Pauling Rules Out 'Limited Wars,' Calls for New Peace Research Group

"Destruction of the present bomb stockpiles would not be wise...limited wars are impossible," stated Dr. Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize winner in chemistry, in a speech sponsored by the Harvard Liberal Union yesterday.

"I don't think limited wars are possible," he declared. "I don't believe the United States, for example, would accept defeat in a war with Russia without using all the resources at its command," including nuclear weapons.

Deeming himself "an optimist, a realist, and in a sense a moralist," Pauling said, "We must not think war is going to take place. World leaders know it's impossible. It is ... incompatible with everything that is human." He continued, "I am happy that the world is forced to become a world of law and order rather than anarchy, a world of morality rather than national immorality...For the first time in history it is possible for national diplomats to be moral men, because self-interest and morality now coincide."

Noting that industry and the military spend millions of dollars on original study each year, Pauling predicted that it is inevitable that world problems be attacked through research. He advocated a peace research organization under the auspices of the United Nations to take the place of war and power politics in settling international problems. Such an agency would attract some of the best men from all over the world. It would work on such problems as the Chinese off-shore islands, the Arab refugees in Lebanon, and the chance of an accidental nuclear war.

Pauling, who also spoke at the Medical School, is an international authority on the effects of radiation on the human body.