people ?ocked about asking their questions. As soon as word came that the
marchers had all become seated, Michael Scott and Schoenman and I took a
notice that we had prepared and stuck it on the Ministry door. We learned
that the Government had asked the Fire Department to use their hoses upon
us. Luckily, the Fire Department refused. When six o’clock arrived, we called
trafalgar square 585an end to the sit-down. A wave of exultation swept through the crowd. As we
marched back towards Whitehall in the dusk and lamplight, past the cheer-
ing supporters, I felt very happy – we had accomplished what we set out to
do that afternoon, and our serious purpose had been made manifest. I was
moved, too, by the cheers that greeted me and by the burst of ‘for he’s a jolly
good fellow’ as I passed.
The demonstration was much more auspicious than we had any right to
expect. During the next months the fortunes of the Committee prospered.
Branch Committees were established about the country and in some foreign
countries; and some countries developed their own Committees. All the cor-
respondence entailed by this activity and by the necessary printing and dis-
semination of ‘literature’ (lea?ets, statements, etc.) not to speak of the need
to keep some kind of o?ce, cost a good deal. This, of course, as it always does
in any organisation without ?xed membership or dues, meant much time
wasted in raising funds. Nevertheless, and owing to the generous and often
self-sacri?cing voluntary e?orts of many people, the Committee grew in
strength.
To show my continued support of the ???, I spoke to the Youth ???
of Birmingham in mid-March and again in mid-April. One of these speeches
caused turmoil because of a remark that I made about our then Prime
Minister. The remark was widely quoted out of context by the press. In
context, it is merely a ??? to the preceding argument. Unfortunately, by the
time the uproar had broken, I had fallen ill and was unable to defend myself
for some weeks, too late to cut any ice. I spoke, also, at the meeting in
Trafalgar Square at the end of the Aldermaston March.
Towards the end of March, I had arranged with Penguin Books, who, in
turn, had arranged with my usual publisher, Sir Stanley Unwin, to write a
further book for them on nuclear matters and disarmament, carrying on my
Common Sense and Nuclear Warfare and expanding parts of it. The new book was to
be called Has Man a Future? and I began work on it at once. But it was inter-
rupted by a series of recordings that I made in London and by the two
Birmingham meetings and then by a very bad bout of shingles which pre-
vented my doing any work whatsoever for some time. But during my con-
valescence I wrote a good deal of the new book, and it was ?nished in time to
meet its ?rst deadline. It was published in the autumn.
On August 6th, ‘Hiroshima Day’, the Committee of 100 arranged to have
two meetings: a ceremony in the morning of laying a wreath upon the
Cenotaph in Whitehall and, in the afternoon, a meeting for speeches to be
made at Marble Arch. The former was carried out with dignity. We wished to
remind people of the circumstances of the nuclear bomb at Hiroshima. We
also thought that, in commemorating the British dead, we might call atten-
tion to the fact that it was up to the living to prevent their deaths from going
the autobiography of bertrand russell 586for nothing. We hoped in the afternoon’s speeches to support this point
of view. To many people, however, to bracket the deaths at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki with the deaths of those who fought the Japanese in the Second War
was blasphemous. It is doubtful if many of these same people object to the
statue of General Washington or of General Smuts being given places of
public honour.
The meeting in Hyde Park was a lively one. The police had forbidden us to
use microphones as their use was prohibited by Park rules. This ruling had
been overlooked in many previous cases, but was ?rmly held to in our case.
We had determined to try to use microphones, partly because we knew that
they would be necessary to make ourselves heard, and partly to expose the
odd discrepancy in the enforcement of Park rules. We were, after all, an
organisation devoted to civil disobedience. I, therefore, started to speak
through a microphone. A policeman quietly remonstrated. I persisted. And
the microphone was removed by the police. We then adjourned the meeting,
announcing that we would march to Trafalgar Square to continue it. All this
we had planned, and the plan was carried out with some success. What we
had not counted on was a thunderstorm of majestic proportions which broke
as the crowd moved down Oxford Street and continued throughout most of
the meeting in the Square.
