Peacemakers: Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize (Oxford Profiles)

Peacemakers:Winners of the Nobel

Peace Prize

ANN T. KEENE

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

PeacemakersW I N N E R S O F T H E N O B E L P E A C E P R I Z E

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PeacemakersW I N N E R S O F T H E N O B E L P E A C E P R I Z E

A N N T. K E E N E

O X F O R D U N I V E R S I T Y P R E S SN E W YO R K • O X F O R D

On the cover: (Clockwise from top left) Albert Schweitzer, DesmondTutu, Jane Addams, and Theodore RooseveltFrontispiece: The front and back of the Nobel Peace Prize medal

Design: Sandy KaufmanLayout: Loraine MachlinPicture research: Lisa Kirchner, Andrea Lynch

This book is for Trevor Huddleston,a lifelong peacemaker.

Oxford University PressOxford New York

Athens Auckland Bangkok Bogotá BombayBuenos Aires Calcutta Cape Town Dar es Salaam Delhi

Florence Hong Kong Istanbul KarachiKuala Lumpur Madras Madrid Melbourne

Mexico City Nairobi Paris SingaporeTaipei Tokyo Toronto Warsaw

and associated companies inBerlin Ibadan

Copyright © 1998 by Ann T. Keene

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,198 Madison Avenue, New York, New York 10016

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All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording,

or otherwise, without the prior permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication DataKeene, Ann. T.

Peacemakers : winners of the Nobel Peace Prize / Ann T. Keene.p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index.ISBN 0-19-510316-5 (library; acid-free paper)

1. Pacifists—Biography—Juvenile literature. 2. Peace—Awards—History—Juvenile literature.3. Nobel Prizes—History—Juvenile literature.

[1. Pacifists. 2. Nobel Prizes—Biography.]I. Title

JZ5540.K44 1998327.1’72’0922—dc21 98-13522

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Printed in the United States of Americaon acid-free paper

Contents Preface: The Story of Peacemakers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7Introduction: Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Peace Prize . . . . . . . . . . . . .81901: Henri Dunant and Frédéric Passy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .121902: Élie Ducommun and Albert Gobat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .181903: William R. Cremer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .221904: Institute of International Law . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .251905: Bertha von Suttner . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .271906: Theodore Roosevelt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .301907: Ernesto Moneta and Louis Renault . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .341908: Klas Arnoldson and Fredrik Bajer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .381909: Auguste Beernaert and Paul d’Estournelles de Constant . . . . .421910: International Peace Bureau . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .471911: Tobias Asser and Alfred Fried . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .491912: Elihu Root . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .531913: Henri La Fontaine . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .561917: International Committee of the Red Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .591919: Woodrow Wilson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .621920: Léon Bourgeois . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .671921: Karl Branting and Christian Lange . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .701922: Fridtjof Nansen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .741925: J. Austen Chamberlain and Charles G. Dawes . . . . . . . . . . . . .771926: Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .821927: Ferdinand Buisson and Ludwig Quidde . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .861929: Frank B. Kellogg . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .901930: Nathan Söderblom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .931931: Jane Addams and Nicholas Murray Butler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .961933: Norman Angell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1011934: Arthur Henderson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1041935: Carl von Ossietzky . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1071936: Carlos Saavedra Lamas . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1101937: Robert Cecil . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1131938: Nansen International Office for Refugees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1161944: International Committee of the Red Cross . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1181945: Cordell Hull . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1201946: Emily Greene Balch and John R. Mott . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1241947: American Friends Service Committee and the

Friends Service Council . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1301949: John Boyd Orr . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1351950: Ralph J. Bunche . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1391951: Léon Jouhaux . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1431952: Albert Schweitzer . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1461953: George C. Marshall . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1501954: Office of the UN High

Commissioner for Refugees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1541957: Lester Pearson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1561958: Dominique-Georges Pire . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .159

1959: Philip Noel-Baker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1621960: Albert Luthuli . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1651961: Dag Hammarskjöld . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1691962: Linus Pauling . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1721963: International Committee of the Red Cross and

League of Red Cross Societies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1761964: Martin Luther King, Jr. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1781965: United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1831968: René Cassin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1861969: International Labor Organization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1891970: Norman E. Borlaug . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1921971: Willy Brandt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1941973: Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .1981974: Seán MacBride and Eisaku Sato . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2031975: Andrei Sakharov . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2071976: Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williams . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2101977: Amnesty International . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2151978: Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2181979: Mother Teresa of Calcutta . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2251980: Adolfo Pérez Esquivel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2281981: Office of the UN High

Commissioner for Refugees . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2311982: Alfonso García Robles and Alva Myrdal . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2341983: Lech Walesa . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2391984: Desmond Tutu . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2431985: International Physicians for the

Prevention of Nuclear War . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2471986: Elie Wiesel . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2491987: Oscar Arias Sánchez . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2531988: United Nations Peacekeeping Forces . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2561989: The Dalai Lama . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2581990: Mikhail Gorbachev . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2611991: Aung San Suu Kyi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2641992: Rigoberta Menchú . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2681993: F. W. de Klerk and Nelson Mandela . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2711994: Yasir Arafat, Shimon Peres, and Yitzhak Rabin . . . . . . . . . . . .2761995: Joseph Rotblat . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2831996: Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo and José Ramos-Horta . . . . . . . .2861997: Jody Williams and the International Campaign

to Ban Landmines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .289Appendix 1: A Century of Nobel Peace Prize Winners . . . . . . . . . .292Appendix 2: A Short Peace Glossary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .295Appendix 3: A Peace Timeline: Milestones on

the Road to Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .295Appendix 4: Major International Organizations

Working for Peace . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .297Further Reading . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .298Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .300

Note: The Nobel Peace Prize was not awarded for the following years: 1914,1915, 1916, 1918, 1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943,1948, 1955, 1956, 1966, 1967, and 1972.

Preface

YT H E S T O R Y O F

P E A C E M A K E R S

The English word “peacemaker” has been used since the 15th century to describesomeone who creates peace by ending conflict between individuals, groups, ornations. But the word occurred much earlier in other languages. Many of us areprobably most familiar with its use in the Bible—specifically in the NewTestament, which was originally written in Greek. In the Gospel of St. Matthew,chapter 5, verse 9, the apostle quotes one of the Beatitudes of Christ, which is usu-ally translated in English as “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be calledthe sons of God.”

Other religions besides Christianity have praised peacemakers and condemnedhuman conflict. Yet despite this desire for peace, warfare has been part of thehuman condition as long as people have walked the earth—some 2 million years.Moreover, despite religious teachings to the contrary—and the efforts of genera-tions of peacemakers throughout history—warfare was considered a noble activityin most of the world until the mid-19th century.

The actions of a single man challenged the widespread belief that war wasboth glamorous and necessary. His name was Henri Dunant, and in 1863 his oppo-sition to war led him to create the Red Cross—the same organization that most ofus are familiar with today for its many services to people throughout the world.Dunant was one of the founders of the modern peace movement, and most of theorganizations working today for world peace owe their origins to him and to hisfollowers. It is therefore appropriate that in 1901 Dunant became the first winnerof the first award established to honor men and women who have devoted theirlives to peace: the Nobel Peace Prize, established by the Swedish industrialistAlfred Nobel.

In the following pages, you will learn about Alfred Nobel and why he createda special annual prize for peacemakers. You will also read the moving stories ofmore than 100 winners—both individuals and organizations—of the Nobel PeacePrize. As you learn about their achievements, you will be introduced as well tomajor events in world history, from the 1850s to the 1990s. And you will meetother peacemakers who deserved, but did not win, the Nobel Peace Prize.

As you read this book, you will learn that peacemakers come in several cate-gories. Many of them were brilliant, highly educated people who made major con-tributions in their chosen careers long before their efforts on behalf of world peace:men and women like U.S. President Theodore Roosevelt (1906); Norwegianexplorer and scientist Fridtjof Nansen (1922); French medical missionary andmusician Albert Schweitzer (1952); U.S. scientist Linus Pauling (1962), who alsowon a Nobel Prize for Chemistry; and Swedish sociologist Alva Myrdal (1982).

However, some of the most extraordinary peacemakers seemed destined forlives as ordinary individuals—until they discovered an opportunity to act onbehalf of peace and chose to do so. They were like Dunant, a not-very-successfulSwiss businessman; U.S. social worker Jane Addams (1931), crippled from birthand unable to pursue a career in medicine; two office workers, Mairead Corriganand Betty Williams (1976), in Northern Ireland, caught in the midst of a civil war;and Mother Teresa (1979), a high school teacher in India for nearly two decadesbefore she began working directly with the poor.

You will discover, too, that some of the winners were not always on the side ofpeace. At first they supported warfare, either by fighting themselves or by encour-aging others to do so. But during the course of their lives, they changed direction,moving toward peace and away from war, and that change made a profound differ-ence in the world.

—Ann T. Keene

P R E F A C E • 7

he 19th-century Swedish inventor andindustrialist Alfred Nobel hated war, and heoften wished that he could use his creativegenius to invent an antiwar “substance ormachine.” He could not, of course, and so he

did the next best thing: in his will, he directed his heirs tocreate an annual prize worth a great deal of money for theperson or persons who had done “the most or the best workfor fraternity among nations, for the abolition or reductionof standing armies, and for the holding and promotion ofpeace congresses.”

In 1901, five years after Nobel’s death, the first NobelPeace Prize was awarded. Today, nearly a century later, some100 men, women, and organizations have won the award fortheir activities on behalf of world peace. In its early years,the prize—awarded in Swedish kronor—was the equivalentof several thousand dollars. In the late-1990s, it is wortharound $1 million—a consequence of investments that havemade the Nobel estate increasingly valuable. The NobelPeace Prize has a much greater value than the money thataccompanies it, however: it is recognized as the most presti-gious award in the world that a peacemaker can receive.

The bulk of Alfred Nobel’s fortune came from the man-ufacture of explosives. The most important of these wasdynamite, which he invented. In the century since Nobel’sdeath, many false stories have been circulated about him.The most common is that he created the Nobel Peace Prizebecause he had a guilty conscience about making moneyfrom the manufacture of weapons. In fact, although some ofNobel’s explosives were used to make ammunition, he madelittle or no money from that application of his inventions.The Nobel fortune came from peacetime uses of dynamitethroughout the world to blast roads, tunnels, canals, rail-ways, and oil wells.

If Alfred Nobel had been able to choose a career forhimself, it might not have been science or invention or busi-ness. Instead, he might have become a professional writer.Nobel was born in 1833 in Stockholm, the capital ofSweden. He was the fourth of eight children, of whom onlyfour lived beyond childhood. His father was an architect,builder, and inventor who became financially successful dur-ing Alfred’s childhood by manufacturing simple explosivesand small machines.

As a child, Alfred Nobel was sickly. He was closer to hismother, who encouraged his interest in literature and thearts, than he was to his father, who was often absent onbusiness. When he was nine, the family moved to St.Petersburg, Russia, where his father had established his busi-

Introduction

YA L F R E D N O B E L A N D T H E N O B E L P E A C E P R I Z E

T

8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

ness. His parents hired private tutorsfor him, and when they discovered thathe had an aptitude for chemistry, hisfuture career in the family businessseemed assured.

Alfred Nobel also pursued thestudy of literature and languages, andhe became fluent in Russian, German,French, and English as well as hisnative Swedish. He read the works ofmany leading writers in all these lan-guages, and he began writing himself ata young age. In the course of his life hecomposed many stories, poems, plays,and novels for his own pleasure.

Nobel went abroad for the firsttime in 1850, when he was 17. Duringthe next three years, he visited severalEuropean countries as well as theUnited States, and he studied chem-istry for a while in Paris. He returnedto St. Petersburg in 1853 to join hisfather’s business, which was now pro-ducing small arms for the Crimean War(1853–56). After the war ended threeyears later, the business began to fail,and the Nobels returned to Stockholm.

In a laboratory that his fatherestablished on the family estate, AlfredNobel began tinkering with variousexplosive devices and obtained severalpatents from the Swedish government.He and his three brothers helped theirfather to rebuild the family explosivesbusiness in Stockholm, and Alfredbegan experimenting with the mostpowerful explosive material thenknown: a compound called nitro-glycerin.

Nitroglycerin posed a major prob-lem to those who tried to use it, how-ever: no one had yet discovered how tocontrol its detonation, the means bywhich it was transformed from a harm-less-looking liquid into a powerfulexplosive, and many lives had been lostas a consequence.

In 1863, following a series ofexperiments in the family laboratory,Alfred Nobel invented a safer andmore practical detonating process that

used gunpowder to ignite nitroglycerin.This creation paved the way for hisfuture success, but it also caused atragedy: during experiments to perfectit, the laboratory blew up. Eight peoplewere killed, including one of AlfredNobel’s brothers. In response to thecatastrophe, Nobel’s father suffered astroke and remained bedridden for therest of his life.

Nobel was determined to succeedin order to improve the family’s finan-cial situation. He persuaded theSwedish government to use his new“blasting oil,” as he called it, to con-struct a series of railway tunnels, andhe talked a local merchant into givinghim a loan to build a factory for itsmanufacture. His success in Sweden ledhim to market his blasting oil in otherEuropean countries and in the UnitedStates, where it was used to blast tun-nels through the Sierra Nevadas for thenew Central Pacific Railroad.

Nobel built another factory in theGerman city of Hamburg and movedthere in 1865. A year later he set up anadditional blasting oil factory in theUnited States. Nobel was pleased bythe success of his product, but he wastroubled by the fact that it was still nottotally safe to use. Accidents stilloccurred from time to time, and work-ers were killed or injured. He contin-ued to experiment and the result wasdynamite, which he patented in 1867.

Dynamite was made by mixing liq-uid nitroglycerin with solid butabsorbent material that was formedinto sticks. The sticks, which were safeto handle, were placed in holes drilledinto rock. Their explosive power wasreleased only from a burning fuse.Workers could ignite the fuse and thentake cover before the flame reachedthe dynamite and caused an explosion.

Nobel’s new invention was revolu-tionary, and it was quickly adopted formajor construction projects around theworld, including the construction ofrailway tunnels through the Swiss Alps.

Alfred NobelB O R N

October 21, 1833Stockholm, Sweden

D I E D

December 10, 1896San Remo, Italy

E D U C AT I O N

Privately tutored

O C C U PAT I O N

Chemist; inventor; industrialist

M A J O R

AC C O M P L I S H M E N T S

Patented several inventions relatedto explosives, including a simpledetonator for nitroglycerin; invent-ed the blasting powder known asdynamite; left provisions in his willfor the creation of internationalprizes in the fields of peace, chem-istry, physics, physiology or medi-cine, and literature


I N T R O D U C T I O N • 9

One of its major applications in thelate 19th century was its use to blast oilwells in Baku, an oil-rich region incentral Russia.

Nobel established factoriesthroughout Europe to manufacturedynamite. For the rest of his life hespent nearly all his time managing hisbusiness affairs. Many people tried tosteal his various patents, and Nobelhad to go to court to reclaim his rights.For relaxation he visited spas (healthcenters) in Germany and Austria. Atone of them, in 1876, he met a youngflower seller named Sophie Hess, whobecame his nearly lifelong companion.

Despite his heavy work schedule,Nobel found time for cultural pursuits.In Paris, where he moved in 1873, hebecame acquainted with men andwomen who were prominent in the artsand public affairs, and he often hostedthem at large dinner parties. Nobelpreferred his own company, however.He continued to conduct chemicalexperiments in a home laboratory, andhe enjoyed literature—reading worksby other authors and creating his own.Despite his great wealth, Nobel livedsimply. He did not smoke or drinkalcoholic beverages, and he did notplay cards or other games.

Nobel was aware of the growingEuropean peace movement that hadbegun in the 1860s, and he enter-tained men and women in his homewho supported that movement. One ofthem was a writer named Bertha vonSuttner, who with her husbandbecame a friend of Nobel’s in Paris inthe mid-1880s. With Suttner’s encour-agement, Nobel donated largeamounts of money to various peaceorganizations. Suttner herself haddecided to devote her life to the causeof peace, and she published a numberof books on that cause.

It is Bertha Suttner who deservespart of the credit for the creation of theNobel Peace Prize. After she returnedto her home in Vienna in the late1880s, she continued to correspondwith Nobel. In her letters she encour-aged him to donate at least some of hissubstantial fortune to the cause ofinternational peace. By 1893 Nobelhad agreed, and he wrote to Suttner totell her so.

Two years earlier, Nobel hadmoved from Paris to a home in sunnySan Remo, on the Italian Riviera. Hewas now ill with heart disease, but hecontinued his chemical experimentswhenever his health permitted.Homesick for his native land, Nobelestablished a second home and labora-tory in Varmland, Sweden, in 1894 andspent the last two summers of his lifethere.

In the fall of 1896, back at hishome in San Remo, Nobel began towrite his will. In it he made provisionsnot only for a peace prize but also forannual awards to outstanding individu-als in four other fields: literature,chemistry, physics, and physiology ormedicine. In the early hours ofDecember 10, 1896, not long aftercompleting his will, Alfred Nobel diedin bed of a cerebral hemorrhage. Hewas 63 years old.

To carry out Alfred Nobel’s wishes,the Nobel Foundation was establishedin 1900 for the purpose of administer-ing all the Nobel Prizes. In his willNobel specified that winners could bechosen from any country in the world.He also specified that the selection ofwinners in each field would be carriedout by different institutions. The prizesin literature were to be supervised bythe Swedish Academy; in chemistryand physics, by the Royal Academy of Sciences in Stockholm; and in

“I should like to invent asubstance or machine with such terrible power of mass destruction that war would thereby be impossibleforever.”

— Alfred Nobel

1 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

physiology or medicine, by theKarolinska Institute, a prominent med-ical research center in Stockholm.

Responsibility for choosing thewinner of the Nobel Peace Prize wasgiven by Nobel in his will to theNorwegian parliament, called theStorting. Norway and Sweden hadbeen united since 1814, althoughNorway had been trying to separatefrom Sweden for some time. Norwayfinally achieved independence in 1905,but the Norwegian NobelCommittee—five members of parlia-ment elected by the Storting—contin-ues to administer the Peace Prize.

The first Nobel Prizes were award-ed on December 10, 1901, the fifthanniversary of the death of AlfredNobel. The Peace Prize is awarded inOslo, the Norwegian capital, and theother prizes are presented inStockholm. In 1968 a sixth NobelPrize, in the field of economics, wascreated by a grant of the Bank ofSweden to the Nobel Foundation. Thisprize is also administered by the RoyalAcademy of Sciences and is presentedin Stockholm; it was awarded for thefirst time in 1969.

In accordance with rules estab-lished by the Nobel Foundation, nomore than three individuals canreceive any Nobel Prize jointly in anygiven year. Although multiple winnersare fairly common in the scientificfields, most of the annual Peace Prizeawards have been given to single indi-viduals or organizations.

Nobel Prize winners in every fieldare chosen with great care. For eachprize, the supervising institution invitesmore than 1,000 experts in the fieldfrom countries throughout the world tonominate candidates. Those expertsalways include previous Nobel Prizewinners. The invitations are sent out

in the fall prior to the year of theaward. To choose the Nobel PeacePrize winner, the Norwegian NobelCommittee requests nominations fromphilosophers, historians, and legal andpolitical scholars, as well as individualswho are prominent in the internationalpeace movement.

Nominations in all fields must bereceived by their supervising institu-tions no later than February 1 of theaward year. The various Nobel com-mittees then begin the work of choos-ing the winners, and by early fall theyhave completed their task. Sometimesa committee may decide not to award aprize for that year. Since 1901 theNorwegian Nobel Committee has cho-sen not to name a Peace Prize winner19 times—in 1914, 1915, 1916, 1918,1923, 1924, 1928, 1932, 1939, 1940,1941, 1942, 1943, 1948, 1955, 1956,1966, 1967, and 1972.

The names of the year’s NobelPrize winners are announced inOctober, more than a year after theselection process began. The winners,called laureates, and their families areinvited to the December 10 award cer-emonies. The ceremonies in both Osloand Stockholm are gala affairs, and allthe participants dress formally for theoccasion.

The Stockholm ceremony is heldin the city’s Concert Hall, and theawards are presented by the king ofSweden. The Peace Prize ceremonytakes place in the Assembly Hall of theUniversity of Oslo, in the presence ofthe king of Norway and the royal fami-ly. The chairman of the NorwegianNobel Committee presents the award,and the prizewinner usually gives a lec-ture. And even as the Nobel Prizes arebeing awarded in Oslo and Stockholm,the search is already under way for thenext year’s winners.

I N T R O D U C T I O N • 1 1

n June 1859, a young Swiss businessman traveled toSolferino, Italy, hoping to see Emperor NapoleonIII of France. The emperor was in Italy to com-mand his troops, and those of his Italian allies,against an invasion by the Austrians. The Swiss

businessman, whose name was Henri Dunant, had boughtland in the French colony of Algeria, in North Africa. Heintended to raise livestock and grain there, and to do so heneeded permission to pipe water from government-ownedproperty. Algerian officials were not helpful to him, soDunant decided to make a personal appeal to the Frenchemperor.

But instead of seeing the emperor, Dunant arrived intime to witness one of the bloodiest battles of the 19th cen-tury: on June 24, 1859, the Battle of Solferino, whose hand-to-hand slaughter Dunant would later describe in vividterms, claimed 40,000 lives. Putting aside his mission,


Henri Dunant pursued a career as a businessman while helpingthe poor and less fortunate. His concern for the welfare of oth-ers, especially in time of war, led him to found the Red Cross.

IHenri DunantFrédéric Passy

Y1 9 0 1

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Dunant joined rescue efforts to evacu-ate the wounded to the nearby town ofCastiglione. Over the next few days heworked heroically to save lives, direct-ing volunteers, gathering food, findingdoctors, and securing medical supplies.

The Battle of Solferino changedHenri Dunant’s life. He could never getover the horrors and brutality that hehad seen there. He was so over-whelmed by the experience that hewrote a book about it, Un Souvenir deSolferino (A Memory of Solferino). Vir-tually overnight, Un Souvenir de Sol-ferino made Henri Dunant knownthroughout the Western world.

Dunant’s interest in helping othershad begun years earlier, in his child-hood. He was born Jean Henri Dunantin Geneva, Switzerland, in 1828 to afamily that was well educated, wealthy,and devoted to works of charity. His fa-ther, a member of the Geneva towncouncil, was the official in charge ofthe city’s orphanages. One of HenriDunant’s grandfathers was the directorof a leading hospital in Geneva, and anuncle was a prominent physicist. Astrong Protestant religious faith under-lay the family’s belief in working hardfor the benefit of the community.

As a youth, Henri Dunant didcharitable work among the city’s poorand sick. As a university student, hefound time while studying economicsto be a volunteer chaplain at a localprison. He also became active in theYoung Man’s Christian Association(YMCA). After meeting the Americanabolitionist and writer Harriet BeecherStowe in 1853, Dunant became a life-long opponent of slavery.

In 1854, Dunant became a repre-sentative of one of Geneva’s largestbanks, with responsibility for the bank’saffairs in North Africa and Sicily. Hesettled in Algeria, where he continuedto perform charitable acts while work-ing for the bank. Among his accom-plishments was the forming of a YMCAbranch in Algeria; he also published a

book of essays about North Africa thatincluded a section on slavery.

Dunant left the bank in the springof 1859 to become a private investor,and in June he made his fateful trip toSolferino. After doing all that he couldfor the wounded there, Dunant wenton to organize relief efforts at battlesites in Brescia and Milan. He amassedlocal support for the survivors andarranged for charitable organizations inGeneva to send medical supplies.

Back in Algeria, Dunant was ob-sessed by what he had witnessed on thebattlefields of Italy. War, he had alwaysassumed, was probably inevitable be-tween nations. Seeing its consequencesfirsthand distressed him deeply. As aperson who had always sought to serveothers, he now asked himself what hecould do to relieve suffering in futurewars.

As a way of trying to sort out hisfeelings about what he had seen,Dunant wrote Un Souvenir de Solferino.The book not only described whatDunant had seen on the battlefield andthe relief efforts that followed; it alsocalled for the creation of a cooperativewar relief organization among nations.The book was published in 1862 to in-stant acclaim. In the following months,many prominent public figuresthroughout Europe wrote Dunant toexpress support for his plan.

The first concrete step toward thecreation of Dunant’s proposed organiza-tion was taken early in 1863, when thePublic Welfare Society of Geneva de-cided to take up his cause. The society,a private humanitarian organization towhich many of Geneva’s leading citi-zens belonged, appointed a committeeof five, including Dunant, to plan itsstrategy. Dunant, who was now divid-ing his time between Algeria andGeneva, led the committee in organiz-ing widespread public support for an in-ternational conference. He traveledthroughout Europe on behalf of hiscause, giving lectures and meeting with

D U N A N T & P A S S Y • 1 3


government officials. He also soughtand received the support of many well-known figures, including the Englishwriter Charles Dickens and the Frenchwriter Victor Hugo, as well as thefounder of modern nursing, the Eng-lishwoman Florence Nightingale.

On October 26, 1863, 39 delegatesrepresenting 16 countries assembled inGeneva to found an international warrelief organization that they named theInternational Committee of the RedCross. They adopted as their symbol ared cross on a white background (a re-versal of the colors on the Swiss flag)and drafted a treaty that guaranteedneutral status to relief workers on thebattlefield. That treaty, known as theGeneva Convention, or agreement,was signed in Paris in 1864 by repre-sentatives of 12 nations.

While Dunant worked to establishthe Red Cross, he had little time for hisbusiness interests in Algeria. By 1867he had lost most of his money as well asfunds that had been entrusted to him

for investment by others, and he had todeclare bankruptcy. Dunant fell intodisgrace, and was accused falsely offraud. Virtually overnight he became asocial outcast. Yet he continued his ef-forts on behalf of the cause he had cho-sen as his life’s work—war relief.

At the height of his financial dis-tress, Dunant still managed to attendthe general meeting of the Red Crossin 1867 in Paris. At that meeting, hemade what was then a radical proposal:that prisoners of war be granted thesame status as the wounded. What hadseemed to upset Dunant the mostabout his experiences in Italy was thetreatment of captured enemy soldiers.According to the customs of war, pris-oners were not supposed to receivemedical attention or be dealt with hu-manely; they were treated roughly andwere often even killed by their captors.Indeed, Dunant had intervened severaltimes in Castiglione to rescue badlywounded Austrian soldiers from brutaltreatment by the Italians.

During the bloody Battle of Solferino in1859, Dunant organized efforts to aid thewounded. His book about the battle,Un Souvenir de Solferino (A Memory ofSolferino), published in 1862, awakened the public to the horrible suffering caused by warfare and became an international bestseller.

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D U N A N T & P A S S Y • 1 5


HenriDunantB O R N

May 8, 1828Geneva, Switzerland

D I E D

October 30, 1910Heiden, Switzerland

E D U C AT I O N

Studied economics at the Univer-sity of Geneva (late 1840s)

O C C U PAT I O N

Businessman

M A J O R AC C O M P L I S H M E N T S

Wrote Un Souvenir de Solferino(1862); founded the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross(1863); helped write the first Gene-va Convention (1864)

Fair treatment of prisoners of warnow became the focus of Dunant’s hu-manitarian crusade. Though living inpoverty, he worked hard to enlist oth-ers in support of his view. In 1871, dur-ing the Franco-Prussian War, he found-ed the Provident Society, later re-named the World Alliance for Orderand Civilization, for the purpose ofprotecting war prisoners and declaringthem neutral. The society establishedbranches in several European countriesand the United States.

Dunant worked for the World Al-liance full time for three years and wasable to persuade Czar Alexander II ofRussia to organize an internationalconference in Brussels in 1874 thatdrew up an agreement on the rules ofwar and the treatment of prisoners.That year Dunant assumed a prominentrole in opposing the slave trade, whichstill flourished in parts of Africa andthe Middle East. He also continued hisstrong support of Zionism, a movementamong European Jews to return to theirhomeland in Palestine. A decade earli-er, while establishing the Red Cross,Dunant had also founded the Interna-tional Society for the Revival of theOrient for the purpose of establishing aJewish colony in Palestine.

Despite all that he had achieved,Dunant became dismayed by his per-sonal situation. His family had virtuallydisowned him, and old friends shunnedhim. In the mid-1870s he began keep-ing more and more to himself. He trav-eled to England to try to raise funds forthe World Alliance but soon becamediscouraged and retreated to live alonein a small village in the south of Eng-land. Sometime during the 1880s hewent to Paris to work briefly forFrédéric Passy, who had founded theFrench Society for Friends of Peace.Eventually he returned to Switzerlandand became a beggar, wandering fromvillage to village.

No one knows exactly why HenriDunant adopted such a life in middle

age, but he probably felt that he hadlittle choice. There was also a spiritualaspect to his poverty: although he hadabandoned the conventional piety ofhis youth years earlier, he still consid-ered himself a religious man. Simpleliving was for him a religious vocation.Significantly, he was always wellgroomed and took pains to make surethat his worn clothing was still pre-sentable. He even used ink to blackenhis suit, and he rubbed chalk on hisshirt to whiten it.

Dunant eventually made his wayto the village of Heiden, and in 1892,at the age of 64, he entered a smalllodging house for the elderly there, runby a local charitable organization. Itbecame his home for the rest of his life.Meanwhile, during the years thatDunant had been withdrawing fromthe world, the organization that he hadbeen instrumental in founding wasflourishing. Red Cross units were beingestablished throughout the world; in1881 Clara Barton had founded thefirst U.S. chapter.

Henri Dunant was “rediscovered”in 1895 by a Swiss journalist, WilhelmSondregger, who tracked him downand interviewed him. A sympatheticarticle written by Sondregger was pub-lished in newspapers throughout Eu-rope, and Dunant suddenly became thefocus of international attention, as hehad three decades earlier when hewrote Un Souvenir de Solferino. Manypeople sent him money, including theDowager Empress of Russia, who gavehim a small pension. Peace activistBertha von Suttner came to visit himin Heiden, encouraged him to writeagain, and saw that his articles werepublished.

During the following years Suttnerherself wrote frequently about Dunantand his achievements. Suttner’s cham-pioning of Dunant was largely responsi-ble for the great honor he was accordedin 1901, when he was named the co-recipient, with Frédéric Passy, of the


first Nobel Peace Prize for his work onbehalf of peaceful cooperation betweennations. Old and bedridden, Dunantwas unable to travel to Stockholm toreceive the prize, and he never spentthe money he was awarded. He livedanother nine years at the simple lodg-ing house and died there quietly in1910. In his will, Henri Dunant leftmost of his prize money to charities inNorway and Sweden. The rest of themoney went to the lodging house forthe endowment of a free bed for thepoor.

Dunant, who had never marriedand was long estranged from his familyin Geneva, was buried in the Heidenchurchyard. Carved on his tombstoneis the figure of a man offering water toa dying soldier.

Frédéric Passy, who shared the firstNobel Peace Prize with Henri Dunant,was a native of France. He was born inParis in 1822 to a wealthy couple; hisfather, as well as relatives on both sidesof the family, held important positionsin the French government. He was pri-vately tutored and then attended pres-tigious secondary schools in Paris,where he studied philosophy, law, andeconomics. He later earned a law de-gree at the University of Paris.Through his education and throughdiscussions with family members, Passybecame a supporter of liberty, freetrade, peace, and internationalism.

Passy began his professional careerin 1844 as an accountant for theFrench State Council. However, whenhe received a substantial inheritancethree years later, he resigned from thepost to become an independent schol-ar. He became interested in the newEuropean peace movement in 1856, asthe Crimean War (1853–56) was draw-ing to a close. The war—in whichGreat Britain, Turkey, and Francefought against Russia—resulted inenormous casualties, which disturbedPassy very much. About the time thatthe war was ending, an enormous flood

in the Loire Valley of France killedmany people and did extensive dam-age. The public response to the floodwas overwhelming, as French men andwomen protested the destruction itcaused.

Passy was amazed by a great con-trast: people were upset by the damagecaused by natural disasters but were in-different to the horrors of war—despitethe fact that warfare could be avoided,whereas natural disasters could not.Passy decided to do all that he could toend war, which he believed was notonly immoral but also had huge eco-nomic costs. He reasoned that if onlypeople understood this, they wouldcome together and demand an end toall conflict. They would then furthertheir interests by drawing up interna-tional peace agreements and workingfor the establishment of unrestrictedtrade among nations throughout theworld.

Passy began a one-man campaignto spread his views. In 1857 he pub-lished a collection of essays, MélangesÉconomiques (later published in Englishas Problems in Economics), and gavemany lectures during the next decade.In 1867 he and several of his colleagueswrote a letter to the Paris newspaper LeTemps calling for an end to recent ten-sions between the French and Prussiangovernments. They also urged the cre-ation of a peace society in France.Many people responded enthusiasti-cally to this letter, and as a result theInternational League for Peace andFreedom was established in Paris laterthat year, with Passy as its director. Inthis capacity, Passy contributed a col-umn on pacifism to Le Temps and spon-sored the Library of Peace, a series ofpublications on pacifism.

Despite the efforts of Passy’s orga-nization, the Franco-Prussian Warbroke out in 1870 and the French armywas defeated. During the occupation of Paris by Prussian troops, the Inter-national League was forced to end its

Frédéric Passy, who shared the first NobelPeace Prize with Henri Dunant, devotedmuch of his life to improving economicand political cooperation among nations.He believed that such cooperation wouldlead eventually to world peace.

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D U N A N T & P A S S Y • 1 7

P E A C E M A K E R Sactivities. When peace was finally re-stored in 1871, Passy created a newpacifist organization, the French Soci-ety of the Friends of Peace.

Passy had long refused any govern-ment appointments because acceptingthem meant he had to take an oath ofallegiance to the French monarch, andthis was something that his consciencewould not allow him to do. He wastherefore pleased when a republicanform of government replaced themonarchy in 1871, and to show hissupport of the new regime he taught inthe Paris school system during the1870s.

In 1881 Passy decided to seek of-fice and was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of theFrench parliament. During his twoterms of service, he supported legisla-tion for free trade, the improvement ofworking conditions for French laborers,and calls for international arbitration(the peaceful settlement of disputesthrough mediation rather than war-fare). He also spoke out against theFrench acquisition of colonies in Africaand Southeast Asia and their exploita-tion of native peoples.

In the late 1880s Passy learned ofBritish peace leader William Cremer’sattempts in Parliament to get his na-tion and the United States to sign anarbitration agreement to resolve futuredisputes. Passy introduced similar legis-lation in the French parliament callingfor arbitration of any future disputesbetween his own country and theUnited States. In 1888 Passy and Cre-mer organized a conference in Paris ofrepresentatives from the French andBritish parliaments to discuss the pas-sage of an arbitration treaty betweentheir governments and the UnitedStates. They met again a year later inPairs, together with representatives ofeight other European nations and theUnited States. There they founded theInterparliamentary Union for the pur-pose of promoting the cause of interna-

tional arbitration. Passy served as itsfirst president and continued in thatrole for more than a decade. Duringthat time he worked tirelessly forpeace, lecturing throughout Europe andpublishing articles on the subject.

Passy’s dedication to world peaceearned him a share of the First NobelPeace Prize in 1901. For the remaining11 years of his life, Passy was consid-ered the undisputed leader of the Euro-pean peace movement. One of hismajor contributions to the cause ofpeace occurred in 1906, when he per-suaded Russia and Japan to end theRusso-Japanese War by submitting toarbitration by U.S. President TheodoreRoosevelt.

In private life, Passy was marriedand the father of 12 children. He wasoffered many other awards besides theNobel Peace Prize, including member-ship in the French Legion of Honor,but he declined them all. He died athome in June 1912 at the age of 90 andwas buried at Père-Lachaise Cemeteryin Paris.

F U RT H E R R E A D I N G

Gray, Charlotte. Henry Dunant. Milwau-kee: Gareth Stevens, 1988.

Dunant, Henri. A Memory of Solferino.1862. Reprint. Washington, D.C.: Ameri-can National Red Cross, 1939.

Gumpert, Martin. Dunant: The Story of theRed Cross. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress, 1938.

Hart, Ellen. Man Born to Live: The Life andWork of Henry Dunant, Founder of the RedCross. London: Victor Gollancz, Ltd.,1953.

Puech, Jules L. “Frédéric Passy.” In The In-terparliamentary Union from 1889 to 1939.Geneva: Interparliamentary Union, 1939.

Rich, Josephine. Jean Henri Dunant:Founder of the International Red Cross. NewYork: Julian Messner, 1956.

FrédéricPassyB O R N

May 20, 1822

D I E D

June 12, 1912Neuilly-sur-Seine, France

E D U C AT I O N

Studied law at the University ofParis

O C C U PAT I O N

Economist


Founder, International League forPeace and Freedom (1867) and theFrench Society of the Friends ofPeace (1871); cofounder, Interpar-liamentary Union (1889)

rowing up in Geneva, Switzerland, ÉlieDucommun was told not to expect toomuch from life. As the youngest of threesons of Jules Ducommun, a clockmaker fromNeuchâtel, Elie knew that he would not be

offered any special advantages by his family, for they had lit-tle money. Although he was a brilliant student, a universityeducation was out of the question.

After completing secondary school at the age of 17,Ducommun was hired as a tutor to the children of a wealthyfamily in Saxony, a region of Germany. There he masteredGerman, and three years later he returned to Geneva toteach languages in a public secondary school.

Bright and ambitious, and with a strong interest in poli-tics, Ducommun turned to freelance journalism as a sideline.In 1855 he became editor of the Revue de Genève (GenevaReview), a political journal. This led Ducommun to promi-nence in local politics, and two years later he was namedvice-chancellor of the canton of Geneva; in 1862 he becamechancellor.

Ducommun left his post as chancellor in 1865 to returnto journalism. He became editor of a political newspaper,Progrès (Progress), in Delémont, a watchmaking town in theJura Mountains of northwestern Switzerland. Here he grewinterested in the new Western European peace movementand reported on its development. Several pacifist organiza-tions were forming at this time, including the InternationalLeague of Peace and Freedom, founded in Paris in 1867. Thefollowing year, Ducommun became coeditor of that organiza-tion’s newspaper, Les États-Unis d’Europe (The United Statesof Europe).

Ducommun believed that peace was essential to a demo-cratic society. As a longtime supporter of liberal—not radi-cal—politics, he also believed that a necessary ingredient ofa peaceful society was a workforce that received fair wagesand had decent living conditions. As a political journalist,Ducommun often participated in discussions of several work-ingmen’s groups. He became aware of the need for a creditorganization that would lend money to Swiss workers andalso help them save. In 1869, responding to that need,Ducommun founded the Swiss Popular Bank with an initialmembership of 93. By 1907, the bank had more than 40,000members; today it continues to be one of the leading bank-ing societies in Switzerland.

Following a year of service in the Swiss army, Ducom-mun joined with a journalistic colleague, Auguste Schnee-gans, to found the newspaper L’Helvetia (Switzerland) in 1871,but the paper folded a year later. Through political connec-


GÉlieDucommunAlbert Gobat

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D U C O M M U N & G O B A T • 1 9

P E A C E M A K E R Stions, Ducommun was appointed in1873 as secretary-general of the pro-posed Jura-Bern (later Jura-Simplon)Railroad and moved to Biel, a commu-nity near Bern, to oversee its construc-tion. During the next 14 years, whilethe railroad was being built, Ducom-mun continued to be active in thepeace movement. Always civic-minded,he also served on the Grand Councilsof Geneva and Bern. When the linewas completed in 1887, Ducommunmoved to Bern, where he continued asan administrator of the railroad.

In 1891 Ducommun traveled toRome as a Swiss delegate to the thirdinternational conference of the Inter-parliamentary Union, the Europeanpeace organization founded in 1889 byFrédéric Passy and William Cremer.While attending that meeting, Ducom-mun founded the International PeaceBureau as a clearinghouse for informa-tion on the numerous peace societiesin Europe. Ducommun served withoutpay as director of the bureau, headquar-tered in Bern, while continuing his jobwith the railroad.

Over the next decade Ducommunworked tirelessly on behalf of the PeaceBureau, corresponding with memberorganizations, organizing annual con-ferences, preparing publications, andassembling a library of books and otherprinted material on peace and disarma-ment. These efforts—combined withdecades of public service on behalf ofhis fellows—earned Ducommun a shareof the Nobel Peace Prize in 1902.

Never a wealthy man, Ducommunnonetheless gave his prize money tothe peace movement. In tribute, theInternational Peace Bureau presentedhim with money donated by all of thebureau’s chapters. Ducommun was ableto resign from the railroad in 1903, andhe devoted the remaining years of hislife to the bureau and other activitiesfor peace.

In his private life, Ducommun en-joyed literature and the theater and

also found time to write poetry;Derniers sourires (Last Smiles), a volumeof his verse, was published in 1886. Inaddition, he founded two cultural soci-eties for the French-speaking popula-tion of Switzerland. Ducommun wasmarried to a cousin but had no chil-dren. He died in 1906 at the age of 73.

In contrast to Élie Ducommun, hisfellow laureate Albert Gobat probablynever doubted that he was destined toplay an important role in the life of his country and perhaps even theworld. Born in 1843, Charles AlbertGobat was the only son of an educatedfamily. His father was a Protestant minister in Tramelan, a town in north-western Switzerland, near the Frenchborder.

Gobat seems to have always hadenormous self-assurance. After com-pleting secondary school he studiedphilosophy, history, and literature atthe universities of Basel and Bern, inSwitzerland, then went on to Heidel-berg University in Germany, where he

Élie Ducommun founded the InternationalPeace Bureau in 1891 and served as itshead until his death 15 years later. Underhis direction, the bureau became thelargest peace information center in theworld, and in 1910 it received its ownNobel Peace Prize.

Élie DucommunB O R N

February 19, 1833Geneva, Switzerland

D I E D

December 7, 1906Bern, Switzerland

E D U C AT I O N

Attended elementary and secondaryschools in Bern

O C C U PAT I O N

Journalist; public official


Founder, Swiss Popular Bank(1869); founder and director, Inter-national Peace Bureau (1891–1906)

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earned a doctorate in law in 1867,graduating with the highest honors.This was followed by a year of post-graduate study in economics and inter-national law in Paris.

Gobat returned to Switzerland in1868 and settled briefly in Bern. Therehe joined the university faculty as alecturer in law, a position he held until1912. In the late 1860s Gobat movedto the town of Delémont and estab-lished a large law practice. Here he became acquainted with Élie Ducom-mun, who was then working as a jour-nalist in Delémont. Like Ducommun,Gobat also became involved in politicsand held seats on local as well as na-tional governing bodies. In the late1880s he was elected president of thecanton of Bern and in 1890 became amember of the National Council, a po-sition he held until his death 24 yearslater.

The combination of Gobat’s im-pressive educational background, pro-fessional success, and commandingpresence—he was powerfully built andhad a forceful debating style—led tohis appointment in 1882 as superinten-dent of Bern’s Department of PublicEducation. In this position, which heheld until 1906, Gobat was responsiblefor putting through major reforms inthe curriculum, or course of study, inthe public schools. He expanded in-struction in modern languages and thenatural sciences, forced the state to payfor fine arts education, and created aprogram of vocational education. In hisrole as education superintendent,Gobat was also able to establish anadult education program at the Uni-versity of Bern, and he was active inraising funds for the expansion of theuniversity.

Gobat’s interest in the spreadingEuropean peace movement seems tohave grown out of his academic train-ing in international law and politics.He continued to teach those subjects atthe University of Bern, and as a publicfigure he sought out active members ofvarious peace organizations to learntheir views.

In 1889 Gobat attended the found-ing conference of the InterparliamentaryUnion, held in Paris. He was especiallydrawn to one of the goals advocated bythe organization: the internationaladoption of arbitration agreements be-tween nations. By adopting such agree-ments, nations would agree to seekpeaceful mediation of any disputes that arose between them. They wouldbring their disputes to the PermanentCourt of Arbitration at The Hague inthe Netherlands and abide by thatcourt’s decision.

Not surprisingly, the forcefulGobat soon emerged as a leading voicewithin the Interparliamentary Union,and in 1891 he headed the Swiss dele-gation to the union’s third internation-al conference, in Rome. The followingyear he organized the union’s fourth in-ternational conference, held in Bern,and at that conference he was chosenas director of the InterparliamentaryBureau, the administrative organizationthat coordinated activities of theunion’s member countries. From 1893to 1897 Gobat also edited La Con-férence Interparlementaire, the union’smonthly newsletter.

As director of the Interparliamen-tary Bureau, Gobat focused his attentionon international arbitration. Throughspeeches, the newsletter, and other writ-ings, he urged nations to adopt arbitra-tion as a centerpiece of their foreign

Albert Gobat was awarded the NobelPeace Prize for his efforts to promote arbitration instead of warfare as a meansof settling disputes among nations. Gobatsucceeded his cowinner, Élie Ducommun,as head of the International Peace Bureauafter Ducommun’s death.

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policy. Putting his beliefs into practiceat home, he was the sponsor of a billpassed by the Swiss legislature in 1902that applied arbitration to commercialtreaties. Under the new law’s provisions,any trade agreements signed henceforthby the Swiss government had to includea clause requiring all parties to theagreement to submit to the PermanentCourt of Arbitration any disputes thatmight arise between them.

For his efforts on behalf of inter-national arbitration, as well as his effective leadership of the Interparlia-mentary Bureau, Gobat was namedcowinner of the 1902 Nobel Prize forPeace, along with Élie Ducommun.Winning the award did not mean thatGobat was ready to retire, however. Hecontinued his vigorous work on behalfof the bureau, as well as his teaching.In 1904 he visited the United States asthe leader of the Swiss delegation to anInterparliamentary Union conferencein St. Louis. Following the conference,he delivered a petition to PresidentTheodore Roosevelt in Washington,D.C., urging Roosevelt to encourageinternational participation in the Sec-ond Hague Peace Conference, whichtook place in 1907.

Upon Élie Ducommun’s death in1906, Albert Gobat succeeded him asdirector of the International Peace Bu-reau while continuing to serve as direc-tor of the Interparliamentary Bureau.Now Gobat was directing the affairs ofthe two largest organizations in theworld working for peace, and he heldboth posts simultaneously for threeyears. He resigned as director of the Interparliamentary Bureau only after its headquarters moved to Brussels, Belgium, in 1909.

Gobat, who never married, wrote

several books. His scholarly study, LaRépublique de Berne et la France pendantles guerres de religion (The Republic ofBern and France During the ReligiousWars), was published in 1891. Gobat’sLe Cauchemar de l’Europe (The Night-mare of Europe, 1911), which warnedagainst the growing European armsrace, was widely read. He was also theauthor of a popular history of Switzer-land (Histoire de la Suisse, 1900).

To the end of his life, Gobat wasactive on behalf of peace. He presidedfor the last time over an internationalconference of the InterparliamentaryUnion in 1912, in Geneva. In 1913 hearranged a conference on arms reduc-tion between members of the Frenchand German parliaments, but to hisdisappointment little was accom-plished. Gobat died of a stroke onMarch 16, 1914, while addressing ameeting of the International Peace Bu-reau in Bern. Five months later, theconflict he had worked so hard toavert—World War I—began.


Abrams, Irwin. “Albert Gobat.” In TheNobel Peace Prize and the Laureates. Boston:G. K. Hall, 1988.

“Ducommun, Élie.” In Biographical Dictio-nary of Modern Peace Leaders. Edited byHarold Josephson. Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1985.

Ducommun, Élie. “The Permanent Inter-national Bureau of Peace.” The Indepen-dent, March 19, 1903, pp. 660–61.

Simon, Werner. “The International PeaceBureau, 1892–1917.” In Peace Movementsand Political Cultures. Edited by CharlesChatfield and Peter van den Dungen.Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,1988.

D U C O M M U N & G O B A T • 2 1


Albert Gobat B O R N

May 21, 1843Tramelan, Switzerland

D I E D

March 16, 1914Bern, Switzerland

E D U C AT I O N

Attended universities of Basel andBern; doctorate in law, HeidelbergUniversity (1867); postgraduatework in economics and internation-al law, University of Paris and Col-lege de France

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; professor; public official


Director, Interparliamentary Bureau(1892–1914); director, Internation-al Peace Bureau (1906–9); author ofseveral works on history and currentaffairs, including Le Cauchemar del’Europe (1911), one of the firstbooks to warn against the arms race

ike Élie Ducommun, William R. Cramer be-came involved in pacifism through his inter-est in the needs of workingmen. Cremer didnot, however, develop that interest as an out-sider. He was a workingman himself; from his

childhood onward Cremer knew the rough life and povertyof the laboring classes.

William Randal Cremer was born in 1828 to an oftenunemployed coach painter and his wife in the southern Eng-lish town of Fareham, several miles from Portsmouth. Thefather deserted the family, which included two older sisters,soon after his son’s birth, and Mrs. Cremer, who had someeducation, eked out a living by giving lessons in reading andwriting to children of other poor families. Young Williamwas probably taught at home by his mother. He was able toattend a local church-sponsored grammar school for only abrief period, and as a youth he began working in a localshipyard. At the age of 24 he moved to London and becameapprenticed to an uncle who was a carpenter.

William Cremer worked hard at his job and soon be-came active in the growing trade union movement. This


LWilliamR. Cremer

Y1 9 0 3

English trade union leader William Cremer helped bring theworking classes into the peace movement. He devoted much ofhis life to the cause of international arbitration.

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W I L L I A M R . C R E M E R • 2 3

WilliamR. CremerB O R N

March 13, 1828Fareham, Hampshire, England

D I E D

July 22, 1908London, England

E D U C AT I O N

Briefly attended a local grammarschool

O C C U PAT I O N

Carpenter; labor leader


Cofounder, Amalgamated Society ofCarpenters and Joiners; cofounder,International Workingmen’s Associ-ation; cofounder and secretary,Workingmen’s Peace Association,later called the International Arbi-tration League (1870–1908); co-founder and British secretary, Inter-parliamentary Union (1889–1908);Member of Parliament; knighted byKing Edward VII (1907)

P E A C E M A K E R Swas an organized effort by workingmenwho banded together to seek better payand working conditions from their em-ployers. Whenever he had the time,Cremer also took classes at a working-men’s institute in London. Such insti-tutes had been organized by churchgroups and private charities in the mid-19th century to offer educational opportunities to workers in non-professional occupations; like WilliamCremer, such workers usually had littleor no formal education.

An important event in Cremer’slife occurred in 1856, when he was 28years old. That year Cremer attended alecture by a representative of the Lon-don Peace Society at the workingmen’sinstitute. The speaker urged his audi-ence to make the achievement ofworld peace their goal. Nations, thespeaker said, had to renounce war as ameans of settling their differences; theyhad to agree instead to resolve disputesby negotiating with one another. Atthis lecture, Cremer was introduced for the first time to the ideal of world peace through international arbitration.

Cremer did not begin working forworld peace immediately, however. Hebelieved that his talents and responsi-bilities lay with the trade union move-ment, and during the next two decadeshe became a leading figure in thatmovement among the building tradesindustry. His prominence as a laborleader was a consequence not only ofhis intelligence but of his remarkableskill as a public speaker. In 1860 Cre-mer cofounded the Amalgamated Soci-ety of Carpenters and Joiners, whichbecame a leading building trades laborunion. Four years later he helped tofound the International Workingmen’sAssociation, the IWA, and became sec-retary of the British division.

Not surprisingly, given his commit-ment to decent working conditions,Cremer was a strong foe of slavery. Al-though Great Britain had abolished

slavery earlier in the century, theBritish supported the South during theAmerican Civil War (1861–65) be-cause British textile mills depended onimports of cotton grown there. Inprotest against his government’s posi-tion, Cremer organized working-classsupport for the North in the form ofrallies, speeches, and pamphlets, andhe welcomed the Union victory overthe Confederates in the spring of 1865.

Cremer traveled abroad for thefirst time in 1866, when he attendedthe annual IWA conference, held inGeneva, Switzerland. Along with othermembers of the British delegation, heargued that reforms should be achievedgradually and through peaceful efforts.Their stance put the British delegatesat odds with a strong radical faction,led by the German Karl Marx, afounder of Communism who advocatedviolent revolution by workers to gaintheir rights.

Conflict between nations wasnever far from the surface during the19th century. When another war erupt-ed in Europe, this time between theFrench and the Germans in 1870, Cremer’s attention was drawn whole-heartedly to the need for internationalpeace. Joining with several trade unionassociates, he founded the Working-men’s Peace Association (WPA) to oppose the entry of Great Britain intothe war. Cremer’s effort was successful:that conflict—known as the Franco-Prussian War—ended a year later with-out British involvement.

Now fully committed to the causeof peace, Cremer continued his workfor the WPA, serving as the organiza-tion’s secretary for the remainder of hislife. Cremer recognized that the grow-ing European peace movement waslargely composed of members of theupper and middle classes, and he be-lieved strongly that the working classneeded to be involved, too. Throughhis efforts, the WPA, as the voice ofthe common man, became a major

force in the quest for internationalpeace.

Increasingly, Cremer had come tobelieve that commitment to interna-tional arbitration—the subject of thatspeech he had heard as a young man inLondon years earlier—was the onlyway to achieve peace among nations.In recognition of that goal, the WPAchanged its name to the InternationalArbitration League in 1875. Cremerand his organization focused their ener-gies on trying to keep the British out ofconflict with other nations during thefinal decades of the 19th century. Theirefforts were not always successful: de-spite their opposition, Great Britain became involved in wars in Russia,Turkey, and South Africa.

But Cremer never gave up hisquest. He achieved a new platform tospread his views in 1885, when he waselected to a seat in the House of Com-mons as a representative of the Londonworking-class district of Haggerston.Such an event was fairly new in Eng-land: only since 1867, with the passageof the Reform Act, had British urbanworkingmen been allowed to vote andto stand for public office.

Cremer’s increasing prominenceled to a meeting in 1887 with Ameri-can industrialist Andrew Carnegiewhile Carnegie was vacationing inEngland. Carnegie, who had been bornin Scotland, was also a leading philan-thropist—a major donor to charitablecauses—and he was a longtime peaceadvocate. At Carnegie’s suggestion,Cremer drafted a treaty calling forGreat Britain and the United States

to agree to resolve any future differ-ences by arbitration, and he circulatedit among fellow members of the Houseof Commons; more than 200 of themsigned the draft treaty. Carnegie alsoarranged for Cremer to visit the UnitedStates, where he received support fromPresident Grover Cleveland for theproposed treaty at a meeting in Octo-ber 1887.

The following year, Cremer trav-eled to Paris and, with Frédéric Passy,organized a meeting of French andBritish legislators to discuss an arbitra-tion treaty among the three nations. Ayear later, in June 1889, a second arbi-tration conference, initiated by Cremerand others, was held in Paris. At thisconference the InterparliamentaryUnion was formed, and Cremer waselected secretary for Great Britain.During the following decade, the Inter-parliamentary Union, which includedrepresentatives from many nations inWestern Europe, met annually to con-sider various peace proposals, includingarbitration agreements. A draft plan bythe union laid the groundwork for theestablishment of the Permanent Courtof Arbitration at The Hague in 1899.

For his efforts on behalf of inter-national peace through arbitration,William Cremer was awarded the 1903Nobel Peace Prize. And there would bea further honor for William Cremer,the highest that his country can be-stow: in 1907 he was knighted by KingEdward VII. As a spokesman for labor,Cremer had refused earlier offers of aknighthood, but now he accepted theaward—on behalf of the working class

that he had been a part of and foughtfor all his life.

Cremer remained active on behalfof peace to the end of his life. Whenhe died in 1908—from pneumonia, atthe age of 80—he still held the officesto which he had been elected years ear-lier: secretary of the International Ar-bitration League and British secretaryof the Interparliamentary Union. Mar-ried twice, he had outlived both wivesand had no children.

William Cremer had at least onesurvivor, however, a “child” born sixyears after his death: In 1914, on theeve of World War I, a permanent arbi-tration treaty was signed by the UnitedStates and Great Britain, ensuring thatfuture relations between the two na-tions would be grounded in peace. Thattreaty was a direct outcome of the ef-fort Cremer had begun in the House ofCommons nearly three decades earlier.It is the basis for the peaceful relationsbetween the two nations that continueto this day.


“Cremer, William Randal.” In Dictionary ofNational Biography, 1901–1911. TwentiethCentury Supplement. London: OxfordUniversity Press, 1912.

Evans, Howard. Sir Randal Cremer: His Lifeand Work. 1909. Reprint, New York: Gar-land, 1973.


he Institute of International Law, awardedthe 1904 Nobel Prize, was formally foundedat a conference in Ghent, Belgium, in Sep-tember 1873. There, 11 experts in interna-tional law representing Argentina, Belgium,

Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Russia, Scotland, and theUnited States met to establish a permanent institution de-voted to advancing the principles of international law andthe peaceful solution of international disputes.

Although modern international law dates from the early17th century, there had never before been a single institu-tion devoted exclusively to its formal study, codification(arrangement in a systematic form), and advancement. Theidea for such an institute apparently originated with FrancisLieber, a law professor who taught at Columbia University inNew York City in the mid-19th century. Lieber had initiallyproposed the establishment of a congress to settle interna-tional disputes in 1861.

A decade later, in 1871, a French legal scholar, GustaveRolin-Jacquemyns, along with fellow scholars John Westlakeof England and Tobias Asser of the Netherlands, foundedthe first scholarly journal of international law, Revue de DroitInternational et de Legislation Comparée (Review of Internation-al Law and Comparative Legislation). After learning of thejournal, Lieber wrote to its editor, Rolin-Jacquemyns, and repeated his proposal. The Frenchman responded by orga-nizing the 1873 conference that led to the founding of theInstitute of International Law.

