This year's Nobel Peace Prize speaks volumes about the dubious politics of the Nobel Committee.
This year's Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs, a long-inactive organization, and to one of its last remaining members, 86-year-old Polish-born Joseph Rotblat. Few Americans under the age of 50 even remember the Pugwash Conferences or have any idea who Joseph Rotblat is. They're not likely to understand the significance of this year's Peace Prize, or to realize what a travesty it is.
The Pugwash Conferences took their name from the location of the first conference, held in 1957 in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, the home of the organization's chief financial backer, multi- millionaire U.S. industrialist Cyrus Eaton. Eaton and other Pugwash members, such as British philosopher Bertrand Russell, were ardent socialists who sought, under the guise of scientific objectivity, to influence world affairs to the advantage of the Soviet Union and to the detriment of the United States.
The most important Pugwash Conference took place in Moscow in 1960. Among the more prominent U.S. scientists attending were Jerome Wiesner and Walt Rostow, who shortly after their return became leading policy planners in the new administration of President John F. Kennedy. At that Moscow conference, Wiesner outlined a comprehensive program for nuclear disarmament and for transferring our nation's military strength to an international agency. Rostow also addressed the conference, recommending a nuclear test ban treaty .
Rostow was well placed in the Kennedy Administration to promote this objective. In 1963, President Kennedy sent Averell Harriman to Moscow to sign the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, thereby perpetuating the tremendous advantage that the Soviets had gained from a recent series of giant nuclear tests. Rostow and his fellow Pugwash members were criticized for jeopardizing U.S. security with this treaty, but they continued to insist that "nuclear parity will promote peace." They argued, absurdly, that abandoning America's nuclear advantage in favor of equality between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. would make the Soviet Union feel more secure and thereby less likely to resort to war!
Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who served in both the Kennedy and the Johnson Administrations, made "parity" a cornerstone of his strategy to abandon our strategic superiority. He argued that "nuclear parity" would give the world "a more stable balance of terror." It had, in fact, the very opposite effect, emboldening the Soviet Union to extend its evil empire, secure in the knowledge that the United States could no longer risk a nuclear showdown. The Soviets maintained their aggressive military posture until President Reagan rebuilt our military strength and demonstrated his determination to follow through on building the Strategic Defense Initiative. Unable to keep pace with our procurement, the evil empire self-destructed. In awarding this year's Peace Prize to the Pugwash Conferences, the Nobel Committee makes abundantly clear that its idea of "peace" is really pacifism.
