the autobiography of bertrand russell 664I am not going to Moscow but I am sending a personal representative and
four members of the Committee of 100 are going as delegates. I should very
much wish to see you in London. I shall be in London until around July 10
when I expect to be returning to Wales. I should be delighted to see you in
London at my home. Please contact me as soon as you come to London. Good
wishes.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
To Nikita Khrushchev
4 July, 1962
Dear Mr Khrushchev
I am venturing to send to you a copy of a letter which I have written to the
Moscow Conference on Disarmament, dealing with the case of Heinz Brandt.
I hope you will agree with me that clemency, in this case, would further the
cause of peace.
My warmest thanks for your kind letter on the occasion of my 90th birth-
day, which gave me great satisfaction.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
To the President of the Moscow Conference on Disarmament
4 July, 1962
Sir
I wish to bring to the attention of this Conference the case of Heinz Brandt
who has been sentenced in East Germany to thirteen years of prison with
hard labour. I do not know the exact nature of the charges against him. At
?rst, he was to have been charged with espionage, but, when he was brought
to trial, this charge was dropped. Heinz Brandt has been throughout his
active life a devoted and self-sacri?cing worker for peace and against West
German re-armament. For eleven years during Hitler’s regime, he was in
prisons and concentration camps, including Auschwitz and Buchenwald.
To all friends of peace and disarmament in West Germany, his arrest and
condemnation by the East German Authorities were a severe blow, while to
the militarists of West Germany they supplied new arguments and new
reasons for bitterness. I have no doubt that, in the interests of disarmament
with which this Congress is concerned, his release would be profoundly
bene?cial. I hope that the Congress will pass a resolution asking for his
release on these grounds.
Bertrand Russell
the foundation 665To Walter Ulbricht
12 August, 1963
Dear Herr Ulbricht
Recently I was honoured with an award for peace by your government in
the name of Carl von Ossietzky. I hold Ossietzky’s memory in high regard
and I honour that for which he died. I am passionately opposed to the Cold
War and to all those who trade in it, so I felt it important to accept the honour
accorded me.
You will understand, therefore, the motives which lead me to, once more,
appeal to you on behalf of Heinz Brandt. I am most deeply disturbed that
I have not received so much as an acknowledgement of my previous appeals
on his behalf. Heinz Brandt was a political prisoner, placed in concentration
camp along with Ossietzky. He has su?ered many long years of imprison-
ment because he has stood by his political beliefs. I do not raise the question
here of the comparative merit or demerit of those beliefs. I but ask you to
consider the damage that is done to the attempts to improve relations
between your country and the West and to soften the Cold War by the
continued imprisonment of Heinz Brandt. I appeal to you, once more, on
grounds of humanity, to release this man, and I should be grateful if you
would inform me of your intentions with regard to him.
Although I value the Ossietzky Medal, I am placed in an ambiguous
position by the continued imprisonment of Heinz Brandt.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
On October 30, 1963, the Secretary of the East German State Council wrote to me at great
length to explain that ‘the spy Brandt’, ‘condemned for treason’ had received the ‘justi?ed sentence’
of thirteen years’ hard labour, the sentence to expire in June, 1974. Brandt had served only two
years of this sentence, and no long sentence could be conditionally suspended until at least half of it
had been served. ‘Reduction of the sentence by act of grace’ was not justi?ed because of the
seriousness of the crimes. Herr Gotsche’s letter concluded: ‘I may assume that you, too, dear Mr
Russell, will appreciate after insight . . . that in this case the criminal law must be fully applied
. . . in the interests of humanity.’
To Walter Ulbricht
7 January 1964
Dear Mr Ulbricht
I am writing to you to tell you of my decision to return to your Govern-
ment the Carl von Ossietzsky medal for peace. I do so reluctantly and
after two years of private approaches on behalf of Heinz Brandt, whose
continued imprisonment is a barrier to coexistence, relaxation of tension and
understanding between East and West.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 666My representative, Mr Kinsey, spoke recently with o?cials of your govern-
ing council in East Berlin and he carried a message from me.
I regret not to have heard from you on this subject. I hope that you will yet
?nd it possible to release Brandt through an amnesty which would be a boon
to the cause of peace and to your country.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
29 May 1964
Dear Premier Ulbricht
I am writing to convey my great pleasure at the news of the release of
Heinz Brandt from prison. I realise that this was not an easy decision for your
Government to make but I am absolutely convinced that it was a decision in
the best interests of your country and of the cause of peace and good rela-
tions between East and West.
