on February 21, but in the same issue on page 18 it had the same picture with the rifle altered. How is it that millions of people have been misled by complete forgeries in the press?
Another falsehood concerning the shooting was a story circulated by the Associated Press on November 23 from Los Angeles. This reported Oswald's former superior officer in the Marine Corps as saying that Oswald was a crack shot and a hot-head. The story was published everywhere. Three hours later AP sent out a correction deleting the entire story from Los Angeles. The officer had checked his records and it had turned out that he was talking about another man. He had never known Oswald. To my knowledge this correction has yet to be published by a single major publication.
The Dallas police took a paraffin test of Oswald's face and hands to try to establish that he had fired a weapon on November 22. The Chief of the Dallas Police, Jesse Curry, announced on November 23 that the results of the test 'proves Oswald is the assassin'. The Director of the FBI in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in charge of the investigation stated: 'I have seen the paraffin test. The paraffin test proves that Oswald had nitrates and gun-powder on his hands and face. It proves he fired a rifle on November 22.' Not only does this unreliable test not prove any such thing, it was later discovered that the test on Oswald's face was in fact negative, suggesting that it was unlikely he fired a rifle that day. Why was the result of the paraffin test altered before being announced by the authorities?
Oswald, it will be recalled was originally arrested and charged with the murder of Patrolman Tippett. Tippett was killed at 1.06 p.m. on November 22 by a man who first engaged him in conversation, then caused him to get out of the stationary police car in which he was sitting and shot him with a pistol. Miss Helen L. Markham, who states that she is the sole eye-witness to this crime, gave the Dallas police a description of the assailant. After signing her affidavit, she was instructed by the FBI, the Secret Service and many police officers that she was not permitted to discuss the case with anyone. The affidavit's only description of the killer was that he was a 'young white man'. Miss Markham later revealed that the killer had run right up to her and past her, brandishing the pistol, and she repeated the description of the murderer which she had given to the police. He was, she said, 'short, heavy and had bushy hair'. (The police description of Oswald was that he was of average height, or a little taller, was slim and had receding fair hair.) Miss Markham's affidavit is the entire case against Oswald for the murder of Patrolman Tippett, yet District Attorney Wade asserted: 'We have more evidence to prove Oswald killed Tippett than we have to show he killed the President.' The case against Oswald for the murder of Tippett, he continued, was an absolutely strong case. Why was the only description of Tippett's killer deliberately omitted by the police from the affidavit of the sole eye-witness?
Oswald's description was broadcast by the Dallas police only 12 minutes after the President was shot. This raises one of the most extraordinary questions ever posed in a murder case: Why was Oswald's description in connection with the murder of Patrolman Tippett broadcast over Dallas police radio at 12.43 p.m. on November 22, when Tippett was not shot until 1.06 p.m.?
According to Mr Bob Considine, writing in the New york. Journal American, there had been another person who had heard the shots that were fired at Tippett. Warren Reynolds had heard shooting In the street from a nearby room and had rushed to the window to see the murderer run off. Reynolds himself was later shot through the head by a rifleman. A man was arrested for this crime but produced an alibi. His girl-friend, Betty Mooney McDonald, told the police she had been with him at the time Reynolds was shot. The Dallas police immediately dropped the charges against him, even before Reynolds had time to recover consciousness and attempt to identify his assailant. The man at once disappeared, and two days later the Dallas police arrested Betty Mooney McDonald on a minor charge and it was announced that she had hanged herself in the police cell. She had been a striptease artist in Jack Ruby's nightclub, according to Mr Considine.
Another witness to receive extraordinary treatment in the Oswald case was his wife, Marina. She was taken to the jail while hear husband was still alive and shown a rifle by Chief of Police Jesse Curry. Asked if it was Oswald's, she replied that she believed Oswald had a rifle but that it didn't look like that. She and her mother-in-law were in great danger following the assassination because of the threat of public revenge on them. At this time they were unable to obtain a single police officer to protect them. Immediately Oswald was killed, however, the Secret Service illegally held both women against their will. After three days they were separated and Marina has never again been accessible to the public. Held in custody for nine weeks and questioned almost daily by the FBI and Secret Service, she finally testified to the Warren Commission and, according to Earl Warren, said that she believed her husband was the assassin. The Chief Justice added that the next day they intended to show Mrs Oswald the murder weapon and the Commission was fairly confident that she would identify it as her husband's. The following day Earl Warren announced that this had indeed happened. Mrs Oswald is still in the custody of the Secret Service. To isolate a witness for nine weeks and to subject her to repeated questioning by the Secret Service in this manner is reminiscent of police behaviour in other countries, where it is called brain-washing. How was it possible for Earl Warren to forecast that Marina Oswald's evidence would be exactly the reverse of what she had previously believed?
After Ruby had killed Oswald, DA Wade made a statement about Oswald's movements following the assassination. He explained that Oswald had taken a bus, but he described the point at which Oswald had entered the vehicle as seven blocks away from the point located by the bus driver in his affidavit. Oswald, Wade continued, then took a taxi driven by a Darryll Click, who had signed an affidavit. An enquiry at the City Transportation Company revealed that no such taxi driver had ever existed in Dallas. Presented with this evidence, Wade altered the driver's name to William Wahley. Wade has been DA in Dallas for 14 years and before that was an FBI agent. How does a District Attorney of Wade's great experience account for all the extraordinary changes in evidence and testimony which he has announced during the Oswald case?
