possible way.
?????? ?? ????? ??????? ?? ??????? ?? ??? ??? ?????? ????????,
???????? 13, 1966
Allow me to express my appreciation to you for your willingness to
participate in this Tribunal. It has been convened so that we may investigate
and assess the character of the United States’ war in Vietnam.
The Tribunal has no clear historical precedent. The Nuremberg Tribunal,
although concerned with designated war crimes, was possible because the
victorious allied Powers compelled the vanquished to present their leaders for
trial. Inevitably, the Nuremberg trials, supported as they were by State power,
contained a strong element of realpolitik. Despite these inhibiting factors,
which call in question certain of the Nuremberg procedures, the Nuremberg
Tribunal expressed the sense of outrage, which was virtually universal, at the
crimes committed by the Nazis in Europe. Somehow, it was widely felt, there
had to be criteria against which such actions could be judged, and according
to which Nazi crimes could be condemned. Many felt it was morally neces-
sary to record the full horror. It was hoped that a legal method could be
devised, capable of coming to terms with the magnitude of Nazi crimes.
These ill-de?ned but deeply-felt, sentiments surrounded the Nuremberg
Tribunal.
Our own task is more di?cult, but the same responsibility obtains. We
do not represent any State power, nor can we compel the policy-makers
responsible for crimes against the people of Vietnam to stand accused before
us. We lack force majeure. The procedures of a trial are impossible to implement.
I believe that these apparent limitations are, in fact, virtues. We are free to
conduct a solemn and historic investigation, uncompelled by reasons of State
or other such obligations. Why is this war being fought in Vietnam? In
whose interest is it being waged? We have, I am certain, an obligation to
study these questions and to pronounce on them, after thorough investiga-
tion, for in doing so we can assist mankind in understanding why a small
agrarian people have endured for more than twelve years the assault of the
largest industrial power on earth, possessing the most developed and cruel
military capacity.
I have prepared a paper, which I hope you will wish to read during your
deliberations. It sets out a considerable number of reports from Western
newspapers and such sources, giving an indication of the record of the
United States in Vietnam. These reports should make it clear that we enter our
the autobiography of bertrand russell 694enquiry with considerable prima facie evidence of crimes reported not by
the victims but by media favourable to the policies responsible. I believe
that we are justi?ed in concluding that it is necessary to convene a solemn
Tribunal, composed of men eminent not through their power, but through
their intellectual and moral contribution to what we optimistically call
‘human civilisation’.
I feel certain that this Tribunal will perform an historic role if its investiga-
tion is exhaustive. We must record the truth in Vietnam. We must pass judge-
ment on what we ?nd to be the truth. We must warn of the consequences of
this truth. We must, moreover, reject the view that only indi?erent men are
impartial men. We must repudiate the degenerate conception of individual
intelligence, which confuses open minds with empty ones.
I hope that this Tribunal will select men who respect the truth and whose
life’s work bears witness to that respect. Such men will have feelings about
the prima facie evidence of which I speak. No man unacquainted with this
evidence through indi?erence has any claim to judge it.
I enjoin this Tribunal to select commissions for the purpose of dividing the
areas of investigation and taking responsibility for their conduct, under the
Tribunal’s jurisdiction. I hope that teams of quali?ed investigators will be
chosen to study in Vietnam the evidence of which we have witnessed only a
small part. I should like to see the United States Government requested to
present evidence in defence of its actions. The resistance of the National
Liberation Front and of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam must also
be assessed and placed in its true relation to the civilisation we choose
to uphold. We have about ?ve months of work before us, before the full
hearings, which have been planned for Paris.
As I re?ect on this work, I cannot help thinking of the events of my life,
because of the crimes I have seen and the hopes I have nurtured. I have lived
through the Dreyfus Case and been party to the investigation of the crimes
committed by King Leopold in the Congo. I can recall many wars. Much
injustice has been recorded quietly during these decades. In my own experi-
ence I cannot discover a situation quite comparable. I cannot recall a people
so tormented, yet so devoid of the failings of their tormentors. I do not know
any other con?ict in which the disparity in physical power was so vast. I have
no memory of any people so enduring, or of any nation with a spirit of
resistance so unquenchable.
I will not conceal from you the profundity of my admiration and passion
for the people of Vietnam. I cannot relinquish the duty to judge what has
been done to them because I have such feelings. Our mandate is to uncover
and tell all. My conviction is that no greater tribute can be provided than an
o?er of the truth, born of intense and unyielding enquiry.
