Resources for Teachers and Students on Linus Pauling
Prepare: Linus Pauling, having won the Nobel Prize
in Chemistry in 1954, leveraged his notoriety as a Nobel
laureate to lead the opposition to atmospheric testing of
nuclear weapons. On October 10, 1963, when the first limited
test ban went into effect, it was announced that Pauling
would be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize as well. His biography
can be read on the website of Oregon State University's
Linus Pauling Institute.
Read: Linus Pauling's Architects
of Peace essay is excerpted from his 1958 book, No More
War! In this short excerpt, Pauling speculates that the
development of thermonuclear weaponry has moved civilization
into a period when world problems can no longer be resolved
through warfare.
Explore: The Center
for Arms Control and Non-Nuclear Proliferation,
located in Washington, D.C., monitors peace and security
issues affected by the proliferation of weapons of mass
destruction. Their website, is a primary source of information
about nuclear weapons, bio-chemical weapons, the military
budget, missile defense systems, terrorism, and non-proliferation.
Of major interest is the "featured resources"
section of the center's homepage.
Write: Linus Pauling began his Nobel lecture, in
1963, with the statement, "I believe that there will
never again be another great world war-a war in which the
terrible weapons involving nuclear fission and nuclear fusion
would be used." How much confidence, four decades later,
should we have in Pauling's optimism? Specifically, what
factors have changed in the world in the past four decades
that have moved us closer to or farther away from Pauling's
vision of "No more war!"? Support your stand on
these questions in a two-to-three page paper.
Extend: The Arms
Control Association, ACA, founded in 1971, is a
non-partisan organization dedicated to promoting public
understanding of and support for effective arms control
policies. Members of the association receive a subscription
to the magazine Arms Control Today, and student memberships
are available for $30 per year. Internships and Peace Fellowships
are also available through the ACA.
Additional Resource: The Harvard Square Library
maintains a website of "Notable American Unitarians,"
which contains an interesting biography
of Linus Pauling. It outlines the price Pauling paid because
of his political views, including being forced out of his
faculty position at Cal Tech, and being denied a US passport
for two years because his "anti-communist statements"
hadn't been strong enough. It also tells how Life magazine
termed his Nobel Peace Prize a "weird insult from Norway."
Biography of Linus
Pauling