ABM Treaty

In most cases it is very difficult to pinpoint definitely the impact Pugwash has had. By design, the idea has always been to create space where influential people from diverse perspectives can gather. They would then, in their individual capacities, seek to influence policy in their home countries.

Metta Spencer highlights one instructive example regarding Pugwash and the ABM Treaty, in an excellent article called "Political Scientists":

"Millionshchikov ... noted that he had privately come around to the anti-ABM position in 1964 during a Pugwash meeting ... By the time of the Pugwash Conference in Sochi in October 1969 ... Millionshchikov definitely said he opposed ABM systems. ... A month after the Pugwash meeting in Sochi, the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks began in Helsinki. One outcome was the ABM Treaty of 1972..."

See Metta Spencer, "Political Scientists", Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/Aug 1995, Vol 51, No 4, p. 62.

Rotblat: Leaving the Bomb Project (and not an absolute pacificist)

Joseph Rotblat, the only project scientist to leave the Manhattan Project on moral grounds, tells his story in this classic 1985 article, "Leaving the Bomb Project," in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Leaving the Manhattan Project was a courageous step for Rotblat, and one with serious personal implications. He was accused of being a spy, his personal belongings mysteriously 'disappeared' on his train ride home, and he was not allowed to tell his fellow Project scientists why he was leaving.

"Chadwick ... was shown a thick dossier on me with highly incriminating evidence. It boiled down to my being a spy: I had arranged with a contact in Santa Fe to return to England, and then to be flown to and parachuted onto the part of Poland held by the Soviets, in order to give them the secrets of the atom bomb. ..."

People are often surprised to hear that Prof said he would not rule out working on a similar weapon again in the future. I suspect this was his scientific precision and exact language more than anything else:

"After 40 years one question keeps nagging me: have we learned enough not to repeat the mistakes we made then? I am not sure even about myself. Not being an absolute pacifist, I cannot guarantee that I would not behave in the same way, should a similar situation arise."