From the outset, the institute was a private organizationof legal experts. Although the establishment and mainte-nance of peace among nations was an ideal underlying thefounding of the institute, its members were realists whoknew that the immediate abolition of warfare was an impos-sible dream. What they hoped for, instead, was the steadyimprovement of international relations through widespreadacceptance of and adherence to the principles of interna-tional law, which in its own right was continuing to expandthrough the adoption of various agreements and treaties be-tween nations.

In its early years the institute concentrated on trying tofind common ground in the different judicial systems ofvarious countries. One of its first accomplishments was thesuccessful sponsorship of a series of extradition treatiesamong major Western nations; under such treaties, crimi-nals who escaped to other countries were returned to theircountry of origin. The institute also undertook comparativelegal studies that paved the way for the eventual establish-

I N S T I T U T E O F I N T E R N A T I O N A L L A W • 2 5

Institute of InternationalLaw

Y1 9 0 4

T


Institute ofInternationalLawF O U N D E R S

Eleven international law scholars representing Argentina, Belgium,Germany, Italy, the Netherlands,Russia, Scotland, and the United States

F O U N D I N G

September 11, 1873Ghent, Belgium

H E A D Q UA RT E R S

Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

To advance the principles of inter-national law, and to promote peace,justice, and humanity in interna-tional relations


Organized the creation of major in-ternational treaties, including theSuez Canal Convention (1888) andthe Declaration of the InternationalRights of Man (1929)


ment of international tribunals, orcourts of justice, to resolve inter-national disputes.

In an attempt to reduce the harmful effects of war, the institutepublished A Handbook of Rules and Observances of War (1879); many of itsprinciples were later adopted at theFirst and Second Hague Conferences(1899 and 1907). In an effort both toreduce the likelihood of war and to further limit its consequences, the in-stitute drew up a list of internationalarbitration procedures and went onrecord as supporting a neutral status forall areas vital to international commu-nication. At least two treaties resulted:In 1884 representatives of 27 countriessigned an agreement in Paris thatplaced all underwater cables under in-ternational protection. Four years later,nine countries signed the Suez CanalConvention in Constantinople, which

declared that the waterway would al-ways remain free and open.

For these and other efforts to es-tablish law and justice as the basis forlasting international peace, the Insti-tute of International Law was namedthe recipient of the fourth Nobel PeacePrize in 1904. In the decades that fol-lowed, the institute continued its workof formulating important principles of international law. Among its mile-stones was the adoption in 1929 of theDeclaration of the International Rightsof Man, an important statement on therights of emigrants and refugees. In the20th century, several organizations—the League of Nations, the United Na-tions, and the International Court ofJustice—were created to apply and en-force international law; in many waystheir existence was a consequence ofthe pioneering accomplishments of theinstitute.

More than a century after itsfounding, the institute is still in opera-tion as a scholarly society for the studyand improvement of international law.Headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland,it limits its membership to 132 legalscholars from around the world; newmembers are recommended and electedby the entire body. The institute isfunded by membership fees and privategrants.

The Institute of International Lawcontinues to follow new developmentsin international law as social and tech-nological changes create new issues forstudy. In recent years it has devoted itsattention and resources to such modernproblems as airline hijacking, environ-mental pollution, and weapons of massdestruction.

F U RT H E R R E A D I N GAbrams, Irwin. “The Emergence of the In-ternational Law Societies.” Review of Poli-tics 19 (1957), 361–80.

Francis Lieber, a law professor at Colum-bia University in New York City in themid-19th century, was the first person to suggest the creation of an internationalorganization to settle disputes among nations.

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n 1876, when Bertha von Suttner first met AlfredNobel, neither of them could have predicted thatthree decades later she would be awarded a world-famous prize bearing his name—and one that shehad urged him to create. This young woman, who

was then Bertha Kinsky, had traveled to Paris to see Nobel,hoping to become his housekeeper and personal secretary.Just after their meeting, however, Nobel was called back toSweden on business, and she had to return to her home inVienna. She and the wealthy industrialist would not en-counter each other again for 10 years.

When she first met Nobel, Bertha Kinsky desperatelyneeded a job. She was 33 years old, unmarried, and had beenunable to establish a singing career. Her family, oncewealthy, was now virtually penniless. Bertha Kinsky hadfound work as a governess—only to fall in love with the el-dest son in the family. The family had disapproved of their

B E R T H A V O N S U T T N E R • 2 7

BerthavonSuttner

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Austrian writer Bertha von Suttner was a leading supporter ofthe peace movement in the late 19th century. She persuadedher friend Alfred Nobel to establish the Nobel Peace Prize.

I

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relationship, however, and Berthalooked elsewhere for employment.Through friends she had learned of thejob with Nobel, and now that, too, hadfallen through.

On the surface, Bertha Sophia Fe-licita Kinsky seemed until recently tohave led an idyllic existence, but in re-ality her life had always been far fromeasy. Born in Prague in 1843 to thewidow of an Austrian field marshal—her father had died a few months be-fore his daughter’s birth—Bertha grewup in hotels, palaces, and the homes ofher mother’s friends in cities through-out Europe, including Paris, Venice,and Baden-Baden, the German spa.Mme. Kinsky, who was independentlywealthy, spent most of her time at par-ties or in gambling casinos, and Berthawas looked after by a series of care-takers and governesses. There was oneadvantage to such a life: through herfrequent travels, Bertha soon becamefluent in English, French, and Italianin addition to her native German.

As a young single woman, BerthaKinsky continued to live with hermother, studied music privately, andappeared on the concert stage fromtime to time. As she grew older, herhopes of finding a suitable husband—women who did not enter a conventwere expected to marry—began to fade.So did the family’s wealth: by the timeBertha Kinsky was 30, her mother hadspent nearly all their money. Berthahad to go to work to help supportthem, and she found employment inVienna, the capital of the Austro-Hun-garian (formerly Habsburg) Empire, asgoverness to the four young daughtersof the Suttner family.

Bertha Kinsky’s romance withBaron Arthur von Suttner provedstronger than his parents’ opposition.When she returned to Vienna from her

interview with Alfred Nobel in 1876,Arthur defied his family’s wishes andmarried her secretly. The couple, withvery little money, left Austria-Hungaryto live in eastern Russia, in the Cauca-sus Mountains, where Bertha hadfriends. During the following decade,the Suttners earned a living teachingmusic and languages. Through her hus-band’s influence, Bertha von Suttnerbecame interested in European politics,and the couple, who never had chil-dren, educated themselves in that field.

The Suttners, both of whom hadbeen raised in the conservative upperclass of the Habsburg Empire, becamepolitical liberals committed to peacefulsocial change and opposed to war. Inthe late 1870s, as the Russian-TurkishWar raged about them, Arthur vonSuttner began sending articles on theconflict to periodicals in Vienna.Bertha von Suttner decided to take upwriting, too, publishing essays, shortstories, and a nonfiction book calledInventarium einer Seeler (Inventory of aSoul, 1883), a plea for social progressand world peace. The couple also col-laborated on four novels in the late-19th-century literary style known asnaturalism, with plots that focused onsocial issues.

The Suttners returned to Viennain 1885 well established as writers.Back in Vienna, while her husbandcontinued his work as a journalist,Bertha von Suttner turned again to fic-tion to express her growing commit-ment to peaceful social progress: be-tween 1885 and 1894, she publishedfive novels with political and socialthemes.

In the mid-1880s the Suttnerslived for a time in Paris, and thereBertha von Suttner once again met Alfred Nobel. Nobel became a closefriend of the couple and introduced

them to many leading literary and political figures. In Paris Bertha vonSuttner heard more about the growingEuropean peace movement and learnedfor the first time of the founding inLondon of the International Arbitra-tion and Peace Association; this orga-nization had been formed to work forthe creation of an international courtto resolve disputes between nations.Later, in her memoirs, she recalled thestrong impact of this news upon her; itseemed to strengthen her belief in thepossibility of world peace.

Returning to Vienna, Bertha vonSuttner felt that she could best servethe cause of peace through her writing.That feeling was confirmed by the en-thusiastic public response to her novelDie Waffen nieder (later published inEnglish as Lay Down Your Arms),which appeared for the first time in1889. In its pages, Suttner recountedthe grim effects of warfare on a youngwoman during the European wars ofthe 1860s. With its vivid descriptionsof battle, the book was viewed as astrong indictment of war, and it waswidely praised not only by literary crit-ics and the reading public but also byleading pacifists, including the Russiannovelist Leo Tolstoy. Parts of the bookwere serialized in newspapers, andeventually it was translated into 12 languages.

The fame of Die Waffen niedermade Bertha von Suttner a leader ofthe European peace movement virtual-ly overnight. She became a participantin various peace groups, and in 1891she traveled to Rome to attend thethird international conference of theInterparliamentary Union. Later thatyear she founded the Austrian PeaceSociety, the first such organization inthat country. She was also a cofounder,with Élie Ducommun and Charles


Albert Gobat, of the InternationalPeace Bureau, headquartered in Bern,Switzerland, and served for 20 years asthe group’s vice president. During the1890s, she edited the peace journal Die Waffen nieder, named after her famous novel and founded by AlfredFried, a journalist who was the authorof more than 70 books and pamphletsand numerous articles on the peacemovement.

Bertha von Suttner’s friendshipwith Alfred Nobel, which had begun inParis, continued through an extensivecorrespondence. In her letters to him,she wrote often of her hopes for inter-national peace, and she is credited withpersuading Nobel to share that goal. Inthe early 1890s she began urging himto donate his substantial fortune to thecause of peace. By 1893, he had agreed.In a letter to Bertha von Suttner writ-ten that year, he told her that he haddecided to “set aside a portion of myestate for a prize . . . to be awarded tothe individual who has advanced fur-thest in the direction of a peaceful Eu-rope.” Thus the Nobel Peace Prize wasborn.

During the 1890s and on into the20th century, Bertha von Suttnerworked vigorously on behalf of peace.She traveled throughout Europe, at-tending numerous peace conferences—usually as the only female delegate—and giving lectures. She also wrote ar-ticles and for a while edited a pacifistjournal. In 1904–5, Bertha von Suttnermade lecture tours of Germany and theUnited States, where she met withPresident Theodore Roosevelt.

In 1905, Bertha von Suttner re-ceived the Nobel Peace Prize—anaward that many thought she shouldhave been granted several years earlier.By this time, she and Frédéric Passyhad become without question the most

important leaders of the Europeanpeace movement. Unfortunately, herhusband did not live to see her receivethis honor; Arthur von Suttner haddied in 1902.

Winning the Nobel Peace Prizefurther increased Bertha von Suttner’spopularity as a lecturer, and her writ-ings were also in demand. She contin-ued to contribute articles on peace tovarious European periodicals; some ofthem were published in translation inEngland and the United States. In herlast years, Suttner warned in both herlectures and her writings against in-creasing militarism throughout theworld, including China. She also ex-pressed concern about the military useof a new invention—the airplane.

Suttner’s last novel, Der MenschheitHochgedanken (English title: WhenThoughts Will Soar), was published in1911; it had both peace and women’srights as its themes. She made a secondlecture tour of the United States in1912, and in 1913 she addressed theInternational Peace Congress held atThe Hague.

In the last year of her life, Berthavon Suttner was accorded anotherhonor: she was named honorary presi-dent of the International Peace Bu-reau. Ill for several months with cancer,she died in Vienna in June 1914, lessthan two weeks after her 71st birthday.


Lengyel, Emil. And All Her Paths WerePeace: The Life of Bertha von Suttner.Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 1975.

Suttner, Bertha von. Lay Down Your Arms.1889. Reprint, New York: Garland, 1972.

———. Memoirs of Bertha von Suttner:Records of an Eventful Life. 2 vols. 1909.Reprint, New York: Garland, 1972.

B E R T H A V O N S U T T N E R • 2 9

Bertha vonSuttnerB O R N

June 9, 1843Prague, Bohemia (then part of theHabsburg Empire)

D I E D

June 21, 1914Vienna, Austria

E D U C AT I O N

Privately tutored

O C C U PAT I O N

Writer


Founder, Austrian Peace Society;cofounder and vice president, Inter-national Peace Bureau; author ofnumerous essays, short stories, andbooks, including the best-selling antiwar novel Die Waffen nieder(1889); editor of the Europeanpeace periodical Die Waffen nieder,named after her novel


heodore Roosevelt never intended to enterpolitics, or to be an American historian. Nordid he grow up dreaming of becoming Presi-dent of the United States. From childhooduntil he had nearly finished college,

Theodore Roosevelt wanted more than anything else to be anaturalist, a person who studies nature.

Born in 1858 to a wealthy New York businessman andhis wife, young Theodore was fascinated by wildlife. That in-terest was created by family camping trips and later by ex-tended trips abroad, including a year that the four Rooseveltchildren spent with their parents on a houseboat on the NileRiver in Egypt. Theodore collected birds’ nests and animalskulls, and learned to stuff small animals. His natural historycollection was displayed on a floor of the Roosevelt mansionin New York City, and he also contributed specimens to theAmerican Museum of Natural History, which his fatherhelped found in 1869.

Roosevelt entered Harvard University in the fall of 1876as a science major. He was an excellent student, makingnearly all A’s in his courses. However, the university offeredno training to someone who wanted to do fieldwork in nat-ural history, and Roosevelt knew he did not want to spendhis life in a laboratory. By the time he graduated with honorsin 1880, he had turned his attention to American history.

Roosevelt was independently wealthy—his father haddied in 1878, leaving him a large fortune—and he took histime trying to decide what career to pursue. He studied lawbriefly at Columbia University, then began writing abouthistory. His first book, The Naval War of 1812, was publishedin 1882. Over the next three decades, Roosevelt would write14 more nonfiction books, including additional works onAmerican history, politics, and outdoor life.

Roosevelt first dabbled in politics in the early 1880s,when he served three terms as a Republican member of theNew York State legislature. Following the sudden death ofhis first wife in 1884, he temporarily abandoned political lifeand moved to a ranch he owned in the Dakota Territory.There Roosevelt pursued a vigorous life as a sportsman whilecontinuing to write.

In 1889, about the time Roosevelt began publishing thefirst volume of his best-known work, The Winning of the West(4 vols., 1889–96), he was appointed U.S. Civil ServiceCommissioner by Republican President Benjamin Harrison,whom Roosevelt had supported in the 1888 Presidentialelection. He held this post for six years, during which helived in Washington, D.C., with his second wife and growingfamily. (Roosevelt eventually had six children.)


TTheodore Roosevelt

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Theodore Roosevelt—historian, author, outdoorsman, explorer,soldier, politician, and U.S. President—became a peacemakerwhen he ended the Russo-Japanese War.

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Roosevelt’s competence as an ad-ministrator led him to his next appoint-ment, this time back in New York asthe city’s police commissioner. For twoyears he performed this job with vigor,effectively opposing both corrupt politi-cians and underworld gangs. In 1897 hereturned to Washington, D.C., as Assis-tant Secretary of the Navy under Re-publican President William McKinley.In this post he distinguished himself bypromoting military preparedness in theface of an impending war betweenSpain and the United States.

When the Spanish-American Wardid in fact begin a year later, Rooseveltresigned abruptly to take an active rolein the conflict in Cuba. He foughtbravely in several important battles,but he became famous in one that wasof little military importance: he led avolunteer cavalry regiment known asthe Rough Riders, took San JuanHill—and came home a national hero.That fall, on the basis of his newfoundpopularity, Theodore Roosevelt waselected governor of New York State.

Again Roosevelt demonstratedleadership as he used his position tomake state government an instrumentof reform. During his two years in of-fice, the state legislature enacted legis-lation that taxed corporations for pub-lic services, improved housing for thepoor, and established a civil service sys-tem for state employees.

While the public seemed happywith Roosevelt and his accomplish-ments as governor, more conservativemembers of his own party were alarmedby his independence and reformingzeal. Working behind the scenes, theysupported his nomination as WilliamMcKinley’s running mate in 1900, be-lieving that as Vice President he wouldhave little power. The McKinley-Roosevelt ticket was elected over-whelmingly that fall, but the conserva-tives’ scheme to rein in Roosevelt’s political power backfired: In September1901, six months after taking office for

a second term, William McKinley wasassassinated. Forty-two-year-oldTheodore Roosevelt immediately be-came President of the United States,the youngest man ever to hold the of-fice. Three years later, he was elected toa full term.

Roosevelt was one of the most re-form-minded Presidents in history. Hebelieved that the federal governmentshould act as defender of the commongood, at home as well as abroad. Roo-sevelt’s domestic policy championedindividual economic freedom and suc-cessfully opposed industrial monopo-lies. He oversaw the passage of the firstfederal laws regulating the manufactureand sale of food and drugs. Not surpris-ingly, many of his major accomplish-ments were in the field of conserva-tion, a consequence of his early interestin natural history and his later activi-ties as a sportsman. He proposed andvigorously supported legislation thatpreserved land and other natural re-sources, and he protected animalsthrough the creation of national parksand wildlife refuges.

In foreign affairs, Roosevelt wasequally energetic and self-assured. Hebelieved that the nation should ensurepeace by having a powerful defenseforce, in particular a strong navy. Healso believed that the United Statesshould seize opportunities to maintainits position as the leading nation in thewestern hemisphere. To that end, hesupported a revolution in 1903 by theresidents of Panama, a region in Cen-tral America that was then part ofColombia, against the Colombian gov-ernment. U.S. support led to the cre-ation of the independent nation ofPanama and the creation of the Pana-ma Canal Zone; U.S.-sponsored con-struction of the Panama Canal beganin 1904.

A central tenet of Roosevelt’s for-eign policy was his restatement of theMonroe Doctrine. In 1823 PresidentJames Monroe had issued his famous

T H E O D O R E R O O S E V E L T • 3 1

TheodoreRooseveltB O R N

October 27, 1858New York, New York

D I E D

January 6, 1919Oyster Bay, New York

E D U C AT I O N

Tutored privately; A.B., HarvardCollege (1880)

O C C U PAT I O N

Politician; statesman; historian


President of the United States(1901–9); Vice President of theUnited States (1901); AssistantSecretary of the Navy (1897–98);governor, New York State(1898–1900); drew up the Treaty ofPortsmouth (1905), which endedthe Russo-Japanese War; president,American Historical Association;author of 15 books, most of themabout American history; awardednumerous honorary degrees; firstAmerican to win a Nobel Prize


proclamation warning European powersnot to interfere in the affairs of thewestern hemisphere. To this warningRoosevelt added a corollary: if otherwestern hemisphere nations had politi-cal or economic crises that might makethem vulnerable to outside interfer-ence, the U.S. government would stepin to protect them even before Europeacted.

It was not only the western hemi-sphere that Roosevelt kept an eye on,however. He also watched Europeanand Asian affairs closely. During the

1890s, Russian foreign policy had fo-cused on extending the government’sinfluence in the Far East. Japan, in-creasingly alarmed, finally declared waron Russia in February 1904. As theRusso-Japanese War dragged on, Roo-sevelt viewed the situation as poten-tially dangerous for the United States.He did not want either side to achievevictory, for this would upset the bal-ance of power among Asian nationsand might threaten American interestsin the Pacific.

Proposing himself as a mediatorbetween the two warring countries,Roosevelt called their representativesto a meeting in Portsmouth, NewHampshire, in August 1905. As a resultof his mediation, Russia and Japanreached an agreement that ended thewar. Called the Treaty of Portsmouth,it was signed on September 5, 1905. Ayear later, Roosevelt was named thewinner of the Nobel Peace Prize for hisrole in ending the conflict. He was thefirst American to win a Nobel Prize inany field.

While Roosevelt’s selection for thisaward was applauded by many, it wasalso widely criticized: longtime Euro-pean peace advocates believed that theprize should have been awarded to apacifist, and not to a man who empha-sized military preparedness. Roosevelt’ssupporters argued that his mediationhad saved thousands of lives that mighthave been lost if the war had contin-ued, but this argument did not silencethe critics.

Such criticism, however, misrepre-sented or ignored several importantfacts about Roosevelt. Although he wasnot a pacifist, he also did not believe in warfare as a means of resolving dis-agreements; he believed that if all


Roosevelt (center) with Russian andJapanese delegates to the PortsmouthConference, held in Portsmouth, NewHampshire, in 1905. Roosevelt’s skill as amediator helped the two sides come toan agreement and end the armed conflictbetween their nations by signing theTreaty of Portsmouth.

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nations maintained a strong militaryforce, any single nation would be reluc-tant to attack another. Furthermore,Roosevelt had often acted as a peace-maker in other troublesome situations,both domestic and foreign. In 1902, forexample, he had used the federal gov-ernment as an arbitrator to settle amajor coal strike peacefully at a timewhen labor unrest often led to violenceand death. And he was on record as adeclared supporter of internationalpeace efforts: in 1904 he had called forthe formation of the Second HagueConference, held three years later todiscuss arms limitation. Finally, becauseof his many successful efforts to im-prove human welfare, it could be ar-gued that Roosevelt had spent his en-tire professional life working for the establishment of a peaceful society.

Roosevelt continued to be a promi-nent public figure after his second termas President ended in 1909. Following ayear of travel in Europe and Africa, hebecame a cofounder of the Progressiveparty, a group of reform-minded Repub-licans who wished to separate them-selves from the conservative wing ofthe Republican party. In 1912, Roo-sevelt again ran for President, this timeas the Progressive party candidate. Dur-ing the campaign, he narrowly escapedan assassination attempt in Milwaukee:a bullet shot at him by a fanatic wasdeflected by his glasses case and a fold-ed copy of his speech in his breastpocket. Following his defeat by the De-mocratic party candidate, WoodrowWilson, Roosevelt took a break frompolitics and turned his attention toother interests. He wrote more books,including his autobiography, and servedas president of the American HistoricalAssociation, an organization of histori-

ans. Still an active outdoorsman, he ledan expedition in 1914 to the SouthAmerican wilderness to explore the LaPlata River, and later that year pub-lished a book about his adventures.

The eruption of war in Europe inAugust 1914—the conflict that wouldlater be known as World War I—drewRoosevelt back into politics. He be-came a strong public critic of PresidentWoodrow Wilson, believing that Wil-son was too cautious and hesitant as aleader both at home and abroad. Whenthe United States finally entered thewar nearly three years later, Rooseveltsupported the move, for he believedthat victory by the enemy forces—Ger-many and its allies—would endangerdemocracy throughout the world.

Eager to serve his country and tosupport a cause he strongly believed in,Roosevelt tried to enlist as a soldier, al-though he was nearly 60 years old—and was angry when the army turnedhim down because of his age. All fourof Roosevelt’s sons served in WorldWar I, and one of them was killed inaction. In 1917, Roosevelt, through anact of the U.S. Congress, donated hislong-saved Nobel Peace Prize money towar relief agencies, including the RedCross.

As early as 1910, Roosevelt hadproposed the formation of an interna-tional organization, which he called a“League of Peace,” that would work tomaintain and even enforce peaceful re-lations among nations. However, fol-lowing the armistice that ended WorldWar I in November 1918, he did notsupport the League of Nations, thepeacekeeping organization thatWoodrow Wilson had proposed. Roo-sevelt believed that the President wasnaive and unrealistic about world poli-

tics, and that the League agreed to byWilson and the leaders of the victori-ous European nations might even drawthe United States into another war.

During his South American trip in1914, Roosevelt had contracted severalsevere tropical infections, and he neverfully recovered. Although his healthdeclined steadily in the years that fol-lowed, he still tried to lead a vigorouslife. He died in his sleep in January1919, at the age of 60. That fall, 13years after Roosevelt received theNobel Peace Prize, his longtime politi-cal opponent Woodrow Wilson wasnamed the 1919 winner for his own ef-forts on behalf of peace.


Fritz, Jean. Bully for You, Teddy Roosevelt!New York: Scholastic, 1992.

Hagedorn, Hermann. The Roosevelt Familyof Sagamore Hill. New York: Macmillan,1954.

McCullough, David. Mornings on Horse-back. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1981.

Miller, Nathan. Theodore Roosevelt: A Life.New York: Morrow, 1992.

Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roo-sevelt. New York: Coward, McCann, 1979.

“Roosevelt, Theodore.” In Dictionary ofAmerican Biography, vol. 8, part 2. NewYork: Scribners, 1935.

Roosevelt, Theodore An Autobiography.1913. Abridged ed. New York: Scribners,1958.

T H E O D O R E R O O S E V E L T • 3 3


rom the time of his birth in Milan in 1833, itwas assumed that Ernesto Moneta would growup to become a soldier. Warfare was a com-mon occurrence in 19th-century Italy, andnearly every able-bodied man served in a mili-

tary unit of some sort. Much of the fighting that occurredwas in revolt against outside rule: Italy was not yet a singlenation but a collection of individual kingdoms and city-states, many of which were under foreign control. Milan, forexample, had belonged to Austria, except at short intervals,since 1713.

Ernesto was the third of 11 children born to a familythat was aristocratic but had little money. He was educatedin the local schools of Milan until the age of 15, when he,his father, and several of his brothers joined in the fightagainst Austrian forces during an uprising in 1848. The re-volt was not successful, and Italians who had fought and sur-vived had to flee the city, in fear of being punished by theAustrians. Moneta escaped to the independent kingdom ofPiedmont, northwest of Milan.

Ernesto MonetaLouis Renault

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Ernesto Moneta fought with the Italian patriot Garibaldi for theunification of Italy. Later, as a journalist, he became a leader in themovement for world peace.

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During his years in Piedmont,where he was joined by other familymembers, Moneta resumed his educa-tion, this time at a military academy inthe town of Ivrea. He also became amember of a secret society that wasworking to overthrow Austrian rule inMilan. In 1859, he went to war againwhen conflict broke out between Pied-mont and Austria. That year he andhis brothers joined troops led byGiuseppe Garibaldi, a prominent leaderin the fight for Italian unification.Moneta became a member of Garibal-di’s general staff and served him forseven years.

During the 1860s, a united Italybegan to emerge as some principalitiesjoined to form a single kingdom underKing Victor Emmanuel II of Sardinia.However, there were still setbacks anddefeats for Italian nationalists in sever-al regions that remained under foreigncontrol; final unification would not beaccomplished until 1870. Throughoutthe struggle, Moneta remained com-mitted to the nationalist cause, but hebecame increasingly discouraged bydisorganization within the army. Final-ly, in 1866, at the age of 33, he re-signed from the military.

Returning to Milan, Moneta decid-ed to pursue his support of a unitedItaly through a career as a journalist.He began by contributing drama re-views to a local newspaper, Il secolo,while he looked for other opportuni-ties. In 1867, Moneta’s fortuneschanged suddenly when several of hisfriends became owners of Il secolo.Moneta was named editor-in-chief, andduring the next few years he trans-formed the small daily into Italy’s lead-ing newspaper. Leading issues of theday were discussed and debated in itspages. Through Il secolo Moneta sup-ported unification efforts; at the sametime he urged the new nation to dropold hatreds and to pursue peaceful rela-tions with other countries. He alsopressed the government to reduce the

size of the army and convert it to acivil peacekeeping force, or homeguard.

Moneta’s support of Italian unifica-tion and the peaceful role he wishedthe new nation to play in internationalaffairs drew him into the Europeanpeace movement. During the 1870s,the editorial policy of Il secolo reflectedthat growing involvement. Step bystep, Moneta himself became a peaceactivist. In 1878, he organized andhosted a peace conference in Milan.Nine years later he helped found anItalian peace society, the LombardUnion for International Peace and Ar-bitration, and supported it with hisown money. In 1890, Moneta beganpublishing an almanac called L’amicodella pace (Friend of Peace), which de-scribed various activities of the peacemovement. A year later, he became theItalian representative to the Interna-tional Peace Bureau, newly founded byÉlie Ducommun.

After 28 years as editor-in-chief ofIl secolo, Moneta retired in 1896. Hecontinued to contribute essays and re-views to the newspaper, and in 1898 hefounded La vita internazionale, a period-ical that published articles by Monetaand others on issues in the peacemovement. La vita internazionale hadconsiderable influence in Italian poli-tics and is credited with many contri-butions to the cause of peace, includinga series of articles that paved the wayfor the signing of an arbitration treatybetween Italy and France in 1903.

For his many years of work on be-half of peace, in particular his contri-butions to Italo-French relations,Ernesto Moneta was named cowinner,with Louis Renault, of the 1907 NobelPeace Prize. However, because he con-tinued to support a nation’s right tofight, if necessary, to achieve self-gov-ernment, Moneta’s selection was criti-cized by many pacifists.

Moneta remained active in jour-nalism and politics until the end of his

Ernesto MonetaB O R N

September 20, 1833Milan, Italy

D I E D

February 10, 1918Milan, Italy

E D U C AT I O N

Attended secondary schools and amilitary academy

O C C U PAT I O N

Journalist


Editor-in-chief, Il secolo; founder,Lombard Union for InternationalPeace and Arbitration; founder andpublisher, L’amico della pace and Lavita internazionale; Italian represen-tative, International Peace Bureau;author of Le guerre, le insurrezioni, ela pace nel secolo XIX (4 vols.,1903–10), a major history of 19th-century Europe


M O N E T A & R E N A U L T • 3 5

life, despite the gradual loss of his sightbecause of glaucoma. He also wrote afour-volume history of the 19th centu-ry, Le guerre, le insurrezioni, e la pace nelsecolo XIX (Wars, Insurrections, andPeace in the Nineteenth Century,1903–10). He continued to be a strongsupporter of both international peaceefforts and Italian nationalism, and sawno contradiction between these activi-ties. When Italy annexed Libya in1911, Moneta supported his country’saction as necessary for its security. Fol-lowing the outbreak of World War I in

1914, he also supported Italy’s entryinto the conflict against the aggressors,Germany and Austria.

Moneta was married and had twosons; his wife died in 1899. In the win-ter of 1918, Moneta fell ill with pneu-monia. He died in Milan on February10 at the age of 84.

The man who shared the 1907Nobel Peace Prize with Ernesto Moneta and who worked much of hislife on behalf of peaceful relations be-tween France and Italy was, appropri-ately, a Frenchman, Louis Renault. Beyond that, however, neither the livesof these two men nor their contribu-tions to peace were connected. UnlikeMoneta, Renault was a legal scholarwho used his intelligence and consider-able knowledge to further the develop-ment of international law. From birth,he was raised by his family to be an in-tellectual, never a soldier.

Louis Renault (pronounced ruh-NO) was born in Autun, an historictown in east-central France first settledby the ancient Romans. His father wasa wealthy bookseller who closely di-rected the boy’s education. Louis ex-celled in all his subjects at the localschools, then continued his studies atthe University of Dijon, where he re-ceived a bachelor’s degree in literaturein 1861. He then enrolled at the Uni-versity of Paris, and during the nextseven years earned three degrees withhonors, including a doctorate in law.

Renault became a law professor atthe University of Dijon in 1868. Hedeveloped a specialty in criminal law,which he taught at the University ofParis after joining its faculty in 1873. Ayear later, he was appointed to a profes-sorship there in the relatively new fieldof international law. Although Renaultwas reluctant to develop a new special-ty, he agreed to the appointment. Dur-ing the next few years he soon becamewidely known as an authority on the


Louis Renault, a French legal scholar, beganhis career as an expert in criminal law. Helater became an authority on internationallaw and served as a member of theHague Tribunal.

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M O N E T A & R E N A U L T • 3 7


subject through his lectures and thepublication of his textbook, Introduc-tion à l’Étude du droit international (In-troduction to the Study of InternationalLaw, 1879). Renault was named thehighest-ranking professor of interna-tional law at the university in 1879 andremained on the faculty for the rest ofhis life.

Renault’s reputation as a legalscholar grew considerably during thenext decade, following his appoint-ment as director of the French diplo-matic archives in 1880. By 1890 hewas acknowledged as the nation’s lead-ing authority on international law.That year he was appointed legal con-sultant to the French Foreign Office.In this capacity he traveled as France’srepresentative to international confer-ences throughout the world that metto consider a variety of topics, includ-ing revision of the 1864 Geneva Convention.

In 1899, Renault, along with LéonBourgeois, represented France at theFirst Hague Conference. At this con-ference, held in The Hague, Nether-lands, representatives of leading na-tions met to consider arms limitationand other issues relating to peace.There Renault concentrated on issuessurrounding naval warfare. He was alsoappointed to the Permanent Court ofArbitration, also known as the HagueTribunal, founded at the conference tohelp resolve international disputes.During his 14 years of service on theHague Tribunal, Renault heard andhelped settle many controversial casesinvolving countries throughout theworld, including Japan, Morocco, andIndia.

At the Second Hague Conference,held in 1907, Renault served on a com-mittee that specified the rights of neu-tral nations during sea warfare. He alsomade proposals to extend the applica-tion of the Geneva Convention from

land to sea battles. At the conclusionof the conference, Renault was one ofthe authors of the official proceedings,which were later published.

Louis Renault shared the 1907Nobel Peace Prize in recognition of hiscontributions to both Hague confer-ences, and for his scholarly work in thefield of international law. In his accep-tance address, Renault declared his be-lief in international peace as a goal ofnations but reminded his audience thatwar, unfortunately, was still a possibili-ty. Because of this, he urged that fur-ther progress be made in adoptingmeasures to protect civilian popula-tions, as well as the sick and wounded,in times of conflict.

Renault received other awards forhis years of public service, includingmembership in the French Legion ofHonor, honorary degrees from manyuniversities, and decorations by 19 foreign nations. In 1903, the Frenchgovernment granted him the jointhonorary title of minister plenipoten-tiary and envoy extraordinary. Renaultwas elected president of the Academyof International Law in 1914.

Renault was married and had fivechildren. He remained active profes-sionally until the end of his life. Hedied suddenly at his villa outside Parisin February 1918, a few months beforehis 75th birthday and a few days aftergiving what would be his last lecture.Two days after Renault’s death, hisNobel cowinner, Ernesto Moneta, diedin Milan.


Cooper, S. E., ed. Internationalism in Nine-teenth-Century Europe. New York: Garland,1976.

Rhodes, Anthony. Louis Renault: A Biography. New York: Harcourt, Brace &World, 1970.

Louis RenaultB O R N

May 21, 1843Autun, France

D I E D

February 8, 1918Barbizon, France

E D U C AT I O N

Baccalaureate, University of Dijon(1861); Docteur en Droit, Universi-ty of Paris (1868)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; legal scholar


Highest-ranking professor of inter-national law, University of Paris; director, French diplomaticarchives; French delegate, First and Second Hague Conferences(1899, 1907); member, Hague Tribunal; president, Academy of International Law


n 1860, at the age of 16, Klas Arnoldson was notsure what he wanted to do to earn a living, but hewas fairly certain that he would not be a musicianlike his father. Klas did not have to decide yet,however, and he enjoyed his classes at the school he

attended in Göteborg, Sweden, the city where he had beenborn and spent his youth; he thought he might like to at-tend the local university after graduation.

Then tragedy struck. His father died suddenly, andyoung Klas had to leave school to help support his mother.He took the best job he could find, as a railway clerk, andfor the next 21 years he worked for Swedish railroads. Onlyin 1881, at the age of 37, was Klas Arnoldson able to affordto leave that job and work full time at his chosen career—journalism.

The decision to become a journalist was not made hasti-ly. During his years working for the railroad, Arnoldson hadeducated himself by reading widely in history, philosophy,and religion. Influenced by liberal political and religious

Klas ArnoldsonFredrik Bajer

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As a journalist and politician, Klas Arnoldson was a leader in themovement to establish Sweden’s neutrality. He also championedNorway’s peaceful efforts to separate from Sweden.

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ideas, he came to believe strongly inindividual freedom as the basis for apeaceful society. The European con-flicts that raged during this period, including the Franco-Prussian War(1870–71), troubled him deeply. Hewas also disturbed by the increasingmanufacture and stockpiling ofweapons by major European powers. Inthe 1870s, he began writing essays thatexpressed his beliefs, and they werepublished in several Swedish newspa-pers and magazines. By 1881, he wasprepared to devote himself full timenot only to journalism but to advanc-ing the cause of peace.

Settling in Stockholm as a free-lance journalist, Arnoldson increasedhis output of articles on contemporarypolitical and social issues, in particularthe quest for international peace. Hequickly became well known to theSwedish public, and in 1882 his promi-nence earned him election to the lowerchamber of parliament, where heserved for five years.

In parliament, Arnoldson support-ed legislation for universal male suf-frage (voting rights) and religious toler-ance, and became a major voice forpeace and for arms limitation. He con-vinced his colleagues that Sweden, arelatively small country, should not tryto arm itself on the scale of the majorEuropean powers; instead, he argued,Sweden’s best form of defense was aproclamation of neutrality. Under hisleadership, parliament passed a resolu-tion in 1883 calling on the govern-ment to declare Sweden a neutralcountry. Sweden finally adopted thatposition 21 years later, on the eve ofWorld War I. Today, Sweden continuesto be a neutral nation.

Arnoldson continued to pursue hiscareer as a journalist while serving inparliament, and he also became activein peace organizations, including theSwedish Peace and Arbitration Union,which he helped found in 1883. Duringthe 1880s and 1890s he edited as well

as wrote for several political periodi-cals, and he made popular speakingtours of Sweden and Norway on behalfof the peace movement. Arnoldson wasa strong supporter of international arbi-tration as a means of preventing war,and a plea for the adoption of arbitra-tion became the focus of many of hisspeeches. Convinced by his arguments,the Norwegian parliament in 1890 en-dorsed arbitration as a national poli-cy—the first parliamentary body in theworld to do so.

In the mid-1890s, Arnoldson be-came sympathetic to the Norwegianindependence movement. Norway hadbeen ruled by the Swedish king for 80years and was now demanding its free-dom. Many Swedes opposed Norwegianindependence, but Arnoldson workedlong and hard on its behalf. As a con-sequence of his efforts, the Swedishgovernment granted Norway its inde-pendence in 1905.

Arnoldson was awarded the 1908Nobel Peace Prize for his many years ofdedication to the cause of peace; heshared the honor with the Danish paci-fist Fredrik Bajer. In his address at thepresentation ceremony, Arnoldson saidthat pacifism had to replace war so thathumanity could progress to a more civi-lized stage in its development. As astep toward ending war—a step thatwas discussed at both the First and Second Hague Conferences—he urgednations to limit their military expen-ditures. Arnoldson proposed the abolition of national armies and thecreation in their place of an interna-tional police force to keep order. Hefurther proposed an international refer-endum—a popular vote—in which citizens throughout the world could declare their support for such action.

Arnoldson donated his share of theprize money to several peace organiza-tions. He remained active as a peaceadvocate to the end of his life, speak-ing and writing on behalf of the referendum that he had proposed.

Klas ArnoldsonB O R N

October 27, 1844Göteborg, Sweden

D I E D

February 20, 1916Stockholm, Sweden

E D U C AT I O N

Attended local public schools

O C C U PAT I O N

Railroad worker; journalist


Member, Swedish parliament; co-founder, Swedish Peace and Arbi-tration Union; author of numerousarticles and several books aboutpeace, including Pax Mundi (1892)


A R N O L D S O N & B A J E R • 3 9


Arnoldson died of a heart attack inStockholm in February 1916, at the ageof 71. Married twice, he was survivedby his second wife; he had no children.

Fredrik Bajer (pronounced BY-er),the Danish writer and politician whoshared the 1908 Nobel Peace Prizewith Klas Arnoldson, was fascinated bywarfare as a child. His boyhood herowas Napoleon Bonaparte, the Frenchemperor who had tried to conquer allof Europe only decades before Fredrik’sbirth in Vester Egede, Denmark, in1837.

Fredrik Bajer’s father was a clergy-man who hoped that his son would fol-low in his footsteps. To that end, theboy was enrolled in Denmark’s mostdistinguished boarding school to pre-pare him for eventual attendance at auniversity. Fredrik did not like thecourse of study, however, and beggedhis father to send him to militaryschool. At the age of 17 he enrolled in the National Cadet Academy inCopenhagen and graduated two yearslater with a commission as a cavalrylieutenant.

Bajer served from 1856 to 1864 inthe Danish army. During those years he also received further training at amilitary college. As he matured, he de-veloped an interest in social issues, par-ticularly education, and began to readwidely for the first time about nonmili-tary subjects. When Prussia went towar with Denmark in 1864 to claimthe duchies of Schleswig and Holsteinas Prussian territory, Bajer participatedin actual combat for the first time. Heserved with distinction, but the experi-ence changed his attitude toward war-fare: He had once believed it was glam-orous. Now he thought that war washorrible.

Bajer’s new interest in pacifism co-incided with the downsizing of theDanish army in 1865. As a conse-quence, Bajer was decommissioned andhad to find other work. He turnedbriefly to teaching in a secondaryschool; he also wrote newspaper arti-cles on contemporary social issues. Heread all that he could find about peaceand pacifism, including writings by theFrenchman Frédéric Passy. Passy’s ideasinspired Bajer to try to form a Danishpeace society, but his fellow Danesscoffed at his proposal, for they werestill angry over their loss to Prussia inthe recent war.

Gradually Bajer came to believethat peace could be achieved onlythrough the replacement of monar-chies—governments by kings andqueens who inherited their titles—witha republican, or elected, form of gov-ernment. In 1870, he founded the As-sociation of Scandinavian Free States,an organization that worked to trans-form the monarchies of Sweden, Nor-way, and Denmark into a federation ofrepublican governments. Such a federa-tion, he thought, would serve as amodel for the eventual establishmentof a worldwide union of all nations.

Bajer became active in the Liberalparty, one of several political parties inDenmark, and in 1872 he was electedon the Liberal ticket to the lowerhouse of the Danish parliament. For 13years Bajer served in parliament, wherehe became a major supporter of legisla-tion to reduce military spending and topromote peace. He also strongly sup-ported women’s rights, a cause that heshared with his wife, MathildeSchluter, whom he had married in1867. In 1871, the Bajers had foundedthe Danish Women’s Association to

Experiencing the horrors of war turnedFredrik Bajer, a Danish military officer and strong supporter of his nation’s army, into a leader of the European peace movement.

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work for political equality for women.When female suffrage—the right ofwomen to vote—was finally achievedin Denmark more than 40 years later,the Bajers’ association was given muchof the credit.

In 1882, Bajer founded another or-ganization, the Association for theNeutralization of Denmark, for the pur-pose of maintaining Danish neutralityin the event of future conflicts. Laterrenamed the Danish Peace Society, thisorganization became the primary outletfor Bajer’s peace activities.

On behalf of the Peace Society,Fredrik Bajer traveled to Paris in 1889as the only Danish representative tothe international peace conference atwhich Frédéric Passy and William Cre-mer established the InterparliamentaryUnion. The union was formed to pro-mote world peace by bringing togethermembers of parliaments in differentcountries for mutual discussion. Despiteinitial opposition in the Danish parlia-ment, Bajer persuaded a number of hisfellow legislators to participate in theunion. In 1893, Bajer himself waselected the Scandinavian representa-tive to the Interparliamentary Union’sgoverning council.

Bajer is credited with proposingthe formation of an information clear-inghouse for the European peace move-ment during his attendance at the annual Interparliamentary Union con-ference held in London in 1890. Hisproposal led to the founding a yearlater of the International Peace Bureauby Élie Ducommun. Bajer was electedchairman of the bureau’s governingboard and held this position for sixyears.

During the following decade, Bajermade speeches and wrote articles sup-

porting the adoption of arbitrationtreaties by Denmark, the establishmentof a Scandinavian InterparliamentaryUnion, and the proclamation of Dan-ish neutrality. He eventually achievedvictories in all three areas. Denmarksigned arbitration treaties with Portu-gal, Italy, and the Netherlands in theearly 1900s, and in 1908 the Scandina-vian Interparliamentary Union becamea reality. Later that year, Fredrik Bajer,the onetime soldier, shared the NobelPeace Prize with Klas Arnoldson for hismany contributions to the cause ofpeace.

Although Bajer suffered from acrippling illness in his later years, heremained active in the peace move-ment after winning the Nobel PeacePrize. He was dismayed at the outbreakof World War I in 1914 but was pleasedto see one of his goals achieved whenDenmark proclaimed its neutralitysoon afterward.

Bajer died at his home in Copen-hagen in January 1922, several monthsbefore his 85th birthday. His wife andlongtime collaborator, who was hisonly survivor, continued his work formany years despite her own advancedage.


Abrams, Irwin. “Fredrik Bajer.” In TheNobel Peace Prize and the Laureates. Boston:G. K. Hall, 1988.

“Arnoldson, Klas Pontus.” In BiographicalDictionary of Modern Peace Leaders. Editedby Harold Josephson. Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1985.

The Interparliamentary Union from 1889 to1939. Geneva: Interparliamentary Union,1939.

A R N O L D S O N & B A J E R • 4 1

FredrikBajer B O R N

April 21, 1837Vester Egede, Denmark

D I E D

January 22, 1922Copenhagen, Denmark

E D U C AT I O N

Graduated from the National CadetAcademy, Copenhagen (1856)

O C C U PAT I O N

Soldier; writer; politician


Member, Danish parliament;founder, Association of Scandina-vian Free States; cofounder, DanishWomen’s Association; founder,Danish Peace Society; chairman,International Peace Bureau;founder, Scandinavian Interparlia-mentary Union; author of numerousarticles and several books on mod-ern history and social issues



uture peace leader Auguste Beernaert (pro-nounced bare-NARR) grew up comfortablywith his sister and their parents in the town ofNamur, Belgium. His father, who worked forthe tax division of the Belgian government,

had been transferred from Oostende to Namur shortly afterAuguste’s birth in 1829. The Beernaert family became wellknown and respected in Namur, and the two children wereraised to be hardworking and responsible citizens. Auguste’smother assumed responsibility for his education, hiring pri-vate tutors to supplement her own teaching as she preparedhim for the university. As a child, he also developed his tal-ent as an artist and became an accomplished painter.

Auguste Beernaert enrolled at the University of Louvainin 1846 and excelled in his classes; five years later he re-ceived a law degree. After graduating, Beernaert accepted anappointment from the Belgian government to study legal ed-

Auguste Beernaert Pauld’Estournelles deConstant

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In retirement, Belgian politician and government official AugusteBeernaert devoted the remainder of his life to the cause ofpeace, especially international arbitration and arms limitation.

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ucation in French and German univer-sities. In 1853, he submitted an exten-sive report on his findings to the gov-ernment and was widely praised for hiswork.

Beernaert then began practicinglaw in Brussels. He interned under awell-known business attorney who be-came a major influence on Beernaert’scareer. Beernaert decided to specializein fiscal law, a branch of law relating tofinancial matters, especially taxation.He soon became one of the city’s lead-ing tax attorneys, and during the nexttwo decades maintained a thrivingpractice. In 1870, he married thedaughter of a Swiss diplomat; the cou-ple had no children. In his private life,Beernaert continued to paint andserved as chairman or board member of several arts organizations.

In 1873 Beernaert was appointedto the Belgian cabinet as minister ofpublic works by the prime minister,Jules Malou. That job was usually heldby someone trained as an engineer, andthere was criticism of the appointment,but Beernaert accepted the post. Ac-cording to law, however, he had to be amember of parliament before he couldhold a cabinet-level position. The fol-lowing year, Beernaert succeeded inwinning election from the district ofThielt. He remained in parliamentuntil his death nearly 40 years later.

Despite lacking an engineering de-gree, Beernaert proved to be an excel-lent minister of public works. Duringthe next four years, he improved thecountry’s railways, roads, and canals,built new port facilities at Antwerp andOstende, and through new construc-tion and renovation made Brussels,Belgium’s capital, a more attractivecity. Beernaert also worked to end childlabor in Belgian coal mines.

Beernaert lost his cabinet post in1878 when Malou’s party was defeatedin national elections, but he continuedto be an active member of parliament.When Jules Malou became prime min-

ister again six years later, Beernaert wasappointed head of the department ofagriculture, industry, and public works,a job with even greater responsibilitythan his earlier cabinet post. After fourmonths, the king, Leopold II, askedMalou to resign, and Beernaert submit-ted his resignation, too. The king thenappointed Beernaert to the dual posi-tions of prime minister and minister offinance.

Beernaert distinguished himselfduring his 10 years of service. His ac-complishments included the passage oflabor reform laws as well as legislationthat extended voting rights. In supportof King Leopold II, he gained parlia-mentary approval for Leopold’s rule ofthe Belgian Congo, a colony in Africa.Beernaert resigned from his dual post asprime minister and finance minister in1894, following his failure to pass a lawthat would have guaranteed fairer rep-resentation in parliament.

Although he continued to serve inparliament, Beernaert now had thetime to devote to a new interest, devel-oped in old age: the cause of interna-tional peace. In 1896, at the age of 69,he became an active member of the In-terparliamentary Union, which hadbeen founded seven years earlier byWilliam Cremer and Frédéric Passy.

Beernaert focused on one of theunion’s primary objectives, the adop-tion of arbitration by European nationsas a means of solving conflicts betweenthem. As Belgium’s chief representativeto the Interparliamentary Union, hepresided over its conferences in 1897,1905, and 1910 in Brussels. In 1899, hewas elected president of the union’snewly created governing body, the In-terparliamentary Council, and heldthat position until his death.

Beernaert became a strong advo-cate of arms limitation as more andmore countries increased their produc-tion of weapons. At the First HagueConference, held in 1899, he served aschairman of the first commission on

AugusteBeernaertB O R N

July 26, 1829Oostende, Belgium

D I E D

October 6, 1912Lucerne, Switzerland

E D U C AT I O N

Doctor of Jurisprudence, Universityof Louvain (1849)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; statesman


Member, Belgian parliament(1874–1912); prime minister and fi-nance minister of Belgium(1884–94); president, Interparlia-mentary Council (1899–1912);chairman, first commission on armslimitation, First Hague Conference(1899); member, Hague Tribunal(1899–1912)


B E E R N A E R T & D ’ E S T O U R N E L L E S D E C O N S T A N T • 4 3


arms limitation. His support of disar-mament was opposed by King LeopoldII, who believed that Belgium had tohave an increasingly strong defenseforce to protect its neutral status. Beer-naert refused to change his position,however.

When the Permanent Court of Ar-bitration, also known as the Hague Tri-bunal, was established by delegates tothe First Hague Conference, Beernaertwas appointed as a member. In this ca-pacity, he helped to resolve several in-ternational disputes and to standardizecodes of international maritime law(law that governs a nation’s rights onthe world’s oceans).

At the age of 80, Auguste Beer-naert shared the 1909 Nobel PeacePrize with the Frenchman Paul d’Es-tournelles de Constant for his continu-ing work on behalf of arbitration andarms limitation. Never intending to retire, Beernaert next turned his atten-tion to the new field of military avia-tion and became its outspoken oppo-nent. At the Interparliamentary Unionconference held in Geneva in the fallof 1912, he persuaded reluctant dele-gates to pass a resolution calling for thebanning of air warfare.

Beernaert served as the Belgiandelegate to the second commission onarms limitation, which met during the1912 Geneva conference. Here he ar-gued for the adoption of proposals guar-anteeing humane treatment for warprisoners. In early October, while thecommission was still meeting, Beer-naert became ill and decided to returnhome for treatment. En route to Bel-gium by train, his condition worsenedand he interrupted his journey to entera hospital in Lucerne, Switzerland. Hedied there several days later from pneu-monia. Beernaert’s body was takenback to Brussels for a state funeral.

Paul d’Estournelles de Constantwas a man as gifted and energetic asAuguste Beernaert, with whom heshared the 1909 Nobel Peace Prize.Unlike Beernaert, however, d’Estour-nelles became committed to pacifism ata relatively young age.

D’Estournelles was born intowealth in 1852 in a château in theLoire Valley of western France. His aris-tocratic family had many prominentmembers, including Paul’s great-uncle,the noted author Benjamin Constant.Paul’s father was a baron, and Paul in-herited the title upon his father’s death.

From childhood on, Paul d’Estour-nelles seemed to do everything well,from painting to fencing to sailing ayacht. Because of his brilliance andcharm, and the asset of being a mem-ber of the French aristocracy, d’Estour-nelles’s family prepared him for a careerin diplomacy, a field then reserved onlyfor men from society’s upper class.After earning a law degree in Paris in1874, d’Estournelles studied Easternlanguages and traveled through Asia.Upon his return to France, he joinedthe French foreign service.

From 1876 to 1882, d’Estournellesserved as a diplomat in a series of poststhat included Montenegro, Turkey, theNetherlands, England, and Tunisia. Hethen returned to Paris to become assis-tant director of the Near Eastern Bu-reau within the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. During the 1880s, he wrote apolitical study, La Politique française enTunisie (French Politics in Tunisia,1891), which was widely acclaimed andearned him an award from theAcadémie Française.

D’Estournelles became chargé d’af-faires at the French embassy in Londonin 1890. It was during his years of ser-vice there that he began to reconsiderhis choice of a career. As he tried to re-

Paul d’Estournelles de Constant turnedfrom diplomacy to law in an effort to endwarfare. As a longtime member of theFrench parliament, he supported arms re-duction and peaceful cooperation amongEuropean nations.

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solve disputes that arose betweenFrance and England, d’Estournelles be-came convinced that diplomacy alonecould not maintain peace among na-tions. Only through the rule of law, hebelieved, could warfare be abolished.D’Estournelles therefore decided toleave the foreign service, enter politics,and become a legislator.

In 1895, d’Estournelles was electedto the lower house of parliament, theChamber of Deputies, from the districtof Sarthe—the same district that hisgreat-uncle Benjamin Constant hadrepresented in the chamber severaldecades earlier. After nine years of ser-vice, d’Estournelles was elected in 1904as Sarthe’s representative to the upperhouse, the senate, as a Radical-Social-ist. He held that seat until his death 20years later.

As a member of parliament, d’Es-tournelles became a brilliant advocateof pacifism. In 1899, he and fellow leg-islator Léon Bourgeois representedFrance at the First Hague Conference.There they supported resolutions call-ing for weapons restriction, laws gov-erning warfare, and the establishmentof the Hague Tribunal. For d’Estour-nelles, the First Hague Conference wasan exhilarating experience, and the es-tablishment of the tribunal—for thepurpose of settling international dis-putes through arbitration—convincedhim that world peace would ultimatelybe achieved. He believed that this goalcould be reached through a massive ed-ucation effort: if people learned aboutthe benefits of arbitration, he reasoned,they would then put pressure on theirgovernments to outlaw war. D’Estour-nelles decided to undertake that efforthimself, and to devote the rest of hislife to it.

During the next few years, d’Es-tournelles traveled throughout Europe

giving lectures on the accomplishmentsof the First Hague Conference. He alsovisited the United States frequently,bringing with him his American wifeand their son. D’Estournelles hadstrong respect and admiration for theUnited States, whose support he be-lieved was crucial to the achievementof world peace. He became a respectedauthority on American politics andlater published a book-length study ofthe country.

Because of his fluency in English—and his diplomatic skills—d’Estour-nelles felt completely at ease in hismeeting with American political lead-ers, including President Theodore Roo-sevelt. In 1902, d’Estournelles persuad-ed Roosevelt to bring a U.S. disputewith Mexico to the Hague Tribunal,where a settlement was reached—inlarge part through the efforts of tri-bunal member Auguste Beernaert.

In the early 1900s, d’Estournellesbecame active in the Interparliamen-tary Union and attended its annualconferences with other members of theFrench parliament who were commit-ted to achieving peace. In 1904 he or-ganized exchange visits of members ofthe French and British parliaments whosupported arbitration. These exchangespaved the way for an important agree-ment between France and Great Britainthe same year, the Franco-British Entente Cordiale. D’Estournelles spon-sored similar exchanges between theFrench and the Scandinavian parlia-ments. One of d’Estournelles’s majorachievements was the creation of theAssociation for International Concilia-tion in 1905 and the founding of itsjournal, International Conciliation.

At the Second Hague Conference,held in 1907, d’Estournelles once morerepresented France and again cam-paigned for the adoption of interna-

B E E R N A E R T & D ’ E S T O U R N E L L E S D E C O N S T A N T • 4 5

Paul d’Estournelles de ConstantB O R N

November 22, 1852La Flêche, France

D I E D

May 15, 1924Paris, France

E D U C AT I O N

Law license, École de droit, Paris(1874); studied at the École deslangues Orientales, Paris (1874–75)

O C C U PAT I O N

Diplomat; statesman


French chargé d’affaires, London(1890–93); member, French parlia-ment (1895–1924); founder, Associ-ation for International Conciliation(1905) and its journal; member,Hague Tribunal (1907–14); authorof numerous articles and books onpolitics and history


tional arbitration. That same year hewas appointed to a seat on the HagueTribunal. D’Estournelles’s tireless workon behalf of peace earned him a shareof the Nobel Peace Prize two yearslater. The citation accompanying theaward gave him credit for the signingof several French arbitration treaties,and it praised his efforts to persuadeother nations to adopt similar treaties.

During his visits to the UnitedStates, d’Estournelles had met AndrewCarnegie, the industrialist and philan-thropist who had used his fortune forthe betterment of humanity.

In 1910, Carnegie founded a lead-ing peace organization, the CarnegieEndowment for International Peace,whose director was the educatorNicholas Murray Butler. D’Estournelleshad established a friendship with But-ler, and their relationship paved theway for d’Estournelles’s appointment ashead of the Carnegie Endowment’s Eu-ropean branch. The Carnegie Endow-ment subsequently took over the publi-cation of International Conciliation.