These are only a few of the questions raised by the official versions of the assassination and by the way in which the entire case against Oswald has been conducted. Sixteen questions are no substitute for a full examination of all the factors in this case, but I hope that they Indicate the importance of such an investigation. I am indebted to Mr Mark Lane, the New York criminal Lawyer who was appointed Counsel for Oswald by his mother, for much of the information in this article. Mr Lane's enquiries, which are continuing, deserve widespread support. A Citizens' Committee of Inquiry has been established in New York1 for such a purpose, and comparable committees are being set up in Europe.
1 Room 422,156 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. (telephone: YU 9-0850).
In Britain I invited people eminent in the intellectual life of the country to join a 'Who killed Kennedy Committee', which at the moment of writing consists of the following people: Mr John Arden, playwright; Mrs Carolyn Wedgwood Benn, from Cincinnati, wife of Anthony Wedgwood Benn, MP; Lord Boyd-Orr, former director-general of the UN Food, and Agricultural Organisation and a Nobel Peace Prize winner; Mr John Calder, publisher; Professor William Empsom, Professor of English Literature at Sheffield University; Mr Michael Foot, Member of Parliament; Mr Kingsley Martin, former editor of the New Statesman; Sir Compton Mackenzie, writer; Mr J. B. Priestley, playwright and author; Sir Herbert Read, art critic; Mr Tony Richardson, film director; Dr Mervyn Stockwood, Bishop of Southwark; Professor Hugh Trevor-Roper, Regius Professor of Modern History at Oxford University; Mr Kenneth Tynan, Literary Manager of the National Theatre; and myself.
We view the problem with the utmost seriousness, US Embassies have long ago reported to Washington world-wide disbelief in the official charges against Oswald, but this has never been reflected by the American press. No US television programme or mass circulation newspaper has challenged the permanent basis of all the allegations that Oswald was the assassin, and that he acted alone. It is a task which is left to the American people.
The Labour Party’s Foreign Policy
A speech delivered at the London School of Economics on 15th February, 1965, by Bertrand Russell
Before his speech, which begins below. Lord Russell made this emergency statement on the situation in Vietnam:
'The world is on the brink of war as it was at the time of the Cuban Crisis. American attacks on North Vietnam are desperate acts of piratical madness. The people of South Vietnam want neutrality and independence for their country. America, in the course of a war of pure domination in the South, attacked a sovereign state in the North because the us has been defeated by the resistance of the entire population in South Vietnam.
We must demand the recall of the Geneva Conference for immediate negotiations. I urge world protest at every us Embassy. And in Britain the craven and odious support for American madness by the Labour Government must be attacked by meetings, marches, demonstrations and all other forms of protest.
If this aggressive war is not ended now, the world will face total war. The issue must be resolved without a nuclear war. This is only possible by world outcry now against the United States. The American proposition that an independent Vietnam free of US control is worse than a nuclear war is madness. If America is allowed to have its cruel way, the world will be the slave of the United States.
Once more America summons mankind to the brink of world war.
Once more America is willing to run the risk of destroying the human race rather than bow to the general will.
Either America is stopped now or there will be crisis after crisis until, in utter weariness, the world decides for suicide.'
My purpose in what I am about to say is to examine the relations between the foreign policy of the Labour Party before the General Election and the policy of the Labour Government in regard to international politics. I should like to recall to you, first, the preamble to that section - almost the last - in the Labour Manifesto of last September, entitled 'New Prospects for Peace'. I take it from The Times of September 12th.
It begins with a very brief history of East-West relations since 1945 and says that even in 'the grimmest periods... Labour always regarded die Cold War strategies as second best... and remained faithful to its long-term belief in the establishment of East-West co-operation as the basis for a strengthened United Nations developing towards World Government.'
It castigates the Tory Government for their old-fashioned policies, especially the Tory failure to relax tensions and to halt the spread of nuclear weapons, 'The Labour Government will do all that is possible to rectify these policies.'
The Manifesto then considers the means to be taken to 'relax tensions'. 'First and foremost', it says, 'will come our initiative in the field of disarmament. We are convinced that the time is opportune for a new breakthrough in the disarmament negotiations, releasing scarce resources and manpower desperately needed to raise living standards throughout the world.'
'We shall appoint a Minister in the Foreign Office with special responsibility for disarmament to take a new initiative in the Disarmament Committee in association with our friends and allies.'
'We have', it says, 'put forward constructive proposals:
1. (1) To stop the spread of nuclear weapons.
2. (2) To establish nuclear-free zones in Africa, Latin America and Central Europe.
3. (3) To achieve controlled reductions in manpower and arms.
4. {4) To stop the private sale of arms.
5. (5) To establish an International Disarmament Agency to supervise a disarmament treaty.'
The Labour Government has, to be sure, appointed a Minister in the Foreign Office with special responsibility for disarmament and even an arms control and disarmament research unit headed by a reader in international' relations at the LSE. It has, indeed, appointed so many new Ministers and departments for various phases of disarmament and defence and offence that one is hard put to it to know to whom to apply for what.
As to the five proposals. Nothing, so far as the Press has told us, has been done about implementing any of them. Far from taking measures to stop the spread of nuclear weapons, the Labour Government has done quite the opposite. Nor has it taken measures to achieve controlled reductions in manpower and arms - it has turned down any suggestion of reducing the British Army in Germany. Little seems to have come out of the propositions of Mr Rapacki concerning a nuclear-free zone in Central Europe. Chinese proposals - pleas, even - for a nuclear-free zone in Asia and/or the Pacific have been passed over in apparent scorn. I know of no measures taken to stop the private sale of arms or to establish an International Disarmament Agency.
