Joseph Rotblat

Sir Joseph Rotblat, "who has died aged 96 [in 2005], was a nuclear physicist and a tireless worker for peace. When he and his creation, the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs were jointly awarded the 1995 Nobel peace prize, some newspapers identified him only as a "little known" physicist. But scientists in many disciplines, and officialdom in many countries, knew him well...

"Rotblat first took the lead in setting up, in 1946, the British Atomic Scientists Association (Basa), following meetings between Liverpool and Oxford physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project or its British precursor, code-named Tube Alloys.

"Although Basa was much smaller than its counterpart, the Federation of American Scientists, it was able to stimulate public debate through its journal, through public statements and its atom train travelling exhibition. It had adopted a non-political stance...

"Rotblat's main contribution, nevertheless, was still to come. It was through the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, financed by a Canadian-American industrialist, Cyrus Eaton, which was first held in 1957 at Pugwash, a small fishing village in Nova Scotia..."


 * Director, War and Peace Foundation
 * WMD Awareness Programme
 * Club of Budapest: Members
 * Former Board of Sponsors, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists