THE VOICE OF THE DOLPHINS
McClaughry, John
The Voice of the Dolphins by JOHN McCLAUGHRY The clatter of silverware subsided, and nine United States Senators turned their attention from dinner to the speaker of the evening, a top State...
...It contained little information but a great deal of editorial opinion by Senator Simpson...
...The opening shot was fired in May, 1964, by columnist Alice Widener...
...For example, one New Mexico paper carried an advertisement stating that "The Council for a Livable World believes we can have peace through weakness" and gave a list of defense establishments and uranium mines in New Mexico that would allegedly be closed down if the Council had its way...
...What of the eventual future of Taiwan...
...expansion of East-West trade...
...The plan was simple in its essentials: Take the "sweet voice of reason...
...The Council also announced support of Representative Ralph Harding of Idaho...
...Szilard's death did not interrupt the activities of the Council he had brought into being...
...Army Colonel Henry Ashton Crosby...
...a U.S...
...This informal meeting of a group of busy Senators with a leading authority in a critical field was arranged by an organization little known but increasingly influential — the Council for a Livable World...
...At the end, the dolphins die from a virus and the institute's records are destroyed by fire...
...The solutions, to no one's surprise, bear a striking resemblance to Szilard's own ideas...
...and two of the Council's scientific advisers were men with suspiciously pro-Communist leanings...
...progress toward a minimum deterrent nuclear balance...
...In all, the Council estimated that candidates had received more than $58,000 from its supporters...
...Another phase of the program was Council sponsorship of speaking engagements by Senators and prominent scientists...
...The GOP opponents of Harding, Montoya, McGee, and Moss immediately attempted to capitalize on the Council's support as a campaign issue...
...In it he described the state of affairs in Washington, the dangers of the current situation, and the steps he felt our government should take to prevent further deterioration...
...He immediately flew to the Sixth Pugwash Conference of scientists, held that year in Moscow...
...Szilard was a "pacifist physicist...
...The Voice of the Dolphins by JOHN McCLAUGHRY The clatter of silverware subsided, and nine United States Senators turned their attention from dinner to the speaker of the evening, a top State Department expert on Far Eastern affairs...
...effective United Nations peacekeeping forces...
...On May 30, the moving force behind the Council, Dr...
...In addition to funds, each supporter would also pledge to cast his vote in national elections solely on the candidates' stands on the issues of war and peace, disregarding domestic issues...
...With Wigner, Szilard went to Einstein's vacation home in the summer of 1939 and persuaded the great physicist to send his now famous letter to President Roosevelt urging a crash program for applying atomic energy to military purposes...
...The Hungarian-born Szilard came to America in 1938, a refugee from Hitler's Germany...
...What lies behind the China-India border dispute...
...Out of that letter grew the vast Manhattan Project which built the world's first atomic bomb...
...Seminars were continued with increased frequency for Senators and staff members of both parties...
...This material, later read into the Congressional Record by Senator Milward Simpson of Wyoming under the deceptive title, "Factual Information on the Council for a Livable World," was immediately distributed to Republican candidates...
...McGovern won by only 597 votes—a margin that probably could not have been achieved without the money contributed through the Council...
...Arms Control and Disarmament Agency...
...It is unrealistic to attribute the election of any candidate to the support of the Council...
...The Council would not be a membership organization but a movement, receiving its finances from supporters who would pledge two per cent of their annual gross income to the Council...
...Then, in February, 1961, he returned to Washington to see if there was a "market for wisdom" within the new Kennedy Administration...
...to halt the arms race before it reached the point of no return...
...The questions were incisive and challenging...
...I wish you success in your efforts toward this goal...
...add money...
...Sibal was swept under by the Johnson landslide in Connecticut...
...Included among his observations were the following: ^1 The Council's goal is a totally defenseless United States...
...Instead, it tries to give what help it can to candidates who will seek ways to apply the wisdom of the "dolphins" in the search for peace...
...None of these assertions was true...
...legislation to facilitate economic conversion in case of disarmament...
...add votes...
...Seven influential scientists joined Szilard in forming the Council for Abolishing War...
...and the two men accused of Communist sympathies, while once members of an informal committee formed by Szilard, had never had any official or advisory position with the Council...
...Disheartened by his Washington experience, which had been punctuated by the Bay of Pigs invasion and the Berlin Wall crisis, Szilard at first declined the invitations...
...full American control of NATO nuclear weapons...
...Vice...
...Senator Clark was so impressed with the cogency of the memorandum that he initiated hearings on the problem before his Subcommittee...
...elections...
...The Council, said Szilard, would be composed of about a dozen distinguished scientists who would formulate policy objectives and direct the twofold functions of the Council—a research organization to seek workable solutions to long range problems, and a lobby to gain acceptance of solutions already devised...