The historical bitterness that exist-ed between France and Germany hadlong been of concern to d’Estournelles,and in the years prior to the outbreakof World War I, he tried to improvetheir relationship. Hatred of Germanywas very strong among the French, par-ticularly since France’s defeat by theGermans in the Franco-Prussian War(1870–71). In 1903, d’Estournelles hadtraveled to Munich to found a Franco-German society for mutual understand-ing. Six years later, he returned to Germany, this time to Berlin, where he delivered a speech to the legislaturecalling for the two countries to putaside their differences as a step towardworld peace.

Despite the efforts of d’Estournellesand others, Germany and France againwent to war with each other in 1914.

During the four years that World War Iraged in Europe, d’Estournelles turnedhis attention to helping his country-men through the conflict. He made ex-tensive studies of submarine warfareand advised the government on meth-ods of countering German sub attacks.To help care for the thousands of casu-alties, he turned the family château inthe Loire Valley into a hospital. At theend of the war, he joined with LéonBourgeois in drawing up a proposal forthe formation of the League of Na-tions, and submitted the proposal tothe prime minister, GeorgesClemenceau.

In the remaining years of his life,d’Estournelles encouraged and orga-nized more parliamentary exchangevisits. For relaxation, he turned to writ-ing, making translations of ancientGreek literature, and publishing a his-tory of classical Greece as well as aplay. His last public act occurred in1921, when he attended the Interpar-liamentary Union conference in Stock-holm. There he made an impassionedplea for fairness toward the Germandelegation, who were being treatedwith hostility. The plea was a failure,and he returned to his home in Parissad and dejected. D’Estournelles diedthere in May 1924, at the age of 71.


Abrams, Irwin. “Paul d’Estournelles deConstant.” In The Nobel Peace Prize and theLaureates. Boston: G.K. Hall, 1988.

“Beernaert, Auguste.” In Biographical Dic-tionary of Modern Peace Leaders. Edited byHarold Josephson. Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1985.

Davis, Hayne, ed. Among the World’s Peace-makers. 1907. Reprint, New York: Garland,1972.

he suggestion for an International Peace Bu-reau was first made by the Danish writer andpeace activist Fredrik Bajer. Bajer offered theproposal in 1890, while he was in London at-tending the second international conference

of the Interparliamentary Union, which had been founded ayear earlier. During the preceding decade, peace societieshad sprung up all over the world, and Bajer thought that anorganization was needed to gather and share informationabout them.

At the Interparliamentary Union’s next annual confer-ence, held in 1891 in Rome, Bajer’s idea took root. A Swissrepresentative, Élie Ducommun, was named by an organizingcommittee to create the International Peace Bureau—IPB—to be headquartered in Bern, Switzerland. The IPB becamethe central office of the International Union of Peace Soci-eties—IUPS—and began work in December 1891. Its state-ment of purpose promised “to coordinate the activities of thepeace societies and promote the concept of peaceful settle-ment of international disputes.” The IPB was financed bycontributions from IUPS members. Ducommun became thefirst director of the IPB and held that post for 15 years.

Ducommun worked tirelessly—and without pay—on be-half of the International Peace Bureau. He organized annualinternational peace conferences, prepared and circulatedpublications describing the activities of IUPS member orga-nizations, and assembled a library of books and other printedmaterials on peace and disarmament. After Ducommun’sdeath in 1906, his fellow Swiss Charles Albert Gobat servedas director of the IPB for three years.

In 1910, nearly two decades after its founding, the Inter-national Peace Bureau was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.The citation from the Nobel Committee that accompaniedthe award noted that Alfred Nobel had intended his moneyto “support, accelerate, and promote the peace movement,”and it expressed the hope and expectation that the IPBwould use the prize money with those goals in mind.

When World War I broke out in 1914, the IUPS ceasedto function, but the International Peace Bureau remainedopen in Bern. When the war ended in 1918, the IPB becameactive in coordinating the work of various relief and human-itarian organizations. The IPB played an active role in theformation of the League of Nations in 1919, and henceforthworked closely with this new international organization. In1925, the IPB moved its offices to Geneva, Switzerland, thesite of the League’s headquarters.

The League of Nations all but collapsed with the out-break of World War II in 1939, and the International Peace

InternationalPeace Bureau

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T

I N T E R N A T I O N A L P E A C E B U R E A U • 4 7


InternationalPeace BureauF O U N D E R S

Proposed by Fredrik Bajer of Den-mark; founded by Élie Ducommunof Switzerland

F O U N D I N G

1891Rome, Italy


Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

To coordinate the activities ofpeace societies and to promote theconcept of peaceful settlement ofinternational disputes


Sponsored major conferences onpeace and peace-related topics andpublished their proceedings princi-pal backer of the League of Nations;today works closely with the UnitedNations on peace issues, such as dis-armament and weapons testing


Bureau became inactive. During thewar years, its assets were placed underthe supervision of the Swiss govern-ment. After the war, representatives offormer member organizations met inGeneva to reactivate the IPB. At thattime they formed the International Li-aison Committee of Organizations forPeace—ILCOP. In 1961, ILCOP wasformally recognized by the Swiss gov-ernment as the legal successor to theInternational Peace Bureau, and it re-ceived IPB’s monetary assets. IPB’sarchives, including its extensive library,were transferred to the United Nationslibrary in Geneva. One year later, in1962, ILCOP renamed itself the Inter-national Peace Bureau.

More than a century after itsfounding, the International Peace Bu-reau continues to function as an orga-nization dedicated to furthering thecause of peace. It serves as a clearing-house for information about peace or-ganizations, organizes internationalconferences on specific peace-relatedissues, and works closely with the United Nations on various activities. It has an official status within the UNas permanent consultant to the Unit-ed Nations Economic and SocialCouncil.

One of the major postwar concernsof the International Peace Bureau hasbeen disarmament. In 1974, the IPBsponsored a nongovernmental confer-ence on weapons reduction at BradfordUniversity, in England. Proposals madeat the Bradford Conference paved the way for the UN’s First Special Ses-sion on Disarmament in 1978. IPB-organized symposia on compulsory mili-tary service and human rights have alsoled to United Nations conferences onthese issues, and the InternationalPeace Bureau has played a prominent

role in international efforts to ban nu-clear testing.

Membership in the InternationalPeace Bureau is open to any organiza-tion working for peace and internation-al cooperation; representatives of mem-ber organizations determine policy andelect IPB officials. Nonvoting member-ship is open to individuals who supportthe organization’s aims. In addition toconference reports, books, and pam-phlets, the IPB publishes a bimonthlyjournal, Geneva Monitor, which is circu-lated throughout the world.

Officially, the International PeaceBureau was awarded only one NobelPeace Prize, in 1910. But many otherwinners of the prize have been closelyassociated with the IPB, including KlasArnoldson, Tobias Asser, Fredrik Bajer,Élie Ducommun, William Cremer,Henri Dunant, Alfred Fried, CharlesAlbert Gobat, Henri La Fontaine, SeánMacBride, Ernesto Moneta, AlvaMyrdal, Philip Noel-Baker, FrédéricPassy, Linus Pauling, and Bertha vonSuttner. This list includes not only theIPB’s “founding fathers” but also men—and one woman—who were able to usethe resources of the IPB in their ownefforts to promote the cause of peace.


Ducommun, Élie. “The Permanent Inter-national Bureau of Peace.” The Indepen-dent, March 19, 1903, pp. 660–61.

Simon, Werner. “The International PeaceBureau, 1892–1917.” In Peace Movementsand Political Cultures. Edited by CharlesChatfield and Peter van den Dungen.Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press,1988.

The International Peace Bureau: History,Aims, Activities. Geneva: InternationalPeace Bureau, 1969.

t the age of 73, and less than two years be-fore his death, Dutch statesman and juristTobias Asser was named cowinner of the1911 Nobel Peace Prize for his work on be-half of international arbitration. Asser had

undeniably spent most of his lifetime in the cause of peace,but he made two of his most significant contributions nearly40 years earlier, when he was a young attorney. At the age of31, he had cofounded the first scholarly journal on interna-tional law. Four years later, he cofounded the Institute of In-ternational Law, the first organization dedicated to peacefulresolutions of disputes among nations.

Tobias Asser seemed destined from the day of his birth,in 1838, to enter the legal profession. His father, grandfather,and an uncle were lawyers and prominent members of theJewish community in their home city of Amsterdam. Tobiasbriefly considered becoming a businessman when he won anessay competition on economic theory while in his teens.However, he entered Amsterdam’s law school, theAthenaeum, after completing secondary school, and re-ceived a doctorate in the field in 1860.

Asser had his first encounter with international law aftergraduation, when he served on a commission to negotiatethe end of shipping fees on Europe’s Rhine River. After-wards, he practiced law privately for a year, then accepted anappointment in 1862 as professor of international and com-mercial (business) law at the Athenaeum. Despite his rela-tive youth—he was only 24 when he joined the faculty—Asser soon became well established as a scholar in the grow-ing field of international law through the publication ofmany articles and books. Throughout his career, Asser urgedthat nations develop peaceful relations with one anotherthrough adherence to law. In particular, in his writings andlater as a negotiator, he encouraged national legislatures topass laws in their own countries that conformed to the prin-ciples of international law.

In 1869, Asser, together with fellow legal scholars Gustave Rolin-Jacquemyns of Belgium and John Westlake ofEngland, founded the Revue de Droit International et de Legis-lation Comparée (Review of International Law and ComparativeLegislation). The Revue, the first scholarly journal on the sub-ject of international law, became the leading publication inthe field, and Asser contributed many articles. The successof the journal led Asser to join with Rolin-Jacquemyns andothers in founding the Institute of International Law inGhent, Belgium, in 1873.

Beginning in the mid-1870s, Asser served as a legal ad-viser to the Dutch government. He became a sought-after

A S S E R & F R I E D • 4 9

ATobias AsserAlfred Fried

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Dutch legal scholar Tobias Asser helped found the Institute ofInternational Law in 1873 and devoted the remainder of his lifeto promoting the cause of internationalism.

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negotiator in his country’s dealingswith other nations, not only because ofhis legal knowledge and skills but alsobecause he was fluent in several lan-guages, including English. Virtuallyevery treaty signed by the Dutch be-tween 1875 and 1913 was negotiatedby Asser. Among the most important ofthese was the Suez Canal Conventionof 1888, which guaranteed the neutrali-ty of this major waterway in time ofwar. Asser’s contribution to the signingof the Suez Canal Convention wastwofold: not only was he a major nego-tiator on behalf of the Dutch govern-ment, but the Institute of InternationalLaw, which he had cofounded, is givencredit for drawing up the convention

and securing its adoption by repre-sentatives from countries around theworld.

Asser retired from the law facultyat the Athenaeum (which is now partof the University of Amsterdam) in1893, when he was appointed to theDutch Council of State, the adminis-trative governing body of the Nether-lands. As a member of the council, hehelped organize and presided over fourmajor international law conferencesthat were held at The Hague, Nether-lands, in the 1890s and early 1900s. He also served as the chief delegatefrom the Netherlands to the First andSecond Hague Conferences, in 1899and 1907, respectively.



Tobias AsserB O R N

April 29, 1838Amsterdam, Netherlands

D I E D

July 29, 1913The Hague, Netherlands

E D U C AT I O N

L.L.D., Amsterdam Athenaeum(1860)

O C C U PAT I O N

Jurist; statesman


Cofounder, Revue de Droit Interna-tional et de Legislation Comparée;cofounder and later honorary presi-dent, Institute of International Law;cofounder and member, Hague Tribunal

The “Peace Palace” at The Hague in the Netherlands, site of the Hague Tribunal.

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At both Hague Conferences, Asserwas a strong supporter of compulsoryarbitration, calling for internationaltreaties that would require feuding na-tions to settle their differences by nego-tiation instead of going to war. At theFirst Hague Conference, Asser helpedcreate the Permanent Court of Arbitra-tion, also known as the Hague Tri-bunal, the first world court. He was ap-pointed a judge of the Hague Tribunalin 1900, and during the followingdecade he helped resolve a number ofinternational disputes, including onebetween the United States and Russiaover fishing rights in the Bering Strait.

Asser’s career reached its peak in1904 with his appointment as Dutchminister of state. This was the highest-ranking government position then opento a commoner in the Netherlands, andhe served in this post for the rest of hislife. Asser received many honors, in-cluding honorary degrees from majorEuropean and British universities. Sev-eral of his books became standard textsin the fields of international and com-mercial law.

Asser was married and had fourchildren. He left behind his famous li-brary, which included major works oninternational law. After his death, thelibrary was donated to the Peace Palaceat The Hague, where it is known as theAsser Collection.

Alfred Fried, cowinner of the 1911Nobel Peace Prize, had only a highschool education. He was born in Vien-na in 1864 to Jewish parents; the occu-pation of his father is unknown, butone of his uncles was the publisher of aleading periodical in the city. WhyFried left school at the age of 15 is un-clear; perhaps there were financialproblems, or perhaps he was just impa-tient to begin earning his own living.Whatever the reason, Fried became abookseller in Vienna—and prospered.He moved to Berlin and in 1887 found-ed his own publishing company. Twoyears later he married for the first time.

During the next two decades, he mar-ried a second and a third time, butthere is no record of his having anychildren.

As a publisher of books and maga-zines, and to further educate himself,Fried read widely and taught himselfseveral other languages in addition tohis native German. Around 1890 hediscovered the works of the Viennesepacifist Bertha von Suttner, whose an-tiwar novel Die Waffen nieder had be-come a bestseller in 1889. Suttner’swritings changed Fried’s life, and he de-cided that he would devote himself tothe cause of world peace. Perhaps Friedthought that he was destined for such arole: his name, after all, was the Ger-man word for “peace.”

In 1891, Fried founded a peacejournal with the same name as Suttner’s famous novel, Die Waffennieder (literally, “No More Arms”) andpersuaded Suttner to be the editor. Ayear later, inspired by Suttner’s cre-ation of the Austrian Peace Society,Fried created the German Peace Soci-ety in Berlin. In 1894, Fried replacedDie Waffen nieder with a new peacejournal, Die Friedenswaret (The PeaceWatch), which he edited himself. DieFriedenswarte became a well-knownand well-respected periodical, and theleading publication of the worldwidepeace movement.

During most of the 1890s, as na-tions increased their manufacture ofweapons, Fried published books and articles calling for arms limitation andthe adoption of international laws toprevent war. After attending the FirstHague Conference in 1899, he becameconvinced that peace activists couldnot just support these positions and ex-pect them to be adopted. The publicneeded to be educated about the mean-ing of war before it could be made tounderstand why disarmament and in-ternational arbitration had to be thebasis for lasting peace. Fried believedthat war was a symptom of an even


A S S E R & F R I E D • 5 1

Alfred FriedB O R N

November 11, 1864Vienna, Austria

D I E D

May 6, 1921Vienna, Austria

E D U C AT I O N

Attended local secondary school

O C C U PAT I O N

Publisher; journalist


Founded peace journals Die Waffennieder, Die Friedenswarte, and Annu-aire de la Vie Internationale; authorof more than 70 books and pam-phlets and numerous articles on thepeace movement, including Hand-buch der Friedensbewegung (1911);cofounder, Society for InternationalUnderstanding

greater problem, international anarchy.(Anarchy is the absence of govern-ment, usually resulting in disorganiza-tion and violence.) Peace could thus beachieved only through international-ism—that is, by all nations placingthemselves under world law.

Fried tried to redirect the atten-tions of the German Peace Society tohis new commitment but was unable todo so. Finally, in 1903, he withdrewfrom the society and moved back to Vi-enna, where he continued his publish-ing efforts on behalf of international-ism. In 1905, he founded the Annuairede la Vie Internationale (Annual of Inter-national Life), a yearbook chroniclingthe achievements of various peace soci-eties throughout the world.

In the following years, he wroteseveral books in support of internation-alism, the most important of which wasthe Handbuch der Friedensbewegung(Handbook of the Peace Movement).Published in 1911, the Handbuch in-cluded a history of the peace move-ment and its major conferences as wellas biographies of leading pacifists; italso contained a directory of leadingpeace societies.

Fried was named cowinner of the1911 Nobel Peace Prize for his commit-ment to pacifism and his work on be-half of internationalism. The citationaccompanying the award noted thatFried was self-educated, and it praisedhim for his persistence in masteringscholarly writings on international lawand politics.

During the next three years, Friedcontinued his work in Vienna as a pub-lisher and writer, and as an editor ofpeace publications. He was active inseveral peace organizations, includingthe Society for International Under-

standing, which he helped to establish.When World War I broke out in 1914,Fried openly criticized Austria for itsrole in the conflict. The governmentresponded by accusing him of hightreason, and he had to flee the countryto escape prosecution. He settled inSwitzerland and worked for four yearson behalf of humane treatment for pris-oners of war.

Fried remained in Switzerland afterthe 1918 armistice and later publisheda memoir of his experiences during thewar called Mein Kriegstagebuch (MyWar Journal). He supported the Leagueof Nations when it was founded in1919 and voiced his hopes that the or-ganization would keep the peace by in-spiring adherence to the rule of law. Heopposed the use of the League as an in-ternational police force.

But no one seemed to care anymore about Fried’s views. Ironically,Austria’s defeat, which Fried had sup-ported, led to the loss of most of his as-sets, and he returned to Vienna in 1920a poor and forgotten man. He spent thelast year of his life suffering from illnessand extreme poverty, and died of a lunginfection in May 1921.


Abrams, Irwin. “The Emergence of the In-ternational Law Societies.” Review of Poli-tics 19 (1957), 361–80.

———. “Tobias Asser.” In The Nobel PeacePrize and the Laureates. Boston: G. K. Hall,1988.

“Fried, Alfred Hermann.” In BiographicalDictionary of Modern Peace Leaders. Editedby Harold Josephson. Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1985.


Alfred Fried was introduced to pacifismthrough the writings of Bertha von Suttner and became a leader of the German peace movement.

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rowing up in the small college town of Clin-ton, New York, in the mid-19th century,young Elihu Root seemed likely to distin-guish himself someday as a mathematician.The boy was brilliant in all his school sub-jects, but the family’s interests focused onmath and science. His father was a widelyrespected mathematics professor at Hamil-

ton College, a short walk from the family home, and whenElihu entered Hamilton at the age of 15, a career like his fa-ther’s seemed likely.

More than 50 years later, Elihu Root received a NobelPrize, which is generally considered the most prestigiousaward in the world. In old age, Root had clearly fulfilled hisearly promise. But he did not win the Nobel Prize for Math-ematics. Root was awarded the 1912 Nobel Peace Prize—inrecognition of his service as one of America’s, and theworld’s, most distinguished statesmen.

The third oldest of four brothers, Elihu Root was born in1845 in Clinton. The family was warm and close-knit, andOren and Nancy Root encouraged a love of both learningand nature in their sons, as well as a strong sense of civic re-sponsibility. After Elihu graduated from Hamilton at the topof his class in 1864, at the age of 19, he earned money forgraduate study by teaching for several terms at a local sec-ondary school. By now he had decided that mathematicswould not be his career. In 1865, he moved to New YorkCity and enrolled at New York University’s law school.

Root was admitted to the bar in 1867 and immediatelywent to work for a prominent law firm in the city. Two yearslater he opened his own law office and quickly becameknown as one of the leading corporate lawyers in New York.During the 1870s, Root married—his wife was the daughterof the editor of Scientific American—and became active in Republican politics. His first appointment to public officecame in 1883, when he was named U.S. Attorney for theSouthern District of New York. Root held this post for twoyears and distinguished himself for his fight against graft and corruption in city government. He then returned to hislaw practice while continuing as a leader in the local Repub-lican party.

In 1898, Root was a leading supporter of the Republicancandidate, Theodore Roosevelt, in his successful race forgovernor. Root’s prominence in the party, combined with hislegal expertise, led to his appointment in 1899 as Republi-can President William McKinley’s Secretary of War. Rootheld this position for five years, serving both McKinley andhis successor, Theodore Roosevelt. He proved to be a skilledadministrator and reformed many of the War Department’soperations; among his accomplishments was the creation ofthe Army War College in Washington, D.C.

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GElihu Root

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As U.S. Secretary of State, Elihu Root was a firm supporter of international arbitration. He believed that world peace wouldcome only when people were no longer willing to tolerate war.

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As Secretary of War, Root also hada major effect on U.S. policy abroad. Asa result of its victory in the Spanish-American War (1898), the UnitedStates had obtained several coloniesformerly belonging to Spain, includingthe Philippines and Cuba. Root’s re-sponsibilities included overseeing thegovernance of these colonies, and he iscredited with major contributions totheir economic and social development,including improvements in education,sanitation, and labor conditions.

In 1904, Root left the cabinet toresume private law practice, but a yearlater he returned to Washington, D.C.,as President Roosevelt’s Secretary ofState. The United States had nowemerged as a world power, and Roo-sevelt believed that it had the responsi-bility of taking a leadership role inworking for international peace. Rootshared Roosevelt’s views, and he carriedout the President’s wishes by acting as aconciliator—a person who tries to solvedisagreements peacefully—in disputesthat arose with other nations, ratherthan taking a hostile attitude thatmight result in the outbreak of war.

Root is credited with the peacefulsettlement of many international dis-agreements. Among them were severaldifferences between the United Statesand Great Britain over such issues asfishing rights in the North Atlantic,and border relations between the Unit-ed States and Canada. In 1908, he ne-gotiated the Root-Takahira Agreement,an important milestone in U.S.-Japan-ese relations in which both countriespledged their support for peaceful rela-tions in the Far East.

In the western hemisphere, Rootworked to promote better understand-ing between the United States andSouth America. At the third Pan-American Conference, held in Rio deJaneiro, Brazil, in 1906, Root made awidely praised speech in which he as-sured Latin American nations that theUnited States respected their indepen-dence and sovereignty. In 1907, at theCentral American Peace Conferencecosponsored by Mexico and the UnitedStates and held in Washington, D.C.,Root proposed and saw the establish-ment of the Central American Courtof Justice, a judicial body that applied

In 1904, as Secretary of War, Root (seat-ed, second from left) meets with U.S.Army generals. During his four years inthat office, Root worked for peace in theWestern Hemisphere.

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E L I H U R O O T • 5 5

Elihu RootB O R N

February 15, 1845Clinton, New York

D I E D

February 7, 1937New York, New York

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Hamilton College (1864);J.D., New York University (1867)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; statesman


U.S. Secretary of War (1899–1904);U.S. Secretary of State (1905–9);cofounder, Central American Courtof Justice; U.S. Senator (1909–15);member and president, Hague Tri-bunal (1913); cofounder, AmericanSociety of International Law; presi-dent, Carnegie Endowment for In-ternational Peace (1910–24)

international law to disputes betweenCentral American countries.

After leaving the cabinet in 1909,Root continued to be active in publicservice while continuing his commit-ment to furthering the rule of interna-tional law. He was elected to the U.S.Senate in 1909 and served a six-yearterm. He was also appointed to theHague Tribunal and later served a termas its president. During this periodRoot cofounded the American Societyof International Law, and in 1910 hebecame president of the Carnegie En-dowment for International Peace.

Root received the 1912 NobelPeace Prize in recognition of his workfor peaceful relations in the westernhemisphere, for his contributions toU.S. colonies years earlier, and for hislong commitment to the use of arbitra-tion to resolve international disputes.In his acceptance address, Root offeredhis thoughts on the cause of war, whichhe said sprang from the uncivilized sideof human nature. He maintained thatno international body could imposeand enforce peace. Rather, he believedthat a peaceful world would evolvenaturally as humankind became in-creasingly unwilling to tolerate thehorrors and cruelty of war.

During World War I, Root contin-ued to work for peace as president of theCarnegie Endowment. After the war, hesupported the establishment of theLeague of Nations but failed to persuadeAmerican political leaders to approveU.S. membership in that organization.

Root finally retired from nearly alifetime of public service in 1924, re-signing as head of the Carnegie Endow-ment in his 80th year. He spent his re-tirement with his family, including chil-dren and grandchildren, in New YorkCity and at the old Root home in Clinton. Although he was wealthy andsocially prominent, Root lived simply

and in old age still counted naturestudy as one of his most enjoyable pas-times. He died in New York City inFebruary 1937, eight days before his92nd birthday.


Andrew Carnegie’s Peace Endowment. 2vols. New York: Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, 1985.

Carnegie, Andrew. Autobiography of An-drew Carnegie. 1920. Reprint, Boston:Northeastern University Press, 1986.

Harlow, Alvin F. Andrew Carnegie. NewYork: Julian Messner, 1953.

Jessup, Philip C. Elihu Root. 2 vols. 1938.Reprint. New York: Archon Books, 1964.

Leopold, Richard. Elihu Root and the Con-servative Tradition. Boston: Little, Brown,1954.

“Root, Elihu.” In Dictionary of American Bi-ography. Supplement 2. New York: Scribn-ers, 1958.

Swetnam, George. Andrew Carnegie. NewYork: Twayne, 1980.

U.S. industrialist Andrew Carnegie usedpart of his considerable fortune to estab-lish the Carnegie Endowment for Interna-tional Peace in 1910, and he named hisfriend Elihu Root as its first director.

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hen the Nobel Peace Prize is awardedeach fall, there is sometimes a “silentwinner,” someone whose own actionscontributed to the achievements ofthe actual winner. Such was the case

in 1913, when the Belgian politician Henri La Fontaine wasnamed that year’s Peace Prize recipient. La Fontaine certain-ly deserved the award, for by then he had been a leader ofthe peace movement for three decades. But La Fontainemight not have received the Peace Prize if it had not beenfor a man named Hodgson Pratt.

Pratt was one of England’s leading pacifists in the secondhalf of the 19th century. He traveled to Belgium in 1883 ona speaking tour to promote the cause of peace and to estab-lish a branch of the International Arbitration and Peace As-sociation, which he had cofounded in 1880. Henri LaFontaine, a young attorney with an interest in education,came to hear Pratt speak at a public forum one evening inBrussels. He was riveted by Pratt’s speech—so much so thatthe peace movement commanded La Fontaine’s attention forthe rest of his life.


Henri La Fontaine believed that improved working conditionsand expanded educational opportunities would lead to the es-tablishment of world peace.

Henri La Fontaine

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P E A C E M A K E R SHenri La Fontaine was born inBrussels in 1854. His father was a high-ranking official in the finance depart-ment of the Belgian government. LaFontaine attended local elementaryand secondary schools, then enteredthe city’s Free University, where hestudied law. After receiving a doctoratein 1877, he became an associate of theBrussels Court of Appeals. La Fon-taine’s interest in education led to hisappointment a year later as an adminis-trator at a new technical school forwomen in Brussels. While working asan attorney he also devoted consider-able time to running the school, andthe educational methods he devisedbecame a model for similar schoolselsewhere in Europe. La Fontaine was alifelong supporter of women’s rightsand particularly of the admission ofmore women into the legal profession,and he served for a time as president ofthe Association for the Professional Ed-ucation of Women.

Following his fateful encounter withHodgson Pratt in 1883, La Fontaine didnot give up his legal and educational ca-reer and interests. Instead, he made lawand education the focus of his dedica-tion to the peace movement. He be-came a specialist in international law,and cofounded the New Universitywithin the Free University for the pur-pose of study in international relations.When the Belgian branch of Pratt’s International Arbitration and Peace Association was finally established inBrussels in the late 1880s, La Fontainebecame its secretary-general.

La Fontaine became increasinglyconvinced that direct political actionwas needed to achieve internationalpeace. Beginning in 1891, he becameactive in the Belgian Socialist partyand cofounded the party journal, LaJustice. In 1895, he was elected to theBelgian senate. He held this seat fornearly four decades, during which healso served as secretary and later vicepresident of the senate.

As a politician, La Fontaine sup-ported the expansion of educationalopportunity and improvements inworking conditions. He believed thatthese domestic social reforms were nec-essary to create national stability—andthat national stability would pave theway for eventual world peace. In for-eign affairs, La Fontaine was an inter-nationalist: he supported disarmamentand arbitration, encouraged the forma-tion of an economic union betweenBelgium and the tiny neighboringcountry of Luxembourg, and afterWorld War I fully endorsed the Leagueof Nations.

Despite his full-time work as apolitician, La Fontaine also continuedhis peace-related activities in the fieldof education. As an expert in the cre-ation and structure of world judicialbodies, or courts, La Fontaine was ap-pointed professor of international lawat the New University in 1893, and heheld this post until 1940. He not onlytaught this subject at the university,but gave many public lectures on disar-mament and other aspects of interna-tional relations.

In another effort to educate thepublic about international affairs, LaFontaine cofounded the House of Doc-umentation in Brussels in 1895. This“peace library,” funded by the Belgiangovernment, included thousands ofpublications from all over the world oninternational issues. La Fontaine notonly directed the collecting of thesepublications but also supervised theirindexing and filing according to a clas-sification system that he helped devise.The House of Documentation latercompiled bibliographies on various top-ics in international relations and thepeace movement.

In 1907, La Fontaine cofounded apublishing wing of the House of Docu-mentation called the Union of Interna-tional Associations. This organization,which La Fontaine directed until his death, published reference works

H E N R I L A F O N T A I N E • 5 7

Henri LaFontaineB O R N

April 22, 1854Brussels, Belgium

D I E D

May 14, 1943Brussels, Belgium

E D U C AT I O N

Doctor of Jurisprudence, Free Uni-versity, Brussels (1877)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney, professor, politician


Member, Belgian senate (1895–98,1900–32, 1935–36); cofounder,House of Documentation, a majorpeace library in Brussels; cofounder,Union of International Associa-tions, a publisher of peace litera-ture; president, International PeaceBureau (1907); author of severalimportant books on internationalrelations, including Histoire docu-mentaire des arbitrages internationaux,1794–1900 (1902) and The GreatSolution (1916)


relating to the peace movement, in-cluding directories, bibliographies, theperiodical La Vie Internationale (Inter-national Life), and the Yearbook of International Organizations. The Unionof International Associations becameaffiliated with the United Nations in 1951.

Also in 1907, La Fontaine suc-ceeded Fredrik Bajer as president of the International Peace Bureau, and hebecame a delegate to the Interparlia-mentary Union. La Fontaine wasnamed chairman of the union’s judicialcommittee, and also served on com-missions that drafted plans for a modelworld parliament and an internationalarbitration treaty.

La Fontaine wrote several books oninternational relations that became im-portant documents of the peace move-ment. Histoire documentaire des arbitragesinternationaux, 1794–1900 (1902) is ahistory of every arbitration treaty in theWestern world during a 106-year peri-od. Bibliographie de la paix et de l’arbitrageinternational (Bibliography of Peace andInternational Arbitration, 1904) is a stan-dard reference work containing morethan 2,000 entries.

When he was awarded the NobelPeace Prize in 1913, La Fontaine wasconsidered the head of the popularpeace movement in Europe. Worriedabout the approach of war, La Fontainedid not attend the ceremonies in Oslo.Several months later, his fears becamereality when German troops invadedBelgium. La Fontaine fled to Englandand then the United States, where hesettled in Washington, D.C.

La Fontaine spent the war years inAmerica, where he wrote an importantbook in English, The Great Solution,published in Boston in 1916. The workis a guidebook that outlines the princi-ples of peaceful international relationsand describes how to set up interna-tional governing organizations; it waslater used to create the framework ofthe League of Nations.

La Fontaine returned to Belgiumafter the war ended in 1918. The fol-lowing year he served as a member ofthe Belgian delegation to the ParisPeace Conference, and in 1920 hejoined his country’s delegation to thefirst meeting of the League of Nations.

During the 1920s and 1930s, LaFontaine continued his work with theInterparliamentary Union and theHouse of Documentation, and he servedin the Belgian senate until his retire-ment in 1936. Despite this busy sched-ule, La Fontaine—sometimes joined byhis wife, whom he had married in1903—also found time to pursue hislongtime interest in mountain climbing(he served for a time as president of theBelgian Alpine Club). He also enjoyedpainting and music, and he wrote andpublished poetry. La Fontaine died inMay 1943 in Brussels at the age of 89.Sadly, his country was once again underGerman occupation, following its inva-sion by Nazi troops in 1940.

And what of Hodgson Pratt, theman who had turned Henri LaFontaine into a peace activist morethan half a century earlier? Pratt con-tinued his activities on behalf of peace,traveling widely in Europe and theUnited States and helping to foundlocal peace and arbitration societies.He was even proposed as a candidatefor the 1906 Nobel Peace Prize, butTheodore Roosevelt won instead. Prattdied a year later, at the age of 83, inLondon.


Davis, Hayne, ed. Among the World’s Peace-Makers. 1907. Reprint, New York: Gar-land, 1972.

“La Fontaine, Henri.” In Biographical Dic-tionary of Modern Peace Leaders. Edited byHarold Josephson. Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1985.

Hodgson Pratt (1824–1907), a prominent19th-century British pacifist, convertedmany, including Henri La Fontaine, to thecause of peace through his speeches andwritings.Though many members of thepeace movement, including La Fontaine,believed he deserved the Nobel PeacePrize, Pratt never received the award.

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he International Committee of the RedCross grew out of the dream of a single per-son, Henri Dunant, the Swiss businessmanwhose book, Un Souvenir de Solferino, re-

counted the horrors he had witnessed during the bloody Bat-tle of Solferino in 1859. Dunant had organized volunteers totreat the wounded after the battle, and in his book he calledfor a formally established relief effort that could be mobilizedin future wars.

Dunant’s book was widely read and evoked concernthroughout the Western world for the treatment of war vic-tims. A small charitable organization in his home city, theGeneva Public Welfare Society, decided to take action byappointing a committee, which included Dunant, to studyhis proposal and recommend further action. In October1863, the committee sponsored an international conferencein Geneva attended by representatives of 16 nations. Thesenations agreed to set up war relief organizations in their owncountries and to have their efforts coordinated by a centralcommittee, headquartered in Geneva, which they named

I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O M M I T T E E O F T H E R E D C R O S S • 5 9

International Committee ofthe Red Cross

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A Red Cross nurse treats a wounded German soldier at a temporary hospital in Abbeville, France, during World War I. Founded in1863, the Red Cross developed into a major relief organization during the war, which lasted from 1914 to 1918.

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the International Committee of theRed Cross. These efforts would befunded by both government and pri-vate contributions. As a symbol oftheir work, the new organizationadopted the symbol of a red cross on awhite background, a reversal of the col-ors on the Swiss flag. The organization,at both the national and internationallevel, quickly became known simply asthe Red Cross.

At the organizing conference, dele-gates had also drafted proposals for atreaty that would guarantee neutral sta-tus to war relief workers. In August1864, representatives from 12 nations,called together by the Swiss govern-ment, gathered in Geneva to formallyapprove such a treaty. Its official titlewas “the Convention for the Ameliora-tion of the Condition of the Woundedand Sick in Armed Forces in the

Field,” but it became known as the1864 Geneva Convention.

During a war between Denmarkand Prussia in the first half of 1864—before the formal ratification of theGeneva Convention—several RedCross–sponsored relief efforts had easedsuffering on the battlefield. In variousconflicts that erupted among Europeannations in the late 19th and early 20thcenturies, the Red Cross continued itsefforts, though they were often limited.The organization became stronger asmore nations formed their own RedCross chapters, including the UnitedStates, where Clara Barton founded theAmerican Red Cross in 1881. In Mus-lim countries, chapters of the Interna-tional Committee were called RedCrescent Societies. (For many cen-turies, Muslims have used the crescentas a religious and political symbol.)

Medical supplies are delivered to a RedCross field station in Germany duringWorld War I. From the outset, the RedCross was a neutral organization thatserved victims on all sides of military conflicts.

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The Red Cross developed into amajor international relief society dur-ing World War I (1914–18). Much ofthis relief centered on medical aid. Vol-unteers from member nations aroundthe world staffed hospitals, drove am-bulances, prepared bandages and reliefparcels, and performed countless othertasks to aid the wounded. A major ac-complishment of the Red Cross duringthe war, however, was the work of asubunit set up by the InternationalCommittee in Geneva and known asthe International Prisoners’ Relief andInformation Agency (IPRIA).

IPRIA was established soon afterthe war’s outbreak in August 1914.Staffed by more than a thousand vol-unteers, this agency functioned as aclearinghouse for information on thestatus of missing soldiers. During thenext four years, the agency traced andkept records on more than 7 millionprisoners. It acted as a clearinghousefor messages between prisoners andtheir families, and distributed morethan 2 million parcels containing food,clothing, and other personal items.

When agency volunteers traveledto prison camps to deliver messages andpackages, they tried to determinewhether or not prisoners were beingtreated humanely, in accordance withinternational agreements signed at theSecond Hague Conference in 1907.These volunteers often had to forcetheir way into the camps to inspect liv-ing conditions, but their persistencepaid off: their reports on what they sawled to major improvements in thetreatment of prisoners of war. Otheragency efforts often secured the releaseof prisoners, either for repatriation—re-turn to their home country—or for carein Switzerland, a neutral nation, untilthe war’s end.

The work of IPRIA earned theNobel Peace Prize for the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross in 1917, ayear before the war finally ended—and16 years after its presentation to HenriDunant, the founding father of the RedCross. This was the only Peace Prizeawarded during World War I.

The International Committee ofthe Red Cross was awarded the NobelPeace Prize twice more, for the years1944 and 1963. To read about its activ-ities after World War I, see pages 118-19 and pages 176-77.

F U RT H E R R E A D I N GBurton, David H. Clara Barton: In the Ser-vice of Humanity. Westport, Conn.: Green-wood Press, 1995.

Durand, André. From Sarajevo to Hiroshi-ma: History of the International Committee ofthe Red Cross. Geneva: Henri Dunant In-stitute, 1984.

Epstein, Beryl, and Sam Epstein. The Storyof the International Red Cross. New York:Nelson, 1963.


Joyce, James A. Red Cross International andthe Strategy of Peace. New York: Oceana,1959.

Oates, Stephen B. A Woman of Valor:Clara Barton and the Civil War. New York:Free Press, 1994.

Stevenson, Augusta. Clara Barton, Founderof the American Red Cross. Indianapolis:Bobbs–Merrill, 1982.

Willemin, Georges, and Roger Heacock.The International Committee of the RedCross. Groningen: Martinus Nijhoff, 1984.

I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O M M I T T E E O F T H E R E D C R O S S • 6 1

InternationalCommittee of the Red CrossF O U N D E R S

Henri Dunant and the Geneva Pub-lic Welfare Society

F O U N D I N G

October 1863Geneva, Switzerland


Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

Founded to assist the sick andwounded during wartime; later ex-panded its efforts to caring for vic-tims of natural disasters

M A J O R AC C O M P L I S H M E N T S ,1 8 6 4 – 1 9 1 7

Drafted the 1864 Geneva Conven-tion, signed by 12 nations, guaran-teeing neutral status to war reliefworkers; created the InternationalPrisoners’ Relief and InformationAgency (IPRIA), a major prisoner-of-war relief organization duringWorld War I (1914–18)

s a child, Woodrow Wilson seemed ratherbackward. He was shy, spent much of histime daydreaming, and did not do well inschool. In fact, the man who would grow upto be the head of a major university, a state

governor, and President of the United States had a difficulttime learning how to read, and speaking in public was ago-nizing for him.

He was born Thomas Woodrow Wilson in 1856 in thesmall town of Staunton, Virginia. For the rest of his life,Wilson would call himself a Virginian, but in fact he lived inthat state only for brief periods. In 1858 the family moved toAugusta, Georgia, when Tommy Wilson’s father, a Presbyter-ian minister, was called to serve the First PresbyterianChurch. Twelve years later, when Tommy was 14, the familymoved again, this time to Columbia, South Carolina, whereDr. Wilson became a professor at the local seminary.

Joseph Ruggles Wilson and his wife, Jessie, raised theirchildren—Tommy, his two older sisters, and a youngerbrother—to be both pious and scholarly. There was love aswell as discipline in the family, and the younger Wilsonsknew that they were expected to meet two ideals in theirlives: maintaining the highest standard of personal conductand being of service to humanity.

Tommy Wilson worked hard to meet his parents’ expec-tations, but he was a slow learner. Today historians believethat Wilson probably had dyslexia, a disorder of the nervoussystem that hinders the ability to read. Young Tommy wasencouraged by the love and support of his family, and he de-veloped concentration and self-discipline. At the center ofhis life was a deep religious faith that became even strongeras he grew older.

In college Wilson’s talents began to emerge. For a yearhe attended a Presbyterian institution in North Carolina,where he received excellent grades, became a distinguisheddebater, and considered a career as a businessman. After ayear off to help the family move again, this time to Wilm-ington, North Carolina, Wilson enrolled at the College ofNew Jersey—later renamed Princeton University—whosepresident was a family acquaintance. There he did well inhis classes, especially history and economics, edited the col-lege newspaper, polished his debating skills, and even helpedcoach the football team to a winning season. In his senioryear, one of his essays on American government was accept-ed for publication in a well-known political journal, the In-ternational Review.

After graduating in 1879, Wilson entered the Universityof Virginia Law School, in Charlottesville. Although he


AWoodrow Wilson

Y1 9 1 9

withdrew before graduating, he was ad-mitted to the bar in 1881 and movedto Atlanta, Georgia, to practice law.About this time, he stopped signingletters as “Thomas W. Wilson” and be-came known as “Woodrow Wilson.”Wilson practiced law in Atlanta fortwo years, but he found he did notenjoy it. He decided that he wanted tostudy politics and history, and in thefall of 1883 he enrolled as a graduatestudent at Johns Hopkins University inBaltimore.

Wilson received his Ph.D. in 1886;his thesis was published in book formunder the title Congressional Govern-ment and soon became a standard text.Wilson became a respected scholar andduring the next three decades pub-lished a number of other major workson American history and politics, in-cluding A History of the American Peo-ple (5 vols., 1902) and ConstitutionalGovernment in the United States (1908).After teaching at Bryn Mawr Collegeand Wesleyan University, he returnedto Princeton in 1890 as a professor ofjurisprudence (law) and political econ-omy. He quickly emerged as a popularmember of the faculty, and in 1902 hewas named president of the university.

As Princeton’s president, Wilsonbecame a reformer. During his eightyears on the job, he improved the cur-riculum, replaced large classes with individual instruction and seminars,raised academic standards, and revisedthe honor system. However, in 1910 hegot into a dispute with the university’sboard of trustees over how to spendseveral large donations, and the boardasked for his resignation. Almost simul-taneously, the state leaders of the Democratic party approached Wilsonto run for governor of New Jersey. That fall he won the election with oneof the largest majorities in the state’shistory.

Woodrow Wilson proved to be areform-minded governor, too. Underhis leadership, the state enacted laws to

overhaul primary elections, attack cor-ruption, improve the workplace, andcontrol public utilities. By 1912 Wilsonhad become a prominent politician inthe Democratic party. That summer hewas nominated to run for President,and in November he was elected.

As U.S. President, Wilson cham-pioned a program of reform that henamed “the New Freedom.” The goalof Wilson’s program was the promotionand protection of free enterprise, withthe federal government playing aprominent role. In response to Wilson’srequests, Congress passed laws duringthe next four years that lowered tariffs,imposed income and inheritance taxes,

W O O D R O W W I L S O N • 6 3

President Woodrow Wilson at work inthe White House. Although Wilson was alongtime advocate of peace, he believedthat the United States had to enter WorldWar I in 1917 “to make the world safe fordemocracy.”

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established a national bank called theFederal Reserve, and regulated businessand the railroads. Other legislationpassed by Congress at Wilson’s urgingincluded the creation of a loan pro-gram for farmers and federal funding forthe building of highways.

Wilson’s foreign policy emphasizedmutual respect and understanding be-tween nations, and he often declaredhis opposition to imperialism—the ex-tension of a country’s power by gaining

control over another country. Wilsonhad joined the American Peace So-ciety in 1908, and as President he declared that he intended to make the United States an advocate of world peace. To that end, he supportedarms reduction and international arbitration.

Wilson was dismayed by the out-break of World War I in August 1914,and he vowed to keep the UnitedStates from becoming involved in theconflict. Two years later he was electedto a second term as President, largelybecause of the truth of his campaignslogan: “He kept us out of war.”

Wilson believed, however, that theUnited States should assume an activerole in bringing the war to an end.With that goal in mind, he drew up aplan for the establishment of perma-nent world peace through the creationof an international government calledthe League of Nations, using the nameproposed by French statesman LéonBourgeois. Wilson presented the planto Congress in January 1917. However,as Congress debated Wilson’s proposalin the following months, German sub-marines torpedoed several Americanships in the North Atlantic, and Wil-son felt he had no choice but to askCongress to declare war against Ger-many. Accordingly, on April 6, 1917,the United States officially enteredWorld War I, on the side of Englandand France. In Wilson’s words, this“war to end all wars” would be fought“to make the world safe for democracy.”

As the war continued, Wilsonmaintained his belief that the UnitedStates should lead the nations of theworld in establishing peace. In January1918, he announced a 14-point planthat he had drawn up as the basis forpeace. Its provisions included opendiplomacy, freedom on the seas, equal-ity in international trade, arms

Without the benefit of a microphone,Wilson addressed a crowd of 50,000 inSan Diego, California, in late September1920, trying to gain public support for theLeague of Nations. Overcome by strain,he collapsed a few days later and returned to Washington, D.C., a brokenman.To his sorrow, the U.S. Senate refused to approve either the Treaty ofVersailles or U.S. membership in theLeague of Nations.

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reduction, support for national self-determination, and the establishmentof “a general association of nations.”

The war ended in November 1918when Germany requested an armistice,thereby acknowledging defeat. Early in1919, Wilson traveled to Paris to meetwith the prime ministers of France andEngland to draft a peace treaty, whichbecame known as the Treaty of Ver-sailles. In February 1919, a separatepeace commission approved thecovenant (a written agreement) for theestablishment of the League of Na-tions. The covenant was added to theTreaty of Versailles, which was signedin June.

When Wilson returned to theUnited States, he found himself in po-litical trouble. According to the U.S.Constitution, the U.S. Senate has toapprove all treaties, and the Treaty ofVersailles did not have the full supportof a majority of senators. Althoughsome senators approved of the treaty aswritten, others wanted it amended be-cause they objected to some of itsterms, including membership in theLeague of Nations; they were afraidthat the United States would lose itssovereignty if it joined the League. Stillother senators opposed the treaty in itsentirety. Instead of trying to negotiatewith the Senate—which was con-trolled by his opponents, members ofthe Republican party—Wilson declaredthat he was standing firm and wouldallow no changes.

Wilson decided to appeal directlyto the American people for support ofthe Versailles Treaty. In early Septem-ber of 1919, he left Washington, D.C.,by train on a speechmaking tour of thewestern United States, where opposi-tion to the treaty was strongest. Theonce-shy Wilson had become an ac-complished orator, and he spoke mov-ingly to crowds of thousands about his

hopes for peace. As the train headedfarther west, however, his health beganto fail, and in late September he col-lapsed in Colorado. He returned imme-diately to Washington, where he suf-fered a severe stroke in early October.

During his recuperation, the Sen-ate prepared to vote on both the origi-nal Treaty of Versailles and an amend-ed version. Wilson instructed SenateDemocrats to vote only for the originaltreaty, and in November both versionswere defeated. The following March, inresponse to demands by peace groupsand private citizens, the Senate againconsidered the treaty. Wilson was urgedby many to agree to changes in order toget the treaty passed but he refused,and again the treaty was defeated.

Wilson never fully recovered fromthe stroke, and his health deterioratedduring his remaining months in office.His poor physical condition, however,was concealed from the public. In thefall of 1920, Wilson was notified thathis peacemaking efforts had earnedhim the Nobel Peace Prize for 1919.The citation praised Wilson for “bring-ing a design for a fundamental law ofhumanity into present-day internation-al politics.” Although he felt honoredto receive the award, he believed thatgetting the Treaty of Versailles ratifiedwould have been a more impressiveachievement. In November, the Re-publican party won the Presidentialelection, as well as a majority of seatsin Congress, and Wilson realized thatthe Treaty of Versailles and the Leagueof Nations would not be approved inhis lifetime.

Wilson never gave up his hope forpeace, and to the very end of his life hebelieved that the United States wouldsomeday become a member of theLeague of Nations. He made his lastpublic statement on November 11,1923, Armistice Day. In a radio address

W O O D R O W W I L S O N • 6 5

WoodrowWilsonB O R N

December 28, 1856Staunton, Virginia

D I E D

February 3, 1924Washington, D.C.

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Princeton University (1879);attended University of Virginia LawSchool (1879–81); Ph.D., JohnsHopkins University (1886)

O C C U PAT I O N

University professor and president;politician; U.S. President


President, Princeton University; author of major books about U.S.history, including A History of theAmerican People (5 vols., 1902);governor of New Jersey (1911–12);President of the United States(1913–21); cofounder of the Leagueof Nations


broadcast throughout the nation, hecalled upon all Americans “to put self-interest away and once more formulateand act upon the highest ideals andpurposes of international policy.”

In private life, Wilson was devotedto his family. He married his first wife,Ellen, in 1885, and had three daugh-ters. After Ellen Wilson’s death in1915, he married Edith Bolling Galt.Wilson enjoyed playing golf for relax-ation, but after his stroke he was con-fined to a wheelchair much of thetime. He died in his sleep in early Feb-ruary, 1924, and was buried at the Na-tional Cathedral in Washington, D.C.

In the years since Wilson’s death,historians have debated his role in thefate of the Treaty of Versailles. Manyhave concluded that his high-minded-ness and his stubborn refusal to com-promise led to the defeat of his goal.On the other hand, the Treaty of Versailles was flawed from the very beginning.

The treaty’s provisions includedextremely harsh treatment of Germanyas the defeated nation—somethingthat Wilson tried without success tooppose. The British and French gov-ernments insisted that Germany beforced to pay huge amounts of money,called reparations, to countries it haddamaged during the war. But Germanywas too poor to pay, and the provisionsof the Versailles Treaty evoked angerand resentment among the Germanpeople. In the early 1930s, that angerand resentment led to the election ofAdolf Hitler as Germany’s leader. Andin 1939, Hitler led his country into an-other world war.

Although the United States neverbecame a member of the League ofNations, Woodrow Wilson’s ideal livedon in the hearts and minds of millionsof Americans. That ideal was formally

adopted by the United States in 1945,when it joined with 50 other countriesfrom around the world to create theUnited Nations.

Some historians continue to arguethat Wilson himself played a role inthe defeat of the League of Nations inthe United States. However, other his-torians point out that U.S. participa-tion would probably not have matteredin the long run; the European allieswere determined to punish Germany,and their postwar treatment of thatnation—independent of the Leagueand the United States—inevitably ledto World War II. Wilson’s devotion topeace at any cost made him a manahead of his time in U.S. politics.

For taking the necessary first stepsto bring the United States into a worldcommunity of nations, Woodrow Wil-son deserves to be called his nation’sleading peacemaker.


Heckscher, August. Woodrow Wilson: A Bi-ography. New York: Scribners, 1991.

Knock, Thomas. To End All Wars:Woodrow Wilson and the Quest for a NewWorld Order. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1992.

Link, Arthur. Woodrow Wilson and the Pro-gressive Era. New York: Harper, 1954.

———, ed. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson.69 vols. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton Univer-sity Press, 1966–1996.

Randolph, Sallie. Woodrow Wilson, Presi-dent. New York: Walker, 1992.

Steinberg, Alfred. Woodrow Wilson. NewYork: Putnam, 1961.

“Wilson, Thomas Woodrow.” Dictionary ofAmerican Biography. Vol. 10, part 2. NewYork: Scribners, 1936.

n the fall of 1920, two Nobel Peace Prizes were an-nounced simultaneously: one for the present yearand one, retroactively, for 1919. The 1919 winnerwas President Woodrow Wilson of the UnitedStates. The 1920 award went to Léon Bourgeois, a

French statesman who had been active in the peace move-ment for many years.

Wilson and Bourgeois were acquainted with each other,for they had represented their respective countries at theParis Peace Conference in 1919. But the two men had hadmajor disagreements over the provisions of the VersaillesTreaty. When Wilson heard about Bourgeois’s award, thenews reportedly made him unhappy, for it seemed to dimin-ish the importance of his own Peace Prize.

Although Léon Bourgeois and Woodrow Wilson hadtheir differences at the conference table, there were in factsimilarities between the two statesmen. Both were reformerswho wished to improve society. Both were guided by highideals and a clear vision of what they wished to accomplish.

L É O N B O U R G E O I S • 6 7

Léon Bourgeois

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French statesman Léon Bourgeois was a founder of the Leagueof Nations and the first president of its governing council. Hedreamed of establishing an international peacekeeping force.

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And each was stubbornly convincedthat his own view was correct. Perhapsit was their very similarities that madethem enemies.

Their early lives, however, werevery different. Unlike Wilson, LéonBourgeois began his life in difficult cir-cumstances. Born in Paris to a poorclockmaker in 1851, he knew povertyfrom an early age, and this made himsympathetic to radical politics as hegrew older. As a child he was obviouslygifted and loved to learn. Fortunatelyhis brilliance was recognized by histeachers, who arranged for him to at-tend a distinguished secondary schoolin Paris. Not only did Bourgeois excelin his required subjects; he also learnedHindi and Sanskrit and became an ac-complished musician and sculptor aswell as a skilled draftsman. Everythingin the world seemed to interest and de-light him.

After graduation, Bourgeois servedin an artillery regiment during theFranco-Prussian War (1870–71). Atthe war’s end, he entered the Universi-ty of Paris and earned a doctoral degreein jurisprudence (law). After practicinglaw for several years, Bourgeois became

a civil service employee of the FrenchMinistry of Public Works in 1876, andhe worked for the government formore than a decade. In 1887 he servedbriefly as the head of the Paris police.

Bourgeois had become increasinglyinvolved in left-wing politics, and earlyin 1888 he was elected to the Chamberof Deputies as a Socialist-Radical, rep-resenting the working-class district ofChâlons-sur-Marne. During the nextfive years, while serving as a deputy,Bourgeois also held various positions inseveral French cabinets. He was secre-tary of state for the interior (1888–89);minister of the interior (1890); minis-ter of public instruction (1890–92),during which he introduced many pop-ular reforms into the French education-al system; and minister of justice(1892–93).

In November 1895, Bourgeois be-came the prime minister of France. Heimmediately established himself as a re-former and called for major economicand social changes to benefit the work-ing class, including insurance and pen-sion programs. To promote his ideas, hewrote a series of newspaper articles thatwere collected and published in bookform as Solidarité (Solidarity, 1896).Bourgeois’s program, however, wasoverwhelmingly defeated by the con-servative French Senate. He resignedas prime minister in April 1896 but re-tained his seat in the Chamber ofDeputies.

Two years later, in 1898, Bourgeoiswas again named minister of public in-struction in the French cabinet. In1899 he headed the French delegation,which also included Paul d’Estournellesde Constant, to the First Hague Con-ference. Bourgeois was chosen as chair-man of the conference’s Commissionon Arbitration, and in that capacity hecalled for the establishment of an inter-national court of arbitration to settledisputes between countries. The pro-posal was approved by the conferenceand led to the establishment of the

The opening session of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland, on November 15, 1920.

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P E A C E M A K E R SPermanent Court of Arbitration—theHague Tribunal. Bourgeois was ap-pointed to the tribunal in 1903.

In 1905, Bourgeois was elected tothe French Senate and appointed min-ister of foreign affairs in the Frenchcabinet. Two years later he representedFrance at the Second Hague Confer-ence, where he headed a commissionthat examined various peaceful solu-tions to international conflict. Herethe groundwork was laid for an orga-nization of countries devoted to maintaining peace. In a 1908 speech,Bourgeois proclaimed that such an or-ganization had been created at the conference, calling it La Société desNations—the League of Nations.

The actual establishment of theLeague had yet to be accomplished,however, despite Bourgeois’s effortsover the next few years. When worldwar broke out in 1914, Bourgeoispressed even harder for its creation,and three years later, his persistencepaid off: he was named chairman of aFrench government commission toconsider how to set up the League ofNations. The commission recommend-ed that the League be established solelyas an organization to preserve peace,and therefore to function only in timesof crisis. It would have the authority toenforce compulsory arbitration oncountries to settle disputes betweenthem, and it would maintain an inter-national army to enforce the settle-ments.

Bourgeois took this proposal to theParis Peace Conference in 1919, wherehe served as a member of the Frenchdelegation. Here he encounteredWoodrow Wilson and others who hadalso made proposals for a worldwide or-ganization. Bourgeois insisted that aninternational peacekeeping army hadto be part of the League of Nations,and that regular inspections had to bemade to verify any disarmament agree-ments. Bourgeois’s strident but unsuc-cessful attempts to have his point of

view accepted caused considerable fric-tion among the other delegates, espe-cially Wilson. They believed that peacecould not be established by military ac-tion, and Bourgeois could not convincethem that some sort of enforcementmechanism was necessary to give theLeague authority.

Bourgeois’s belief in the League ofNations continued despite his failure tosee his ideas adopted, and he becamehis nation’s chief representative to theLeague when it opened the followingyear in Geneva. He served both in theassembly and as first president of thecouncil. When he was named winnerof the 1920 Nobel Peace Prize laterthat year, he was cited for his longtimeefforts to secure world peace throughthe use of arbitration.

In his final political role, Bourgeoisserved as president of the French Sen-ate from 1920 to 1923, when he re-signed because he was losing his sight.When he died two years later, at theage of 74, he was honored with a statefuneral.

Bourgeois’s proposal for an interna-tional peacekeeping force did not die,however. Twenty-five years later, it wasproposed—and adopted—by theLeague of Nations’ successor, the Unit-ed Nations. And in 1988 the UnitedNations Peacekeeping Forces wereawarded their own Nobel Peace Prize.


