On Tue, 12 Jan 1999 09:49:38 -0500 Carl Remick <cremick at rlmnet.com>
writes:
>Re Jim's: "Was Russell a fraud? A loveable one perhaps. In later life
>he campaigned
>against the bomb and the Vietnam War (organising a war crimes tribunal
>with his secretary, Ralph Schoenman - what happened to him?), but
>early
>after the second world war he recommended a pre-emptive nuclear strike
>against the then un-nuclear soviets."
>
>I don't ever recall hearing that Bertrand Russell called for any kind
>of
>nuclear strike against anyone. Quite a shocker if true. Could you
>cite
>a source on this?
>
>Carl Remick
>
It is right in his Autobiography on pp 508-509 (London: Unwin Paperbacks, 1978). There he states:
"...The arms race became inevitable unless drastic measures were taken to avoid it. That is why, in late 1948, I suggested that the remedy might be the threat of immediate war by the United States on Russia for the purpose of forcing nuclear disarmanent upon her. I have given my reasons for doing this in an appendix to my "Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare." My chief defence of the view I held in 1948 was that I thought Russia very likely to yield to the demands of the West. This ceased to be probable after Russia had a considerable fleet of nuclear planes."
Rusell then went on to defend himself against the charge of inconsistency in having advocated threatening the USSR with nuclear attack. In his defense Russell argued that he was not a pacifist since he thought there some wars (albeit very few) had been justified. He also contended that if his advice had been taken in 1948 the evils that developed as a result of the Cold War might have been avoided.
Jim Farmelant
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