The Meeting at Pugwash

...The experts present at Pugwash were either geneticists or "open-minded" biophysieists— the latter inclined to think that, since the issue is unsettled, caution calls for the use of the more "pessimistic" assumption, i.e., that the damage is proportional to exposure all the way down to zero...

...These points were formulated by the author of the present article shortly before the conference...

...The lack of significant conclusions in this area was inevitable, considering the difficult nature of the subject and the character of the meeting...

...If taken seriously, and not as mere pious pronouncements of Sunday faith without relation to Monday's realities, the eleven-point declaration would obligate scientists to work for a radical change in the convictions of their peoples and the policies of their governments, and for a far-reaching change in the education of youth, which carries these convictions from generation to generation...

...In the last two years, the first theme has been narrowed down to the problem of radiological dangers (since the other destructive aspects of nuclear weapons have ceased to be controversial) . Several factors have combined to arouse a burning public interest in this question: the Presidential campaign of 1956, in which Mr...

...Instead, it must be considered in the context of the political and strategic situation in the world...

...The brief report of Committee II contains no startling new proposals...

...While the discussion of the perils of atomic weapons has narrowed down, in the last two years, to the controversy over their radiological clangers, our second problem—that of arms control—has widened...

...Scientists from Western countries accepted the declaration without objections—some undoubtedly with tacit skepticism as to its practical value, and some with enthusiasm...

...From the point of view of the geneticists, who admit of no "safe" dose, each test is bound to produce a definitely foreseeable number of malignancies—as it is bound to produce a certain number of genetic deviations...

...The radiological effects of atomic weapons have caused interest in the political and military implications of atomic energy—originally confined almost entirely to physicists—to spread to biologists and medical scientists...

...As should be generally known by now, two types of damage are to be considered—genetic and somatic...

...However, this does not mean that sharp and controversial opinions in this field were not presented both in the general sessions and in private conversations...

...One of the Soviet scientists objected to the formulation of several points...

...When people—scientists or non-scientists—think of the social responsibility of scientists, they think of two things...

...They did not pretend to represent more than a first tentative draft...

...The picture also has another side...

...The invitations were sent out by Lord Russell, together with several signers of the Russell-Einstein appeal of 1955, from which the London meeting had developed...

...This is easier said than done...

...Geneticists agree that, from their point of view, there is no "safe" minimum dose of radiation...

...Neither Born nor von Weizsacker nor Kathleen Lonsdale nor the SSRS leaders were there...

...To this, others answer that this consequence of weapon testing, even if it were established beyond doubt (which the proponents of the "medical" theory deny), has to be weighed against the importance of weapon testing from the point of view of national defense...

...Tlie same fact was spelled out very explicitly in the July 22 speech of Secretary of State Dulles...

...He interested Cyrus Eaton, the Canadian-born American industrialist, in supporting a new conference...

...This writer was the only participant from the United States...

...Secrecy surrounding much of the atomic-energy work prevented (and still prevents) those American scientists who are qualified to discuss these matters from talking frankly with colleagues in their own country, not to speak of those abroad...

...The Soviet participants were designated by the Academy of Sciences of the USSR...

...They therefore speak of a "maximum permissible dose" of radiostrontium (as one could speak of the maximum number of polio viruses or of TB bacilli which can invade the average human organism without the latter developing the disease...

...Some last-minute invitations were sent out when it turned out that not all of those who had accepted could make the trip to Pugwash...

...Many other prominent scientists have similar, even if less extreme, conceptions of the obligations of scientists...

...Upon his prompting, the Parliamentary Association for World Government sponsored an international conference of scientists...

...The 22 men who assembled at Pugwash had varying concepts of the purpose of the meeting...

...how to reduce the probability that a local military conflict would erupt into an all-out nuclear war (could a self-imposed or agreed restriction on the type of weapons used in such a war help...

...still, in many respects the Pugwash meeting, too, was an improvised affair—even if much less so than the 1955 meeting in London...

...the same was certainly also the hope of the Russians and the Chinese...

...how to reduce the possibility of a sudden, devastating aggression (could this he achieved, for example, by aerial and ground inspection...

...Many geneticists, on the other hand, regard malignancies as consequences of somatic gene mutations and believe therefore that their number should be strictly proportional to radiation exposure, as is the number of mutations in the reproductive cells, which cause genetic deviations...