...f The Council aims to "turn this country into a fourth-rate power at the mercy of the international wolfpack...
...disarmament...
...to diminish the risk of war between the Soviet Union and the United States...
...Throughout 1963, the Council actively sought for the right man to become its executive director...
...In a letter to James Patton, a Council director, the Chief Executive wrote last June: "I hope that Dr...
...and Senate challenger Joseph Montoya, Congressman from New Mexico...
...This theme was to be repeated frequently during the next few months...
...A direct mail campaign was timed to each speech, in addition to the general direct mail campaign which the Council had under way...
...Besides Harding, support went to two Democrats seeking seats in the House: Charles Officer in New Hampshire, and Weston Vivian in Michigan...
...In early September, the Republican Senatorial Policy Committee began to compile material on the Council for use against Democratic Senatorial aspirants supported by the Council...
...The high regard for the Council extends to President Johnson...
...Leo Szilard...
...It was not to be expected that the work of the Council would escape the notice of the right wing...
...Following these meetings, a detailed memorandum on conversion was sent to Senator Clark, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Manpower...
...Some supporters earmarked their contributions for three other Senators —Democrats Frank Church of Idaho and Wayne Morse of Oregon, and Republican Jacob Javits of New York...
...How will China behave as an atomic power...
...Three of the five Republicans were re-elected to the House: Lindsay and Halpern of New York, and Tup-per of Maine...
...f The Council's "troika approach" was composed of infiltration of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, extragovernmental conferences with Communist scientists, and "buying U.S...
...After reviewing the records of each Senatorial candidate, the Council narrowed the field to two principal beneficiaries—incumbent Democrat Joseph Clark of Pennsylvania, and George McGovern, a former Democratic Congressman from South Dakota who had served as President Kennedy's Food for Peace Director and was now seeking a Senate seat...
...Soon the questions began to flow briskly...
...The advertising sponsors went on to accuse the Council of advocating unilateral disarmament and the exchange of top secret information with the Soviet Union...
...Under Crosby's direction the Council accelerated its program in 1964...
...GOP challenger Pettis of California was unsuccessful...
...Large audiences turned out to hear Szilard wherever he went...
...a non-proliferation agreement for nuclear weapons...
...Confined to his hospital bed, subjected to extended X-ray treatments in the hope of prolonging his life, Szilard resolved to use his last months to good effect...
...All of the six Council-supported Senators, aided by the Lyndon Johnson sweep, were successful in their bids for re-election, and Montoya defeated incumbent Republican Senator Edwin Mechem...
...The next round was fired by conservative columnist Holmes Alexander, a sincere and likable man whose perception of the facts is strongly colored by his proclivity toward the views of the John Birch Society...
...The fact that President Johnson expressed himself so forthrightly to Pat-ton, at a time when the Council was under sharp attack on the Senate floor, is reason to believe that the President is something more than a fair weather friend...
...The creatures in Szilard's fantasy were dolphins, but might not a small group of brilliant human beings achieve the same ends...
...The United States that gave him refuge received more than full measure of gratitude and service from him...
...Szilard found that many of the new men in the Administration were fully aware of the implications of present events and concerned over the possible consequences...
...More and more Szilard groped for some way to temper the cold war, to improve international communication and understanding, to curtail the arms race, to buy time until the human race could devise viable long range alternatives to blowing itself up...
...Szilard was among the first to recognize the possibility of a sustained atomic chain reaction, and the danger that Hitler's scientists might build an atomic bomb...
...Written retrospectively by a historian of the next century, "Voice of the Dolphins" describes how a joint Russian-American institute in Vienna JOHN McCtAUGHRY is a former editor of Advance, a progressive Republican magazine...
...Szilard found it necessary to hire a secretary and open a small office in Washington's Dupont Plaza Hotel...
...Ralph E. Lapp, atomic scientist and former adviser to the War Department General Staff, and other prominent figures...
...Although a candidate for reelection to the House, it was known that Harding was grooming himself for a shot in 1966 at the Senate seat held by conservative Republican Len Jordan...
...Income from the manufacture of this product puts the institute on a self-supporting basis, and the dolphins begin to suggest solutions to political and military problems...
...As the Eighty-eighth Congress convened, the Council began full-fledged operations on Capitol Hill...
...Senator McGovern fired back from the Senate floor...
...At first the dolphins suggest experiments that result in great advances in molecular biology, one of which leads to a cheap, protein-rich algae food with powerful contraceptive properties...
...Subsequent efforts by German scientists to communicate with other dolphins fail completely, leaving the droll implication that the wisdom of the dolphins came from the cooperating Russian and American scientists...
