pressmen for their attitude, nor the press in general for the anything but
encouraging start that was given us. Anyone who is willing to back his vision
of the future by action should be prepared to be thought a ‘crack-pot’, and
we were prepared. Moreover, we were elated. It was a kind of freedom to be
able to work again publicly towards the ends that we had in view. And, of
course, our ?rst e?orts were towards obtaining funds to carry on with.
We approached an endless number of individuals; with singularly little
success among the rich: ‘Oh yes’, they said more often than not, ‘we think
the foundation 635that you are doing a wonderful work. We entirely believe in it and wish it
success. But, of course, we already have so many commitments . . .’ Though all
such ?nancial begging is always awkward and distasteful, we only occasion-
ally met with unpleasantness and only once with virulent discourtesy. This
was at a party of rich Jews given in order that I might speak of our work for
the Jews in Soviet countries in whom they professed themselves mightily
interested. The unpleasant occasions were unexpected since they occurred
when, upon apparently knowledgeable advice, we approached people who
had expressed themselves passionately interested in the special project about
which we approached them and to be friendly towards us, to ‘greatly
admire’ me and my work as it was always put. We received many surprises,
both pleasant and exasperating: one morning a message came that two
people were leaving in their wills their very considerable estate on the
continent to the Foundation; another morning came a letter from Lord Glad-
wyn, a former British Ambassador in Paris, that I append to this chapter
along with my reply, as it gives the tone and reasoning of part of the huge
correspondence that building up the Foundation had entailed. I believe that
this exchange of letters, in spite of Lord Gladwyn’s suggestion, has not
before been published. In his letter, it will be noted, he advocated my
advancing my proposals in the House of Lords ‘where they could be sub-
jected to intelligent scrutiny’. I refrained, in my reply, from remarking that
on the occasions when I had advanced proposals in the House of Lords, I
had never perceived that my audience, with a few exceptions, showed any
peculiar degree of intelligence – but perhaps the general level has risen since
the advent of Lord Gladwyn.
However, many people in many parts of the world helped us. Artists –
painters and sculptors and musicians – of di?erent countries have been
especially generous. Indeed, one of our ?rst money-raising ventures was an
art sale of their paintings and sculpture given by the artists, which took place,
through the kindness of the Duke of Bedford, at Woburn Abbey. I could not
attend the opening of the sale, but I went some time later, arriving, to my
amusement, on the same day that the Miss World beauties were being enter-
tained at Woburn and I was privileged to meet them. The sale was fairly
successful and we have since then been given other works of art and sold
them to the great pro?t of our work. Though musicians were generous to
us, their generosity was more often than not, thwarted by their agents or
impresarios and the managers of concert halls. Actors and playwrights made
us many promises of bene?t performances or special plays of one sort or
another, but nothing came of them. We had better fortune with the Heads of
Governments, perhaps because they were better able to understand what we
were doing. One of the di?culties in our begging was that much of our
work – that concerning special prisoners or broken families and minority
the autobiography of bertrand russell 636groups, for instance – could not be talked of until it was accomplished, if
then, or it would be automatically rendered ine?ective. The same was even
more true of discussions and schemes concerning international adjustments.
When asked, therefore, precisely what we had to show for our work, we had
to speak chie?y in vague and general terms, which carried conviction only to
the astute and the already converted.
The drawback to this more or less haphazard gathering of money was that
it was impossible to be sure what monies we should have when. No huge
sum came in at one time which could be used as a back-log, and promises
were not always kept promptly. The result was that we sometimes had
enough to go ahead with fairly ambitious schemes, but sometimes we had
next door to nothing. The latter periods would have been impossible to
weather had it not been for the dedication to the idea and ideas of the
Foundation and the dogged determination of the people working with me,
especially of Ralph Schoenman and Christopher Farley and Pamela Wood.
