Throughout 2025, the World Tribune is featuring on the cover historical acts of diplomacy that shifted public sentiment and even thawed tensions between nations. In this issue, we focus on the power of individuals coming together to create a safer and more peaceful world.
On March 1, 1954, a hydrogen bomb test conducted on Bikini Atoll caused massive radioactive fallout in the Marshall Islands. A year later, the Russell-Einstein Manifesto—signed by 11 prominent scientists, including Nobel Prize recipients and pioneers in physics and chemistry—warned that global annihilation from nuclear war was a real possibility. It urged world leaders to seek peaceful resolutions to conflict, famously ending:
We appeal, as human beings, to human beings: Remember your humanity, and forget the rest.
Among them was Joseph Rotblat, the only scientist engaged in the Manhattan Project (the US project to build the first nuclear bomb) to quit before its completion. When Rotblat heard about the atomic bombing of Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945, he decided to devote his life to ensuring these weapons would never be used again.
Thus, in 1957, he co-founded the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, which brought together scientists from various and conflicting nations to work toward peaceful resolutions. The organization, in fact, functioned as a rare, trusted communication between the Soviet Union and Western scientists when official negotiations were stalled or considered politically untenable.
Ultimately, the group influenced major arms control agreements, including the Partial Test Ban Treaty (1963); Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT, 1968); Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT); and Chemical Weapons Convention (1993).
The group’s work both legitimized scientists as peace advocates and elevated their role in policy discussions and global security. For their protracted dedication, the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded jointly to Pugwash and Rotblat.
In 2007, the exchanges between Rotblat and Ikeda Sensei were published as A Quest for Global Peace: Rotblat and Ikeda on War, Ethics and the Nuclear Threat, in which both men speak at length of a “loyalty to humanity.” The book marked the both the 50th anniversary of the Pugwash Conferences and second Soka Gakkai President Josei Toda’s Declaration for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons.
The Pugwash Conferences today remains one of the most effective examples of “Track II Diplomacy,” informal, nongovernmental dialogue between people and groups from other nations or conflict zones in search for peaceful resolutions.
May 9, 2025 World Tribune, p. 12
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