...On the Republican side, the Council supported challenger Jerry Pettis in California, and incumbent Congressmen John V. Lindsay and Seymour Halpern of New York, Abner Sibal of Connecticut, and Stanley Tupper of Maine...
...The voting returns were satisfying to the Council...
...The tape was made available to radio stations throughout the country...
...Then Szilard set forth his plan for a political lobby for • peace which he tentatively named the Council for Abolishing War...
...Study papers on current military policy and the defense budget were prepared and circulated...
...an agreement on internationalized nuclear-free zones...
...Exuberant over this unexpected flood of support, Szilard and the Council turned their attention to the 1962 Congressional elections...
...But suddenly, in the spring of 1960, he learned that he was suffering from incurable cancer...
...In Idaho, Harding's opponent, George Hansen, hammered at the Council day after day...
...From its general funds the Council made direct contributions to McGovern, Church, and Democrats John Carroll of Colorado, J. William Fulbright of Arkansas, and David King, who sought a Senate seat in Utah...
...But his thoughts constantly returned to the problems of the cold war and the arms race, problems which threatened the new world created by the progress of science...
...The chief casualty, and the only one in some degree attributable to Council involvement, was Representative Harding...
...pledge not to deploy a provocative counterforce strike capability...
...an underground nuclear test ban treaty...
...Freeman Dyson, Princeton University physicist...
...But suddenly—and inexplicably—his supposedly fatal cancer disappeared...
...As the replies came, the debate began in earnest...
...In a series of articles, Alexander picked up where Miss Widener left off...
...Apply liberally to key persons in the Administration and Congress and hope for results...
...and to reduce the likelihood of escalation should a war break out...
...As he lay there, supposedly on his deathbed, he began to dictate a whimsical short story entitled "Voice of the Dolphins," later incorporated into a book, Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories...
...We in the government benefit greatly from a responsible and informed public opinion which is concerned with world peace...
...In 1988, an ingenious dolphin-inspired disarmament plan is adopted, and the threat of war finally recedes...
...a verified mutual reduction in long range bombers and missiles...
...After it appeared, he received a flood of speaking invitations from colleges and universities...
...learned to communicate with dolphins and found that the dolphins were far more intelligent than man...
...Szilard undoubtedly hoped that others would carry on after his death, and he left "Voice of the Dolphins" as a last testament...
...From November, 1963, to Election Day, 1964, the Council channeled about $100,000 to its candidates, a seventy per cent increase over the previous campaign year...
...The Council is realistic enough not to expect to influence decisively each race in which it takes an interest...
...Szilard gloomily concluded: "In Washington, wisdom has no chance to prevail at this point...
...two of his top staff members have worked closely with the Council...
...The point of "Voice of the Dolphins," aside from the presentation of Szilard's own ideas on disarmament, is the notion that a small, prestigious group of brilliant creatures could have a compelling influence on world events...
...a State Department employe wrote a Council speech on government time...
...Safe from the Nazis, he continued his work in nuclear physics, numbering among his close associates such men as Enrico Fermi, Eugene Wigner, and Albert Einstein...
...He sarcastically dissected the Widener column and strongly defended the Council as "scientists who believe they have a political responsibility as citizens along with the rest of us...
...The speech questioned by Alexander was written by the employe at home in his spare time...
...The decisions of the directors—who would not be formally elected by supporters of the movement —would in effect be ratified by the continuous vote of confidence expressed through the number of supporters and volume of contributions...
...the end of needless travel restrictions against foreign nationals...
...Many Senators, Szilard found, could offer a lucid analysis of our international problems in private, but were afraid to say the same things in public...
...During 1963, the Council brought together government and private experts and Senators in two discussion meetings...
...Will there be another Quemoy-Matsu crisis...
...On September 17, a letter to Council supporters asked those with last names beginning with letters A through Q to make out their checks directly to McGovern, the rest to Clark...
...The situation was similar in the Senate...
...Fifteen thousand copies of his speech were quickly distributed, and a second printing begun...
...he advocated the use of nuclear weapons against an aggressor under certain circumstances...
...the losers were Carroll and King...
...Crosby had a thorough knowledge of defense and foreign policy matters and impeccable credentials...
...He began to put together a plan reminiscent of the fictitious dolphin institute...
...The first seminars were held, bringing together groups of Senators, their staff members, and government officials to hear such speakers as Undersecretary of State Averell Harriman, Dr...
...The subjects ranged from Vietnam and Far Eastern policy to the multilateral force (MLF), foreign aid, and missile defense...
...The Council favors mutual, multilateral disarmament and an occasional unilateral initiative, but it is squarely on record in opposition to unilateral disarmament of the United States...
...President Hubert Humphrey is also sympathetic to some of the Council's positions...
...In December, 1962, the organization changed its name to the Council for a Livable World...
