Science and the Future of Humanity: Chile, 1970

[Part 3 of 5] Perhaps because he traveled so often, Linus Pauling sometimes found himself visiting volatile places at dangerous times. One such example was a trip to Chile in 1970, taken when he and Ava Helen were invited to the Universidad Técnica del Estado for the university’s Summer School. The Paulings were asked to [...]

Pauling’s Early Development as a Peace Activist

Before America’s involvement in World War II, Linus Pauling was openly in favor of intervention to stop the spread of fascism, a menace that he considered dangerous to the stability of world peace. He was horrified by stories emerging from Europe, some pertaining to the treatment of well-respected scientists. He later received pleas from colleagues [...]

Life in the Cold War 1980s

Three new additions to our archive of Pauling Peace Lectureship presentations have been added recently to the Events and Videos page of the OSU Libraries Special Collections website.  Dating to the mid-1980s, each is a reflection of the major, and mounting, concerns that peace activists and critics of U.S. foreign policy harbored during the eight [...]

Pauling’s Contacts with Martin Luther King, Jr.

Linus Pauling is recognized as one of the greatest peace activists of the 20th century. From the end of World War II until his death in 1994, Pauling was a central figure in the fight for nuclear disarmament and a great proponent of human rights. Though his primary focus was international peace and weapons reduction, [...]

Celebrating the 50th Anniversary of No More War!

“Dr. Pauling writes with a noble passion, which even the most hardened cynic must respect….[No More War!] should be widely read and deeply pondered.” – Philip Noel-Baker, 1958. A few weeks ago, Linda Richards, an Oregon State University History of Science graduate student, approached us with an idea to commemorate the fiftieth anniversary of No [...]

An Outspoken Man

“Do you think that an American who insists on making up his own mind, who objects to being told what to do, to being pushed around by officious officials, is thereby made un-American? I do not. I think that he is being more American than people who do not object.” – Linus Pauling. Letter to [...]

Pauling and Democracy

In honor of Independence Day, we are presenting below excerpts from two speeches delivered by Linus Pauling which are reflective of his beliefs concerning democracy and the importance of an informed and active citizenry. The first passage is extracted from a talk that Pauling delivered in November 1940 titled “Science and Democracy,” written during a [...]

Pauling and the Nobel Prize Trip

“I doubt that many Nobel Prizes have been so popular with the masses in science…. [A]lmost all are delighted that the Nobel Prize embarrasses the State Department.” – Charles Coryell in a letter to J. Robert Oppenheimer, as referenced in Force of Nature, by Tom Hager, p. 451. November 2, 1954. In 1954, Linus Pauling [...]

The Paulings’ Later Peace Activism: Vietnam and the Gulf War

The peace activism of Linus and Ava Helen Pauling reached its crescendo in the late 1950s and early 1960s, beginning with the submission of their Bomb Test Petition to the United Nations in 1958 and ending with Linus Pauling’s receipt of the Nobel Peace Prize in the 1963. As the turbulent 1960s moved forward, the [...]

The Paulings and the Kennedys

“Mrs. Kennedy said, ‘Dr. Pauling do you think that it is right to march back and forth out there in front of the White House carrying a sign and cause Caroline to say, Mummy, what has Daddy done wrong now?’ I thought that was pretty clever.“ -Linus Pauling. NOVA Interview. June 1977. The “thousand days” [...]