A month later, as we returned from an afternoon’s drive in North Wales,
we found a pleasant, though much embarrassed, Police Sergeant astride his
motorcycle at our front door. He delivered summonses to my wife and me to
be at Bow Street on September 12th to be charged with inciting the public to
civil disobedience. The summons was said to be delivered to all the leaders of
the Committee but, in fact, it was delivered only to some of them. Very few
who were summoned refused to appear.
We went up to London to take the advice of our solicitors and, even more
important, to confer with our colleagues. I had no wish to become a martyr
to the cause, but I felt that I should make the most of any chance to publicise
our views. We were not so innocent as to fail to see that our imprisonment
would cause a certain stir. We hoped that it might create enough sympathy
for some, at least, of our reasons for doing as we had done to break through
to minds hitherto untouched by them. We had obtained from our doctors
statements of our recent serious illnesses which they thought would make
long imprisonment disastrous. These we handed over to the barrister who
was to watch our cases at Bow Street. No one we met seemed to believe that
we should be condemned to gaol. They thought the Government would think
that it would not pay them. But we, ourselves, did not see how they could fail
to sentence us to gaol. For some time it had been evident that our doings
irked the Government, and the police had been raiding the Committee o?ce
and doing a clumsy bit of spying upon various members who frequented it.
trafalgar square 587The barrister thought that he could prevent my wife’s and my incarceration
entirely. But we did not wish either extreme. We instructed him to try to
prevent our being let o? scot-free, but, equally, to try to have us sentenced
to not longer than a fortnight in prison. In the event, we were each sentenced
to two months in gaol, a sentence which, because of the doctor’s statements,
was commuted to a week each.
Bow Street seemed like a stage set as we walked down it with our col-
leagues amid a mass of onlookers towards the Court at a little before 10.30 in
the morning. People were crowded into most of the windows, some of which
were bright with boxes of ?owers. By contrast the scene in the courtroom
looked like a Daumier etching. When the sentence of two months was pro-
nounced upon me cries of ‘Shame, shame, an old man of eighty-eight!’ arose
from the onlookers. It angered me. I knew that it was well meant, but I had
deliberately incurred the punishment and, in any case, I could not see that age
had anything to do with guilt. If anything, it made me the more guilty. The
magistrate seemed to me nearer the mark in observing that, from his point of
view, I was old enough to know better. But on the whole both the Court and
the police behaved more gently to us all than I could have hoped. A police-
man, before proceedings began, searched the building for a cushion for me
to sit upon to mitigate the rigours of the narrow wooden bench upon which
we perched. None could be found – for which I was thankful – but I took his
e?ort kindly. I felt some of the sentences to be quite unduly harsh, but I was
outraged only by the words of the magistrate to one of us who happened to
be a Jewish refugee from Germany. The police witness appeared to me to cut
a poor ?gure in giving evidence. Our people, I thought, spoke well and with
dignity and very tellingly. Neither of these observations surprised me. And I
was pleased to be permitted to say most of what I had planned to say.
By the end of the morning all our cases had been heard and we were given
an hour for lunch. My wife and I returned to Chelsea. We emerged from the
Court into cheering crowds, and to my confusion one lady rushed up and
embraced me. But from the morning’s remarks of the magistrate and his
general aspect, we were not hopeful of getting o? lightly when we returned
to receive our sentences in the afternoon. As each person in alphabetical
order was sentenced, he or she was taken out to the cells where we behaved
like boys on holiday, singing and telling stories, the tension of incertitude
relaxed, nothing more to try to do till we were carted away in our Black
Marias.
