Linda Richards, Resident Scholar

Linda Richards.

Linda Richards, doctoral candidate in the history of science at Oregon State University, is the first individual to have completed a term as an OSU Libraries Resident Scholar in 2012.  Steeped in the tradition of the activist-scholar, Richards has been discussing nuclear history, environmental justice and non-violent conflict resolution for over twenty-five years.  During her residency, Richards continued her investigations into these themes using the Ava Helen and Linus Pauling Papers, the History of Atomic Energy Collection and the Bart and Sally Hacker Papers.

Titled “Starfish, Fallout Suits, and Human Rights,” Richards’ Resident Scholar presentation started from the premise that “how nuclear history is told matters.”  In exploring this idea, Richards introduced her audience to a number of events important to the history of nuclear energy that were likely unknown to most in attendance.

One such incident is the United Nuclear Corporation’s Church Rock uranium mine contamination, the largest release of radioactive material in U.S. history, which occurred in New Mexico on the Navajo Reservation in July 1979.  The disaster badly contaminated the reservation’s scarce water supply with radioactive pollutants flowing some seventy miles down the Puerco River.  The event took place just a few months after the Three Mile Island accident, but is far less well known to the general public.  As Richards noted

What I have found so far in my research confirms, as Gabrielle Hecht suggested, that radiation health safety is more a reflection of the value of what is being irradiated than how dangerous a substance is….I have [also] found nuclear history is most often told as a technocratic saga of nation states pursuing nuclear weapons superiority and energy independence. This narrative is incomplete because it not only separates the glitz of modern reactors from the rocks and dirt of uranium mines hiding what is polluting and harmful about nuclear technology, but it is missing the dimension of lived human experience, particularly of indigenous peoples’ physical and cultural interaction with nuclear technology.

In her discussion of Linus Pauling’s activism in opposition to atmospheric nuclear testing (including his involvement in the Fallout Suits) Richards likewise introduced a number of historical events that do not typically make their way into the shorthand version of nuclear history.

For example, in May 1958 James Van Allen announced his finding that the Earth is surrounded by belts of high-energy particles that are held in place by magnetic fields – the so-called “Van Allen Belts.”  That very same day, Van Allen signed an agreement to work with the military to test nuclear weapons high in space for purposes of studying the disruption of the belts and of military communication during the event of a nuclear war.  Historian James Fleming was later quoted, “this is the first occasion I’ve ever discovered where someone discovered something and immediately decided to blow it up.”

The most intensely disruptive and longest lasting of these tests was the 1.4-megaton Starfish Prime explosion, which occurred on July 9, 1962. The artificial extension of the Van Allen belts created by the test could be seen across the Pacific Ocean, from Hawaii to New Zealand, lighting up the night sky. The test damaged six satellites that all failed within six months. The explosion also created an electromagnetic pulse that blew out transformers on Hawaii and disrupted the electricity grid.

Richards also recounted, in alarming detail, the extent to which nuclear testing in the 1960s became increasingly extreme.  The largest nuclear device ever detonated was the Soviet’s Tzar Bomba, a 50-megaton bomb tested some eight months before Starfish Prime.  A graphic presented by Richards illustrated the magnitude of this detonation in stark terms.

The impact of the release of radioactive toxins into the environment was a source of great concern to Linus Pauling and is still being studied today.  By some estimates, radioactive fallout will cause around 430,000 fatal cancers by the end of this century.

And it is this human element that, Richards argues, must be included in contemporary historical writing on the nuclear age.  “My dissertation,” she concluded “is premised on the belief that including a human rights dimension into the nuclear narrative destabilizes the disempowerment of an inaccessible technocratic narrative while raising the questions that need to be asked of history.”

For more on the Resident Scholar Program, now entering its fifth year, please see the program homepage and our continuing series of posts on this blog.

James F. Crow, 1916-2012

James F. Crow. (Credit: Millard Susman)

“Professor Crow ran his laboratory on the principles of bringing smart people together to pursue their passions and encouraging interaction, mutual respect and support, constructive criticism, and the free sharing of ideas and resources. There were no formal group meetings or reports, as there was so much daily interaction that group meetings would have been superfluous. He would advise, suggest, and encourage, but never direct or cajole. The standard of mutual respect was set by Professor Crow himself and extended not only to members of the lab but also to everyone in the field. I never heard him utter an unkind word about anyone. He also treated everyone in the lab as a colleague. One day he came to me and said, ‘Dan, there’s a matter on which I’d like your advice.’ He must have seen how flattered I was at being asked because he quickly added, ‘That doesn’t mean I’ll take it. It only means I want to hear it.’“

-Daniel Hartl.

