the boisi center interviews no. 87: January 30, 2014

joseph gerson is disarmament coordinator, director of programs in New England, and director of the Peace and Economic Security Program for the American Friends Service Committee. He spoke with Boisi Center associate director Erik Owens and undergraduate research assistant Mary Popeo before his presentation on peace activism at the Boisi Center.

owens: What is the best argument wars since Nagasaki. This is the area see that referenced in the International you’ve ever heard for maintaining a nu- of my specialized research. To speak of Court of Justice’s advisory opinion on clear weapons stockpile? deterrent policies, I think we have to look the use and threatened use of nuclear at the Soviet Union, Russia today, and weapons. Beyond that, you’re dealing gerson: I don’t think there is a decent China. This would be a revolutionary with the effects of radiation through argument because the use of these weap- approach in our discourse, but one has to time. People who are exposed at one ons is beyond abominable. At the very pursue truth. point may be dying of cancer two years, least, it’s genocidal. Even with a small five years, ten years, or thirty years later. exchange between, for example, India And even beyond that, you’re looking at and Pakistan, you have famine across the the genetic damage. I work with second- Northern Hemisphere and an estimat- and third-generation A-bomb survivors ed one billion people dead. I think the in Japan, who live with a constant fear of model should be South Africa, which had cancer. They talk to me about their sib- a full nuclear program and yet opted to lings who have died. The indiscriminate halt, reverse, and get rid of it. As people murder through time caused by nuclear in Hiroshima say, these are weapons of weapons certainly separates them from the devil. Not that I believe in a devil, but other weapons. nuclear weapons are fundamentally evil, and there’s no legitimate argument for owens: Have the nations of the world their use. abandoned the concept of tactical nuclear weapons? owens: What about arguments based on deterrence or future need? gerson: I don’t think so. They’re still in our stockpile, and the Russians have gerson: The deterrence model has them. When it comes to war, perceived dominated discourse. However, the limits and boundaries often disappear. reality is that the United States hasn’t owens: What separates nuclear weap- For example, it’s interesting to read practiced deterrence. As I explained in ons in your mind from other weapons? about Roosevelt’s condemnation of aerial my book, you can find the documentation Let’s assume that one would prefer that bombing in 1939, a few years after which from the Pentagon saying that deterrence we eliminate all weapons, but there’s a the U.S. was engaged in war. Our allies has never been our policy. The reality special worry about nuclear weapons. were bombing Hamburg and we were is not only the illegitimate use of the gerson: You begin with the mass, in- firebombing Japan. Once the technology nuclear weapons in Japan, but also their discriminate murder of huge numbers of and the weapons are in place, they can repeated use by the United States as a people. In addition to the moral outrages always be used. form of extortion and blackmail threats involved, you’re dealing with fundamen- in more than 30 international crises and tal violations of international law. You

