manded considerable attention among a variety of individuals and circles
important in the nation. And the ?rst meeting went o? with great éclat
and success. Moreover, interest in the ??? quickly spread. Soon there were
committees formed in di?erent parts of the country and then Regional
Committees. Many meetings were held, at some of which I spoke. I remem-
ber, in particular, one at Manchester in 1959 at which Lord Simon of
Wythenshawe was in the chair.
I saw much of Lord Simon in those days and until his death in October,
1960, as he was greatly concerned by the nuclear peril and worked hard to
make the dangers known. He arranged a debate on the subject in the House
of Lords and held a great number of meetings and press conferences at his
London ?at. He was a member of the executive committee of the ??? and we
saw eye to eye in most matters to do with it. He became, as I already was, an
upholder of the activities of the Direct Action Committee. We both believed
that the dangers must be called to the attention of the public in as many ways
as possible and that if we stuck to merely meetings and even marches, no
matter how admirable they might be, we should end by preaching only to the
already converted. The chairman of the ??? did not approve of civil dis-
obedience and so, though nominally the Direct Action Committee was to be
tolerated, it could not be aided openly by the ???. The latter did not, for
instance, take part in the Aldermaston March, as it was staged by the Direct
Action Committee in 1958. The march proved a success, and the ??? took it
over lock, stock and barrel the following year and made, of course, a much
larger and more important thing of it. I was not able to attend the 1959
march or the subsequent meeting in Trafalgar Square, but the following year I
spoke in the Square at the end of the march. I wished, in these years, that I
the autobiography of bertrand russell 576had been young enough to take part in the marches. Later, they seemed to me
to be degenerating into something of a yearly picnic. Though individual
marchers were as sincere as ever in their endeavours and as admirable, the
march was quite ine?ective in achieving their aim, which was to call serious
attention to and spread the movement. For the most part, the march became a
subject of boredom or distress or hilarity, and converted very few of those
hitherto unconverted. It was useful, nevertheless, as I think it still is, in
continuing, if not enlarging, the movement. New and fresh forms of oppo-
sition to dangerous nuclear policies must be sought constantly in order to
obtain converts and to catch and hold the interest of people of very diverse
outlook.
Shortly after this 1960 Aldermaston March, the Summit Meeting between
Eisenhower and Khrushchev took place – and crashed. We had all had high
hopes of it and its break-up following the U2 incident was a blow to us. The
more we learned of the skulduggery behind it the greater its foreboding
quality became. It augured ill for progress towards co-operation, let alone
towards disarmament. It seemed more than ever as if new methods must be
sought to impress upon the public the increasingly precarious state of inter-
national a?airs before people relapsed into frustrated apathy. But what this
new means could be I did not see.
The ??? had been working for unilateral disarmament, believing that if
Great Britain gave up her part in the nuclear race and even demanded the
departure of United States bases from her soil, other nations might follow
suit. It was a slim hope, and still is, but none-the-less it was, and is, a hope. As
such, it seemed worth following up. The Campaign also hoped to persuade
not only the general public to this way of thinking but also the Government.
As most of its upholders were drawn from the Labour Party, it went to work
upon the Parliamentary Labour Party. My own view was that the matter was
one that transcends Party politics and even national boundaries. As this rea-
sonable view, as it seemed to me, failed to grip the public imagination, I was
willing to uphold the Campaign in its e?orts. The means towards the end that
we both desired mattered less than its achievement. Perhaps, I thought, if the
Labour Party could be persuaded to support the Campaign, we might be a
short step towards the goal.