James Crow, Professor Emeritus of Genetics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, enjoyed a successful scientific career that spanned some seventy years. Crow was most widely recognized and honored for his research in the field of population genetics. With Motoo Kimura, Crow co-authored a book titled, An Introduction to Population Genetics Theory (1970), which focused on the mathematical basis of population genetics and which is now considered a classic of the field.

Born on January 18, 1916 in Phoenixville, Pennsylvania, Crow was exposed to the importance of education early on, as his father was a teacher at Ursinus College and later at Friends University in Witchita, Kansas, which Crow attended. Throughout his schooling, Crow enjoyed physics and chemistry, and ended up double majoring in chemistry and biology. In 1941 he earned his doctorate degree in genetics at the University of Texas-Austin, where he also played viola in the student orchestra. This is also where he met his wife, Ann, who was a clarinetist.

Crow next spent seven years at Dartmouth before moving to the University of Wisconsin, where he remained for the rest of his life. Crow’s collaborator Kimura joined Crow’s lab at Wisconsin in 1961, where he spent the next two years working on important problems like the fixation probability of a newly occurring mutation and the “infinite alleles model.”

(Credit: W. Hoffmann)

Over the course of his career, Crow witnessed the discovery of the structure of DNA, the rise of computer technology, cloning and the sequencing of the complete human genome. He stayed current with scientific several fields and was always curious about new research and findings. He became a respected leader in his field and served on a genetics committee set up by the National Academy of Sciences to assess mutational damage in those exposed to radiation from the atomic weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He also developed the concept of genetic load, a measure of how fitness may be reduced by selection, and applied it to the rate at which natural selection would remove deleterious mutations from a population.

Remembered for his ability to explain concepts in ways that others could understand, Crow was described as a “brilliant mind and a fabulous storyteller.” His writings on genetics gained international traction and are now commonly referred to as “Crow’s Notes.” During his career, genetics was a growing and changing field; when asked by his students to give them a hint about questions that might be posed on their exams, Crow would often reply, “the questions are the same every year but the answers are different.”

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“I have never met Professor Crow, but I myself have developed a strong feeling about his ability and reliability from reading his papers.“

-Linus Pauling

Known for being social and maintaining a positive outlook on life, Crow enjoyed parties and other avenues that afforded him the opportunity to influence fellow scientists. (One such avenue was his work with the journal Genetics, for which he edited the “Perspectives” section from 1987 until 2008, where he published scientific anecdotes from major scientists in the field of genetics.) One of the scientists influenced by his work was Linus Pauling, who often referenced Crow’s research in his own writings and speeches.

One notable example came about in 1962, when Pauling began writing “Fallout,” a piece discussing nuclear weapons tests that he hoped to publish in The Saturday Evening Post.  As he was developing his text that February, Pauling wrote to Crow, asking if he would be willing to rewrite any sections that he felt might need it and to advise him on any other aspects that needed to be revised or omitted. Crow responded with a three page handwritten letter, providing only minor mark-ups on the actual text, but adding several comments regarding word choice, making sure that Pauling felt no pressure to credit him for the revisions. “Your article fills the bill,” he noted, “I see no need for me to write anything additional.”

Crow did, however, include a quote of his own that he said was published in one of his public affairs pamphlets.  It read,

The harm from fallout is spread over space and time so thinly that the increased risk to any individual is too small to measure, but if all the damaged individuals could be identified and brought into one place at one time it would be regarded by everyone as a major catastrophe.

He concluded his letter by inviting Pauling to visit his lab in Madison, Wisconsin.

Later that year, in an article titled “Genetic Effects of Weapons Test,” published in December in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Pauling once again referenced Crow’s research on exposure to radiation and its deleterious effects on children. This research led Pauling to look into the possibility that carbon-14, a by-product produced by neutron irradiation of nitrogen-14 during nuclear weapons tests, could do extensive genetic and somatic damage. Based on estimates for radiation dosages published by Crow, Pauling determined that one’s exposure to carbon-14 over the entire lifetime of the isotope is actually four times higher than what had normally been assumed for worldwide radioactive fallout.