1 the boisi center interview: joseph gerson owens: Speaking of technology, what gerson: There are two tracks: what UN, I watched heads of state, foreign do you see as the link between the pre- needs to happen among the govern- ministers and ambassadors express their sumed peaceful use of nuclear energy ments, and what needs to happen among outrage at the refusal of the U.S. to fulfill and the existence of nuclear weapons? Is popular movements. Speaking about the this legal commitment to co-convene the the former forever tainted as a result of former, in 2005, the treaty-averse Bush conference. the possibility of the latter? administration sabotaged the NPT review As we near 2015, we will see shell game and potentially the NPT itself. No agree- gerson: Nuclear power should not be politics from the Obama administration ment came out of the 2005 conference used on its own terms, independent of around nonproliferation, nuclear security and the NPT order was threatened. nuclear weapons. We have clearly seen and so on. However, the United States this in India, Israel, Pakistan and Iran. This made 2010 particularly important. needs to take meaningful steps toward Once a country has the technology, it is There were intense negotiations down disarmament before 2015, or the NPT not a big leap from so-called peaceful to the last minute, resulting in a funda- order will be in serious jeopardy. One production of nuclear power to nuclear hopes for deeper commitments from the weapons. nuclear powers to move toward fulfilling their Article VI commitments. Nobody Even before that, there’s the implicit dan- has enormous confidence in that, but ger of nuclear power plants. Fukushima “The reality is that that’s what we have to press for. was waiting to happen. Putting nuclear sometimes things plants on faults is insane. Here in the At the popular level, in 2010, I found U.S., we had Three Mile Island and triti- get so abstracted myself at the center of international NGO um leaks at Vermont Yankee. There are organizing to put pressure on govern- many immediate dangers. We are many that we totally ments. The peace movement does have years into this and yet no one knows what forget the human allies among governments. There are a to do with the waste, which poisons the number of governments working hard for environment and will threaten human dimensions. the NPT’s implementation. The UN High survival for thousands and thousands of Commissioner for Disarmament, Sergio years. The American Duarte, was very supportive. We even had Ban Ki-moon involved as a speaker. He This is one of the challenges as we work Friends Service came to a conference that I was involved on the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty in organizing. It was quite remarkable. (NPT) and its review. The NPT was one Committee has Four of us, operating on a shoestring of the three most fundamental treaties budget, brought other people in along the of the 20th century. It has three pillars. always valued way with a larger committee overseeing As the Iranians and the North Koreans that human face.” the process. When the movement was have been reminding us for years, one of at a trough, we assembled 1,000 people the pillars is that nations that sign on to for the conference and had a march of the commitment to cease development 15,000 people from Times Square to the of nuclear weapons have the inalienable mental agreement. The nuclear powers United Nations. We’ll have to replicate right to use nuclear power for peaceful reaffirmed their commitments to Article that in 2015. purposes. Having nuclear energy is an VI and to negotiating the complete elim- international right that they have. This is owens: Could you tell us a bit about the ination of their arsenals. In the diplo- a major flaw in the NPT. American Friends Service Committee macy with the non-aligned nations, the and its work on this particular issue? popeo: As a program committee United States committed to co-convene member at the American Friends Ser- a conference on the creation of a Middle gerson: The Service Committee is a vice Committee (AFSC), I know we are East nuclear weapons and weapons of Quaker-based organization created in currently preparing for the upcoming mass destruction-free zone in 2012. That 1917, during the First World War. Around 2014 Preparatory Conference. What other got America through the conference, but this time, many of the other traditional preparations do you think are necessary afterwards the Obama administration peace organizations were created in the for the 2015 NPT review? Ideally, what was not willing to fulfill its commitment. U.S. and in Europe. AFSC has evolved would come out of the 2015 NPT review Needless to say, many governments were over the years but its principal commit- and what must we do in order to make very upset with the U.S. At the High ments are to respect the dignity of every that happen? Level Meeting on Disarmament at the individual, to eschew violence and to