A few lines further on in the Manifesto, the following sentence occurs: 'Labour will stand by its pledge to end the supply of arms to South Africa.' 'Britain,' it says, 'of all nations, cannot stand by as an inactive observer of this tragic situation.' Admirable statements, and backed by previous admirable statements: the Sunday Times of January 26, 1964, reports Mrs Barbara Castle as saying, in regard to a possible order from South Africa for Bloodhound bombers, 'If an order is placed before the election we shall do all we can to stop it.' Mr Wilson has, in the past, referred to the arms traffic with South Africa as 'this bloody traffic in these weapons of oppression', and called on the people of Britain to 'Act now to stop' it ... But, on November 25, 1964, Mr Wilson announced that the Labour Government had determined to honour the contract entered into during the rule of the Tory Government for 16 Buccaneers for South Africa.
Following the five proposals that I have cited, the Manifesto says: 'In a further effort to relax tension, a Labour Government will work actively to bring Communist China into its proper place in the United Nations; as well as making an all-out effort to develop East-West trade as the soundest economic basis for peaceful co-existence.' Britain has achieved nothing since the advent of the Labour Government towards the admission of China into the UN nor has it appreciably increased East-West trade. Traders are usually ahead of politicians, Tory traders no less than Labour traders.
The Manifesto continues with an item which, in the light of the Government's actions, does not read well: it says, 'Peaceful coexistence, however, can only be achieved if a sincere readiness to negotiate is combined with a firm determination to resist both threats and pressures'. It is difficult to equate this statement with the refusal, curt and out-of-hand, given by the Labour Government to the proposals of the Chinese Government for summit discussions of disarmament and other international matters which our Press told us took place soon after the Labour Government's advent.
That the Labour Government 'will continue to insist on guarantees for the freedom of West Berlin' we do not yet know - the matter has not come to the fore during Labour's rule. Nor do we yet know how far the Labour Government will be able to implement its admirable suggestions concerning the UN nor how far it will be able to take us towards world government, which the Manifesto says is the final objective - as I believe it should be. So far, Britain under the Labour Government has done nothing to strengthen the UN, though it has been, according to The Guardian (27 January, 1965) 'giving close study to the question of designating specific military units for potential use in United Nations peace-keeping operations'. In the light of events during the past two or three months, I cannot, however, feel very hopeful as I read what the Manifesto has to say on these matters, much as I agree with it regarding them.
I propose to take up further on in my discussion of the Labour Government's policy the question of how far the measures which it has so far indulged in tend to relax the tensions of the Cold War, as the Manifesto says the Party wishes to do. But I will continue for a moment with the next item mentioned in the Manifesto; the Party's 'Defence Policy Outline' and its 'New Approach' to defence.
It excoriates the 'run down defences' of the Tory Government whose wastefulness and insistence upon sticking to such affairs as Blue Streak, Skybolt and Polaris, and whose inefficient policy in regard to the aircraft industry has resulted in our defences being obsolescent and meagre. It proposes to institute a revision of the Nassau agreement to buy Polaris know-how and missiles from the United States. But, in face of the storm about TSR 2 bombers and of the fact that it is continuing plans for Polaris submarines and is discussing a nuclear umbrella for South East Asia, one wonders how far the Government intends to go with such plans. It seems extraordinary that, having set itself such a programme as the Manifesto suggests, it had not examined the problems of conversion very carefully and come to some sort of plan to avoid or minimise the hardships that would be entailed in the way of unemployment and waste of machinery and money. But no evidence has been given the ordinary newspaper reader that any such basic studies were made.
It is possible that the Government will strengthen conventional regular forces in order to contribute its share to NATO and keep its peace-keeping commitments to the Commonwealth and the UN as the Manifesto says it stresses doing. This seems, however, unless it runs concurrently with cutting down in other quarters, to be contrary to the controlled reduction in arms which it also says it will strive for.
The next item is both bewildering and interesting. The Manifesto says: 'We are against the development of national nuclear deterrents and oppose the current American proposal for a new mixed-manned nuclear surface fleet (MLF). We believe in the inter-dependence of the Western alliance and will put constructive proposals for integrating all NATO's nuclear weapons under effective political control so that all the partners in the Alliance have a proper share in their deployment and control.' A little further on, when discussing the folly of the Conservatives in entering into the Nassau agreement and in talking about an 'independent British deterrent', it says: This nuclear pretence runs the risk of encouraging the 'spread of nuclear weapons to countries not possessing them, including Germany'. And yet, when the Prime Minister announced what one must suppose are the 'new constructive proposals' which the Manifesto told us to expect, they turned out to be the Atlantic Nuclear Force (ANF). The ANF is to be not merely, as was the MLF, a mixed-manned force of surface ships, but is to include other nuclear delivery systems, including aircraft and submarines. It therefore encourages the spread of nuclear weapons more enthusiastically than does the MLF - which I agree was a deplorable suggestion - and certainly encourages the spread of nuclear weapons to Germany. The remedy is, therefore, far worse than the disaster it professes to correct.