It is clear from Pauling’s papers that he learned a lot from James Crow’s extensive research on genetics and on the effects of radiation. The two also shared a taste for public service, as Crow chaired various civic organizations while staying engaged in his studies for the remainder of his life. Crow died of congestive heart failure on January 4, 2012, aged 95, at his home in Madison. He spoke frequently with his colleagues until the end.

The Effects of Carbon-14

"Estimates of Total Genetic Hazards of Bomb-Produced and Natural Carbon-14 and Natural Background Radiation." September 1958.

As most regular readers of this blog know by now, Linus Pauling’s efforts on behalf of peace began in earnest in 1945, after the United States exploded two atomic bombs over Japan.  Appalled by the wanton destructiveness of these acts and alarmed by the future implications of nuclear weapons, Pauling began giving a great number of speeches on the atomic bomb, and before long his talks had become extremely popular.

Pauling continued delivering these speeches for a number of years, until it appeared that his career in activism might wind down due to the great time demands required by his ambitious program of protein research. However, after the US detonated the first hydrogen bomb in 1954 and the term “fallout” started to become more commonplace, Pauling’s vigor as an activist returned. Because of its inherently chemical nature, Pauling quickly became somewhat of a fallout expert, and in 1958 he wrote a paper about the dangers of carbon-14, a topic that had not been discussed at great length.

Carbon-14 is a radioactive isotope of carbon that is not prevalent in nature – it comprises roughly one part per trillion of all the carbon in the atmosphere – but is a byproduct of nuclear explosions. Pauling’s paper on the subject, titled “Genetic and Somatic Effects of Carbon-14,” was based on carbon-14 data acquired by Willard Libby, a chemist who won the 1960 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for developing the radiocarbon dating technique, which measures the radioactive decay of carbon-14 in organic materials.

"Libby weighs peril of C-14." Washington Post and Times Herald. May 2, 1958.

Libby estimated that, by 1958, roughly 232 kilograms of carbon-14 had already been released due to bomb testing. Of these 232 kg, Pauling speculated that about one-third had been incorporated into the atmosphere, and that the other two-thirds had fallen back to the Earth in the form of calcium carbonate.

The real threat of carbon-14, Pauling felt, is a result of its long half-life. Although it may not present a significant short-term effect, radioactive carbon that is incorporated into the body will remain there and emit radiation for as long as the organism exists, thus increasing the possibility of health problems both for the affected body as well as its offspring.

From Libby’s data, Pauling determined that at the rate that bombs were being tested circa 1958 – which Pauling calculated to be 30 megatons worth of explosions – 74 kg of carbon-14 were released per year. Based on these numbers as well as estimates for radiation dosages published by James F. Crow, a member of the joint NAS-NRC Committee on Genetic Effects of Atomic Radiation, Pauling determined that one’s exposure to carbon-14 over the entire lifetime of the isotope is actually four times higher than what had normally been assumed for worldwide fallout.

Using this information, Pauling calculated that, at 1958 population levels, one year of bomb testing would therefore produce enough carbon-14 to lead to “12,000 children with gross physical or mental defect, 38,000 stillbirths and childhood deaths, and 90,000 embryonic and neonatal deaths.”

Although these numbers are very small when compared to the total 1958 world population of just under three billion, they still are suggestive of a significantly dangerous side-effect from nuclear weapons testing. Furthermore, Pauling accounted for the fact that, as the population continued to grow, the number of people exposed to carbon-14 would also increase. He estimated that population growth would rise until it leveled off at a point where the number of births per year were five times that of the 1958 value. At this population, Pauling calculated the effects of carbon-14 from one year worth of bomb-testing to be 55,000 children with gross physical and mental defect, 170,000 stillbirths and childhood deaths, and 425,000 embryonic and neonatal deaths.

Notes re: estimates of carbon-14 following nuclear detonation. October 9, 1959.

Pauling concluded his paper by reiterating that, because of its long half-life, carbon-14 has a negligible effect on the generation that immediately follows a period of bomb-testing, and that the real threat was to future generations. Finally, he also confessed to the large amount of uncertainty in the calculations given throughout the paper, warning that his numbers could be as much as five times too high or five times too low.

Clearly Pauling was very concerned about carbon-14 fallout, but this worry wasn’t shared by a majority of his peers. Nonetheless, later attempts to find fault with his calculations proved inconclusive, and Pauling’s argument that carbon-14 added significantly to the dangers of radioactive fallout remained an important contribution to the continuing debate over nuclear weapons tests.

