The Pugwash Conferences

Einstein's advice to fellow scientists, "concern for Man himself and his fate must always form the chief interest of all technical endeavours in order that the creation of our minds shall be a blessing and not a curse,"...

Chain of events-

1)On August 6, 1945, the most dreadful of the weapons of mass destruction — the atom bomb — was dropped in the civilian area of Hiroshima. Three days later, another atom bomb was dropped in Nagasaki.

2)Early in 1954, Nehru called "for the setting up of a Committee of scientists to explain to the world the effect a nuclear war would have on humanity." (Nehru by the way was also the first foreign Prime Minister to visit Hiroshima).

3)In 1955, Bertrand Russell and Albert Einstein issued their famous manifesto seeking the abolition of nuclear weapons and appealing to all inhabitants of Planet Earth: "Remember your humanity, and forget the rest. If you can do so, the way is open to a new Paradise; if you cannot, there lies before you the risk of universal death."

4)In 1957, Nehru's idea and and the Russell-Einstein Manifesto inspired Joseph Rotblat, who along with Pugwash was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995, and Eugene Rabinowitch, to organize the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, an organisation devoted to ending the nuclear peril and reminding scientists of their ethical responsibility for the consequences of their discoveries, particularly in the area of nuclear threat to human survival.


The name of the organisation comes from Pugwash Village in Nova Scotia, Canada, where the first conference was held in 1957.