...and, in relation to the natural incidence of similar events, the frequency of bomb-induced bone and blood malignancies will be much more significant than that of genetic malformations...

...Again, it was the initiative—and prestige—of Bertrand Russell that overcame stagnation...

...Participants were invited on an individual basis, because of their known interest in the impact of science on public affairs, and not as delegates of any organization...

...No thorough discussion of the eleven points could be undertaken in the crowded days of Pugwash...

...He also assumed most of the financial burden of the meeting...

...Some of the logical coherence of the declaration as a whole was lost in this adjustment...

...Nevertheless, several thousand such cases a year, scattered over the globe and not distinguishable from similar malignancies due to other causes, will be difficult if not impossible to recognize statistically against the background of a thousand times higher natural incidence of the same diseases...

...for example, he disliked the use of the words "scientific revolution" which occurred several times in the original draft...

...However, they mill be there...

...Three main areas of interest were easily distinguishable, roughly corresponding to the matters assigned to the three subcommittees...

...The Pugwash discussion showed clearly that the most important unresolved disagreement among experts concerns not the radiation exposure caused by bomb tests (meaning by this both the external radiation from fallout as a whole and the internal radiation from the components which accumulate in the human body), but the biological consequences likely to be produced by this exposure...

...Professor von Weizsacker, in interpreting the declaration of 13 German physicists against the atomic rearmament of the German Army, suggested that scientists should decide what weapons increase the danger of war and what weapons decrease it...

...or they emphasize the direct connection between a deliberate governmental act and the production of malignancies in one case, and the absence of such a simple and clear connection in others...

...nor did they object to point 11 proclaiming that science should be free from any outside dogma and permitted to question all postulates, "including her own...

...They included, however, the present Chairman of the Federation of American Scientists, Professor Doty of Harvard, and Professor Selove of the University of Pennsylvania, the Chairman of the Radiological Danger Committee of the FAS...

...and Great Britain (and probably of the Soviet Union as well) has become increasingly based on the utilization of nuclear weapons on every level—strategic and tactical—and in every war —local or general, on land, sea, and in the air...

...The first responsibility is direct and immediate...

...For a large part of this period, the ideological split between the Communist and the non-Communist parts of the world endangered collaboration even in the purely scientific areas...

...but they also agree that at present the average radiation exposure resulting from bomb tests is small compared to that produced by natural radiation, so that, unless the bomb testing rate should increase by a large factor, its genetic consequences for the human species will be slight...

...the great concern of the Japanese people (stimulated by the memory of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, rekindled by the injury to Japanese fisherman and the appearance of radioactive tuna on Japanese markets after the Bikini test in 1954, and kept alive by the comparative proximity of all test sites—American, British and Russian—to the Japanese islands) ; and, last but not least, the Soviet exploitation of the test-ban proposal as a potent propaganda weapon...

...and so the controversy can —and will—go on, with science unable to supply a universally valid answer...

...in other words, that nobody (except those accidentally overexposed, like the Japanese fishermen) runs the danger of getting bone cancer (or leukemia) because of them...

...The preparations for the meeting were in the hands of two British physicists, Professors Rotblat of London and Powell of Bristol...

...This, however, is not important...

...fn its extreme form, the first responsibility is accepted by the "conscientious objectors" among scientists...

...Most important was the experience that among scientists of all countries—including those from the East—these subjects can be discussed thoughtfully and without the discussion degenerating into an exchange of tiresome cliches...

...The sense of the statements was not changed, but their strength was reduced so much that several of them now appear almost trivial...

...Under these conditions, radically different from those in 1946-48, the discussion of the problems of the atomic arms race 011 a purely technical level has become futile...

...Eaton offered for this purpose his home, in the old clipper-building town of Pugwash on the Northumberland Straits in Nova Scotia, which he converted into a recreation and conference center for scholars...

...Atom scientists hold private East-West parley THE MEETING AT PUCWASH By Eugene Rabinowitch Editor, "Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists" Ever since 1945, American scientists have looked forward to a time when they would be able to talk with scientists of other countries about the great challenge with which the release of atomic energy has confronted them...

...From this point of view, it can be asserted that the strontium-90 contamination caused by tests so far is "sufe...

...It was even more gratifying that, after comparing notes, British, American, Russian and Japanese experts came to close agreement...

...Neither Western nor Soviet scientists raised objections to point 9, which suggests shifting the emphasis in the education of youth from factional interests of various nations and societies to the fundamental and permanent community of men "irrespective of national boundaries and economic and political systems...

