Tonight, I do not ask you to agree with every detail of my proposal. I ask only this: Think as if your children’s lives depend on it — because they do. Think as if your species’ survival depends on it — because it does.
Thank you. End of speech.
What I must say to you tonight is simple, and it is terrible:
I answer: We must think as citizens of the world, not as citizens of any single nation. albert einstein the menace of mass destruction full speech
I am grateful for this opportunity to speak with you tonight. I speak not as a physicist, but as a human being — a citizen of this world, deeply troubled by the shadow that has fallen upon it.
This is not science fiction. This is physics. And physics does not care about our politics.
We have seen what it does. One bomb — one single bomb — erased a city from the earth. Men, women, children, the old and the newborn — turned to ash in a single flash of heat brighter than the sun. Those who did not die instantly wandered the ruins, their skin hanging from their bodies, their eyes melted, their lungs filled with invisible death that would kill them weeks later — slowly, quietly, cruelly. Tonight, I do not ask you to agree
The atom has changed everything, save our mode of thinking. And thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe.
Ladies and Gentlemen,
When I first sent my letter to President Roosevelt in 1939, I did so out of the deepest fear that Nazi Germany would succeed in building an atomic bomb. We had reason to believe their scientists were capable of such a horror. I acted to prevent a nightmare. Thank you
Today, the nightmare is no longer a threat. It is a reality. The bomb was made, and it was used.
You cannot protect yourself against atomic weapons by building more atomic weapons. That is like trying to put out a fire by pouring gasoline on it. The only real protection — the only one — is to ensure that these weapons are never used again. And the only way to ensure that is to abolish war itself.
It is a question for the human soul.
I propose, therefore, that we work toward a supranational organization — a world government — with the sole authority to possess atomic materials and weapons. Every nation must surrender its sovereignty over the means of mass destruction. This is not a dream. It is a necessity, as necessary as oxygen for a drowning man.
A single war fought with atomic bombs — perhaps even a dozen of them — could end the life of every person on this planet. Not just the soldiers. Not just the cities. The entire civilization. The crops. The water. The air itself, poisoned with radioactive dust that would circle the earth for generations.