 To sum up, there is no evidence that a world without nuclear weapons would be a dangerous world. On the contrary, it would be a safer world, as I will show later. |
| The time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientist, perhaps in the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath. |
| But the nuclear powers still cling tenaciously to their weapons. |
| The present basic philosophy is nuclear deterrence. |
| Several studies, and a number of public statements by senior military and political personalities, testify that - except for disputes between the present nuclear states - all military conflicts, as well as threats to peace, can be dealt with using conventional weapons. |
| The Cold War is over but Cold War thinking survives. |
| This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack. |
| If the militarily most powerful - and least threatened - states need nuclear weapons for their security, how can one deny such security to countries that are truly insecure? The present nuclear policy is a recipe for proliferation. It is a policy for disaster. |
| Let me remind you that nuclear disarmament is not just an ardent desire of the people, as expressed in many resolutions of the United Nations. It is a legal commitment by the five official nuclear states, entered into when they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty. |
| I appeal to my fellow scientists to remember their responsibility to humanity. |
| I have to bring to your notice a terrifying reality: with the development of nuclear weapons Man has acquired, for the first time in history, the technical means to destroy the whole of civilization in a single act. |
| But the first the general public learned about the discovery was the news of the destruction of Hiroshima by the atom bomb. A splendid achievement of science and technology had turned malign. Science became identified with death and destruction. |