It was my ?rst trip in a Black Maria as the last time I had been gaoled I had
been taken to Brixton in a taxi, but I was too tired to enjoy the novelty. I was
popped into the hospital wing of the prison and spent most of my week in
bed, visited daily by the doctor who saw that I got the kind of liquid food that
I could consume. No one can pretend to a liking for being imprisoned,
the autobiography of bertrand russell 588unless, possibly, for protective custody. It is a frightening experience. The
dread of particular, severe or ill treatment and of physical discomfort is per-
haps the least of it. The worst is the general atmosphere, the sense of being
always under observation, the dead cold and gloom and the always noted,
unmistakable, prison smell – and the eyes of some of the other prisoners. We
had all this for only a week. We were very conscious of the continuing fact
that many of our friends were undergoing it for many weeks and that we
were spared only through special circumstances, not through less ‘guilt’, in
so far as there was any guilt.
Meantime the Committee of 100 had put out a lea?et with my message
from Brixton. On the back of the lea?et was its urgent appeal to all sym-
pathisers to congregate in Trafalgar Square at 5 o’clock on Sunday, September
17th, for a march to Parliament Square where a public assembly was to be
held and a sit-down. The Home Secretary had issued a Public Order against
our use of Trafalgar Square on that occasion, but the Committee had deter-
mined that this would be no deterrent. Unfortunately for us, my wife and
I were still in gaol and were not released till the following day. I say
unfortunately because it must have been a memorable and exhilarating
occasion.
We delighted in our reunion in freedom at home very early on Monday
morning. But almost at once we were besieged by the press and radio and ??
people who swarmed into Hasker Street. Our continued involvement with
them prevented us from learning for some time all that had been happening
since the Bow Street session of the previous week. From what we had learned
from the papers that we had seen in prison, we knew that all sorts of meetings
and sit-downs had been held, not only in Britain, but also in many other
countries, protesting against our imprisonment. Moreover, my wife had
gathered from some of the prisoners at Holloway that the demonstration of
the 17th was a success. They had listened to the radio and stood on the
balcony above their nets in the great hall of the prison making the sign of
thumbs-up to her and shouting excitedly that the sit-down was going splen-
didly. We learned only gradually quite how unbelievably great a success it
had been.
The full story of that demonstration I must leave to some historian or
participant to tell. The important part is that unprecedented numbers took
part. It augured well for an approach to the mass movement that we desired.
By early evening the Square and the streets leading to it were packed with
people sitting down and with people coming only to observe what was going
on who tried to force themselves into possible observation points. There was
no question of marching to Parliament Square. No one could get through,
though attempts were made. There was no violence, no hullabaloo on the
part of the sitters-down. They were serious. And some of them were making
trafalgar square 589what was individually an heroic gesture. For instance, Augustus John, an old
man, who had been, and was, very ill (it was a short time before his death)
emerged from the National Gallery, walked into the Square and sat down. No
one knew of his plan to do so and few recognised him. I learned of his action
only much later, but I record it with admiration. There were other cases of
what amounted to heroism in testifying to a profound belief. There were also
a good many ludicrous happenings, particularly, I was told, later in the
evening when various notabilities arrived to see how things were going and
were mistaken by the police for ardent upholders of the Committee and were
piled, protesting, into Black Marias. But the police could hardly be blamed
for such mistakes. In the vast crowd individual identities could not be dis-
tinguished, even in a dogcollar. The police could, however, be very much
blamed for their not infrequent brutality. This could not be disputed,
since there were many pictures taken which sometimes caught instances of
regrettable police action.
Television and press accounts and pictures of this demonstration and of the
preceding gaolings appeared in countries throughout the world. They had an
excellent e?ect in setting people everywhere thinking about what we were
doing and attempting to do and why. That was what we had hoped would
happen, but we had not prepared su?ciently for the overwhelming publicity
and interest that would be generated. From the beginning we had been
careful to arrange that only certain of our members would expose themselves
to possible imprisonment at any particular demonstration. There was always
to be a corps of leaders to carry on the work. But the Government, by
sentencing a large number, not for any particular misdeed at any particular
time, but for the general charge of incitement, had managed to disrupt this
rota. Added to this, were the arrests made during the general scrum of the
September 17th sit-down when track could hardly be kept of who might be
arrested and who not. The result was that there were very few experienced
members of the Committee left to deal with pressing matters and future
plans. I was tired and kept busy by matters that only I could deal with arising
chie?y from my imprisonment. All this was a grievous pity for we had been
given a great chance which we were unable to avail ourselves of fully.