I wish to o?er my appreciation and approval for this important act of
clemency.
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
From and to Tony and Betty Ambatielos
Filonos 22
Piraeus, Greece
7 May 1964
Dear Lord Russell
It will give my husband and I the greatest pleasure if, during a visit we
hope to make to Britain soon, we are able to meet you and thank you
personally for all your support over the years. Meantime, however, we send
you this brief letter as a token of our deep gratitude and esteem.
We will be indebted to you always for assisting in bringing about Tony’s
release and we know that his colleagues who were freed at the same time
would wish us to convey their feelings of gratitude towards you also. It is
unfortunate that when so many hundreds were at last freed, nearly one
hundred were and are still held. But we are all con?dent that with the
continued interest and support of such an esteemed and stalwart friend as
yourself, they too can be freed in the not too distant future.
With kind regards to Lady Russell and all good wishes and thanks,
Yours sincerely
Betty Ambatielos
Dear Lord Russell
I wish to send you these few lines to express my very deep gratitude and
respect to you for the way you championed the cause of the political prisoners.
the foundation 667Your name is held in very high esteem among all of us.
Please accept my personal thanks for all you have done.
Yours sincerely
Tony Ambatielos
13 May, 1964
Dear Mr and Mrs Ambatielos
Thank you very much for your letter. I should be delighted to see you both
in Wales or London. I have been corresponding with Papandreou, pressing
him for the release of remaining prisoners and the dropping of recent
charges in Salonika.
With kind regards,
Yours sincerely
Bertrand Russell
From and to Lord Gladwyn
30, Gresham Street
London, E.C.2
3rd November, 1964
Dear Lord Russell
I have read with great interest, on my return from America your letter of
September 11th which was acknowledged by my secretary. It was indeed
kind of you to send me the literature concerning the ‘Bertrand Russell Peace
Foundation’ and the paper entitled ‘Africa and the Movement for Peace’ and
to ask for my views, which are as follows:—
As a general observation, I should at once say that I question your whole
major premise. I really do not think that general nuclear war is getting more
and more likely: I believe, on the contrary, that it is probably getting less and
less likely. I do not think that either the ??? or the ???? has the slightest
intention of putting the other side into a position in which it may feel it will
have to use nuclear weapons on a ‘?rst strike’ for its own preservation (if that
very word is not in itself paradoxical in the circumstances). Nor will the
Chinese for a long time have the means of achieving a ‘?rst strike’, and when
they have they likewise will not want to achieve it. We are no doubt in for a
di?cult, perhaps even a revolutionary decade and the West must stand
together and discuss wise joint policies for facing it, otherwise we may well
lapse into mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism. If we do evolve an intelligent
common policy not only will there be no general nuclear war, but we shall
overcome the great evils of hunger and overpopulation. Here, however, to my
mind, everything depends on the possibility of organising Western unity.
Nor do I believe that ‘war by accident’, though just conceivable, is a
tenable hypothesis. Thus the so-called ‘Balance of Terror’ (by which I mean
the autobiography of bertrand russell 668the ability of each of the two giants to in?ict totally unacceptable damage on
the other even on a ‘second strike’) is likely to result in the maintenance of
existing territorial boundaries (sometimes referred to as the ‘Status Quo’) in
all countries in which the armed forces of the East and West are in physical
contact, and a continuance of the so-called ‘Cold War’, in other words a
struggle for in?uence between the free societies of the West and the Com-
munist socieities of the East, in the ‘emergent’ countries of South America,
Africa and Asia. I developed this general thesis in 1958 in an essay called ‘Is
Tension Necessary?’ and events since then have substantially con?rmed it. The
Balance of Terror has not turned out to be so ‘delicate’ as some thought; with
the passage of time I should myself say that it was getting even less fragile.
In the ‘Cold War’ struggle the general position of the West is likely to be
strengthened by the recent ideological break between the Soviet Union and
China which seems likely to persist in spite of the fall of Khrushchev. Next to
the ‘Balance of Terror’ between Russia and America I should indeed place the
split as a major factor militating in favour of prolonged World Peace, in the
sense of an absence of nuclear war. The chief feature of the present landscape,
in fact (and it is a reassuring one), is that America and Russia are becoming
less afraid of each other. The one feels that the chances of a subversion of its
free economy are substantially less: the other feels that no attack can now
possibly be mounted against it by the Western ‘Capitalists’.