I had put my point of view clearly in the introduction to my book Common
Sense and Nuclear Warfare which I wrote during the summer of 1958, and pub-
lished early in 1959. I had been encouraged during 1958 by receiving the
Kalinga Prize, at Unesco in Paris as I could not travel to India. (To be sure
the French physicist who was deputed to bear-lead me on that occasion
remarked comfortingly to his wife after I had been expounding my views:
‘Never mind, my dear, by next year France will be able to explode her own
bomb.’) And the continued and growing success of the Pugwash movement,
trafalgar square 577as well as the interest shown in the open correspondence with Khrushchev
and Eisenhower (Dulles) were encouraging. I continued my search, as I have
done since, to ?nd fresh approaches through which to try to sway public
opinion, including governmental opinion. All that I had succeeded in doing
in 1958 touched only this or that relatively small circle of people. The ??? at
that time gave hope that a more general public could be reached. It seemed to
me then as it does today that governmental policies must be regarded in the
light of common sense. They must be shorn of red tape and ‘tradition’ and
general mystique. They would be seen then to be leading, as they are, only to
probable general destruction.
The policies that were needed were those dictated by common sense. If the
public could be shown this clearly, I had a faint hope that they might insist
upon governmental policies being brought into accord with common sense. I
wrote my Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare in his hope. The book was fairly
widely read, I believe, and commended. But it did not tackle the question as
to exactly how each individual could make his opinion known and in?uence
policy-making, a fact that left some readers dissatis?ed. I had one moment of
high hope when the Minister of Defence, Duncan Sandys, wrote commend-
ing the book and saying that he would like to talk with me about it. He was a
Conservative, and a policy-maker in a national Government, and had col-
laborated in a pamphlet on the subject himself. But when I went to see him,
he said, ‘It is a good book, but what is needed is not only nuclear disarma-
ment but the banning of war itself ’. In vain I pointed out the passage in my
book in which I had said that the only way to ensure the world against
nuclear war was to end war. He continued to believe that I could not have said
anything so intelligent. He cast my other arguments aside. I came away dis-
couraged. I realised that most of the already informed people who read
my book would read it with a bias so strong that they would take in only
what they wished to take in. For the following months, therefore, I returned
to the piecemeal business of speaking at meetings, ??? and other, and
broadcasting, and to the pleasures of my own life.
To celebrate my eighty-seventh birthday, we drove down through Bath and
Wells and Glastonbury to Dorset. We visited the swannery and gardens at
Abbotsbury where, by chance, we witnessed a peacock’s nuptial dance, pre-
cisely articulated, one of the most enchanting and beautiful ballets that I have
ever seen. We made a sentimental pilgrimage to the small Italianate eight-
eenth century Kingston Russell House which I had not seen before. I thought
it most perfect and most perfectly set in its garden and valley. I wished
immensely that I could myself live in it. I seldom feel this kind of envy, but
Kingston Russell House touched me deeply. And I was interested in hunting
out the old farm buildings and the village where my family had begun its
more notable career. It was an altogether satisfactory expedition, but for some
the autobiography of bertrand russell 578reason that I have now forgotten had to be cut short. So, to complete our
allotted holiday, we went another extended drive after my birthday, this time
in the Peak District. This, however, from the point of view of enjoyment was a
complete failure. Places that should have been lonely and quiet were teeming
with holiday-makers like ourselves; places that should have seemed full of life
even though quiet, like Jane Austen’s Bakewell, were tarnished by convention
meetings. Perhaps it all seemed dreary because we struck the wrong note in
the beginning by visiting Alderley where my Stanley grandparents had had an
estate. The house had been destroyed. Only the gardens remained, in derelict
state. The Government had taken it over for some unholy project. I have a
small table, made for my mother and a larger one made for my father by the
estate carpenter, from the Alderley Doomsday Oak when it had to be cut
down. But the whole place made me melancholy. It was very desolate.
Early in 1960 we went to Copenhagen for a short time for me to receive
the Sonning Prize for contribution to European Culture, bestowed by the
University of Copenhagen. The speech of acceptance gave me a chance to
outline my attitude towards present cultural di?erences, based upon the
history of past changes in cultures. If this were re?ected upon and adopted
as being valid, as I think it is, it would change for the better present
co-operation between nations and would increase the possibility of further
and e?ective co-operation. My speech was published later under the title ‘Old
and New Cultures’ in my book Fact and Fiction.