Abrams, Irwin. “Léon Bourgeois.” In TheNobel Peace Prize and the Laureates. Boston:G. K. Hall, 1988.

Bonsal, Stephen. Unfinished Business. NewYork: Doubleday, Doran, 1944.

Earle, E. M., ed. Modern France: Problemsof the Third and Fourth Republics. Prince-ton, N.J.: Princeton University Press,1951.

L É O N B O U R G E O I S • 6 9

Léon BourgeoisB O R N

May 29, 1851Paris, France

D I E D

September 29, 1925Épernay, France

E D U C AT I O N

Docteur en Droit, University ofParis (1875)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; statesman


Prime minister of France (1895–96);cofounder and member, Hague Tribunal (1903); helped create the League of Nations; president, Council of the League of Nations(1920–21); president, French Senate(1920–23)

arl Branting, cowinner of the 1921 NobelPeace Prize, is one of only a handful of sci-entists who have received the award.Branting has an even greater distinction: todate, he is the only astronomer among the

Nobel Peace laureates.Even as a small boy, Branting was fascinated by the stars.

Born in 1860, he was the only child of a prominent Stock-holm educator and his wife; his father had developed theSwedish system of gymnastics. Recognizing their son’s intel-ligence, the Brantings sent young Karl to the most presti-gious school in Stockholm; one of his classmates was the fu-ture King Gustavus V.

Karl Branting entered the University of Uppsala in 1877and prepared for a career in astronomy by majoring in mathe-


Karl Branting, an astronomer by training, turned his attention topolitics and journalism in 1884. An advocate of peace, he laterbecame prime minister of Sweden.

KKarl BrantingChristianLange

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matics and natural science. Upon earn-ing a degree in 1882, he joined theStockholm Astronomical Society as its assistant director.

During his five years at the univer-sity, however, Branting’s interests hadbroadened beyond science. At thesame time that he was working towardhis degree, he became involved in theliberal political movement then devel-oping in Sweden. The new movementcalled for social change and the better-ment of conditions for the workingclass. Encouraged by fellow members ofthe movement, Branting began writingfor local periodicals on social issues. Hemade other contributions, too: whenthe Stockholm Workers’ Institute ranout of funds to continue its educationalprograms, Branting gave his ownmoney to keep the institute open.

In 1884 Branting decided to aban-don astronomy as a career and to be-come a political journalist. He joinedthe staff of a liberal newspaper, Tiden,as a foreign correspondent, and trav-eled through Western Europe and Rus-sia to report on progressive politicalmovements. Branting became increas-ingly convinced that social problemscould be solved only through social-ism—a form of rule in which the gov-ernment controls both the productionand the distribution of goods and ser-vices.

In 1885 Branting succeeded KlasArnoldson—who would win the NobelPeace Prize in 1908—as the editor ofTiden. When the paper failed a yearlater, the Socialist party of Swedenhired Branting to edit its newly found-ed newspaper, Social Demokraten (TheSocial Democrat). Branting remained ashead of the paper for more than threedecades, turning it into one of theleading socialist periodicals. In additionto editing, he continued to write arti-cles for the paper, including a regularreport on the activities of the Swedishparliament. Branting also became aprominent member of the Socialist

party and worked actively on its behalf:he organized unions and supportedstrikes, helped settle disputes, andformed workers’ clubs. His activitiesplaced him in the forefront of theSwedish liberal movement.

In 1889 Branting broke away fromthe Socialist party to form the SocialDemocratic Labor party, which soonbecame a leading force in Swedish poli-tics; he later served as president of theparty for many years (1907–25). In1896 Branting became the first SocialDemocrat to be elected to a seat in parliament, which he held until 1925.As a legislator, he strongly supporteduniversal suffrage—the right of everycitizen to vote—as well as programs toimprove living conditions.

Branting had become a pacifist inhis youth, and in parliament he foughtwith some success for a reduction indefense spending. He argued that thesecurity of the country depended moreon the health and well-being of its citizens than it did on armies andweapons, and money was thus betterspent on social improvements than onarmaments.

Branting joined with Klas Arnold-son to help bring about the peacefulseparation of Norway from Sweden in1905. His activities on behalf of peaceincreased during the next decade. Hesupported international arbitration tosettle disputes between countries, andhe backed the first proposals for aLeague of Nations. Branting was astrong supporter of Sweden’s neutralityin World War I, although he personallysided with the Allied countries (GreatBritain, France, and the United States)because of their liberal political institu-tions.

In 1917 Branting was namedSwedish minister of justice in a newcoalition government of the Liberaland Social Democratic parties. Duringthe next few years constitutionalchanges introduced several social re-forms, including suffrage for all male

B R A N T I N G & L A N G E • 7 1

Karl BrantingB O R N

November 23, 1860Stockholm, Sweden

D I E D


E D U C AT I O N

Baccalaureate (1882) and graduatestudy in mathematics and naturalscience, University of Uppsala

O C C U PAT I O N

Astronomer; journalist; politician


Editor, Social Demokraten newspaper(1886–1914); founder (1889) andpresident (1907–25), Social Democ-ratic Labor Party of Sweden; con-tributed to peaceful separation ofNorway and Sweden (1905); mem-ber of Swedish parliament for 29years (1896–1925); served as Swe-den’s minister of finance (1917–20),and first socialist prime minister(1920, 1921–23, 1924–25); dele-gate, League of Nations Council(1920–24), and codrafter of theGeneva Protocol (1924)


citizens. While serving as justice minis-ter, Branting headed a committee thatconsidered various proposals to end theworld war, and in 1919 he attended theParis Peace Conference as Sweden’srepresentative. He successfully support-ed his country’s membership in theLeague of Nations, and in 1920 he rep-resented Sweden at the first meeting ofthe League Assembly. There Brantingwas a strong supporter of disarmamentand arbitration and argued againstusing an international military force toenforce peace. In 1920 he also servedbriefly as Sweden’s first socialist primeminister.

Branting was named cowinner ofthe 1921 Nobel Peace Prize for his sup-port of the League of Nations as well ashis contribution to the peaceful separa-tion of Norway from Sweden. Thatsame year he again became Sweden’sprime minister, as well as foreign minis-ter, and held both posts for two years.During his tenure, he led the successfuleffort in parliament to grant Swedishwomen the right to vote.

In 1923 Branting became a dele-gate to the League of Nations Council.A year later he was appointed to thecouncil’s disarmament committee,which drafted an international securityagreement known as the Geneva Pro-tocol. Also in 1924 he became Swe-den’s prime minister for the third andfinal time, but resigned early the fol-lowing year when he became ill.

Branting, who had married in1884—about the time that he decidedto give up astronomy for journalism—died in Stockholm in February 1925, atthe age of 64.

Like Karl Branting, with whom heshared the 1921 Nobel Peace Prize,Christian Lange began his professionallife in one occupation and laterchanged to another. Lange’s first occu-pation, however, was teaching history,

a subject to which he had been intro-duced by his paternal grandfather, adistinguished historian. As a memberof a Norwegian family that wanted tosee their country become independentfrom Sweden—which had controlledNorway since 1814—Christian Langebecame aware of political and social is-sues at an early age.

Lange was born in 1869 in the portcity of Stavanger, Norway, to an armyofficer and engineer and his wife. LikeBranting, Lange excelled in school. Hestudied history and languages at theUniversity of Oslo and received a grad-uate degree in 1893 with a thesis on in-ternationalism. He then began a careeras a secondary school teacher in Oslo.During summer vacations he traveledwidely in Europe to increase his knowl-edge of foreign languages, and he alsowrote a world history textbook that be-came popular. In addition, Lange beganto take an active role in the Norwegianindependence movement, which endedwith the separation of Norway andSweden in 1905.

In 1899 Lange was asked to be-come secretary of the arrangementscommittee when the Interparliamen-tary Union held its annual meetingthat year in Oslo. The union had beenfounded in 1889 to promote the settle-ment of international disputes througharbitration. Lange performed his tasksefficiently and impressed the Norwe-gian host committee with his interestin the peaceful aims of the union. As aconsequence, he was invited to serve assecretary of the newly created Norwe-gian Nobel Committee, which admin-istered the Nobel Peace Prize. Thus, atthe age of 30, Lange was launched in anew career, as an administrator ofpeace organizations.

Lange served as secretary of theNobel Committee for 10 years. He re-signed in 1909 to become secretary-


After serving for 10 years as secretary ofthe Norwegian Nobel Committee, Christ-ian Lange became head of the Interparlia-mentary Union. His efforts on behalf ofinternational disarmament earned him ashare of the 1921 Nobel Peace Prize.

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general of the Interparliamentary Unionat its headquarters in Brussels, but hecontinued to serve as an adviser to theNobel Committee for many years. Assecretary-general, he was the adminis-trative head of the union: he traveled,lectured, raised money, and wrote andedited numerous publications.

When Germany invaded Belgiumin the early days of World War I andseized the Union’s funds, Lange movedits headquarters to neutral Norway. Hekept the union alive by contributinghis own money—which he earned bygiving lectures at the Nobel Institute—and securing a loan from the CarnegieEndowment for International Peace.

During the war Lange participatedin a Stockholm conference of neutralnations that was held to propose waysof ending the conflict; he was also ac-tive in a Dutch peace group workingfor similar ends. In addition, he wrote a lengthy report for the Carnegie En-dowment on conditions in the warringnations of Europe.

When the war ended in November1918, Lange set out to rebuild theUnion. Despite enormous difficultiesthat included a lack of funds and con-flicts between member nations, he suc-ceeded in organizing the Union’s firstpostwar conference, held in 1921 inGeneva, Switzerland. For his years ofservice to the InterparliamentaryUnion, Lange received a share of the1921 Nobel Peace Prize.

Lange was a strong supporter of thenewly founded League of Nations. Herepresented Norway at many Leaguemeetings and headed several Leaguecommittees. At the InterparliamentaryUnion and in the League, Lange con-tinued his advocacy of internationaldisarmament. He wrote more articlesand books on arms control and arbitra-tion, and he made additional lecturetours, including one in the United

States in 1925. During his lifetime, hegave more than 500 lectures on behalfof international peace.

In both his lectures and his writ-ings, Lange used the word international-ism rather than pacifism to describe theworld peace movement that he had solong supported. “Pacifism” meant onlythat one was opposed to war. Langepreferred “internationalism” because itsuggested an active effort by nations tojoin together to establish peace.

Lange resigned as secretary-generalof the Interparliamentary Union in1934, at the age of 65. A year later hebecame an elected member of the Nor-wegian Nobel Committee. In 1938,several months before his death, Langegave his last peace lecture, at a Quakerorganization in London; it was laterpublished in book form as Imperialismand Peace.

Lange, who married the daughterof an Oslo judge in 1894, had five chil-dren. One of his sons, Halvard Lange,became a prominent politician andserved as Norway’s foreign minister fora decade after World War II. ChristianLange died at his home in Oslo in De-cember 1938 at the age of 69.


Abrams, Irwin. “Karl Branting.” In TheNobel Peace Prize and the Laureates. Boston:G. K. Hall, 1988.

“Christian L. Lange and His Work forPeace.” American-Scandinavian Review,Autumn 1969.

Derry, T. K. A History of Modern Norway.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973.

Falnes, O. J. Norway and the Nobel PeacePrize. 1938. Reprint, New York: AMSPress, 1967.

Jones, S. S. The Scandinavian States and theLeague of Nations. 1939. Reprint. West-port, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1969.

B R A N T I N G & L A N G E • 7 3

ChristianLangeB O R N

September 17, 1869Stavanger, Norway

D I E D

December 11, 1938Oslo, Norway

E D U C AT I O N

M.A., history and languages, Uni-versity of Oslo (1893)

O C C U PAT I O N

Teacher; administrator; writer


Secretary-general, Interparliamen-tary Union (1909–34); author ofnumerous books and articles on internationalism and the peacemovement, including Imperialismand Peace (1938)


n the nearly century-old history of the Nobel PeacePrize, Fridtjof Nansen, the 1922 winner, is unique:he is the only explorer to receive the award.Nansen had several occupations in the course of hislife: he was also a prominent scientist, and in mid-

dle age he became a distinguished statesman and humanitar-ian. But the man who became one of the world’s leadingpeacemakers first came to public attention for his feats inthe Arctic.

Nansen was born in a small town near what is nowOslo, Norway, in 1861, one of several sons of a well-to-dolawyer and his wife. Like most Norwegians, the Nansen fam-ily enjoyed outdoor activities, including skiing, ice skating,hiking, and fishing. Fridtjof (pronounced FREED-hoff)Nansen loved nature and enjoyed camping trips with hisbrothers, and he decided at an early age that he would earnhis living out of doors.

After completing secondary school, Nansen enrolled atthe University of Oslo in 1880 as a student of zoology, a fieldhe chose so that he could do fieldwork. In 1882 he joinedthe crew of a seal-hunting ship bound for the Arctic, and thejourney took him past the coast of Greenland. Nansen’s firstglimpse of the island made him decide to cross it one day onfoot, a feat that no one had been known to accomplish.

Over the next few years, Nansen held onto his dreamwhile completing his doctorate in zoology. In 1888, a yearafter receiving his degree, he persuaded a Danish philan-thropist to pay for the cost of the Greenland expedition.That summer he and five crew members set out on theirjourney. The actual crossing took 37 days, but weatherforced the Nansen party to remain in Greenland for a year.When they returned to Norway in May 1889, Nansen washailed as a hero and his exploit became known throughoutthe world.

During the next few years, Nansen worked as the cura-tor of the University of Oslo’s zoological collection while hewrote two books about his experience, The First Crossing ofGreenland (1890) and Eskimo Life (1891). He also beganmaking plans for his next Arctic expedition, this time to theNorth Pole, which no expedition had yet reached.

With financial help from the Norwegian government,Nansen built a special boat to float over ice, named theFram. In the summer of 1893 he embarked with a 12-mancrew and took the Fram to within 450 miles of the pole.Nansen and another crew member then continued on bydogsled. Although they did not find the pole, they did reacha latitude farther north than any previous expedition. WhenNansen returned to Norway in 1896, he was once again


IFridtjof Nansen

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hailed for his exploits. A year later hepublished a two-volume account of thejourney, Farthest North.

Nansen served as professor of zool-ogy at the University of Oslo from1896 until 1908, when he became pro-fessor of oceanography. Until 1917,Nansen devoted much of his time toscientific work. He cofounded the In-ternational Council for the Explorationof the Sea and directed its central labo-ratory in Oslo. He also wrote anotherbook about the Arctic, In NorthernMists (1910–11). During this periodNansen participated in several scientif-ic expeditions to the Arctic. Recog-nized by the turn of the century as theworld’s leading authority on polar ex-ploration, he advised other explorers,including his fellow Norwegian RoaldAmundsen, who reached the SouthPole in 1911.

In the early 1900s, however,Nansen had begun pursuing an addi-tional career, as a statesman. His widelypublicized trips to Greenland and theNorth Pole had made him a public fig-ure, and he became increasingly in-terested in national and internationalaffairs. He participated in negotiationsthat secured Norway’s independencefrom Sweden in 1905, and from 1906to 1908 he served as Norway’s ambas-sador to Great Britain.

During World War I, Nansen trav-eled to the United States to negotiatean agreement that gave Norway aid forthe duration of the conflict. He be-came head of the Norwegian League ofNations Society, a group supporting theLeague, and led his country’s delega-tion to the opening meeting of theLeague in 1920. At that meeting, theLeague Council appointed him high

F R I D T J O F N A N S E N • 7 5

FridtjofNansenB O R N

October 10, 1861Store-Frøen, Norway

D I E D

May 13, 1930Oslo, Norway

E D U C AT I O N

Dr. Philos., zoology, University ofOslo (1888)

O C C U PAT I O N

Explorer; scientist; statesman


Made first known crossing ofGreenland (1888–89); later traveledfarther north than any previousArctic expedition (1893–96); pro-fessor of zoology and oceanography,University of Oslo (1908–30); in-vented the Nansen bottle, used totake samples of ocean water; Nor-wegian ambassador to Great Britain(1906–1908); led major war andhunger relief efforts for the Leagueof Nations and the InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross; creat-ed the Nansen passport, an interna-tional travel document for refugees;Norwegian delegate, League of Na-tions Assembly (1920–30); authorof four books about the Arctic


Fridtjof Nansen (left) directs Red Cross famine relief operations in Russia in 1921. Inthis and other projects, including refugee resettlement and prisoner-of-war repatriation,Nansen helped millions of Europeans during the 1920s.

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commissioner in charge of repatriating(resettling in their own country) somehalf million German and Austro-Hun-garian prisoners of war who were beingheld in Russia.

Through personal negotiationswith the Russian government—whichdid not recognize the League of Na-tions—Nansen secured the release ofnearly all the prisoners over a two-yearperiod. In August 1921, the Interna-tional Committee of the Red Crosspersuaded Nansen to take on an addi-tional task in Russia: directing a reliefeffort for victims of a widespreadfamine. He accomplished this assign-ment by soliciting contributions fromprivate donors as well as govern-ments—the United States gave $20million—and overseeing the operationfrom an office in Moscow. An estimat-ed 10 million lives were saved as a di-rect result.

In a third humanitarian effort,Nansen helped resettle 1.5 millionRussians who had fled their countryafter the 1917 revolution and were liv-ing in disease-ridden refugee campsacross Western Europe. To help in theirresettlement, he created a special traveldocument known as a Nansen passport,and he secured its approval by 52 na-tions.

In another effort to help refugees,Nansen arranged an exchange betweenGreece and Turkey following their warin 1922: one million Greeks living inTurkey were exchanged for half a mil-lion Turks living in Greece.

Nansen received the 1922 NobelPeace Prize in recognition of his hu-manitarian efforts. The citation paidtribute to “his ability to stake his lifetime and time again on a single idea,on one thought, and to inspire others

to follow him.” Nansen donated theprize money to international reliefwork.

Nansen served in the League ofNations Assembly from 1920 until hissudden death 10 years later, following arigorous ski trip. A few months after-wards, the League paid posthumoustribute to Nansen by creating a refugeerelief organization in his name inGeneva. Eight years later that organiza-tion, the Nansen International Officefor Refugees, was itself the recipient ofthe Nobel Peace Prize.


Denzel, Justin F. Adventure North: TheStory of Fridtjof Nansen. New York:Abelard-Schumann, 1968.

Hall, Anna Gertrude. Nansen. New York:Viking, 1940.

Hoyer, Liv Nansen. Nansen: A Family Por-trait. London: Longmans, Green, 1957.

Jacobs, Francine. A Passion for Danger:Nansen’s Arctic Adventures. New York: Putnam: 1994.

Nansen, Fridtjof. Norway and the Unionwith Sweden. London: Macmillan, 1905.

———. Russia and Peace. London:Macmillan, 1924.

Nansen, Fridtjof, and Ludvig S. Dale. “As-pects of Peace.” North American Review,November 1929, pp. 565–67.

“Rescuing Millions of War Victims fromDisease and Starvation.” Current History,July 1929, pp. 567–76.

Sorensen, Jon. The Saga of Fridtjof Nansen.New York: American–Scandinavian Foun-dation and W. W. Norton, 1932.P


Explorer-turned-statesman, Nansen servedas a delegate to the League of NationsAssembly from its founding in 1920 untilhis death a decade later.

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oday few people know of J. Austen Chamber-lain, British politician and cowinner of the1925 Nobel Peace Prize. It is his half-brother,Neville, a politician who became Britain’sprime minister, who is famous—for actions

that contributed to World War II. Yet for a time Nevillehonestly believed that he and not Austen would be celebrat-ed by later generations as the leading peacemaker in theChamberlain family. He was wrong.

Joseph Austen Chamberlain was born in Birmingham,England, in 1863, the first son of a wealthy manufacturerand politician whose surname was Joseph. His mother diedwhile giving birth to him, and his father later remarried.When Austen was six, his half-brother, Neville, was born.

Austen was educated at Rugby, one of England’s mostprestigious boarding schools, and at Trinity College, Cam-bridge, where he received his undergraduate degree in 1885.After studying political science in France and Germany forseveral years, he returned to England to become personalsecretary to his father, a member of Parliament.

From childhood on, J. Austen Chamberlain had beengroomed for a political career by his father. In 1892 he ransuccessfully for Parliament as a Liberal Unionist Party candi-date from the East Worcestershire district, near Birmingham.Chamberlain’s first speech in Parliament following his elec-tion was greeted with high praise by many political leaders,including the prime minister, William Gladstone, who pre-dicted a great career for the young man.

During the next few years, Chamberlain fulfilled theseexpectations. He was appointed to an increasingly importantseries of posts in quick succession: civil lord of the Admiraltyin 1895; financial secretary of the Treasury Department,1900; postmaster general in the cabinet, 1902; and chancel-lor of the Exchequer, 1903.

In 1906 Chamberlain’s meteoric rise came to a haltwhen the Liberal Unionists were defeated by the Liberalparty. But he continued to serve in Parliament with distinc-tion, becoming a member of the Conservative party when itabsorbed the Liberal Unionists in 1912. In the months pre-ceding the outbreak of World War I, Chamberlain was oneof several politicians who persuaded the British governmentto support France against the threat of German invasion. In1915, when a coalition government that included the Con-servatives came to power, Chamberlain returned to the cabi-net as secretary of state for India and served in that post fortwo years.

In April 1918, Chamberlain became chancellor of theExchequer in the coalition government of Prime Minister

C H A M B E R L A I N & D A W E S • 7 7

J.Austen ChamberlainCharles G.Dawes

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T

David Lloyd George, the leader of theLiberal Party. During his two years ofservice, he accomplished the difficulttask of finding ways to pay off theBritish government’s enormous debtfrom World War I, which ended in No-vember 1918. Although Chamberlainhad long hoped to become prime min-ister someday, he alienated Conserva-tive Party members by his unwaveringsupport of Lloyd George in the coali-tion government and by championingindependence for Ireland, which theConservatives strongly opposed. At aparty conference in 1922, Chamberlainwas passed over in favor of anothercandidate for election as party leader.Since the party leader usually becomesprime minister when his party achievesa majority in Parliament, Chamberlainnow realized that his goal would proba-bly never be achieved.

In 1924, Conservative prime min-ister Stanley Baldwin appointed Cham-berlain as secretary of foreign affairs.At the League of Nations in Geneva,the French government had recentlyproposed the adoption by League mem-ber nations of an arbitration agreementcalled the Geneva Protocol. Under thisagreement, nations would promise tosubmit any disputes between them to aneutral body for resolution rather thangoing to war, and the Council of theLeague of Nations would have the au-thority to enforce compliance with theagreement. However, the British gov-ernment was on record as opposing theGeneva Protocol because it was toosweeping in its authority, and Cham-berlain had to reject Britain’s participa-tion in a speech to the Council inGeneva. In that speech, he proposedinstead that the Council act as a peace-maker by dealing with internationalcrises on a case-by-case basis.

Not long afterward, Chamberlainwas able to participate in a major

peacemaking effort. The German for-eign minister, Gustav Stresemann, ap-proached both the British and Frenchgovernments with a proposal for anonaggression pact: Germany wouldguarantee that its postwar westernboundary would remain along theRhine River if France and GreatBritain would sign a mutual peaceagreement.

Under the auspices of the Leagueof Nations, a series of meetings washeld in Locarno, Switzerland, to nego-tiate the agreement. Representing theirrespective countries were Chamberlain,Stresemann, and the French foreignminister, Aristide Briand, as well as theforeign ministers of Belgium, Italy,Poland, and Czechoslovakia.

The final agreement, signed onOctober 16, 1925, was known as theLocarno Pact. Under its provisions,Germany was admitted to the Leagueof Nations and its western border wasguaranteed. All seven signers of thepact agreed to binding arbitration inthe event of disputes between theircountries, and they also pledged towork toward the goal of disarmamentfor all member nations within theLeague.

The Locarno Pact was hailed as amajor milestone in the long quest forworld peace. It removed much of thebad feeling that had persisted betweenFrance and Germany after the war, andit enabled the rebuilding of WesternEurope to go forward. Chamberlain waswidely applauded in Great Britain forthe major role he played in negotiatingthe pact, and he was knighted by thegrateful British king, George V. Cham-berlain’s contribution also earned him ashare of the 1925 Nobel Peace Prize.Although Briand and Stresemannwould share the award in the followingyear for various contributions to peace,Chamberlain was honored by being the


British statesman Austen Chamberlain isless well-known than his younger half-brother, Neville, who became prime minis-ter. But his accomplishments on behalf ofpeace far outshone Neville’s and earnedAusten Chamberlain a share of the NobelPeace Prize in 1925.

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only Locarno Pact participant to winthe Peace Prize for 1925.

Chamberlain remained in office asforeign secretary until 1929. Duringthose years he led British efforts to pre-serve peace in the Far and Middle East,and he supported the Kellogg-BriandPact, a 1928 mutual peace agreementeventually signed by 65 nations, in-cluding the United States and GreatBritain. In 1931 he served briefly asfirst lord of the admiralty.

In his remaining years in Parlia-ment, Chamberlain supported the po-litical career of his half-brother,Neville, who had been a member ofParliament since 1918. Neville Cham-berlain had risen to prominence whileholding several cabinet posts, and bythe early 1930s it was clear that hewould someday become prime minister.

In the years prior to his death,Austen Chamberlain warned againstthe Nazi government of Adolf Hitlerand its threat to world peace. Begin-ning in the mid-1920s, Chamberlainwas the author of half a dozen books onpublic affairs and the League of Na-tions, including Down the Years (1935),a series of profiles of prominent men hehad known during his career.

Austen Chamberlain died inMarch 1937, at the age of 73, after suf-fering a stroke. Two months later, hishalf-brother became prime minister. Inthe fall of 1938, Neville Chamberlainjoined leaders of several European na-tions in signing what they called a“peace agreement” with Hitler calledthe Munich Pact. Chamberlain re-turned to England in triumph, declar-ing that as a result of the agreement,there would now be “peace in ourtime.” Neville Chamberlain was nowassociated with a peace pact, just asAusten had been.

But instead of preserving peace, asAusten Chamberlain’s Locarno Pact

had done, the Munich Pact helpedHitler strengthen his government andits aggressive policies. Less than a yearlater, Hitler began World War II by invading Poland, and Neville Cham-berlain’s reputation as a peacemakercrumbled. He lasted as prime ministeruntil May 1940 and died later thatyear, his name forever associated withthe doomed Munich Pact.

Charles G. Dawes, the Americanbanker and statesman who shared the1925 Nobel Peace Prize with AustenChamberlain, had a background verydifferent from his cowinner. He alsohas the unique distinction of being theonly Nobel Peace Prize winner to com-pose a tune that became a rock-and-roll hit.

Charles Gates Dawes was born inthe town of Marietta, Ohio, in August1865, just four months after the CivilWar ended. His father, who had risen tothe rank of general while serving in theUnion Army during the war, owned alocal mill and later served in Congress.Dawes was educated in local primaryand secondary schools and graduatedfrom Marietta College. He then en-rolled at Cincinnati Law School.

After earning a law degree in 1886,Dawes moved to the rapidly growingcity of Lincoln, Nebraska, to establish acareer. There he founded a law firmwith two partners and practiced forseven years, specializing in representingthe claims of farmers against the rail-road. Dawes married in 1889; he andhis wife later had two children of theirown and adopted two more. During hisyears in Lincoln, Dawes became a closefriend of two Nebraskans who wouldrise to national prominence: the U.S.Senator and later U.S. Presidentialcandidate William Jennings Bryan, andarmy officer John J. Pershing, whowould lead American military forcesduring World War I.



J. AustenChamberlainB O R N

October 16, 1863Birmingham, England

D I E D

March 16, 1937London, England

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Trinity College, Cambridge(1885)

O C C U PAT I O N

Politician


Member of Parliament (1892–1914);held several positions in the Britishcabinet; principal author of the Locarno Pact (1925)

When a national financial depres-sion occurred in the United States in1893, Dawes went heavily into debt.To re-establish himself, he moved toChicago and borrowed money to investin gas and electric companies in Wis-consin and Illinois. These efforts weresuccessful, and he was soon prosperousagain. He also became active in Republican party politics and led hisstate’s support for William McKinley in the 1896 Presidential election.McKinley expressed his gratitude bynaming Dawes federal comptroller ofthe currency.

During his four years in that post,Dawes led a successful effort to re-organize the nation’s banks. AfterMcKinley’s assassination in 1901,Dawes returned to private life as a businessman and banker. Back inChicago, he founded the Central TrustCompany, which became one of thelargest banks in the Midwest.

In 1917, in his 52nd year, Dawesvolunteered for service in the army

after the United States entered WorldWar I. His old friend General Pershingobtained a commission for Dawes as amajor, and he served in France as man-ager of army supplies. Dawes’s compe-tence earned him several promotions,and in the course of the war he becamea brigadier general. He was placed incharge of supplies for the entire Alliedcommand and remained on duty forsome months after the war ended inNovember 1918, to dispose of remain-ing military equipment.

In the years following the war,Dawes—unlike most of his fellow Re-publicans—was a strong advocate ofU.S. participation in the League of Na-tions and was disappointed when theUnited States refused to join. His ex-pertise in banking and economics ledto his appointment in 1921 as the firstdirector of the Bureau of the Budget, afederal agency created by the newlyelected President Warren G. Harding.Dawes had been asked by Harding tobecome Secretary of the Treasury buthad refused that appointment.

At the end of the war, Germanyhad been required by the Treaty of Ver-sailles to pay huge sums, known asreparations, to countries it had dam-aged during the war, including Franceand Belgium. In 1923, when Germanywas unable to pay these debts, Frenchand Belgian troops moved in to occupythe Ruhr Valley, a German industrialarea. An international committee of fi-nancial experts was formed to try to re-solve this crisis. Representing the Unit-ed States on this so-called Committeeof Experts was Charles Dawes.

The committee’s task was to find away to help Germany become strongagain economically so that it could pay its war debts, but not strongenough to threaten the future securityof the Allied countries—France, Bel-gium, and other nations that it had


Charles Dawes combined his skills as abanker, businessman, and attorney to cre-ate the Dawes Plan, a program thathelped mend the German economy afterWorld War I.

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attacked during World War I. Led byDawes, the committee drew up a pro-gram known as the Dawes Plan, whichproposed a sliding scale of payments forGermany, the reorganization of Ger-many’s national bank under Allied su-pervision, a system of taxation thatwould give Germany the revenue topay its debts, and a series of loans tothe German government. The programwas announced and ratified in Londonin April 1924 and went into effect thefollowing September.

The immediate effect of the DawesPlan was to stabilize German currencyand re-establish the country’s credit,and Dawes was hailed as the savior ofEurope when he returned to the Unit-ed States. His popularity earned himthe nomination for Vice President onthe Republican Presidential ticketheaded by Calvin Coolidge. Coolidgeand Dawes were elected in November1924 and took office in March 1925.

Dawes was named cowinner of the1925 Nobel Peace Prize for his role indeveloping the Dawes Plan, which re-mained in operation until the end of1926. During that time, Germany didmanage to pay some of its reparationsand begin to rebuild its economy.

When Dawes’s term as Vice Presi-dent ended in 1929, he was appointedambassador to Great Britain by newlyelected President Herbert Hoover. Heserved in this post until 1932, whenHoover brought Dawes back to theUnited States to serve as head of thenewly created Reconstruction FinanceCorporation (RFC). The United Stateswas now suffering from a major eco-nomic depression, and the RFC tried tostimulate the economy by making loansto various commercial enterprises.

Dawes had to leave the RFC afterfour months and return to Chicago,where he tried to rescue the failingCentral Republic Bank and Trust Com-

pany, with which his own bank hadmerged. With a loan from the RFC,Dawes managed to save the bank andto stabilize the banking community inChicago, and he later paid back theRFC in full.

During the last two decades of hislife, Dawes concentrated on his busi-ness interests as well as philanthropy.One of his major projects was the cre-ation of two homes for homeless men,one in Chicago and another in Boston,in memory of a son who had drownedin 1912. Dawes was also a founder ofthe Chicago Opera Association, whichintroduced grand opera to the city. Forrelaxation he enjoyed playing thepiano and the flute, and writing musicfor both instruments.

Dawes died at his home inEvanston, Illinois, of a heart attack inApril 1951, at the age of 85. His ac-complishments were not over, however.Many years earlier, one of Dawes’s mu-sical compositions, “Melody in A,” hadbeen recorded by several musicalgroups and had become fairly popular.During the 1950s it was rediscoveredby a songwriter named Carl Sigman,who wrote lyrics for the tune—andturned it into a rock hit called “It’s Allin the Game.”


“Dawes, Charles G.” In Dictionary of Amer-ican Biography. Supplement 5. New York:Scribners, 1977.

Dutton, David. Austen Chamberlain: Gen-tleman in Politics. New Brunswick, N.J.:Transaction Books, 1987.

Petrie, Charles A. The Life and Letters ofthe Right Hon. Sir Austen Chamberlain. 2vols. London: Cassell, 1939–40.

Timmons, Bascom N. Portrait of an Ameri-can: Charles G. Dawes. New York: Holt,1953.


Charles G.DawesB O R N

August 27, 1865Marietta, Ohio

D I E D

April 23, 1951Evanston, Illinois

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Marietta College (1884);L.L.B., Cincinnati Law School(1886)

O C C U PAT I O N

Lawyer; businessman; banker; diplo-mat; statesman


Strengthened U.S. banking systemas comptroller of the currency; VicePresident of the United States(1925–29); principal author of theDawes Plan (1924)


hen Aristide Briand was growing up inFrance, his parents must have oftenwondered if he would ever amount toanything. The future cowinner of theNobel Peace Prize liked nothing better

than to joke with his friends and was always in search ofamusement. In adolescence he played cards and drank toomuch wine, and he did as little schoolwork as he could toget by. Even when the famous novelist Jules Verne took aninterest in him, Aristide seemed unwilling to change hisways.

Aristide Briand (pronounced Bree-OND) was born inNantes in 1862. His parents owned a profitable inn, andthey gave their son advantages that they themselves had nothad as children. Above all, the Briands believed in the valueof education, and they sent Aristide to the best schools, in-cluding the Nantes secondary school, or lycée, which Vernehad attended decades earlier. The French novelist, who hadwritten Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea and otherfantasy classics, still had ties to his birthplace and school,


As a youth, Aristide Briand paid more attention to pleasure thanto his studies, but in adulthood he developed an interest in poli-tics—and eventually became prime minister of France.

WAristide BriandGustav Stresemann

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and he liked to encourage bright stu-dents there.

Aristide Briand was obviously in-telligent, witty, and personable, butclasswork bored him to death. Verne’sinterest did not make him become abetter student at the lycée, but it mayhave led him to go to Paris after gradu-ation to study law. Verne himself hadbeen a law student at the University ofParis before he became a writer.

Briand managed to earn a law de-gree despite his continuing fondness forhaving a good time. In the 1880s he es-tablished a law practice in the port cityof St. Nazaire, near Nantes. It wasnever very successful, probably becauseBriand began to develop other inter-ests—this time serious ones. He be-came increasingly drawn to politics andcontributed articles on social and polit-ical topics to area journals; for a timehe edited a local newspaper. He joinedthe Socialist party and became a strongsupporter of trade unions, organizationsof skilled workers who banded togetherto seek higher wages and better work-ing conditions.

In 1894 Briand was elected secre-tary-general of the Socialist party. Thisnew position led him to give up his lawpractice and enter politics full time.After running several times for a seatin the French Chamber of Deputies, hewas finally elected in 1902. As a strongdebater in the chamber, he led the suc-cessful fight for legislation that separat-ed church and state in France. This ledto his dual appointment in the springof 1906 as minister of education andminister of religion in the French cabi-net of the non-Socialist prime ministerJean-Marie Sarrien.

The Socialist party promptly ex-pelled Briand for agreeing to be part ofa non-Socialist cabinet. Briand, how-ever, believed that he had done theright thing by giving the Socialist causea voice in the government. Hence-forth, Briand became skilled at workingwith coalitions, groups of politicians

from different parties who come to-gether to form a ruling majority. In thefall of 1906, when Sarrien was succeed-ed by Georges Clemenceau, Briandkept his two posts; two years later headded another: minister of justice. Fi-nally, in the summer of 1909, AristideBriand himself became prime minister.Although he had to step down fromthis post two years later, Briand wasnow launched on a formidable publiccareer. In only seven years he had risenfrom private citizen to hold France’smost important political office.

During the next 20 years, Briandwould become prime minister on ninemore occasions as various coalitionstook control of the French govern-ment. Sometimes he also held an ad-ditional cabinet post simultaneously:during World War I, for example, heserved for a time as both prime minis-ter and minister of foreign affairs. Hewas out of office by the end of the war,however, and therefore did not partici-pate in the 1919 Paris Peace Confer-ence, which drew up the VersaillesTreaty.

Briand was a strong supporter ofthe League of Nations, which was for-mally established by that treaty. How-ever, he opposed other terms of thetreaty, which he thought punishedGermany too severely and would notestablish long-lasting peace. This wasnot because Briand was sympathetic tothe Germans; rather, he did not thinkthe treaty provided a realistic way forGermany to pay the required repara-tions, payments to countries it hadharmed. Briand was afraid that theTreaty of Versailles might in the longrun lead to another war.

Although this view, sadly, provedto be correct, several efforts were un-dertaken during the 1920s to stabilizeGermany and reduce the chances ofwar. One such effort was the DawesPlan, negotiated in 1924 by the Amer-ican banker and statesman Charles G. Dawes, which strengthened the

B R I A N D & S T R E S E M A N N • 8 3

AristideBriandB O R N

March 28, 1862Nantes, France

D I E D

March 7, 1932Paris, France

E D U C AT I O N

Diploma in law, University of Paris(1881)

O C C U PAT I O N

Lawyer; politician; statesman


Member, French Chamber ofDeputies (1902–32); held variouscabinet-level posts, including officeof prime minister 10 times between1909 and 1929; negotiated the Lo-carno Pact (1925) and the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928)



German monetary system. The next ef-fort was initiated by Germany itself.

Early in 1925, German foreignminister Gustav Stresemann—whowould share the 1926 Nobel PeacePrize with Briand—approached theFrench and British governments with aproposal for a nonaggression pact. As ashow of good faith, Germany was will-ing to guarantee its western boundaryalong the Rhine River, which dividedGermany from France.

Shortly after Stresemann made hisoffer, Briand began another term as for-eign minister of France. Briand and theBritish foreign minister, J. AustenChamberlain, began secret negotiationswith Stresemann. These led to a seriesof public meetings in Locarno, Switzer-land, attended by Briand, Stresemann,and Chamberlain, as well as the foreignministers of Belgium, Italy, Poland, andCzechoslovakia. At these meetings apeace agreement with Germany calledthe Locarno Pact was signed. Its termsincluded a pledge by the signing coun-tries to work for international disarma-ment and to resolve future disputesthrough binding arbitration. The Lo-carno Pact also gave Germany mem-bership in the League of Nations.

The Locarno Pact was hailed as amajor contribution to the establish-ment of world peace, and it earnedBriand a share of the 1926 NobelPeace Prize. His peacemaking effortswere not over, however.

In 1926 Briand was privately en-couraged by the American educator andstatesman Nicholas Murray Butler, headof the Carnegie Endowment for Inter-national Peace, to propose a treaty offriendship between France and theUnited States. Briand waited until hehad found an appropriate time for sucha proposal, which turned out to be April6, 1927, the 10th anniversary of theentry of United States into World WarI. On that date, he sent a formal note tothe U.S. Secretary of State, Frank B.Kellogg, proposing such a treaty.

Kellogg responded by suggestingthat the two nations invite other na-tions to join with them in a pact “re-nouncing war as an instrument of national policy.” After a series of nego-tiations lasting more than a year, theKellogg-Briand Pact, also known as thePact of Paris, was signed in Paris onAugust 17, 1928, by representatives of15 nations. Eventually a total of 65countries signed the pact.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact furtherenhanced Briand’s international pres-tige. He continued to support theLeague of Nations and in 1930 sent theLeague a proposal for the creation of aUnited States of Europe. That pro-posal was dismissed by the League—but nearly four decades later became a reality with the creation of the European Community (now the Euro-pean Union).

Briand was an international hero,but in France his political power haddeclined. He retired in 1931, after fail-ing to win election as president ofFrance, and died in Paris in March1932, several weeks before his 70thbirthday.

Like Aristide Briand, Gustav Stresemann, cowinner of the 1926Nobel Peace Prize, was born into a family that had made itself pros-perous through hard work, and without the benefit of education. Unlike Aristide Briand, young Gustavenjoyed school and was always a seriousand excellent student.

Gustav Stresemann (pronouncedSTRAYZ-ah-monn) was born and raisedin Berlin, where his father owned aprosperous tavern and a beer distribu-torship. Everyone worked in the familybusiness, including Gustav, who be-came the only family member to attendhigh school. After graduation, he studied literature and politics at theUniversity of Berlin, then attended the University of Leipzig, where heearned a doctorate in social science in 1902.

The title page of an English edition ofGustave Stresemann’s writings bears hisportrait. As German foreign minister dur-ing the 1920s, Stresemann cooperatedwith other European leaders to try to im-prove his country’s economic and socialsituation after its devastating defeat inWorld War I.

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Instead of becoming a universityprofessor, however, Stresemann decidedto remain a businessman. He moved toDresden to become an executive withan association of German chocolatemanufacturers. His success in that jobled to his appointment as director ofthe Saxon Industrialists’ Union, wherehe also edited the organization’s news-paper. Stresemann married in 1906; heand his wife later had two sons.

Stresemann entered politics in1907, winning election to the Reich-stag, the German parliament, on theNational Liberal party ticket. Despiteits name, the party was conservative; itsupported the monarchy and the idealof German cultural and military superi-ority. Stresemann quickly became aleader of the Liberal party in the Reichstag, where he was a strong sup-porter of the German navy.

Stresemann was not eligible formilitary service because he had a heartailment, but he served his country dur-ing World War I by leading parliamen-tary support for Germany’s military efforts. At the same time, Stresemannurged his colleagues to be prepared tomake peace with the Allies—those na-tions, including France, with whomGermany was fighting.

In November 1918, the Germangovernment requested an armistice—ahalt in the fighting—and shortly after-ward the German emperor, Kaiser Wil-helm II, abdicated and left the country.The following May, while the peaceconference was being held in Ver-sailles, Stresemann and other Germanofficials met in the city of Weimar todraw up a constitution for a new Ger-man government, which was namedthe Weimar Republic. A year later,Stresemann became a member of thenew Reichstag, and in 1923 he waselected chancellor (the equivalent ofprime minister). Although he servedonly four months in this office, Strese-mann was able to put down several re-volts in the country and make efforts to

stabilize German currency. When thegovernment was reorganized later thatyear, Stresemann became foreign min-ister and held that post until his death.

As foreign minister, Stresemannled the German government in carry-ing out the provisions of the DawesPlan, the agreement signed in 1924that helped Germany fulfill its finan-cial obligations called for in the Treatyof Versailles. A year later, he made hispeace proposal to Aristide Briand andJ. Austen Chamberlain, paving the wayfor the Locarno Pact. In 1926, Strese-mann continued his peacemaking ef-forts by negotiating a neutrality treatywith the Soviet Union. Later that yearhe was named cowinner with Briand ofthe Nobel Peace Prize, largely for hisefforts on behalf of the Locarno Pact.

Stresemann continued to work forGerman recovery despite his poorhealth. Still in office as foreign minis-ter, he died in Berlin in October 1929after suffering a stroke. After his death,the German government became increasingly nationalistic and ultra-conservative, paving the way for thecollapse of the Weimar Republic andthe ascendancy of Adolf Hitler and theNazi party in 1933.


Ferrell, Robert H. Ferrell. Peace in TheirTime: The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact.New Haven: Yale University Press, 1952.

Olden, Rudolf. Stresemann. New York: E. P. Dutton, 1930.

Miller, David H. The Peace Pact of Paris: AStudy of the Briand-Kellogg Treaty. NewYork: Putnam, 1928.

Thomson, Valentine. Briand: Man ofPeace. New York: Covici-Friede, 1930.

Turner, Henry Ashby. Stresemann and thePolitics of the Weimar Republic. Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1963.

Vallentin, Antonia. Stresemann. Forewordby Albert Einstein. New York: R. R.Smith, 1931.

B R I A N D & S T R E S E M A N N • 8 5

Gustav StresemannB O R N

May 10, 1878Berlin, Germany

D I E D

October 3, 1929Berlin, Germany

E D U C AT I O N

Attended the University of Berlin;Ph.D., social science, University ofLeipzig (1902)

O C C U PAT I O N

Businessman; statesman


Foreign minister of Germany(1923–29); negotiated the LocarnoPact (1925)


ntil Ferdinand Buisson was nearly 60 yearsold, he devoted most of his attention to ed-ucation. He had became interested in theEuropean peace movement as a youngerman, had helped to create an international

peace organization, and had written many articles on the re-lationship of education to peace. But when Buisson was inhis 50s, a famous trial occurred in Paris that caused him tobecome involved in politics. That involvement led to hiselection to the French parliament, and his later activities asa member of parliament led to his receipt of the 1927 NobelPeace Prize.

Ferdinand Buisson (pronounced Bwee-SAWN) was theeldest son of a prominent Protestant family in Paris; his fa-ther was a judge who died when Ferdinand was a teenager.The Buissons were not especially well-to-do, and Ferdinandhad to go to work as a tutor to help support his mother andsiblings. While holding down this job, Ferdinand managedto complete his secondary education and to study philosophyat the University of Paris.


In his 80s, prominent French educator Ferdinand Buisson becamea one-man peace movement, working tirelessly to improve rela-tions between his country and Germany.

UFerdinandBuissonLudwig Quidde

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Buisson enjoyed teaching, and hehoped to continue that career inFrance. After receiving his doctoral de-gree in the early 1860s, he took andpassed the government licensing exam-ination. However, in order to receivethe license, he had to swear allegianceto the French emperor, Napoleon III.Buisson disliked the emperor’s policies,refused to sign the loyalty oath, andtherefore had to leave France to find ateaching position. In 1866 he moved toNeuchâtel, Switzerland, and taught at acollege there.

During his five years in Switzer-land, Buisson was attracted to thepeace movement, which had its rootsin that country. As a philosopher, hehad long been interested in ethical andmoral issues; in his first book, Le Chris-tianisme liberal (Liberal Christianity),published in 1865, he had argued thatchurch and state had to be separated,and that organized religion should bereplaced by a personal moral code.

In 1867 Buisson attended a peaceconference in Paris, and there hejoined with Frédéric Passy and othersin founding the International Leaguefor Peace and Freedom. Buisson wasnow convinced that lasting worldpeace could be achieved only througheducation, and he devoted his sparetime to writing articles on that topicfor various journals.

When Napoleon III abdicated in1871 following France’s defeat by theGermans in the Franco-Prussian War,Buisson returned to Paris, where he es-tablished a home for war orphans. Hewas then invited to become minister ofpublic instruction in the new govern-ment, called the Third Republic. De-spite the liberalism of the regime, theCatholic Church still controlled theFrench educational system. In his newpost, Buisson immediately began acampaign to remove the public schoolsfrom Catholic domination. His viewsmet with intense opposition, however,and he was forced to resign.

Out of office, Buisson continued towork for this goal while supportinghimself by teaching and writing. Dur-ing the 1870s, his idea gradually gainedacceptance, and in 1879 he was re-appointed to another post within theeducation ministry, this time as directorof primary education. In this positionBuisson achieved a partial victory: hehelped draw up legislation that guaran-teed free, compulsory, and nondenomi-national (not controlled by theChurch) primary school educationthroughout the country.

During his 17 years in office Buis-son also edited an education journaland compiled the Dictionnaire de peda-gogie et d’instruction primaire (Dictionaryof Pedagogy and Primary Instruction, 4vols., 1878–87). In 1896 he resignedhis ministry post to become a professorof education at the University of Paris.

In the 1890s a notorious trial tookplace in Paris. The defendant was aFrench army captain named AlfredDreyfus (pronounced DRAY-fuss) whowas accused and eventually convictedof treason, or betraying the govern-ment. It was later discovered, however,that Dreyfus had been wrongly accusedand convicted; the real culprits werehigh-ranking military officers who hadused Dreyfus as a scapegoat to cover uptheir own crimes. Dreyfus was Jewish,and it was clear that anti-Semitism—prejudice against Jews—had played amajor role in his conviction.

Many prominent men and women,not only in France but from other na-tions, came to Dreyfus’s defense andurged the French government to re-lease him from prison. In 1898 Buissonhelped found a civil liberties associa-tion called the League of the Rights ofMan, whose goal was not only to freeDreyfus but to fight on behalf of allvictims of injustice. (Dreyfus was even-tually released from prison in 1906.)

In 1902, Buisson’s increasing polit-ical involvement led him to seek elec-tion to the Chamber of Deputies, the

B U I S S O N & Q U I D D E • 8 7

FerdinandBuissonB O R N

December 20, 1841Paris, France

D I E D

February 16, 1932Thieuloy-Saint-Antoine, France

E D U C AT I O N

Doctorate of Letters, University ofParis (1891)

O C C U PAT I O N

Educator; politician


Director of primary education inFrance, where he helped endChurch control of primary schools;cofounder, League of the Rights ofMan; undertook personal campaignin 1923–24 to establish peaceful relations between France and Germany


lower house of the French parliament,as a member of the Radical-Socialistparty. He won that election and heldthe seat from 1902 until 1914. Duringthese years in parliament Buisson con-tinued his activities on behalf of peace.He lost his bid for re-election in 1914,when world war was erupting, but as aprivate citizen and university professorhe wholeheartedly supported theFrench war effort during the next fouryears, and he became an early support-er of Woodrow Wilson’s proposal for aLeague of Nations.

Buisson was re-elected to his oldseat in parliament in 1919, the sameyear that the Treaty of Versailles, end-ing World War I, was drawn up. Buis-son strongly opposed the terms of thetreaty, which he thought were tooharsh to Germany and would onlycause bitter feelings rather than estab-lish lasting peace. During the next fewyears he worked behind the scenes toimprove relations between France andGermany, and in 1923 a major oppor-tunity for peacemaking arose.

Early in January, troops fromFrance and Belgium marched into Germany to occupy the Ruhr Valley,the country’s industrial center, whenGermany was unable to pay its repara-tions, or war debts. Buisson respondedto the crisis by making himself a publicspokesman for peace between Franceand Germany. At great personal risk,the 82-year-old Frenchman madespeaking tours of both countries, andorganized lectures in Paris by leadingpacifists. Although Buisson’s effortswere not connected to the 1925 DawesPlan, which ultimately ended the crisis,they did contribute to an easing of ten-sions between the two nations, whichmade the plan’s acceptance possible.

Buisson retired from parliament in1924. That same year he was named bythe French government as a grand offi-cer of the Legion of Honor, France’shighest award. For his many efforts onbehalf of peace, Ferdinand Buisson, in

his 86th year, was named cowinner ofthe 1927 Nobel Peace Prize; he donat-ed the prize money to several pacifistorganizations.

Now a widower with three grownchildren, Buisson devoted his remain-ing years to promoting internationalteacher exchanges. He died at the ageof 90 in February 1932, at his homenear Paris.

Ludwig Quidde, the German paci-fist who shared the 1927 Nobel PeacePrize with Ferdinand Buisson, knewfrom an early age that he would neverhave to earn his own living. Indepen-dent wealth gave Quidde the leisure todo as he wished with his time. But in-stead of pursuing pleasure, Quiddechose to devote both his money andhis life to the cause of peace.

Quidde (pronounced KVID-duh)was the eldest son of a rich merchantin Bremen, Germany. He excelled athis studies, and after graduating fromsecondary school went on to do gradu-ate work in medieval history. He at-tended the universities of Strasbourgand Göttingen, and received a doctor-ate from the latter in the mid-1880s.

For a while, Quidde devoted him-self to scholarly studies. He first helpedprepare a series of medieval documentsfor the German government, thenfounded and edited a journal of Ger-man history. In the early 1890s heserved as secretary of the Prussian His-torical Institute in Rome. During thistime Quidde had become a pacifistthrough the influence of his wife,whom he had married in 1882, andthrough extensive reading on the his-tory of warfare.

Quidde became active in the peacemovement beginning in 1892, when hejoined Alfred Fried’s newly foundedGerman Peace Society. The followingyear he published anonymously a wide-ly read pamphlet that attacked thegrowth of militarism in Germany. In1894, Quidde published another pam-phlet, this time under his own name,


Historian Ludwig Quidde, a leader of theGerman peace movement, was dismayedby his country’s militarism and led a cam-paign to support disarmament.

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which satirized the German kaiser, oremperor, Wilhelm II. Quidde was ac-cused of libel, convicted, and sen-tenced to prison for three months.

Upon his release, Quidde formedan antiwar group in Munich to pro-mote pacifist ideals. He also helped re-organize the antimilitarist GermanPeople’s Party and began making politi-cal speeches calling for disarmament.In 1896 he was convicted of treasonand was again sentenced to serve threemonths in prison.

During the late 1890s Quidde par-ticipated in a variety of peace-relatedactivities, including several peace con-gresses, and became recognized as aleader of the international pacifistmovement. He was elected to the coun-cil of the International Peace Bureau,and in 1901 he served as chairman ofthe World Peace Congress, held inGlasgow. Six years later he organizedthe World Peace Congress in Munich.Quidde’s other activities at this time included an attempt, with FrédéricPassy, to draw up a peace agreement between Germany and France.

Quidde held elective office in Ger-many twice during this period. Heserved for a time on the Munich CityCouncil and in 1907 was elected to theBavarian parliament, where he held aseat for one year. In the years leadingup to World War I, he devoted much ofhis time to the cause of disarmament.When Germany began the war in Au-gust 1914, Quidde left the country.

For the next four years Quidde’sexact whereabouts were often un-known. He probably spent much of histime in Switzerland and the Nether-lands, and he is known to have attend-ed a peace conference at The Hague in1915. During this time he also wroteseveral pamphlets that offered propos-als for establishing world peace.

After the war ended in November1918, Quidde returned to Germany,where he tried to reorganize the peacemovement there. He became head of

the German Peace Cartel, an associa-tion of more than 20 peace groups. In1919, after the monarchy ended andthe Weimar Republic was establishedas the legitimate German government,Quidde won election to the new parlia-ment that replaced the Reichstag.

Quidde supported the League ofNations, which was established by theVersailles peace treaty, but he was op-posed to the treaty itself because of itsharshness toward Germany. At thesame time, he believed that Germanyshould not be allowed to rearm itself.Although this was expressly forbiddenby the treaty, there were rumors thatGermany was secretly building an airforce and recruiting an army. In 1924Quidde wrote a series of newspaper ar-ticles accusing Germany of these ac-tions—and for a third time was sent toprison briefly, again for treason.

Like Ferdinand Buisson, Quiddewon a share of the 1927 Nobel PeacePrize for his longtime effort to make hiscountrymen support peace. In the nextsix years, Quidde continued that effort,but he realized that the chances for itssuccess were diminishing as the ultra-right-wing and militaristic Nazi partygained increasing power.

When the Nazis took over thegovernment in 1933 and Adolf Hitlerbecame chancellor, Quidde again leftGermany, and settled in Geneva,Switzerland. There he remained activein the pacifist movement until hisdeath eight years later, in his 83rd year.


“Buisson, Ferdinand” and “Quidde, Lud-wig.” In Biographical Dictionary of ModernPeace Leaders. Edited by Harold Josephson.Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Chickering, Roger. Imperial Germany and aWorld Without War: The Peace Movementand German Society 1892–1914. Princeton,N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975.

Quidde, Ludwig. “The Future of Germany.”Living Age, April 5, 1924, pp. 635–38.

B U I S S O N & Q U I D D E • 8 9

Ludwig QuiddeB O R N

March 23, 1858Bremen, Germany

D I E D

March 4, 1941Geneva, Switzerland

E D U C AT I O N

Ph.D., medieval history, Universityof Göttingen

O C C U PAT I O N

Historian; peace activist


Head of World Peace Congress,Glasgow (1901); organized WorldPeace Congress, Munich (1907);author of numerous articles andpamphlets advocating pacifism


ost people associate the name “Kellogg”with breakfast cereals, but it is also thesurname of a prominent Americanstatesman and peacemaker named FrankB. Kellogg. Kellogg, a self-educated

lawyer who won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1929, was distant-ly related to W. K. Kellogg, the cereal magnate, and in theearlier part of this century he was just as famous.

Frank Billings Kellogg was born in the small farmingcommunity of Potsdam, New York, in 1856. When the CivilWar ended in 1865, the Kellogg family headed west and set-tled on a wheat farm near Elgin, Minnesota. Young Frank at-tended school whenever he could take time away from farmchores. Finally, at the age of 14, he left school to help man-age the farm full time.

Kellogg did not want to become a farmer, however. Hisambition was to practice law. In 1875, after his youngerbrother had become old enough to take over, he left thefarm and moved to Rochester, Minnesota, to pursue his


Largely self-educated, Frank Kellogg rose from Minnesota farmboy to a distinguished career as a corporate lawyer, U.S. senator,diplomat, and secretary of state.

MFrankB. Kellogg

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dream. He took a job without pay as aclerk in a law office while he supportedhimself as a handyman. He also em-barked on a program of self-education,teaching himself not only law but alsohistory, Latin, and German. By 1877,he had learned enough law to pass theMinnesota bar examination.

