Joseph Rotblat Quotes

• When the START 2 treaty has been implemented – and remember it has not yet been ratified – we will be left with some 15,000 nuclear warheads, active and in reserve. Fifteen thousand weapons with an average yield of 20 Hiroshima bombs.

  Joseph Rotblat

• We are told that the possession of nuclear weapons – in some cases even the testing of these weapons – is essential for national security. But this argument can be made by other countries as well.

  Joseph Rotblat

• To sum up, there is no evidence that a world without nuclear weapons would be a dangerous world. On the contrary, it would be a safer world, as I will show later.

  Joseph Rotblat

• This means that the only function of nuclear weapons, while they exist, is to deter a nuclear attack.

  Joseph Rotblat

• This is the reality of nuclear weapons: they may trigger a world war; a war which, unlike previous ones, destroys all of civilization.

  Joseph Rotblat

• There is no direct evidence that nuclear weapons prevented a world war. Conversely, it is known that they nearly caused one.

  Joseph Rotblat

• The time has come to formulate guidelines for the ethical conduct of scientist, perhaps in the form of a voluntary Hippocratic Oath.

  Joseph Rotblat

• The present basic philosophy is nuclear deterrence.

  Joseph Rotblat

• The most terrifying moment in my life was October 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. I did not know all the facts – we have learned only recently how close we were to war – but I knew enough to make me tremble.

  Joseph Rotblat

• The decision to use the atom bomb on Japanese cities, and the consequent buildup of enormous nuclear arsenals, was made by governments, on the basis of political and military perceptions.

  Joseph Rotblat

• The Cold War is over but Cold War thinking survives.

  Joseph Rotblat

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• The chief task was to stop the arms race before it brought utter disaster. However, after the collapse of communism and the disintegration of the Soviet Union, any rationale for having nuclear weapons disappeared.

  Joseph Rotblat

• So I ask the nuclear powers to abandon the out-of-date thinking of the Cold War period and take a fresh look. Above all, I appeal to them to bear in mind the long-term threat that nuclear weapons pose to humankind and to begin action towards their elimination.

  Joseph Rotblat

• Since the end of the Cold War two main nuclear powers have begun to make big reductions in their nuclear arsenals. Each of them is dismantling about 2,000 nuclear warheads a year.

  Joseph Rotblat

• Several studies, and a number of public statements by senior military and political personalities, testify that – except for disputes between the present nuclear states – all military conflicts, as well as threats to peace, can be dealt with using conventional weapons.

  Joseph Rotblat

• My third appeal is to my fellow citizens in all countries: Help us to establish lasting peace in the world.

  Joseph Rotblat

• Long before the terrifying potential of the arms race was recognized, there was a widespread instinctive abhorrence of nuclear weapons, and a strong desire to get rid of them.

  Joseph Rotblat

• Let me remind you that nuclear disarmament is not just an ardent desire of the people, as expressed in many resolutions of the United Nations. It is a legal commitment by the five official nuclear states, entered into when they signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty.

  Joseph Rotblat

• Indeed, the whole human species is endangered, by nuclear weapons or by other means of wholesale destruction which further advances in science are likely to produce.

  Joseph Rotblat

• Indeed, the very first resolution of the General Assembly of the United Nations – adopted unanimously – called for the elimination of nuclear weapons.

  Joseph Rotblat

Joseph Rotblat (32)

Birth:	4th November, 1908
Death:	31st August, 2005
Nationality:	British, Polish
Profession:	Physicist

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