Radioactive Fallout and the Birth of the “Superbomb”

 

Event Baker test explosion, Bikini Atoll, July 1946.

 

[Part 2 of 2]

While Linus Pauling’s immediate concern with the new hydrogen bomb was avoidance of a global nuclear conflict, he was also very uneasy about the threat of nuclear fallout.

As is now commonly understood, dangerous byproducts result from the fission fraction of radioactive materials following the detonation of atomic weapons. Much of the radioactive material released during such an explosion, widely referred to as fallout, eventually falls to the Earth’s surface. The exact distribution of the fallout depends largely on how closely the bomb is detonated to the surface of the Earth, as well as the direction and intensity of winds near the Earth’s surface.

Humans that come into contact with fallout can develop radiation poisoning – a condition that, depending on the level of exposure, is hazardous and potentially fatal. The outcome of consistent exposure to large amounts of radiation became relatively easy to predict, but little was known during the early 1950s about long-term exposure to smaller amounts.

The radiation released from atomic bomb tests was a relatively small addition to the total amount of other man-made and naturally occurring sources in the atmosphere. However, Pauling feared that even a small increase in radiation could significantly increase the risk of harmful genetic mutations to vulnerable populations. As a result of the accumulated nuclear fallout from ongoing atomic testing, Pauling predicted a higher frequency of medical complications and birth defects world-wide over the next several generations. As with the case of long-term exposure to small amounts of radiation, the long-term effects of nuclear fallout were very difficult to control for, lending Pauling’s grave warnings serious cause for consideration.

The uncertainty regarding fallout and radioactivity from nuclear explosions likewise allowed for a wide spectrum of alternative perspectives to emerge. Though Pauling’s warnings about nuclear fallout received ample attention, he was challenged by several conflicting counter-claims, especially those of the Atomic Energy Commission and of nuclear physicist Dr. Edward Teller.

 

Portrait of Edward Teller by Dmitri Vail. June 1965.

 

The debate that came to define Pauling and Teller’s interaction, and the contrasting viewpoints that they represented, would last for decades. Teller argued that the actual level of long-term radiation resulting from nuclear fallout was negligible when other forms of radiation were taken into consideration. Using essentially the same data as Pauling, he demonstrated that the average risk to any one person from fallout-related radioactivity was minimal, at least for those positioned outside of a certain blast radius. Furthermore, he argued that most people were subjected to more radiation annually by cosmic rays (among other sources), than they were from the fallout of a typical well-planned nuclear detonation.

Pauling and Teller were given several forums for debate on television and other outlets in the mainstream media. Though they were not on friendly terms, and often characterized in the media as completely at odds, historians and more moderate voices in the general discussion believed that Pauling and Teller had more in common than was popularly perceived. In a 2001 lecture, author and Pauling biographer Tom Hager had this to say about the general debate:

It was inconclusive to a certain extent because each side used the same data two different ways. And depending on how you look at the data, it can either look like fallout is going to cause 200,000 miscarriages and deaths of infants over the next few generations, or atomic fallout poses a danger equivalent to wearing a watch with a radium dial. Now, those were the kind of terms that were used in the debate and they were both correct. Pauling looked at the worst case scenario over many generations worldwide and the Atomic Energy Commission looked at the increased risk for an individual during their lifetime. In both cases, they were coming to correct or essentially correct conclusions, but the debate was framed in a way on Pauling’s side so that it aroused world opinion against atomic testing.

Pauling remained involved in the discussion of nuclear fallout and the politics of atomic weapons in the following years, but gradually receded from the scene as his public profile began to cause trouble for him at Caltech and with investigatory bodies. He was pulled back into the fray, however, when, in 1954, an unexpected reaction resulted from the detonation of a secret new type of atomic weapon.

This mysterious bomb, detonated on the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean, surprised even the scientists who were testing it. Several military personnel overseeing the test were subjected to unexpected levels of radiation, as was the crew of a Japanese fishing boat that had wandered into the area unaware of the danger. The men on the fishing boat, sick from radiation poisoning and carrying a hull of contaminated fish, were analyzed by Japanese scientists. Judging by the type of radiation damage discovered in the men, it was clear that something unusual was involved with the test to which they had been subjected.

This “superbomb” as it would commonly be known afterward, involved the coating of a hydrogen bomb with ordinary uranium metal or uranium-238, a by-product of the uranium enrichment process. Typically unfit for use in nuclear weapons, the uranium was destabilized during a three-stage reaction using a fission-fusion-fission detonation process. The resulting explosion penetrated a hole into the upper regions of the atmosphere, where radioactive materials were deposited and capable of traveling much greater distances on the high elevation winds.