Kellogg opened a law practice withanother young attorney in Rochester,but they attracted only a few clients.Kellogg increased his income by goinginto Republican politics, winning elec-tion as city attorney and then as dis-trict attorney. In this position, whichhe held from 1881 to 1886, Kelloggmade a name for himself by successfullyrepresenting several small communitiesin a lawsuit against a railway company.

In 1887, a year after he married,Kellogg joined two other attorneys toform a new law firm, Davis, Kellogg,and Severance, specializing in corpora-tion law. In the following decade it be-came one of the most successful in theregion by representing clients in theirclaims against railroad, mining, andother companies. In 1900 Kellogg roseto national prominence when he won acase for a major St. Paul newspaperagainst a large Minnesota paper compa-ny. Four years later, President TheodoreRoosevelt named him special counselto the U.S. Attorney General, special-izing in antitrust cases. (A trust is agroup of corporations that have joinedtogether to increase profits by creatinga monopoly and thus eliminating com-petition.)

As special counsel, Kellogg playedan important role in the prosecution ofseveral antitrust cases, including Stan-dard Oil Company v. United States in1911. He also served as special counselto the Interstate Commerce Commis-sion, and in that capacity he investi-gated the business practices of U.S.railroads. During his years of service inWashington, D.C., Kellogg continuedto practice law as a partner in hisRochester firm. His prominence as an

attorney led to his election in 1912 aspresident of the American Bar Associa-tion, the national professional organi-zation for lawyers.

Kellogg was active in Republicanparty politics in Minnesota and servedas a state delegate to the RepublicanNational Convention in 1904, 1908,and 1912. In 1916 he was elected tothe U.S. Senate, where he was one ofonly a few Republicans to support theLeague of Nations. After he lost hiscampaign for re-election and left theSenate in 1923, he served as U.S. dele-gate to the fifth Pan-American Confer-ence in Chile.

In 1924 President Calvin Coolidgeappointed Kellogg U.S. ambassador toGreat Britain. In that post, he persuad-ed the British to support the DawesPlan, a program to help Germany payoff its war debts that had been devisedby the American banker and statesmanCharles G. Dawes. After his return tothe United States in 1925, Coolidgenamed Kellogg to his cabinet as Secre-tary of State. During the following fouryears, Kellogg’s duties and accomplish-ments included the negotiation ofmore than 80 treaties between theUnited States and foreign govern-ments.

The best known of these treatieswas the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928.The treaty, also known as the Pact ofParis, had initially been proposed byFrench foreign minister Aristide Briandas an alliance between France and theUnited States. The U.S. governmentwas wary of such an agreement, fearingthat it might draw American forcesinto future conflicts. Kellogg proposedan alternative: the United States andFrance would invite other nations tojoin in a declaration that warfare wouldno longer be used as an instrument ofnational policy.

The Kellogg-Briand Pact was ini-tially signed by 15 nations on August17, 1928; eventually 65 countriesagreed to the pact. The U.S. Senate—

F R A N K B . K E L L O G G • 9 1

Frank B.KelloggB O R N

December 22, 1856Potsdam, New York

D I E D

December 21, 1937Minneapolis, Minnesota

E D U C AT I O N

Attended elementary school for fiveyears

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; statesman


U.S. Senator (1917–23); U.S. ambassador to Great Britain(1924–25); U.S. Secretary of State(1925–29); sponsor and negotiatorof the Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928);member, Hague Tribunal (1930–35)


which has to approve all treaties of theU.S. government—ratified the agree-ment with only one opposing vote.

Hailed as a major milestone on theroad to world peace, the Kellogg-Briand Pact was likened to “an inter-national kiss.” Thus there was littlesurprise when the 1929 Nobel PeacePrize was awarded to Frank Kellogg forhis role in negotiating the pact; Briand had won the Peace Prize theyear before.

The 1929 prize was announced in1930, and later that year Kellogg re-ceived another honor when he was ap-pointed to the Hague Tribunal, thecourt of international justice in theNetherlands. He served for five years,retiring in 1935 because of poor health.

Not long before his death, Kelloggannounced that he was donating half a

million dollars to Carleton College inNorthfield, Minnesota, for the estab-lishment of an institute of internation-al relations. After suffering a stroke,Frank Kellogg died in Minneapolis inDecember 1937, the day before his 81stbirthday.


Bryn-Jones, David. Frank B. Kellogg: A Bi-ography. New York: Putnam, 1937.

Ferrell, Robert H. Peace in Their Time: TheOrigins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact. NewHaven: Yale University Press, 1952.

“Kellogg, Frank Billings.” In Dictionary ofAmerican Biography. Supplement 2. NewYork: Scribners, 1958.

Miller, David H. The Peace Pact of Paris: AStudy of the Briand-Kellogg Treaty. NewYork: Putnam, 1928.


U.S. Secretary of State Frank Kellogg (left)and Italian representative Nobile Giacomo de Martini sign the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Aristide Briand, coauthor ofthe pact, won the Nobel Peace Prize in1928, the year the pact was signed.

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rom the time he was a small child, NathanSöderblom knew that he wanted to become aclergyman. His father was a minister, and inhis mother’s family there were clergymen, too.Nathan thought that he would be like his fa-

ther and grow up to lead a congregation in a small Swedishtown. However, when he was a young man, he had an expe-rience that made him aspire to a larger role in the world.Four decades later, that experience led to a unique achieve-ment: in 1930 Nathan Söderblom became the first memberof the clergy to receive the Nobel Peace Prize.

Söderblom was born in 1866 in the provincial commu-nity of Trönö, Sweden, about a hundred miles north ofStockholm. Both religion and learning were important to hisparents, and young Nathan’s father took over his educationat an early age, beginning Latin lessons when Nathan wasfive. Nathan Söderblom attended local schools and then en-rolled at Uppsala University, which his father had attended,in 1883, at the age of 17.

Söderblom studied classical languages at the universityand received his undergraduate degree with honors in Greek.He went on to study theology and gained respect and admi-ration from both his professors and his fellow students, whoelected him president of the student body.

N A T H A N S Ö D E R B L O M • 9 3

NathanSöderblom

Y1 9 3 0

A medal commemorating the elevation in 1914 of NathanSöderblom to archbishop of the Swedish Lutheran Church.Söderblom devoted his life to interdenominational cooperation.

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In 1890, two years before he re-ceived his doctorate, Söderblom wasinvited to become a delegate to a worldChristian student conference sponsoredby Yale University in New Haven,Connecticut. The conference had beencalled as part of a growing ecumenicalmovement, or movement for unity,among the various Christian denomi-nations. Söderblom was stirred by theconference and its mission, and he de-

cided that henceforth he would devotehis life to the goal of ecumenism—Christian unity.

After receiving his degree in theology in 1892, Söderblom was or-dained in the Swedish LutheranChurch, the state church of Sweden.That same year he published his firstbook, a study of Martin Luther, the16th-century founder of Lutheranism.Söderblom worked briefly as the chap-lain of a mental hospital in Uppsala,and was then appointed minister of theSwedish church in Paris. The churchserved diplomats, businessmen, stu-dents, and other Swedes who were liv-ing in the French city. Among themembers of the congregation was Al-fred Nobel, a major financial supporterof the church. When Nobel died in1896, Söderblom conducted thememorial service.

In 1897, Söderblom married AnnaForsell, a fellow student at the Univer-sity of Uppsala who later collaboratedwith him on his writings; the coupleeventually had 10 children. During hisseven years in France, he earned adoctoral degree in theology and thehistory of religions at the University ofParis.

Söderblom and his family returnedin 1901 to Uppsala, where he becameprofessor of theology. He remained inthis post for 13 years, and during thisperiod also taught for a time at theUniversity of Leipzig in Germany. Fo-cusing on comparative religion and thephilosophy of Martin Luther, Söder-blom was a dynamic teacher who iscredited with inspiring a religious re-vival in Sweden. Söderblom left his po-sition at the University of Uppsala in1914 to become archbishop of theSwedish Lutheran Church.


Archbishop Nathan Söderblom believedecumenism and peace are inseperable.Topromote his goal of ecumenism, hereached out to Christian religious leadersthroughout the world.

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Pursuing his goal of ecumenism,Söderblom became the principalfounder of the General World Unionof Churches for International Under-standing, a group of like-minded clergymen from around the world.Members gathered in Konstanz, Ger-many, in the summer of 1914 for a con-ference, but the outbreak of war in August ended their meeting ahead ofschedule. Three years later, Söderblomorganized another ecumenical confer-ence, this time in Sweden, but becauseof the ongoing war only representativesfrom five neutral nations attended. Atthe conference Söderblom and otherdelegates issued a proclamation callingfor all churches to work for the settle-ment of international disputes throughmediation and arbitration.

In the years following the end ofWorld War I in 1918, Söderblom con-tinued to be an advocate of both ecu-menism and peace, which he believedwere inseparable. He wrote many arti-cles and a number of books on this sub-ject as well as other religious topics;many of them were translated intoother languages, including English.

In 1925 Söderblom led the Gen-eral World Union of Churches in sponsoring an international religiousgathering, the Universal ChristianConference on Life and Work, whichwas held in Stockholm. More than 600delegates from 37 countries attended;they represented not only most Protes-tant denominations but also the East-ern Orthodox Church. Söderblompresided over the conference meetings,which proclaimed the need for Christ-ian unity as a basis for establishingworld peace.

Nathan Söderblom was awardedthe 1930 Nobel Peace Prize for his

longtime commitment to the achieve-ment of world peace through religiousunity. In his acceptance speech, Söder-blom announced that a second worldecumenical conference would be heldin London in 1935. Unfortunately, hedid not live long enough to attend.

In the late spring of 1931, severalmonths after receiving the NobelPeace Prize, Söderblom traveled to theUniversity of Edinburgh in Scotland togive the Gifford Lectures, a prestigiousannual series on the subject of religion.In June, after completing some of thelectures, he became ill and returned toSweden. He died of a heart attack inUppsala several weeks later at the ageof 65.

Nathan Söderblom’s sudden deathdid not end his influence as a peace-maker, however. The 1935 ecumenicalconference in London was one of sev-eral similar events that grew out of theorganization he had founded in 1914and the ecumenical conference he hadorganized in 1925. The dual goal of ec-umenism and peace remained aliveduring the late 1930s and 1940s, de-spite the outbreak of World War II,and in 1948 the World Council ofChurches was founded as a permanentorganization to pursue those goals. Itcontinues its work today—thanks tothe vision of Nathan Söderblom.


Curtis, C. J. Söderblom: Ecumenical Pioneer.Minneapolis: Augsburg, 1967.

Sundkler, Bengt. Nathan Söderblom: HisLife and Work. Malmö: Gleerups, 1968.

N A T H A N S Ö D E R B L O M • 9 5

NathanSöderblomB O R N

January 15, 1866Trönö, Sweden

D I E D

July 12, 1931Uppsala, Sweden

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., University of Uppsala (1886);Doctor of Theology, University ofParis (1901)

O C C U PAT I O N

Clergyman


Professor of theology and compara-tive religion, University of Uppsala(1901–14); archbishop, SwedishLutheran Church (1914–31); in-spired religious revival in Sweden;led world ecumenical movement;founder, General World Union ofChurches; chairman, UniversalChristian Conference on Life andWork (1925); author of numerousarticles and books on religious is-sues, in particular ecumenism andpeace, including Christian Fellowship(1923) and The Church and Peace(1929)


n December 1887 a young American woman namedJane Addams and her best friend, Ellen Gates Starr,sailed from New York en route to England. Jane Ad-dams was 27 years old, had health problems, andknew that she would probably never marry. She had

tried to pursue a career in medicine, but illness had endedthat dream. Now, on her second visit abroad, she was takinga vacation in England and hoping that this trip would helpher decide what to do with her life.

Jane Addams came from a wealthy family, but her life sofar had not been happy. Born in 1860 in Cedarville, Illinois,a small town in the northern part of the state, Jane was theeighth of nine children. Her father was a prosperous business-man, banker, and state senator. Her mother died before Jane’sthird birthday, and her father remarried five years later.

Jane was a lonely, shy child with a spinal deformity. Shewas close to her father, and her stepmother encouraged herreading and schooling; nevertheless, Jane grew up uncertainof her place in the world.

After graduating from local public schools, Jane Addamsentered Rockford Female Seminary in 1877. The seminary,


Jane Addams is remembered as a pioneering social worker, butduring her lifetime she was equally famous as a leader of the in-ternational peace movement.

IJane AddamsNicholas Murray Butler

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located in the nearby town of Rock-ford, Illinois, was one of only a few institutions in the Midwest to offer college-level classes to women, and itencouraged an interest in women’srights. During Addams’s years there,the seminary became accredited asRockford College, and she received abachelor of arts degree in 1882.

Addams assumed that her deformi-ty and other ailments, which meantthat she could not have children, madeher unsuitable for marriage. Althoughshe could have remained at her par-ents’ home, as most unmarried womendid in the 19th century, she decided topursue a career as a physician. Her fam-ily supported her in this choice and al-lowed her to enroll at one of the fewmedical schools in the nation thenopen to women, the Woman’s MedicalCollege of Philadelphia. After only afew months of study there, however,her poor health forced her to withdraw.

For some time afterward, Jane Ad-dams searched for another occupationto engage her and use her abilities.Like many other wealthy women of hertime, she traveled to Europe and spentseveral years there studying languages,fine arts, philosophy, and history. Thenshe returned to the family home inCedarville for a few years, broodingand unhappy. Finally, in 1887, she de-cided to make another trip abroad, thistime to England.

While Addams and her friendEllen Starr were in London, they visit-ed Toynbee Hall, a settlement house ina poor district. Settlement houses—community centers for the underprivi-leged—had recently been establishedin several English cities. Addams wasimpressed by what she saw, and tried tolearn as much as she could about socialreform movements. When she returnedto the United States in late 1888, sheknew what she wanted to do with herlife: establish a settlement house.

The nearest large city to Addams’shometown was Chicago. She decided

to found her settlement house in thatcity’s poorest neighborhood, an area onthe South Side whose main thorough-fare was Halsted Street. With EllenStarr, Addams rented part of a once-grand mansion on Halsted that wasowned by a family named Hull. Thetwo women moved there in September1889 and established what becameknown as Hull-House.

During the next few years, Hull-House developed into a busy com-munity center that served scores ofneighborhood residents—men, women,and children—every day. Using herown money as well as donations fromfriends, and with the assistance ofStarr, Addams was able to buy themansion. In the following decades, donations from wealthy Chicago busi-nessmen enabled her to expand Hull-House into a complex of 13 buildings.

Hull-House included a day nursery,bookbindery, library, gym, communitykitchen, small museum, an art studio,and a boardinghouse for young workingwomen. Hull-House provided lessonsin literature, art, cooking, sewing, Eng-lish, music, and drama, and various so-cial clubs offered recreation. DuringAddams’s lifetime, Hull-House servedthousands of people of all ages. Its suc-cess was due in large part not only toAddams’s organizational ability andtotal commitment to her goal, but alsoto her warm personality and her obvi-ous love for the people, especially chil-dren, whom she served.

Addams’s work with the poor drewher into other areas of social reform.She supported laws to restrict childlabor, protect female employees, estab-lish safety regulations in factories, andmake school attendance mandatory.She also became a prominent supporterof woman suffrage, the right of womento vote.

Beginning in the early 1900s, Ad-dams devoted an increasing amount of attention to the peace movement.Raised in a Quaker environment,

A D D A M S & B U T L E R • 9 7

Jane AddamsB O R N

September 6, 1860Cedarville, Illinois

D I E D

May 21, 1935Chicago, Illinois

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Rockford College (1882)

O C C U PAT I O N

Social worker

M A J O RAC C O M P L I S H M E N T S

Founder, Hull-House (1889);founder and president, Women’s In-ternational League for Peace andFreedom (1919); author of numer-ous articles and 11 books on peaceand social reform, including NewerIdeals of Peace (1907) and TwentyYears at Hull-House (1910)


Addams had always been opposed towar. (Quakers are members of the Soci-ety of Friends, a religious sect foundedin England in the 17th century. Thesect has always opposed warfare.) How-ever, she had become increasingly con-vinced that true peace was not simplythe absence of war. Rather, she definedit as “the nurture of human life.”

Addams made several major con-tributions to the peace movement. In1915 she helped create the Woman’sPeace Party and became its first chair-person. Several parts of the party’s plat-form, which she wrote, were later usedby President Woodrow Wilson in hisproposal for the League of Nations.Also in 1915, Addams was electedpresident of the International Congressof Women, which was held at TheHague, in the Netherlands. The con-gress had been organized to draft apeace plan to end World War I, whichhad begun in August 1914.

During the remaining years of thewar, Addams continued to work forworld peace through her writings andlectures. Many people learned aboutAddams through her many articles and11 books, some of which became best-sellers. As a pacifist, she was totally op-posed to U.S. entry in the war in April1917, and this stance led many to criti-

cize her as a traitor. The Daughters ofthe American Revolution, a patrioticgroup, expelled her from membershipfor her pacifist views.

In the years following the war,which ended in 1918, Addams was ac-tive in relief efforts that brought foodto European women and children, in-cluding those in former enemy coun-tries. She helped establish nationalwomen’s organizations in Europe, andfounded and led a worldwide peace or-ganization, the Women’s InternationalLeague for Peace and Freedom(WILPF), an outgrowth of the Hagueconference of 1915. Addams was also afounder of the American Civil Liber-ties Union, a group that defends theconstitutional rights of all citizens.

In the final decade of her life, Ad-dams channeled her activities for peacethrough WILPF, a private organizationwhose goals included disarmament andthe abolition of compulsory militaryservice. Although she developed a seri-ous heart ailment in 1926, she contin-ued her peacemaking efforts. In 1931those efforts earned her a share of thatyear’s Nobel Peace Prize. Jane Addamsthus became the first American womanto receive the award.

In the early 1930s Addams devel-oped cancer. When she died in May1935, following an operation for thedisease, she was mourned throughoutthe world and lauded for her lifetime ofservice to humanity. Following a funer-al service at Hull-House, Jane Addamswas buried in her hometown ofCedarville, Illinois. The famous institu-tion that she founded continued toserve the people of Chicago until the1960s. It is now a public museum dedi-cated to the memory of Jane Addamsand her many accomplishments.

Nicholas Murray Butler, the Amer-ican educator who shared the 1931Nobel Peace Prize with Jane Addams,was also a reformer. Butler was born in Elizabeth, New Jersey, in 1862, theeldest of five children of a wealthy


During a visit to Japan in 1923, Jane Ad-dams is welcomed by flag-waving school-children. Addams traveled throughout theworld on behalf of the peace movementand often made women and children thefocus of her efforts to promote peace.

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textile importer and his wife. He waseducated at public and private schoolsin New Jersey before entering Colum-bia University in New York City in1878 to study law.

Midway through his undergraduateyears, Butler decided that he was moreinterested in becoming an educator. Hegraduated with honors in philosophy in1882, then went on to earn master’sand doctoral degrees in that subject atthe university.

After spending a year studying inBerlin and Paris, Butler returned toColumbia in 1885 as an assistant pro-fessor of philosophy. While teaching atthe university, he became interested inother forms of education, including vo-cational, or job-oriented, training. In1887 Butler became president of theIndustrial Education Association, anorganization that promoted the teach-ing of manual arts (metalworking, car-pentry, and similar skills) and domesticskills (sewing, cooking, and nursing) inpublic schools. Under his leadership,the association established the NewYork College for the Training of Teach-ers in 1889. It was renamed TeachersCollege in 1892 and nine years laterbecame part of Columbia University.

In 1890 Butler became professor ofphilosophy, ethics, and psychology atthe university. Soon afterward, hebegan introducing a series of teachingreforms in the university curriculumand established education as an acade-mic discipline at Columbia. During the1890s he successfully advocated reformsin public school education in bothNew Jersey and the state of New York,including teacher certification and theremoval of school boards from politicalcontrol.

Butler’s accomplishments duringthis period were astounding. Whilecontinuing his professorial duties atColumbia, he founded a scholarly jour-nal, Educational Review; headed theNational Education Association, ateachers’ organization; and was a co-

founder of the College Entrance Exam-ination Board. In 1902 he became pres-ident of the university.

As the head of Columbia Universi-ty for 43 years, Butler turned it intoone of the leading institutions of itskind in the world. He founded itsschools of journalism and dentistry andexpanded other graduate departments.In addition, he attracted many famousscholars in the humanities and naturalsciences to its faculty.

Butler was also active in politics. A lifelong member of the Republicanparty, he attended national party conventions, helped determine partypolicy, and in 1920 even sought—un-successfully—the Republican nomina-tion for President. But in addition tohis work in the fields of education andpolitics, Butler is remembered today forhis longtime commitment to the causeof peace.

Butler first became interested inthe peace movement in the 1880s,while traveling in Europe. He became afriend of the French peace leader Pauld’Estournelles de Constant and otherEuropean statesmen, and maintainedthese friendships through correspon-dence and on subsequent trips abroad.As a consequence, Butler became anadvocate of arms limitation, arbitra-tion, and the establishment of a worldcourt to settle international disputes.In 1907 he presided at an internationalarbitration conference held in NewYork State, and during the next fewyears gave a series of lectures on arbi-tration and other peace issues. Thesewere later published in book form asThe Internationalist Mind (1912) andwere widely read.

In 1910 Butler persuaded the in-dustrialist Andrew Carnegie to donate$10 million for the creation of a pri-vate organization called the CarnegieEndowment for International Peace.Butler became head of the Endow-ment’s division of education and heldthat post until 1925. In that year he

A D D A M S & B U T L E R • 9 9


NicholasMurray ButlerB O R N

April 2, 1862Elizabeth, New Jersey

D I E D

December 7, 1947New York, New York

E D U C AT I O N

A.B. (1882), A.M. (1883), Ph.D.(1884), Columbia University

O C C U PAT I O N

Educator


Founded Columbia Teachers College; president, Columbia Uni-versity (1902–45); founder andpresident, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; initiatedKellogg-Briand Pact (1928); authorof numerous books and articles oneducation and peace

succeeded Elihu Root as president ofthe organization. As the head of theCarnegie Endowment, Butler directedits peacemaking activities around theworld, which included rebuilding libraries in Europe that had been damaged or destroyed during WorldWar I, sponsoring cultural exchangesbetween countries, and making grantsto colleges for the establishment ofcourses in international relations.

One of Butler’s major contribu-tions to peace was his initiation andsupport of a major international peacetreaty, the Kellogg-Briand Pact. Thepact had its origins in a conversationthat Butler had in 1926 with theFrench statesman Aristide Briand, dur-ing which Butler suggested that theUnited States would be responsive to apeace offer from France. That sugges-tion led to the creation in 1928 of theKellogg-Briand Pact, and Butlerworked hard to mobilize public opinionin support of the plan. It was eventu-ally signed by 65 countries, includingthe United States.

For his work with the CarnegieEndowment and his role in creatingthe Kellogg-Briand Pact, NicholasMurray Butler was named cowinner ofthe 1931 Nobel Peace Prize. In theyears leading up to World War II, But-ler continued to work for peacethrough the cultural and educationalprograms of the Carnegie Endowment.He believed that war could be avertedthrough the establishment of a Euro-pean economic union—an idea thatbecame a reality only after the warwith the creation of the EuropeanCommon Market in 1958. AlthoughButler was opposed to war, he stronglysupported U.S. entry into World WarII after its outbreak in 1939.

Butler wrote more than a dozenbooks on education and internationalrelations during his long career; thelast, a collection of his essays andspeeches, was published in 1946. Al-though he had a distinguished public

life, Butler’s personal life was far fromhappy. His first wife, whom he marriedin 1887 and with whom he had adaughter, died in 1903. Four years laterhe remarried, but unhappily, and hisdaughter died young.

Butler planned to remain as Co-lumbia’s president until his own death,but during the 1940s he gradually losthis eyesight and became deaf. Finally, in1945, he resigned. He died two yearslater, in December 1947, of pneumonia.


Addams, Jane. A Centennial Reader. NewYork: Macmillan, 1960.

———. Twenty Years at Hull-House. 1910.Reprint, New York: New American Li-brary, 1981.

———. The Second Twenty Years at Hull-House. New York: Macmillan, 1930.

Butler, Nicholas Murray. Across the BusyYears. 2 vols. New York: Scribners, 1939,1940.

“Butler, Nicholas Murray.” In Dictionary ofAmerican Biography. Supplement 4. NewYork: Scribners, 1974.

Davis, Allen F. American Heroine: The Lifeand Legend of Jane Addams. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973.

———, ed. Jane Addams on Peace, War,and International Understanding, 1899–1932. New York: Garland, 1976.

De Benedetti, Charles. Origins of the Mod-ern American Peace Movement. Millwood,N.Y.: KTO Press, 1978.

Farrell, J. C. Beloved Lady: A History ofJane Addams’s Ideas on Reform and Peace.Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press,1967.

Lasch, Christopher, ed. The Social Thoughtof Jane Addams. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1975.

Marrin, Albert. Nicholas Murray Butler.New York: Twayne, 1976.

Wheeler, Leslie. Jane Addams. Morristown,N.J.: Silver Burdett Press, 1990.

1 0 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

During his 43-year tenure as president ofColumbia University, Nicholas Murray But-ler was also active in the peace move-ment. In 1910 he encouraged a friend, in-dustrialist Andrew Carnegie, to establishthe Carnegie Endowment for InternationalPeace. Butler succeeded Elihu Root ashead of the Endowment in 1925.

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n the early 1890s, an Englishman still in his teenscame to the United States, hoping to make his for-tune in the West. Like many young men who lefttheir homelands for America in the 19th century,he thought that the New World would give him

opportunities for a fresh start. He had tried his hand at jour-nalism before coming to the United States, and had decidedit held no future for him.

Soon after arriving out West, the young man began a se-ries of rigorous outdoor jobs. Eventually, he decided to settlein California as a gold prospector. He staked a claim, but forsome reason the claim was denied. Frustrated, and tired ofmanual labor, the young man returned to journalism. Theloss of his homestead had a then-unforeseen effect on theyoung man: a writer with pacifist sympathies, he set out on apath that would lead to the Nobel Peace Prize some fourdecades later.

When Norman Angell was awarded the 1933 PeacePrize, he had been known by that name for more than 20

N O R M A N A N G E L L • 1 0 1

Norman Angell’s pacifist sympathies led him to a career as awriter of articles and best-selling books that promoted interna-tionalism by describing the terrible costs of warfare.

INorman Angell

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years. But he was born Ralph NormanLane in December 1873 in Holbeach,England, to a wealthy landowner andlocal merchant named Thomas AngellLane and his wife. Young Norman wasbright but restless, and after attendingan English boarding school he was sentto a preparatory school in France, wherehis parents hoped he would mature.

In France, Norman became drawnto radical political ideas, and he leftschool at the age of 15 and moved toGeneva, Switzerland. There he becamepart of the city’s international commu-nity, which included revolutionariesand political refugees. Despite hisyouth, he was hired as an editor of anEnglish-language newspaper, and whileearning his living at the newspaper heattended lectures at the University ofGeneva. But after three years, Normanbecame restless and returned to Eng-land. He lived at home for a while,without much sense of direction, untilhis father gave him 50 pounds and en-couraged him to find a future for him-self in America.

Norman Lane spent seven years inthe West working successively as acowboy, laborer, prospector, and mailcarrier. In 1898, his homestead claimdenied, he applied for a newspaper joband was hired. His career as an Ameri-can journalist did not last long, howev-er. Later that year he was called hometo England on family business. Whilehe was in the United States, NormanLane married an American woman, butthere were apparently difficulties in themarriage, and at some point the coupleseparated.

When his family business was fin-ished, Norman Lane decided not to re-turn to the United States. Convincedthat he could now earn a living by

writing, he moved to Paris and resumedhis career in journalism. He workedbriefly as a freelance correspondent forAmerican newspapers, and then in1899 became editor of the Paris DailyMessenger, an English-language news-paper. He also contributed essays oncurrent events and politics to the news-paper. On the side, he began writing abook on the contemporary scene; it waspublished in 1903 as Patriotism UnderThree Flags. Norman Lane’s first bookattracted wide attention and led to hisappointment in 1904 as editor of theParis edition of a leading London news-paper, the Daily Mail.

In the early 1900s, Norman Lanegradually became committed to thegoal of international cooperation anddecided that he would focus his writingon aspects of that topic. His secondbook, Europe’s Optical Illusion, pub-lished in 1909, addressed the economicbasis of war. So convinced was Lane ofthe book’s importance that he paid forits first publication himself. An Englishhistorian named Lord Esher was im-pressed by Europe’s Optical Illusion, andhe distributed several hundred copiesto prominent Europeans. Their re-sponse was overwhelmingly favorable,and the book’s popularity led to itsreprinting in 1910 under a new title,The Great Illusion. The author, too, ap-peared under a new name: in the pre-ceding year, Norman Lane had changedhis surname to his father’s middlename, and was henceforth known asNorman Angell.

In The Great Illusion Angell arguedagainst war, saying that it was neverprofitable and that it hurt both the vic-tors and those whom they had defeat-ed. The book became a best-seller: itsold 2 million copies and was translated

into more than two dozen languages.Angell left the Daily Mail in 1912 toedit a new journal of public affairs, Warand Peace. During the next decade healso became a contributor to leadingAmerican periodicals.

Following the outbreak of WorldWar I in 1914, Angell joined with sev-eral British political leaders to foundthe Union of Democratic Control, anorganization that called for greater pub-lic control over the British govern-ment’s foreign policy. He also drew up aproposal for a permanent association ofnations that would ensure internationalpeace after the war ended. Angell’s pro-posal, which he discussed in articlesand lectures, was read with interest byU.S. President Woodrow Wilson, whoincorporated some of Angell’s ideasinto his own proposal for the League of Nations.

After the war ended in 1918, An-gell attended the Paris Peace Confer-ence as a journalist. He was critical ofthe harsh terms of the resulting Ver-sailles Peace Treaty, which requiredGermany to pay enormous amounts ofmoney to countries it had harmed dur-ing the war. However, he approved ofthe League of Nations, which was cre-ated by the treaty. During the next fewyears, while he continued working as ajournalist, Angell was active in war re-lief associations. He founded one ofthem himself: Fight the Famine, an or-ganization that provided food, medicalsupplies, and clothing to children inwar-torn Central Europe.

In addition to working full time asa journalist and nearly full time as ahumanitarian, Angell continued towrite books on world affairs and thequest for peace. During the 1920s, heran for Parliament several times before

1 0 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

finally winning election in 1929 to theHouse of Commons on the LabourParty ticket. He served only two years,however; he resigned in 1931, believ-ing that he could serve the cause ofworld peace more effectively as a writerthan as a politician. That same year, hewas knighted by King George V ofEngland.

Another honor came to NormanAngell in 1934, when he was namedthe winner of the 1933 Nobel PeacePrize. By this time, Angell had writtenhundreds of articles and more than twodozen books on current affairs, many of them about disarmament and theabolition of war. The citation accom-panying the award focused on that ac-complishment by praising Angell as a“peace educator,” but his humanitarianservice during nearly three decades wasalso noted approvingly.

During the 1930s, as the likelihoodof another world war grew, Angell wasan outspoken critic of Adolf Hitler andNazi Germany. Although Angell wasopposed to war and was sympathetic topacifism, he himself was not a pacifist.While he hoped that international dis-armament would someday occur, hewas realistic about the present situa-tion. Hitler, he believed, was an enemyof the common good and had to befought.

In the late 1930s, as Nazi persecu-tion of Jews increased, Angell urgedthe British government to admit Jewishrefugees. He himself sheltered some ofthem at his home in rural England.When his country went to war withGermany in September 1939, Angelljoined the Ministry of Information, agovernment agency that rallied supportfor the war effort. In this capacity hetraveled to the United States in 1940

to seek American help for GreatBritain. After the United States en-tered the war in December 1941, An-gell stayed on in New York City, wherehe lived for 10 years. He continued towork as a journalist, write books, andgive lectures. During this time he be-came a leading advocate of world gov-ernment under the United Nations,founded in 1945 as the successor to theLeague of Nations.

Angell returned to England in1951 and settled in rural Surrey. Thatyear he published an autobiography,After All. He continued to lecture andwrite articles on world affairs—in par-ticular, colonialism, the growth ofThird World nations, and tensions be-tween Israel and its Arab neighbors. Ashe grew older, Angell’s health began todecline and he was forced to makefewer and fewer public appearances. Hewrote his 35th and last book in 1958.

During the 1960s, Angell madeseveral more trips to the United States.The last occurred in 1966, when he do-nated his personal papers to Ball StateUniversity in Muncie, Indiana, and re-ceived an honorary degree from theuniversity. He died a year later, in Oc-tober 1967, at a nursing home in Sur-rey, England, at the age of 93.


Angell, Norman. After All: The Autobiogra-phy of Norman Angell. London: HamishHamilton, 1951.

Ceadel, M. Pacifism in Britain, 1914–1945.Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1980.

Marrin, Albert. Sir Norman Angell. NewYork: Twayne, 1979.

Miller, J. D. B. Norman Angell and the Futil-ity of War. New York: St. Martin’s, 1986.

N O R M A N A N G E L L • 1 0 3

Norman AngellB O R N

December 26, 1873Holbeach, England

D I E D

October 7, 1967Surrey, England

E D U C AT I O N

Attended preparatory school inEngland and France; briefly attend-ed University of Geneva

O C C U PAT I O N

Writer


Wrote numerous articles and bookson international cooperation andhow it can be achieved, beginningwith The Great Illusion (1909); edi-tor, War and Peace (periodical);founder, Fight the Famine


n 1875 no one would have predicted a great futurefor Arthur Henderson. He had left school threeyears earlier, at the age of nine, to work at a seriesof menial jobs. Now he was 12, and apprenticed toan iron molder. If he did well at his assigned tasks,

he could hope to remain and to eke out a bare living—un-less he fell victim to an accident on the job, which hap-pened often to boys his age who were forced to earn theirliving as skilled laborers.

But Arthur stuck it out, and four years later he reachedan important milestone in his personal life. At the age of 16,he converted to Methodism, a branch of Protestant Chris-tianity. As a follower of the Methodist Church, he gainedself-esteem and confidence in his abilities, became a leaderof working men and women and a leading advocate of worldpeace—and won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Arthur Henderson was born in Glasgow, Scotland, in1863 to a poor cotton-factory worker and his wife. Arthur’s

1 0 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Arthur Henderson’s Methodist beliefs inspired him to become atrade union leader, cofounder of the British Labour party, and aninternationally known disarmament advocate.

IArthur Henderson

Y1 9 3 4

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father died when he was nine, and hehad to leave primary school and go towork to help support the destitute fam-ily. Three years later his life improvedsomewhat when his mother remarriedand moved to Newcastle-upon-Tyne.In this industrial city in northeasternEngland, where there was a high levelof unemployment, Arthur was fortu-nate to find an apprenticeship. Thework was arduous, but he was brightand applied himself.

The Methodist Church, whichArthur Henderson joined in 1879, pro-vided a set of values that would guidehim for the rest of his life. The churchencouraged its members to work hardat their jobs, to remain fit and sober,and to perform acts of service for theirfellow human beings. Henderson even-tually married a fellow Methodist andbecame a lay preacher in the church.(A lay, or layman, preacher is a churchmember who is not an ordained clergy-man but has permission from churchauthorities to preach.) In this capacity,he grew skilled as a public speaker, andhe further developed this ability byjoining a local debating society.

At the age of 18, Henderson com-pleted his apprenticeship and became ajourneyman, the next level in his trade.He joined the ironfounders’ laborunion and soon became one of its ac-knowledged leaders. Henderson nowknew that the labor movement wouldbe his life’s work. During the next fewyears, he served as a union official, andin 1892 he entered politics as a citycouncilor in Newcastle.

In 1896 Henderson moved to Dar-lington, a manufacturing town not farfrom Newcastle, and was elected to thecounty council. He was now a full-timeemployee of the labor union and hadbecome nationally known among tradeunionists. In 1900 he cofounded theLabour Representation Committee,which became the forerunner of theLabour political party in England.Three years later he was elected mayor

of Darlington and member of Parlia-ment on the Labour party ticket.

Henderson served as chairman ofthe first Labour party conference, heldin 1906. Later that year, Hendersonwas re-elected to Parliament, and 28other Labour party candidates were alsoelected. Henderson led his fellowLabourites in Parliament and in 1911became the secretary of the party; heheld this post for more than twodecades.

Henderson supported GreatBritain’s entry into World War I inAugust 1914, but the Labour partyleader, Ramsay MacDonald, did not.When MacDonald resigned because ofhis disagreement with the govern-ment’s war policy, Henderson succeed-ed him as the leader of the party. In1915 Henderson was named to headthe British board of education as amember of a coalition government (agovernment in which the leaders oftwo or more political parties sharepower). A year later he became thefirst Labour party member to join theBritish cabinet when he was appointedpostmaster general.

In 1917, as a minister-without-portfolio in the coalition governmentled by Prime Minister David LloydGeorge, Henderson traveled to Rus-sia—whose czar had just been over-thrown in the Russian Revolution—topersuade the new government there toremain in the war on the side of GreatBritain. He left the cabinet shortly af-terward following a disagreement withLloyd George.

Henderson now assumed the taskof reorganizing and strengthening theLabour party. He drew up a list of for-eign policy objectives for the party,which included the establishment of aninternational organization to settle dis-putes between nations peacefully. Hen-derson also helped draft a party consti-tution, which extended Labour partymembership to members of the middleclass as well as the working class.

A R T H U R H E N D E R S O N • 1 0 5

Arthur HendersonB O R N

September 13, 1863Glasgow, Scotland

D I E D

October 20, 1935London, England

E D U C AT I O N

Primary school

O C C U PAT I O N

Labor leader; statesman


Cofounder, British Labour Party(1906); British foreign minister(1929–31); worked for disarmamentas a leader of the League of NationsAssembly; chairman, World Disar-mament Conference (1932–34)


In 1919 Henderson persuaded fel-low Labourites in Parliament to sup-port the League of Nations, which hadbeen created by the Versailles PeaceTreaty. He continued as a party leaderin Parliament in the early 1920s. In1924, when the first Labour govern-ment in British history was elected, hebecame a member of the cabinet ashome secretary. Henderson’s new re-sponsibilities involved domestic issues,but he continued to take an active in-terest in foreign affairs. AlthoughWorld War I had not made Hendersona pacifist, it had convinced him thatwarfare posed the greatest danger tohumanity and had to be opposed. Theintensity of his feeling on this issuemay have been explained in part by apersonal tragedy: his eldest son hadbeen killed in the war.

During the 1920s, Hendersonserved as a delegate to the Assembly ofthe League of Nations. There hehelped draft the international securityagreement of 1924 known as the Gene-va Protocol, which called for the set-tlement of international disputes by arbitration. Five years later, in 1929,

Labour prime minister Ramsay Mac-Donald named Henderson foreign sec-retary. Henderson used this position tocontinue efforts to ensure securityamong the nations of Europe.

That same year Henderson was aprominent delegate to the Tenth As-sembly of the League of Nations inGeneva. On behalf of Great Britain, hesigned an agreement committing hisnation to compulsory arbitration in set-tling disputes. In so doing, he set anexample that was followed by morethan 40 other nations. Henderson alsospoke out on behalf of disarmamentand called for an international agree-ment to reduce the supply of weapons.

Henderson’s support for disarma-ment led to his appointment in 1931 aschairman of the World DisarmamentConference, sponsored by the Leagueand held in Geneva beginning in 1932.Henderson faced a number of problemsin this role: he was in poor health, theLabour government had been removedfrom office in Britain, a worldwide eco-nomic depression had begun, and Japanand Germany were both showing signsof aggression. Yet he persisted in con-vening conference sessions for nearlythree years, until the growing threat ofNazi Germany and its leader, AdolfHitler, led to the collapse of the con-ference in 1934.

Henderson’s determined support ofdisarmament in the face of overwhelm-ing odds earned him the 1934 NobelPeace Prize. In his acceptance speech,he voiced optimism for the future cre-ation of “nothing less than a worldcommonwealth.” Henderson was un-able to continue working for that goal,however. In the remaining year of hislife, ill health forced his gradual with-drawal from politics. He died in Lon-don in October 1935, at the age of 71.


Hamilton, Mary Agnes. Arthur Henderson.London: Heinemann, 1938.

1 0 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Newly elected member of ParliamentArthur Henderson (center) walks to theHouse of Commons on March 13, 1924,accompanied by his two sons,William(left) and Arthur, Jr. Henderson achieved ahistoric “first” on that date when he be-came the first member of Parliament tobe welcomed into that body by his previ-ously elected sons.

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oday, in Berlin, Germany, few people remem-ber why a street in the eastern part of thecity is called Ossietzky-Strasse. But earlier inthis century, the man for whom it is namedwas celebrated as a hero throughout the

world—everywhere, in fact, but in his native Germany. Onlysome years after his death—and after the end of the terriblewar he had tried to stop—did the citizens of Berlin pay be-lated tribute to Carl von Ossietzky by naming a street afterhim.

Carl von Ossietzky was born in the German port city ofHamburg in 1889. His father, an unsuccessful merchant, diedwhen Carl was two years old, and seven years later his moth-er remarried. Carl’s stepfather was a prominent member ofthe Social Democratic party, a liberal political group thatsupported social reform and opposed Germany’s increasingmilitarism, and young Carl was strongly influenced by hisviews. When he completed secondary school he decided that

C A R L V O N O S S I E T Z K Y • 1 0 7

Carl von Ossietzky

Y1 9 3 5

Carl von Ossietzky gave his life for the cause of peace. He died amartyr in a German prison hospital in 1938 as Adolf Hitler pre-pared for the war that Ossietzky had tried so hard to prevent.

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instead of enrolling in a university hewould become a writer.

By his early 20s Ossietzky had contributed political articles as well aspoetry to several periodicals. He alsobecame part of the peace movementand cofounded the Hamburg branch ofthe German Peace Society in 1912.Not long afterward, Ossietzky had hisfirst negative encounter with the gov-ernment: he was fined for writing anarticle in a local newspaper that wascritical of the military.

Ossietzky was dismayed when hiscountry began World War I in 1914,and two years later he entered the armyreluctantly after being drafted. His ex-perience fighting in eastern Franceturned him virtually overnight into apacifist. He had long believed thatthere was nothing heroic about war.Now he was convinced that it broughtonly terror and misery to humankind.

After Germany’s defeat in Novem-ber 1918, Ossietzky returned to Ham-burg to resume his career as a writerand to work for peace. After servingbriefly as president of the local chapterof the German Peace Society, hemoved to Berlin in 1920 to becomesecretary of the national organization.During the next few years he also con-tinued to write political articles and co-founded an antiwar movement calledNie Wieder Krieg (No More War).

In 1924 Ossietzky resigned as sec-retary of the German Peace Society tobecome foreign editor of a liberalBerlin newspaper, the Volkszeitung. Twoyears later he joined the staff of anoth-er paper, Die Weltbühne, and in 1927he became that paper’s editor-in-chief.That same year, under Ossietzky’s edi-torship, Die Weltbühne published an

article that criticized the governmentfor not opposing paramilitary groups inGermany. (Under the terms of the Ver-sailles Peace Treaty, which endedWorld War I, Germany was not al-lowed to maintain an official army.During the 1920s, a number of paramil-itary groups—private military organiza-tions—sprang up and trained regularly.They were composed of men and boyswho were unhappy about Germany’sloss.) For publishing his article, Ossiet-zky was convicted of libel against thegovernment and sentenced to a monthin prison.

In 1929 Ossietzky again came intoconflict with the German governmentwhen he published an article in DieWeltbühne that described its secretbuilding of warplanes, again in viola-tion of the Versailles Treaty. Ossietzkyand the article’s author, Walter Kreiser,were arrested on a charge of treason,but the trial was not held until 1931.In the meantime, in a national electionin 1930, the militaristic National So-cialist (Nazi) Party, led by Adolf Hitler,won more than 100 seats in the Reich-stag, the German legislature. In hisnewspaper, Ossietzky vigorouslyprotested the Nazi victory and warnedagainst the party’s growing power.

At the trial of Ossietzky and Kreis-er in 1931, both men were convictedand sentenced to 18 months in prison.Many prominent liberals protested theconviction, including the scientist Al-bert Einstein, and both Ossietzky andKreiser were urged by their supportersto flee the country before they could bejailed. Kreiser took their advice andmoved to Paris, but Ossietzky vowed toremain in order to fight what he calledthe “rottenness” in his nation.

1 0 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Ossietzky went to prison in thespring of 1932 and served sevenmonths of his sentence; he was releasedthat December as part of a Christmasamnesty declared by the government.Weeks later, in January 1933, Hitlerbecame chancellor of Germany. In February a mysterious fire sweptthrough the building that housed the Reichstag. Hitler used the fire—which may have been set by his fellowNazis—as an excuse to round up all political opponents of the Nazi regime,including Ossietzky. He was imprisonedfor a while in Berlin, then sent to con-centration camps—first Sonnenburg,then Esterwegen.

Ossietzky suffered terribly duringhis years of internment. His longtimeheart ailment grew worse, and he de-veloped severe tuberculosis—perhapsthrough a deliberate injection of thebacilli by a prison camp doctor. Hisplight did not go unnoticed, however.Leading peace activists from aroundthe world, including Jane Addams ofthe United States and Norman Angelland Bertrand Russell of Great Britain,protested to the German government.At the same time, they and otherprominent men and women, includingAlbert Einstein and the German nov-elist Thomas Mann, wrote to theNobel Peace Prize committee, recom-mending that Ossietzky receive theaward.

In 1936 Carl von Ossietzky wasnamed the winner of the 1935 NobelPeace Prize for his courageous standagainst the threat of militarism and his“burning love for freedom of thought.”Hitler was infuriated, and he prevent-ed Ossietzky from receiving the prize.Ossietzky himself was now too ill to

travel and had been moved from theEsterwegen camp to a prison hospitalin Berlin. Nevertheless, he receivedtelegrams and letters of congratulationfrom around the world. In many coun-tries he was publicly celebrated as ahero, and rallies of support were heldfor him. In New York City, ColumbiaUniversity president and previousNobel winner Nicholas Murray Butlerorganized a mass meeting in December1936 to honor Ossietzky for his com-mitment to “ideals of peace and . . . thepublic policies which make for peace.”

Ossietzky never left the prison hos-pital in Berlin. He died there in May1938, at the age of 48. He was survivedby his wife, an English nurse whom hehad married in 1913, and their youngdaughter. The German government,under Adolf Hitler, went on to fight,and lose, World War II—the conflictthat Ossietzky had warned against andhad given his life to prevent. In 1946, a year after the war ended, Ossietzky’sheroism was finally acknowledged inhis adopted city with the renaming of a street in his honor.


Abrams, Irwin. “Carl von Ossietzky.” InThe Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates.Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988.

La Fontaine, Henri. “Ossietzky.” Nation,October 9, 1937, p. 388.

“Martyr to Militarism.” Christian Century,May 25, 1938, pp. 653–56.

C A R L V O N O S S I E T Z K Y • 1 0 9

Carl vonOssietzkyB O R N

October 3, 1889Hamburg, Germany

D I E D

May 4, 1938Berlin, Germany

E D U C AT I O N

Secondary school

O C C U PAT I O N

Writer


Secretary, German Peace Society;editor-in-chief, Die Weltbühne; co-founder of the antiwar movementNie Wieder Krieg; outspoken criticof German militarism; early andpersistent opponent of Adolf Hitlerand the Nazi party


n 1936 the Argentinian statesman Carlos SaavedraLamas became the first South American to win theNobel Peace Prize. Furthermore, he received theaward for acting as a peacemaker in a war betweentwo South American nations, Bolivia and Paraguay.

But Saavedra Lamas’s accomplishments extended far beyondhis own continent and earned him praise and admirationthroughout the world.

Carlos Saavedra Lamas was born in Buenos Aires in1878 to wealthy parents. He was educated by private tutorsand later attended a Roman Catholic secondary school andcollege. He then studied for a doctorate in law at the Uni-versity of Buenos Aires and graduated in 1903 with highesthonors.

Saavedra Lamas did postgraduate study in Paris, then returned to Argentina to become professor of law at theUniversity of La Plata. After several years he joined the lawfaculty of the University of Buenos Aires and taught thereuntil 1946. Early on, Saavedra Lamas developed specialtiesin labor law and international law, and he pursued these in-terests throughout his scholarly career.

Along with his university appointment, Saavedra Lamasalso had a career in government service. During the follow-ing decades he served in a series of government posts relatedto education, justice, and foreign affairs, and was elected totwo terms in the national legislature.

Beginning in the 1920s Saavedra Lamas became a treatyadviser to the Foreign Ministry, and in 1928 he was namedpresident of the International Labor Conference, under theauspices of the League of Nations in Geneva, Switzerland.At this time, however, Argentina was not part of theLeague; it had withdrawn in 1920 in a dispute over the elec-tion of new member nations.

In 1932 Saavedra Lamas was appointed foreign ministerof Argentina. In his new position he decided to take an ac-tive role in trying to solve a long-standing dispute betweentwo other South American nations, Bolivia and Paraguay,which bordered Argentina on the north.

At issue was a territory called Chaco, which lay betweenBolivia and Paraguay. Chaco had been claimed and settledby Paraguay in the early 19th century, but actual ownershiphad always been in dispute between Paraguay and Bolivia.That dispute intensified in the 1920s, when oil was discov-ered in Bolivia. In order to ship its oil, landlocked Boliviadecided to press its claims to Chaco in order to gain accessto the Atlantic Ocean via the Paraguay River.

In 1928 fighting erupted between the two nations whenParaguay refused to cede Chaco to Bolivia, but a cease-fire

1 1 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

ICarlos SaavedraLamas

Y1 9 3 6

was established that lasted four years.Soon after Saavedra Lamas became for-eign minister in 1932, bloody warfareresumed between Bolivia and Paraguay.In his role as peacemaker, SaavedraLamas took a series of steps to resolvethe conflict. He began by successfullyproposing a broad resolution, called theDeclaration of August 3. According tothis resolution, all South American na-tions agreed that they would not recog-nize any national boundaries that hadbeen changed by war.

Saavedra Lamas’s next step was thecreation of the South American Anti-war Pact. This pact, signed by all SouthAmerican nations, had three major pro-visions: First, the nations agreed to re-nounce wars of aggression—that is, theysaid they would not invade other coun-tries. Second, they agreed to recognizeonly those national boundaries createdby peaceful means. Third, sanctions(peaceful punishments such as block-ades and denial of trade) would be im-posed against aggressor nations, and

C A R L O S S A A V E D R A L A M A S • 1 1 1

Carlos SaavedraLamasB O R N

November 1, 1878Buenos Aires, Argentina

D I E D

May 5, 1959Buenos Aires, Argentina

E D U C AT I O N

Doctorate of Laws, University ofBuenos Aires (1903)

O C C U PAT I O N

University professor; statesman


Professor (1910–46) and president(1942–44), University of BuenosAires; president, InternationalLabor Conference (1928); foreignminister of Argentina (1932–1938);formulated the Declaration of Au-gust 3 (1932); proposed and wrotethe South American Antiwar Pact(1933); formed commission (1935)that ended the Chaco War; presi-dent, Assembly of the League ofNations (1936)


Argentinian statesman Carlos Saavedra Lamas was awarded the 1936 Nobel PeacePrize for his successful efforts to end the Chaco War between Bolivia and Paraguay.

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efforts would be made to conciliate(make peace with) these aggressor nations.

The Antiwar Pact of 1933 won in-ternational praise for both SaavedraLamas and the nation of Argentina asleaders in the quest for peace. Throughhis efforts, Argentina was readmittedto the League of Nations that sameyear. Later the pact was submitted tothe League Assembly and was signedby 11 European nations.

By now, Saavedra Lamas had be-come known as South America’s lead-ing statesman. In that role he was approached by newly elected U.S.President Franklin D. Roosevelt to re-inforce friendly relations betweenLatin America and the United States.As a consequence, Saavedra Lamasand his nation became active in the Pan-American Union, an intercontinental organization that promoted cooperation among thecountries of North, Central, and South America.

Although Paraguay and Boliviahad signed both the Declaration of August 3 and the Antiwar Pact, theChaco War continued to rage. Saave-dra Lamas had not given up his at-tempts to end the war, however. He believed that his accomplishments inthe field of international relationswould eventually enable him to settlethe dispute—and he was correct.

By 1935, Saavedra Lamas’s prestigeallowed him to intervene and to be ac-cepted as a peacemaker by both Bo-livia and Paraguay. He then formed acommission composed of representa-tives from six then-neutral nations inNorth and South America—Brazil,Chile, Peru, Uruguay, Argentina, and the United States—to mediate an end to the war, which had killed

more than 100,000 people since itsoutbreak in 1932.

On June 12, 1935, the commissionannounced a cease-fire and the begin-ning of negotiations between Paraguayand Bolivia to resolve the boundarydispute. A year later, Saavedra Lamaswas named the winner of the 1936Nobel Peace Prize for leading the effortto end the Chaco War. Some monthsbefore the award was announced,Saavedra Lamas had been accorded an-other honor: election to the presidencyof the League of Nations Assembly inGeneva.

Saavedra Lamas retired as Argenti-na’s foreign minister in 1938, the sameyear that a treaty ending the ChacoWar was signed. The treaty gave three-fourths of the disputed Chaco territoryto Paraguay; the remaining one-fourthwent to Bolivia, which also receivedaccess rights to the Paraguay River andto the Paraguayan river port city ofPuerto Casado.

In the early 1940s Saavedra Lamasserved as president of the University ofBuenos Aires while continuing as amember of the law faculty. In thecourse of his career, he received awardsfrom 11 nations, including the GermanIron Cross and the French Legion ofHonor. Saavedra Lamas retired fromthe university in 1946 and spent his re-maining years in Buenos Aires, wherehe lived with his wife and son. He diedat his home in May 1959 at the age of80 after suffering a brain hemorrhage.


Abrams, Irwin. “Carlos Saavedra Lamas.”In The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates.Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988.

1 1 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

ven as a very young man, growing up in Eng-land in the second half of the 19th century,Robert Cecil was known for his progressiveviews, especially his support of women’s rightto vote. As a grown man, serving in Parlia-

ment, he became firmly committed to the cause of inter-national cooperation, and in late middle age he helped tocreate the League of Nations. His untiring support of theLeague earned him the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize.

Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne Cecil was born intoan aristocratic family in London in 1864. He was the thirdof five sons of Lord Cecil, the 3rd Marquess of Salisbury,who later in the century served as prime minister of GreatBritain. Young Robert, as he was called, grew up in a house-hold of enormous wealth and privilege. He was educated athome until the age of 13, and was then sent to Eton, a dis-tinguished secondary school. After completing course workthere, he studied law at Oxford University and graduated in1886.

During the next two decades, Robert Cecil practiced lawin London, where he lived with his wife, whom he had mar-ried in 1889. (The couple had no children.) Cecil seemed

R O B E R T C E C I L • 1 1 3

Robert Cecil(Viscount Cecil of Chelwood)

Y1 9 3 7

E

In 1931, Robert Cecil addresses a meeting of peace advocates from 17 nations and 170 organizations in Paris. For two decades, Cecilworked to strengthen the League of Nations and supported its efforts to prevent war.

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destined to make the legal field his career, and even coauthored a well-respected textbook on commercial law.He had always been interested in poli-tics, however, and in 1906, three yearsafter the death of his father, he waselected to Parliament as a Conserva-tive. His father had been a lifelongmember of the Conservative party, but Robert Cecil soon discovered thatthe party was not sympathetic to his reformist views. He broke with theConservatives, declared himself an in-dependent, and after several tries wasre-elected to Parliament from anotherdistrict.

Following Great Britain’s entryinto World War I in 1914, when Cecilwas 50, he was disappointed to learnthat he was too old for military service.As an alternative, he became a volun-teer with the International Committeeof the Red Cross and worked for a yearboth in London and abroad on the or-ganization’s behalf. Midway throughthe war, Cecil was appointed to theBritish cabinet as undersecretary of for-eign affairs and masterminded theblockade against Germany during theconflict.

The war had a deep and long-last-ing effect on Cecil, and he determinedto do all that he could to establish last-ing peace once the fighting ended. In1916 he drew up a memo that proposedsetting up a postwar international com-mission to further that goal. The memowas sent to his fellow cabinet membersand ultimately endorsed by them. Itlater became part of Great Britain’sdraft of the Covenant of the League ofNations.

Early in 1919 Cecil traveled toFrance as a member of the British dele-

gation to the Paris Peace Conference.He strongly supported the admission to the League of Nations of Germanyand countries that had supported itduring the war, and he was disappoint-ed when that proposal was rejected bythe Allied—victorious—nations, in-cluding Great Britain. That rejection,he believed, sowed the seeds of futureconflict.

Nevertheless, Cecil became a firmsupporter of the newly created League.He played an active role in persuadingmany neutral nations to join the orga-nization, and after resigning from theBritish government in 1920, he repre-sented South Africa—then part of theBritish Empire—for several years in theLeague Assembly. (Cecil had been ap-pointed by his friend and fellow Leaguesupporter Jan Smuts, then the SouthAfrican prime minister.)

In 1923, the British governmentgave Cecil the title Viscount Cecil ofChelwood. This new title gave him apermanent seat in the House of Lords,the upper house of Parliament. In thiscapacity, he was assigned responsibilityfor Great Britain’s relationship with theLeague of Nations. Devoting himselffull time to the League, Cecil had todeal with the growing threat of mili-tarism in the years following his ap-pointment, in particular the aggressiveactions of the Italian dictator BenitoMussolini. During this period he wroteseveral books on internationalism andthe League, and also served as chancel-lor of the University of Birmingham, apost to which he had been appointedat the end of World War I.

