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USA Oregon Lake Oswego - Oswego Pioneer Cemetery, Linus Pauling grave 20
picture by Radigan Neuhalfen |
The Nobel Prize in Chemistry 1954
"Professor Pauling. Since you began your scientific career more than thirty years ago you have covered a diversity of subjects ranging over wide fields of chemistry, physics, and even medicine. It has been said of you that you have chosen to live "on the frontiers of science" and we chemists are keenly aware of the influence and the stimulative effect of your pioneer work.
Wide though your field of activity may be, you have devoted the greater part of your energy to the study of the nature of the chemical bond and the determination of the structure of molecules and crystals."
The Nobel Peace Prize 1962
from the presentation speech:
Shortly after the atomic bombs were exploded over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Albert Einstein made this statement:
"The time has come now, when man must give up war. It is no longer rational to solve international problems by resorting to war. Now that an atomic bomb, such as the bombs exploded at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, can destroy a city, kill all the people in a city, a small city the size of Minneapolis, say, we can see that we must now make use of man's powers of reason, in order to settle disputes between nations.
In accordance with the principles of justice we must develop international law, strengthen the United Nations, and have peace in the world from now on."
At the time few people heeded these words of Albert Einstein.
One man, however, never forgot them, the man we welcome among us today, the man whom the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament has selected for this year's award of the Peace Prize - Linus Carl Pauling, who ever since 1946 has campaigned ceaselessly, not only against nuclear weapons tests, not only against the spread of these armaments, not only against their very use, but against all warfare as a means of solving international conflicts.
Linus Pauling is a professor of chemistry; for thirty-nine years he has been on the staff of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, where he was made a professor in 1931. In addition to the Nobel Prize in Chemistry, his scientific achievements have won him many distinctions, medals, and honors, both in his own country and abroad. His renown as a scientist is beyond dispute.
In 1946, at the request of Albert Einstein, Linus Pauling, together with seven other scientists, formed the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists, of which Einstein was chairman. The most important task of this committee was to bring to the notice of people everywhere the tremendous change that had taken place in the world after the splitting of the atom and the production of the atomic bomb had become fact. In the words of the author Robert Jungk, "it was a crusade undertaken by men who were children in political affairs."
The hope cherished by mankind that, once the Second World War was over, an age of peace and disarmament would follow, was not fulfilled. It was not long before differences between East and West emerged in all their stark reality, as the cooperation engendered in time of war crumbled and was replaced by suspicion and mutual fear of aggression.
The result was the armaments race between the two great powers, to see who could produce the most effective nuclear weapons. Gradually the "terror balance" became the tacitly accepted safeguard against war and a guarantee of peace.
It was in August, 1949, that the Soviet Union also succeeded in producing the atom bomb.
The armaments race created an atmosphere which not only made it difficult to work for the promotion of disarmament and peace but also threatened to muzzle freedom of speech.
Inevitably, the crusade lost impetus and faded away.
But Linus Pauling marched on; for him, retreat was impossible.
During the first few years, his aim was above all to prevent the hydrogen bomb from becoming a reality. In speeches and lectures he endeavored to open the eyes of his fellowmen to the catastrophe it represented. "This bomb", he declared, "may have a destructive effect, a hundred, a thousand, nay ten thousand times greater than that of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Its effect will depend on how great the bomb is and at what height above the earth it is exploded."
This statement was made as early as 1947, and subsequent tests with the hydrogen bomb proved the validity of his predictions.
On February 13, 1950, Pauling spoke to a large audience in Carnegie Hall in New York, this time in protest against the decision to produce the hydrogen bomb. His speech was subsequently published as a brochure entitled The Ultimate Decision.
He opened his speech by describing the consequences, should there be a major war involving hydrogen bombs: a thousand million men and women dead, and the earth's atmosphere permeated with toxic radioactive substances, from which no human being, animal, or plant would be safe.
He concludes as follows:
"The solution of the world's problem - the problem of atomic war - is that we must - we must bring law and order into the world as a whole...
Our political leaders impelled by the massed feelings of the people of the world must learn that peace is the important goal - a peace that reflects the spirit of true humanity, the spirit of the brotherhood of man.
It is not necessary that the social and economic systems in Russia be identical with that in the United States, in order that these two great nations can be at peace with one another. It is only necessary that the people of the United States and the people of Russia have respect for one another, a deep desire to work for progress, a mutual recognition that war has finally ruled itself out as the arbiter of the destiny of humanity. Once the people of the world express these feelings, the East and the West can reach a reasonable and equitable decision about all world affairs and can march together side by side, towards a more and more glorious future."
Linus Pauling Institute
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