wr a (ion FACTORS BEARING ON WORLD PROBLEMS
& a aS Linus Pauling
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Se A <% tract of Address before the California State Psychological
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Association Convention, December 14, 1962

y During recent decades science has become a more and more important

  
 

part of the world, It is probably justified to say that there is now
no world problem to which science is not related in a significant way.
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The rapid increase in the world population that is now occurring

Og is the result largely of the progress in science that has led to

greatly decreased infant and child mortality and increase in longevity.

Further progress along these lines is certain to occur, if civilization
Mod h is not destroyed by nuclear war, The molecular structure of the human
Kf » body ig now being investigated with great vigor. The nature of the

‘ molecules of DNA that carry the units of heredity, the genes, has now

ANA been discovered, and the way in which these molecules can manufacture

duplicates of themselves is believed to be known. The molecular basis

of some diseases, called molecular diseases, is now known, Patients
WS Cyrith the serious disease sickle-cell anemia manufacture a kind of hemo-
globin molecule that is slightly different from those hemoglobin
molecules manufactured by other people. The difference amounts to

only one part in 300 in the structure of the hemoglobin molecule;

but even this small difference is enough to produce the serious mani-

 

(PR festations of the disease. As further knowledge about the molecular
oy basis of disease is obtained, it will be used to improve the methods
Ss AN of treatment of the diseases and to decrease their incidence, This

7 progress in decreasing the amount of human suffering will accentuate rv

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Also, we must look to, science for the solution of this problem, ‘Pare
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both by the development of reliable and cheap methods of prevention [2 ?.
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of conception and by the discovery of ways of achieving increased
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production of food, REY 5

It is in the field of war that science has had its greatest CONCE;
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impact on world problems, During the Second World War the standard
weapon was the one~ton bleckbuster, in which the explosive was one .
ton of TNT or similar molecular explosive, About three million tons - TEP
of high explosive was used in bombs exploded during the Second World Pca) ‘
War, in which about 40 million people were killed. In modern nomen- NS
clature, the war was a three~-megaton war,

Seventeen years ago, as a result of scientific discoveries,
atomic bombs were developed and exploded at Hiroshima and Nagasaki,
These bombs, each of which involved only a few pounds of nuclear

explosive, had the explosive energy of 20,000 tons of TNT, They

eo killed about 100,000 people apiece,
SRC The present-day superbombs have explosive energy about 1000

 

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times greater than that of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombs.
A 20-megaton superbomb has explosive energy seven times that of all
the explosives used in the whole of the Second World War. One of
these bombs exploded over Nev York would destroy it nearly completely,
and might kill 10 million people,

Scientists have estimated that 2000 megatons of bombs exploded
over the United States would probably kill half of the American
people, and 4000 megatons exploded over the Soviet Union would kill

half of the Russian people. 10,000 megatons exploded over the United
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States and 20,000 exploded over the Soviet Union would kill or seriously

injure all but a few million people, perhaps two million people, in ph
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0 ry) iN The stockpile of nuclear weapons possessed by the United States i 5 x
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is now estimated to be 200,000 megatons. This is 50 times the amount
estimated to be needed to kill haif of the Russian people, and ten OVEIKI
times the amount needed to kill practically all of them. The stock-
pile of the Soviet Union can only be guessed at; it may be 50,000
magatons,
Possessing a larger stockpile of bombs than is necessary to kill
everybody in an enemy country is described as having an overkill

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ro existence of these nuclear weapons and of the means for

delivering them requires that war be abandoned as the method of settling
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di es between great nations, The threat of nuclear war as an instru-
ment of national policy also must be abandoned, and replaced by a
rational alternative, In its editorial of October 30, 1962, The New
York Times referred to the imposition of the Cuban blockags as

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"a crisis that had brought the two great nuclear powers as close to
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amnihilative war as they had ever been,"

 

 

There is essentially unanimous agreement among scientists “hat
unless disarmament is achieved and a system of international law is
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instituted to permit the solution of international problems in accordance
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with principles of justice, the world will ultimately be destroyed ina

nuclear war. But the problem of achieving disarmament is essentially

 

 