At the end of the week after gaol we returned to North Wales but the
barrage of press and ?? interviews continued wherever we were and, of
course, there were daily visitors from all over – Italians, Japanese, French,
Belgian, Singalese, Dutch, South and North Americans, etc., etc. It was all
wearing, and when we could we drove o? into the country by ourselves. We
had a number of adventures. One afternoon we walked along a sandy beach
and around a rocky point to a cove. The rocks of the point were covered by
dried seaweed. At ?rst we tested the solidity of the way, but we grew careless,
and unexpectedly I, who was ahead, sank to my thighs. At each move, I sank
the autobiography of bertrand russell 590further. My wife was only at the edge of the bad patch. She managed to crawl
to a rock and ?nally to haul me out. On other occasions, our car got stuck in
the sand or in the bog and had to be pulled out – once, to our amused
annoyance, by a nuclear station’s van.
When we returned to London, too, we had adventures. One morning two
young men and a young woman appeared upon my doorstep and demanded
to see me as, they said, they wished to discuss anti-nuclear work. I discussed
matters with them for some time and then intimated that it was time for
them to go. They refused to go. Nothing that I or my housekeeper – we were
the only people in the house – could say would budge them, and we were far
from being strong enough to move them. They proceeded to stage a sit-down
in my drawing-room. With some misgivings, I sent for the police. Their
behaviour was impeccable. They did not even smile, much less jeer. And they
evicted the sitters-down. The latter were later discovered, I was told, to be a
young actress who wanted publicity and two of her admirers wishing to help
her. They got the publicity and provided me with a good story and much
entertainment. Some of the Committee were rather annoyed by my having
called in the police.
During the next months there were a number of Committee of 100 meet-
ings, both public and private, at which I spoke, notably in Trafalgar Square on
October 29th and in Cardi? on November 1st. Demonstrations had been
announced for December 9th to be held at various ?? air and nuclear bases in
the country. But in planning this the Committee, in its inexperience of hold-
ing large demonstrations not in London but in the country, were too opti-
mistic, especially in matters relating to transportation. For instance, they felt
sure that the buses that they hired to take demonstrators from London to one
of the targets, Wethers?eld, would turn up since the bus drivers themselves
had professed themselves sympathetic to the Committee’s views. But, as some
of us had feared, the bus company refused its buses to the Committee at the
last minute. Some hardy and determined demonstrators made their way to
Wethers?eld by other means, but the loss of the buses and the lack of any
alternative arrangements meant that the numbers were very much less than
had been expected. The further di?culties encountered were great: The
machinations of the police who had raided the Committee rooms and har-
ried its members, and the opposition of the Government, which employed a
large number of its ground and air force, its guard dogs and ?re hoses to
protect the Committee’s targets from unarmed people pledged to non-
violence. Nevertheless, the demonstration made a good showing. The Com-
mittee had made a mistake, however, in announcing beforehand that it would
make a better showing than it could possibly hope to do and in not planning
thoroughly for alternatives in foreseeable di?culties.
The Committee had already begun to weaken itself in other ways. Long
trafalgar square 591discussions were beginning to be held amongst its members as to whether
the Committee should devote itself only to nuclear and disarmament matters
or should begin to oppose all domestic, social and governmental injustice.
This was a waste of time and a dispersal of energies. Such widespread oppos-
ition, if to be indulged in at all, was obviously a matter for the far future
when the Committee’s power and capabilities were consolidated. By such
projects consolidation could only be delayed. Again, this unfortunate ten-
dency was the outcome, largely, of the practical political and administrative
inexperience of the Committee added to the over-estimation of the meaning
of September 17th’s success. The latter should have been regarded as very
great encouragement but not as, by any means, the certain promise of a mass
civil disobedience movement. In proportion to the population of the coun-
try, the movement was still small and too unproved to stand against deter-
mined opposition. Unfortunately, the comparative failure of December 9th
was considered only as a discouragement, not as a lesson towards a period of
consolidation. I tried in my public statements at the time to overcome the
discouragement and, privately, to inculcate the lesson. But in both attempts I
failed.
