from Professor Robert A Hinde, CBE, ScD, FRS, FBA
St. John’s College
Cambridge, CB2 1TP
United Kingdom
Phone 01223-339356
Fax 01223-337720
Email rah15@hermes.cam.ac.uk
November 11th 2005
Dear Prime Minister,
You are no doubt aware that many physicists in the USA, including a number of Nobel Laureates, have written to the President to express their misgivings about United States policies with respect to weapons of Mass Destruction. I understand that a similar letter has to-day been sent to President Chirac. A similar view is widespread amongst academics in this country. I attach a letter that has been signed by over thirty Fellows of the Royal Society, with a list of those who so far have signed it. Members of a number of other professions have expressed their agreement with this view.
I trust that you will take their views into account and decide not to renew or prolong the life of our nuclear weapons.
Respectfully yours,
Prof. Robert A Hinde
(Chairperson, British Pugwash Group)
DECISION ON THE REPLACEMENT OF THE TRIDENT WEAPONS SYSTEM
We note that:
(i) Nuclear weapons are of negligible value to the country that owns them, for it is difficult to envisage circumstances in which they could be used. Indeed they may make that country more susceptible to nuclear attack. They are useless against terrorists, but they could attract terrorists.
(ii) Because of their indiscriminate and horrifying consequences, nuclear weapons are immoral, and by decision of the International Criminal Court their use, or any threat to use them, is illegal in nearly all circumstances.
(iii) Expenditure on nuclear weapons is a waste of resources that could better be spent in other ways.
(iv) UK's possession of nuclear weapons helps to encourage other nations to acquire them, and leads to a world governed by mutual fear rather than by law and mutual understanding.
Therefore, we urge the UK Government not to refurbish or replace the Trident Weapons System, and thereby earn the world's respect as the first of the major nuclear weapon states to conform fully to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and set the world on the road to Peace.
Signed _________________________________
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