Cecil was often frustrated in actingas an intermediary between his govern-ment and the League. Great Britain re-

1 1 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

fused to participate in many League efforts that he supported, including the Geneva Protocol, which requiredparticipating countries to submit inter-national disputes to a world court. AsBritain’s representative to a League-sponsored naval disarmament confer-ence in Geneva in 1927, Cecil was dismayed when his government did notagree to terms proposed by the UnitedStates. When the conference collapsedas a consequence—a serious setback forthe League of Nations—Cecil resignedfrom his official position as Britain’s li-aison officer with the League.

As a private citizen Cecil contin-ued to muster public support for theLeague of Nations. In this capacity heserved as president of the InternationalFederation of League of Nations Soci-eties, an organization of private Leaguesupport groups around the world. In1932 he had the satisfaction of seeingmany of his proposals for disarmamentincorporated in a peace plan proposedby U.S. President Herbert Hoover, al-though this plan also failed because ofofficial British opposition. In 1934,Cecil launched another effort, calledthe Peace Ballot. This was a nationalreferendum in which 10 millionBritons expressed their support for theLeague of Nations and 9 million calledfor the abolition of military air forces.

Despite this show of public supportin England and in other member coun-tries, the League of Nations continuedto lose authority during the 1930s as itseemed powerless to control increasingmilitancy in Germany and Italy. In theface of this growing dilemma, Cecilmade yet another attempt to save theorganization. In 1936 he founded theInternational Peace Campaign, a group

dedicated to the achievement of worlddisarmament and to strengthening theLeague’s authority to resolve conflictsbetween nations.

Robert Cecil’s tireless efforts on be-half of the League of Nations earnedhim the 1937 Nobel Peace Prize. In hisacceptance address, he warned of theimminent danger of another world war,and he pleaded with world leaders tosupport the League of Nations “beforeEurope has been again plunged into afresh bloodbath.”

Despite those warnings, WorldWar II began in September 1939.Cecil, now approaching 80, spent thewar years in semi-retirement. His bookA Great Experiment, which describedhis experiences with the League, waspublished in 1941. When the warended in 1945, Cecil attended the finalmeeting of the League of Nations inGeneva as it made way for its successororganization, the United Nations. Hewas later named honorary president forlife of the United Nations Association.In 1949 his autobiography, All the Way,was published.

Cecil spent his remaining yearswith his wife at their home in Tun-bridge Wells. He died there in Novem-ber 1958 at the age of 94.


“Cecil, Edgar Algernon Robert Gascoyne,Viscount Cecil of Chelwood.” In Dictionaryof National Biography, 1951–1960. Oxford:Oxford University Press, 1971.

R O B E R T C E C I L • 1 1 5

Robert Cecil(Viscount Cecil of Chelwood)

B O R N

September 14, 1864London, England

D I E D

November 24, 1958Tunbridge Wells, England

E D U C AT I O N

A.B. (1884), L.L.D. (1886), OxfordUniversity

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; statesman


Member of Parliament (1906–27);president, International Federationof League of Nations Societies(1927–39); initiated the Peace Bal-lot (1934), a referendum in supportof disarmament and the League;founded the International PeaceCampaign (1936)


n 1921 the newly created League of Nations estab-lished an organization at its headquarters in Geneva,Switzerland, to coordinate the resettlement of mil-lions of refugees, primarily in Europe, who had been uprooted from their homes during World War I

(1914–18). They named that organization the High Commis-sion for Refugees. As its first director, called the high com-missioner for refugees, the League appointed the Norwegianexplorer, scientist, and humanitarian Fridtjof Nansen.

As high commissioner, Nansen helped resettle millionsof refugees who had fled Russia following the Revolution of1917. He also repatriated (returned to their home countries)half a million prisoners of war being held in Russia andbrought aid to millions in that country who were victims ofa widespread famine. In addition, he led resettlement effortsof refugees in Greece and Turkey. Because most refugeeslacked proper travel papers, Nansen created a special docu-ment known as the Nansen passport that was ultimately ac-cepted by 52 nations.

When Nansen’s work as high commissioner earned himthe Nobel Peace Prize for 1922, he donated his award moneyto refugee assistance programs. Nansen died eight years later,in May 1930. That fall, the League of Nations created a new refugee organization as a successor to the High Com-mission. They named it the Nansen International Office forRefugees, in honor of Fridtjof Nansen, and it began opera-tions in Geneva in April 1931.

One of the major tasks accomplished by the Nansen Office was finding homes in the Middle East for more than

1 1 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

INansen InternationalOffice forRefugees

Y1 9 3 8

More than 50,000 Armenian refugees like these, an unwelcomeminority in Turkey, were resettled in the Middle East in the 1930sby the Nansen Office.

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50,000 Armenians who were an unwel-come resident minority in Turkey. Inanother successful relocation effort, theorganization persuaded the SouthAmerican nation of Paraguay to accept4,000 former residents of the Saar, along-disputed European territory thatwas given to Germany in 1935.

The Nansen Office not only relo-cated refugees, however; its main re-sponsibility was to help them settle intheir new homelands by giving them fi-nancial aid, acting as a liaison betweenthe refugees and the host nation gov-ernments, and assisting them withother problems that arose. The NansenOffice was self-supporting—funded byFridtjof Nansen’s estate and by a smallsurcharge on each Nansen passport.

In the fall of 1938 the Nansen In-ternational Office for Refugees wasawarded that year’s Nobel Peace Prizefor its years of humanitarian assistanceand its resettlement of some 800,000refugees. The Nansen Office was alsocited for the leading role it played inthe adoption of the Refugee Con-vention of 1933, an international agree-ment signed by 14 nations that guaran-teed basic human rights to refugees.

At its founding in 1930, the Nan-sen Office was set up to operate for 10

years. In 1933 an additional refugee or-ganization, called the High Commis-sion on Refugees from Germany, wasestablished by the League of Nations todeal with the sudden rush of Jewishrefugees who were fleeing persecutionin Nazi Germany. By 1935 plans wereunder way to merge both of theserefugee organizations into a single unit.This merger was finally completed onJanuary 1, 1939, when the new organi-zation, the High Commission for AllRefugees under League of Nations Pro-tection, opened its office in London,England.

The High Commission remainedheadquartered in London during WorldWar II, which began in September 1939and ended six years later. When its par-ent organization, the League of Nations,was dissolved in 1945 and replaced bythe United Nations, a new refugee orga-nization was created under UN auspices:the Office of the UN High Commis-sioner for Refugees. Nine years later, italso won the Nobel Peace Prize.


“Nansen International Office forRefugees.” In Nobel Prize Winners. NewYork: H. W. Wilson, 1987.

N A N S E N I N T E R N A T I O N A L O F F I C E F O R R E F U G E E S • 1 1 7

Nansen InternationalOffice forRefugeesF O U N D I N G

Created by the League of Nations inthe fall of 1930; began operations onApril 1, 1931, Geneva, Switzerland


Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

Refugee resettlement


During its eight-year existence(1931–39), resettled and gave fi-nancial and other assistance tomore than 800,000 refugees; ledsupport for the Refugee Conventionof 1933


Fearing Nazi persecution, Austrian Jews gather at a foreign consulate in Vienna in thelate 1930s, hoping to receive visas so they can leave the country. Both the Nansen International Office for Refugees and its sister organization, the High Commission on Refugees from Germany, aided Jews fleeing Nazi persecution in the years before World War II.

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he International Committee of the RedCross (ICRC), which received the 1917Nobel Peace Prize for its efforts to aid prison-ers of war during World War I (1914–18),greatly expanded its relief efforts in the fol-

lowing decade. The ICRC’s first responsibility after the warended was to assist international efforts—including those of the League of Nations—to repatriate (return to theirhomelands) millions of refugees who had fled their countriesduring the fighting. This was accomplished through the co-operation of many national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies, which had worked separately during the war. (RedCrescent was the name given to Red Cross societies in Mus-lim countries beginning in 1906.)

In 1919, with the encouragement and approval of theICRC, these national Red Cross and Red Crescent soci-eties from around the world joined together to form theLeague of Red Cross Societies. This new umbrella organiza-tion was created to encourage and coordinate the efforts ofnational Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in peace-time. The name “Red Cross” now comprised multiple orga-nizations: the ICRC, the League of Red Cross Societies,and the many national Red Cross and Red Crescent soci-eties. They became known collectively as the InternationalRed Cross.

During the 1920s, the various Red Cross organizationsturned their attention to peacetime humanitarian efforts.They began to provide relief for victims of natural disastersand gradually expanded their activities to include the teach-ing of first aid and accident prevention, water safety, nurses’training, and the maintenance of blood banks.

In Geneva, the ICRC focused on improving interna-tional guidelines for dealing with prisoners of war. It is cred-ited with creating and marshaling support for the 1929Geneva Convention, an agreement that specified guidelinesfor humane treatment of prisoners of war. The conventionwas signed by every major nation in the world except Japanand the Soviet Union. During the 1930s, the ICRC spon-sored relief efforts in several regional conflicts, including theItalian-Ethiopian War and the Spanish Civil War.

In 1939, following the outbreak of World War II, theICRC established the Central Prisoners of War Agency(CPWA). This was modeled on its World War I agency,IPRIA, and performed the same services, but on an evenlarger scale: keeping records on millions of prisoners, actingas a clearinghouse for messages between prisoners and theirfamilies, distributing gift parcels, and monitoring conditionsin prison camps. CPWA workers even gained admission

1 1 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

TInternationalCommittee oftheRed Cross

Y1 9 4 4

French prisoners of war in Germany receive Red Cross foodparcels during World War II.These and other humanitarian ef-forts earned the Red Cross a second Nobel Peace Prize.

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to several Japanese camps, althoughJapan had refused to sign the 1929 convention.

Together with the League of RedCross Societies, the ICRC deliveredfood and clothing in the war-torncountries of Europe. Despite strong op-position from the Nazi government,the ICRC was able to distribute reliefpackages in several German concentra-tion camps. It also issued travel docu-ments to more than 30,000 Jewishrefugees escaping from Nazi persecutionin German-occupied countries.

At the end of the war in 1945, theICRC was named the winner of the1944 Nobel Peace Prize for its humani-tarian efforts on behalf of victims ofthe war. The citation commended theICRC for holding “aloft the fundamen-tal conceptions of the solidarity of thehuman race . . . and the need for trueunderstanding and reconciliation, ifpeace is ever to be brought about.”

Note: The International Commit-tee of the Red Cross was awarded theNobel Peace Prize a third time, in 1963.To read about its activities after WorldWar II, please turn to pages 176–77.







I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O M M I T T E E O F T H E R E D C R O S S • 1 1 9

InternationalCommittee of the RedCrossF O U N D E R S

Henri Dunant and the Geneva Pub-lic Welfare Society

F O U N D I N G



Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

Founded to assist the sick andwounded during wartime; afterWorld War I expanded its efforts to caring for victims of natural dis-asters and to other humanitarian relief

M A J O R AC C O M P L I S H M E N T S ,1 9 1 8 – 4 4

Helped repatriate millions ofrefugees after World War I; encour-aged the creation of the League ofRed Cross Societies; led effort tocreate the 1929 Prisoner of WarConvention; sponsored relief effortsduring the Italian-Ethiopian War(1935–36) and the Spanish CivilWar (1936–39); established and di-rected the Central Prisoners of WarAgency (CPWA) during World WarII (1939–45)


The contents of a standard Red Cross food parcel distributed to U.S. prisoners of warduring World War II. Such parcels were a welcome—and often lifesaving—addition to ameager prison diet.

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ordell Hull, the winner of the 1945 NobelPeace Prize, had already earned another dis-tinction a year earlier: in 1944 he concludednearly 12 years as U.S. Secretary of State,thus serving longer than anyone else in that

cabinet post. Hull’s efforts on behalf of international peaceduring those years made him known around the world andled him to become a Nobel winner. Those efforts, however,had been inspired decades earlier by his interest in LatinAmerican affairs—an interest that was born when Hullserved as a soldier in Cuba.

Hull’s early life hardly prepared him to become aprominent statesman. He was born in near-poverty in a logcabin in rural Tennessee in 1871—some six years after thedeath of Abraham Lincoln, another American who cameinto the world in similar circumstances. The log cabin didnot even belong to the Hull family; it had been rented byhis father, a farmer who was trying to set up a lumber business. When they were old enough, Cordell and his four brothers began to work in the business, which gradual-ly prospered.

Cordell Hull decided as a teenager, however, that he didnot want to be a lumberman. He was doing well in the localschools he attended, and for a while he thought he wouldbecome a teacher. Hull briefly attended teacher-trainingschools in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio in the late 1880sbefore deciding on a career in law and politics. He studiedfor five months at a small law institute in Tennessee, thenworked as an apprentice at several law firms in and nearNashville while he became involved in local Democraticparty politics.

Hull opened his own law practice in 1892, and thatsame year was elected to the Tennessee legislature, his firstpolitical office. He left his home state briefly in 1898 toserve as a captain with a volunteer military company duringthe Spanish-American War. Although the fighting hadended by the time Hull arrived in Cuba, he remained therefor several months as part of the occupying forces. This briefepisode in Hull’s life apparently had a significant effect onhim: as a quiet young man from the backwoods, he wasforced to turn his attention to the outside world for the firsttime. Hull learned Spanish during his stay in Cuba, and hereturned to Tennessee with the desire to play a larger role inhis nation’s political affairs.

Hull continued to practice law while remaining activein politics. He became a circuit court judge in 1903, andthree years later he seized the opportunity to serve in the national government by running successfully for the U.S.

1 2 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

CCordell Hull

Y1 9 4 5

House of Representatives. Taking of-fice in 1907, he served in the Housefor nearly two decades. Hull rose toprominence after the election of theDemocratic party candidate, WoodrowWilson, as President in 1912. DuringWilson’s two terms in office, Hull wasa leading House supporter of the Presi-dent’s policies, in particular his variousfinancial reform measures.

Following World War I(1914–18), when Wilson helped createthe League of Nations as part of theVersailles Peace Treaty of 1919, Hullbecame the League’s vigorous defender.He was therefore dismayed when theSenate rejected both the treaty andU.S. membership in the League.When the Democratic party lost thenational elections in 1920, Hull re-signed briefly from the House of Rep-resentatives to serve for several yearsas chairman of the Democratic Na-tional Committee, the party’s govern-ing organization.

Hull returned to the House in1924, where he continued to concen-trate on financial legislation. Duringhis years in the House under Wilson,Hull had become convinced that a na-tion’s economic policy and its foreignpolicy were intertwined. In particular,he firmly believed that war was causedby economic nationalism—by nationstrying to gain supremacy over one an-other in international markets ratherthan learning to cooperate for mutualeconomic benefit. As a consequence ofthis belief, Hull had always opposedhigh tariffs—the taxes that a nationlevied on goods that were importedfrom another nation—and he workedfor the passage of fair internationaltrading treaties.

In 1930 Hull realized a longtimedream when he was elected to theU.S. Senate. He did not serve out hissix-year term, however, for in 1933 thenewly elected Democratic President,Franklin D. Roosevelt, named HullSecretary of State. Many people, in-

cluding Hull himself, were surprised bythe appointment, because that cabinetpost had been held in the past by menwho were more experienced in inter-national affairs. However, the UnitedStates and other industrialized coun-tries around the world were in the gripof a major economic slump—whatwould later be called the Great De-pression. It was already apparent thatduring the next decade, world affairswould be centered largely on economicissues—and Hull had already demon-strated that he had a clear understand-ing of international economics.

Hull proved to be an outstandingSecretary of State. Not only was heknowledgeable, but he also looked thepart of a statesman—tall, silver-haired,with a dignified bearing and a mannerof gentle but firm authority. One of hisfirst actions in his new post was tocarry out one of Roosevelt’s major for-eign policy objectives—the so-calledGood Neighbor policy, which workedto strengthen ties between the UnitedStates and Latin American nations.Remembering his Cuban experience,Hull had been able to offer supportfrom the sidelines when WoodrowWilson pursued a similar policy toward Latin America; now he was in charge, and he fulfilled his role with enthusiasm.

He began by convening the sev-enth Pan-American Conference, heldin Montevideo, Uruguay, in December1933. Hull led the U.S. delegation tothe conference, where he proclaimedhis country’s commitment to stay outof domestic affairs in Latin America.This proclamation had several imme-diate effects: U.S. troops, which were then occupying Haiti, were withdrawn, and the U.S. Congress ratified a new treaty with Cuba thatended North American interventionthere.

Hull continued to pursue theGood Neighbor policy throughout the decade. In 1936 he led the U.S.

C O R D E L L H U L L • 1 2 1

Cordell Hull served as U.S. Secretary ofState longer than any man in history. Hispeacemaking accomplishments during histenure included successsful efforts to es-tablish the United Nations.

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delegation to the Conference for theMaintenance of Peace, an officialgathering in Buenos Aires, Argentina,of representatives from western hemi-sphere nations. At this conference,held as war clouds began to gatherover Europe, the participants pledgedto consult one another before takingmilitary action if hemispheric securitywas threatened.

Hull was also a leader of the eighthPan-American Conference, held inLima, Peru, in 1938. Germany had re-cently taken control over Austria, andwar in Europe seemed closer than ever.At this conference, Hull proposed andled support for a resolution proclaimingthat a threat to any republic in theAmericas would be regarded as a threatto them all.

During World War II (1939–45),the attention of the United States inforeign affairs shifted from LatinAmerica to Europe and the Pacific,where the war was being fought. Di-viding up responsibility after the warbegan in 1939, Roosevelt concentratedon Europe and gave Hull much of the policymaking authority for Asianaffairs. In the two years between theoutbreak of the war and U.S. entry

into the conflict in 1941, Hull workedhard but without success to persuadeJapan to end its ongoing war withChina and its military actions in Indochina.

World War II signaled the finalfailure of the League of Nations, whichhad been founded two decades earlierto put an end to warfare for all time.Not long after this second internation-al conflict erupted, Hull proposed thata new world organization—with theUnited States as an active partici-pant—be created as soon as the warended. Toward this end, he formed theAdvisory Committee on Postwar For-eign Policy in 1941.

Hull—and many other ob-servers—believed that the League of Nations had failed to win U.S. sup-port because Wilson had made its ac-ceptance a political issue. Hull was de-termined to acquire the backing ofboth major political parties for thenew world organization that he pro-posed. He therefore invited both De-mocrats and Republicans to serve onthe committee, and he encouragedcommittee discussions that focused onthe goal rather than on party disagree-ments on foreign policy.

During the next few years, as thecommittee met periodically, differentproposals for the new organizationwere discussed. Hull strongly support-ed a single international group ratherthan an alliance of regional groups,and his plan was eventually agreedupon. Under his leadership, the StateDepartment drafted a document calledthe Charter of the United Nations.This document became the center-piece of the U.S. proposal at theDumbarton Oaks Conference, a gathering held in Washington, D.C.,in October 1944 that formally proposed the establishment of theUnited Nations.

1 2 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

At the Dumbarton Oaks Conference,held in Washington, D.C., in 1944, Hulland representatives of three other Alliedpowers—Great Britain, China, and the So-viet Union—laid the groundwork for thecreation of the United Nations.

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Dumbarton Oaks was CordellHull’s triumph—and it also signaledthe end of his career. Now in his early70s, he was in failing health, and ill-ness forced his resignation as Secretaryof State in late November 1944. Hullwas named a delegate to the San Francisco Conference, held in thespring of 1945 to draw up the officialUN Charter, but he was still ill andcould not attend.

Later that year Cordell Hull wasnamed the winner of the 1945 NobelPeace Prize for his work on behalf ofhemispheric cooperation, internation-al trade, and the United Nations. Hullremained in frail health during the final decade of his life. He didmanage, however, to write his mem-oirs, which were published in two volumes in 1948.

After Hull’s wife, whom he hadmarried in 1917, died in 1954, hishealth deteriorated rapidly. Following a

series of strokes and heart attacks, hewas hospitalized in the spring of 1955at the U.S. naval hospital in Bethesda,Maryland. He died there severalmonths later, at the age of 83.


Hinton, Harold B. Cordell Hull: A Biogra-phy. New York: Doubleday, Doran, 1942.

“Hull, Cordell.” In Dictionary of AmericanBiography. Supplement 5. New York:Scribners, 1977.

Hull, Cordell. The Memoirs of Cordell Hull.2 vols. New York: Macmillan, 1948.

C O R D E L L H U L L • 1 2 3

Cordell HullB O R N

October 2, 1871Overton County, Tennessee

D I E D

July 23, 1955Bethesda, Maryland

E D U C AT I O N

Briefly attended teacher-trainingschools in Tennessee, Kentucky, and Ohio, and a law institute inTennessee

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; statesman


Member, U.S. House of Represen-tatives (1907–31); member, U.S.Senate (1931–33); Secretary ofState (1933–44); leading proponentof U.S. Good Neighbor policy withLatin America; led U.S. effort to establish the United Nations


The Charter of the United Nations. A preliminary version of the charter was draftedby Hull and his staff from the U.S. State Department and adopted by delegates to theDumbarton Oaks Conference.

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hen economist and social reformerEmily Greene Balch was namedcowinner of the 1946 Nobel PeacePrize in her 80th year, the still-vigor-ous Balch was asked to explain how

she was able to stay so active despite her age. In reply, shequoted a favorite saying of her grandfather’s: “An old womanis as tough as a boiled owl.”

Emily Greene Balch was “tough”—forceful and deter-mined—even as a small child, but she also learned to sup-port peaceful change at an early age. The daughter of alawyer and his wife, she was born in 1867 in Jamaica Plain,Massachusetts, then a small community on the outskirts ofBoston. Her family had been active abolitionists—opponentsof slavery—before the Civil War, and her father had servedfor a time as an aide to Senator Charles Sumner of Massa-chusetts, a leading abolitionist and pacifist.

A major influence on Balch was the family’s member-ship in the Unitarian Church. Unitarianism, a Protestant

1 2 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Economist and social worker Emily Greene Balch began her longcareer as a peace activist when she attended the first Interna-tional Congress of Women during World War I.

WEmily Greene BalchJohn R.Mott

Y1 9 4 6

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sect, had been founded in New Eng-land in the early 19th century. Unitari-ans believed strongly in social reformand in the duty of everyone to improvethe lives of the less fortunate. Theyalso believed in women’s rights, andBalch grew up in an atmosphere thatencouraged her to get as much educa-tion as she could.

After attending private primaryand secondary schools, Balch enrolledin 1886 at the recently founded BrynMawr College, an institution forwomen near Philadelphia. Bryn Mawrwas affiliated with the Society ofFriends, or Quakers, a religious denom-ination that practiced pacifism, and theteachings of the Friends also influencedher. Balch completed the four-year cur-riculum in three years, majoring inLatin and Greek, and graduated withthe first class in 1889.

At Bryn Mawr Balch had becomeinterested in the work of Jacob Riis, ajournalist who publicized slum condi-tions in American cities and urged re-form. Inspired by Riis, she decided todo graduate work in social science.After studying privately for a whilewith a prominent American sociologistnamed Franklin H. Giddings, she en-rolled at the University of Paris on afellowship from Bryn Mawr. There shemade a study of the French system ofrelief for the poor and attended classesin economics. Her first book, Public As-sistance of the Poor in France (1893),was based on her work in Paris.

Balch returned to the UnitedStates in 1891 and settled in Boston,where she became a social worker withthe Children’s Aid Society. A yearlater, with her friend Vida Scudder, shehelped found the Denison House Set-tlement, a community organization toserve the inner-city poor, and sheserved as head of the settlement in1892–93. In Boston she became inter-ested in the trade labor union move-ment, joined the American Federationof Labor, and cofounded the Women’s

Trade Union League. In the early1890s Balch also became active in theConsumers’ League and helped draft aminimum-wage bill for presentation tothe Massachusetts state legislature—the first such bill ever presented to anAmerican legislative body.

Despite these accomplishments,Balch felt that she needed to do morein order to be “of use” to society. Shedecided to become a college teacher sothat she could inspire other women towork for social improvement. Choosingeconomics as her field, Balch studied atthe Harvard Annex (later RadcliffeCollege), the University of Chicago,and the University of Berlin, where shereceived a doctorate in social sciencein 1896. That fall she joined the eco-nomics faculty of Wellesley College, awomen’s institution near Boston, as anassistant instructor; seven years latershe was named an associate professor.In 1913 Balch was appointed to a fullprofessorship in economics, politicalscience, and social science and becamehead of the department of economicsand sociology.

Balch’s friend Vida Scudder taughtin the English department at Wellesley,and in her classes she emphasized socialissues in literature. Students were ofteninspired by Scudder’s lectures to enrollin Balch’s courses, in order to learnmore about the economic and politicalbasis of social conditions. During morethan 20 years of teaching at Wellesley,Balch became one of the most widelyliked and respected members of the faculty.

In addition to her teaching career,Balch continued to work for social im-provement. She served as a boardmember of the municipal child welfareagency in Boston and the city planningcommission; she also served on theboards of state commissions on indus-trial education and immigration. Balchpursued her interest in immigration bytraveling to Austria-Hungary in theearly 1900s and studying the emigra-

B A L C H & M O T T • 1 2 5

Emily Greene BalchB O R N

January 8, 1867Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts

D I E D

January 9, 1961Cambridge, Massachusetts

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Bryn Mawr College (1889);graduate study at the University ofParis (1890–91) and at the HarvardAnnex (1893) and the Universityof Chicago (1895); Ph.D., Univer-sity of Berlin (1896)

O C C U PAT I O N

Economist; social reformer


Professor of economics, WellesleyCollege; cofounder and longtimeexecutive of the Women’s Interna-tional League for Peace and Free-dom (WILPF)


tion patterns of Austro-Hungarians inthe United States. Her second book,Our Slavic Fellow Citizens (1910), was astudy of their communities in majorAmerican cities.

Balch had long been interested inthe peace movement, and she becamean active partipant in 1915 when shejoined the American delegation, led byJane Addams, to the InternationalCongress of Women. Held at TheHague, the capital of the Netherlands,this peace congress met to proposeways to end the world war that hadbroken out in August 1914. Onceagain, Balch decided that she hadfound another appropriate outlet forher energies and interests: the cause ofinternational pacifism. When the con-gress ended, Balch traveled with sever-al other delegates to the Scandinaviancountries and Russia to plead the causeof peace. Later, with Jane Addams andAlice Hamilton, she coauthored a bookabout the congress (Women at theHague, 1915), and she also edited thecongress’s official proceedings.

After returning to the UnitedStates, Balch took a leave of absencefrom Wellesley to promote the pacifist

cause, and her efforts intensified afterthe United States entered the war inApril 1917. While on leave, she con-tributed articles to the Nation, a lead-ing liberal periodical, that expressedopposition to the war, compulsory mili-tary service, and legislation that re-stricted antiwar activities. She also participated in demonstrations thatsupported conscientious objectors—those who refused to serve in the mili-tary because they opposed war and who were usually imprisoned as a consequence.

Balch’s political activities werelooked upon with disapproval by theadministrators of Wellesley, and in1918 the college’s board of trusteesfired her for “her outspoken views onpacifism and economics.” Balch wasapparently not too disturbed by thisevent, for it meant that she was nowable to devote her full attention to thepeace cause. That same year she pub-lished her second book, Approaches tothe Great Settlement, a discussion ofpeace terms then being proposed forending the war. British peace activistNorman Angell wrote the foreword tothe book.

In 1919, as a delegate to the second International Congress ofWomen, held in Zurich, Switzerland,Balch helped found an important pacifist organization, the Women’s International League for Peace andFreedom (WILPF), which was led formany years by Jane Addams. Workingmuch of the time from WILPF head-quarters in Geneva, Switzerland, Balchserved as the organization’s treasureruntil 1922.

WILPF continued to be the focusof Balch’s pacifist activities for the restof her life. Her commitment to paci-fism had been reinforced further in1921, when she left the Unitarianchurch to become a member of the So-ciety of Friends. During the next twodecades, Balch served in various ad-ministrative positions with WILPF. In

1 2 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

U.S. delegates to the first InternationalCongress of Women in 1915 includedJane Addams (front row, second fromleft), who helped organize the congress.Emily Greene Balch is on the far left in the third row, wearing a large hat with flowers.

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these roles she worked closely with theLeague of Nations, which WILPFstrongly supported, by helping theLeague Secretariat to organize confer-ences on specific international prob-lems, including disarmament.

As a representative of WILPF,Balch earned wide recognition whenshe made an investigative study ofHaiti, long occupied by the U.S.Marines. Her subsequent report offeredrecommendations to improve condi-tions there that were later adopted bythe U.S. government. Balch’s numer-ous efforts on behalf of WILPF also included the establishment of interna-tional summer schools, held on collegecampuses, to promote peace. Duringthe 1930s, she aided dozens of Jewishrefugees fleeing persecution in NaziGermany and helped to resettle themin the United States.

Perhaps Balch’s most importantrole at WILPF, however, was an unoffi-cial one: in every activity that she un-dertook, Balch earned a reputation as areconciler, someone who could resolvedifferences that arose among membersfrom different regions around theworld. By working cooperatively, Balchbelieved that she was creating a modelfor international cooperation—and ul-timately lasting peace.

Although Balch initially opposedWorld War II, which began in Septem-ber 1939, she departed from her pacifistviews to support U.S. entry into thewar in December 1941, after the Japan-ese attack on Pearl Harbor. She contin-ued, however, to work for internationalpeace through WILPF. With this goalin mind, she developed proposals forpostwar internationalization of defensebases, the polar regions, and majorworld waterways. Beginning in 1942,she helped resettle many JapaneseAmericans who had been detained inholding camps by the U.S. govern-ment. In 1944, again on behalf ofWILPF, Balch drew up a series of peaceproposals and presented them to Presi-

dent Franklin D. Roosevelt.In August 1946, a year after the

war ended, Balch led the U.S. delega-tion to WILPF’s 10th internationalconference, held in Luxembourg.Three months later she was namedcowinner of the 1946 Nobel PeacePrize—15 years after her friend JaneAddams had won the award. As thesecond American woman to win thePeace Prize, Balch was cited for her“lifelong, indefatigable work for thecause of peace.” Interestingly, Balchhad been strongly recommended forthe award by the president of WellesleyCollege; 11 years earlier, the collegeand Balch had become reconciledwhen she was asked to speak at Welles-ley’s Armistice Day ceremonies.

Like Emily Greene Balch, John R.Mott, who shared the 1946 NobelPeace Prize with her, became commit-ted to pacifism as a consequence of hisreligious beliefs. Born in 1865 in ruralNew York State, Mott and his two oldersisters moved with their parents twoyears later to Postville, Iowa. There hisfather became a prosperous lumberdealer and was later elected mayor.

When John Mott was 13, the fami-ly was converted to Methodism by atraveling evangelist. As part of their religious faith, Methodists believed inworking hard and helping their fellowhuman beings, and these values werestressed in the Mott household. Mott’sparents also valued education, and atthe age of 16 John was sent to UpperIowa University, a Methodist preparato-ry school and college in nearby Fayette.

Mott excelled there in his class-work, became a champion debater, andshowed an outstanding talent in dra-matics. His professors encouraged himto pursue a career in law and politicsand suggested that he transfer to amore prestigious university in the east-ern United States. Mott chose Cornell,in his native New York State, and en-rolled there in 1885 as a member of thesophomore class.

B A L C H & M O T T • 1 2 7

As the head of the American and WorldYMCAs, and cofounder of the WorldCouncil of Churches, John Mott was an in-ternationally known advocate of peace.

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At Cornell Mott was an outstand-ing student and athlete, but not espe-cially religious. Midway through hisfirst year there, however, he had an ex-perience that changed his life. In Janu-ary 1886 he decided to attend a lectureby J. K. Studd, who had become famousas a cricket player at Cambridge Uni-versity in England. Studd was touringAmerican colleges and making inspira-tional speeches at the invitation ofDwight Moody, a leading American re-ligious leader. Mott arrived at the lec-ture hall at the end of the speech—justin time to hear Studd’s last words:“Seekest thou great things for thyself?Seek them not. Seek ye first the King-dom of God.”

Convinced that these words weremeant for him to hear, Mott returnedto his dormitory and spent a sleeplessnight. The next day, following a per-sonal meeting with Studd, he decided

to pursue a career in religion. He beganto study the Bible and visited prisonersin the local jail to share his faith withthem. Long a member of the YMCA(the Young Men’s Christian Associa-tion), a Protestant social and religiousorganization that promoted Christianfellowship and public service, Mott be-came active in the Cornell chapter.

In the summer of 1886, Mott rep-resented Cornell at the first ChristianStudent Conference, a gathering ofseveral hundred young men from U.S.and Canadian colleges that had beenorganized by Dwight Moody. Inspiredby the conference, he returned to Cor-nell to become president of the campusYMCA. As a result of his efforts, mem-bership increased threefold, making theCornell chapter the largest student Yin the world.

Mott graduated from Cornell in1888 with two bachelor’s degrees, one

in philosophy and the other in historyand political science. He was alsoelected to Phi Beta Kappa, the nation-al scholastic honor society. Followinggraduation, Mott agreed to serve forone year as student secretary of theYMCA’s International Committee.However, he enjoyed the work somuch—traveling to college campusesand helping student leaders plan Y-related activities—that he remained inthe job until 1915, a total of 27 years.

During this time, Mott becameknown internationally for his activitieson behalf of Christian evangelism, amovement that stressed personal reli-gious conversion, and ecumenism, aninternational effort to unite the variousChristian denominations. A born orga-nizer, Mott believed that his life’s worklay, in his words, in “weaving togetherChristian forces all over the world.”One of his first actions on behalf ofthat goal was the founding in 1893 ofthe Foreign Missions Conference ofNorth America, an organization thatunited and coordinated the activities ofProtestant missionary groups through-out the North American continent;Mott served as an executive of thisgroup until the early 1940s.

In 1895 Mott cofounded theWorld’s Student Christian Federationat a conference in Sweden and servedas its general secretary for two years.He remained active in the federationuntil the mid-1920s, and during thistime organized national student reli-gious movements throughout the worldwhose membership eventually totaledmore than 300,000 men and women.

Another major milestone in Mott’sprofessional life occurred in 1910,when he was chosen to preside overthe World Missionary Conference, heldin Edinburgh, Scotland. Following theconference, he remained active in itsso-called continuation committee,

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Italian prisoners of war play a game of volleyball organized by YMCA workers during World War II. Like the Red Cross, the YMCA provided aid to victims on bothsides of the conflict.

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formed to organize future world mis-sionary conferences, and later served asthe committee’s leader. In this capacityhe traveled throughout the Far East,organizing missionary councils in everymajor Asian country. When the con-tinuation committee became the Inter-national Missionary Council in 1921,Mott became its chairman and servedin that post until 1942, when he wasnamed honorary chairman.

Beginning in the late 1890s, Mottalso helped reactivate the Student Vol-unteer Movement for Foreign Missions,another department of the YMCA, andserved as chairman of its executivecommittee until 1928. In this capacityMott oversaw the recruitment of morethan 10,000 U.S. and Canadian stu-dent volunteers to serve as Protestantmissionaries abroad. Mott held otheroffices in the American YMCA as well,including the general secretaryshipfrom 1915 to 1928. Two years earlier,he had also been named head of theWorld YMCA, and he remained inthat post until his retirement in 1947.

During both World War I(1914–18) and World War II(1939–45), the YMCA was active inwar relief efforts, and Mott played amajor role in that work. During WorldWar I, he served as general secretary ofthe National War Work Council andled the United War Work Campaign,which raised nearly $200 million forwar relief. He also traveled to Russia aspart of a diplomatic peace mission.Mott received the Distinguished Ser-vice Medal from President WoodrowWilson for these various peace-relatedefforts, as well as awards from twodozen other countries. After the war,he attended the Paris Peace Confer-ence in 1919 to make a plea for reli-gious freedom.

During World War II, despite hisadvanced age, Mott led several fund-

raising campaigns to support various Y-sponsored relief efforts, including a pro-gram for prisoners of war. He also ledAmerican efforts during the war yearsto establish what later became theWorld Council of Churches.

When John Mott was namedcowinner of the 1946 Nobel PeacePrize, he was cited for being “a tirelessfighter in the service of Christ, openingyoung minds to the light which hethinks can lead the world to peace andbring men together in understandingand goodwill.”

Mott was the author of 16 bookson religious topics, published between1897 and 1947. In addition to his nu-merous honors from governmentsthroughout the world, Mott receivedhonorary degrees from more than adozen universities. In 1948, when theWorld Council of Churches wasformed, Mott was named its honorarypresident.

Mott was married in 1891 and hadfour children by his first wife; followingher death in 1952 he remarried. Hedied at his retirement home in Orlan-do, Florida, in January 1955 at the ageof 89.


“Balch, Emily Greene.” In Dictionary ofAmerican Biography, Supplement 7. NewYork: Scribners, 1981.

Hopkins, Charles H. John R. Mott,1865–1955: A Biography. Grand Rapids,Mich.: Eerdmans, 1979

Mathews, Basil. John R. Mott: World Citi-zen. New York: Harper, 1934.

“Mott, John R.” In Dictionary of AmericanBiography, Supplement 5. New York: Scrib-ners, 1977.

Randall, Mercedes M. Improper Bostonian:Emily Greene Balch. New York: Twayne,1964.P

B A L C H & M O T T • 1 2 9

John R. MottB O R N

May 25, 1865Livingston Manor, New York

D I E D

January 31, 1955Orlando, Florida

E D U C AT I O N

Earned two bachelor’s degrees atCornell University (1888)

O C C U PAT I O N

Religious leader


Founder, Foreign Missions Con-ference of North America; co-founder, World’s Student ChristianFederation; chairman, InternationalMissionary Council; head of theAmerican and World YMCAs; co-founder, World Council of Churches


n 1947 the Nobel Peace Prize Committee decidedto present that year’s award to two separate organi-zations—one American, the other British—with acommon origin: the American Friends ServiceCommittee and the Friends Service Council. Both

of these groups were social service organizations that hadbeen founded by Quakers—members of a religious denomi-nation called the Society of Friends. And that denominationitself had a long history of working on behalf of peace, goingback to its founding three centuries earlier.

The Society of Friends grew out of the beliefs of a simpleEnglish shoemaker named George Fox. Born in 1624, Foxdeveloped a strong interest in religion as a child. In histeens, he became increasingly troubled by the wide gulf thathe saw between the teachings of Christianity and the lives ofthose who called themselves Christians. Fox believed thatevery person had an “inner light” of divinity, and that if peo-ple became aware of that inner light, they could call it forthand thus allow God to direct their lives. In so doing, theywould be able to carry out the teachings of Christ, in partic-ular the Christian commandment to love one’s fellow menand women.

In 1643, at the age of 19, Fox began to preach his phi-losophy, which emphasized brotherhood and equality and renounced warfare and violence. He soon attracted manyfollowers, and their numbers grew in spite of persecution byother Protestants. In 1668 Fox established his movement asa separate denomination, which he called the Society ofFriends. Opponents poked fun at the group by calling them“Quakers” because of the rocking movement that some ofthem made during their religious gatherings, called “meet-ings.” However, the term gradually came into general useand was eventually used by members themselves.

In the late 1600s, Quakers came to the New World,where they settled in several American colonies. A Quakernamed William Penn founded his own colony, Pennsylvania,and its principal city, Philadelphia, which means “City ofBrotherly Love.” Philadelphia soon became the center ofQuakerism in the New World, although Quakers also settledin the other 12 colonies.

From the time of its founding, the Society of Friends en-couraged its members to practice their philosophy of broth-erhood and equality by helping anyone in need. Followingthe teachings of George Fox, the Society of Friends also op-posed slavery. As the abolitionist movement—the move-ment to end slavery—grew in America in the 18th century,Quakers throughout the colonies became its most vigoroussupporters. After the Revolution, as slavery continued in

1 3 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

IAmericanFriends ServiceCommitteeFriends ServiceCouncil

Y1 9 4 7

the new United States, Quakers con-tinued to protest through public meet-ings, numerous publications, and ap-pearances before the national and statelegislative bodies. These protests con-tinued until the Emancipation Procla-mation, issued by President AbrahamLincoln in 1863, freed American slaves.

Quakers in Great Britain conduct-ed a similar campaign against slavery,which succeeded earlier there than inthe United States: the British govern-ment banned slavery throughout itsempire in 1807. Beginning in the late1700s, British and American Quakersbecame involved in various forms ofsocial service, establishing retreats forthe insane, working for the improve-ment of prison conditions, and feedingthe hungry. They also supportedwoman suffrage—the right of womento vote—and opposed capital punish-ment. British Quakers played a majorrole in aiding Irish famine victims inthe 1840s, and a decade later, duringthe Crimean War (1853–56), theybrought medical supplies and helpedwounded soldiers on the battlefield.

In 1868 British Quakers foundedthe Friends Foreign Mission Associa-

tion (FFMA) to coordinate and expandtheir overseas humanitarian activitiesby sending Quaker missionaries to Asiaand Africa to establish schools andhospitals. Two years later, in 1870,British Quakers formed the FriendsWar Victims Relief Committee, whichbrought aid to towns in France andGermany hard hit by the Franco-Prussian War.

In both the United States andGreat Britain, the Society of Friendsadvocated pacifism. In 1828, Quakershad helped to found the first pacifistorganization in North America, theAmerican Peace Society. British Quak-ers were active in the peace movementthat developed in Europe during thesecond half of the 19th century.

When the United States enteredWorld War I in April 1917, a smallgroup of Quakers in Philadelphia pub-licly offered to serve the governmentin a nonmilitary capacity. They de-clared their willingness to participate“in any constructive work in which wecan conscientiously serve humanity.”Under the leadership of Rufus M.Jones, a philosophy professor at Haver-ford College, a Quaker institution near

A M E R I C A N F R I E N D S S E R V I C E C O M M I T T E E & F R I E N D S S E R V I C E C O U N C I L • 1 3 1


AmericanFriends Service CommitteeF O U N D E R S

Members of the Society of Friends(Quakers) of Philadelphia

F O U N D I N G

1917Philadelphia, Pennsylvania


Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

P U R P O S E

Initially founded to offer service al-ternatives to combat during WorldWar I (1914–18); later expanded itsefforts to include various humani-tarian activities and to promotepeace in the world


Provided major humanitarian reliefin France during World War I, andin Germany and Russia after thewar; aided victims of Spanish CivilWar (1936–39); rescued Jews fromNazi Germany; during World WarII, sponsored work camps for consci-entious objectors in the UnitedStates; after the war, aided refugeesthroughout the world

American Friends Service Committee workers unload building materials in France in1946. In the aftermath of World War II, AFSC and Friends Service Council volunteershelped to rebuild many bombed-out areas of Europe.

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Philadelphia, the group establishedpermanent headquarters in that cityand called themselves the AmericanFriends Service Committee (AFSC).

Jones received permission fromPresident Woodrow Wilson to sendAFSC members to France to performvarious kinds of relief work. From thesummer of 1917 until the war’s end inNovember 1918, more than 100AFSC volunteers worked side by sidewith French civilians. They built andstaffed a surgical hospital and a tuber-culosis sanitarium, assisted at a mater-nity hospital, planted and harvestedcrops, joined factory assembly lines,built housing, and helped to evacuateand treat war victims.

After the war, the AFSC volun-teers went to defeated Germany, wherethey distributed food and clothing. In1919 the AFSC was given specific re-

sponsibility by the American govern-ment to raise funds for and to adminis-ter a program to feed needy Germanchildren; after it was successfully estab-lished in Germany, the program wasextended to Poland, Serbia, and Aus-tria. Under the leadership of RufusJones, the AFSC also aided victims of a widespread postwar famine in Russia; between December 1921 andApril 1923 AFSC volunteers providedfood every day for more than 50,000Russians.

While the war was still beingfought, a British Quaker named CarlHeath had proposed the establishmentof peace centers throughout the world.His plan was adopted by a group ofLondon Quakers, who in 1919 foundedthe Council for International Service(CIS) to accomplish that goal. Work-ing with the American Friends Service

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AFSC worker Roger Craven talks with afamily in St. Nazaire, France, living in ahouse built by Quaker volunteers.

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Committee, the CIS set up Quaker In-ternational Centers throughout Europeto promote the cause of peace. Thesecenters performed varied services, de-pending on where they were located.The activities of the Quaker Interna-tional Center in Geneva, where theLeague of Nations had its headquarters,included assisting the League in its ef-forts to help refugees.

In 1927 the Friends Foreign Mis-sion Association (FFMA) and theCouncil for International Service(CIS) merged to become the FriendsService Council (FSC). The FSC es-tablished its headquarters in Londonand announced that it would concen-trate on what it called “the ministry ofreconciliation.” Under the FSC, Quak-ers worked to help refugees, persecutedminorities, and political prisoners invarious European countries. QuakerInternational Centers continued toperform their services under the FSC.

During the 1920s, the AmericanFriends Service Committee reorganizeditself into four divisions—Foreign, In-terracial, Peace, and Home Service—and offered peacetime humanitarianservice throughout the world in theyears that followed. During the SpanishCivil War (1936–39), AFSC volun-teers offered aid to victims on bothsides of the conflict. When persecutionof Jews in Nazi Germany intensified in1938, Rufus Jones led an AFSC delega-tion to Berlin, where they persuadedGerman officials to allow many Jews toemigrate to the United States andother countries.

When the United States enteredWorld War II in December 1941,Quakers and other pacifists registered as so-called conscientious objectors toavoid having to fight. The governmentbarred conscientious objectors fromserving abroad during the war, so theAFSC established public service campsfor them throughout the United States.There they worked as foresters, fire-fighters, and soil conservationists. Dur-

ing the war the AFSC was also allowedby the government to sponsor relief ef-forts in countries not occupied by theAxis powers (Germany and Japan andtheir allies). After the war ended in1945, the AFSC aided refugeesthroughout the world, distributing food,clothing, and medical supplies.

In Great Britain, the Friends Ser-vice Council reactivated the FriendsWar Victims Relief Committee in1940; the name was changed to theFriends Relief Service three years later.From 1940 until 1948 this relief groupoperated in France, the Netherlands,Greece, Germany, Austria, andPoland, as well as Great Britain, offer-ing various humanitarian services: vol-unteers drove ambulances, distributedfood and clothing, and establishedrefugee camps.

For their humanitarian efforts, theAmerican Friends Service Committeeand the Friends Service Council shared

A M E R I C A N F R I E N D S S E R V I C E C O M M I T T E E & F R I E N D S S E R V I C E C O U N C I L • 1 3 3

Friends ServiceCouncilF O U N D E R S

Members of the Society of Friends(Quakers) of London

F O U N D I N G

1927London, England


London, England

P U R P O S E

To coordinate missionary and reliefwork conducted by the British Soci-ety of Friends, principally throughQuaker International Centers andthe Friends War Victims ReliefCommittee


Prior to World War II, aidedrefugees, persecuted minorities, andpolitical prisoners throughout Eu-rope, and sponsored peace educa-tion programs; from 1940 to 1948,offered major humanitarian assis-tance in Western Europe


Rufus Jones (1863–1948), a Quaker and acollege philosophy professor, founded theAmerican Friends Service Committee inPhiladelphia in 1917 to offer humanitarianaid to victims of World War I. He led theorganization for many years, retiring in1944 at the age of 81.

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the 1947 Nobel Peace Prize. In the citation accompanying the joint award,the Society of Friends—the parent ofboth organizations—was singled out forpraise: “The Quakers have shown usthat it is possible to translate into ac-tion what lies deep in the hearts ofmany: compassion for others and thedesire to help them.”

Today both the AFSC and the FSCcontinue their humanitarian effortsthroughout the world. As representa-tives of these organizations, thousandsof volunteers work to feed the hungry,heal the sick, improve public health, de-fend human rights, and bring relief tovictims of both warfare and natural dis-asters. They also continue their historiccommitment to the establishment ofworld peace by supporting disarmamentand the international peace movement,and through the sponsorship of majorpeace education programs.

F U RT H E R R E A D I N GBowden, James. The History of the Society ofFriends in America. 1850–54. 2 vols.Reprint, New York: Arno, 1972.

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A Friends Service Council worker distrib-utes food to refugee children in Marseilles,France, in 1945.

Forbes, J. The Quaker Star Under SevenFlags. Philadelphia: University of Penn-sylvania Press, 1962.

Ingle, H. Larry. First Among Friends:George Fox and the Creation of Quakerism.Oxford and New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1994.

Isichei, Elizabeth A. Victorian Quakers.Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970.

Jones, Mary Hoxie. Swords intoPloughshares: An Account of the AmericanFriends Service Committee, 1917–1937.New York: Macmillan, 1937.

“Jones, Rufus Matthew.” In Dictionary ofAmerican Biography. Supplement 4. NewYork: Scribners, 1974.

Jones, Rufus M. A Small-Town Boy. NewYork: Macmillan, 1941.

Yarrow, C. H. M. Quaker Experiences inInternational Conciliation. New Haven:Yale University Press, 1978.

Yolen, Jane. Friend: The Story of George Fox and the Quakers. New York: Seabury,1972.

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here can be no peace in the world so long asa large proportion of the population lack thenecessities of life and believe that a changeof the political and economic system willmake them available. World peace must be

based on world plenty.”With those words, Sir John Boyd Orr, fellow of the

Royal Society, recipient of the Military Cross, member of theDistinguished Service Order and of the French Legion ofHonor, accepted his latest honor, the 1949 Nobel PeacePrize. Boyd Orr was a scientist, with degrees in chemistryand medicine, who had spent nearly 40 years working in thefield of nutrition. But he was also a humanitarian who de-voted his career to finding ways of feeding millions of hungrypeople. A well-fed world, Boyd Orr firmly believed, was thebasis for lasting peace.

Boyd Orr did not develop an interest in nutrition, how-ever, until he was 30. And he had little curiosity about

J O H N B O Y D O R R • 1 3 5

John Boyd Orr

Y1 9 4 9

Scientist John Boyd Orr, shown here with his wife, improved thediets of millions worldwide, working first with the League of Na-tions and later with its successor, the UN.

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science until he was nearly 20. In fact,as a child he seemed to resist educa-tion. Born in 1880 in Kilmaurs, Scot-land, where his father owned a smallquarry, John Boyd Orr and his sixbrothers and sisters received their earlylessons at home from their mother andgrandmother. At the age of 13, BoydOrr enrolled at a nearby boardingschool but was such an indifferent stu-dent that he was asked to leave. Backhome, he spent the rest of his teenageyears working in his father’s quarrywhile reluctantly attending classes atthe local village school. During thistime he became interested in booksand began to read extensively.

The Boyd Orrs were very reli-gious—the family belonged to the FreeChurch of Scotland, an evangelicalsect—and when John, now 19, saidthat he wanted to do something elsewith his life besides work in a stonequarry, they suggested a career in theministry. Taking their advice, he ap-plied for and received a scholarship tostudy theology at the University ofGlasgow, and enrolled there in 1899.

One day during his first year atGlasgow, Boyd Orr wandered into a zoology class by chance. The professorwas lecturing on the theories ofCharles Darwin, the 19th-century sci-entist who had proposed a revolution-ary theory of evolution. Boyd Orr wasso fascinated by the lecture that he en-rolled in several science courses—anddid so well in them that he changed hiscareer plans and decided to become ascience teacher.

After completing his universitystudies with a concentration in chem-istry in the early 1900s, Boyd Orrtaught in slum areas in and aroundGlasgow for four years to satisfy theterms of his university scholarship. He

was appalled by the physical conditionof his students, who were frequently illand obviously malnourished, and thatexperience led him to study medicine.

After Boyd Orr received his med-ical degree with honors from the Uni-versity of Glasgow in 1914, he accept-ed an appointment as director of theAnimal Nutrition Research Laboratory,which had just been founded at theUniversity of Aberdeen. Finding thatthe facility was limited, he began alarge-scale fund-raising campaign tobuild a large laboratory as World War Iwas breaking out in the late summer of1914. Boyd Orr took a leave of absenceand volunteered for service in theBritish army as a doctor. During thenext four years, he served in Francewith distinction and won several pres-tigious decorations, including the Mil-itary Cross and the Distinguished Service award.

When the war ended in the fall of1918, Boyd Orr went back to Ab-erdeen. There he resumed fund-raisingand eventually built a large laboratory,together with an extensive sciencecomplex that included the Rowett Re-search Institute for nutritional studies;the Strathcona House Nutrition Cen-ter, which drew nutritionists fromaround the world; a library; and an ex-perimental farm. During the nextdecade, Boyd Orr’s extensive studies atthe Rowett Institute on nutrition infarm and dairy animals made him wide-ly known.

Boyd Orr also investigated humannutrition, in particular the diets of sev-eral tribes in Africa that he studied in1925, and he became convinced thatthe discoveries being made about ani-mals at Rowett could be used to im-prove the health of human beings. Heundertook an extensive study of cow’s

1 3 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

milk—which at that time was notwidely drunk by the British popula-tion—and proved that children whoincluded milk in their daily diets hadconsiderably better health than thosewho did not. Boyd Orr’s findings ledthe British government to pass legisla-tion that provided free or inexpensivemilk to all schoolchildren.

Boyd Orr continued his studies ofhuman nutrition during the 1930s andfound evidence that a large portion ofthe British population—more thanhalf—was unable to afford an adequatediet and that 10 percent of the popula-tion was severely malnourished. He dis-cussed those findings in his book Food,Health, and Income, published in 1936,which also urged the British govern-ment to adopt a national food program.During this time Boyd Orr also servedon the League of Nations TechnicalCommission on Nutrition, where hehelped draft a list of international di-etary standards and worked on a pro-posal to bring worldwide agriculturalproduction into closer harmony withnutritional needs.

Following the outbreak of WorldWar II in September 1939, Boyd Orrbegan work on a book called Feedingthe People in War Time. Coauthoredwith David Lubbock and published thefollowing year, the book described sim-ple and inexpensive diets based onfoods produced at home. It also out-lined a food policy for the governmentthat included rationing, price controls,and the regulation of agricultural pro-duction. The book was widely read bythe British public, and many of its proposals were adopted by the Britishgovernment.

Boyd Orr made two visits to theUnited States during the war. In 1942he met with U.S. Vice President Henry

Wallace and other government officialsin Washington, D.C., to discuss the de-velopment of a world food policy. Ayear later he attended a conference on“Freedom from Want” hosted by Presi-dent Franklin D. Roosevelt in HotSprings, Virginia, and attended by rep-resentatives from other Allied na-tions—those nations, including GreatBritain, France, and the United States,that were fighting Nazi Germany in thewar. Boyd Orr was not an officialBritish delegate, however, because thegovernment did not agree with some ofhis proposals for international regula-tion of agricultural production andtrade. The government feared that theadoption of such proposals might hurtGreat Britain economically.

Boyd Orr retired from the RowettResearch Institute in 1945, the sameyear that the war ended. He was thenelected to a seat in Parliament as a rep-resentative of all the universities ofScotland. At this time he also becamerector of the University of Glasgow.

In the fall of 1945, Boyd Orr at-tended a meeting in Quebec of thenewly founded Food and AgricultureOrganization (FAO), an agency of theUnited Nations, as an unofficial advis-er to the head of the British delegation,Philip J. Noel-Baker. At the invitationof Canadian statesman Lester B. Pear-son, Boyd Orr addressed the conferenceand made a strong plea for the newagency to have broad authority. Al-though he had assumed that the speechwould not be well received, the dele-gates were impressed, and Boyd Orrwas chosen unanimously to serve as thefirst director-general of the FAO.

During his years in office, BoydOrr led the FAO’s development into amajor arm of the UN. His greatest ac-complishment was the establishment of

J O H N B O Y D O R R • 1 3 7

John Boyd OrrB O R N

September 23, 1880Kilmaurs, Scotland

D I E D

June 25, 1971Brechin, Scotland

E D U C AT I O N

Ch.B. (1902), M.B. (1912), M.D.(1914), D.Sci. (1920), University ofGlasgow

O C C U PAT I O N

Scientist; educator


Founded the Rowett Research In-stitute, University of Aberdeen;member of Parliament; director-general, UN Food and AgricultureOrganization; author of numerousbooks and articles on nutrition,food distribution, and agriculturalproduction


the International Emergency FoodCouncil, which prevented widespreadfamine from occurring in Europe in thedifficult postwar years by coordinatingfood distribution and imposing ra-tioning. While in office, he alsoworked—without success—for the es-tablishment of a so-called world foodboard, under UN auspices, to preventwidespread hunger as the world’s popu-lation rapidly increased.

After he left office in 1948, BoydOrr continued to call for the creationof a “food board,” and in numerousspeeches and articles he asked the moredeveloped nations to take responsibil-ity for ending world hunger. On his frequent speechmaking trips throughEurope, Boyd Orr also advocated thecreation of a permanent world govern-ment that would have the authority toprevent war. Many countries, includinghis own, were hostile to his proposalsbecause they threatened national sov-ereignty. One country that respondedpositively to Boyd Orr was India, wherehe served in 1949 as an adviser to thegovernment on agricultural develop-ment and food distribution.

John Boyd Orr’s work “to freemankind from want,” which “clearlypaves the way for peace”—in the wordsof the Nobel citation—earned him the1949 Peace Prize. This was one ofmany awards that Boyd Orr received inhis lifetime. Knighted by King GeorgeV in 1935, he was made a peer by KingGeorge VI in 1948. Boyd Orr was alsoa fellow of the Royal Society, a mem-ber of the French Legion of Honor, andan honorary member of the New YorkAcademy of Sciences and the Ameri-can Public Health Association, whichhonored him with its Lasker Award fordistinguished service to humanity. Inaddition, he received more than a

dozen honorary degrees from universi-ties around the world.