Naturally, I do not regard this general situation as ideal, or even as one
which is likely to continue for a very long period. It is absurd that everybody,
and more particularly the ??? and the ????, should spend such colossal sums
on armaments, though it seems probable that, the nuclear balance having
been achieved, less money will be devoted to reinforcing or even to maintain-
ing it. It is wrong, in principle, that Germany should continue to be divided.
Clearly general disarmament is desirable, though here it is arguable that it
will not be achieved until an agreed settlement of outstanding political prob-
lems, and notably the reuni?cation of Germany is peacefully negotiated. The
truth may well be that in the absence of such settlements both sides are in
practice reluctant to disarm beyond a certain point, and without almost
impossible guarantees, and are apt to place the blame for lack of progress
squarely on the other. What is demonstrably untrue is that the West are to
blame whereas the Soviet Union is guiltless. In particular, I question your
statement (in the African paper) that the Soviet Union has already agreed to
disarm and to accept adequate inspection in all the proper stages, and that
failure to agree on disarmament is solely the responsibility of the West. The
facts are that although the Soviet Government has accepted full veri?cation of
the destruction of all armaments due for destruction in the various stages of
both the Russian and the American Draft Disarmament Treaties, they have not
agreed that there should be any veri?cation of the balance of armaments
the foundation 669remaining in existence. There would thus, under the Russian proposal, be no
guarantee at all that retained armed forces and armaments did not exceed
agreed quotas at any stage. Here the Americans have made a signi?cant con-
cession, namely to be content in the early stages with a system of verifying in
a few sample areas only: but the Soviet Government has so far turned a deaf
ear to such suggestions. Then there is the whole problem of the run-down
and its relation to the Agreed Principles, as regards which the Soviet inten-
tions have not, as yet, been fully revealed. Finally the West want to have
the International Peace-Keeping Force, which would clearly be required in
the event of complete disarmament, under an integrated and responsible
Command, but the Soviet Government is insisting, for practical purposes, on
the introduction into the Command of a power of veto.
It follows that I cannot possibly agree with your subsequent statement
either that ‘if we are to alter the drift to destruction it will be necessary to
change Western policy (my italics)’ – and apparently Western policy only.
At the time of the Cuba crisis you circulated a lea?et entitled ‘No Nuclear War
over Cuba’, which started o? ‘You are to die’. We were to die, it appeared,
unless public opinion could under your leadership be mobilised so as to alter
American policy, thus allowing the Soviet Government to establish hardened
nuclear missile bases in Cuba for use against the United States. Happily, no
notice was taken of your manifesto: the Russians discontinued their suicidal
policy; and President Kennedy by his resolution and farsightedness saved the
world. We did not die. Some day, all of us will die, but not, I think in the great
holocaust of the Western imagination. The human animal, admittedly, has
many of the characteristics of a beast of prey: mercifully he does not possess
the suicidal tendencies of the lemmings. What we want in the world is less
fear and more love. With great respect, I do not think that your campaign is
contributing to either objective.
These are matters of great moment to our people and indeed to humanity.
I should hope that you would one day be prepared to advance your proposals
in the House of Lords where they could be subjected to intelligent scrutiny.
In the meantime I suggest that we agree to publish this letter together with
your reply, if indeed you should feel that one is called for.
Yours sincerely
Gladwyn
Plas Penrhyn
14 November, 1964
Dear Lord Gladwyn
Thank you for your long, reasoned letter of November 3rd. I shall take up
your points one by one.
I. You point out that the danger of a nuclear war between Russia and the
the autobiography of bertrand russell 670West is less than it was a few years ago. As regards a direct clash between
???? and the Warsaw Powers, I agree with you that the danger is somewhat
diminished. On the other hand, new dangers have arisen. All the Powers of
East and West, ever since Hiroshima, have agreed that the danger of nuclear
war is increased when new Powers become nuclear. But nothing has been
done to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons. France and Belgium, India
and China and Brazil have or are about to have nuclear weapons. West
Germany is on the verge of acquiring a share in Nato weapons. As for China,
you say that it will be a long time before China will be e?ective, but I see no
reason to believe this. The West thought that it would be a long time before
Russia had the A-bomb. When Russia had the A-bomb, the West thought it
would be a long time before they had the H-bomb. Both these expectations
turned out to be illusions.
