“Remember your humanity, and forget the rest”: The Russell-Einstein Manifesto and the Pugwash Movement
On 23 December 1954 Bertrand Russell delivered a BBC radio broadcast entitled 'Man’s Peril' [audio 1. below]. It was one of his best known essays and undoubtedly the most celebrated of his many broadcasts for the BBC. Drawing on the expert testimony of scientists and military strategists, he painted a grim picture of the material and human destruction likely to be wrought by nuclear warfare. Yet the gloom and foreboding of his rhetoric was punctuated by a guarded optimism that 'Man’s Peril' could somehow be averted.