These three in their di?erent ways held the work together and pulled it
through bad as well as good times. Many others from many di?erent coun-
tries aided our work, some as volunteers and some on the payroll, but, for
one good reason or another, until the present time, they have proved to be
transient workers and sometimes too dearly paid for. Now, however, a sta? of
colleagues has been built up that appears stable and quite capable of dealing,
each with one or more of the various aspects of the work.
For the most part the British press has done very little to help us. They have
treated us with silence or, if they can ?nd something to make us look ridicu-
lous or wicked, with covert jeers. Perhaps this is not astonishing, since we
have been working, though quite legally, against our country’s established
policies – not those which Mr Harold Wilson’s Government promised before
it came to o?ce both for the ?rst and second time, but against the policies
which it has adopted in o?ce. For the same reason at di?erent times the press
of other countries have railed at us or refused to mention us. And, of course,
journalists and commentators are apt to deal with me personally by saying
that I am senile. The journalists in the United States, especially, do this since
for years I have been worrying over the increase of violence in that country
and most of my recent writing has been very vehemently against their
Government’s warlike policies. This method of diminishing my e?ectiveness
alarms and angers my friends and a?ronts me, but, from the point of those
who di?er with me, I dare say it is about their only retort. In any case, if the
charge is true, I fail to see why anyone troubles to remark on my babblings.
Those who wish to make up their own minds as to whether or not I am
senile or, even, sillier than they had formerly believed me to be, have been
given ample opportunity to do so as I have given countless newspaper and
?? interviews and made several ?lms. The general rule to which I adhere in
the foundation 637determining to which requests for interviews to accede to is to refuse all
those that show signs of being concerned with details of what is known as
my ‘private life’ rather than my work and ideas. The latter, I am glad to have
publicised, and I welcome honest reports and criticisms of them. The best of
these ?? interviews that I have seen during the last years seemed to me to be
one in early October, 1963, with John Freeman; one made in early April,
1964, in which Robert Bolt was the interlocutor (there is also a later one,
made in 1967, with him, but I have not seen it); and one made in September,
1965, with Ralph Milliband. But many, of course, I have never seen. The two
most important public speeches that I have made have been those concerned
with the per?dy of the Labour Government under the premiership of Harold
Wilson, one in mid-February 1965, and one eight months later. The ?rst
deals with the general international policies of the Government, the second
dwells upon its policies in regard, especially, to Vietnam and is, therefore,
reprinted in my book War Crimes in Vietnam. At the end of the second, I
announced my resignation from the Party and tore up my Labour card. To my
surprise, this intensely annoyed two of the other speakers on the platform, a
Member of Parliament and the Chairman of the ???. The latter remarked to
the press that I had stage-managed the a?air. If I had been able to do so, I do
not know why I should not have done so, but, in actual fact, all the manage-
ment was in the hands of the Youth ??? under whose auspices the meeting
was held. The ??, who had often expressed views similar to mine on Vietnam,
arrived late at the meeting and stalked out because of my action. I was rather
taken aback by this singular behaviour as both these people had been saying
much what I said. The only di?erence seemed to be that they continued in
membership of the Party they denounced.
There are four other charges brought against me which I might mention
here since I suppose they are connected, also, with ‘The folly of age’. The
most serious is that I make extreme statements in my writings and speeches
for which I do not give my sources. This is levelled, I believe, against my book
War Crimes in Vietnam. If anyone cares to study this book, however, I think that
they will ?nd it well documented. If I occasionally make a statement without
giving the basis of it, I usually do so because I regard it as self-evident or
based upon facts noted elsewhere in the book or so well known that there is
no need to name the source.
Another charge, allied to this one, is that I myself compose neither
speeches nor articles nor statements put out over my name. It is a curious
thing that the public utterances of almost all Government o?cials and
important business executives are known to be composed by secretaries or
colleagues, and yet this is held unobjectionable. Why should it be considered
heinous in an ordinary layman? In point of fact, what goes out over my name
is usually composed by me. When it is not, it still presents my opinion and
the autobiography of bertrand russell 638thought. I sign nothing – letters or more formal documents – that I have not
discussed, read and approved.