...The contamination figures which they held to be most probable did not differ in order of magnitude from those given out by American and British Government experts—although, because of the tendency of Government experts to use the more optimistic assumptions, the official data are generally somewhat lower (by a factor of about six, which is not very important in the general context of the controversy over the biological dangers of nuclear bomb tests...

...scientists at Pugwash, including the Russians, now had no compunction about: subscribing to the statement of Committee II that "a completely effective and reliable control system appears to be no longer practicable...

...With gratification one must record that, as scientists, they were all able—and willing—to set aside their emotional or political aims and settle down to factual, quantitative analysis of the radioactive contamination produced by test explosions...

...the other is their duty to participate in public affairs so as to help mankind in its adjustment to the new habitat created by science...

...they should then seek to convince their countries of the wisdom of their conclusion, and if necessary try to impose it by personal refusal to work on weapons they consider dangerous...

...From the ethical or religious point of view, many scientists and non-scientists alike will argue (and have argued) that a deliberate action of governments producing annually thousands of malignancies in people all over the world is indefensible and should be slopped—-however small this number may be compared to the total number of similar cases...

...Even in this conditional form, the reference to bomb tests caused two participants to vote against the report of Committee II, while a third one (the author of this article) abstained...

...Western scientists wholeheartedly share this hope...

...The financial obstacles are formidable enough in themselves, but even more difficult to overcome is the lack of time and energy...

...A meeting of scientists, particularly one as improvised and crowded in time as that at Pugwash, could not be expected to produce remarkable contributions in this field...

...Still others say that we have no reason to deal with this danger differently from the way we deal with other man-made dangers to life and health—such as industrial contamination of air and water, tobacco, alcohol, automobiles, and medical X-rays...

...It is the credo of the "Society for the Social Responsibility of Scientists" (SSRS), whose members refuse to participate in military research of any kind and under any circumstances...

...That the difficulty of a reliable control of nuclear disarmament was growing with the accumulation of stockpiles of atomic explosives and weapons (which no conceivable technical procedure can be expected to verify with certainty) was clear to most scientists before the London conference...

...Living up to these statements would mean opposing present practices (and often also the prevailing theory) not only in the Soviet Union, but to a considerable extent in many countries of the West...

...His criticism was directed mainly at what he considered exaggerated representation of both the destructive and the constructive possibilities of science...

...It was largely improvised and was attended by only a few scientists—and not the most representative ones...

...Consequently, the collective, long-range educational responsibility of scientists was the only aspect considered there...

...If the declaration is to be taken seriously as a basis for action by a considerable number of scientists, it will have to undergo long and searching rewriting until a truly satisfactory formulation is reached...

...It was felt in both Britain and the U.S...

...For a while after London, it looked as if the idea was doomed to slow death...

...Soviet scientists, in particular, however well they were aware of the disagreeable truth, were not free at that time to admit that atomic-weapon stockpiles cannot be verified by objective methods...

...Committee III had before it, as a working paper, a set of eleven points, intended to summarize the beliefs shared bv scientists of nil countries, on which a long-range, worldwide educational program could be based...

...None of those present at Pugwash represented such views...

...Two years ago, the initiative of Bertrand Russell led to the first breach in the wralls of isolation...

...These are enormously difficult questions, which tax the highest political and strategic wisdom, questions in which technical control and inspection are but minor ingredients...

...It met in London on August 3-5, 1955—on the eve of the Geneva conference on peaceful uses of atomic energy...

...A few working papers were prepared beforehand...

...The problem of somatic effects—i.e., primarily of bone and blood malignancies caused by the presence in fall-out of the bone-seeking element radiostrontium (Sr 90)—is more difficult to answer...

...Another increasingly obvious fact, which has made complete abolition of atomic weapons an unrealistic aim, is that the military planning of the U.S...

...However, at that time complete and effeo lively controlled abolition of atomic weapons still was the declared aim of all governments...

...The Japanese physicists undoubtedly hoped, when they traveled to Pugwash, to see the conference condemn further nuclear tests...

...The AEC advisers in this field are predominantly oncologists, convinced of the existence of a "threshold" for the radiation-induction of malignancies...

...The Soviet scientists at Pugwash undoubtedly looked forward to the continuation and further expansion of their participation in such discussions...