 

a scientific problem, It is necessary that there be satisfactory ISTIC z&
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international controls and inspection, and, because of the nature of LITTLE
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nuclear weapons and of the vehicles for delivering them, the problem
of designing the system of controls and inspection is mainly a
scientific problem, tt involves, of course, not only physicists,
chemists, seismologists, and other scientists in the physical field,
but also psychologists and other social scientists,
An example of the way in which scientists make contributions to
the solution of this is provided by the Pugwash Conferences, ten of which
") ve taken place so far, A proposal about zonal disarmament made at
one of the Pugwash Conferences was later incorporated into the
sy American wr Another proposal, about the use of sealed seismic
x5 ta MT. as a means of detecting underground nuclear tests, was

nimously approved at the Tenth Pugwash Conference, The London

 

Times on September 10, 1962, said "There is probably no other subject
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on which people in all countries are so nearly unanimous as the need

to put an end to nuclear testing. . . . The Tenth Pugwash Conference--

composed of scientists from 35 countries--has endorsed a proposal
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which they rightly describe as novel and which has all the simplicity
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of a new idea, If one nation, they say in effect, cannot trust
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another, let them both trust automata. . . . The world will wait with

 

 

the more anxiety on their decision (the decision of the statesmen)
—————

because of the new warning that has been given, The words 'a plague
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on both your houses! were spoken only when the damage caused by obduracy
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had already been done, Statesmen of today will risk the same epitaph

if they cannot agree." oS

The Soviet government, fearful of spying under the puise of

 

 

inspection of a nuclear test ban, has approved the Pugwash suggestion

of inspection by the sealed seismic stations, The American government
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has not accepted this proposal, as yet, in part, as one spokesman
said, not because they would necessarily be ineffective, but because

we do not want to give up the general principle of on-site inspection

of disarmament, a

qs VK It is the seismologists and physical scientists whose discoveries

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and developments in instrumentation are fundamental to progress in the

PLE: solution of this problem, But the psychologists may also play a most

  

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RN Ned! important part in achieving disarmament. In the article in the

Saturday Evening Post for December 1, 1962 describing the interview

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of Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara by Stewart Alsop, it-ds stated
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qu? QP inet Premier Khrushchev had told the British Ambassador in Moscow that

 

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Americans were not "crazy" enough to "sacrifice 30 million people

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re yf for 3 million people in Berlin," Mr, Alsop then states that "Khrushchev

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must be persuaded that we are ‘crazy! enough to do just that 6g”

 

 

I myself am working in the field of the chemical basis of mental
disease, and I am deeply interested in the question of the nature of
cerebral mechanisms, I feel, however, that I have to call upon you,
members of the California State Psychological Association, to help me
to understand why Mr. Alsop felt that he could make such a statement,
one a seems to me to be completely irrational, in an article that
may have been read by several million people, There is presumably
an explanation, along psychological or perhaps nbychiatric lines,
of the sort of irrationality illustrated in Mr, Alsop's statement.
The solution of the greatest of all world problems, that of preventing
the destruction of a major part of the world in a nuclear war » would
without doubt be aided by the thorough analysis of this sort of

irrationality.
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Another example is provided in the same article, Mr, Alsop

asked the question "What do you think about the proposition that the

 

 

 

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price of any kind of nuclear war is so high that the nuclear weapon
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is not a rational instrument of national policy?
In his answer Secretary McNamara said "No sane man wants nuclear,
or ony king of war, ‘But war bas to be conceivable in support of
on national interests, Otherwise you have no real national power,"
As scientists, we may ask why Mr, McNamara made the statement
Se re the second of his sentences, His third sentence is not an explanation,
Ne w Mr, McNamara, apparently without even considering its possibility,
oer < rejects the alternatives to his thesis, in particular the alternative,
4 a system of international law based upon the vrinciple of settling

S oa disputes in accordance with justice to the nations and the people con-

 

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rae oy cerned might be developed. IDEL ;
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a9 n In his answer Mr, McNamara also said "We have today sufficient
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o> nuclear power so that we could take a ful full surprise attack and respond
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in such a way that we would Uterally des destroy the abrossor." We are
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forced to accept the conclusion that a great war might lead to the

complete destruction of both the Soviet Union and the United States,

Under these circumstances, how can we say that to retain the institu-

 

tion of war, to retain the concept of war, as Secretary McNamara says
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is necessary, would in any way support vital national interests?
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The time has now come when the physical scientists and the social
scientists, the physicists, chemists, and psychologists and psychiatrists,
must join together in analyzing the scientific factors that bear on this
most important of all world problems, the problem of preventing the
suicide of civilization,

Linus Pauling