If you would like a glimpse of the chicanery indulged in, I advise you to read the reports of the Parliamentary debate on defence in the week beginning 14th December, and the report in The Times of 18 December entitled 'Britain to waive control of Polaris weapons', 'Our bombers over Asia' in the Daily Worker of the same date, and 'Britain to retain part of V-bomber force' in The Guardian of the previous day. Amongst other information to be gained from these various sources are the facts that Britain proposes to give a certain number of its ships and V-bombers by devious routes to NATO, but will keep others to be used by Britain outside the NATO area. The Government thereby persuades the populace that it is keeping its promise to do away with its independent deterrent and at the same time can, independently, form 'a nuclear umbrella' over South East Asia. By means of the ANF we soothe German feelings, since the Germans will participate equally with us in the control and benefits of this nuclear force and will, therefore, be distracted from pushing for an independent nuclear deterrent of their own. This scheme of the ANF has been put to the public through the Press in such a way that the layman is entirely baffled and cannot understand either what the ANF consists in or how very contrary it is to professed beliefs of die Labour Party as given in the Manifesto or as understood by the lay members of the Party. It is a bare-faced turn-about carried off, in so far as the Government has succeeded in carrying it off, by being wrapped up in a welter of words and the happy slogans that the Prime Minister did not knuckle tinder to the us in the matter of the MLF and Britain is once more taking the initiative in constructive pacific proposals.
The Manifesto concludes with eight paragraphs in which it first gives itself a reason for not carrying out its promises at once by saying that it does not yet know what damage inflicted upon the country by the Tories it will have to repair. It seems a little odd, perhaps, that the members of the Labour Party who aspired to office were so taken by surprise by the financial state of the country - a situation that was fairly apparent to many laymen - and had not prepared any adequate plans to cope with it. But I do not intend to go into economics and finances here. The Manifesto goes on to say that a Labour Government will first of all have to make itself more efficient than the Government which it supersedes. Presumably the rash of new offices and holders of office in the present Government is its answer to the need of efficiency. Secondly, it says that the Government will seek to establish a true partnership between the people and their Parliament; and thirdly it must foster, throughout the nation, a new and more critical spirit. The Government can give a lead,' it says, 'by subjecting to continuing and probing review of its own Departments of State, the administration of justice and the social services.' And here I should like to recount an experience of mine that appears to run counter to the promise contained in the statement from the Manifesto I have just cited. Three eminent Russians were appointed by the Russian Government to discuss various topics of international interest with me. In November these three Russians applied for visas to enter Britain. The Home Office at first refused visas for all three, but after protest, allowed visas for two of them. In regard to the most eminent of the three, the Chief Archivist of the Supreme Soviet, the Home Office remained adamant. I wrote to the Home Office - and I am, of course, speaking of the Labour Home Office - begging them to rescind their ban upon a visa for the Chief Archivist. After many weeks during which I was unable to learn anything of the fate of my letter, I received a reply from the Home Secretary saying that he did not feel able to grant my request. I wrote again and wrote also to the Prime Minister. After some time, I received from the Home Secretary the same reply as before, and from the Prime Minister a notification that he agreed with the Home Secretary and would not ask him to reconsider. On no occasion from beginning to end, has any reason been given me or to the Russians for the ban. If this experience is typical, it hardly bears out the claim of the Manifesto that the Government would, or does welcome criticism or open discussion with its electors and members of its Party.
The Manifesto ends with a stirring pronouncement that the Labour Government 'must put an end to the dreary commercialism and personal selfishness which have dominated the years of Conservative government' and says that 'the Labour Party is offering Britain a new way of life that will stir our hearts'.
There is a lot of ironic fan to be got out of that Manifesto now that we have seen its fruits.
So much for the Manifesto upon which the present Government was elected and for how far it has carried out its promises in certain respects. I propose now to return to one of its most important promised intentions: its determination to relax the tensions of the Cold War. And I beg of you to ask yourselves, as I recount what has been happening in certain areas of international activity, whether you consider that this activity to which the present Government has contributed and proposes to continue to contribute is calculated to relax any tensions whatever.
You doubtless know a good deal about the war in South Vietnam, but I will give a very brief outline of its progress and character. South Vietnam was part of French Cochin-China, but after a long process of civil war, the French were excluded from the whole region. A conference was summoned to meet at Geneva in 1954. The conclusions reached were sensible, and, if they had been carried out, no trouble would have arisen. Vietnam was to be independent and neutral, and was to have a parliamentary government established by a General Election. The Americans did not like this. They professed to suspect that Vietnam would become part of the Communist bloc if left to itself and that North Vietnam was already, and has continued to be, part of the Communist bloc, in spite of reiterated statements by the Government of North Vietnam that they wish to be neutral.
The Americans sent observers who decided that South Vietnam was too disturbed for a general election. There were in South Vietnam three parties; the peasants, who constituted the large majority; the Buddhists; and a tiny minority of Christians, who had been supporters of the French. The Americans decided to support this small faction. They did so at first by sending technical aid and material and 'Advisers'. It was soon seen, however, that the 'Advisers' were taking far more than a passive part in the war that ensued between the American-supported minority and the Buddhists and peasants. The war has continued now for many years and the American-supported Government - or, more outspokenly, the Americans - have steadily lost ground. It has been warfare of an incredibly brutal kind, brutal to a degree seldom equalled by any civilised Power.
Eight million people have been put in barbed wire concentration camps involving forced labour. The country - civilians, animals and crops, as well as warriors and jungle - has been sprayed with jelly gasoline and poison chemicals. Fifty thousand villages were burnt in 1962 alone. The following account was published in the Dallas Morning News on January 1, 1963: 'Supposedly the purpose of the fortified villages is to keep the Vietcong out. But barbed wire denies entrance and exit. Vietnamese fanners are forced at gunpoint into these virtual concentration camps. Their homes, possessions and crops are burned. In the province of Kien-Tuong, seven villagers were led into the town square. Their stomachs were slashed, their livers extracted and put on display. These victims were women and children. In another village, expectant mothers were invited to the square by Government forces to be honoured. Their stomachs were ripped open and their unborn babies removed.' And the anti-Communist Democratic Party of Vietnam told the International Control Commission that: 'Decapitation, eviscerations and the public display of murdered women and children are common.' It is, as the Nation of January 19, 1963, called it, 'a dirty, cruel war', and one can only agree with the leader of the Vietnamese Democratic Party when he said in an interview on CBS (reported in the Vietnamese Democratic Bulletin for September, 1963): 'It is certainly an ironic way to protect the peasant masses from Communism.'
It is generally admitted that there is no hope that the Americans can win this war. Obviously failing in South Vietnam, they are now considering extending the war to North Vietnam in spite of the fact that China has declared its support of Vietnam if that should happen, and Russia may follow suit. The Labour Party had, hitherto, been opposed to this policy which involves risk of world war. As late as June 4, 1964, the Daily Worker said that Mr Wilson, at the end of talks in Moscow, was opposed to carrying the war into North Vietnam as well as to North Vietnamese infiltration into the South. But, since the formation of his Government, the Labour Party has agreed with America to support that country in its war of conquest. The Guardian reports on December 10, 1964, that Mr Wilson told President Johnson that Britain wholly supported the legitimate role the United States is playing in South Vietnam. The Labour Government is doing this- in spite of the fact that the vast majority of the inhabitants of South Vietnam are opposed to this American war and want to achieve peace and neutrality - as the North Vietnamese have repeatedly asserted that they also wish - and in spite of the extreme unparalleled brutality of the war, and in spite of the fact - and this is to be noted - that the Americans have no shred of right in South Vietnam and are conducting a war of a type to which the Labour Party has always been passionately opposed. Moreover, if the Americans extend the war to North Vietnam, as they threaten to do, we and they will be involved in a war with China of which the consequences are bound to be horrible - possibly all-out nuclear war. For all these consequences, the Labour Government will share the responsibility.
A similar situation is developing in the Congo. Katanga is incredibly rich in valuable minerals, especially cobalt. Cobalt would be necessary for the Doomsday Bomb. When the Congo became independent, the Western Powers, especially America and Belgium, made a determined effort to preserve for the West the products of Katanga. Lumumba, who was the Congo's choice as Prime Minister, was murdered, and Tshombe, under Western pressure, was made Prime Minister of the whole country. The country rose against this decision, and the Americans and Belgians sent a military expedition to enforce their will. This expedition, the British, under the leadership of the Labour Government, supported, and they allowed it to use Ascension Island as a convenient spot from which to conduct the invasion. There is, in consequence, a war of devastation in progress throughout the Congo. The likelihood is that this will degenerate into guerilla warfare which will continue without securing victory for the West. Perhaps an excerpt from the writing of one of those who was a mercenary fighting for the West in the Congo would bring home the sort of war we are supporting there. I quote this from News of the World for 22 November, 1964:
'On the way to Stanleyville one of our vehicles broke down. We took our gear off it and retreated into the bush. Late in the afternoon we went back to the vehicle, but found it completely wrecked ...
'The young English lieutenant was furious. "We will give the bastards a real lesson." He ordered us to move at once on the nearest village and take it apart.
'It was a familiar enough command. It seemed to me we had been taking villages apart, innocent villages of peaceful farming folk who did not want any part of this war, all the way along the track from far down in the south.
'We would turn up unexpectedly, open fire without warning, race through the place, burning every pathetic shanty and shack to the ground regardless of who might be inside. The idea was to spread the image of our determination and ruthlessness; to terrorise the whole area; to give the rebels an example of what they were in for...
'It seemed almost certain that the villagers knew nothing about the activities of the rebels. I doubted they even knew the lorry had been destroyed.
'It was just before dusk when we came. Unsuspecting women were hustling around, carrying water and going about the last of their day's chores. Children were playing in the dust, laughing and shouting to one another.
'We paused for a few minutes, and then came the order to fire. There was a great crackle of shots from machine guns and our deadly new Belgian rifles. Women screamed and fell. Little children just stood there, dazed, or cartwheeled hideously as bullets slammed into them.
'Then, as usual, we raced into the place, still firing as we went. Some of us pitched cans of petrol on to the homes before putting a match to them. Others threw phosphorus hand grenades, which turned human beings into blazing inextinguishable torches of fire.
'For a while, as we raced along, there was bedlam. Shrieks, moans, shrill cries for mercy. And, above all, the throaty, half-crazed bellowing of those commandoes among us who quite obviously utterly loved this sort of thing.
'Then, as we moved away beyond the village, the comparative silence, die distant, hardly distinguishable cries of the wounded, the acrid smell of burning flesh.'
The account continues, but I do not think that I need pursue it to illustrate my point. The cardinal point in the training of these mercenaries - and again I quote - is 'that never, in any circumstances, should prisoners be taken. "Even if men, women and children come running to you" I was told, "even if they fall on their knees before you, begging for mercy, don't hesitate. Just shoot to kill,"'
I need hardly say that this young man was sickened of being a hired assassin and ceased to be one. But, in England, under the aegis of the Labour Government, we are continuing to support this slaughter. On November 20, 1964, The Times announced that Mr George Thomson, our Minister of State at the Foreign Office, was informed during the previous week by the Belgian Government that they were engaged in contingency planning with the us Government. Britain then gave her permission to use Ascension Island. The Times also announced that Belgian troops were flown to Ascension Island with British permission. The Daily Express of 30 November, 1964, reports: 'At one stage the Cabinet considered sending British troops. Britain was the first to suggest armed invervention to Belgium. But officials in Whitehall now say that the terrain in rebel-held areas prevents large-scale troop landings.' And on December 15, 1964, Mr George Thomson stated: 'We give outright support to Tshombe.' Yet, two days later our Minister of Defence (one of them, anyway) 'referred to "primitive barbarism" in the Congo and said that we had to see that other parts of Africa and Asia were not plunged into "a similar state of chaos."' Does this mean that we are to uphold similar bloody and unjustified slaughter otherwhere in Africa, carried on with the permission and help of the Labour Government? The record is one of which I as an Englishman cannot be proud. As a member of the Party responsible, I am sickened.
But to move on: Similar troubles are being stirred up by British initiative in the war between Malaysia and Indonesia, a war likely to be as bloody and atrocious as the two of which I have been speaking and to last as long, with no victory possible. On page 65 of the report of the 62nd Annual Conference of the Labour Party, July, 1963, you will find that Labour supported the Malaysia Bill for the relinquishment of British sovereignty over North Borneo, Sarawak and Singapore. Labour felt - and I quote - 'that the federation of Malaysia would play an important stabilising role in S.E. Asia.' On December 10 of this last year, The Guardian reports that Mr Wilson told President Johnson that Britain has 8,000 troops in Borneo, 20,000 in Malaysia as a whole: and the New Statesman of January 15, 1965, says that 'the bulk of Britain's fleet, some 700 ships including a Commando "bushfire" ship and aircraft carriers' are now in the waters near Malaysia and Indonesia. The Commonwealth Brigade is in Malaya facing Sumatra.'
But these are not the only places where the Labour Government is supporting Western imperialism. In both British Guiana and Aden and the South Arabian Protectorates it is following the policies of the Tory Government although it has sent its Colonial Secretary travelling to the trouble spots to study the situations once again.
All these are shameful attempts to support the tottering supremacy of Britain and America against the wishes of the populations concerned, and against the vast movement for independence which is agitating formerly subject peoples. It is a terrible fact that the Labour Government is supporting these hopeless and cruel attempts at subjugation. It is an almost worse fact that it is running the risk for us of these wars escalating to large nuclear wars. Its reception of China's overtures towards peace and disarmament is a dreary pointer to its attitude. Soon after the Labour Government took office, Premier Chou En-lai wrote to our Prime Minister proposing that the governments of the world should undertake not to use nuclear weapons, and suggesting a summit conference. Mr Wilson replied: 'I do not believe the procedure you have suggested is the best way to make progress in present circumstances.' He criticised China on two grounds: for carrying out a nuclear test in the atmosphere and for her approach being 'not realistic'. This attitude on the part of the Prime Minister hardly seems a means of relaxing tensions or of resolving differences between East and West or of halting the spread of nuclear weapons - all of which the electoral Manifesto said the Labour Government would try to do. Again it is following the dangerous policies of the past. In the past few years the West has rebuffed several overtures made by China towards nuclear disarmament and denuclearised zones. If China is not included in disarmament discussions there is little hope for peace in the world. The Labour Government might have taken - might still take - a new and more realistic attitude, taking the promises of the East, as well as the West, at face value, at least as a basis for discussion, until they have been proved to be hollow. But our new Minister for Disarmament seems to be interested chiefly in how to keep up our armed forces more cheaply than hitherto. (See his speech at Salisbury 2 February, 1965, and the extracts from it which the Labour Party appears to think important.)
In none of the actions of the Labour Government has there been evidence of the promised effort to relax the tensions of the Cold War.
What the Labour Government has accomplished in the way of carrying out the promises made in its electoral Manifesto is to appoint a Minister for Disarmament in the Foreign Office. Possibly, also, it has made the Government more efficient by the vast proliferation of new offices, ministries and committees which it has instituted.
It has done nothing apparent to Implement Labour's promises in the very important fields of disarmament negotiations, the establishment of nuclear-free zones, the reduction of man-power and arms, the private sale of arms, a drastic re-examination and modification of our defence policy, a re-negotiation of the Nassau agreement, the admission of China into the UN, or the revivification of the morale and the increase of the powers of the UN. Nor does it show any signs of the self-criticism or of the welcome to criticism by their fellow Labour Party members which it advocated.
Moreover, it has directly contravened its definite statements in regard to arms for South Africa and to opposition to die spread of nuclear arms. And, perhaps worst of all, it has increased by many times and in many ways the Cold War tensions between East and West.
What are we to think of this betrayal? Is it the result of a kind of blackmail owing to the parlous state of the economy and finances of the country? But, surely, those who were about to take office must have examined the economic and financial condition of the country and the extent of its dependence upon the United States, and made plans to carry out their promises with the results of heir examination in mind. Had they not the courage to attack their problems boldly - or, indeed, with the probable end-results of their actions in mind) realistically?