The immediate aftermath of the demonstration of December 9th was the
charging of ?ve leaders of the Committee under the O?cial Secrets Act of
1911. It was, from a layman’s point of view, a curiously conducted trial. The
prosecution was allowed to present its case in full, resting on the question as
to whether it was prejudicial to the safety of the nation for unauthorised
people to enter the Wethers?eld air ?eld with the intention of immobilising
and grounding the aircraft there. The defence’s case was that such stations as
Wethers?eld, like all the stations engaged in nuclear ‘defence’ of the country,
were in themselves prejudicial to the safety of the country. Professor Linus
Pauling, the physicist, and Sir Robert Watson-Watt, the inventor of radar, who
had come from the United States to give evidence as to the dangers of the
present nuclear policy of which Wethers?eld was a part, and I were kept
hanging about for many hours. Then all our testimony, like that of other
defence witnesses, of whom some, I believe, were not permitted to be called
at all, was declared irrelevant to the charges and ruled out. It was managed
quite legally, but all loopholes were ruthlessly blocked against the defence
and made feasible for the prosecution. There were a few bright moments, to
be sure: when Air Commander MacGill, the prosecution’s chief witness was
asked how far it was from London to Wethers?eld, he replied, ‘in a fast plane,
about ?fty miles’. The jury returned the verdict guilty, though, and this is
rather interesting, they were out for four and a half hours. No one had
believed any other verdict possible under the circumstances. The ?ve con-
victed men were given gaol sentences of eighteen months apiece; the one
woman, the welfare secretary of the Committee, was given a year.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 592I felt keenly that I, since I had encouraged the demonstration but had not
been able to take part, was as guilty as the condemned and I managed when I
was ?nally able to speak at the trial to say so. Many others felt likewise, and,
after the trial, we repaired to the Cannon Street police station to declare
ourselves guilty. As was to be expected, no notice was taken of our declar-
ations though they were received civilly by the police. The Committee held a
meeting in Trafalgar Square to state the signi?cance of the trial and its own
attitude towards it. In snow and gale, Sir Robert Watson-Watt and I and a
number of others spoke to a not inconsiderable audience.
For some time thereafter I had little to do in the way of public speaking for
the Committee. During that last week of July the Committee as well as the
??? sent participants to the ‘World Disarmament Conference’ held in
Moscow. Just as it was about to start, I received a request from Professor
Bernal pressing me to send a representative with a message to the conference.
Christopher Farley, who had participated both in the planning and in the
action of the Committee, went on my behalf. While he was there, he, in
company with some other non-communists, held a public meeting in Red
Square and handed out lea?ets. This was illegal, and was vehemently
opposed, by a variety of means, by the chairman of the ??? who was there. It
was also opposed by others, even some who at home, indulged in civil
disobedience. They felt that they were guests of the Russians and should abide
by the strict laws of hospitality. The meeting was dispersed, but its holders
were triumphant in the belief that they had pointed out the international
character of the civil disobedience movement and had been able to hold
something of a debate before being dispersed. At the time, I received only hot
objections, but no reasons were given for the objections. When Farley
returned and I heard what he had to say, I felt that he had done the right thing
in backing the meeting, and that it had helped to establish the fact that we
were neutral and should invoke civil disobedience wherever we could in a
cause which was international.
Towards the end of August the Committee began to put into e?ect its plan
for a demonstration on September 9th. Taking warning from the previous
December 9th, they decided to return to central London and to pledge people
to take part. They announced that they would not hold the demonstration if
they could not get 7,000 pledges. As September 9th drew near, it became
evident that they could not procure this number of pledges in time. I felt very
strongly that, in view of their public announcement, they should abandon the
demonstration, especially as to hold to their promise those who had pledged
would be to ask them to attend the demonstration unprotected by the prom-
ised number of co-participants. The secretary of the London Committee was
very loath to give up and many members thought that it was unnecessary to
do so. This ?outing of a given promise disgusted me, and added itself to my
trafalgar square 593growing belief that the Committee was disintegrating. In the end, the demon-
stration was called o?.
