 Bertrand Russell on the Atomic Bomb. This is a LibriVox recording, all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. This recording by Karl Manchester 2008. Speech given to the House of Lords by Earl Russell, 28th November 1945. My Lords, it is with very great diffidence that I rise to address you, both because I have only once before addressed your Lordship's house, and because, after listening to the debate yesterday and today, I feel that other speakers have ten times the political knowledge and twenty times the experience that has fallen to my lot, and that it is an impertinence for me to say anything at all. At the same time, the subject to which I wish to confine my remarks, namely the Atomic Bomb and its bearing on policy, is so important and weighs so heavily upon my mind, that I feel almost bound to say something about what it means for the future of mankind. I should like to begin with just a few technical points, which I think are familiar to everybody. The first is that the Atomic Bomb is of course in its infancy, and is quite certain very quickly to become both much more destructive and very much cheaper to produce. Both those points I think we may take as certain. Then there is another point, which was raised by Professor Oliphant, and that is that it will not be very difficult to spray a countryside with radioactive products, which will kill every living thing throughout a wide area, not only human beings, but every insect, every sort of thing that lives. And there is a further point, which perhaps relates to the somewhat more distant future. As your Lordships know, there are in theory two ways of tapping nuclear energy. One is the way, which has now been made practicable, by breaking up a heavy nucleus into nuclei of medium weight. The other is the way which has not yet been made practicable, but which I think will be in time, namely the synthesizing of hydrogen atoms to make heavier atoms, helium atoms, or perhaps in the first instance nitrogen atoms. In the course of that synthesis, if it can be affected, there will be a very much greater release of energy than there is in the disintegration of uranium atoms. At present this process has never been observed, but it is held that it occurs in the Sun and in the interior of other stars. It only occurs in nature at temperatures comparable to those you get inside of the Sun. The present atomic bomb, in exploding, produces temperatures which are thought to be about those in the inside of the Sun. It is therefore possible that some mechanism analogous to the present atomic bomb could be used to set off this much more violent explosion which would be obtained if one could synthesize heavier elements out of hydrogen. All that must take place if our scientific civilization goes on. If it does not bring itself to destruction, all that is bound to happen. We do not want to look at this thing simply from the point of view of the next few years, we want to look at it from the point of view of the future of mankind. The question is a simple one. Is it possible for a scientific society to continue to exist, or must such a society inevitably bring itself to destruction? It is a simple question, but a very vital one. I do not think it is possible to exaggerate the gravity of the possibilities of evil that lie in the utilization of atomic energy. As I go about the streets and see St Paul's, the British Museum, the houses of Parliament, and the other monuments of our civilization, in my mind's eye I see a nightmare vision of those buildings as heaps of rubble with corpses all round them. That is a thing we have got to face, not only in our own country and cities, but throughout the civilized world as a real probability unless the world will agree to find a way of abolishing war. It is not enough to make war rare. Great and serious war has got to be abolished, because otherwise these things will happen. To abolish war is, of course, a very difficult problem. I have no desire to find fault with those who are trying to tackle that problem, I am quite sure I could not do any better. I simply feel that this is a problem that man has got to solve, otherwise man will drop out, and the planet will perhaps be happier without us, although we cannot be expected to share that view. I think we have got to find a way of dealing with this. As everybody is aware, the immediate difficulty is to find a way of cooperating with Russia in dealing with it. I think that what the Prime Minister achieved in Washington was probably as much as could, at that time, be achieved. I do not suppose he could have done any better at that time. I am not one of those who favor the unconditional and immediate revelation to Russia of the exact processes by which the bomb is manufactured. I think it is right that conditions should be attached to that revelation, but I make the proviso that the conditions must be solely those which will facilitate international cooperation. They must not have a national object of any sort or kind. Neither we nor America must seek any advantage for ourselves, but if we are to give the secret to the Russians it must be on the basis that they are willing to cooperate. On that basis I think it would be right to let them know all about it, as soon as possible, partly of course, on the grounds that the secret is a short term one. Within a few years the Russians will no doubt have bombs every bit as good as those which are at present being made in the United States. So it is only a question of a very short time during which we have this bargaining point if it is one. The men of science, as your Lordships know, who have been concerned with the work, are all