Two other rumours which I have learned recently are being put about,
I also ?nd vexatious. They are that letters and documents sent to me are
withheld by my secretaries lest they trouble me, and that my secretaries and
colleagues prevent people who wish to see me from doing so. But I myself
open and read all that is addressed to me at home. My mail, however, is so
large that I cannot reply to everything, though I indicate to my secretary what
I wish said and read the replies drafted by my secretary before they are sent.
Again, it is the number of people who wish to see me about this or that
which makes it impossible to see them all. During a week, for instance, that I
spent in London towards the end of 1966 in order to open the preparatory
meetings of the War Crimes Tribunal, I received visits each day, morning,
afternoon and evening, from people wishing to talk with me. But, as well
over one hundred people asked to talk with me during this week, many, over
a hundred, had to be refused.
I have remarked upon these charges at such length not only because
I dislike being thought to be silly, but because it exasperates me to have my
arguments and statements ?outed, unread or unlistened to, on such grounds.
I also dislike my colleagues coming under ?re for doing, most generously,
what I have asked them to do.
Less than two months after the Foundation was established I, in common
with the rest of the world, was shocked by the news of the murder of
President Kennedy. Perhaps I was less surprised by this vicious attack than
many people were because for a number of years I had been writing about
the growing acceptance of unbridled violence in the world and particularly
in the United States. Some of my articles on this subject were published,
but some were too outspoken for the editors of the publications that had
commissioned them.
As I read the press reports in regard to the President’s assassination and,
later, the purported evidence against Oswald and his shooting by Ruby, it
seemed to me that there had been an appalling miscarriage of justice and that
probably something very nasty was being covered up. When in June, 1963,
I met Mark Lane, the New York lawyer who, originally, had been looking into
the a?air on behalf of Oswald’s mother, my suspicions were con?rmed
by the facts which he had already gathered. Everyone connected with the
Foundation agreed with my point of view, and we did everything that we
could, individually and together, to help Mark Lane and to spread the knowl-
edge of his ?ndings. It was quite clear from the hushing-up methods
employed and the facts that were denied or passed over that very important
issues were at stake. I was greatly impressed, not only by the energy and
astuteness with which Mark Lane pursued the relevant facts, but by the
the foundation 639scrupulous objectivity with which he presented them, never inferring or
implying meanings not inherent in the facts themselves.
We thought it better if the Foundation itself were not involved in support-
ing those who were ferreting out the facts of the matter and propagating
knowledge of them. We therefore started an autonomous committee with the
unsatisfactory name of ‘The British Who Killed Kennedy? Committee’. We
got together a fair number of sponsors and even a secretary, but not without
di?culty, since many people thought the a?air none of our British business.
A few understood what skulduggery on the part of American Authorities
might portend, not only for the inhabitants of the United States, but for the
rest of the world as well. Those few had a hard time. We were well and truly
vili?ed. A threatening telephone call from the United States Embassy was
received by one of our number. Committees similar to ours were set up in
some other countries and some of their o?cers received similar warnings.
Finally, the Foundation had to take our Committee under its wing, and its
members toiled both night and day in consequence of this extra work. By
August, when I wrote an article called ‘16 Questions on the Assassination’,
meetings were being held, and other statements and articles were being
issued. Feeling ran high. Mark Lane himself travelled about this country as
well as about others, including his own, recounting the facts that he was
unearthing which refuted the o?cial and generally accepted pronounce-
ments concerning the matter. I was sent the Warren Commission’s Report
before it was published in September, 1965, and at once said, to the apparent
annoyance of many people, what I thought of it. Word went about that I was
talking through my hat and had not even read the report, and could not have
done so. In point of fact, Lane had sent me an early copy which I had read and
had time to consider. Now that the Warren Commission Report has been
examined minutely and it is ‘respectable’ to criticise it, many people agree
with me and have blandly forgotten both their and my earlier attitudes. At the
time, they were too timid to listen to or to follow the facts as they appeared,
accepting blindly the o?cial view of them. They did all that they could to
frustrate our e?orts to make them known.
