Word: pugwash
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...often such courageous behavior is not rewarded. Last week, however, it was--handsomely if somewhat belatedly. The Norwegian Nobel Committee gave its 1995 Peace Prize jointly to Rotblat, 86, and the Pugwash Conferences he still presides over. The conferences--named for the small Nova Scotia fishing village where they began--were praised by the committee for recognizing "the responsibility of scientists for their inventions" and for bringing together "scientists and decision makers to collaborate across political divides on constructive proposals for reducing the nuclear threat." It was the third Peace Prize to be given to scientists for nuclear-disarmament work...
...selection of Rotblat and Pugwash, while something of a surprise, comes at a particularly opportune time. It is 50 years since atom bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing more than 200,000 people. And the French and Chinese governments continue to defy international protests by conducting nuclear tests. "One of the reasons for the prize is a sort of protest against testing of nuclear weapons, and nuclear arms in general," acknowledged committee chairman Francis Sejersted...
...bombing of Hiroshima. "I felt angry, worried and fearful about the future of our civilization," he recalled at a news conference last week. Rotblat refocused his scientific attention on possible medical uses of nuclear reactions and radiation; he also began his lifelong commitment to nuclear disarmament. The Pugwash organization was considered especially influential during the 1980s, when Ronald Reagan began pushing his Star Wars program; it gave scientists an unofficial channel through which to discuss the tricky arms-reduction issues raised by Reagan's plan...
...bachelor who lives with his sister-in-law, Rotblat maintains a schedule that begins at his rather cluttered office at about 6 a.m. every day. Important as the Pugwash organization is to him, it is only a part of his arms-reduction work. He is also on the governing board of the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Despite having won the ultimate recognition of the Nobel, he is hardly ready to quit. Says Rotblat: "I see this honor not for me personally, but rather for the small group of scientists who have been working for 40 years...
...PUGWASH WINS PEACE PRIZE