extremely anxious to have the process revealed at once. I do not altogether agree with that for the reasons I have stated, but I think it can be used as a means of getting a more sincere and a more thoroughgoing cooperation between ourselves and Russia. I find myself a wholehearted supporter of the foreign secretary in the speeches he has made. I do not believe that the way to secure Russian cooperation is merely to express a desire for it. I think it is absolutely necessary to be firm on what we consider to be vital interests. I think it is more likely that you will get genuine cooperation from a certain firmness rather than merely going to them and begging them to cooperate. I agree entirely with the tone the foreign secretary has adopted on those matters. We must, I think, hope, and I do not think this is a chimerical hope, that the Russian government can be made to see that the utilisation of this means of warfare would mean destruction to themselves as well as to everybody else. We must hope that they can be made to see that this is a universal human interest, and not one on which countries are divided. I cannot really see doubt that if that were put to them in a convincing manner they would see it. It is not a very difficult thing to see, and I cannot help thinking they have enough intelligence to see it, provided it is separated from politics and from competition. There is, as everybody repeats, an attitude of suspicion. That attitude of suspicion can only be got over by complete and utter frankness, by stating, there are these things which we consider vital, but on other points we are quite willing that you should stand up for the things you consider vital. If there is any point on which we clash, which we both consider vital, let us try to find a compromise, rather than that each side should annihilate the other which would not be for the good of anybody. I cannot help thinking that if that were put in a perfectly frank and unpolitical manner to the Russians they would be as capable of seeing it as we are. At least I hope so. I think one could make some use of the scientists in this matter. They themselves are extremely uneasy, with a very bad conscience about what they have done. They know they had to do it, but they do not like it. They would be very thankful if some task could be assigned to them which would somewhat mitigate the disaster that threatens mankind. I think they might be perhaps better able to persuade the Russians than those of us who are more in the game. They could at any rate confer with Russian scientists, and perhaps get an entry that way towards genuine cooperation. We have, I think, some time ahead of us. The world at the moment is in a war weary mood, and I do not think it is unduly optimistic to suppose that there will not be a great war within the next ten years. Therefore we have some time during which we can generate the necessary genuine mutual understanding. There is one difficulty that I think is not always sufficiently understood on our side, and that is that the Russians always feel, and feel as it appears rightly, that in any conflict of interests there will be Russians on one side and everybody else on the other. They felt that over the big three versus the big five question. It was Russia on one side, and either two or four on the other. When people have that feeling, you have, I suppose, to be somewhat tender in bargaining with them and certainly not expect them to submit to a majority. You cannot expect that when they feel that it is themselves against the field. There will no doubt have to be a good deal of tact employed during the coming years to bring about continuing international cooperation. I do not see any advantage in the proposal which is before the world of making the United Nations the repository. I do not think that there is very much hope in that, because the United Nations at any rate at present are not a strong military body capable of waging war against a great power, and whoever is ultimately to be the possessor of the atomic bomb will have to be strong enough to fight a great power. Until you can create an international organization of that sort, you will not be secure. I do not think that there is any use whatever in paper prohibitions either of the use or of the manufacture of bombs, because you cannot enforce them and the penalty for obeying such a prohibition is greater than the penalty for infringing it if you are really thinking of war. I do not think therefore that these paper arrangements have any force in them at all. You have first to create the will to have international control over this weapon, and when that exists it will be easy to manufacture the machinery. Moreover, once that machinery exists, once you have an international body which is strong and which is the sole repository of the use of atomic energy, that will be a self-perpetuating system. It will really prevent great wars. Habits of political action will grow up about it, and we may seriously hope that war will disappear from the world. That is of course a very large order, but this is what we have to face. Either war stops, or else the whole of civilized mankind stops, and you are left with mere remnants, a few people in outlying districts too unscientific to manufacture these instruments of destruction. The only people who will be too unscientific to do that will be people who have lost all the traditions of civilization, and that is a disaster so grave that I think that all the civilized nations of the world ought to realize it. I think they probably can be brought to realize it before it is too late. At any rate, I most profoundly hope so. End of speech.