Since shortly before April, 1963, more and more of my time and thought
has been absorbed by the war being waged in Vietnam. My other interests
have had to go by the board for the most part. Some of my time, of course, is
spent on family and private a?airs. And once in a blue moon I have a chance
to give my mind to the sort of thing I used to be interested in, philosophical
or, especially, logical problems. But I am rusty in such work and rather shy of
it. In 1965, a young mathematician, G. Spencer Brown, pressed me to go over
his work since, he said, he could ?nd no one else who he thought could
understand it. As I thought well of what little of his work I had previously
seen, and since I feel great sympathy for those who are trying to gain attention
the autobiography of bertrand russell 640for their fresh and unknown work against the odds of established indi?er-
ence, I agreed to discuss it with him. But as the time drew near for his arrival,
I became convinced that I should be quite unable to cope with it and with his
new system of notation. I was ?lled with dread. But when he came and I
heard his explanations, I found that I could get into step again and follow
his work. I greatly enoyed those few days, especially as his work was both
original and, it seemed to me, excellent.
One of the keenest pleasures of these years has been my friendship, a
friendship in which my wife shared, with Victor Purcell, and one of the
losses over which I most grieve is his death in January, 1965. He was a man
of humour and balanced judgement. He had both literary appreciation and
attainment, and very considerable learning as well as great knowledge of
the present-day scene. He had achieved much both as a Government
administrator in South East Asia and as a Don at Cambridge. His talk was a
delight to me. For many years I had known him through his political
writings which he used to send to me from time to time and about which I
would write to him. A little later I rejoiced in his witty verses written under
the pseudonym of Myra Buttle (a pun for My Rebuttal). I had never met
him till he spoke at the birthday party given for me at the Festival Hall in
1962. I did not even begin to know him till he was drawn into discussions
with us about the Foundation’s doings in relation to South East Asia. He
spoke at a meeting at Manchester in April, 1964, under the auspices of the
Foundation at which I spoke also, and, soon afterwards, he did an admir-
able pamphlet for us surveying ‘The Possibility of Peace in South East Asia’.
During this time we saw something of him in London, but it was not until
May, 1964, that we really came to know each other when he paid us a
short visit in North Wales. We talked endlessly. We capped each other’s
stories and quotations, and recited our favourite poems and prose to each
other. We probed each other’s knowledge especially of history, and discussed
serious problems. Moreover, it was a comfort to ?nd someone who under-
stood at once what one was driving at and, even when not entirely in
agreement, was willing to discuss whatever the subject might be with toler-
ance and sympathy. He came again to visit us in December, little more than a
fortnight before his death, and suddenly we felt, as he said, that we were old
friends, though we had seen each other so little. I remember, especially,
about this last visit, his suddenly bursting into a recitation of Lycidas, most
beautifully given, and again, reading his latest work by Myra Buttle, singing
those lines parodied from song. He was a brave and thoughtful, a compas-
sionate and boisterous man. It startles me sometimes when I realise how
much I miss him, not only for the enjoyment but for the help that he could
and, I feel sure, would have given me. It is seldom, I think that one of my age
makes a new friend so satisfying and so treasured, and astonishing that all
the foundation 641this a?ection and trust and understanding should have grown up in so short
a time.
My book on the situation in Vietnam and its implications, called War Crimes
in Vietnam, appeared early in January, 1967, in both cloth and paper editions.