...In contrast to London, where non-scientists outnumbered scientists, all participants in Pugwash were physicists, chemists or biologists—with the exception of Dr...

...As to the first one, there is universal agreement that the number of mutations produced by radiation— and thus also the number of deviations from normal inherited characteristics—is proportional to the radiation exposure, however small it may be...

...No oncologist (cancer specialist) was there to present the arguments for the opposite view...

...Since then, the difficulty has become generally recognized...

...Much will depend on Soviet developments which nobody can predict...

...One is the responsibility of scientists for the results of their work and the use society makes of it...

...They were the dangers of atomic energy, the problems of atomic disarmament, and the responsibility of scientists in the atomic age (these three topics had already been marked out at London...

...In the first ten years after Hiroshima, progress toward such cooperation was slow...

...that, if the movement initiated in London was to become representative of the world's scientific community, it must be carried by the scientists themselves independently of all outside organizations, official or private...

...An all-out nuclear war, on the other hand, could have truly alarming genetic consequences...

...Because of these objections, several points of the declaration were considerably toned down before they were unanimously approved by the conference...

...The third, Professor Skobeltsyn, a pioneer in cosmic-ray research, was the Soviet representative on the scientific and technical advisory group during the UN atomic-energy control negotiations in 1946-48...

...Regrettably, those expected from Germany and India were unable to come...

...Many cancer experts believe that the number of malignancies produced by radiation is not proportional to the exposure all the way down to zero, but that malignancies can occur only when radioactive contamination exceeds a certain limit...

...and, finally, how to utilize the deadlock of air-atomic deterrence for gradual resolution of critical international conflicts, such as the division of Germany or the strife in the Middle East...

...This is because of the "atomic" character of the carriers of heredity—genes— which are damaged one at a time and produce genetic deviations independently of each other...

...Brock Chisholm, former head of the World Health Organization, who is a psychiatrist, and Professor David Cavers, Associate Dean of Law at Harvard, who has made atomic-energy and disarmament problems his special interest...

...if not, it will be soon forgotten...

...an individual scientist is supposed to be responsible for the results of his own work...

...The now available statistical material is insufficient to decide which of the two theories is correct...

...This is so for two reasons: Tn the first place, selective affinity of bone tissue for strontium makes uncertain a reliable comparison of the predominantly internal radiation exposure caused by fall-out with the predominantly external exposure due to natural causes...

...It has become increasingly clear that technical aspects of disarmament controls (to which the discussion was originally to be restricted because of special competence which scientists can claim in this area) cannot be considered separately from the wider political and strategic aspects of the disarmament problem, and that the latter, in turn, cannot be approached realistically without considering the settlement of the major issues between nations...

...The second responsibility is a long-range, collective one, carried by scientists as a professional group...

...Their opponents, in turn, point out the difference between the localized and largely voluntary exposure of men to the last-named dangers, and the universal and compulsory exposure of mankind to fall-out...

...Two of them, the organic chemist Professor Topchiev (General Secretary of the Soviet Academy) and the biophysicist Professor Kuzin, had also attended the 1955 London conference...

...Stevenson advocated ending atomic weapons tests, partly because of their biological danger...

...Professor Max Born has presented their case eloquently...

...or a similar restriction on the number and character of targets to be attacked...

...Professor Rotblat, one of the organizers of the meeting, is Executive Vice Chairman of the British Atomic Scientists Association...

...However, they were intended to add up to a consistent view of the world—different from that which now underlies the attitudes of nations and the relations between them...

...When the meeting opened, scientists from ten countries were on hand...

...It has become part of several extremely complex questions, such as how to minimizo the danger of the outbreak of an all-out nuclear war (can this aim be furthered, for example, by partial disarmament steps—some of them perhaps purely symbolic—which would reduce the tension created by the all-out arms race...

...Concerning the nuclear arms tests—whose stopping loomed very large in the minds of many participants when they came to Pugwash, not only as a measure of health protection, but also (and, for some, above all) as a significant first step toward disarmament—the report merely mentions that this "could be a good first step...

...Undoubtedly, the ratio between natural and bomb-produced damage is much more unfavorable in this case than in the case of genetic damage, where only external radiation to the reproductive organs has to be considered...

...more often than not, it is thought to be personal rather than collective...

...The Pugwash conference was a great step forward from the London conference of two years ago...

...Other meetings of scientists interested in the impact of science on public affairs now seem likely...