You consider war by accident so improbable that it can be ignored. There
is, however, the possibility of war by mistake. This has already almost
occurred several times through mistaking the moon for Soviet planes or some
such mis-reading of radar signals. It cannot be deemed unlikely that, sooner
or later, such a mistake will not be discovered in time.
Moreover, it is a simple matter of mathematical statistics that the more
nuclear missiles there are the greater is the danger of nuclear accident. Vast
numbers of rockets and other missiles, primed for release and dependent
upon mechanical systems and slight margins in time, are highly subject to
accident. Any insurance company would establish this where the factors
involved relate to civilian activity such as automobile transport or civilian
aviation. In this sense, the danger of accidental war increases with each day
that the weapons systems are permitted to remain. Nor is the danger wholly
mechanical: human beings, even well ‘screened’ and highly trained are
subject to hysteria and madness of various sorts when submitted to the
extreme tensions and concentration that many men having to do with nuclear
weapons now are submitted to.
Another danger is the existence of large, adventurous and very powerful
groups in the United States. The ?? Government has run grave risks in attacks
on North Vietnam forces. In the recent election some 40%, or thereabouts, of
the population voted for Goldwater, who openly advocated war. Warlike
groups can, at any moment, create an incident such as the U2 which put an
end to the conciliatory mood of Camp David.
In estimating the wisdom of a policy, it is necessary to consider not only
the possibility of a bad result, but also the degree of badness of the result. The
extermination of the human race is the worst possible result, and even if the
probability of its occuring is small, its disastrousness should be a deterrent to
any policy which allows of it.
II. You admit that the present state of the world is not desirable and suggest
the foundation 671that the only way of improving it is by way of Western unity. Your letter
seems to imply that this unity is to be achieved by all countries of the West
blindly following one policy. Such unity does not seem to me desirable.
Certainly the policy to which you appear to think the West should adhere – a
policy which upholds the present United States war in South Vietnam and the
economic imperialism of the ?? in the Congo and Latin America – cannot
possibly avoid a lapse into mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism, which you say
you wish above all to avoid.
The United States is conducting a war in Vietnam in which it has tolerated
and supervised every form of bestiality against a primitively armed peasant
population. Disembowelments, mutilations, mass bombing raids with jelly-
gasoline, the obliteration of over 75% of the villages of the country and
the despatch of eight million people to internment camps have characterised
this war. Such conduct cannot be described as an ordered bulwark against
mediocrity, anarchy or barbarism. There is a large body of opinion in the
United States itself that opposes this war, but the Government persists in
carrying it on. The unity that you advocate would do little to encourage the
?? Government to alter its policy. The ?? policy in the Congo promises to be
similar to that in Vietnam in cruelty. The Western nations show no signs of
encouraging any other policy there. (I enclose two pamphlets dealing with
Vietnam and the Congo in case you have not seen them.)
Universal unity, however, such as might be achieved by a World Govern-
ment I am entirely persuaded is necessary to the peace of the world.
III. You ?nd fault with me on the ground that I seem to hold the West
always to blame and the Soviet Union always guitless. This is by no means the
case. While Stalin lived, I considered his policies abominable. More recently, I
protested vigorously against the Russian tests that preceded the Test Ban
Treaty. At present, I am engaged in pointing out the ill-treatment of Jews in
the Soviet Union. It is only in certain respects, of which Cuba was the most
important, that I think the greatest share of blame falls upon the United
States.
IV. Your comments on the Cuban crisis are, to me, utterly amazing. You
say that the way the solution was arrived at was that ‘the Russians dis-
continued their suicidal policy; and President Kennedy by his resolution and
farsightedness saved the world’. This seems to me a complete reversal of the
truth. Russia and America had policies leading directly to nuclear war.
Khrushchev, when he saw the danger, abandoned his policy. Kennedy did
not. It was Khrushchev who allowed the human race to continue, not
Kennedy.
