Lewis Strauss Quotes

Until a system of comprehensive disarmament is achieved -- based on something more reliable than dramatic gestures and mere promises made by nations which have repeatedly violated their solemn commitments -- our national survival and the security of our homes requires that we have -- in being .. the means of defending ourselves against sudden nuclear attack. There is no other prudent course. Without the ability to defend ourselves, we could not hope to deter an enemy from making war upon us, or to retaliate effectively and decisively once we were under attack. And without that strength, we would have to speak in a small and deferential voice in our efforts to build the foundations of a durable peace. Only so long as we are strong can we negotiate; the weak can only submit.

Survival in such an unhappy eventuality would depend largely on what prior precautions had been taken by individuals and families for their own safety, in line with the recommendations of the civil defense authorities. This, I believe, is a point so important that you cannot over-stress it to the American people. I stress "prior precautions" because post=attack measures may be too late.

Nuclear energy -- within the brief span of eleven years, commencing as a secret and remote subject -- has become one of intimate concern to every individual. It has an ever-widening influence on our daily living, our well-being -- perhaps even on our destiny. With each passing day, the energy that is bound up in the invisible nucleus of the atom comes to be a more potent force in our environment. The discovery of nuclear energy, like every invention of man's ingenuity, has brought to us both promises and problems.

The Communists -- in sharp contrast to our policy and our practice -- refuse to divulge any information from their tests which might help other nations in protecting their people against the horrors of nuclear war. If they do this for their satellites, it is a program conducted in secret. Thus, it becomes apparent that the survival of our own people and the civilian populations of the entire free world largely depends, from the civil defense viewpoint, on information which is derived from our own carefully-controlled nuclear tests.

Even "security", that word so fretful to science and to the free exchange of ideas, is no modern innovation. Witness Bacon's elaborate encrypting of his work, Newton's allegedly purposeful distortion of a formula, Da Vinci who kept his long undeciphered notebooks in mirror-writing, and other examples that might be cited where the aim was apparently to prevent harm from ensuing as a result of the unexpert use of knowledge or wrong intent. The Sorcerer's Apprentice, that favorite fable of the laboratory assistant who learns the spell to make the mop carry water but who does not know how to stop the operation once it has begun, suggests the cataclysmic consequence where the sorcerer had not been sufficiently "security-minded" with, his formula. That might be a very, old piece of science-writing.

Transmutation of the elements, -- unlimited power, ability to investigate the working of living cells by tracer atoms, the secret of photosynthesis about to be uncovered, -- these and a host of other results all in 15 short years. It is not too much to expect that our children will enjoy in their homes electrical energy too cheap to meter, -- will know of great periodic regional famines in the world only as matters of history, -- will travel effortlessly over the seas and under them and through the air with a minimum of danger and at great speeds, -- and will experience a lifespan far longer than ours, as disease yields and man comes to understand what causes him to age. This is the forecast for an age of peace.

Science-writing is a very old-profession. Science probably separated from witchcraft when science-writing began. Just so long as information was passed along by word of mouth only, it was always susceptible to control by a few for their own benefit and to mystify the many. When it began to be written about, science came up out of the atmosphere of the cauldron and the alembic.

I am sure we are agreed that the ultimate survival of America is dependent on intellectual vigor and on spiritual deeprooting -- not on specific devices which are always for the moment. It has politics. The future of the scientists' America, and yours and mine, lies fundamentally with education -- that which is taught to the young in our schools -- that which is taught throughout life in the media of general communication by the contemporary writers. Fundamental are respect and zeal for scholarship, a lively regard for moral values, and a love of truth. And of these the last is, of course, the greatest. The atom has no ethics of its own any more than.

Proficiency in the technology of nuclear weapons, and indeed of science and engineering generally, is not so much of an American monopoly as popular misconception once would have had it.

To remain free, we must have the means of defending ourselves against surprise attack, and we must know how best to protect the lives of our civilians. To do this, we must develop modern weapons which are at least as powerful as those in possession of those who threaten us. Only through our obvious strength can we deter the recklessness of others.

Thus, the words "nuclear energy" have many interpretations. As they bring to mind the terrifying spectre of a war of exploding A-bombs and H-bombs, they are horrible words. Yet those same words, used to describe the many uses of the atom for man's peaceful progress -- in medicine, agriculture, biology, industry and the production of electric power -- bear no relation of association to the uncontrolled fury of the atom as it might be employed in war. And finally, the words "nuclear energy" as they relate to the controlled testing of nuclear weapons so that we may be assured of the means of defending ourselves, ought not to be confused with the unrestrained use of large numbers of such weapons in actual warfare.

The Commission’s [AEC] program is directed toward encouraging development of the uses of atomic energy in the framework of the American free enterprise system.

The survival of our people -- and the work of you who are charged with protecting the lives of our people -- demands such prudence.

Until others in the world come to their senses, and join with us in banishing the awful spectre of nuclear war, we must be strong; we must have weapons fully as modern and as effective -- if possible more effective -- than the weapons which we know to be in possession of others who would destroy our way of life. At the same time, we must do all in our power to ensure the survival of the largest possible numbers of our population if war should be forced upon us. A major part of this latter effort is, of course, the responsibility of you who are engaged in civil defense.

It has been a privilege to have served our country for so many years. I have done the best I knew how to do – to protect and defend the national security even when that was not the recognized, nor easy, nor popular course of action at the time. I leave with the confidence that history will be just.