It was published in Britain by Allen & Unwin, to whose generosity and liberal
attitude, in the person of Sir Stanley Unwin especially, I have owed much ever
since the First World War. The book is comprised of a few of the innumerable
letters, statements, speeches and articles delivered by me since 1963. To these
are added an Introduction giving the general background of the situation at
the beginning of 1967 and of my own attitude to it; a Postcript describing
brie?y the War Crimes Tribunal for which I had called; and an appendix
containing some of the ?ndings of Ralph Schoenman during one of his visits
of many weeks to Vietnam. War Crimes in Vietnam is so thorough an account of
my attitude towards the war and the facts upon which I base it, and, in any
case, I have published and broadcast so much on them during the past
few years, that I shall not go into them here. The book was reviewed with
considerable hostility in some journals, so it was a pleasure to learn that the
paperback edition was sold out within a fortnight of its publication and
that the book has been published in the United States and translated and
published in many languages throughout the world.
Schoenman’s reports were of extreme importance since they contain not
only ?rst-hand observation but verbatim accounts given by victims of the war
attested to both by the victims themselves and by the reliable witnesses
present at the time the accounts were given. The reports also paved the way
for the more formal investigations conducted in Indo-China by teams sent by
the International War Crimes Tribunal. It was in part upon such reports as
Schoenman’s and of those of Christopher Farley who, in November, 1964,
was the ?rst member of the foundation to go to Vietnam to obtain ?rst-hand
impressions, that I base my attitude and statements in regard to the Vietnam
war, as well as upon reports of other special investigators. Chie?y, however, I
base my opinions upon the facts reported in the daily newspapers, especially
those of the United States. These reports seem to have been published almost
by chance since they appear not to have a?ected editorial policy.
Occasionally I have been invited by the North Vietnamese to give my
opinion about various developments in the war. They asked my advice as
to the desirability of permitting Mr Harrison Salisbury, Assistant Managing
Editor of the New York Times, to visit Hanoi as a journalist. Mr Salisbury had
previously attacked me in his introduction to the Warren Commission’s
Report, in which he wrote of the Commission’s ‘exhaustive examination of
every particle of evidence it could discover’. These comments were soon
seen to be ridiculous, but I suspected that he would have great di?culty in
ignoring the evidence of widespread bombardment of civilians in North
the autobiography of bertrand russell 642Vietnam. I recommended that his visit was a risk worth taking, and was
pleased to read, some weeks later, his reports from Hanoi, which caused
consternation in Washington and probably lost him a Pulitzer Prize.
I have been, of course, in close touch with the two representatives of North
Vietnam who are in London and with the North Vietnamese Chargé d’A?aires
in Paris. I have corresponded with various members of the South Vietnam
National Liberation Front and with members of the United States armed
forces as well as with American civilians, both those who support and those
who oppose the war. There is no lack of information if one wishes to have it.
But there is great di?culty in making it known to the general public and in
persuading people to pay attention to it. It is not pleasant reading or hearing.
The more I and my colleagues studied the situation, the more persuaded
we became that the United States’ attitude on Vietnam was wholly indefen-
sible and that the war was being conducted with unprecedented cruelty by
means of new methods of torture. We concluded, after careful examination
of the great body of facts that we had amassed, that the war must be ended
quickly and that the only way to end it was to support the North Vietnamese
and the Liberation Front unequivocally. Moreover, we feared that so long as
the war continued it would be used by America as an excuse for escalation
which was likely to end in a general con?agration. We set up the Vietnam
Solidarity Campaign, which brought together those groups which saw the
Vietnam war as ?agrant aggression by the world’s mightiest nation against a
small peasant people. Supporters of the Campaign held that justice demanded
that they support the Vietnamese entirely. I delivered the opening address to
the founding of the Solidarity Campaign in June, 1966, and this was later
published in my book on Vietnam. The Campaign sent speakers all over the
country, together with the Foundation’s photographic exhibition on the war,
and formed a nucleus of support in Britain for the International War Crimes
Tribunal.