The occasion of the prize-giving was a pleasant one with a reception and a
?ne State dinner following it. My wife was seated between the Minister of
Education, who declared himself to be unable to speak English, and Professor
Niels Bohr, upon whom the burden of conversation therefore fell. He took his
duties seriously and talked steadily through the banquet. He was very di?cult
to understand, we were told, even when speaking his native Danish to Danes;
and, in English, I had always found it extremely hard to follow him as he
spoke very quickly. My wife found it impossible. That was exasperating
enough, since he was clearly talking of things that she would have wished to
hear about. But, far worse on such an occasion, as he talked, he leaned further
and further towards her, absorbed in his own words. Finally, he was eating
the delicious confections from her plate and drinking her wine whilst the
notable company of diners looked on, smiling and entranced. It was a tribute
to his charm that she continued to like him, as I did.
I have seldom enjoyed my many speeches and articles during these years as
they usually concerned nuclear matters. But now and again I have made a
pleasurable excursion into other matters as I did at Copenhagen. I even ven-
tured, a little later, into Shakespearean exigesis in a letter to The Times. For
some weeks there had raged a discreet and venomous correspondence con-
cerning the probable person to whom the printed sonnets were dedicated.
trafalgar square 579The initials W. H. were interpreted this way and that by great stretches of
imagination and with much learning. It seemed to me that, like Melchisedek,
Mr W. H. was a clerical error for Mr W. S. who was, in truth, ‘the onlie
begetter’ of the sonnets. I ventured, hesitantly and half in fun, to put this view
forward. No one took it up and no further letters appeared on the subject. I
fear that I spoiled the scholarly fun.
One evening I broadcast over the Asian service in company with a number
of Asian students. As I walked down the corridor in the hotel where the
occasion took place, a small, bird-like lady leapt from one of the huge red plush
thrones placed at intervals along the wall, stood before me and declaimed,
‘And I saw Shelley plain’, and sat down. I tottered on, shattered, but delighted.
I did a series of ?? interviews with Woodrow Wyatt as interlocutor that
came out in book form as Bertrand Russell Speaks his Mind. It gave me a chance to
say a good deal that I wanted to say about international a?airs as well as much
else to a wide audience in various parts of the world. In February, 1960, I had
a debate with the Indian scientist Bhabha and Teller, the Father of the Bomb,
at which Ed Murrow was the interlocutor on ???. I found it a most distressing
occasion. The debate was di?cult, since we were each speaking from our
own country and could not follow the facial expression or reaction of each
other as we talked. Still more disconcerting, I was inhibited by my intense
dislike of Teller and by what I felt to be disingenuous ?attery. I came away
from the ??? studio feeling that I had let down all those who agreed with my
point of view by not putting up the better show that the facts of our case
warranted. Another disappointing ?? occasion was a ??? discussion of
nuclear matters by Mrs Roosevelt, Lord Boothby, Mr Gaitskell, and myself. I
was horri?ed to hear Mrs Roosevelt enunciate the belief that it would be
better, and that she would prefer, to have the human race destroyed than to
have it succumb to Communism. I came away thinking that I could not have
heard aright. Upon reading her remarks in the next morning’s papers I had to
face that fact that she really had expressed this dangerous view.
I had a controversy with an American philosopher named Sidney Hook at
this time that was one which both of us found di?cult to conduct on logical
lines. He was a Menshevic who had become apprehensive of Russia ruling the
world. He thought this so dreadful that it would be better the human race
should cease to exist. I combated this view on the ground that we do not
know the future, which, so long as Man survives, may be immensely better
than the past. I instanced the times of Genghiz Khan and Kublai Khan, separ-
ated by only a generation, but one horrible, the other admirable. But there
were plenty of contrary instances that he could have adduced, in view of
which a de?nite decision was impossible. I maintained, however, that any
chance of a better world depended upon hope, and was on this account to be
preferred. This was not a logical argument, but I thought that most people
the autobiography of bertrand russell 580would ?nd it convincing. Several years later, Hook again attacked me publicly,
but this time in such a manner that no comment from me was necessary. It
amused me, however, that for his defence of ‘freedom’ and his attack on my
views on Vietnam, he chose as his vehicle a journal later admitted to be
?nanced by the Central Intelligence Agency.
