This Week in People’s History, Jul 9–15, 2025
‘Nuclear Weapons Endanger the Human Race’
JULY 9 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the publication of the unprecedented warning to the world that the newly invented hydrogen bomb threatened “the continued existence of mankind.”
The 1955 warning statement, which revealed what until then had been a closely-held secret, was signed by Albert Einstein, Bertrand Russell and nine other preeminent scientists.
It read, in part, “The general public, and even many men in positions of authority, have not realized what would be involved in a war with nuclear bombs.
“The general public still thinks in terms of the obliteration of cities [such as Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but] . . . the new bombs are more powerful than the old. . . . . We now know, especially since the Bikini test [in March 1954], that nuclear bombs can gradually spread destruction over a very much wider area than had been supposed.
“ . . . . a bomb can now be manufactured which will be 2500 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima. Such a bomb, if exploded near the ground or under water, sends radioactive particles into the upper air. They sink gradually and reach the surface of the earth in the form of a deadly dust or rain. . . .
“. . . . the best authorities are unanimous in saying that a war with H-bombs might quite possibly put an end to the human race. It is feared that if many H-bombs are used there will be universal death – sudden only for a minority, but for the majority a slow torture of disease and disintegration.”
The 1955 statement, which has come to be known as the Einstein-Russell Manifesto, called on the world’s scientists to “assemble in conference to appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction, and to discuss a resolution. . . .”
“In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them.”
The first international conference of scientists to discuss ways to avert a nuclear catastrophe that the Einstein-Russell Manifesto called for took place in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, in 1957. It was the first of hundreds of similar meetings, which are known as Pugwash Conferences.
One of the 11 signatories of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto, physicist Joseph Rotblat, had been the only scientist to resign from the Manhattan Project for reasons of conscience when he learned in 1944 that Nazi Germany had abandoned its failing effort to develop a nuclear weapon.
Rotblat, who chaired the press conference that announced the publication of the Einstein-Russell Manifesto, was one of the leaders of the first Pugwash Conference and the subsequent Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995 Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences were joint recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize.
When Rotblat accepted the Nobel Peace Prize, he said, “The quest for a war-free world has a basic purpose: survival. But if in the process we learn how to achieve it by love rather than by fear, by kindness rather than by compulsion; if in the process we learn to combine the essential with the enjoyable, the expedient with the benevolent, the practical with the beautiful, this will be an extra incentive to embark on this great task. Above all, remember your humanity.” https://pugwash.org/1955/07/09/statement-manifesto/
Standing Up for the Wrong Thing
JULY 11 IS THE 70TH ANNIVERSARY of the Georgia Board of Education’s decision to prevent the desegregation of Georgia public schools by ruling that none of Georgia’s public school teachers would ever be allowed to teach an integrated class.
Under the new policy, if any of Georgia’s 30,000 public school teachers should ever teach an integrated class, his or her teaching credentials would be automatically revoked. In addition, the same penalty would apply to any teacher who “supports, encourages, condones offers to teach” integrated classes.
In addition, the Board ruled that if any teacher should ever be “required by superior authority” to instruct integrated classes and refused to do so, his or her salary would be paid for the full term of his or her employment contract.
The Georgia Board of Education did not need to worry about trying to enforce its blatantly unconstitutional policy for years, because the very first integration of a Georgia public school did not occur until 1961, when a few schools in Atlanta were integrated on a strictly token basis. https://dlg.galileo.usg.edu/data/dlg/ggpd/pdfs/dlg_ggpd_s-ga-be300-ps7-bm1-b1966-be3.pdf
Jobless Workers on the March
JULY 13 IS THE 90TH ANNIVERSARY of a 3-mile protest march from Manhattan’s Union Square to City Hall by some 15,000 workers, most of them unemployed victims of the Great Depression.
Organized by the Unemployed Councils of Greater New York, an organization that was led by members of the Communist Party, and representing more than 300 organizations, the marchers delivered a petition with more than a hundred thousand signatures to City Hall putting forward four demands: a 25 percent increase in relief payments for the unemployed; union wages for the workers on government-sponsored relief projects; a doubling of the number of African-American workers receiving either relief payments or government-sponsored jobs; and city’s endorsement of a bill in Congress that would establish a national system of unemployment payments. https://isreview.org/issue/71/unemployed-movements-1930s/
‘The FBI Can Do No Wrong’
JULY 14 IS THE 50TH ANNIVERSARY of the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s first public admission that the supposedly straight-arrow agency had been conducting illegal burglaries as part of its investigations for more than thirty years.
The admission was made in 1975 by FBI Director Clarence Kelley in testimony to the Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activities, which was led by Sen. Frank Church.
Despite his admission to what most people would consider a major legal and ethical breach, Kelley claimed the FBI had always done the right thing: “I do not note in these activities any gross abuse of authority. I do not feel that it was a corruption of the trust that is placed in us,” Kelley testified. https://www.lib.berkeley.edu/about/news/fbi
‘On the Eve of Destruction’
JULY 15 IS THE 60TH ANNIVERSARY of Barry McGuire recording P.F. Sloan’s anti-war anthem “Eve of Destruction,” which quickly became a mega hit as a 45-rpm single, and quickly climbed to number 1 on the charts in the U.S., Canada, West Germany and Sweden.
Its 1965 release came shortly after the U.S. government began to sharply escalate the U.S. war against Vietnam by carpet-bombing North Vietnam on a daily basis and deploying thousands of combat troops to support the puppet regime in South Vietnam. There was substantial opposition to the war, particularly among U.S. students, but massive anti-war demonstrations would not begin until years later.
McGuire’s rendition of “Eve of Destruction” earned a level of popular approval that neither the vocalist, nor the writer ever achieved again. Hardly a catchy dance tune, its main attraction was its angry (but hardly subversive) lyrics, which resulted in its being banned by some U.S. radio stations. You can listen to it here: https://youtu.be/_38SWIIKITE?si=wDrzs0YppTfiLC-F
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