This new development quickly re-energized Pauling’s public outspokenness. The relative silence that he had attempted to maintain for several of the preceding years was shattered by his concern over the powerful new bomb. In due course, he gave his first bomb-related speech in over two years and became engaged with the ongoing conversation once again.

The fallout debate, filled with victories and defeats for Pauling and the anti-testing community, would remain frustratingly unresolved throughout much of the following century. Over the course of many difficulties however, Pauling never lost sight of his hope for world peace. Later in life, he recalled his thoughts following development of the original atomic bomb in 1945:

I came to think, as did Albert Einstein, that the existence of nuclear weapons had finally made it imperative to abandon war once and for all. As seemed only logical to me, these weapons force us to accept the idea of coexistence and cooperation. Now that the facts about nuclear weapons are relatively well-known to the general public, we must realize that the future of the human race depends on our willingness and ability to cooperate and work together to solve global problems without belligerence.

Pauling and Environmental Justice

Promotional flyer for Linus Pauling's Verve recording on fallout and nuclear warfare. 1960.

(Ed. note: Toshihiro Higuchi of Georgetown University, a 2009 Pauling Resident Scholar award winner, spent a month in Oregon State University’s Valley Library this past summer working with the Pauling Papers. The following is excerpted from his final research report.)

Archival research is always full of unexpected discoveries about the past, and my project at OSU was no exception. Of particular surprise was Linus Pauling’s deep involvement in environmental justice through the Fallout Suits, twice attempted in 1958 and in 1962.

While the courts of justice have always marked turning points in the history of racial and gender justice – Brown v. Board and Roe v. Wade, to name but a few – “an appeal to law” has been long underappreciated among scholars in their studies of peace activism and environmentalism. Pauling’s Fallout Suits, indeed, are usually considered as a sideshow overshadowed by his more famous worldwide petition campaign among scientists.

Two archival boxes in the Pauling papers regarding the Suits, however, revealed the judicial aspect of Pauling’s risk knowledge and grassroots activism regarding the danger of radioactive fallout.

Fallout Suits brochure, 1958.

While both the executive and legislative branches adopted a “wait and see” policy in hope of ascertaining the nature and extent of fallout hazards, Pauling and other “risk entrepreneurs,” acting against the inertia in the majority opinion and the pressure of time, found the judiciary branch as the only untried venue of power. The courts of justice alone could establish a legal fact about hazards and link it to an immediate action – injunction. This unique character of the judiciary power was believed to break the impasse in the other branches because of the inconclusiveness of scientific proof.

The legal recourse, however, was by no means simply tactical. The plaintiffs identified the legal source of the fallout problem – it was the conflict of interest and the absence of due process of law which placed the atomic energy agencies of all three nuclear powers above the rule of law in the name of national security. In the course of the legal fight, the plaintiffs in the Fallout Suits also posed a fundamental challenge to court jurisprudence. The unprecedented nature and scope of risk involved in nuclear fallout pointed to a new direction of jurisprudence beyond the traditional tort law.

The Fallout Suits, in short, aimed at no less than a sweeping legal groundwork for environmental justice at the time when there was no National Environmental Protection Act. Indeed, some archival findings revealed an unknown parallelism between the Fallout Suits and the DDT litigation, both intending to bring about a groundbreaking change in court jurisprudence.

Autoradiograph used to measure radioactive fallout, 1953.

My study in Corvallis also points to a promising direction of future research: the life-long association of Linus Pauling with litigation. Without doubt, many remember such an association as an unnecessary burden upon Pauling, as most cases related to libel and defamation.

As the case of the Fallout Suits vividly shows, however, Pauling was far from a passive victim in the courts. Indeed, Pauling successfully threatened to bring the case to court at the same time that the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee was using the tactics of red-baiting in its attempt to force him to disclose the names of those who collected signatures for the United Nations Bomb Test petition.

In the course of his involvement in numerous legal cases, Pauling became extremely well-versed with legal resources and approaches. Indeed, the Pauling papers include a vast amount of material relating to Pauling’s legal cases. Further research on this legal dimension of Pauling’s life and career would promise fruitful results.

Toshihiro Higuchi, Resident Scholar

Toshihiro Higuchi

Toshihiro Higuchi is the second individual this year to conduct research in Special Collections under the sponsorship of our Resident Scholar Program.