May this Tribunal prevent the crime of silence.
the foundation 695??? ???? ??? ?????????? ?? ??? ???????? ???????? 1966
The conscience of mankind is profoundly disturbed by the war being
waged in Vietnam. It is a war in which the world’s wealthiest and most
powerful State is opposed to a nation of poor peasants, who have been
?ghting for their independence for a quarter of a century. It appears that this
war is being waged in violation of international law and custom.
Every day, the world Press and, particularly, that of the United States,
publishes reports which, if proved, would represent an ever growing viola-
tion of the principles established by the Nuremberg Tribunal and rules ?xed
by international agreements.
Moved and shocked by the su?ering endured by the Vietnamese people
and convinced that humanity must know the truth in order to deliver a
serious and impartial judgement on the events taking place in Vietnam and
where the responsibility for them lies, we have accepted the invitation of
Bertrand Russell to meet, in order to examine these facts scrupulously and
confront them with the rules of law which govern them.
It has been alleged that in the ?rst nine months of 1966, the air force of the
United States has dropped, in Vietnam, four million pounds of bombs daily.
If it continues at this rate to the end of the year, the total will constitute a
greater mass of explosives than it unloaded on the entire Paci?c theatre
during the whole of the Second World War. The area bombarded in this way
is no bigger than the states of New York and Pennsylvania. In the South,
the ?? forces and their docile Saigon allies have herded eight million people,
peasants and their families, into barbed wire encampments under the surveil-
lance of the political police. Chemical poisons have been, and are being,
used to defoliate and render barren tens of thousands of acres of farmland.
Crops are being systematically destroyed – and this in a country where, even
in normal times, the average man or woman eats less than half the food
consumed by the average American (and lives to less than one third of his
age).
Irrigation systems are deliberately disrupted. Napalm, phosphorus bombs
and a variety of other, sadistically designed and hitherto unknown weapons
are being used against the population of both North and South Vietnam.
More than ?ve hundred thousand Vietnamese men, women and children
have perished under this onslaught, more than the number of soldiers the
United States lost in both world wars, although the population of Vietnam
had already been decimated during the Japanese and French occupations and
the famine which followed the Second World War.
Even though we have not been entrusted with this task by any organised
authority, we have taken the responsibility in the interest of humanity and
the preservation of civilisation. We act on our own accord, in complete
the autobiography of bertrand russell 696independence from any government and any o?cial or semi-o?cial organ-
isation, in the ?rm belief that we express a deep anxiety and remorse felt by
many of our fellow humans in many countries. We trust that our action will
help to arouse the conscience of the world.
We, therefore, consider ourselves a Tribunal which, even if it has not
the power to impose sanctions, will have to answer, amongst others, the
following questions:
1. Has the United States Government (and the Governments of Australia,
New Zealand and South Korea) committed acts of aggression according
to international law?
2. Has the American Army made use of or experimented with new
weapons or weapons forbidden by the laws of war (gas, special chemical
products, napalm, etc.)?
3. Has there been bombardment of targets of a purely civilian character, for
example hospitals, schools, sanatoria, dams, etc., and on what scale has
this occurred?
4. Have Vietnamese prisoners been subjected to inhuman treatment for-
bidden by the laws of war and, in particular, to torture or to mutilation?
Have there been unjusti?ed reprisals against the civilian population, in
particular, the execution of hostages?
5. Have forced labour camps been created, has there been deportation of the
population or other acts tending to the extermination of the population
and which can be characterised juridically as acts of genocide?
If the Tribunal decides that one, or all, of these crimes have been commit-
ted, it will be up to the Tribunal to decide who bears the responsibility for
them.
This Tribunal will examine all the evidence that may be placed before it by
any source or party. The evidence may be oral, or in the form of documents.
No evidence relevant to our purposes will be refused attention. No witness
competent to testify about the events with which our enquiry is concerned
will be denied a hearing.
The National Liberation Front of Vietnam and the Government of the
Democratic Republic of Vietnam have assured us of their willingness to
co-operate, to provide the necessary information, and to help us in checking
the accuracy and reliability of the information. The Cambodian Head of State,
Prince Sihanouk, has similarly o?ered to help by the production of evidence.
We trust that they will honour this pledge and we shall gratefully accept their
help, without prejudice to our own views or attitude. We renew, as a Tri-
bunal, the appeal which Bertrand Russell has addressed in his name to the
Government of the United States. We invite the Government of the United
the foundation 697States to present evidence or cause it to be presented, and to instruct
their o?cials or representatives to appear and state their case. Our purpose
is to establish, without fear or favour, the full truth about this war. We
sincerely hope that our e?orts will contribute to the world’s justice, to the
re-establishment of peace and the liberation of the oppressed peoples.
