LETTER FROM
HANS BETHE,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY


As the Director of the Theoretical Division at Los Alamos, I participated at the most
senior level in the World War II Manhattan Project that produced the first atomic
weapons.

Now, at age 88, I am one of the few remaining such senior persons alive. Looking
back at the half century since that time, I feel the most intense relief that these
weapons have not been used since World War II, mixed with the horror that tens of
thousands of such weapons have been built since that time one hundred times more
than any of us at Los Alamos could ever have imagined.

Today we are rightly in an era of disarmament and dismantlement of nuclear
weapons. But in some countries nuclear weapons development still continues.
Whether and when the various Nations of the world can agree to stop this is
uncertain. But individual scientists can still influence this process by withholding
their skills.

Accordingly, I call on all scientists in all countries to cease and desist from work
creating, developing, improving and manufacturing further nuclear weapons © and,
for that matter, other weapons of potential mass destruction such as chemical and
biological weapons.

Hans A. Bethe


  • Letter to J. Chirac against Nuclear Tests (20 June 1995)
  • Council Declaration: Dagomys (3 September 1988)
  • Council Declaration in Hiroshima (23 July 1995)
  • Council Statement (30 July 1995)

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