30 Jan 2003 @ 22:16, by spiritseek
41 Nobel Laureates Sign Against a War Without
International Support
Date: Tue, 28 Jan 2003 16:26:58 -0600 (CST)
41 Nobel Laureates Sign Against a War Without
International Support
Published on Tuesday, January 28, 2003 by the New
York Times
by William J. Broad
Forty-one American Nobel laureates in science and
economics issued a
declaration yesterday opposing a preventive war
against Iraq without wide
international support. The statement, four sentences
long, argues that an
American attack would ultimately hurt the security and
standing of the
United States, even if it succeeds.
The signers, all men, include a number who at one time
or another have
advised the federal government or played important
roles in national
security. Among them are Hans A. Bethe, an architect
of the atom bomb;
Walter Kohn, a former adviser to the Defense Advanced
Research Projects
Agency at the Pentagon; Norman F. Ramsey, a Manhattan
Project scientist who
readied the Hiroshima bomb and later advised NATO; and
Charles H. Townes,
former research director of the Institute for Defense
Analyses at the
Pentagon and chairman of a federal panel that studied
how to base the MX
missile and its nuclear warheads.
In addition to winning Nobel prizes, 18 of the signers
have received the
National Medal of Science, the nation's highest
science honor.
The declaration reads:
"The undersigned oppose a preventive war against Iraq
without broad
international support. Military operations against
Iraq may indeed lead to a
relatively swift victory in the short term. But war is
characterized by
surprise, human loss and unintended consequences. Even
with a victory, we
believe that the medical, economic, environmental,
moral, spiritual,
political and legal consequences of an American
preventive attack on Iraq
would undermine, not protect, U.S. security and
standing in the world."
Dr. Kohn, a Nobel chemist at the University of
California at Santa Barbara,
organized the declaration.
"No voice was speaking against the war," he said. "So
I asked, `Can I
somehow make myself useful?' and had the idea of
contacting my Nobel
laureate friends and trying to rally them around a
reasonable position."
Dr. Kohn said he eventually tried to contact all
American Nobel laureates in
science and economics, who are thought to number about
130. But some had
died or were unreachable, he said, while others never
replied. Dr. Kohn said
only six respondents declined to sign the declaration.
He said the signers included Democrats and Republicans
alike.
Patricia Halloran, an aide to Dr. Kohn, said that more
signatures were
expected in the next few days as laureates returned
from foreign travels or
caught up with their mail.
Occasionally, science Nobelists have banded together
to speak out, usually
on topics of war and peace, arms and technology. In
July 2000, 50 Nobel
laureates urged President Bill Clinton to reject a
proposed $60 billion
missile defense system, arguing that it would be
wasteful and dangerous. In
October 1999, 32 Nobel laureates in physics urged the
Senate to approve the
Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, calling it central to
halting the spread of
nuclear arms.
The Iraq declaration is to be circulated on Capitol
Hill by Senator Dianne
Feinstein and Representative Lois Capps, both
California Democrats.
The signers are these, with E designating economics;
P, physics; C,
chemistry; and M, medicine or physiology:
George A. Akerlof E
Philip W. Anderson P
Paul Berg C
Hans A. Bethe P
Nicolaas Bloembergen P
Paul D. Boyer C
Owen Chamberlain P
Leon N. Cooper P
James W. Cronin P
Robert F. Curl Jr. C
Val L. Fitch P
Robert F. Furchgott M
Sheldon L. Glashow P
Roger Guillemin M
Herbert A. Hauptman C
Alan J. Heeger C
Louis J. Ignarro M
Eric R. Kandel M
Har Gobind Khorana M
Lawrence R. Klein E
Walter Kohn C
Leon M. Lederman P
Yuan T. Lee C
William N. Lipscomb C
Daniel L. McFadden E
Franco Modigliani E
Ferid Murad M
George E. Palade M
Arno A. Penzias P
Martin L. Perl P
William D. Phillips P
Norman F. Ramsey P
Robert Schrieffer P
William F. Sharpe E
Jack Steinberger P
Joseph H. Taylor Jr. P
Charles H. Townes P
Daniel C. Tsui P
Harold E. Varmus M
Robert W. Wilson P
Ahmed H. Zewail C
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
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