***
?????????? ?? ??? ????????
We are grateful to the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation for the work which
it has already done. We are sure that the preliminary steps already taken by it
will help us to complete our task within a reasonable time and with consider-
able more e?ciency than it would have been possible if its preliminary work
had not helped our deliberations.
?????? ??? ??????? ??? ??? ????????????? ??? ?????? ????????
For several years Western news media have unwittingly documented the
record of crime committed by the United States in Vietnam, which com-
prises an overwhelming prima facie indictment of the American war. The
terrible series of photographs, and accounts of torture, mutilation and
experimental war has impelled Bertrand Russell to call us together to con-
duct an exhaustive inquiry into the war in all its aspects. Scientists, lawyers,
doctors and world-renowned scholars will serve on commissions investigat-
ing the evidence. Witnesses will be brought from Vietnam to give their ?rst-
hand testimony. Investigating teams will travel throughout Vietnam and
Indochina, gathering data on the spot. The documentation published in the
West and elsewhere will be relentlessly examined. This ?ve months’ inten-
sive work, requiring travelling scienti?c inquiry, and the detailed research,
will cost a vast amount of money. Twelve weeks of public hearings will be
even more expensive.
The International War Crimes Tribunal is determined to be ?nancially
independent. This can only be accomplished through the contributions of
every individual who supports the work of the Tribunal and recognises the
profound importance of the full realisation of its task.
We command no state power; we do not represent the strong; we control
no armies or treasuries. We act out of the deepest moral concern and depend
upon the conscience of ordinary people throughout the world for the real
support – the material help, which will determine whether people of
Vietnam are to be abandoned in silence or allowed the elementary right of
having their plight presented to the conscience of Mankind.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 698POSTSCRIPT1
The serious part of my life ever since boyhood has been devoted to two
di?erent objects which for a long time remained separate and have only in
recent years united into a single whole. I wanted, on the one hand, to ?nd out
whether anything could be known; and, on the other hand, to do whatever
might be possible toward creating a happier world. Up to the age of thirty-
eight I gave most of my energies to the ?rst of these tasks. I was troubled by
scepticism and unwillingly forced to the conclusion that most of what passes
for knowledge is open to reasonable doubt. I wanted certainty in the kind
of way in which people want religious faith. I thought that certainty is
more likely to be found in mathematics than elsewhere. But I discovered that
many mathematical demonstrations, which my teachers expected me to
accept, were full of fallacies, and that, if certainty were indeed discoverable in
mathematics, it would be in a new kind of mathematics, with more solid
foundations than those that had hitherto been thought secure. But as the
work proceeded, I was continually reminded of the fable about the elephant
and the tortoise. Having constructed an elephant upon which the mathemat-
ical world could rest, I found the elephant tottering, and proceeded to
construct a tortoise to keep the elephant from falling. But the tortoise was no
more secure than the elephant, and after some twenty years of very arduous
toil, I came to the conclusion that there was nothing more that I could do in
the way of making mathematical knowledge indubitable. Then came the First
World War, and my thoughts became concentrated on human misery and
folly. Neither misery nor folly seems to me any part of the inevitable lot of
man. And I am convinced that intelligence, patience, and eloquence can,
sooner or later, lead the human race out of its self-imposed tortures provided
it does not exterminate itself meanwhile.On the basis of this belief, I have had always a certain degree of optimism,
although, as I have grown older, the optimism has grown more sober and the
happy issue more distant. But I remain completely incapable of agreeing with
those who accept fatalistically the view that man is born to trouble. The
causes of unhappiness in the past and in the present are not di?cult to
ascertain. There have been poverty, pestilence, and famine, which were due
to man’s inadequate mastery of nature. There have been wars, oppressions
and tortures which have been due to men’s hostility to their fellow men. And
there have been morbid miseries fostered by gloomy creeds, which have
led men into profound inner discords that made all outward prosperity of
no avail. All these are unnecessary. In regard to all of them, means are known
by which they can be overcome. In the modern world, if communities
are unhappy, it is often because they have ignorances, habits, beliefs, and
passions, which are dearer to them than happiness or even life. I ?nd many
men in our dangerous age who seem to be in love with misery and death, and
who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them. They think hope is
irrational and that, in sitting down to lazy despair, they are merely facing
facts. I cannot agree with these men. To preserve hope in our world makes
calls upon our intelligence and our energy. In those who despair it is
frequently the energy that is lacking.
The last half of my life has been lived in one of those painful epochs of
human history during which the world is getting worse, and past victories
which had seemed to be de?nitive have turned out to be only temporary.
When I was young, Victorian optimism was taken for granted. It was thought
that freedom and prosperity would spread gradually throughout the world by
an orderly process, and it was hoped that cruelty, tyranny, and injustice
would continually diminish. Hardly anyone was haunted by the fear of great
wars. Hardly anyone thought of the nineteenth century as a brief interlude
between past and future barbarism. For those who grew up in that atmos-
phere, adjustment to the world of the present has been di?cult. It has
been di?cult not only emotionally but intellectually. Ideas that had been
thought adequate have proved inadequate. In some directions valuable free-
doms have proved very hard to preserve. In other directions, especially as
regards relations between nations, freedoms formerly valued have proved
potent sources of disaster. New thoughts, new hopes, new freedoms, and new
restrictions upon freedom are needed if the world is to emerge from its
present perilous state.
I cannot pretend that what I have done in regard to social and political
problems has had any great importance. It is comparatively easy to have an
immense e?ect by means of a dogmatic and precise gospel, such as that of
Communism. But for my part I cannot believe that what mankind needs is any-
thing either precise or dogmatic. Nor can I believe with any wholeheartedness
the autobiography of bertrand russell 700in any partial doctrine which deals only with some part or aspect of human
life. There are those who hold that everything depends upon institutions, and
that good institutions will inevitably bring the millennium. And, on the other
hand, there are those who believe that what is needed is a change of heart,
and that, in comparison, institutions are of little account. I cannot accept
either view. Institutions mould character, and character transforms institu-
tions. Reforms in both must march hand in hand. And if individuals are to
retain that measure of initiative and ?exibility which they ought to have, they
must not be all forced into one rigid mould; or, to change the metaphor, all
drilled into one army. Diversity is essential in spite of the fact that it precludes
universal acceptance of a single gospel. But to preach such a doctrine is
di?cult especially in arduous times. And perhaps it cannot be e?ective until
some bitter lessons have been learned by tragic experience.
My work is near its end, and the time has come when I can survey it
as a whole. How far have I succeeded, and how far have I failed? From an
early age I thought of myself as dedicated to great and arduous tasks.
Nearly three-quarters of a century ago, walking alone in the Tiergarten
through melting snow under the coldly glittering March sun, I determined
to write two series of books: one abstract, growing gradually more con-
crete; the other concrete, growing gradually more abstract. They were to be
crowned by a synthesis, combining pure theory with a practical social phil-
osophy. Except for the ?nal synthesis, which still eludes me, I have written
these books. They have been acclaimed and praised, and the thoughts of
many men and women have been a?ected by them. To this extent I have
succeeded.
But as against this must be set two kinds of failure, one outward, one
inward.
To begin with the outward failure: the Tiergarten has become a desert; the
Brandenburger Tor, through which I entered it on that March morning, has
become the boundary of two hostile empires, glaring at each other across a
barrier, and grimly preparing the ruin of mankind. Communists, Fascists, and
Nazis have successfully challenged all that I thought good, and in defeating
them much of what their opponents have sought to preserve is being
lost. Freedom has come to be thought weakness, and tolerance has been
compelled to wear the garb of treachery. Old ideals are judged irrelevant, and
no doctrine free from harshness commands respect.
The inner failure, though of little moment to the world, has made my
mental life a perpetual battle. I set out with a more or less religious belief in a
Platonic eternal world, in which mathematics shone with a beauty like that of
the last Cantos of the Paradiso. I came to the conclusion that the eternal world is
trivial, and that mathematics is only the art of saying the same thing in
di?erent words. I set out with a belief that love, free and courageous, could
postscript 701conquer the world without ?ghting. I came to support a bitter and terrible
war. In these respects there was failure.
But beneath all this load of failure I am still conscious of something that
I feel to be victory. I may have conceived theoretical truth wrongly, but I was
not wrong in thinking that there is such a thing, and that it deserves our
allegiance. I may have thought the road to a world of free and happy human
beings shorter than it is proving to be, but I was not wrong in thinking that
such a world is possible, and that it is worth while to live with a view to
bringing it nearer. I have lived in the pursuit of a vision, both personal and
social. Personal: to care for what is noble, for what is beautiful, for what is
gentle: to allow moments of insight to give wisdom at more mundane times.
