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December 20, 1961
“NEW YORK—What can one woman do to prevent war? This is the question that comes my way in any number of letters these days.
In times past, the question usually asked by women was, “How can we best help to defend our nation?” I cannot remember a time when the question on so many people’s lips was, “How can we prevent war?”…
…Here is where the individual comes in. To the women and the men who are asking themselves, “What can I do as an individual?” my answer is this: Take a more active interest in your government, have a say in who is nominated for political office, work for these candidates and keep in close touch with them if they are elected.
If our objective is to do away with the causes of war, build up the United Nations and give the U.N. more control over the weapons of total destruction, we should urge that world law be developed so that people’s grievances can be heard promptly and judiciously settled.
We should begin in our own environment and in our own community as far as possible to build a peace-loving attitude and learn to discipline ourselves to accept, in the small things of our lives, mediation and arbitration.
As individuals, there is little that any of us can do to prevent an accidental use of bombs in the hands of those who already have them. We can register, however, with our government a firm protest against granting the knowledge and the use of these weapons to those who do not now have them.
We may hope that in the years to come, when the proper machinery is set up, such lethal weapons can be destroyed wherever they are and the knowledge that developed them can be used for more constructive purposes.
In the meantime, no citizen of a democracy need feel completely helpless if he becomes an active factor in the citizenship of his community. For it is the willingness to abdicate responsibilities of citizenship which gives us our feeling of inadequacy and frustration.
As long as we are not actually destroyed, we can work to gain greater understanding of other peoples and to try to present to the peoples of the world the values of our own beliefs. We can do this by demonstrating our conviction that human life is worth preserving and that we are willing to help others to enjoy benefits of our civilization just as we have enjoyed it.”
April 3, 1958
“NEW YORK—The Soviet Union’s announcement that it will stop all nuclear testing was, of course, a diplomatic triumph that will advance the Soviet states in the eyes of the uncommitted nations who dread war and want to see steps taken to prevent it.
Why our government could not have brought nuclear testing negotiations to some kind of conclusion before this will always be a mystery to me. As it is now, the Soviets are in a perfect position, for they say they will stop but put no time limit on when they will begin again because, they say, it depends on when the rest of us will follow suit.
Therefore, we and great Britain must bear the entire responsibility for continuing these tests. Of course, we can say that we have no way of knowing whether the Soviets are actually living up to their announced decision and we already have said, “There is no system of verification.”
But the world is going to believe that we are able to tell if the Soviets continue these tests, and the peoples of the free world are going to ask their governments to work out some system of verification, if not to improve the machinery for detection.
The temper of the people of the world, as a whole, favors a start toward doing away with the possibility of war and our Western governments had better realize this.
There has been no enthusiasm, as far as I can find out, for our announcement that we will develop a “clean” bomb. Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko, in his speech to the Supreme Soviet, made fun of the idea that there could be such a thing as a “clean” nuclear bomb.
I do not think people are interested in whether or not we produce a bomb with less danger of radioactive fallout. They want no bombs.
The governments of the Western world had better begin to recognize the fact that their people are anxious to see results leading toward disarmament. On the whole, I think, they would like to see the steps taken within the United Nations. They feel more confident when the whole world is included in these negotiations, but they want to see progress made and the Soviets have taken the initiative away from us.
I am sorry that our government has allowed this to happen. This Administration has been meeting emergency situations when they arise, but it has been shortsighted in preventing emergencies from arising and in beating the Soviets to the punch with actions appealing to the people of the world.”
