Letter from Nobel Laureate
Hans A. Bethe
Cornell University
R. Newman Laboratory of Nuclear Studies
Ithaca, NY 14853-5001
Telex:WU1671305
Telfax: 607-254-455
As the Director of the Theoretical division at Los Aamos, I
participated at the most senior level in the World War II
Manhattan that produced the first atomic weapons.
Now, at age 88, I am one of the few remaining such senior
persons alive. Looking back at the half-century since that time,
I feel the most intense relief that these weapons have not been
used since World War II, mixed with the horror that tens of
thousands of such weapons have been built since that time - one
hundred times more than any of us at Los Alamos could ever have
imagined.
Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and
dismantlement of nuclear weapons development. But in some
countries nuclear weapons still continues. Whether and when
the various Nations of the World can agree to stop this is
uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this
process by withholding their skills.
Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease
and desist from work creating, developing, improving and
manufacturing further nuclear weapons - and, for that matter,
other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and
biological weapons.
(signed)
Hans A. Bethe
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