Originally from Japan, Higuchi first attended the University of Tsukuba on the Japanese island of Honshu. In 2002 he graduated with an M.A. in International Political Economy, after which he again entered the University of Tsukuba, this time in the Ph. D. program. During his second year as a doctoral candidate, Higuchi received a Fulbright award that presented him with the opportunity to study in the United States, something he had always wanted to do. In August of 2005, he enrolled at Georgetown University, where he is now in his fifth year as a Ph. D. candidate in the History department.

The research that Higuchi is conducting here in Special Collections is related to a portion of his dissertation work, a primary focus of which is the evolution of environmental consciousness in the United States and around the world. Higuchi’s thesis is that the fierce debate in the 1950s over the effects of radioactive fallout generated by nuclear weapons tests  (tests which presented the first instance of measurable global contamination and thus the first global environmental crisis) helped to inform later attitudes underlying not only peace activism, but also the environmental movement.

The Fallout Suits

One key aspect of Higuchi’s research in the Pauling Papers has been a study of a lesser-known component of Pauling’s peace work: the Fallout Suits. Filed in 1958, the Fallout Suits sought to utilize the court systems of the three nuclear powers (the U.S., Great Britain and the U.S.S.R.) to compel each nation to cease their nuclear weapons tests programs. The plaintiffs in these cases included well-known figures such as Pauling, Bertrand Russell and Canon L. John Collins, as well as an American housewife and three Japanese fishermen, all of whom were meant to represent differing perspectives on the dangers of radioactive fallout.

Higuchi delivering his Resident Scholar lecture, "Tipping the Scales of Justice: Linus Pauling, The Fallout Suits, and the Judicial Aspects of the Global Environmental Crisis."

Having retained the council of lawyers Francis Heisler and A. L. Wirin, the backers of the Fallout Suits had three goals in mind. First, they sought to obtain court orders that would compel the governments of the nuclear powers to release secret information detailing the hazards of nuclear weapons tests. Using this information, they hoped that the courts would, either directly or indirectly, redefine the risk consensus associated with nuclear testing, which would then lead to new directives meant to address these risks. The ultimate goal was a comprehensive ban on nuclear weapons tests.

Philosophically, the plaintiffs argued that weapons tests were, in fact, illegal, because government agencies such as the Atomic Energy Commission had been granted powers that effectively rendered them autonomous and unaccountable to the rest of the democratic process. Furthermore, because tests were conducted without the express consent of the world’s population, and because the presumably harmful effects of testing (the plaintiffs argued that there was no safe dosage of radiation as it pertained to any potential impact on the pool of human germ plasm) clearly spread beyond the borders of nations, nuclear testing violated the constitutional and human rights of all individuals.

The U.S. government, acting as defendant in the U.S. filing, responded by admitting to certain of the plaintiffs facts regarding the potential effects of weapons tests, but also by submitting that the plaintiffs had no legal standing to sue. The defense argued that the question of weapons testing was not judiciable and that testing, like war, was in fact protected by the constitution.

The Fallout Suits did go to trial in the U.S. and the U.K., and in both instances the courts sided with the defense. In the U.S. the judges ruled according to a narrow interpretation of tort law; in simplest terms, because none of the individual plaintiffs could prove that they themselves had been harmed by nuclear weapons tests, none of those individuals had a right to sue. (A group of Marshall Islanders, on the other hand, who had been manifestly harmed by tests in the south Pacific, were not allowed to sue because of their status in the U.S. as non-resident aliens.) A similar interpretation was upheld in Great Britain and the Suits never made it to trial in the Soviet Union.

Higuchi with Judith and Peter Freeman, sponsors of the Resident Scholar Program.

Though the Fallout Suits did not succeed, Higuchi argues that they did help establish a template for later successful activism. In a literal sense, Vietnam War-era litigation concerning the harmful effects of Agent Orange did gain traction as did other efforts carried out by the Sierra Club and Greenpeace. Furthermore, in terms of constructing a narrative powerful enough to grasp the imagination of large groups of people, Higuchi points out that Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring, published in 1962, just four years after the Fallout Suits were filed, draws many comparisons between the deleterious effects of DDT and earlier claims regarding nuclear fallout issued by Pauling and others.  Clearly, while the Suits themselves did not meet with success, their impact was felt for many years to follow.