During the time since the Secrets trial many things had been happening to
me unconnected with the Committee – lunches such as the one given me by
the foreign journalists in London, ?? broadcasts such as the long one for
United States consumption at which the interlocutor was named Susskind,
visits from travelling dignitaries such as that of the ?ve leading Russian
journalists who spent an afternoon with me in Wales. We also went on a
holiday drive for somewhat over a fortnight at the end of March, a holiday
which was a total failure since the weather was cold, raw, and dreary and we
were both ill throughout with raging colds. The most important events in
relation to my own life were those centring about my ninetieth birthday on
May 18th.
I looked forward to my birthday celebrations, I confess, with considerable
trepidation, for I had been informed of their prospect though told nothing of
the toil and anxiety that was going into their consummation. Only afterwards
did I hear of the peculiar obstructions caused by impresarios and the man-
agers of concert halls, or of the extreme kindness and generosity of con-
ductors and orchestras and soloists. I only gradually learned of the immense
amount of time and energy, thought and sheer determination to give me
pleasure expended by my friends for many weeks. The most active of these
was Ralph Schoenman who was chie?y responsible for all aspects of the
concert, including the excellently arranged and, to me, most pleasing pro-
gramme. When I did learn all this, I was deeply touched, as I was by the
parties themselves. And to my surprise, I found that I enjoyed greatly being
the centre of such unexpectedly friendly plaudits and encomiums.
On my birthday itself, we had a jolly family teaparty with two of my
grandchildren and my London housekeeper Jean Redmond and, to celebrate,
a ?ne cake topped appropriately by a small constable (donated by the baker)
bearing one candle for good luck. In the evening, a dinner arranged by A. J.
Ayer and Rupert Crawshay-Williams took place at the Café Royal. It seemed to
me a happy occasion. Some of my friends made speeches: Ayer and Julian
Huxley spoke most kindly of me and E. M. Forster recalled the early
Cambridge days and spoke delightfully about my old friend Bob Trevelyan.
And I met for the ?rst time the Head of my family, the Duke of Bedford
and his wife. I admired his determination to keep Woburn a private estate
at however great cost to himself and against great odds. I also liked his
unconventionality. I had been told that when asked to speak at the concert
in my honour, he had accepted without hesitation. So I was prepared to like
him – and I was not disappointed. The evening was not less enjoyable for me
in re-establishing connection with a number of old friends such as Arthur
Waley and Miles Malleson as well as in making a few new ones.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 594Of the celebration party at Festival Hall, under the kind aegis of its man-
ager, T. E. Bean, that took place the next afternoon, I do not know what to say
or how to say it. I had been told that there would be music and presentations
to me, but I could not know beforehand how lovely the music would be,
either the orchestral part under Colin Davis or the solo work by Lili Kraus.
Nor could I know how touching and generous would be the presentation
speeches: by Ralph Schoenman, the Master of Ceremonies; Victor Purcell;
Mrs Sonning of Denmark; Ernst Willi, the Swiss sculptor; Morley Nkosi of
Africa; Vanessa Redgrave, the actress; and my cousin Ian Bedford. Some of
those who could not be there had sent gifts which were presented to me – a
bust of Socrates from my cousin Flora Russell and an excellent portrait of
me from its painter Hans Erni. And many people had sent messages which
Schoenman read out or had printed in the ‘Tribute Programme’. It had a
photograph of me taken by T. E. Morris of Portmadoc on its cover. I have been
told that it has been sent to people all over the world. The Musicians Union
refused to have the music recorded and the ??? refused to record any of the
proceedings. The gifts, the programme, the record that was privately made of