1
The attitude of most of humanity towards its own destruction surprised
me. In December, 1959, I had read Neville Shute’s On the Beach and I attended a
private viewing of its ?lm. I was cast down by the deliberate turning away it
displayed from the horrible, harsh facts entailed by nuclear war – the disease
and su?ering caused by poisoned air and water and soil, the looting and
murder likely among a population in anarchy with no means of communica-
tion, and all the probable evils and pain. It was like the pretti?ed stories that
were sometimes told about trench warfare during the First World War. Yet the
?lm was put out and praised by people who meant to make the situation
clear, not to belittle the horror. I was particularly distressed by the fact that I
myself had praised the ?lm directly after seeing it in what I came to think the
mistaken opinion that a little was better than nothing. All that sort of thing
does, I came to think, is to make familiar and rob of its true value what
should carry a shock of revulsion. Irony such as that in Dr Strangelove or Oh, What
a Lovely War is a di?erent matter. That does cause people to think, at least for a
short time.
By the summer of 1960 it seemed to me as if Pugwash and ??? and the
other methods that we had tried of informing the public had reached the
limit of their e?ectiveness. It might be possible to so move the general public
that it would demand en masse, and therefore irresistibly, the remaking of
present governmental policies, here in Britain ?rst and then elsewhere in the
world. For a time, however, I had to put my bothers behind me, especially as
they were so shapeless and amorphous, as my daughter and her husband and
their children came to visit me. I had not seen them for a long time, not since
I was last in the United States. Since that time my son-in-law had become a
full ?edged Minister in the Episcopal Church – he had been a layman and in
the State Department – and he was taking his whole family to Uganda where
he had been called as a missionary. My daughter had also become very
religious and was whole-heartedly in sympathy with his aspirations. I myself,
naturally, had little sympathy with either of them on this score. When I had
wished to send a sum of money to them shortly before they came to England,
and had to go to the Bank of England to arrange the transfer, my request was
greeted with smiles and sometimes laughter at so old and con?rmed an
atheist wishing to help someone to become a Minister of the Gospel. But
about many things we agreed, especially in liberal politics, and I loved my
daughter dearly and was fond of her family. They were to stay in England for
two years to prepare for their mission work, and each July they came to
trafalgar square 581North Wales where they were put up in one of the Portmeirion Hotel cot-
tages and we saw them daily. This, with other smaller happenings, absorbed
most of my time during these two months.
Towards the end of July, 1960, I received my ?rst visit from a young
American called Ralph Schoenman. I had heard of some of his activities in
relation to ??? so I was rather curious to see him. I found him bursting with
energy and teeming with ideas, and intelligent, if inexperienced and a little
doctrinaire, about politics. Also, I liked in him, what I found lamentably
lacking in many workers in the causes which I espoused, a sense of irony and
the capability of seeing the humour in what was essentially very serious
business. I saw that he was quickly sympathetic, and that he was impetuous.
What I came only gradually to appreciate, what could only emerge with the
passage of time, was his di?culty in putting up with opposition, and his
astonishingly complete, untouchable self-con?dence. I believed that intelli-
gence working on experience would enforce the needed discipline. I did not
at ?rst fully understand him but I happened to be approved of by him and, in
turn, to approve of what he was then working for. And for his continued
generosity towards me personally I was, and can still only be, deeply grateful.
His mind moved very quickly and ?rmly and his energy appeared to be
inexhaustible. It was a temptation to turn to him to get things done. At the
particular time of our ?rst meetings he acted as a catalyst for my gropings as
to what could be done to give our work in the ??? new life. He was very
keen to start a movement of civil disobedience that might grow into a mass
movement of general opposition to governmental nuclear policies so strong
as to force its opinions upon the Government directly. It was to be a mass
movement, no matter from how small beginnings. In this it was new, di?er-
ing from the old Direct Action Committee’s aspirations in that theirs were too
often concerned with individual testimony by way of salving individual
consciences.