To learn more about the Fallout Suits, read this draft press release announcing the suits, as included on our website Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement: A Documentary History.  A profile of Dr. Burt Davis, an earlier recipient of the Resident Scholarship, is available here.

Pauling vs. Teller

Portrait of Edward Teller by Dmitri Vail. June 1965.

“Our ultimate end must be precisely what Dr. Pauling says, peace based on agreement, upon understanding, on universally agreed and enforced law. I think this is a wonderful idea, but peace based on force buys us the necessary time, and in this time we can work for better understanding, for closer collaboration.”

-Edward Teller. “Fallout and Disarmament: A Debate Between Linus Pauling and Edward Teller,” KQED television, San Francisco, California. February 20, 1958.

Throughout the 1950s Linus Pauling’s work to emphasize the dangers of nuclear weapons testing was publicly contradicted by, among others, a cadre of opposing scientists. Pauling argued that radiation released into the atmosphere, most pressingly those amounts unleashed by nuclear weapons testing, could cause widespread birth defects and subsequently increase levels of human suffering, especially in children.

Pro-militarization scientists including physicist Edward Teller, argued that the negative effects of radiation were negligible, at least as compared to the utility of nuclear stockpiles in maintaining the global balance of power. Suggesting that “to my mind, the distinction between a nuclear weapon and a conventional weapon is the distinction between an effective weapon and an outmoded weapon,” Teller was perhaps the leading scientific opponent of Pauling’s anti-bomb position.

Pauling argued that Teller’s claims were blatantly false. He attacked Teller in the media for his use of “dishonest and incomplete information.” Teller, known as “the father of the hydrogen bomb,” responded in kind, disputing the statistics that Pauling used to support his claims.

In February 1958, Pauling and Teller agreed to publicly debate the issue, to be broadcast on live television by San Francisco station KQED-TV.

Linus Pauling debating Edward Teller on the topic of nuclear fallout. February 1958

Pauling’s approach was typical of his writing. Relying upon published statements, scientific data and a lengthy defense of his own record against those who had already questioned the validity of his position, Pauling attempted to provide a reasoned argument that might educate the viewing public:

“There are every year seventy-five million children born in the world. Two percent of these children are seriously deficient because of heredity…the bad genes that are in the pool of human germ plasm, partially due to the natural radioactivity, and cosmic rays, and now being increased by fallout….One percent increase in this is fifteen thousand seriously defective children each year….We can say, accordingly, that the man who gives the order to test a single large superbomb with high-fission yield is dooming fifteen thousand seriously defective children to be born in later generation.”

Teller’s tactics, on the other hand, were steeped in the highly-effective Cold War rhetoric of the era:

“Peace cannot be obtained by wishing for it….It has often been said, and I think with some justification, that the first world war was brought on by a race in armament. I believe that the second world war was brought on by a race in disarmament. The peace-loving nations disarmed, and when the Hitler tyranny armed, inertia was too great…he got away with his army and he almost conquered the world. Next time when a tyranny arms and we don’t, we might not be so fortunate.”

Perhaps most galling to Pauling’s sensibilities was Teller’s rather flippant refutation of his opponent’s statements concerning the potential for genetic damage caused by radioactive fallout:

“We know enough about the mechanism of heredity to be sure that changes will be made in the germ plasm, just as Dr. Pauling has said, and many, very many, probably the great majority of these changes will be damaging. Yet without some changes, evolution would be impossible.”

As the debate wore on, Teller’s approach threw Pauling increasingly off-balance. By the end, many neutral observers came away from the event feeling that the physicist had maintained a greater degree of poise and had, in fact, “won” the debate. After the evening had concluded, a frustrated and angered Pauling refused to debate with Teller again, feeling that his adversary was neither interested nor willing to engage in a formal, educational discussion.

Linus Pauling and Edward Teller with members of the media and television crew during the debate. February 1958

The two did, however, continue to trade barbs in various public arenas — much of Pauling’s 1958 book No More War! was written in direct response to Teller’s own publication titled Our Nuclear Future. Accusations, points and counterpoints would continue to be made over the years, in dozens of speeches and articles. Admirers of one another’s scientific achievements, Pauling and Teller remained life-long nemeses on subjects of war and peace.

Read more about the Pauling vs. Teller debate on the Linus Pauling and the International Peace Movement website, or watch extracts from the event itself by clicking on the multimedia link below.

"Teller vs. Pauling." 1958. Produced by KQED-TV, San Francisco, California.