For more than a decade after re-ceiving the Nobel Prize, Boyd Orr con-tinued to be active in the fight againstworld hunger. He helped Pakistan setup a food distribution program in 1951,attended an economic conference inMoscow as a British delegate the fol-lowing year, and later toured Chinaand Cuba. He also took part in severalscientific and economic exchangeswith countries in Eastern Europe.

A frequent collaborator with BoydOrr in his work was his wife, ElizabethCallum Boyd Orr, whom he married in1915. The couple had three children;their only son was killed in World War II.

Boyd Orr retired from professionallife in the 1960s but remained physical-ly active at his home in rural Scotland.He also wrote several more books, in-cluding a volume of memoirs, As I Re-call, published in 1966. (During hislifetime, 16 books by Boyd Orr—two ofthem coauthored by him—were pub-lished.) For exercise he loved to takelong walks in the countryside and toparticipate in the sport of curling, andhe also liked to perform traditionalScottish dances. Boyd Orr died in June1971, several months before his 91stbirthday.


Boyd Orr, John. As I Recall. New York:Doubleday, 1967.

Hambidge, Gove. The Story of FAO. NewYork: Van Nostrand, 1955.

Lamartine Yates, Paul. So Bold an Aim: TenYears of International Cooperation TowardFreedom from Want. Rome: Food and Agri-culture Organization, 1955.

1 3 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

hen 23-year-old Ralph J. Buncheheaded east from Los Angeles in thelate summer of 1927, the family mem-bers, friends, and other well-wisherswho gathered at the train station to

see him off had reason to be proud. In fact, they were soproud of him that they had raised $1,000 to help him withliving expenses as he began his first year of graduate study atHarvard University, in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Theyknew that Bunche, an outstanding student and athlete whohad recently graduated with highest honors from the Uni-versity of California at Los Angeles, had a distinguished fu-

R A L P H J . B U N C H E • 1 3 9

Ralph J.Bunche

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Diplomat Ralph Bunche was the first African American to winthe Nobel Peace Prize. He earned the award for his efforts toachieve peace between Israelis and Arabs in the Middle East.

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ture ahead of him—if only he couldcontinue to overcome the racial preju-dice that kept most African-Americansfrom personal achievement.

Ralph Bunche, the grandson of aslave, fulfilled his supporters’ dreams,and his own, by becoming an outstand-ing educator and statesman. He alsobecame the first black man to win theNobel Peace Prize.

Ralph Johnson Bunche was bornin Detroit, Michigan, in 1904 to a poorbarber and his wife. When Ralph was10, he and his younger sister movedwith their parents to Albuquerque,New Mexico, because a doctor had rec-ommended a drier climate for his ailingmother. However, both parents diedless than two years later, and the twochildren went to live with their mater-nal grandmother in Los Angeles.

“Nana” Johnson ran a strict but af-fectionate household, and she madesure that her grandson attended bothchurch and school and did his home-work. Her attention was repaid: RalphBunche graduated from high school in1922 at the top of his class. Withscholarship assistance, he enrolled atUCLA. There he became an outstand-ing student and athlete while workingas a janitor, carpet layer, and busboy.He also excelled in debate, whichsparked his interest in current affairs.Majoring in international relations,Bunche graduated with highest honorsin 1927.

After a year of graduate study atHarvard University, Bunche earned amaster’s degree in government. Hethen began his teaching career atHoward University, an all-black

1 4 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

During the Arab-Israeli War in 1948,United Nations mediator Ralph Bunchemeets with UN officials during a break innegotiations between the two sides inthe conflict.

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institution in Washington, D.C., wherehe rose from the rank of instructor totenured professor and chairman of thepolitical science department in nineyears. In 1932–34 he was on leave fromHoward while he studied for a doctor-ate in government at Harvard. For hisdissertation—a comparative study ofDahomey, a West African Frenchcolony, and French Togoland, a coun-try administered by the League of Na-tions—Bunche traveled to Africa withthe aid of a small fellowship. In 1934the dissertation earned him both thePh.D. and a prize for the most out-standing essay in the social scienceswritten at Harvard that year.

In the mid-1930s, Bunche took another leave from Howard when hereceived a fellowship from the SocialScience Research Council to continuehis study of colonialism. The fellowshipenabled Bunche to do research at sev-eral universities, including the Uni-versity of Capetown in South Africa.During this period he wrote a pamphletcalled A World View of Race (1936)that was widely read, and he served ascodirector of a race relations instituteat Swarthmore College. Beginning in1928 and continuing into the 1940s,Bunche also wrote numerous articlesfor professional and popular journals onrace relations and colonialism. Follow-ing a trip around the world to studycolonial conditions, he took anotherleave from Howard to join the staff ofthe Carnegie Corporation, a publicpolicy research institution in New YorkCity, in 1938.

During his two years on theCarnegie staff, Bunche served as theprincipal aide to a prominent Swedishsociologist named Gunnar Myrdal. Atthat time Myrdal was doing researchfor a book on racial prejudice againstblack Americans, and Bunche accom-

panied him on his travels around thecountry. In more than a few instances,Bunche experienced discriminationpersonally on these travels, and he andMyrdal were literally run out of severaltowns in the South, where race preju-dice was especially strong. (The result-ing book, An American Dilemma, waspublished in 1944 and is considered aclassic study of prejudice.)

Bunche returned to Howard in1940. A year later, when the UnitedStates entered World War II, Bunchetried to enlist in the military. When he was rejected because of a physicaldisability, he took another leave of ab-sence from Howard and offered his ser-vices to the U.S. government. Bunchewas assigned to the staff of the Officeof the Coordinator of Information—later renamed the Office of StrategicServices (OSS)—as a policy analyst forAfrica and the Far East.

In 1944 Bunche transferred to thestaff of the State Department as an ex-pert on colonial problems. He laterserved in the department as a specialiston Africa and in 1945 became deputyhead of the Division of DependentArea Affairs, a position he held until1947. For part of this time he was act-ing head of the division—the firstblack person to hold that office.

During this period Bunche attend-ed several important internationalgatherings as an adviser to the U.S.delegation, including the foundingconference of the United Nations inSan Francisco in 1945. A year earlier,Bunche had helped draw up a part ofthe United Nations Charter that con-cerned non-self-governing and trustee-ship territories. In the spring of 1946,on leave from the State Department,Bunche became director of the Trustee-ship Division of the UN Secretariat,which he had helped to set up.

R A L P H J . B U N C H E • 1 4 1

Ralph J.BuncheB O R N

August 7, 1904Detroit, Michigan

D I E D

December 9, 1971New York City

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., international relations, Uni-versity of California, Los Angeles(1927); M.A. (1928), Ph.D. (1934),government, Harvard University

O C C U PAT I O N

Educator; statesman


Instructor and later professor of po-litical science, Howard University(1928–41); principal negotiator,United Nations Palestine Commis-sion (1948–49); under secretary-general, United Nations (1967–71)


During 1947 Bunche worked close-ly with the UN Special Committee onPalestine, a Middle Eastern territoryunder UN supervision. After a lengthystudy, the committee recommendedthat the territory be partitioned intoJewish and Arab states, and Bunchewas largely responsible for drafting thecommittee report. In December 1947he was named principal secretary of theUN Palestine Commission, which wasto oversee the partition of the territory.Conflict between Arabs and Israelisbroke out several months later, follow-ing the establishment of the nation ofIsrael, and the United Nations ap-pointed Count Folke Bernadotte ofSweden to mediate the dispute, withBunche acting as his assistant. WhenBernadotte was assassinated by an Israeli terrorist in September 1948, the UN put Bunche in charge of thenegotiations.

In the face of overwhelming diffi-culties, Bunche negotiated an armisticebetween the Arabs and the Israelis bypatiently securing four separate agree-ments in 1949 between Israel and theMideast nations of Egypt, Lebanon,Jordan, and Syria. For these effortsBunche was awarded the 1950 NobelPeace Prize. The accompanying cita-tion praised Bunche for his “unfailingsense of optimism” and his “infinite pa-tience” during the negotiations. It also noted that while the victory be-longed to the United Nations, “it wasone individual’s efforts that made vic-tory possible.”

Bunche devoted the rest of his pro-fessional life to the United Nations. Heserved as under secretary for special po-litical affairs from 1955 until 1967,when he became under secretary-general. In these positions Bunche wascalled upon to be a peacemaker in sev-eral major crises: In 1956, when Egyptattempted to nationalize the SuezCanal, he directed the UN EmergencyForce that ultimately ended the dis-pute. Four years later Bunche headed a

UN operation to establish peace in theCongo, an African nation that had re-cently gained independence from Bel-gium. In 1964 Bunche led the estab-lishment of a UN peacekeeping forceto deal with a civil war in Cyprus, anda year later he helped bring about acease-fire in a dispute between Indiaand Pakistan.

During the 1960s Bunche also be-came a public supporter of the civilrights movement that sought equalityfor African Americans. As part of thatsupport, he joined the Reverend Mar-tin Luther King, Jr., in the civil rightsmarch in Montgomery, Alabama, in1965.

In the late 1960s, Bunche becamean adviser to the United Nations secre-tary-general, U Thant. He also contin-ued to speak out against racism in theUnited States and actively opposed theVietnam War, arguing that the moneyspent on the fighting could be betteremployed in improving the lives ofinner-city African Americans.

When Bunche retired in 1971, helooked forward to enjoying someleisure time with his wife, whom hehad married in 1930, their three chil-dren, and grandchildren. His retire-ment was brief, however: he died inNew York City only a few months afterleaving office.


Haskins, Jim. Ralph Bunche: A Most Reluc-tant Hero. New York: Hawthorn, 1974.

Kugelmass, J. Alvin. Ralph J. Bunche: Fight-er for Peace. New York: Julian Messner,1962.

Mann, Peggy. Ralph Bunche, UN Peacekeep-er. New York: Coward, McCann, 1975.

Urquhart, Brian. Ralph Bunche: An Ameri-can Life. New York: Norton, 1993.

1 4 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

hen he was 11 years old, Léon Jouhauxwas forced to leave the Paris elemen-tary school he attended and go towork to help support the family. Thereason? His father, a laborer in a

match factory, had gone on strike and thus lost his income.Young Léon, who had dreamed of one day becoming a me-chanical engineer, was later able to return to school briefly,but the family’s poverty kept him from ever becoming a full-time student again.

The bitter memory of having to give up formal educa-tion stayed with Jouhaux throughout his life, and it influ-enced his decision as an adult to fight for better living conditions for working men and women. Out of bitternesscame enormous accomplishment—and the honor of winningthe 1951 Nobel Peace Prize.

Léon Jouhaux (pronounced Joo-OH) was born in 1879in Paris to a slaughterhouse laborer and his wife. When Léonwas two years old, his father got a job at the match factory,and Léon later worked there, too, after a series of jobs at a

L É O N J O U H A U X • 1 4 3

Léon Jouhaux

Y1 9 5 1

Léon Jouhaux addresses an international labor conference sponsored by the League of Nations and held at League headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, in 1928.

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locksmith shop and in soap and wallpa-per factories. Between jobs, and beforegoing to the match factory, Léon wasable to complete a term at each of twoFrench secondary schools, or lycées, ona scholarship, but he had to withdrawand go back to work because the familyneeded his wages.

At the match factory, Jouhauxrose to a semi-skilled position. In1897, at the age of 18, he went onleave when he was called up for mili-tary service. Sent to Algeria, a Frenchcolony in North Africa, with a unit ofthe French army, he served for threeyears. He was discharged from thearmy in 1900 to help his father, whohad become blind.

The senior Jouhaux’s blindness hadbeen caused by years of exposure towhite phosphorus in the match factory.The industrial use of white phosphoruswas controversial because it was dan-gerous to health, and many companieshad banned it for this reason. Outragedby his father’s disability, Léon Jouhaux

returned to Paris and led a proteststrike against the match factory, callingon the management to stop usingwhite phosphorus. The strike was suc-cessful, but Jouhaux was fired for hisrole. He did not get his job back untilsix years later, after a lengthy effort byhis labor union.

During those six years, Jouhauxworked as a laborer on the docks andin a fertilizer plant and a sugar refinery.He also began a program of self-education, attending free lectures atseveral schools in Paris and readingwidely. The end of that period also sawthe beginning of Jouhaux’s career inthe labor movement: in 1906, follow-ing his reinstatement at the match fac-tory, the matchworkers’ union chosehim as its representative to France’s na-tional federation of labor unions, theConfédération Générale du Travail(General Confederation of Labor),commonly referred to as the CGT.

Jouhaux became a prominentmember of the CGT and in 1909 waselected secretary-general. During thenext few years he was the organization’sleading spokesman, traveling aroundFrance to give speeches and editing theCGT newspaper, La Bataille syndicaliste(The Syndicalist Battle). In the monthspreceding World War I, Jouhaux ledCGT opposition to the war and madean unsuccessful personal appeal to thehead of the German labor federation,asking that it organize an antiwarmovement.

After war was declared in August1914, Jouhaux helped his country byserving on several government com-mittees that oversaw the production ofdefense goods. Three years later,Jouhaux led the French delegation atan important labor conference inLeeds, England, attended by tradeunionists from the Allied nations(those that were fighting Germany, including France, Great Britain, andthe United States). There he voicedhope for political liberty, economic

1 4 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

During World War II, the headquarters ofthe International Labor Organization,which had been founded in 1919 as anagency of the League of Nations, weremoved temporarily to this college in Mon-treal, Canada.The ILO returned to Gene-va after the war when it became part ofthe newly founded United Nations.

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harmony, disarmament, and compulso-ry international arbitration when thewar ended. At the Versailles PeaceConference in 1919, Jouhaux joinedother labor leaders in creating the In-ternational Labor Organization (ILO)as part of the newly formed League ofNations.

During the next two decades,Jouhaux remained active as head of theCGT; in the early 1920s he led effortsthat prevented a Communist takeoverof the organization. He also served asan official of the ILO and as a memberof the French delegation to the Leagueof Nations, where he helped draft pro-posals for arms control. As both a laborleader and a League representative,Jouhaux was an active delegate to in-ternational conferences during theearly 1930s on unemployment andarms reduction.

As another world war loomed inthe late 1930s—and the League of Na-tions seemed powerless to stop it—Jouhaux became a leading spokesmanfor peace. He publicly opposed Italy’sinvasion of Ethiopia in 1935, the out-break of the Spanish Civil War (1936),and the takeover by Nazi Germany ofCzechoslovakia and Austria (1938). In1938 he traveled to the United Statesto make a personal appeal to PresidentFranklin D. Roosevelt to take actionagainst Germany.

Despite Jouhaux’s efforts, WorldWar II began in September 1939. Lessthan a year later France fell to the Ger-man army, and at that point the CGTwas dissolved. Jouhaux fled to thesouth of France, where he worked forthe Resistance, a secret organizationfighting to end Nazi occupation. Hewas arrested in Marseilles in December1941, and he and his wife spent twoyears under house arrest. In 1943 theywere deported to a German concentra-tion camp in Buchenwald, and despitethe horrible conditions there they sur-vived until the camp was liberated byAllied troops in 1945.

Jouhaux returned to Paris and re-sumed his work with the InternationalLabor Organization and the reactivatedCGT. He also became an official of thepostwar French government as presi-dent of the French Economic Council.In 1947 he ended his association withthe CGT when it refused to approvethe European Recovery Program, aplan to rebuild wartorn Europe thatwas devised by George C. Marshall. Hewent on to form and become presidentof a new organization, the CGT-ForceOuvrière (CGT-Work Force), whichsought to unify France and other conti-nental nations into the United Statesof Europe. He also encouraged the for-mation of an all-Europe labor move-ment and the improvement of livingand working conditions for the Euro-pean labor force.

Jouhaux’s longtime efforts on be-half of peace earned him the NobelPeace Prize for 1951. The accompany-ing citation praised him for his long ef-fort “to lay the foundations of a worldwhich could belong to all men alike, aworld where peace would prevail.”Jouhaux was apparently surprised bythe award, and in his acceptance ad-dress he emphasized his belief that itbelonged not to him alone but to “allthose in the trade union movement.”

Jouhaux remained active in boththe French Economic Council and theCGT-Force Ouvrière during the nextfew years, although he was now in his70s. He died in Paris in the spring of1954 after suffering a heart attack.


“Jouhaux, Léon.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1948. New York: H. W. Wilson,1949.

Lorwin, L. L. The International Labor Move-ment. New York: Harper, 1953.

L É O N J O U H A U X • 1 4 5

LéonJouhauxB O R N

July 1, 1879Paris, France

D I E D

April 28, 1954Paris, France

E D U C AT I O N

Briefly attended a secondary school

O C C U PAT I O N

Labor leader


Secretary-general, ConfédérationGénérale du Travail (CGT)(1909–40); cofounder and vice pres-ident, International Labor Organi-zation; president, French EconomicCouncil; founder and president,CGT-Force Ouvrière (1947–54)


n 1905, 30-year-old Albert Schweitzer, a prominentresident of Strassburg, Germany, turned his back ona promising career as a scholar in the fields of bothreligion and music. That fall he entered medicalschool to prepare himself for a new career as a med-

ical missionary in Africa. Even if he had not chosen thisnew occupation, it is likely that Schweitzer would have be-come well known, at least in religious and musical circles.But his decision to devote his life to helping native Africansled him to become celebrated as a leading hero of the 20thcentury—and to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Schweitzer was born to French parents in 1875 in thesmall town of Kaysersberg, where his father was a Lutheranpastor. Kaysersberg was part of the province of Alsace, whichhad belonged to France until 1871, when it was taken overby Germany as part of the settlement that ended the two-year Franco-Prussian War. When Albert was still an infant,the family moved to Günsbach, another town in Alsace,

1 4 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Celebrated as a great humanitarian when he won the Nobel PeacePrize in 1952, musician, scholar, and physician Albert Schweitzerspent the last decade of his life campaigning against nuclear waste.

IAlbertSchweitzer

Y1 9 5 2

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where his father became pastor of thelocal Lutheran church. Albert, like theother four children in the family, grewup speaking both French and German.From the age of five he was taught byhis father to play the piano and theorgan.

Like his father and two grandfa-thers, Albert Schweitzer quickly be-came a skilled organist; by the age ofnine he was playing for services at hisfather’s church. After attending localelementary schools, he was sent to asecondary school in the Alsatian city ofMulhouse. There he also continued hisorgan studies with a private teacherwhile he lived with a strict great-unclewho allowed him music as his onlyleisure activity.

After graduation, Schweitzer en-tered the University of Strassburg inthe fall of 1893 to study theology, withthe intention of becoming a Lutheranminister like his father. (Strassburg waslocated in still another area that be-longed to France until 1871; after thecity returned to French rule in 1918, it resumed the French spelling of itsname: Strasbourg.) During the next 12years, Schweitzer earned successivedoctorates in theology, philosophy, andmusic and also fulfilled a German gov-ernment requirement to spend a year in military training. His research for his doctoral dissertation in philoso-phy took him to Paris for extended periods of time, and there he tookorgan and piano lessons from promi-nent musicians.

Schweitzer had become increas-ingly interested in the music of JohannSebastian Bach, an early-18th-centuryGerman composer who wrote manyworks for the organ. Schweitzer be-came a specialist in Bach: he gave concerts of the composer’s work,founded the Paris Bach Society, andpublished a critical edition of Bach’sorgan compositions. For his doctoratein music, he wrote a biographical studyof the composer that was published in

both French and German editions andlater translated into English and otherlanguages.

During his lifetime, Schweitzer wasregarded as a leading authority onBach. Both the critical edition ofBach’s compositions and the biographywere widely praised by music historiansand are still considered importantworks today. In addition, Schweitzerwrote a book on organ constructionand playing that inspired the restora-tion of many historic organs in Europe.

Meanwhile, Schweitzer had be-come associated as a preacher with St.Nicholas Church in Strassburg in 1899,shortly after receiving his doctorate intheology. He later served as deacon andcurate of the church. In the early1900s, he also served on the theologi-cal faculty of the university and wrotewhat is considered his most importantbook, a study of Christ that is knownwidely by the title of its English trans-lation: The Quest of the Historical Jesus(1906; English translation, 1910).

While he was still a student,Schweitzer had resolved that when hereached the age of 30, he would devotethe rest of his life to the service of hu-manity. In his late 20s, as he pursuedhis scholarly activities at the universityand his duties at St. Nicholas Church,Schweitzer tried to determine whatform that service would take. He de-voted his leisure time to charitablework with prisoners and the homelessin Strassburg, but he believed that Godintended him to do more.

Schweitzer’s future path was deter-mined one day in the fall of 1904 whenhe read a magazine article about med-ical missionaries in the Congo, a regionin central Africa. He knew at oncethat this was the work he wanted todo, and in 1905 he entered the medicalschool at the University of Strassburg.During his seven years of study,Schweitzer continued to teach theolo-gy at the university; he paid for hismedical training with his teacher’s

A L B E R T S C H W E I T Z E R • 1 4 7

AlbertSchweitzerB O R N

January 14, 1875Kaysersberg, Germany (now France)

D I E D

September 4, 1965Lambaréné, Gabon

E D U C AT I O N

Ph.D., philosophy, music, and the-ology (1899); M.D. (1913), Univer-sity of Strassburg (later Strasbourg)

O C C U PAT I O N

Theologian; musicologist; organist;medical missionary


Established hospital in Africa toserve the native population; authorof numerous scholarly books, in-cluding major studies of Bach,Goethe, and Jesus, and a best-selling autobiography, Out of MyLife and Thought (1933); acclaimedfor his concerts and recordings ofBach’s organ music


salary and profits from the sale of hisBach biography. During this period healso gave many organ recitals to raisemoney for the hospital he hoped tofound.

Shortly after receiving his M.D. inthe spring of 1913, Schweitzer left forLambaréné, a Protestant mission inFrench Equatorial Africa (now Gabon)that was sponsored by the Paris Mis-sionary Society. He was accompaniedby his wife of one year, Hélène BreslauSchweitzer, who had trained as a nursein order to help her husband in his newrole. Upon his arrival in Lambaréné,Schweitzer established a hospital in thejungle that resembled a native village.It quickly drew many African patients,who were able to bring family membersalong to help care for them.

Sixteen months after its founding,the hospital was forced to close whenWorld War I broke out. Lambaréné wasin French-occupied territory, and theSchweitzers were citizens of Germany,with which France was at war. For sev-eral years, both Schweitzer and his wifewere interned as enemy aliens. Afterbeing allowed to work briefly at thehospital, they were deported to France

in 1917 as prisoners of war.The Schweitzers did not return to

Lambaréné for seven years. After theirrelease from the French internmentcamp in the summer of 1918, theywent back to Strassburg. When the warended that fall, Schweitzer resumed hiswork at St. Nicholas Church andjoined the staff of a city hospital. Dur-ing the next few years, he also took ad-vanced medical and dental courses atthe university.

To raise funds for his eventual re-turn to Africa, Schweitzer gave organrecitals and lectures in several Euro-pean countries, including Sweden,where he appeared at the invitation ofArchbishop Nathan Söderblom. Dur-ing this period, the Schweitzers’ onlychild, a daughter, was born.

In these years, Schweitzer wrotefour books and did research for twoothers. The first, known widely by itsEnglish title, On the Edge of thePrimeval Forest, discussed his work inAfrica; the original German editionwas published in Switzerland in 1921,and an English translation appeared inthe United States a year later. This wasfollowed by a two-volume series ofphilosophical reflections that werepublished in a German edition in Mu-nich in 1923; they appeared in Englishtranslation in 1939 as The Decay andRestoration of Civilization and Civiliza-tion and Ethics. In the second of theseworks, Schweitzer described his person-al philosophy, which he called “rever-ence for life.”

Schweitzer defined “reverence forlife” as follows: “It is good to maintainand further life; it is bad to damage anddestroy life.” This ethic, or moralteaching, was religious and universal,Schweitzer believed, and meant that allhuman beings “should sacrifice a por-tion of their own lives for others.”

The fourth book that Schweitzerwrote during this period was a study ofworld religions. It was published inGerman and British editions in 1923,

1 4 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Schweitzer holds one his patients outsidethe hospital that he and his wife estab-lished at Lambaréné.

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and it appeared in the United States 13years later as Christianity and the Reli-gions of the World. He also did researchfor studies of St. Paul and the Germanpoet Goethe, both of which were pub-lished many years later.

When Schweitzer returned to Lam-baréné in 1924 with his wife anddaughter, he was dismayed to find hishospital in ruins. He immediately setabout rebuilding it, again modeling itafter a typical African village. Therewas no electricity except in the operat-ing room, animals roamed about, andfamily members lived with their ailingrelatives. Despite criticism from someoutsiders, who accused Schweitzer ofliving and working in unsanitary condi-tions, the hospital thrived and treatedhundreds of patients annually.

News of Schweitzer’s hospitalquickly spread, and by the late 1920she was already celebrated throughoutmuch of the world as a great humani-tarian. In 1928 he received the first ofmany honors: the Goethe MemorialPrize from the city of Frankfurt.Schweitzer’s fame grew even more fol-lowing the appearance in 1933 of hisautobiography, published in English asOut of My Life and Thought.

Schweitzer’s hospital at Lambarénéeventually grew into a complex of 70buildings staffed by volunteer medicalpersonnel. Men and women attractedto Schweitzer’s philosophy and to hishumanitarian efforts came from aroundthe world to donate their skills and ef-forts. In the United States, the AlbertSchweitzer Fellowships of America, es-tablished in the late 1930s, enabledmany Americans to work withSchweitzer at Lambaréné. Some ofthem later founded hospitals of theirown in remote areas of the world.

For the rest of his life, Schweitzermade his home in Lambaréné, but trav-eled to Europe and other parts of theworld on a regular basis to raise moneyby giving lectures and organ recitals.Funds for the hospital—and additional

fame for Schweitzer—also came from aseries of organ recordings of the worksof Bach that he made, beginning in the1930s.

During World War II (1939–45),when France was again at war withGermany, the Schweitzers were allowedto continue their work at Lambaréné.This was not only because of AlbertSchweitzer’s international prominencebut because he was now considered aFrench citizen: Alsace, his birthplace,had been restored to French rule afterWorld War I ended in 1918. Medicaland other supplies unavailable fromwartorn Europe were sent to Lam-baréné by individuals and charitableorganizations in countries around theworld, including the United States,Australia, and New Zealand.

In 1949, the same year that hisstudy of Goethe was published in theUnited States, Schweitzer was invitedto lecture at an international Goethefestival in Aspen, Colorado, held tocelebrate the 200th anniversary of thepoet’s birth. During his visit Schweitzerbecame a celebrity in America and wasmobbed by crowds of enthusiastic ad-mirers whenever he appeared in public.

Back at Lambaréné, Schweitzercontinued to receive tributes for hisdedication to the welfare of humanity,including election to the French Acad-emy in 1951. Two years later, whileworking at the hospital, he was toldthat he had won the biggest humani-tarian award of all: the Nobel PeacePrize. The prize, designated for 1952,was announced in 1953. In its citation,the Nobel Committee praisedSchweitzer for demonstrating that “aman’s life and his dream can becomeone,” and for turning the concept ofbrotherhood into a living reality.

Schweitzer used the $33,000 inprize money to build a separate facilityfor lepers at Lambaréné. By the early1960s, the entire medical complex wasable to care for about 500 patients at a time. It was staffed by three dozen

volunteer medical personnel fromabroad and numerous native workers.In addition to offering treatment forvarious ailments, the Lambaréné settle-ment was also maintained as an animalrefuge.

Schweitzer was active as both amanager and a physician at Lambarénéuntil the end of his life, although oldage forced him to give up surgery in1960. Now in his 80s, he also had todiscontinue the Bach recitals that hehad given for more than half a century.

In his last years, Schweitzer was an outspoken opponent of nuclear war and called for a ban on nuclearweapons. He published several bookson international peace and his philoso-phy of reverence for life. He died atLambaréné in September 1965 and wasburied next to his wife, who had diedeight years earlier.


Anderson, Erica. The Schweitzer Album: APortrait in Words and Pictures. New York:Harper & Row, 1965.

Daniel, Anita. The Story of AlbertSchweitzer. New York: Random House,1957.

Langfeldt, Gabriel. Albert Schweitzer: AStudy of His Philosophy of Life. New York:Braziller, 1960.

Marshall, George, and David Poling.Schweitzer: A Biography. New York: Dou-bleday, 1971.

Schweitzer, Albert. Out of My Life andThought. 1933. Reprint, New York: Holt,1990.

“Schweitzer, Albert.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1965. New York: H. Wilson,1966.

A L B E R T S C H W E I T Z E R • 1 4 9

n the fall of 1897, a shy, skinny, and awkward 16-year-old entered the Virginia Military Institute(VMI), a college in Lexington, Virginia, thattrained future army officers. The teenager, GeorgeC. Marshall, had decided on an army career because

he could not think of anything else to do. His parents hadreluctantly agreed to send him to VMI, despite the protestsof George’s older brother, Stuart, who was afraid that Georgewould not do well there and would embarrass the family.George did not have much confidence, either, especiallysince the high school he had attended had not prepared himfor college-level courses. However, his brother’s ridiculespurred him on, and he determined to work as hard as hecould to prove Stuart wrong. When the pressures of school-work seemed too strong, George took breaks by wanderingoff-campus to explore the Civil War battlefields near theschool.

Four years after entering VMI, George C. Marshall grad-uated near the top of his class academically. He had also be-come an outstanding football player and was voted to thehighest cadet rank by his classmates. Soon after graduation,Marshall was commissioned a second lieutenant in the U.S.Army. Everyone who knew him now expected Marshall tohave an outstanding military career. No one, however, couldhave predicted in 1902 that Marshall’s accomplishments as apeacemaker would be considered even greater than his per-formance as a celebrated army general.

George Catlett Marshall was born in Uniontown, Penn-sylvania, on the last day of December, 1880. Most of his ancestors were from the American South, including his par-ents, who had moved north from Kentucky. Many membersof the Marshall family had distinguished themselves, includ-ing a distant cousin, John Marshall, Chief Justice of the U.S.Supreme Court in the early 19th century. George seemedrather slow, however, and was an average student. When itbecame apparent that he could not get into West Point, thenational military academy, the family sent him to VMI—over his brother’s protests.

George Marshall later said that his brother’s tauntsmade him determined to succeed. Entering the army follow-ing his excellent performance at VMI, Marshall spent sever-al years with the 30th Infantry in the Philippines. (At thattime, the Philippine Islands were a U.S.-held territory occu-pied by American troops.) He then returned to the UnitedStates to attend infantry-cavalry training school at FortLeavenworth, in Kansas, and graduated with highest honorsin 1907. Soon afterward he was promoted to the rank offirst lieutenant and went on to attend the Army Staff

1 5 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

IGeorge C. Marshall

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George C. Marshall directed U.S. military operations duringWorld War II. After the war, as secretary of state, he proposeda massive European aid program that became the Marshall Plan.

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College, where he graduated at the topof his class in 1908.

Marshall’s rise to prominence andhigh rank in the army was slow, how-ever. Despite his hard work, he was at a disadvantage because he had not at-tended West Point, which traditionallyproduced the nation’s military leaders.From 1908 to 1913, he served as an in-fantry instructor at several army postsaround the country, then returned tothe Philippines as an aide to the com-manding general. During Marshall’sthree years of service there he im-pressed his superiors with his knowl-edge of military tactics and received apromotion to captain in 1916, shortlyafter his return to the United States.

When the United States enteredWorld War I in April 1917, Marshallwent overseas with American troopsand served as an operations officer inFrance. During his outstanding servicethere, Marshall was assigned as an aideto General John J. Pershing, the headof U.S. forces engaged in the war. Afterthe war ended in the fall of 1918, Mar-shall worked with Pershing in Wash-ington, D.C., as the general tried to ensure that the country would be wellprepared for any future wars. Together,Pershing and Marshall drafted a pro-posal that was passed by Congress asthe National Defense Act of 1920. Al-though the act itself proved to be of little importance (it called for the es-tablishment of a trained army of nearlyhalf a million men, but Congress neverappropriated the necessary funds), Mar-shall’s experience in Washington wasenormously valuable.

During the next few years, Marshallcontinued as Pershing’s aide while re-ceiving promotions to major and thenlieutenant colonel. In the mid-1920s,he served with an infantry unit inChina and later in the decade taught atthe Army War College in Washington,D.C., and at an infantry school inGeorgia. Through most of the 1930s,Marshall’s career took him to half a

dozen military posts around the countryas commander or instructor. By 1936additional promotions had raised himto the rank of brigadier general.

At this point, Marshall seemedheaded for retirement after a career ofsolid but not especially notable service.Military leaders in Washington, D.C.,had their eye on him, however, and inthe summer of 1938 he was recalled tothe capital as an assistant chief in theWar Plans Division of the Army Gen-eral Staff. In September 1939, as WorldWar II broke out in Europe, GeorgeMarshall was promoted to full generaland army chief of staff—by the U.S.President himself, Franklin D. Roo-sevelt. Roosevelt had acted after con-ferring with General Pershing, and hadpassed over 34 officers of greater rankthan Marshall to elevate him to thispost.

As army chief of staff, Marshall im-mediately began working on militarypreparedness. This was a difficult job:The country’s defense system was stillvery small because the United Stateswas not yet fighting in World War II.Furthermore, many Americans opposedany U.S. involvement in the war, andthey repeatedly blocked efforts by thenational government to enlarge its mil-itary capability. Marshall realized, how-ever, that sooner or later the UnitedStates would have to be drawn into theconflict, and he and his staff workedpersistently to assemble an army capa-ble of holding off enemy attack. By thefall of 1941, largely because of his ef-forts, a national military draft known asSelective Service had been established,and 1 million men were undergoingarmy training in the United States.Only weeks later, on December 8,1941, the United States entered thewar following the Japanese attack onPearl Harbor the previous day.

As head of the nation’s militaryforces during World War II, Marshallreorganized those forces into ground,air, and general service divisions that

G E O R G E C . M A R S H A L L • 1 5 1

George C.MarshallB O R N

December 31, 1880Uniontown, Pennsylvania

D I E D

October 16, 1959Bethesda, Maryland

E D U C AT I O N

B.S., Virginia Military Institute(1901)

O C C U PAT I O N

Military officer; statesman


First U.S. Army officer to achievethe rank of five-star general; as Secretary of State, created the European Recovery Program (theMarshall Plan); as Secretary of De-fense, racially integrated the U.S.armed forces


included 8.25 million men by thespring of 1945. Marshall’s major jobwas to initiate and oversee militarystrategy during the war. In selecting officers to carry out the war effort, hescreened candidates carefully and chosefor top appointments only those whowere most qualified to be leaders, in-cluding Dwight D. Eisenhower, thegeneral who commanded European op-erations. He devised battle and supplylines throughout the world and over-saw the production of war materials,including tanks and planes.

Marshall’s ability to inspire respectand cooperation was a major factor inhis successful administration of militaryoperations during the war. His abilitiesand contributions were officially hon-ored by President Roosevelt in Decem-ber 1944, eight months before the warended, when he was given the title ofGeneral of the Army and the newlycreated rank of five-star general.

Throughout the war, Marshall was

closely involved with U.S. foreign poli-cy and attended important internation-al conferences, including meetings inCasablanca, Teheran, and Yalta withPresident Roosevelt and other worldleaders. In the final year of the war,Marshall’s advice on the role of theUnited States in postwar internationalrelations helped shape U.S. strategy increating the United Nations. In August1945, at war’s end, he attended thePotsdam conference with PresidentHarry S. Truman, Roosevelt’s successor,British prime minister WinstonChurchill, and Joseph Stalin, premierof the Soviet Union.

In November 1945, Marshall re-tired as chief of staff and was appointedambassador to China by President Tru-man. His service was only brief, how-ever, for in January 1947 he was calledback to Washington, D.C., to becomeSecretary of State, with responsibilityfor U.S. foreign relations. This was notan easy time for Marshall to assume

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A bombed-out railroad station in Londonduring World War II.The Marshall Planhelped European nations rebuild theirtowns and cities as well as theireconomies after the war.

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that post. The Soviet Union, whichhad joined the war against Germany inits final months, was no longer an allyof the United States. Along with othernations in Eastern Europe now ruled byCommunist dictatorships, the SovietUnion had declared its opposition toall major Western nations, and a tenseinternational political atmosphere nowprevailed. This postwar period wasknown as the Cold War and lasted formore than four decades.

Despite the dangerous internation-al situation, Marshall took on the job.One of his first acts as Secretary ofState was to formulate the so-calledTruman Doctrine, which declared U.S.support for democratic governments inEurope and U.S. opposition to the cre-ation of new totalitarian regimes (dic-tatorships) by the Soviet Union and itsallies. As part of the Truman Doctrine,announced in March 1947, the UnitedStates authorized $400 million in aid toGreece and Turkey.

That spring Marshall devoted hisattention to wartorn Europe and its reconstruction. After considerablethought and study, he devised the Eu-ropean Recovery Program (ERP),which he announced in a speech atHarvard University’s graduation exer-cises on June 5, 1947. The program wasdesigned to strengthen and maintaindemocratic nations in Western Europe,including West Germany, by givingthem massive economic aid. As a firststep, Marshall asked leaders of thesenations to submit proposals to theUnited States that outlined their plansfor reconstruction.

Representatives of 16 European na-tions met in Paris in July 1947 to con-sider Marshall’s proposal. There theyestablished the Committee of EuropeanEconomic Cooperation, which drafteda report outlining a recovery program.During the next three years, the U.S.Congress authorized more than $12 bil-lion in aid under the Economic Recov-ery Program, which became popularly

known as the Marshall Plan. That aidenabled Europe—and particularly WestGermany—to recover from the war inless than a decade.

Marshall faced a major Cold Warcrisis in 1948, when the Soviet Unionblockaded the city of Berlin, which layin Soviet-controlled East Germany.Berlin itself, like the entire country ofGermany, had been divided into Eastand West sectors after the war. The So-viet Union already controlled EastBerlin and was now blockading WestBerlin in an attempt to seize the entirecity. Marshall countered the blockadeby organizing a major airlift of supplies,including food, medicine, and clothing,to the endangered city. The so-calledBerlin Airlift was a major victory forU.S. foreign policy and a personal vic-tory for George Marshall.

As Secretary of State, Marshall wascredited with many other achieve-ments. He established formal diplomat-ic relations between the United Statesand the newly created independent nations of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Is-rael, and Korea. He helped to createthe Organization of American States,an alliance of nations in the westernhemisphere, and he encouraged andsupported negotiations that led to thecreation of the North Atlantic TreatyOrganization (NATO), a Europeanmultination security alliance.

Poor health forced Marshall toleave office when President Truman’sfirst term ended in January 1949. InSeptember 1950, however—threemonths after the United States went towar with North Korea—he agreed toTruman’s request to rejoin the cabinetas Secretary of Defense. In this newpost, Marshall streamlined the DefenseDepartment bureaucracy to make itfunction more effectively. His majorcontribution as Defense Secretary,however, was in the field of civil rights:he ordered racial integration in thebasic training programs of all branchesof military service, removed racial quo-

tas in military schools, and abolishedsegregated military units serving in theKorean War.

Marshall retired as Secretary of Defense in September 1951, severalmonths before his 71st birthday. Twoyears later he became the first profes-sional soldier to win the Nobel PeacePrize, given to him for his efforts to cre-ate the ERP, or Marshall Plan. TheNobel Committee was criticized bymany for giving the Peace Prize to asoldier, and Marshall answered thosecriticisms in his acceptance speech:“The cost of war in human lives is con-stantly spread before me, written neatlyin many ledgers whose columns aregravestones. I am deeply moved to findsome means or method of avoiding another calamity of war.” Many yearsearlier, while still an active soldier,Marshall had expressed similar senti-ments: “War is the most terrible tragedyof the human race,” he said, “and itshould not be prolonged an hour longerthan is absolutely necessary.”

Marshall was married twice, thefirst time in 1902. In 1930, three yearsafter the death of his first wife, he mar-ried a widow with three young childrenand helped raise them. His stepson waskilled while serving with the army inItaly during World War II. Marshallspent his retirement years with his wifeat their home in Leesburg, Virginia. Hedied at the U.S. naval hospital inBethesda, Maryland, after a brief illnessin October 1959. He was buried withmilitary honors at Arlington NationalCemetery in Virginia.


Cray, Ed. General of the Army: George C.Marshall, Soldier and Statesman. New York:Norton, 1990.

“Marshall, George Catlett.” In Dictionary ofAmerican Biography. Supplement 6. NewYork: Scribners, 1980.

G E O R G E C . M A R S H A L L • 1 5 3

ince the creation of modern nation-states in the15th century, millions of refugees have crossednational borders seeking protection. Refugees arepeople who leave their native country because itis no longer safe to live there. Their reason for

leaving their homelands is usually one or more of the follow-ing: political or religious persecution; natural disasters, in-cluding earthquakes and famine; or warfare.

Until the 20th century, aid to refugees was limited andusually came from church groups that helped members oftheir own denomination. The first large-scale refugee assis-tance occurred after World War I, when the League of Na-tions created the High Commission for Refugees. Under thedirection of the Norwegian explorer, scientist, and humani-tarian Fridtjof Nansen, the commission assisted millions ofRussian, Armenian, Greek, and Bulgarian refugees who fledtheir homelands because of political or religious persecution.

In 1930 the League of Nations created a new organiza-tion as a successor to the High Commission. It was namedthe Nansen International Office for Refugees to honor thememory of Nansen, who had died earlier that year. Duringthe 1930s, the Nansen International Office aided refugeesfrom the Spanish Civil War (1936–39) as well as large num-bers of Jews and others who were fleeing persecution byNazis in Germany and countries being overrun by Germantroops.

When world war broke out in September 1939, theLeague of Nations and the organizations under its direc-tion—including the Nansen International Office—becameinactive. After the war ended in 1945, the United Nationswas officially designated as the successor to the League ofNations. An agency called the United Nations Relief andRehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) was created bythe UN to assist some of the millions of European refugeeswho had been uprooted by war and persecution. UNRRAwas later renamed the International Refugee Organization(IRO) and expanded its efforts to aid refugees in Asia andother parts of the world.

In 1951 the widespread refugee aid program of the IROwas reorganized and given a new name: the Office of theUnited Nations High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR). The UNHCR was given the task of workingwith governments and private voluntary organizations togive material assistance to refugees. It was also given re-sponsibility for carrying out the provisions of the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees. This inter-national agreement, signed by UN member nations, pledged

1 5 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

SOffice of theUN High Commissionerfor Refugees

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A refugee boy and his father prepare to leave Germany for anew home in the United States after World War II, with assis-tance from the UN Relief and Rehabilitation Administration.

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them to respect the political rights ofrefugees fleeing their homelands be-cause of persecution. The first highcommissioner in charge of UNHCRwas G. J. van Heuven Goedhart of theNetherlands.

In its first year of operation,UNHCR assisted in the resettlement of1.25 million refugees. Many of themwere Russians and Armenians who hadfled to Belgium and other Western Eu-ropean countries. During the next fewyears, UNHCR also sought to aid thou-sands of Europeans who had beenstranded in China following itstakeover by a Communist governmentin 1949. In addition, UNHCR assistedAustria as it tried to cope with thou-sands of refugees who kept pouring intothat country from Eastern Europe, try-ing to escape Communist persecution.

To pay for these programs,UNHCR got a grant of $3.1 millionfrom the Ford Foundation, a philan-thropic (charitable) organization in theUnited States. Much of the money wasused to aid resettlement of refugees inEurope by providing housing, vocation-al training, and loans to professionalpeople, including doctors and lawyers,so that they could re-establish theirpractices.

UNHCR also raised money on itsown. Beginning in 1954, the organiza-tion undertook a four-year fund-raisingcampaign with a goal of $16 million.This money was used to help resettlethousands who were still living inrefugee camps across Europe that hadbeen set up as temporary accommoda-tions after the war. In 1954 UNHCRalso began a five-year campaign to raise$12 million for the resettlement of athird of a million political refugees inWestern Europe.

That fall, UNHCR was named the1954 winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.

The citation praised the organizationfor its “untiring and sometimes thank-less effort” to assist millions of refugees,and to do it in such a way that each in-dividual felt that he or she had re-ceived personalized attention.

In accepting the award on behalf ofhis organization, High Commissionervan Heuven Goedhart expressed theadmiration that UNHCR felt for thoseit cared for: refugees, he said, werecourageous people who had given up their homelands rather than “aban-don the human freedom which theyvalued more highly.” True to its goals,UNHCR used the prize money to aidnearly 3,000 Romanian politicalrefugees.

The Office of the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees won asecond Nobel Peace Prize in 1981. Toread about the activities of UNHCRsince 1954, see pages 23–33.


Holborn, L. Refugees: A Problem of OurTime. 2 vols. Metuchen, N.J.: ScarecrowPress, 1975.

“Office of the United Nations High Com-missioner for Refugees.” In Nobel PrizeWinners. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987.

Proudfoot, Malcolm J. European Refugees,1939–52. Evanston, Ill.: NorthwesternUniversity Press, 1957.

Vernant, J. The Refugee in the Post-WarWorld. New Haven: Yale University Press,1953.

Office of theUN High Commissionerfor RefugeesF O U N D E R

Founded by the United Nations as asuccessor to the InternationalRefugee Organization

F O U N D I N G

1951Geneva, Switzerland


Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

To aid refugees throughout theworld by providing them with mate-rial and legal assistance and perma-nent settlement


Aided nearly 2 million refugees, pri-marily European, in its first threeyears of operation; raised more than$19 million to fund these efforts


O F F I C E O F T H E U N I T E D N A T I O N S H I G H C O M M I S S I O N E R F O R R E F U G E E S • 1 5 5

y the time he began working for the Canadi-an government at the age of 31, Lester Pear-son had already tried six occupations. Hehad served as an army pilot, flight instructor,meatpacker, baseball player, history professor,

and athletic coach. When friends suggested that he take acivil service exam, Pearson reluctantly agreed—and receivedthe highest score. That performance resulted in his appoint-ment to an important government post—and launched hiscareer as one of the 20th century’s most respected diplomats.

Lester Bowles Pearson was born in Toronto in 1897 to aMethodist minister and his wife. After attending localschools and college preparatory institutes in the Ontariocities of Peterborough and Hamilton, Pearson enrolled at theUniversity of Toronto in 1913, at the age of 16. WhenWorld War I broke out a year later, he joined a hospitalbrigade sponsored by the university and served overseas fortwo years. After receiving flight training back in Canada,Pearson joined the Royal Flying Corps as an army flight lieu-tenant in 1917. He crashed on his first solo flight, however,

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Canadian diplomat Lester Pearson served his country for nearlyhalf a century. He was awarded the 1957 Nobel Peace Prize forhelping to end the Suez Canal crisis a year earlier.

BLester Pearson

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and for the remainder of the war servedas a ground instructor.

Pearson was able to resume hisstudies part-time at the university dur-ing his last months in the army, and in1919 he received a bachelor’s degreewith honors in history. Unsure of hisfuture career, Pearson went to work atthe Ontario branch of Armour &Company, a U.S. meatpacking firm.On weekends, in season, he playedsemiprofessional baseball for theGuelph Maple Leafs. He grew tired ofthese jobs after two years, however, anddecided to do graduate work in historyto prepare himself for a teaching career.

A fellowship from a private educa-tional foundation enabled Pearson toenroll at Oxford University in England,where he earned a second bachelor’sdegree as well as a master’s degree, bothin history. Pearson returned to Canadain the fall of 1923 and joined the his-tory department at the University ofToronto as a lecturer. He was also hiredto coach the university’s ice hockeyand football teams. Pearson coachedand taught for five years, and advancedto the rank of assistant professor. In1928 he took the Canadian civil ser-vice exam, more or less on a dare,which resulted in his appointment asfirst secretary with the Department ofExternal Affairs in Ottawa, the capitalof Canada.

The government department thathired Pearson had responsibility forCanada’s relationship with foreign na-tions. In his seven years as first secre-tary, Pearson traveled abroad to attendconferences on international law, navalpreparedness, and disarmament, andalso attended meetings of the League ofNations in Geneva, Switzerland. Cana-da, a country that belonged to theBritish Empire (now the British Com-monwealth), also loaned Pearson tothe British government in London formonths at a time to serve on commis-sions concerned with government foodpurchasing.

In 1935 Pearson moved to Londonto assume an appointment as first sec-retary in the office of the high commis-sioner for Canada. Four years later, notlong before the outbreak of World WarII, he was promoted to the rank ofcounselor. Pearson remained in Londonuntil the spring of 1941, when he wasrecalled to Ottawa by the governmentto become assistant undersecretary ofstate for external affairs. A year later hewas sent to Washington, D.C., to serveas counselor of the Canadian embassy.

During the next three years, as thewar drew to a close, Pearson was activein international affairs. Promoted tothe rank of minister plenipotentiary atthe Canadian Embassy in 1944, he rep-resented his country that year at theDumbarton Oaks Conference, whichdrew up plans for the formal establish-ment of the United Nations. He wasone of the founders of the United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration (UNRRA) and repre-sented Canada at UNRRA meetings.He was also a cofounder of the UnitedNations Food and Agriculture Orga-nization (FAO) and helped draft itsconstitution.

Named Canadian ambassador tothe United States early in 1945, Pear-son attended the UN founding confer-ence in San Francisco later that yearand helped write the UN Charter. Hewas in line to become the first secre-tary-general of the United Nations butlost to the Norwegian statesman TrygveLie because of pressure from the SovietUnion to appoint a European to thepost. However, he continued as a mem-ber of the Canadian delegation to theUnited Nations and headed the Gener-al Assembly’s Political and SecurityCommittee, which paved the way forthe establishment of the state of Israelin 1948.

Meanwhile, after serving as ambas-sador to the United States for littlemore than a year, Pearson was recalledto Ottawa from this post in 1946 to be-

L E S T E R P E A R S O N • 1 5 7

Lester PearsonB O R N

April 23, 1897Toronto, Canada

D I E D

December 27, 1972Ottawa, Canada

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., University of Toronto (1919);B.A. (1923), M.A. (1925), OxfordUniversity

O C C U PAT I O N

Diplomat; statesman; politician


Cofounded the United Nations Re-lief and Rehabilitation Administra-tion (UNRRA) and the Food andAgriculture Organization (FAO)(both 1943); Canadian ambassadorto the United States (1945–46);prime minister of Canada (1963–68);proposed the creation of the NorthAtlantic Treaty Organization(NATO); led UN efforts to end theSuez crisis of 1956; chairman, WorldBank Commission on InternationalDevelopment (1968–72)


come undersecretary of state for exter-nal affairs, and two years later he waspromoted to the department’s top job,secretary of state. In 1948 he was alsoelected to a seat in the Canadian par-liament, which he held for many years.As secretary of state for external affairs,Pearson represented Canada at majorinternational conferences that dealtwith such issues as German rearma-ment and the peace treaty ending thewar with Japan.

One of Pearson’s most importantcontributions to international relationswas a proposal for the formation of aU.S.-Europe security association calledthe North Atlantic Treaty Organiza-tion (NATO). In 1949, at the Wash-ington, D.C., conference that formallyestablished NATO, Pearson signed themembership treaty on behalf of Cana-da. For the next eight years he also ledthe Canadian delegation to NATOmeetings.

Between 1948 and 1956, Pearsonwas head of Canada’s delegation to theUnited Nations, and he served as presi-dent of the UN General Assembly in1952–53. In the early 1950s, he gainedexperience as a negotiator by mediat-ing policy differences between GreatBritain and the United States. In thefall of 1956, Pearson had another op-portunity to put his mediating skills togood use following Egypt’s seizure ofthe Suez Canal, an international water-way. Great Britain, France, and Israelresponded by sending troops into thearea, and a major war seemed likely.Working around the clock with repre-sentatives of all three governments,Pearson drafted a UN resolution thatcreated an emergency internationalUnited Nations force to enter the areaand eventually end the hostilities.

Lester Pearson’s role in ending theSuez crisis earned him the 1957 NobelPeace Prize. In the accompanying cita-tion, the Nobel Committee noted thatthis had been the world’s darkest hoursince the war ended in 1945 andpraised Pearson for doing “more thananyone else to save the world” duringthe crisis.

Pearson’s career was not over, how-ever. He continued to serve in theCanadian parliament, and in 1963 hewas elected prime minister of his coun-try. After serving for five years, he re-tired from politics at the age of 71 andbecame head of the World Bank Com-mission on International Development.

Pearson, who was married and hadtwo children, received other awardsduring his lifetime, including twodozen honorary degrees and member-ship in the Order of the British Empire.Beginning in the mid-1950s, he alsowrote seven books on international re-lations. Stricken with cancer in the lastyears of his life, Pearson died in Ottawain December 1972.


Beal, John R. Pearson of Canada. NewYork: Duell, Sloan & Pearce, 1964.

Levitt, Joseph. Pearson and Canada’s Role in Nuclear Disarmament and Arms ControlNegotiations, 1945–1957. Montreal:McGill-Queen’s University Press, 1993.

Pearson, Lester. Peace in the Family of Man.London: British Broadcasting Corporation,1969.

Thordarson, Bruce. Lester Pearson: Diplo-mat and Politician. Oxford and New York:Oxford University Press, 1974.

1 5 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

fter World War II ended in 1945, the Euro-pean continent was overrun with millionsof refugees—men, women, and childrenwho had fled their native countries becausetheir homes had been destroyed or because

they feared persecution. Much of the responsibility for look-ing after these refugees was assumed by the newly createdUnited Nations Relief and Rehabilitation Administration(UNRRA).

UNRRA and its successor, the International RefugeeOrganization, resettled thousands of refugees in Western Eu-rope and other countries between 1945 and 1951. Manyrefugees could not be resettled, however, and had to remainwhere they were because no other community wanted totake them in. These “hard-core” refugees were often elderly,chronically ill, or disabled. In 1949 a Roman Catholic priestin Belgium named Georges Pire assumed the responsibilityfor helping many of those who had no place to go. By 1958,thousands of refugees had been aided directly by FatherPire—and his efforts to heal the wounds of war earned himthat year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

Georges Henri Pire (pronounced Peer) was born in Di-nant, Belgium, in 1910 to a local government official and his

D O M I N I Q U E - G E O R G E S P I R E • 1 5 9

Dominique-Georges Pire

Y1 9 5 8

Dominique-Georges Pire, a Roman Catholic priest, points outthe site of a “European Village” that he helped build in Belgiumto house refugees made homeless by World War II.

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wife. Early in life, Georges Pire knewthat he wanted to become a priest.After attending primary and secondaryschools in Dinant, he entered La Sarte,a Dominican monastery in Huy, Bel-gium, at the age of 18. During his fouryears there, he received the equivalentof an undergraduate education. In 1932he began graduate study in theology atthe Collegio Angelico, a university inRome run by the Dominican order.Pire was ordained to the priesthood in1934, taking the religious name Do-minique-Georges. Two years later hereceived his doctorate.

Pire then returned to Belgium,where he studied political and socialscience for a year at the University ofLouvain. Settling at La Sarte, themonastery in Huy where he had stud-ied as an undergraduate, he became ateacher of moral philosophy and sociol-ogy. Pire wanted to do more thanteach, however, so he volunteered tobecome a chaplain to poor laborers inthe local parish. He also founded an or-ganization to help Belgian children liv-ing in poverty.

Soon after the outbreak of WorldWar II, when German troops invadedand occupied Belgium in 1940, Pirejoined the Resistance, a secret move-ment that aided the Allies (GreatBritain, the United States, and othercountries that were fighting Germany).Throughout the war he not only servedas a chaplain to the Resistance; he alsocofounded an intelligence service thatprovided secret information on theGermans to Allied countries, and hehelped establish an escape network forAllied pilots who had been shot down.Pire’s heroic service during World WarII earned him the Belgian War Crosswith Palms, the Medal of Resistance,and the Medal of National Reconnais-sance from the Belgian government.

He later earned the French Legion ofHonor and major awards from otherEuropean nations.

Following the war’s end in 1945,Pire established several camps forFrench and Belgian refugee children.One evening in February 1949, he at-tended a public lecture given byColonel Edward F. Squadrille, an Amer-ican official with UNRRA. Squadrilledescribed the sad situation of Europe’sso-called displaced persons, or DPs,refugees who had fled to Central Euro-pean countries from Communist gov-ernments in Eastern Europe. He gavehis audience the names of 47 DPs livingin the Tyrol region of Austria who werein the “hard-core” category—for variousreasons, they could not be resettledelsewhere—and asked his listeners tosend them letters offering friendshipand assistance. Each of the audiencemembers, including Pire, took one ofthe names and agreed to write.

But Pire was moved to do more. InApril he traveled to Austria and visitedcamps that were housing more than60,000 DPs. Believing that refugeesneeded to feel that others cared aboutthem, he recorded the names of manyand found people in Belgium who werewilling to write to them, offeringfriendship and whatever assistance theycould—small amounts of money as wellas packages of food, clothing, and per-sonal care items. Pire expanded his ef-forts, and by 1958 he had found 15,000“sponsors by mail” in Western Europefor 15,000 refugees in Eastern Europe.

Pire’s charity, which he named Aidto Displaced Persons, was financed en-tirely by private donations. With head-quarters at Pire’s monastery in Huy, theorganization eventually formed branch-es in West Germany, Austria, Belgium,France, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Den-mark, Italy, and the Netherlands.