...Vivian scored a surprise upset against GOP incumbent George Mead-er in Michigan...
...A leading national magazine, however, had taken note of Szilard's quiet discussions around the Capital that spring and summer and ran an article on him in September...
...In New Hampshire the Democratic aspirant, Charles Officer, lost by a mere 200 votes...
...In the summer of 1964, the Council announced its objectives for 1965...
...In November, 1960, Szilard was discharged from the hospital...
...and, in the absence of a conventional arms limitation agreement in Central Europe, an increased NATO conventional war capability...
...Upon his death, The New York Times editorialized: "His genius transcended any one field and was as apparent in his political ingenuity and his fiction as in his physics, but beyond his purely intellectual gifts was his compassion for all mankind and his courage, which enabled him to continue his crusade for peace even while he struggled against cancer...
...Its cable address was cryptic but significant: Delphini (dolphins...
...It is the brainchild of one of the geniuses of our age, the late Dr...
...Leo Szilard's death will not in any way slow down the good work which you are doing...
...Throughout the war Szilard worked tirelessly in top secret positions in the Project...
...Of especial interest to the Council was the problem of converting our defense-oriented economy to civilian production, not only in the event of a major disarmament agreement, but also when new military technology makes some kinds of defense production no longer necessary...
...More specifically, the Council sought a non-governmental Russian-American staff study on problems of disarmament...
...The Council would transmit funds from its supporters to worthy candidates for office, regardless of party affiliation...
...A Wyoming advertisement went even further: "Do you want to put your children at the mercy of Communism...
...Armed with this concept, Szilard embarked on a lecture tour of eight American universities...
...According to him, the Council was a unilateral disarmament group...
...In a piece entitled "How Lefties Aided McGovern," she charged, in rather extravagant language, that the Council was a ban-the-bomb group advocating pacifist programs leading to unilateral U.S...
...Four general aims emerged: to remove the main obstacles to a multilateral disarmament agreement...
...Professors Bernard Feld, Alexander Rich, and Roger Fisher testified for the Council in favor of increased appropriations for the U.S...
...By June, 1962, active support had been pledged by 2,500 persons and further pledges were arriving at the rate of 100 a day...
...To what extent do the rulers of Peking control the war in Vietnam...
...Study papers were prepared and circulated within Congress and the Administration...
...Following the campaign the Council began to hammer out specific policies...
...Few doubted that Simpson was motivated less by his passion for scholarship than by his desire to help defeat his Council-supported Wyoming colleague Gale McGee for re-election...
...Leo Szilard, died in his sleep from a heart attack...
...Finally they found the man they wanted— U.S...
...He has also worked as a newspaper columnist and a consultant to public officials...
...Szilard was not a pacifist...
...Six weeks before the election, the Council announced that three candidates for the Senate had been chosen as especially worthy of the movement's support...
...The results were disappointing...
...After the war Szilard turned to a new love—molecular biology—and for fourteen years devoted himself to extending the frontiers of knowledge in that field...
...Six of the Council's eight candidates were elected...
...Specifically, it favored mutual non-deployment of an anti-ballistic missile system by the United States and the Soviet Union...
...The Council collected the checks and transmitted them to the candidates— $20,000 to McGovern and $10,400 to Clark...
...A discussion of current foreign policy issues was taped by Senators Frank Church, Claiborne Pell, George McGovern, Gale McGee, and Gaylord Nelson, and Council scientists Feld and Meselson...
...William Doering, chairman of Yale's Science Department, became chairman of the board of directors, and the Council began to organize its efforts for the 1964 elections...
...But burdened by everyday decision making, they had little opportunity to develop a consensus on long range goals and steps to attain them...
...and a negotiated, internationally enforced neutralization of both Viet-nams...
...Before long the Senators were leaning forward in their chairs, pressing the speaker and each other for deeper analysis and meaningful solutions...
...At each he gave the same talk, titled "Are We On the Road to War...
...In addition to these principal candidates, the Council also gave its blessing and some financial support to four other Democratic Senators: Edmund Muskie, Eugene McCarthy, Albert Gore of Tennessee, and Philip Hart of Michigan...
...The Council's success is measured not in millions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of adherents, but by the growing respect accorded its papers and seminars, and by the welcome extended to its spokesmen in the Administration and on Capitol Hill...
...Professor Matthew Meselson of Harvard, a Council director, testified before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on behalf of the limited nuclear test ban treaty, and the Council sought to mobilize public support for it...
...For two months Szilard talked with many of the world's top scientists...
...Leo Szilard is dead, but the voice of the dolphins is still heard in the halls of government...
...All were Democrats: incumbent Senators McGee of Wyoming and Frank Moss of Utah...
Vol. 29 • April 1965 • No. 4