The scheme seemed to me to have great possibilities and the more I talked
with Schoenman the more favourable to it I became. I was aware that the
chairman of the ??? did not approve of civil disobedience and had little
sympathy with even the Direct Action Committee. I also knew that the ???
tolerated and was coming more and more to support in words if not in action
its activities. I discussed the matter with the chairman. He did not dispute the
possible e?ciency of civil disobedience or oppose my upholding such a new
movement. He only urged me not to make any announcement about this
fresh e?ort till after the Conference of the Labour Party when he hoped that
the Party might ‘go unilateral’ and take up at least some of our doctrines. To
this I readily agreed.
Knowing that the chairman would neither oppose nor aid the new
movement, it did not occur to me to consult him about our day to day
the autobiography of bertrand russell 582preparations. I went to work with Schoenman to prepare a list of people who
might be approached to uphold such a movement. Letters went out to them
over my name. I was very insistent that letters should go to no one who was
not known to us as being sympathetic, but, unfortunately, mistakes were
made. One letter was sent to someone with a name similar to the intended
recipient but with a di?erent address and entirely, unhappily, di?erent views.
He at once sent our letter to the Evening Standard with a scathing letter of his
own about our activities and intentions. This was published considerably
before our plans were thoroughly formed or the participants gathered, and
worse still, before the chariman thought the project should be revealed. There
was a big meeting in Trafalgar Square on September 24th at which I spoke.
Before it took place, I suggested to the chairman that I speak of the proposed
new mass movement of civil disobedience within the ???. He replied that it
might injure ???’s chances of in?uencing the Labour Conference. I said that
I would consult Frank Cousins, the head of the Transport Workers’ Union,
and if he felt it in any way dangerous to the desires of ???, I would not touch
upon the subject. Frank Cousins replied to my letter brie?y, saying that it did
not matter one way or the other what I did or said. I informed the chairman
of Cousins’s letter and of my consequent intention to speak of the new
movement. He accepted this, and I spoke of the new movement in Trafalgar
Square.
After the announcement in the Evening Standard of the proposed mass move-
ment of civil disobedience, it was necessary to hurry through our plans. But
the event caused a great uproar. The chairman of ??? made statements to his
friends and to the Executive Committee and to the press which, in e?ect,
charged me with starting a new movement behind his back and one not
permissible within the rulings of ???. During the ?rst week of October, I
met with him daily for many hours at my house in Hasker Street to try to
work out some modus vivendi. He brought with him to these meetings a friend
who was not an upholder of methods of civil disobedience, to put it mildly,
so I asked a member of the ??? Executive Committee who professed then to
be in sympathy with me, to come as balance. At my insistence, because there
had been so many allegations as to what I had said and not said, a tape
recording was taken of these meetings, a copy of which was sent to the ???
o?ces for the chairman and the original of which I kept.
By October 7th we had come to an agreement which would permit us to
continue to work together and gave a statement to that e?ect to the press. But
within a short time it became evident to me that I could not continue in my
position of president of the ???, which necessitated work with its chairman,
and that, if only to preserve the harmonious working of the ??? itself, I must
resign. This I did in a letter to the press, following a letter to the chairman.
The result of all this was, for me, a shower – a storm – of letters and visits
trafalgar square 583from upholders of the ??? throughout the country, expostulating with me
and, most of them, accusing me of causing a split in the ???. This surprised
me, as I had no intention of doing so. Nor do I think that I did. Moreover, I
observed no weakening in its work owing to my action. It seemed to me that
the ??? would get on better if it had o?cers who saw, at least broadly, eye to
eye than it would do under the leadership of those who patently did not trust
each other. I had no intention, as I said and continued repeatedly to say, of
withdrawing my support of much ??? work. I sent statements to the various
branches of the ??? explaining this and the reasons for my actions. So far as I
know, these statements went unread. At the ??? Executive Meeting on
November 5th, my resignation was accepted. One member, I was told,
wished me to be sued for libel because of something I had said or written. He
was persuaded not to proceed – which was perhaps, for my personal reputa-
tion, a pity. I continued to speak at meetings of the ??? at which I was asked
to speak, and I remained at the head of the Welsh ???. I withdrew only my
interest in ??? policy-making and any responsibility that, as its president, I
had for the actions of its o?cers.
