Seventy years ago Albert Einstein, in an Atlantic Magazine article entitled “Atomic War or Peace,” changed American opinion on the use of nuclear weapons.
Einstein’s intended audience in 1947 was the American people, not politicians or generals. His message: “Americans may be convinced of their determination not to launch an aggressive or preventative war. So they may believe it is superfluous to announce publicly that they will not a second time be the first to use the atomic bomb.” Einstein thought refusing to publicly outlaw first use of the bomb was a mistake.
Einstein’s immense credibility and the lucidity of his reasoning had great influence on the generation that had gone through WWII. It offered a way forward to a future without nuclear war. His ideas to contain nuclear weapons would continue to be influential after the Korean War and with baby boomers who grew up in the Cold War always thinking there might be a mushroom cloud in their future...
from The Cap Times
Ambassador Loftus served as U.S. Ambassador to Norway from 1993 to 1998. He is an international consultant specializing in Norway. He has also consulted foundations that assist Parliaments in developing democracies, and complete projects with the new Hungarian Parliament, the Parliament of Thailand, the National and Provincial Parliaments of Pakistan, the Parliament of Latvia, the Parliament of Turkey and the Parliament of Macedonia.