Keystone - Albert Einstein's Peaceful Speech, anti-H-bomb to the NBC. 1950

Dimension :

18 x13cm

Good condition, traces and marks of wear, see photos for detail, stamp on the back.


February 15, 1950. At Princeton University in New Jersey, Professor Albert Einstein gives an anti-H-bomb speech to the National Broadcasting Company.

Einstein says: "The liberation of atomic energy did not pose a new problem, it simply made it more urgent to solve one that was already known." As an atomic bomb or not, "as long as sovereign nations have great power, war is inevitable," he said. "What has changed is the destructive power of war."

"I do not believe that civilization will be destroyed in a war where the atomic bomb will be used" however tempers the Nobel Prize. "It is possible that two-thirds of the world population will be killed, but there will be enough men capable of thinking and enough books to allow humanity a new start and civilization to be restored."

The fact remains that the atomic bomb is a danger to humanity, and Albert Einstein makes a revolutionary proposal: "I do not believe that the secret of the bomb should be given to the United Nations. I do not believe that it should be given to the Soviet Union. (...) The secret of the bomb must be entrusted to a + world government + (...) Such a government must be founded by the United States. Soviet Union and Britain, the only three major powers with great military strength".

Einstein does not trust the UN, created five and a half months ago, and therefore prefers the idea of ​​a "world government", which would draft a constitution - to which would be invited to join "the smaller nations "-, and would be "competent in all military matters "with the right to intervene in all countries where a minority will oppress a majority".

A visionary, the physicist adds: "We must put an end to this concept of non-intervention, because to finish with this concept is one of the conditions of the safeguarding of peace". Somalia, Bosnia, Rwanda, Afghanistan, Libya, Syria: It will take decades for the UN to violate the principle of non-interference in the internal affairs of a state that is enshrined in its charter.

To do everything to avoid war is Albert Einstein position at the end of the year 1945. "Do I have to fear the tyranny of a world government, of course, but I am even more afraid of the break-up of one or more new wars, "he writes in France-Soir.

This long article by Albert Einstein is in line with his pacifist opinions, which he will express throughout his life, despite his commitment to Zionism and Israel. He will be one of the most ardent, since the end of the war and in the early 1950s, to denounce the arms race between the United States and the USSR.

And, shortly before his death on April 18, 1955, he and the other Nobel Prize winners signed the "Russell-Einstein Manifesto" calling on the great powers to seek peaceful solutions to international conflicts.

The feeling of guilt of having contributed to the making of the atomic bomb will haunt him until his last days, to the point of making him regret having sent his famous letter to Roosevelt. "I made a big mistake in my life, when I signed this letter," he confessed to physicist and Nobel laureate Linus Pauling at the end of his life.

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