Longtime anti-nuclear activist

BL: in 1968, at a world conference for cardiology, I met a Russian doctor, the leading cardiologist in Russia. So he had power. (You ended up founding with this doctor your organization against nuclear war.) Yes, and he invited to Moscow in 1968, I traveled to Moscow and gave a lecture and nobody listened to me�they believe cardiac arrest was a capitalist disease. But all the doctors there are smoking so heavily, I know they eat gristle of meat and drink a lot and I know they’re stressed a lot too. I was disgusted with Russia. But four years later, a Russian patient asked me to come and see him. I didn’t want to go but the Nixon White House nudged me. (Is this then also a chance to make connections on non-proliferation?) No, it never entered my mind at that time. In 1979, when I realized I wasn’t happy with the state of the world, it dawned me I had a connection to the top echelons of medicine that bringing the message to the Soviet people didn’t seem out of reach. (What was your best tool?) We appeared in the press and on the radio and whenever I arrived in Moscow, I’d be invited by the press also. (What was in it for the Soviet media?) The fact that they saw our voice as one of the few effective international voice trying to get into a negotiated disarmament. WWII decimated Russia society, and the Soviet leadership also knew they were behind the West technologically. So they supported our movement, and that meant America and NATO thought we were a spokesperson for the Kremlin. (Did you ever felt used by the Kremlin?) We wanted to be used by the Kremlin, and also the White House. (But the facts are now that nuclear weapons exist on both sides as well.) Yes but the phase of instability is over. But the fact that we still have nuclear weapons raises a moral question�we have lost our moral compass and people aren’t thinking about it.