2 the boisi center interview: joseph gerson work for nonviolent conflict resolution. In the archives, there is a letter written by the head of the Committee in August 1945, just days after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to President Truman, which was sent at the same time as a letter from the forerunner of the National Council of Churches, also condemning nuclear weapons. The Service Committee did early work with Norman Cousins. For those who survived the atomic bombs, the mutila- tion and devastation of people’s bodies was extraordinary. For women, there was discrimination in courting and marriage due to fears of genetic damage. Because America wouldn’t allow the Japanese to learn about the atomic bombings during in its testing, devastated many innocent My second contact was at the 1968 the occupation, people even feared that people. Democratic convention in Chicago. The radiation was contagious. With help from same gentleman, Tony Henry—who I In some ways, AFSC was ahead of the dy- the Service Committee, Norman Cous- later learned had been one of the four namic of the international disarmament ins brought a number of young women African-Americans who integrated the movement, which is now focused on the called the Hiroshima Maidens to New University of Texas—was involved in the human consequences of nuclear weap- York for plastic surgery. These women Nonviolent Caucus, which condemned ons. The reality is that sometimes people are totally innocent. They were given op- the war in Vietnam, Soviet invasion of and policy makers lose themselves in ab- portunities to speak to the press in order Czechoslovakia and Mayor Daley’s police stractions, forgetting the impacts of these to educate the American public. brutality. Soon thereafter, I went to the apocalyptic weapons on human beings. Service Committee for draft counseling My predecessor here in Cambridge, AFSC has always valued and highlighted and was trained by them to become a Russell Johnson, was involved with that human face, the lives and testimo- draft counselor. Their literature on war several people at Harvard in a discussion nies of A-bomb victims, including down was some of the best, cogent and coher- group that led to the Committee for a winders, miners and plant workers, all ent. These things led me to AFSC. Sane Nuclear Policy. This Committee of whom have been devastated. We’ve was the leading organization working for brought Global Hibakusha delegations to After the Vietnam War, I lived in Europe the Nuclear Test Ban in the 1960s, and the UN’s Millennium NGO Forum and for three years and became a Middle East was the established heart of the nuclear to the Hague Appeal for Peace Confer- specialist. I was also incredibly privileged disarmament movement for decades. ence in 1999. to work with and learn from people who Since then, AFSC has played a central had resisted the Nazis. When I was grow- owens: It’s notable that AFSC is a role in launching the Nuclear Weapons ing up in a Jewish home, Germans were Quaker organization. You have a complex Freeze movement. An unheralded story, not particularly loved. But one German relationship with the religious traditions this movement was essential to the end who was spoken of highly was Martin that you work with. Could you say a bit of the Cold War. Niemoller. When I was in Europe, I had about how they all connect? the opportunity to see and work with I’ve been leading AFSC’s work for quite gerson: I’m shaped by the Holocaust him twice. I’ve touched history in some some time, especially with Japanese in Europe, the American Civil Rights interesting ways. movements, touring speakers, con- movement, and AFSC’s commitments to ferences, and with Global Hibakusha. When I came back to the U.S., AFSC justice and nonviolent social change. My A-bomb survivors are not limited to had done some cutting-edge work on the earliest contact with the Service Commit- Japan. We have atomic veterans and vic- rights of Palestinians and the need for a tee was when I was a student involved tims of mining and fallout in the United two-state solution. They were looking for in the Poor People’s Campaign, Martin States. Just about every nation that has someone with the necessary background, Luther King’s final campaign. One of the developed nuclear weapons has, at least and they brought me in. We shared com- lead organizers was from AFSC.

3 the boisi center interview: joseph gerson mitments to nonviolence, human rights, is almost all Quaker. But as a staff, we’re gerson: At some point, I came across and the dignity of all people. They’ve quite diverse. In some ways, I describe a book by Martin Buber called Meetings. tolerated me, and over the years, I’ve myself as a Hesseian Buddhist, pro- Buber says that the key to human engage- certainly absorbed Quaker ways, such foundly influenced by Hermann Hesse’s ment is finding the question that reveals as making decisions through consen- Siddhartha, which I’ve taught several the essential dimensions of another sus and long discussion. Often when I times. I’ve also had the remarkable expe- person. This is what I look for in en- go to meetings where there is voting, I rience of speaking at the Japan Religions gagement with other people. I’ve had the find myself almost physically reacting, for Peace Conference in Nara and engag- extraordinary privilege of working with because this is often not the best way to ing with the Fellowship of Reconciliation people at the most human level. When discern the truth. in Europe. people think of A-bomb survivors, they have a certain image in their minds. But In the 1960s, the Service Committee owens: You have a common cause with I also know them as artists, as friends began to understand that if it wanted to religionists around the world who don’t I drink with, as people I laugh with. I fulfill its mission, it needed to become share your particular faith commitment, always hope to reach that level of human broader. One of my colleagues was a or lack thereof. What’s the content of the engagement and solidarity. Burmese Buddhist. As you move up the connection you make with them? hierarchy of the organization, the board [end]

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