Apart from the solution of the crisis, Russian policy towards Cuba would
have been justi?able but for the danger of war, whereas American policy was
purely imperialistic. Cuba established a kind of Government which the ??
the autobiography of bertrand russell 672disliked, and the ?? considered that its dislike justi?ed attempts to alter the
character of the Government by force. I do not attempt to justify the estab-
lishment of missiles on Cuban soil, but I do not see how the West can justify
its objection to these missiles. The ?? has established missiles in Quemoy, in
Matsu, in Taiwan, Turkey, Iran and all the countries on the periphery of China
and the Soviet Union which host nuclear bases. I am interested in your
statement that the Soviet Government was establishing hardened nuclear mis-
sile bases in Cuba, especially as neither Mr Macmillan nor Lord Home stated
that the missiles in Cuba were nuclear, ?tted with nuclear warheads or
accompanied by nuclear warheads on Cuban soil.
In view of the con?ict at the Bay of Pigs, it cannot be maintained that Cuba
had no excuse for attempts to defend itself. In view of Kennedy’s words to the
returned Cuban exiles after the crisis, it cannot be said that Cuba still has no
excuse.
You speak of ‘the free world’. Cuba seems a case in point. The West seems
little freer than the East.
You allude to my lea?et ‘Act or Perish’. This was written at the height of
the crisis when most informed people were expecting universal death within
a few hours. After the crisis passed, I no longer considered such emphatic
language appropriate, but, as an expression of the right view at the moment, I
still consider it correct.
V. You say, and I emphatically agree with you, that what the world needs is
less fear and more love. You think that it is to be achieved by the balance of
terror. Is it not evident that, so long as the doctrine of the balance of terror
prevails, there will be continually new inventions which will increase the
expense of armaments until both sides are reduced to penury? The balance of
terror consists of two expensively armed blocs, each saying to the other, ‘I
should like to destroy you, but I fear that, if I did, you would destroy me.’ Do
you really consider that this is a way to promote love? If you do not, I wish
that you had given some indication of a way that you think feasible. All that
you say about this is that you see no way except disarmament, but that
disarmament is not feasible unless various political questions have ?rst been
settled.
My own view is that disarmament could now come about. Perhaps you
know Philip Noel-Baker’s pamphlet ‘The Way to World Disarmament – Now!’
In it he notes accurately and dispassionately the actual record of disarmament
negotiations. I enclose it with this letter in case you do not know it. He has
said, among other things that Soviet proposals entail the presence of large
numbers of inspectors on Soviet territory during all stages of disarmament. In
1955 the Soviet Union accepted in full the Western disarmament proposals.
The Western proposals were withdrawn at once upon their acceptance
by the Soviet Union. It is far from being only the West that cries out for
the foundation 673disarmament: China has pled for it again and again, the last time a few
days ago.
As to the expense of present arms production programmes, I, naturally,
agree with you. Arms production on the part of the great powers is in excess of
the gross national product of three continents – Africa, Latin America and Asia.
I also agree that disarmament would be easier to achieve if various political
questions were ?rst settled. It is for this reason that the Peace Foundation of
which I wrote you is engaged at present in an examination of these questions
and discussions with those directly involved in them in the hope of working
out with them acceptable and feasible solutions. And it is with a view to
enhancing the love and mitigating the hate in the world that the Foundation
is engaged in Questions relating to political prisoners and members of
families separated by political ruling and red tape and to unhappy minorities.
It has had surprising and considerable success in all these ?elds during the
?rst year of its existence.
As to publication, I am quite willing that both your letter and mine should
be published in full.
Yours sincerely
Russell
enc:
‘Vietnam and Laos’ by Bertrand Russell and William Warbey, ??
‘The Way to World Disarmament – Now!’ by Philip Noel-Baker
Unarmed Victory by Bertrand Russell
‘The Cold War and World Poverty’ by Bertrand Russell
‘Freedom in Iran’ by K. Zaki
‘Oppression in South Arabia’ by Bertrand Russell
‘Congo – a Tragedy’ by R. Schoenman
No reply was ever received by me to this letter to Lord Gladwyn who, so far as I know, never
published either of the above letters.
16 ????????? ?? ??? ?????????????
The o?cial version of the assassination of President Kennedy has been so
riddled with contradictions that it has been abandoned and rewritten no less
than three times. Blatant fabrications have received very widespread coverage