The Tribunal, of which my Vietnam book told, caught the imagination of a
wide public the world over. For four years I had been searching for some
e?ective means to help make known to the world the unbelievable cruelty of
the United States in its unjust attempt to subjugate South Vietnam. At the
time of the Korean War I had been unable to believe in the allegations
brought by Professor Joseph Needham and others charging the Americans
with having used that war as a proving-ground for new biological and chem-
ical weapons of mass destruction. I owe Professor Needham and the others
my sincere apologies for thinking these charges too extreme. By 1963, I had
become convinced of the justice of these allegations since it was clear that
similar ones must be brought against the United States in Vietnam. Early in
that year, I wrote to the New York Times describing American conduct in Vietnam
as barbarism ‘reminiscent of warfare as practised by the Germans in Eastern
the foundation 643Europe and the Japanese in South-East Asia.’ At the time this seemed too
strong for the New York Times, which ?rst attacked me editorially, then cut my
reply and ?nally denied me any access to its letters columns. I tried other
publications and determined to ?nd out more about what was at that time
a ‘secret war’. The more I discovered, the more appalling American inten-
tions and practice appeared. I learned not only of barbaric practices, but
also of the most cynical and ruthless suppression of a small nation’s desire
for independence. The destruction of the Geneva Agreements, the support
of a dictatorship, the establishment of a police state, and the destruction
of all its opponents were intolerable crimes. The following year I started
sending observers regularly to Indo-China, but their reports were contin-
ually overtaken by the enlargement of the war. The pretexts for the ‘escalation’,
particularly the attack upon North Vietnam, reminded me of nothing less than
those o?ered a quarter of a century earlier for Hitler’s adventures in Europe.
It became clear to me that the combination of aggression, experimental wea-
pons, indiscriminate warfare and concentration camp programmes required
a more thorough and formal investigation than I was able to manage.
In the summer of 1966, after extensive study and planning, I wrote to a
number of people around the world, inviting them to join an International
War Crimes Tribunal. The response heartened me, and soon I had received
about eighteen acceptances. I was especially pleased to be joined by Jean-Paul
Sartre, for despite our di?erences on philosophical questions I much admired
his courage. Vladimir Dedijer, the Yugoslav writer, had visited me earlier in
Wales, and through his wide knowledge of both the Western and Communist
worlds proved a valuable ally. I also came to rely heavily on Isaac Deutscher,
the essayist and political writer, whom I had not seen for ten years. Whenever
there were too many requests for television and other interviews about
the Tribunal, I could rely on Deutscher in London to meet the press and give
an informed and convincing assessment of world a?airs and of our own
work. I invited all the members to London for preliminary discussions in
November, 1966, and opened the proceedings with a speech to be found at
the end of this chapter. It seemed to me essential that what was happening in
Vietnam should be examined with scrupulous care, and I had invited only
people whose integrity was beyond question. The meeting was highly suc-
cessful, and we arranged to hold the public sessions of the Tribunal over
many weeks in the following year, after ?rst sending a series of international
teams to Indo-China on behalf of the Tribunal itself.
When the Tribunal ?rst proposed to send a selection of its members to
investigate atrocities, the proposal was ridiculed on the ground that there
were no atrocities on the American side. When this contention was shown
up, it was said that American military authorities would deal with this. When
this was shown up, it was said that eminent legal authorities made themselves
the autobiography of bertrand russell 644a laughing-stock by undertaking such work. Far better, it was argued, to let
the atrocities go unpunished. The Press, the military authorities, and many of
the American and British legal luminaries, consider that their honour and
humanity will be better served by allowing their o?cers to burn women and
children to death than by adopting the standards applied in the Nuremberg
Trials. This comes of accepting Hitler’s legacy.
When our opponents saw the seriousness of what we were preparing,
there was the sort of outcry to which, over the years, I have become
accustomed. Three African Heads of State who had sponsored the Founda-
tion resigned, and it was not di?cult to discover the hand behind their
defection. One of them even sent me a photostat of a letter which I had
sent about the Tribunal to President Johnson at the White House, a piece of
clumsiness which even the Central Intelligence Agency must have deplored.
The next move was for various journalists to question the impartiality of