What hope is there for Parliamentary democracy when the leaders of a Party, upon achieving office, act in direct contradiction to their electoral promises? Those Labour Party members who do not like treachery have hitherto kept quiet in the interests of unity. But what is the use of unity in evil? The cardinal virtues in gangs of criminals are unity and loyalty. Before we are committed irrevocably - and we are rapidly being so committed - to policies leading to disaster for ourselves and for all the inhabitants of the world, we should make known in unmistakable terms our abhorrence of present policies. To wait much longer will be to wait too long. If the Labour Party is to regain any part of its former championship of vitally necessary reforms, those who voted for it on the basis of its electoral Manifesto will have to insist that the leading members of this present Government must lose hope of ever holding office again. Whatever they may have done or not done in regard to their pre-election promises, they have got us into, and propose to keep us in, at least two of the most cruel and useless wars that there have ever been - wars of extermination. Against this policy we must protest in every possible way.
Speech to First Meeting of Members of the War Crimes Tribunal, November 13, 1966
Allow me to express my appreciation to you for your willingness to participate in this Tribunal. It has been convened so that we may investigate and assess the character of the United States' war In Vietnam.
The Tribunal has no clear historical precedent. The Nuremberg Tribunal, although concerned with designated war crimes, was possible because the victorious allied Powers compelled the vanquished to present their leaders for trial. Inevitably, the Nuremberg trials, supported as they were by State power, contained a strong element of realpolitik. Despite these inhibiting factors, which call in question certain of the Nuremberg procedures, the Nuremberg Tribunal expressed the sense of outrage, which was virtually universal, at the crimes committed by the Nazis in Europe. Somehow, it was widely felt, there had to be criteria against which such actions could be judged, and according to which Nazi crimes could be condemned. Many felt it was morally necessary to record the full horror. It was hoped that a legal method could be devised, capable of coming to terms with the magnitude of Nazi crimes. These ill-defined but deeply-felt, sentiments surrounded the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Our own task is more difficult, but the same responsibility obtains. We do not represent any State power, nor can we compel the policymakers responsible for crimes against the people of Vietnam to stand accused before us. We lack force majeure. The procedures of a trial are impossible to implement.
I believe that these apparent limitations are, in fact, virtues. We are free to conduct a solemn and historic investigation, uncompelled by reasons of State or other such obligations. Why is this war being fought in Vietnam? In whose interest is it being waged? We have, I am certain, an obligation to study these questions and to pronounce on them, after thorough investigation, for in doing so we can assist mankind in understanding why a small agrarian people have endured for more than twelve years the assault of the largest industrial power on earth, possessing the most developed and cruel military capacity.
I have prepared a paper, which I hope you will wish to read during your deliberations. It sets out a considerable number of reports from Western newspapers and such sources, giving an indication of the record of the United States in Vietnam. These reports should make it clear that we enter our enquiry with considerable prima facie evidence of crimes reported not by the victims but by media favourable to the policies responsible, I believe that we are justified in concluding that it is necessary to convene a solemn Tribunal, composed of men eminent not through their power, but through their intellectual and moral contribution to what we optimistically call 'human civilisation'.
I feel certain that this Tribunal will perform an historic role if its investigation is exhaustive. We must record the truth in Vietnam. We must pass judgement on what we find to be the truth. We must warn of the consequences of this truth. We must, moreover, reject the view that only indifferent men are impartial men. We must repudiate the degenerate conception of individual intelligence, which confuses open minds with empty ones.
I hope that this Tribunal will select men who respect the truth and whose life's work bears witness to that respect. Such men will have feelings about the prima facie evidence of which I speak. No man unacquainted with this evidence through indifference has any claim to judge it.
I enjoin this Tribunal to select commissions for the purpose of dividing the areas of investigation and taking responsibility for their conduct, under the Tribunal's jurisdiction. I hope that teams of qualified investigators will be chosen to study in Vietnam the evidence of which we have witnessed only a small part. I should like to see the United States Government requested to present evidence in defence of its actions. The resistance of the National Liberation Front and of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam must also be assessed and placed in its true relation to the civilisation we choose to uphold. We have about five months of work before us, before the full hearings, which have been planned for Paris.
As I reflect on this work, I cannot help thinking of the events of my life, because of the crimes I have seen and the hopes I have nurtured. I have lived through the Dreyfus Case and been party to the investigation of the crimes committed by King Leopold in the Congo. I can recall many wars. Much injustice has been recorded quietly during these decades. In my own experience I cannot discover a situation quite comparable. I cannot recall a people so tormented, yet so devoid of the failings of their tormentors. I do not know any other conflict in which the disparity in physical power was so vast. I have no memory of any people so enduring, or of any nation with a spirit of resistance so unquenchable.
I will not conceal from you the profundity of my admiration and passion for the people of Vietnam. I cannot relinquish the duty to judge what has been done to them because I have such feelings. Our mandate is to uncover and tell all. My conviction is that no greater tribute can be provided than an offer of the truth, born of intense and unyielding enquiry.
May this Tribunal prevent the crime of silence.
The Aims and Objectives of the Tribunal November 1966
The conscience of mankind is profoundly disturbed by the war being waged in Vietnam. It is a war in which the world's wealthiest and most powerful State is opposed to a nation of poor peasants, who have been fighting for their independence for a quarter of a century. It appears that this war is being waged in violation of international law and custom.
