[sacw] Roblat Interviewed in India

[Harsh Kapoor]

FYI
Harsh Kapoor
(South Asians Against Nukes)
--------------------------

The Hindu
7 November 1999

Striving to prevent another Hiroshima

AMAN who participated in the creation of a weapon of mass destruction is
today one of the strongest proponents of peace and elimination of all
nuclear weapons. Sir Joseph Rotblat, the Polish scientist who fled his
country in the wake of the German invasion and worked on the first atom
bomb, is convinced that the world will not be a safe place until all
such weapons are destroyed. At the age of 91, Sir Joseph is a tireless
peace crusader through the Pugwash movement of which he was one of the
founding members with Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein. As President
of Pugwash, he received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. Sir Joseph spoke
to Kalpana Sharma of The Hindu in Mumbai.

Kalpana Sharma: How do you view the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT)
now, given its defeat in the US Senate and the resultant cynicism
surrounding it?

Sir Joseph Rotblat: I've been working for the elimination of nuclear
weapons through the Pugwash Conference. We started the movement at the
time when the hydrogen bomb was tested. We fought hard to stop testing
because we knew that if you want to develop large nuclear arsenals, you
have to test them. We couldn't get agreement on a comprehensive ban so
we had to agree to a partial test ban treaty where at least you can
eliminate the danger to human health by stopping atmospheric testing.

We feel that proliferation is a threat and we should try and stop it.
However, this vote by the Senate has created a situation which is almost
impossible because if the United States, despite its huge arsenal,
justifies testing, then of course other nations will argue that if the
Americans need more tests, we need more tests too.

How do you convince the scientific community about the dangers of
nuclear war when there are so many who subscribe to the view that
scientists should not be concerned about how their work is used?

I believe we must look at things not as they are now but the direction
in which they are going. In the past scientists felt that science had to
be pursued for its own sake and that its application was not their
business. Even now some scientists believe this. But while in the past
science had hardly any impact on day to day affairs, today science
affects us in everyday life. It is bound to affect us in ever greater
degree, both for good and for evil. This is why scientists have got to
take responsibility for their actions.

How did you get involved in the bomb project?

My interest in nuclear weapons began when I read a paper just before the
war in 1939 about the possibility of utilising energy contained in the
nuclear atom. But being a humanitarian scientist, I did not think at the
time that I would be involved in any way in such work. But we were
afraid that if Hitler got the bomb, he was likely to win the war. The
only way to prevent this was for us to have the bomb. I initiated the
work in November 1939. Many other scientists came in and as a result of
this, several years later, the Manhattan Project got under way in the
United States. But actually, most of the work on the feasibility of the
bomb was done by us in England.

As soon as I found out that the Germans were not working on the bomb, I
felt that my being on the project was no longer valid and I resigned. I
was the only scientist to resign from the project long before the bomb
was made, long before Hitler was defeated. I left Los Alamos in December
1944. After that I was cut off from my colleagues and had no idea
whether the bomb succeeded or not until I heard the announcement on the
BBC on August 6, 1945 about the destruction of Hiroshima by the bomb.
This came as a very big shock to me because we had the feeling that it
might not work but that if it did work, it should not be used against
people.

Apart from the shock that the bomb was actually used, there was also the
fear of where all this would lead to. I knew that the fission bomb is
only the first step in this field of nuclear weaponry. Scientists were
working on a much more powerful bomb, the hydrogen bomb which would lead
to a nuclear arms race. At that stage I made two decisions which
affected the rest of my life. The first was with regard to my own
personal career. I felt since what I'm doing is being applied, I will
decide how it will be applied. There are many applications of this
science in medicine that can be used in diagnosis and therapy. So I
changed the whole line of my research. The second decision was to do
something to prevent another Hiroshima and Nagasaki. This is how we
began the peace movement and the Pugwash movement.

What drives you at the age of 91?

I feel very strongly that humanity is in danger. The chief
characteristic of this nuclear age is that for the first time in the
history of civilisation, it has become possible for man to bring the
whole of the human race to an end with a single act. People do not
realise this yet. They think that because the Cold War has come to an
end, the danger is over. I don't believe this is true because the
mindset that drove the arms race during the Cold War has survived and
the nuclear weapons states still think they need nuclear weapons for
their security. And this is an inducement to other nations, like India
and Pakistan, who've also joined the club. Others may come in and
eventually, human fallibility is such that there is only one end, a
catastrophic end.