19 February 1958

Mr. Eugene Lyons

71 Bedford Road

Pleasantville, N.Y.

Dear Mr. Lyons:

I am pleased to give you the information requested in your letter of 23 February. In brief it is that most of the work involved in gathering the signatures of 9235 scientists from 44 countries, many hundred more now, and several other countries, to a petition that I presented to Mr. Dag Hammarskjold on 11 January 1958 was done by me and one secretary, whom I employed for the purpose. Most of the expense was borne by me.

The petition originated during a visit that I made to Washington University in St. Louis, where I had been invited to speak in Graham Memorial Chapel to the students and faculty at a chapel meeting held in honor of the students who had been elected to Phi Beta Kappa and other honor societies. My talk was on the subject "Science in the Modern World." The last 15 minutes of the talk was devoted to hereditary diseases and the ways in which the pool of human germ plasm is deteriorating. I mentioned fallout radioactivity, and made a strong plea for morality in the conduct of world affairs. After the meeting many people asked if I would not write a statement that they could sign. I then wrote a statement, which was called An Appeal by American Scientists.

I also wrote a letter, addressed to American scientists that I know. A friend of mine in the university had this letter and the appeal mimeographed, and I signed the copies of the letter. He and his friends arranged for mailing.

During the following two weeks several hundred letters and copies of the appeal were mailed to scientists in the United States by my friends in Washington University and by me and some of my colleagues in the California Institute of Technology. Many of the copies of the appeal were returned with a number of signatures attached. Within two weeks 2000 signatures had reached me.

With the help volunteered by some of my friends in the California Institute of Technology a press release was prepared and issued, and on 4 June 1957 I sent a letter to President Eisenhower about the appeal by American scientists.

During the summer I received a good number of unsolicited statements of adherence by scientists in other countries. The first of these was a statement of adherence signed by all of the professors of science in the Free University of Brussels, 40 in number.

In the autumn I decided, partially as a result of this spontaneous movement, to obtain signatures from scientists in other countries. I hired a young woman to help me. She and I prepared letters, several hundred in number, which we addressed to scientists in nearly all of the countries in the world. Many of these scientists were friends of mine, whom I had met in international meetings or in my travels. Some of them were scientists whose names we had obtained from the scientific literature or from reference books. I tried to write to a few scientists, two or three, in each country, asking that they sign the appeal and obtain other signatures.

I also sent letters to all of the members of the National Academy of Sciences or the United States of America, and to some of the Fellows of the Royal Society of London, as well as some of the members of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R. Altogether my secretary and I may have sent out 1000 to 1500 letters.

It is in this way that the signatures of 9235 scientists (more now) were obtained.

I then went to New York to present the petition to Mr. Hammarskjold. In preparing to issue a press release my secretary and I got some additional secretarial assistance.

No organization was involved in the collection of the signatures. There are many individuals who were put to some expense, but I think that most of the expense was borne by me, personally. I estimate that it amounted to roughly $1000.

I have received a gift of $100, sent me by a woman whom I do not know, and a few gifts of $1.00.

I may mention that some of this information was contained in the manuscript that I submitted last year to the Readers Digest.

If you would like to have any additional information, please let me know.

Sincerely yours,

[Linus Pauling]

Linus Pauling:W

P.S. I note on looking over your letter again that you felt that to obtain the signatures of over 9000 scientists it would have been necessary for me to write to several times that many scientists. In fact, it was necessary to write only to about 10 percent of that number. Also, although the effort was a considerable one, I would not call it tremendous, and I feel that my expenditure of a sum approximating $1000 is a small contribution for me (and my wife of course, as well as my children) to make in the effort to contribute to the solution of my great problems that the world must solve.

You may be interested also to know that the article "The Compelling Need for Nuclear Tests," by Drs. Teller and Latter that has appeared recently in LIFE contains many erroneous statements and misleading statements. I trust that the Readers Digest will not publish an article based upon this article without checking carefully.

L.P.

19 February 1958

President Eisenhower

The White House

Dear Mr. President:

I respectfully request that you grant me an appointment in order that I may talk with you for a short while about the present opinion that scientists hold about the testing of nuclear weapons, and related questions, and about the petition urging that an international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear weapons be made, as a first step toward a more general disarmament.

On 4 June 1957 I sent to you the appeal urging that an international agreement be made to stop bomb tests that had been signed by 2000 American scientists. During later months, after a considerable number of scientists in other countries had voluntarily associated themselves with this appeal, I began to gather more signatures, and on 11 January 1958 I presented the petition to the Secretary General of the United Nations, together with the names of 9235 scientists, of 44 countries, who had signed the petition. This petition was a personal enterprise, with no organization involved. The signers included 36 Nobel Laureates, 101 members of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States, 35 Fellows of the Royal Society of London, 216 members and correspondents of the Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R., and many other distinguished scientists.

I feel that I have been able, after considerable effort, to obtain an understanding of nuclear weapons and their biological effects. The problem is a difficult one, involving many branches of science. I am a chemist, and I have done much work also in fields other than chemistry. Since 1922 I have worked with high-energy radiation. Much of my work has been in the field of atomic physics. During recent years I have worked largely on biological and medical problems, including those hereditary diseases caused by mutated genes that result from radiation exposure. If you wish to have an assessment of my ability to form a judgment about the complex problem of biological effects of nuclear weapons, I refer you to the President of the National Academy of Sciences, Dr. Bronk.

I may mention that I have served the nation in many ways, and that in 1948 I was awarded the Presidential Medal for Merit.

I know that you consulted with Dr. Edward Teller some months ago. Recent public statements made by Dr. Teller are so misleading and even erroneous, deviating greatly from those held by other scientists, as to cause me concern about the reliability of the information that may have been given to you. It is in part for this reason that I ask for an appointment with you.

I enclose a copy of my letter of 11 January 1958 to Mr. Hammarskjold, a copy of the petition to the U.N., and the names of the Nobel laureates, members of the U.S. Academy of Sciences, Fellows of the Royal Society of London, and members of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences who signed it.

Sincerely yours,

Linus Pauling :W

Encls.