Every day, the world Press and, particularly, that of the United States, publishes reports which, if proved, would represent an ever growing violation of the principles established by the Nuremberg Tribunal and rules fixed by international agreements.
Moved and shocked by the suffering endured by the Vietnamese people and convinced that humanity must know the truth in order to deliver a serious and impartial Judgement on the events taking place in Vietnam and where the responsibility for them lies, we have accepted the invitation of Bertrand Russell to meet, in order to examine these facts scrupulously and confront them with the rules of law which govern them.
It has been alleged that in the first nine months of 1966, the air force of the United States has dropped, in Vietnam, four million pounds of bombs daily. If it continues at this rate to the end of the year, the total will constitute a greater mass of explosives than it unloaded on the entire Pacific theatre during the whole of the Second World War. The area bombarded in this way is no bigger than the states of New York and Pennsylvania. In the South, the us forces and their docile Saigon allies have herded eight million people, peasants and their families, into barbed wire encampments under the surveillance of the political police. Chemical poisons have been, and are being, used to defoliate and render barren tens of thousands of acres of farmland. Crops are being systematically destroyed - and this in a country where, even in normal times, the average man or woman eats less than half the food consumed by the average American (and lives to less than one third of his age).
Irrigation systems are deliberately disrupted. Napalm, phosphorus bombs and a variety of other, sadistically designed and hitherto unknown weapons are being used against the population of both North and South Vietnam. More than five hundred thousand Vietnamese men, women and children have perished under this onslaught, more than the number of soldiers the United States lost in both world wars, although the population of Vietnam had already been decimated during the Japanese and French occupations and the famine which followed the Second World War.
Even though we have not been entrusted with this task by any organised authority, we have taken the responsibility in the interest of humanity and the preservation of civilisation. We act on our own accord, in complete independence from any government and any official or semi-official organisation, in the firm belief that we express a deep anxiety and remorse felt by many of our fellow humans in many countries. We trust that our action will help to arouse the conscience of the world.
We, therefore, consider ourselves a Tribunal which, even if it has not the power to impose sanctions, will have to answer, amongst others, the following questions:
1. Has the United States Government (and the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and South Korea) committed acts of aggression according to international law?
2. Has the American Army made use of or experimented with new weapons or weapons forbidden by the laws of war (gas, special chemical products, napalm, etc.)?
3. Has there been bombardment of targets of a purely civilian character, for example hospitals, schools, sanatoria, dams, etc., and on what scale has this occurred?
4. Have Vietnamese prisoners been subjected to inhuman treatment forbidden by the laws of war and, in particular, to torture or to mutilation? Have there been unjustified reprisals against the civilian population, in particular, the execution of hostages? 5. Have forced labour camps been created, has there been deportation of the population or other acts tending to the extermination of the population and which can be characterised juridically as acts of genocide?
If the Tribunal decides that one, or all, of these crimes have been committed, it will be up to the Tribunal to decide who bears the responsibility for them.
This Tribunal will examine all the evidence that may be placed before it by any source or party. The evidence may be oral, or in the form of documents. No evidence relevant to our purposes will be refused attention. No witness competent to testify about the events with which our enquiry is concerned will be denied a hearing.
The National Liberation Front of Vietnam and the Government of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam have assured us of their willingness to co-operate, to provide the necessary information, and to help us in checking the accuracy and reliability of the information. The Cambodian Head of State, Prince Sihanouk, has similarly offered to help by the production of evidence. We trust that they will honour this pledge and we shall gratefully accept their help, without prejudice to our own views or attitude. We renew, as a Tribunal, the appeal which Bertrand Russell has addressed in his name to the Government of the United States. We invite the Government of the United States to present evidence or cause it to be presented, and to instruct their officials or representatives to appear and state their case. Our purpose is to establish, without fear or favour, the full truth about this war. We sincerely hope that our efforts will contribute to the world's justice, to the re-establishment of peace and the liberation of the oppressed peoples.
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Resolution of the Tribunal
We are grateful to the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation for the work which it has already done. We are sure that the preliminary steps already taken by it will help us to complete our task within a reasonable time and with considerable more efficiency than it would have been possible if its preliminary work had not helped our deliberations.
Appeal for Support for the International War Crimes Tribunal
For several years Western news media have unwittingly documented the record of crime committed by the United States in Vietnam, which comprises an overwhelming prima facie indictment of the American war. The terrible series of photographs, and accounts of torture, mutilation and experimental war has impelled Bertrand Russell to call us together to conduct an exhaustive inquiry into the war in all its aspects. Scientists, lawyers, doctors and world-renowned scholars will serve on commissions investigating the evidence. Witnesses will be brought from Vietnam to give their first-hand testimony. Investigating teams will travel throughout Vietnam and Indochina, gathering data on the spot. The documentation published in the West and elsewhere will be relentlessly examined. This five months' intensive work, requiring travelling scientific inquiry, and the detailed research, will cost a vast amount of money. Twelve weeks of public hearings will be even more expensive.
The International War Crimes Tribunal is determined to be financially independent. This can only be accomplished through the contributions of every individual who supports the work of the Tribunal and recognises the profound importance of the full realisation of its task.
We command no state power; we do not represent the strong; we control no armies or treasuries. We act out of the deepest moral concern and depend upon the conscience of ordinary people throughout the world for the real support - the material help, which will determine whether people of Vietnam are to be abandoned in silence or allowed the elementary right of having their plight presented to the conscience of Mankind.