Meantime, the new movement towards mass civil disobedience had come
to be called the Committee of 100. I had been in frequent touch with the
small company of young people who were its early upholders. Inspired
largely by the enthusiasm of Ralph Schoenman, this company had grown into
a fairly large and steadily expanding group. Early in September he had
brought the Rev. Michael Scott to see me. Scott was an active member of the
Direct Action Committee and became one of the most stalwart members of
the Committee of 100. I saw him as well as Schoenman almost daily, and he,
and I published under our joint names a lea?et entitled ‘Act or Perish’ which
presents the nucleus of the policy of the Committee.
The early members of the Committee of 100 were for the most part drawn
from the ??? and the ranks of the Direct Action Committee. There was much
activity and there were daily meetings, most of which I could not, and was
not expected to, attend. I spoke for the Committee, I think, only at a meeting
in Friends House, Euston, in October, 1960, and, again, at a press conference
held in Kingsway Hall in December. Gradually, adherents were drawn from
outside the fold, a process greatly accelerated both by the opposition widely
felt to the establishment of the ?? Polaris Base at Holy Loch, and especially, by
the announcement of the ?rst proposed demonstration of civil disobedience.
This was to be a ‘sit-down’ – of at least two thousand people, it was hoped –
outside the Ministry of Defence on February 18th, 1961. It was planned that
each succeeding demonstration would demand the participation of more
people, the number increasing at each fresh demonstration until a really mass
movement was achieved. To ensure a good beginning it was decided to
pledge as many as possible to take part in the ?rst sit-down.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 584The activity of the Committee was intense during the days preceding
February 18th. Posters went up (and were torn down), people were stopped
in the street and approached in pubs and cafés and were argued with till they
were converted to the need of the coming demonstration. But of all this I only
heard. I took part only in endless discussions.
I hope that no one who reads these pages will think that I am attempting to
write a history of the Committee of 100 or of the ??? or, indeed, of any
other movement or public event. I am trying only to recount what I remem-
ber that a?ected my own life.
My enthusiasm was high for the work and preparations that were being
made for February 18th, and I was in complete agreement with the plans and
with the aspirations of the Committee. I have already written in this volume
of my views of civil disobedience, and I stated them publicly in speeches and
articles at this time, notably in an article in the New Statesman for February 17th.
My sole misgivings were connected with the hurried and piece-meal way in
which our policies had been worked out owing to their premature publica-
tion and with the dread lest it might be too di?cult – impossible, perhaps –
to avoid violence in such a crowd, considering the opposition that might be
encountered. Passive resistance, it seemed to me, might be very di?cult to
inculcate amid such enthusiasm. In the event, it posed no di?culty.
The morning of February 18th was dark and drizzly and cold, and our
spirits plummeted. If it rained, the numbers participating in the demonstra-
tion would undoubtedly dwindle in spite of the large nucleus already
pledged to take part. But when we assembled in Trafalgar Square there was a
great crowd. Precisely how great it was, it is impossible to say. The median
number as reckoned by the press and the police and the Committee made it
about 20,000. The speeches went well and quickly. Then began the march up
Whitehall preceded by a large banner and managed with great skill by the
Committee’s marshals. It comprised a surging but calm and serious crowd of
somewhat over 5,000 of those who had been in the Square. At one point we
were held up by the police who tried to stop the march on the ground that it
was obstructing tra?c. The objection, however, manifestly did not hold, and
the march proceeded. Finally, over 5,000 people were sitting or lying on the
pavements surrounding the Ministry. And there we sat for about two hours
till darkness had fallen, a very solid and quiet, if not entirely mute, protest
against governmental nuclear policies. A good many people joined us during
this time, and more came to have a look at us, and, of course, the press and ??