Social: to see in imagination the society that is to be created, where indi-
viduals grow freely, and where hate and greed and envy die because there is
nothing to nourish them. These things I believe, and the world, for all its
horrors, has left me unshaken.
the autobiography of bertrand russell 702NOTES
1 CHILDHOOD
1 See also J. B. S. Haldane, British Journal of Animal Behaviour, Vol. II, No. I, 1954.
2 My grandfather on one occasion wrote to my father telling him not to take my brother’s
naughtiness too seriously, in view of the fact that Charles James Fox had been a very
naughty boy, but had nevertheless turned out well.
3 Completely destroyed in the Blitz.
4 It was true. See The Ladies of Alderley, by Nancy Mitford, 1938.
2 ADOLESCENCE
1 Some portions of this book are included on pp. 36–45.
2 It is now pulled down.
3 I had met Robert Browning once before at the age of two when he came to lunch at
Pembroke Lodge and talked unceasingly although everybody wished to hear the actor
Salvini whom he had brought with him. At last I exclaimed in a piercing voice, ‘I wish
that man would stop talking’. And he did.
4 A former tutor.
5 Where my brother was living.
3 CAMBRIDGE
1 See my letter to Lucy Donnelly, Appendix pp. 170–1; also Crompton Davies’s letter
on p. 189.
2 My mathematical coach.
3 Our name for people we were thinking of electing.
4 ENGAGEMENT
1 I give the rules in the Appendix on p. 77–8, and these are followed by fragments of some
of the letters received from L. P. S. during my years at Cambridge.2 In a letter to Alys, September 2, 1894, I wrote: ‘My Aunt Georgy [the Lady Georgiana
Peel, my grandmother’s step-daughter] yesterday was very kind, but too inquisitive (as
indeed most women are); she said even in old times at the slightest thought of a
marriage my grandmother used to get into a sort of fever and be fussy and worried
about it.’
3 Pembroke Lodge.
4 Logan was the most malicious scandal-monger I have ever known.
5 I don’t know who the Arch Prig was, or even whether he existed outside Logan’s
imagination.
6 This was a cottage close to Friday’s Hill, inhabited by the family of Logan’s married
sister Mrs Costelloe (afterwards Mrs Berenson).
7 This was a high-brow undergraduate magazine, mainly promoted by Oswald Sickert
(brother of the painter), who was a close friend of mine.
8 In support of a miners’ strike.
9 What a mistaken judgement!
10 Afterwards Mrs Lowndes. She was a sister of Hilaire Belloc.
11 I stayed a week-end at Vétheuil with three sisters named Kinsella, who were friends of
the Pearsall Smiths. I there met Condor the painter, whose only remark was: ‘Wouldn’t
it be odd if one were so poor that one had to give them shaving soap instead of cream
with their tea?’ It was there also that I made the acquaintance of Jonathan Sturges, who
was in love with one of the sisters.
12 I ?nd myself shocked by the conceit and complacency of the above letter and of some
of the others written about the same time. I wonder that Alys endured them.
13 I went to Cambridge for the week-end, but did not see Alys as the three months had not
expired.
14 Lion FitzPatrick – afterwards Mrs Phillimore.
15 Oscar Browning.
16 From Rome, where I had accompanied her.
17 The Keynes in question was the father of Lord Keynes.
18 George Trevelyan, Master of Trinity, om, etc., etc.
19 Mayor and Theodore Davies were exact contemporaries, Mayor being the best and
Theodore the second-best classical scholar of their year. To ‘take wings’ is to retire
from habitual presence at meetings of The Society, which usually is done in the man’s
?fth or sixth year.
20 Miss Stawell became a very distinguished classicist.
21 Uncle Rollo.
22 On the ground that she was likely to die during the winter.
23 Her sister, Lady Charlotte Portal.
24 Aunt Agatha.
25 My father’s birthday.
5 FIRST MARRIAGE
1 With us we took Bonté Amos, the sister of Maurice Sheldon Amos; see pp. 132 ff.
2 He married Lady Edith Douglas, sister of Lord Alfred.
3 Rollo’s second wife.
4 My cousin Harold Russell and his wife.
5 My grandmother had lately died.
6 The Duke of Bedford.
notes 7046 ‘PRINCIPIA MATHEMATICA’
1 See letter to Gilbert Murray and his reply, pp. 146–7. Also the subsequent letters
relating to the Bacchae.
2 A Religious Rebel, by Logan Pearsall Smith, p. 8.
3 See my letters to Lucy on pp. 154 ff.
4 Later Lord Rhayader.
5 This dinner is also described by Mrs Webb in Our Partnership, p. 300.