1 6 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

In addition to the sponsorship pro-gram, Aid to Displaced Persons had asecond component: refugee housing.Pire began by establishing homes forthe aged in Huy and three other Bel-gian towns. He went on to constructwhat he called “European Villages” forrefugees at locations throughout Eu-rope. Pire believed that refugees des-perately needed a sense of belonging,and he therefore built his villages with-in already existing towns and citiesrather than separate from them.

Pire’s first European Village, con-sisting of 20 houses, was built in 1956in Aix-la-Chapelle, Germany, and soonbecame a thriving and self-supportingcommunity of former DPs. Pire con-structed additional villages in Ger-many, as well as Belgium and Austria,that housed nearly a thousand peopleby the late 1950s. Several of the villages were named after humanitar-ians whom Pire especially admired, including medical missionary AlbertSchweitzer and explorer and scientistFridtjof Nansen. A European Village inGermany was named after Anne Frank,the Dutch teenager who died in a Ger-man concentration camp during thewar and who became famous after herdiary was published in 1947.

In November 1958, the NobelCommittee announced that the recipi-ent of that year’s Peace Prize was theReverend Dominique-Georges Pire, inrecognition of his humanitarian work.The announcement took many by sur-prise: Pire had worked so anonymouslyover the years that few people knewwho he was. When American newspa-pers asked the Belgian embassy inWashington, D.C., and Belgium’s Unit-ed Nations delegation in New YorkCity for more information about Pire,they found that no one at either placehad ever heard of him.

In accepting the prize, Pire ex-pressed his belief that peace is createdby an accumulation of individual ef-forts. “We must love our neighbors asourselves,” he said, and establish “littleislands and oases of genuine kindness”that eventually “ring the world.”

Pire used the prize money, totalingmore than $41,000, to construct an-other European Village. During thenext decade he intensified his effortson behalf of world peace while contin-uing his work for refugees. In 1959 heestablished Heart Open to the World,an organization created to promote in-ternational friendship. A year later hefounded the University of Peace, inHuy, to teach individuals how to workfor peace in the world. In the nearlyfour decades of its existence, thousandsof people have attended lectures andworkshops at the university.

Pire also founded two more orga-nizations in the remaining years of his life: World Friendships, an organi-zation that aids refugee children inAfrica and Asia, and Islands of Peace,an association of rural villages in Indiaand Pakistan that have joined togetherto solve problems with the help of in-ternational aid.

In January 1969, at the age of 58,Pire became ill and entered a hospitalin Louvain, Belgium, for treatment. Hedied there several days later, followingan operation.


Pire, Dominique. The Story of Father Do-minique Pire, Winner of the Nobel PeacePrize. New York: Dutton, 1961.

“Pire, (Dominique) Georges (Henri), Rev.”In Current Biography Yearbook 1959. NewYork: H. Wilson, 1960.

D O M I N I Q U E - G E O R G E S P I R E • 1 6 1

Dominique-Georges PireB O R N

February 10, 1910Dinant, Belgium

D I E D

January 30, 1969Louvain, Belgium

E D U C AT I O N

Doctorate in theology, Collegio An-gelico, Rome (1936); postgraduatestudy, University of Louvain (1937)

O C C U PAT I O N

Roman Catholic priest


Founded Aid to Displaced Persons,an organization that offered assis-tance to and built housing for Euro-pean refugees after World War II;founded the University of Peace toteach people practical ways to workfor peace in the world; also foundedWorld Friendships and Islands ofPeace


hilip Noel-Baker’s commitment to peacebegan when he was a child. Born Philip JohnBaker in London in 1889, he was raised in aQuaker household. His family belonged tothe Society of Friends, a religious denomina-

tion that opposed war; its members were known as Friends,or Quakers. Philip Baker’s parents were Canadians who hadmoved to London some years before. Philip’s father had es-tablished a branch of the family engineering business in Eng-land, and he became a prominent industrialist as well as amember of Parliament.

The teachings of the Society of Friends, which centeredon brotherhood, peace, and service to humanity, were em-phasized by the Bakers in raising Philip and his six brothersand sisters. After graduating from a boarding school in York-shire, Philip was sent to Haverford College, a Quaker insti-tution in the United States, before he enrolled at CambridgeUniversity back in England.

Philip Baker graduated from Cambridge with an honorsdegree in history and economics in 1913, and a year later hereceived a master’s degree from Cambridge. During his yearsat the university, he was president of the debating society aswell as a track star. He competed for Great Britain in the1912 Olympic Games in Stockholm; he also ran in the next Olympics, held in Antwerp in 1920; and in the 1924Olympics, held in Paris, he served as captain of the Britishteam.

In 1914 Baker became affiliated with Oxford Universityas the vice principal of an undergraduate college there.When World War I began in August of that year, Baker, likemany other Quakers, chose to serve his country by perform-ing humanitarian service rather than by joining the military.He immediately bought and equipped an ambulance andtook it to France, where he became the head of a Friends’medical unit. After a year there, he went on to Italy as anofficer with a British ambulance unit and served there untilthe war ended in 1918. Baker’s distinguished war serviceearned him awards from the British, French, and Italian gov-ernments.

Following the war, Baker attended the Paris Peace Con-ference as an adviser to British delegates Robert Cecil (laterViscount Cecil of Chelwood) and Lord Parmoor, who helpeddraft the League of Nations Covenant. After the conference,he moved to League headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland,where he worked as an aide to the organization’s first secre-tary-general, Sir Eric Drummond. He returned to England in 1922 to become a fellow of King’s College, Cambridge,and two years later he became a professor of international

1 6 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

PPhilip Noel-Baker

Y1 9 5 9

relations at the University of London,where he remained until 1929.

Since his college days, Baker hadbeen a supporter of the Labour party,and during the 1920s he became activein Labour party politics. In 1929 hewas elected as a Labourite to a seat inParliament, which he held for twoyears. During this time he served asparliamentary secretary to Secretary ofState Arthur Henderson, a leading sup-porter of world disarmament. Baker wasalso a longtime supporter of disarma-ment and had written two books aboutit in the late 1920s. He accompaniedHenderson to the Tenth Assembly ofthe League of Nations, held in1929–30 in Geneva, where he workedclosely with Fridtjof Nansen and otherdelegates on an international arbitra-tion agreement that was signed bymore than 40 nations.

It was about this time that PhilipBaker became known as Philip Noel-

Baker, joining his wife’s maiden namewith his own. In 1915, while on leavefrom service with his ambulance unit,Baker had married Irene Noel ofGreece, a daughter of English parents;five years later they had a son, theironly child.

When the Labour party was defeat-ed in the 1931 elections, Noel-Bakerlost his seat in Parliament. He contin-ued his association with Arthur Hen-derson, however, and in 1932–33served in Geneva as an aide to Hender-son, who was presiding over theLeague-sponsored World DisarmamentConference. By this time Noel-Bakerhad become widely recognized as ascholar in the field of international law,and in 1933 he was invited by YaleUniversity in the United States to be-come a visiting lecturer for the acade-mic year 1933–34. In 1934, at the con-clusion of his lectureship, Yale awardedNoel-Baker its Howland Memorial

P H I L I P N O E L - B A K E R • 1 6 3

Philip Noel-BakerB O R N

November 1, 1889London, England

D I E D

October 8, 1982London, England

E D U C AT I O N

B.A. (1913), M.A. (1914), Cam-bridge University

O C C U PAT I O N

Diplomat


Member of Parliament (1929–31,1936–70, 1977–82); chairman,British Labour party (1946–47);participated in the founding of theUnited Nations and its agencies; asan authority on international lawand disarmament, wrote numerousarticles and books for both scholarsand the general public, includingThe Arms Race: A Program for WorldDisarmament (1958)


Philip Noel-Baker is congratulated by his son after hearing that he has won the NobelPeace Prize for his efforts to secure world disarmament.

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Prize for distinguished contributions tothe study of government.

Noel-Baker was re-elected to Par-liament in 1936 and this time kept hisseat for more than three decades. Dur-ing World War II he served as parlia-mentary secretary to the Ministry ofWar Transport in the coalition govern-ment led by Prime Minister WinstonChurchill. (In a coalition government,power is shared by several political par-ties.) After the war ended in 1945, andthe Labour party came to power, Noel-Baker became minister of state in thenew government led by Prime MinisterClement Atlee.

As minister of state, Noel-Bakerrepresented Great Britain in the estab-lishment of the United Nations in1945. He was closely involved with thefounding of UNRRA, the United Na-tions Relief and Rehabilitation Admin-istration, an organization that assumedmajor responsibility for relief andrefugee assistance in the aftermath ofWorld War II. He also helped to orga-nize the UN Food and Agriculture Organization, and became a Britishdelegate to the UN Economic and So-cial Council, where he supported mea-sures to ease unemployment and pover-ty throughout the world.

In addition to his UN responsibili-ties, Noel-Baker remained active inParliament. In 1946 he was appointedto the British cabinet as secretary ofstate for air power and also was electedchairman of the Labour party. From1947 to 1950, Noel-Baker served asminister of commonwealth relationsand participated in negotiations thatled to the independence of India,which had been under the control ofGreat Britain for nearly 200 years.

In the years following his workwith Arthur Henderson, Noel-Baker

had continued to be a strong supporterof disarmament, and this became hismajor focus in Parliament during the1950s. In The Arms Race: A Programfor World Disarmament, published in1958, Noel-Baker outlined the historyof world disarmament efforts and of-fered his own analysis and suggestions.The book was viewed as a major state-ment on disarmament, and it focusedworldwide attention on its author, whohad devoted much of his adult life tothe cause of peace.

The following year, in recognitionof that long commitment, Philip Noel-Baker was awarded the Nobel PeacePrize for 1959. In his acceptance ad-dress, he warned against the growingthreat of nuclear weapons and calledon the United Nations to make worlddisarmament a reality. Disarmament,Noel-Baker said, was “the safest andmost practicable system of defense.”

Noel-Baker continued to be a vig-orous spokesman for peace for the restof his life. After retiring from Parlia-ment at the age of 80, he became presi-dent of the British Vietnam Commit-tee, a group that opposed the VietnamWar until it ended in 1975. Noel-Bakerdied in London in October 1982, amonth before his 93rd birthday.


“Noel-Baker, Philip J(ohn).” In Current Bi-ography Yearbook 1946. New York: H. W.Wilson, 1947.

Noel-Baker, Philip. Disarmament. 1926.Reprint, New York: Garland, 1972.

———. The First World Disarmament Con-ference, 1932–1933, and Why It Failed.New York: Pergamon, 1979.

1 6 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

he exact date and year of Albert Luthuli’sbirth are not known, and probably never willbe, but Luthuli’s name will always be a partof African—and world—history. In the mid-20th century, Albert Luthuli led a mass

movement to liberate native Africans from oppressive rule inSouth Africa. His rejection of violence, and his insistenceon brotherhood and human equality, won him widespreadsympathy and respect—and the 1960 Nobel Peace Prize.

Albert John Luthuli was born in Rhodesia, a Britishcolony in East Africa, sometime around the year 1898. Hegrew up in Groutville, a mission station near the city of Dur-ban in the province of Natal, South Africa. Luthuli’s familywas part of the native African aristocracy: his parents camefrom two distinguished Zulu tribes, and an uncle was a Zulutribal chieftain. Luthuli’s father worked as an interpreter at

A L B E R T L U T H U L I • 1 6 5

Albert Luthuli

Y1 9 6 0

Albert Luthuli, a prominent tribal chieftain in South Africa, receives the Nobel Peace Prize for his fight to achieve racial equality in hiscountry. He was the first African to win the prize.

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the Congregationalist mission inGroutville, which had been founded byAmerican missionaries.

Luthuli attended area missionschools, where he was deeply impressedby the Christian religious training thathe received. From an early age, Luthuliwas taught to believe in the dignityand equality of all people, regardless ofrace or religion. After completing hissecondary education, during which hebecame fluent in English, Luthuli re-ceived a teaching certificate. Beginningin 1921, he taught at Adam’s MissionStation College, near Groutville, for 15years.

In 1936 Luthuli was elected chief-tain of the Abasemakholweni tribe ofthe Zulu nation, the same tribe that hisuncle had led earlier. Centered inNatal province, the 5,000-membertribe was headed by Luthuli for 17

years. In addition to presiding over thetribal council, Luthuli oversaw the pro-duction of sugar cane, the tribe’s mainsource of income, and also enforcedlaws and settled disputes. During thistime, he was also active in severalChristian religious organizations, in-cluding the Christian Council of SouthAfrica, which he represented at the In-ternational Missionary Council confer-ence held in India in 1938.

During the early 1940s, Luthuli be-came increasingly drawn to the libera-tion and independence movement thatwas growing among native peoplesthroughout Africa. Most African coun-tries at that time were still under therule of various European nations, andSouth Africa was one of several territo-ries on the continent that belonged to Great Britain. Under white colo-nial rule in Africa, the majority black

1 6 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

As part of the defiance campaign begunin 1952 by the African National Congress,black South Africans ride in a “Europeansonly” railroad car. ANC leader AlbertLuthuli helped launch the defiance cam-paign to protest South Africa’s rigidapartheid laws

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population had few political rights andwas considered inferior.

In 1946 Luthuli joined the AfricanNational Congress (ANC), a move-ment founded in 1912 by blacks to endEuropean domination in Africa. Soonafter joining the ANC, Luthuli waselected president of the organization’sdivision in Natal.

Luthuli’s association with theANC drew him into political activityas the South African governmentadopted harsh restrictive policiesagainst the nonwhite population in thepostwar years. In 1948, these policiesbecame legalized into a system of segre-gation, or racial separation, known asapartheid (pronounced uh-PAR-tide).Under apartheid, the lives of nonwhitepeoples in South Africa—who num-bered more than 80 percent of the pop-ulation—were rigorously controlled bythe white governing minority.

Nonwhite resistance to apartheidgrew during the next few years, and theANC became the leader of that resis-tance. In 1952 Albert Luthuli helpedlaunch the ANC’s so-called DefianceCampaign, in which thousands ofAfricans staged sit-in demonstrationsto protest segregation in various publicfacilities, including libraries, railroadstations, and post offices.

Because of his role in the ongoingDefiance Campaign, Luthuli was toldby the South African government inOctober 1952 that he would be re-moved as tribal chief unless he quit theANC. (Although chiefs were democra-tically elected by tribe members, thegovernment reserved the right to re-move them from office if they opposedofficial policy.) When Luthuli refusedto resign from the ANC, the govern-ment not only ended his rule as chief-tain but confined him to Groutville for12 months. The government’s move

backfired, however: the tribe respondedby refusing to elect a replacementchief, and the incident, which attract-ed wide publicity, made Luthuli a na-tional hero. Soon after his removal aschieftain, he was elected president ofthe entire ANC.

The government responded byplacing Luthuli under house arrest athis farm in Groutville for two years.After his release in 1955, Luthuli con-tinued to lead the ANC in peacefulprotests against apartheid. He believedthat the ANC’s chief weapon againstthe system should be economic in na-ture, since the South African economydepended heavily on cheap nativelabor. He therefore encouraged andsupported work stoppages as well asboycotts of certain goods and services.After a year of such protests, Luthuliwas arrested in December 1956 on acharge of high treason and kept in cus-tody until the charge was dropped ayear later. Less than 18 months afterhis release, in May 1959, Luthuli wasagain placed under house arrest, thistime for five years.

Luthuli’s farm home was a simplefive-room cottage where he lived withhis family. (He was married in 1927and had seven children.) The small tinand concrete house, which he builthimself, was filled with books on phi-losophy, religion, and politics. Luthulifarmed during the day and read in theevenings.

In March 1960, Luthuli was takento Pretoria, the South African capital,to appear as a defense witness in thetrial of other ANC members accused oftreason. While the trial was going on, amass protest was launched by the ANCagainst the so-called pass system, whichrequired all nonwhite Africans to carryan identity card at all times. On March21, during a peaceful demonstration in

A L B E R T L U T H U L I • 1 6 7

AlbertLuthuliB O R N

About 1898Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe)

D I E D

July 21, 1967Groutville, South Africa

E D U C AT I O N

Attended missionary schools inSouth Africa, where he earned ateaching certificate

O C C U PAT I O N

Teacher; political leader


As president of the African Nation-al Congress (ANC), led campaignof passive resistance against SouthAfrica’s apartheid system


the town of Sharpeville against thepass system, government troopscharged the demonstrators, killing 72and wounding nearly 200 others.

Word of the Sharpeville Massacrequickly spread throughout a shockedworld. Luthuli protested by publiclyburning his own pass, and he called fora national day of mourning. The gov-ernment responded by fining Luthuli$280 and imprisoning him briefly. Inpoor health—he suffered from highblood pressure and the after-effects ofsevere beatings by white toughs—hewas soon released and sent back to per-manent exile in Groutville.

Despite all that he had endured,Luthuli continued to believe in peace-ful protest—passive resistance—and hecounseled his followers to follow theChristian path of nonviolence. He wascutting sugar cane on his farm on theafternoon of October 23, 1961, whenword reached him that, hours earlier,he had been belatedly named the re-cipient of the 1960 Nobel PeacePrize—the first black winner in the his-tory of the award.

In its announcement, the NobelCommittee said that Luthuli had beenhonored for his use of nonviolent meth-ods in fighting racial discrimination.Their choice was praised throughoutthe rest of the world but condemned in South Africa, and the governmenteven stalled for weeks before issuingLuthuli and his wife a 10-day passportto attend the award ceremony.

When the Luthulis returned toSouth Africa from Oslo they weregreeted by cheering crowds, but Luthuliwas forbidden by the government fromspeaking to them. He returned to exilein Groutville and lived there quietly,under government order not to makepublic appearances. For some years hehad been writing his autobiography,

and in 1962 he managed to send themanuscript out of the country. It waspublished that year in England and theUnited States as Let My People Go andwas widely acclaimed. In South Africa,however, the book was banned. It wasnow a crime, punishable by fine andimprisonment, to print or even utterany words that Luthuli had ever writ-ten or spoken.

Luthuli’s health declined in the re-maining years of his life, and he suf-fered from deafness and a gradual lossof eyesight. On July 21, 1967, he wasstruck and killed by a train while at-tempting to cross a railroad bridge thatpassed over his farm.

Luthuli died before the liberationof South Africa’s nonwhite populationcould be achieved. At the time of hisdeath, younger black South Africanshad become impatient with his phi-losophy of nonviolence, and he wasdismissed by many activists as old-fashioned because of his religious out-look. Luthuli had faith until the end ofhis life, however, that the day wouldcome when blacks throughout Africawould be able to lead purposeful livesin a peaceful, nonsegregated society.

Luthuli’s own country took steps inthat direction after years of continuedprotests against racial discrimination.In 1993 the hated apartheid laws wereabolished in South Africa, and oneyear later, a black man, Nelson Man-dela, head of the African NationalCongress, was elected president of thenation. Albert Luthuli’s efforts hadmattered after all.


Luthuli, Albert. Let My People Go. NewYork: McGraw-Hill, 1962.

Gordimer, Nadine. “Chief Luthuli.” Atlantic Monthly, April 1959.

1 6 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

n October 1961, the Nobel Peace Prize Committeeannounced two awards, one for 1960 and one forthe current year. The Peace Prize for 1960 went toAlbert Luthuli, the first African to receive theaward. The recipient of the 1961 prize was also a

“first”: Dag Hammarskjöld, who had died violently a monthearlier, became the first posthumous winner of the NobelPeace Prize.

Dag Hjalmar Agne Carl Hammarskjöld (pronouncedHAM-mer-shuld) was born in Jonkoping, Sweden, in 1905.He was descended from a long line of statesmen and militaryleaders that dated back to the early 1600s. His father was adistinguished legal scholar and politician who later served asSweden’s prime minister.

Hammarskjöld received bachelor’s and master’s degreesin social science from the University of Uppsala, and thenearned a law degree at the university in 1930. He went on to work for a Swedish government committee on un-employment and also taught economics at the University

D A G H A M M A R S K J Ö L D • 1 6 9

Dag Hammarskjöld

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United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjöld inspects UN peacekeeping forces in Egypt in 1958. Hammarskjöld died threeyears later while on a UN mission to the Congo and received the Nobel Peace Prize posthumously.

I

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of Stockholm while he continued doc-toral studies in political economy at theUniversity of Uppsala. After receivinghis doctorate in 1934, he served as sec-retary of the Bank of Sweden for a year.

Hammarskjöld was now wellknown in Swedish government circlesas an expert in finance and economics,and in 1936 he became undersecretaryof the national department of finance.During his nine years in that post, healso served as an adviser on economicaffairs to the Swedish government. Be-ginning in 1941, Hammarskjöld wasalso chairman of the board of governorsof the Bank of Sweden and a memberof the Board of Foreign Exchange, andheld both positions until 1948. In addi-tion, he served as a financial specialistat the Swedish Foreign Office in 1946and 1947. This job drew him into ne-gotiations with other countries, includ-ing the United States, over trade agreements, tariffs, and exports, and hisskill and expertise attracted interna-tional notice.

Hammarskjöld represented Swedenat the 1947 Paris Conference that drewup the European Recovery Program, orMarshall Plan. The following year hewas named Sweden’s delegate to theOrganization for European EconomicCooperation (OEEC), a predecessor oftoday’s European Union. In 1949 hebecame Sweden’s assistant foreign min-ister and two years later was promotedto deputy foreign minister with cabinetrank. In these posts he played an activerole in Sweden’s international econom-ic relations.

In the fall of 1952 Hammarskjöldaccompanied the Swedish delegation tothe United Nations General Assembly

meeting in New York City as its vicechairman, and the following Februaryhe became head of the delegation. Twomonths later, he was the unexpectedchoice of the General Assembly toserve as the UN’s second secretary-gen-eral, succeeding Trygve Lie of Norway.

As secretary-general, the chief pre-siding officer of the General Assembly,Hammarskjöld headed an administra-tive office called the Secretariat. Soonafter taking office, he made changes inthe organization of the Secretariat thatenabled it to operate more efficiently.He then began to enlarge the role ofthe secretary-general by taking a moreactive role in international diplomacyon behalf of the United Nations. Ham-marskjöld believed that the UN Char-ter gave him the authority to consultpersonally with heads of state wheneveran international dispute appeared like-ly, and during the next few years he as-sumed the role of chief UN negotiator.

Hammarskjöld also believed thatthe United Nations should be active inwhat he called “preventive diplomacy.”In other words, he wanted the UN todo more than just be a forum where in-dividual nations brought their problemsto be solved. He tried to make theUnited Nations into an organizationthat worked actively on behalf of worldpeace rather than waiting to act untilcrises arose.

Hammarskjöld’s quiet diplomacyundoubtedly kept many arguments be-tween nations from growing into full-blown disputes, but he was also readyto negotiate when crises erupted. Hispeacemaking skills were demonstratedseveral times during his eight years assecretary-general. In 1954, he flew to

Beijing and persuaded the Chinesegovernment to release 11 U.S. prison-ers who had been held since the end ofthe Korean War a year earlier. In Sep-tember 1956, when Egypt nationalizedthe Suez Canal, an international water-way, and war appeared likely, Ham-marskjöld quickly assembled a UNpeacekeeping force, headed by RalphBunche, that restored order to the re-gion. Two years later, when Lebanonand Jordan complained that their secu-rity was being threatened by neighbor-ing Arab states in the Middle East,Hammarskjöld set up UN observationposts in both countries that discour-aged further threats.

The greatest challenge to Ham-marskjöld’s peacemaking skills arose in1960, when the Congo (later Zaïre), anAfrican colony of Belgium for morethan half a century, became indepen-dent. Civil war broke out when theprovince of Katanga seceded from thecountry, and Belgian troops re-enteredthe country to restore order. The troopswere not welcomed by the Congolese,who appealed to the United Nationsfor help. The UN Security Council re-sponded by unanimously calling for thewithdrawal of the Belgians, but this re-quest was ignored. The crisis grew morecomplicated when the Congolese presi-dent, Patrice Lumumba, threatened toask the Soviet Union for military aid.

As the situation dragged on overmany months, Hammarskjöld workedto negotiate a truce and to reuniteKatanga with the central government.Finally, in the late summer of 1961, hedecided to meet personally with MoiseTshombe, the president of Katanga.Hammarskjöld and a party of UN

1 7 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

advisers were en route to Katanga onSeptember 17, 1961, when their planecrashed over Northern Rhodesia.Everyone on board was killed.

In October, the Nobel Peace PrizeCommittee announced that the 1961award would be made posthumously toDag Hammarskjöld. Two months later,at ceremonies in Oslo, the Swedishambassador to Norway accepted theaward on behalf of the Hammarskjöldfamily. At the same ceremonies, SouthAfrican Zulu chieftain Albert Luthulireceived the 1960 Peace Prize. Manyobservers thought that this linking ofHammarskjöld and Luthuli was highlyappropriate. As a New York Times edi-torial commented: “The Swedish diplo-mat and the African tribesman areunited in life and death by their humil-ity and their love of humanity.”

At his death, Hammarskjöld waspraised for his years of selfless govern-ment service. There was much more tohis life, however. He excelled in sports,including gymnastics, skiing, andmountain climbing, and for many yearsserved as president of the SwedishAlpinist Club. He was also well read inworld literature and philosophy, and forrelaxation he enjoyed translating manyclassic works into Swedish. From 1953until his death, he was a member of theSwedish Academy, which awards theNobel Prize for Literature; Ham-marskjöld is credited by many withconvincing the committee to give the1958 prize to Boris Pasternak, the Rus-sian author of Dr. Zhivago.

Three years after his death, Ham-marskjöld’s admirers were offered aglimpse of his inner life with the publi-cation of his personal diary. Translated

into many languages, it appeared inEnglish as Markings. The diary is a se-ries of philosophical and religious med-itations on the meaning of life, and itis now considered a modern classic.

In 1962, Hammarskjöld’s NobelPeace Prize money was used to createthe Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, aliving memorial to Hammarskjöld andhis longtime interest in the developingnations, the so-called Third World.Contributions were also received fromdonors in many countries. The purposeof the foundation is “the promotion ofsocial, political, economic, and culturalprogress within the nations whose de-velopment Dag Hammarskjöld had soclosely at heart, by providing trainingfor citizens of those countries to holdresponsible positions.” Headquarteredin Uppsala, the foundation sponsorsconferences and seminars on ThirdWorld issues and publishes books,monographs, and a semiannual journalon international development.


Foote, Wilder, ed. Servant of Peace: A Se-lection of the Speeches and Statements of DagHammarskjöld. New York: Harper & Row,1962.

Hammarskjöld, Dag. Markings. New York:Knopf, 1964.

Levine, I. E. Champion of World Peace: DagHammarskjöld. New York: Julian Messner,1962.

Sheldon, Richard. Dag Hammarskjöld. NewYork: Chelsea House, 1987.

Urquhart, Brian. Hammarskjöld. New York:Knopf, 1972.

D A G H A M M A R S K J Ö L D • 1 7 1

Dag HammarskjöldB O R N

July 29, 1905Jonkoping, Sweden

D I E D

September 17, 1961Northern Rhodesia

E D U C AT I O N

B.A. (1925), M.A. (1928), Ph.D.(1934), L.L.B., 1930, University ofUppsala

O C C U PAT I O N

Economist; diplomat


As secretary-general of the UnitedNations (1953–61), mediated dis-putes throughout the world; his personal diary, Markings (1964), be-came an international best-seller


n 1954 a distinguished American scientist namedLinus Pauling received the highest award in hisfield—the Nobel Prize for Chemistry. Pauling wascited for his longtime investigation of the forcesthat hold molecules together in matter. He had de-

veloped what he called the resonance theory to explain mol-ecular bonding, and his studies had led to his discovery ofthe atomic structure of protein molecules. That findingeventually paved the way for new discoveries, by Paulingand other scientists, about the chemistry of the human bodyand its diseases.

By 1954, Pauling’s interest in human chemistry had ledhim to begin investigating the effects on the body of ra-dioactive fallout, particles and gases that are the by-productsof exploding nuclear weapons. He became convinced thatincreasing amounts of fallout in the world—the consequenceof atomic bomb blasts and the testing of other nuclear

1 7 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Linus Pauling demonstrates against nuclear weapons testing inWashington, D.C., in 1961, during a visit by British prime ministerHarold Macmillan to President John F. Kennedy.

ILinus Pauling

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weapons, beginning in the mid-1940s—had become a major cause ofcertain types of disease as well as men-tal retardation and physical deformity.

Pauling was alarmed by his find-ings, and he became a vigorous crusad-er against nuclear weapons testing, aswell as a strong advocate of disarma-ment. In 1962, 8 years after winningthe Nobel Prize for Chemistry, Paul-ing’s efforts to end the threat of nuclearwar earned him the Nobel Peace Prize.He became the first person to win sepa-rate Nobel Prizes in both a scientificand a nonscientific field. (Only oneother person besides Pauling has wonmore than one Nobel Prize in any field:Marie Curie, who shared the PhysicsPrize in 1903 and won the ChemistryPrize in 1911.)

Linus Carl Pauling’s early life didnot indicate that he was headed for in-ternational distinction. Born in 1901in Portland, Oregon, to a pharmacistand his wife, Pauling did well enoughin his studies when he found the coursework interesting, but in high school hedid not bother to take many of the re-quired courses, and as a result he wasnot allowed to graduate. Lacking adiploma, Pauling was admitted to Ore-gon State College anyway because ofhis aptitude for science and math.

Following graduation from OregonState in 1922 with a bachelor’s degreein chemistry and physics, Pauling attended graduate school at the Cali-fornia Institute of Technology inPasadena. There he focused on physicalchemistry and also continued to devel-op his interest in atomic physics. Paul-ing received a doctorate with highesthonors in 1925 and was awarded aGuggenheim Fellowship, which en-abled him to do postgraduate study inatomic physics at institutions in Mu-nich, Zurich, and Copenhagen for sev-eral years.

Pauling returned to Caltech in thefall of 1927 and joined the faculty as anassistant professor of chemistry. He ad-

vanced quickly in rank and four yearslater had become a full professor. Be-ginning in the late 1920s, Pauling un-dertook extensive research on chemicalbonding and developed his resonancetheory. During the 1930s he continuedthis work at Caltech. The importanceof Pauling’s research was recognized asearly as 1931, when the AmericanChemical Society awarded him itsprestigious Langmuir Prize. Eight yearslater he published a book about his sci-entific investigations that is still con-sidered an important study: The Natureof the Chemical Bond and the Structure ofMolecules and Crystals (1939).

In 1937 Pauling became chairmanof the division of chemistry and chemi-cal engineering at Caltech. About thistime he began research on the structureof proteins, substances that occur natu-rally in living matter. From 1942 to1945, as World War II was fought inEurope and Asia, Pauling aided theU.S. government defense effort bydoing research on explosives. He alsoserved as a government consultant onmedical research. At Caltech, Paulingand several colleagues spent the waryears developing a gelatin product as asubstitute for blood plasma, a feat theyfinally accomplished in 1945, not longbefore the war ended. Pauling’swartime contributions to national de-fense earned him the PresidentialMedal for Merit in 1948.

In the postwar years of the late1940s, Pauling joined with other scien-tists in continuing the study of pro-teins. At the same time he did researchon a related topic: the biochemical ef-fects of the polio virus on human nervecells. (Until a preventive vaccine be-came widely available in the mid-1950s, polio killed or permanently crip-pled thousands of people, primarilychildren, every year.)

In 1951 Pauling announced amajor achievement in his protein struc-ture research: the discovery, with fellowscientist Robert B. Corey, of the atomic

L I N U S P A U L I N G • 1 7 3

Linus PaulingB O R N

February 28, 1901Portland, Oregon

D I E D

August 19, 1994Big Sur, California

E D U C AT I O N

B.S., Oregon State College (1922);Ph.D., California Institute of Tech-nology (1926)

O C C U PAT I O N

Scientist; peace activist


Led U.S. movement to ban nuclearweapons testing; drafted a proposalthat served as the basis for the 1963nuclear test ban treaty signed by theUnited States, Great Britain, andthe Soviet Union; first person towin separate Nobel Prizes in bothscientific and nonscientific fields


structure of several types of proteinmolecules. This was the first time inhistory that the “architecture” of a pro-tein molecule had been drawn. Paulingand Corey’s achievement paved theway for later biochemical research bythousands of scientists throughout theworld, and that research in turn led toprograms for the prevention and con-trol of many diseases. Three years afterannouncing this groundbreaking dis-covery, Linus Pauling received the1954 Nobel Prize for Chemistry fornearly three decades of research onchemical bonding and molecular structure.

Since the development of atomicweapons during World War II, Paulinghad become increasingly disturbed bythe potential harm of radioactive fall-out. Pauling’s studies in atomic physicshad convinced him that radioactivitycould cause permanent damage to thestructures of all living things. In themid-1950s, Pauling became increasing-

ly outspoken in his opposition to nu-clear weapons testing by the UnitedStates, the Soviet Union, and othercountries, and he began calling pub-licly for multilateral disarmament.Pauling’s support of disarmament drewwide criticism, however, and he waseven investigated by U.S. authoritieson suspicion of trying to overthrow thegovernment.

Despite this opposition, Paulingcontinued his campaign. He soon be-came a familiar figure to millions ofAmericans, who read about him innewspapers and magazines and saw himinterviewed on television. By 1958 hehad become the unofficial head of theantinuclear movement in the UnitedStates. At the beginning of that yearhe presented to the United Nations apetition, signed by more than 11,000scientists, calling for an end to nuclearweapons testing. The petition wassomewhat successful: by the end of theyear, both the United States and theSoviet Union had called for a tempo-rary halt to atmospheric weapons test-ing (that is, testing done in the openair, above the ground).

In February 1958, Pauling partici-pated in a widely broadcast televisiondebate on disarmament with EdwardTeller, a physicist who had helped buildthe hydrogen bomb and believed thatfallout from nuclear testing was notharmful. The text of the debate waspublished later that year as Fallout andDisarmament: A Debate (S. F. Fearon,editor). Also in 1958, Pauling filed alawsuit against the U.S. Department ofDefense and the U.S. Atomic EnergyCommission that sought to ban furthernuclear testing. The suit was notjudged in Pauling’s favor, but it gener-ated a lot of publicity for the antinu-clear movement. Finally, in that sameyear, Pauling presented his case for dis-armament in his widely read book NoMore War! and followed this up with aseries of lectures and articles on thesubject during the next few years.

1 7 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

An atomic bomb test in Nevada. LinusPauling’s concern about the health hazardsof fallout—the radioactive debris createdby atomic explosions—motivated his cru-sade for a ban on nuclear weapons testing.

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Pauling’s efforts to ban nuclearweapons earned him the Nobel PeacePrize for 1962. The award was not an-nounced, however, until October 10,1963—the same day that a partial nu-clear test ban agreed to by the UnitedStates, Great Britain, and the SovietUnion went into effect. In fact, Paulinghad drafted a proposal that served asthe basis of the test ban treaty. In pre-senting him with the award, the NobelPeace Prize Committee praised Paulingfor opposing not only nuclear weaponstesting but all warfare as a means of re-solving international conflicts.

Although Pauling remained committed to world peace and disar-mament, he devoted most of the re-mainder of his life to scientific research. He left Caltech in 1964 tobecome a professor at the Center forthe Study of Democratic Institutions, aresearch organization in Santa Barbara,California. Three years later he also be-came a professor of chemistry at theUniversity of California at San Diego.In 1969 he left UC San Diego to be-come a chemistry professor at StanfordUniversity, in Palo Alto, California,and resigned from the Center for theStudy of Democratic Institutions.

In the mid-1960s, Pauling hadbegun doing research on the use of vit-amins, especially vitamin C, to cure avariety of illnesses. He gave the name“orthomolecular medicine” to this formof healing. Pauling’s first book on thesubject, Vitamin C and the CommonCold, was published in 1970 and be-came a best-seller. Pauling retired fromthe chemistry department at Stanfordthree years later to establish the LinusPauling Institute of Science and Medi-cine in Palo Alto. There he did exten-sive research on vitamin therapy andpublished another best-selling bookcalled Cancer and Vitamin C (1979).

Although the general publicpraised Pauling for his work on vitamintherapy, the scientific establishmentwas generally critical. The opposition

of his colleagues did not stop Pauling,however. In the 1970s and 1980s hebecame as widely identified with vita-min therapy as he had been severaldecades earlier with antinuclearprotests. In 1986 he published anotherbest-seller on orthomolecular medicine,How to Live Longer and Feel Better.

In the last decades of his life, Paul-ing divided his time between a housein Palo Alto and a cabin in Big Sur,California. He shared both residenceswith his wife until her death in 1981.(Pauling was married in 1922 and hadfour children.)

In addition to two Nobel Prizes,Pauling received dozens of other majorawards, including France’s PasteurMedal, the National Medal of Science,the International Lenin Prize, and thePriestley Medal from the AmericanChemical Society, as well as honorarydegrees from more than 50 leading uni-versities around the world. During hislifetime he published more than athousand articles and books. LinusPauling died in Big Sur in August 1994at the age of 93.


Goertzel, Ted G. Linus Pauling: A Life inScience and Politics. New York: Basic Books,1995.

Hager, Thomas. Force of Nature: The Lifeof Linus Pauling. New York: Simon &Schuster, 1995.

———. Linus Pauling and the Chemistry ofLife. New York: Oxford University Press,1998.

Marinacci, Barbara, ed. Linus Pauling in HisOwn Words. New York: Simon & Schuster,1995.

Pauling, Linus. No More War! 1958.Reprint, Westport, Conn.: GreenwoodPress, 1975.

White, Florence Meiman. Linus Pauling:Scientist and Crusader. New York: Walker,1980.

L I N U S P A U L I N G • 1 7 5

he International Committee of the RedCross, which received the Nobel Peace Prizein 1917 and 1944, won for a third time in1963. This time it shared the award with theLeague of Red Cross Societies, an association

of national Red Cross and Red Crescent societies in coun-tries throughout the world that had been formed in 1919.(Red Crescent was the name given to Red Cross societies inMuslim countries beginning in 1906.)

Following the end of World War II in 1945, the maintask of the International Committee of the Red Cross(ICRC) was to help resettle millions of military and civilianwar prisoners in both Europe and Asia. When this effortended in 1948, the ICRC turned its attention to broadeningthe 1929 Geneva Convention, which had specified guidelinesfor humane treatment of military war prisoners. The revisedagreement, known as the 1949 Geneva Convention, extend-ed these earlier guidelines to cover civilian war prisoners.

In the 1950s and early 1960s, numerous conflicts through-out the world required the services of both the ICRC and theLeague of Red Cross Societies (LRCS). During the Korean War(1950–53), the ICRC aided prisoners of war and civilians inSouth Korea. Following the armistice that ended the war in thesummer of 1953, the ICRC helped repatriate (return to theirnative countries) North Korean and Chinese prisoners.

The ICRC provided food and medical aid to the wound-ed during the Suez Crisis of 1956 (a conflict that arose overEgypt’s nationalization of the Suez Canal, an international

1 7 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

TInternationalCommitteeoftheRed Crossand League ofRed Cross Societies

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In Austria, a Red Cross nurse distributes aid packages to Hungar-ian refugees in 1957.They were forced to flee their country afterthe Soviet Union crushed Hungary’s attempts to overthrowCommunist rule.

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waterway). Both the ICRC and theLRCS provided aid in Budapest, Hun-gary, during the 1956 Hungarian Revo-lution and later helped resettle thou-sands of Hungarian refugees who fled toAustria.

During the long revolt of Algeria, aNorth African colony, against Frenchrule, beginning in the late 1950s, theICRC aided thousands of refugees andmonitored conditions in prisoner-of-warcamps.

In the civil war that erupted afterBelgium granted independence to theCongo (now Zaire) in 1960, the ICRConce again provided medical relief,aided war prisoners, and helped resettlerefugees. The LRCS brought more than100 volunteer doctors and nurses fromaround the world to care for thewounded during the conflict.

For these and many other services,the International Committee of the RedCross and the League of Red Cross Soci-eties were named cowinners of the 1963Nobel Peace Prize. Since then, both theICRC and the LRCS have continued toprovide humanitarian assistance in bothpeacetime and war throughout theworld. Major recipients of their aid haveincluded survivors of such major naturaldisasters as the 1970 cyclone in EastPakistan (Bangladesh), the 1974 hurri-cane in Honduras, and the 1988 earth-quake in Armenia. The ICRC and theLRCS have also helped thousands ofvictims of various ongoing conflicts inthe Middle East.

From 1919 until the mid-1980s, theICRC, the LRCS, and the many na-tional Red Cross societies were knowncollectively as the International RedCross. In 1986 that name was changedto the International Movement of RedCross and Red Crescent Societies.Today there are national Red Cross so-cieties in more than 100 countriesaround the world. These national RedCross societies not only provide disasterrelief; they also sponsor health and safe-ty programs and maintain blood banks.

Although some national Red Cross so-cieties receive government aid, most oftheir work—as well as most of the workof the ICRC and the LRCS—is sup-ported by voluntary contributions.







I N T E R N A T I O N A L C O M M I T T E E O F T H E R E D C R O S S & L E A G U E O F R E D C R O S S S O C I E T I E S • 1 7 7

InternationalCommittee of theRed Cross andLeague of RedCross SocietiesF O U N D E R S

Henri Dunant and the Geneva Public Welfare Society

F O U N D I N G



Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

Founded to assist the sick andwounded during wartime; afterWorld War I, expanded its efforts tocaring for victims of natural disas-ters and to other humanitarian relief


Helped resettle millions of militaryand civilian war prisoners followingWorld War II; led efforts to createthe 1949 Geneva Convention; pro-vided relief to victims of conflict inKorea, the Middle East, Hungary,and Africa


The official certificate presented by theNorwegian parliament names the Interna-tional Committee of the Red Cross as thewinner of the 1963 Nobel Peace Prize.

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ne Sunday afternoon during the winter of1949, a curious young African-American di-vinity student at a seminary just outsidePhiladelphia traveled into the city to hear alecture about Mohandas Gandhi

(1869–1948), a Hindu religious leader in India. Gandhi hadled the longtime movement for India’s independence fromGreat Britain, and he had done so by preaching a philosophyof nonviolent defiance, which he called satyagraha (pro-nounced sat-tee-ah-GRAH-ha).

Gandhi believed that the power of love was greater thanthe power of hate, and that love could be used to changepeople’s ideas and actions. For years he had led peaceful, non-violent demonstrations against the British, and in 1947 histactics finally paid off: Great Britain freed India from colonialrule. Gandhi is revered as one of the greatest peacemakers inhistory—yet he never received a Nobel Peace Prize.

The young divinity student, whose name was MartinLuther King, Jr., was deeply impressed by the concept ofsatyagraha, or peaceful defiance, and he never forgot it. Sixyears later, Gandhi’s philosophy inspired King to launch hisnonviolent crusade against racial segregation in America—a

1 7 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Martin Luther King, Jr., with his wife, Coretta Scott King, at a newsconference in Montgomery, Alabama, in 1956, during the Mont-gomery bus boycott.

OMartinLutherKing,Jr.

1 9 6 4

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crusade that eventually earned him theNobel Peace Prize.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was bornin Atlanta, Georgia, in 1929. His fa-ther, Martin Luther King, Sr., was pas-tor of the Ebenezer Baptist Church, aprominent black church in Atlanta.Martin’s grandfather on his mother’sside was a former pastor of the samechurch. Growing up in the city in the1930s and 1940s, Martin and his broth-er and sister were always aware thatthey lived in a segregated society:blacks were considered inferior towhites, and the two races were keptapart in both private and public facili-ties. In general, the facilities availableto blacks, including schools and hous-ing, were inferior to those for whites,and discrimination against black peo-ple was widespread.

Nevertheless, the King childrenwere brought up by their parents to re-spect people of all races, and to valuethemselves as well. Young Martin grewup in a warm and loving family, andhe enjoyed both schoolwork andsports. After graduating from highschool at the age of 15, he enteredMorehouse College, an institution forblack men in Atlanta that his fatherand maternal grandfather had alsoattended.

Both parents assumed that Martinwould enter the ministry, too, but atfirst he opposed the idea. He later saidthat “the emotionalism,” the “shoutingand stomping” that he saw in his fa-ther’s church had turned him againstreligion for a brief period when he wasin his early teens. However, Martinchanged his mind when he heard thedignified preaching of another Baptistminister, Morehouse College presidentBenjamin Mays, in the college chapel.Mays believed that black churchesshould lead a movement for socialchange and an end to discrimination,and his sermons on that subject con-vinced Martin Luther King, Jr., to be-come a clergyman, too.

In February 1948, King was or-dained a Baptist minister and becamean assistant pastor at Ebenezer. Hegraduated from Morehouse in June andthe following September entered Croz-er Seminary in Chester, Pennsylvania,to study theology. King’s three years atCrozer, where nearly all the studentswere white, were crucial to his futuredevelopment: he excelled in his cours-es, was one of the most socially popularstudents on campus—and discovered aphilosophy that would guide him forthe rest of his life.

After graduating at the head of hisclass in 1951 with a bachelor’s degreein divinity, King entered Boston Uni-versity on a scholarship to do graduatework in religion. Again he excelledboth academically and socially, and hisprofessors encouraged him to become ateacher. King remained committed tothe ministry, however, as he worked to-ward his doctorate. In 1953 he marriedCoretta Scott, a native of Alabamawho was studying voice at the NewEngland Conservatory of Music inBoston. A year later, in the fall of1954, the couple returned to the Southwhen King was hired as the pastor ofthe Dexter Avenue Baptist Church inMontgomery, Alabama.

Like all cities in the South at thattime, Montgomery was racially segre-gated—but change was coming. Only afew months earlier, the U.S. SupremeCourt had declared, in Brown v. Boardof Education, that segregation in publicschools was unconstitutional. TheSupreme Court decision meant thatpublic schools would have to be inte-grated. Many white people in theSouth were angered by the decisionand vowed to maintain segregation byany means possible, including violence.

King urged his congregation at theDexter Avenue Baptist Church to takean active role in opposing segregation.He encouraged them to join the Na-tional Association for the Advance-ment of Colored People (NAACP), a

M A R T I N L U T H E R K I N G , J R . • 1 7 9

MartinLuther King,Jr.B O R N

January 15, 1929Atlanta, Georgia

D I E D

April 4, 1968Memphis, Tennessee

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Morehouse College (1948);B.D., Crozer Theological Seminary(1951); Ph.D., Boston University(1955)

O C C U PAT I O N

Clergyman; civil rights leader


Led successful effort to integratepublic transportation in Montgom-ery, Alabama; founded SouthernChristian Leadership Conference towork for nonviolent social change;influenced passage of major civilrights legislation in the UnitedStates


leading civil rights organization, and toregister to vote. In 1955, the year he fi-nally received his Ph.D. from BostonUniversity, King himself became a so-cial activist when he agreed to lead aboycott of Montgomery’s discriminato-ry bus system.

The boycott began on December1, 1955, when a black woman namedRosa Parks refused to give up her seaton a city bus to a white man, as re-quired by law. She was arrested, jailedovernight, and required to pay a $10fine upon her release. The NAACP de-cided to make Parks’s arrest a test case

to fight Alabama state laws that legal-ized segregation in public transporta-tion. In addition to filing a lawsuit, theNAACP urged blacks to boycott thecity buses, and they persuaded King tosupport the action. An organizationcalled the Montgomery ImprovementAssociation (MIA) was formed to di-rect the boycott, and King was electedits president.

As the head of MIA, Kingpreached his philosophy of nonviolentresistance in black churches through-out Montgomery. He urged his listenersto use the power of love to overcomesegregation. King and his family re-ceived death threats from supporters ofsegregation and their house wasbombed, but he persisted in leading thesuccessful boycott—which paralyzedthe bus system—and supporting thelawsuit.

King’s actions made him knownthroughout the United States, and hewas widely praised for his courage. Thelawsuit eventually reached the U.S.Supreme Court, which in November1956 declared that Alabama’s state andlocal laws requiring segregation onpublic buses were unconstitutional.One month later—a year after the boy-cott began—buses in Montgomerywere running again, this time fully integrated.

The success of the bus boycottmade King into a leading spokesmanfor civil rights in the United States. In the spring of 1957, he carried hismessage of nonviolent resistance toWashington, D.C. There he joinedwith several other prominent blacks tolead a public demonstration in supportof civil rights legislation then beingconsidered by the U.S. Congress. Thedemonstration, called the Prayer Pil-grimage for Freedom, was held at theLincoln Memorial on May 17 and at-tracted a crowd of 25,000, blacks as

1 8 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

King in his cell at the Birmingham city jailin 1963. During his confinement, he wrote“Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” which de-fended the civil rights movement as a jus-tifiable disobedience of unjust laws.

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well as whites. King was one of severalblack speakers who appeared at thegathering, but his speech received themost praise. Afterwards the leadingblack newspaper in the United Statesdeclared that King was “the number-one leader” of the nation’s black population.

King and other black leaders weredisappointed when the proposed legis-lation was considerably weakened byCongress and then passed as the CivilRights Act of 1957. This disappoint-ment, however, only strengthenedKing’s resolve. That summer he decid-ed to create a new organization to carrythe message of nonviolent resistancethroughout the country, and he namedit the Southern Christian LeadershipConference (SCLC).

King and the SCLC became thedriving force behind the U.S. civilrights movement. From SCLC head-quarters in Atlanta, King directed a na-tionwide effort with a single goal: theparticipation of all blacks as full citi-zens of the United States. The SCLCconducted voter registration drives,launched peaceful sit-ins to integrateeating facilities, and organized what itcalled Freedom Rides, in which inter-racial groups toured the South by bus,integrating waiting rooms, bathrooms,and other public facilities.

King participated personally inmany of these activities, leading sup-porters in peaceful marches that wereoften met with violence. He was arrest-ed several times and his life was fre-quently threatened; nevertheless hepersisted. When he was jailed followinga demonstration in Birmingham, Al-abama, in April 1963, King wrote a re-sponse to opponents of the civil rightsmovement. Called “Letter from a Birm-ingham Jail,” it argued that everyonehad “a moral responsibility to disobeyunjust laws.” King’s letter attracted

worldwide attention and made him aninternational hero.

Later that year, on August 28,1963, King spoke at the March for Jobsand Freedom in Washington, D.C., agathering of 250,000 blacks and whitesthat he had helped organize to showsupport for desegregation. Standing infront of the Lincoln Memorial, Kingdeclared, “I have a dream today . . . ofa time when sons of former slaves andsons of former slave-owners will be ableto sit down together at the table ofbrotherhood.” In the following months,King met with President Lyndon B.Johnson and encouraged him to sup-port strong civil rights legislation.King’s dream came closer to reality inJuly 1964, when the President signedthe Civil Rights Act, making segrega-tion a federal crime.

That fall, Martin Luther King, Jr.,was named the winner of the 1964Nobel Peace Prize for his nonviolentdefiance of segregation. He was 35years old—the youngest person ever toreceive the award. In his acceptancespeech, he asked men and womenthroughout the world to practicebrotherhood and to reject “revenge, aggression, and retaliation.”

Back in the United States, Kingcontinued to lead the SCLC in itspeaceful protest against segregation. InJanuary 1965, he launched a voter reg-istration drive in Selma, Alabama. Hisefforts there, which attracted nation-wide attention, led to the passage ofthe Voting Rights Act, another majorpiece of civil rights legislation, whichPresident Johnson signed in early Au-gust. This was to be the last majorachievement of King’s career.

A few days after the signing of theVoting Rights Act, a major race rioterupted in Watts, a black communityin Los Angeles. King flew there imme-diately and walked through the heavily

M A R T I N L U T H E R K I N G , J R . • 1 8 1

damaged area, pleading for an end toviolence. He discovered, however, thathis nonviolent philosophy was not wel-comed, and he returned to Atlanta. In1966 King launched another protestmovement, this time aimed at housingdiscrimination in Chicago. His effortswere unsuccessful here, too: hostilewhite mobs threatened him with violence as he tried to lead peacefulprotest marches through the citystreets.

In early 1967, when King publiclyproclaimed his opposition to the Viet-nam War, he lost the support of manySCLC members. The United Stateshad become deeply involved in the warunder the leadership of President John-son—the same President who was astrong supporter of civil rights legisla-tion. Many of King’s followers believedthat he was harming the black cause bycriticizing the President’s foreign policy.Meanwhile, more and more blackswere turning to violence to protest dis-criminatory conditions in cities acrossthe country. Hundreds were killed,thousands were injured, and entireneighborhoods were burned to theground in a series of race riots thaterupted during the summer of 1967.

Deeply disturbed by violence bothat home and abroad, King was never-theless determined to use peaceful re-sistance to achieve his ultimate goal ofracial equality. While serving ascochairman of a leading antiwar orga-nization, Clergy and Laymen Con-cerned About Vietnam, he launchedstill another effort, called the PoorPeople’s Campaign, to call national at-tention to economic injustice, andbegan planning for a march in Wash-ington, D.C. To gain publicity for themarch, planned for April 1968, Kingtraveled to Memphis, Tennessee, at theend of March to lead a demonstrationof striking garbage men. Several days

later he was shot to death by a whitesniper as he stood on the balcony of hismotel room.

Ironically, both King and the manhe most admired, Mohandas Gandhi—men who devoted their lives to thepeaceful pursuit of justice—ended theirlives in violence: both were killed byassassins. Like Gandhi, King wasmourned as a martyr throughout theworld, and many public tributes werepaid to him. In 1983, 15 years after hisdeath, the U.S. Congress set aside thethird Monday in January as MartinLuther King Day, an annual holiday.Three years later, a bust of King was in-stalled in the Great Rotunda of theCapitol Building in Washington,D.C.—making him the first black per-son to be so honored. King’s work hasbeen continued by the Martin LutherKing, Jr. Center for Nonviolent SocialChange, an organization founded inAtlanta by his followers.


Gandhi, Mohandas K. An Autobiography,or The Story of My Experiments with Truth.1927–29. Reprint. London: PenguinBooks, 1982.

Jakoubek, Robert. Martin Luther King, Jr.New York: Chelsea House, 1989.

King, Martin Luther, Jr. Stride Toward Free-dom: The Montgomery Story. New York:Harper & Row, 1958.

———. A Testament of Hope: The EssentialWritings of Martin Luther King, Jr. Edited byJames Melvin Washington. San Francisco:Harper, 1986.

———. Why We Can’t Wait. New York:Harper & Row, 1963.

McKissack, Patricia. Martin Luther King,Jr.: A Man to Remember. Chicago: Chil-drens Press, 1984.

Oates, Stephen B. Let the Trumpet Sound.New York: Harper, 1982.

1 8 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Hindu religious leader Mohandas Gandhi(center) was guided by a philosophy ofnonviolent protest during his long strugglefor India’s independence. King adoptedGandhi’s philosophy, and it became theguiding principle of his movement.

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he United Nations Children’s Fund was es-tablished in London in December 1946 by aunanimous resolution of the newly createdUnited Nations General Assembly. The fullname of the organization was the United

Nations International Children’s Emergency Fund, orUNICEF. In 1953, seven years after its founding, the words“International” and “Emergency” were dropped from its offi-cial name, but the organization continues to be known bythe familiar acronym UNICEF (pronounced YOON-ih-seff).

UNICEF was created initially as a short-term solution toan emergency situation: After World War II ended in 1945,some 20 million children were living in squalid conditions inEurope. Many were confined to overcrowded refugee camps;others were homeless orphans who roamed the streets ofmajor cities, seeking food and shelter. The UN General As-sembly gave UNICEF responsibility for helping these chil-dren, and the UN secretary-general appointed an Americannamed Maurice Pate to direct its efforts. Pate was well quali-fied to do the job, for he had directed major U.S.-sponsoredrelief efforts in Europe after World War I ended in 1918.

Using funds contributed voluntarily by both privatefoundations and governments of UN member nations, Pate

U N I T E D N A T I O N S C H I L D R E N ’ S F U N D • 1 8 3

United Nations Children’sFund (UNICEF)

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American relief expert Maurice Pate was the first executive di-rector of UNICEF after its founding in 1946. He led UNICEF for18 years, working to meet the needs of children everywhere.

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set up an intensive relief network. Inaddition to financial aid, the UnitedStates and several other nations withlarge dairy industries also providedUNICEF with enormous quantities ofpowdered milk. In its first three yearsof operation, UNICEF spent $112 mil-lion to distribute clothing, vaccinatechildren against tuberculosis, establishfacilities to process and distribute milk,and provide a daily meal to millions ofEuropean children.

By 1950, the emergency situationin Europe had passed and economicconditions were returning to normal,thanks to the European Recovery Plan(Marshall Plan) devised by George C.

Marshall. With its remaining funds,UNICEF turned its attention to devel-oping health and nutrition programsfor children in developing nations, pri-marily in Africa and Southeast Asia. InDecember 1953, the General Assemblyrecognized the value of UNICEF’swork—and the continuing need forit—by making it a permanent agencyof the United Nations.

During the 1950s, UNICEF com-bated many diseases that affected chil-dren in developing countries, includingyaws, leprosy, and malaria. UNICEFworkers improved sanitation, providedhealth education to parents and othercaretakers, and developed nutrition

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Children in Indonesia are tested for tuber-culosis by a UNICEF health care worker.

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programs. In some of these areas,UNICEF worked cooperatively withrepresentatives of other UN agencies,in particular the World Health Organi-zation (WHO) and the Food and Agri-culture Organization (FAO). One ofUNICEF’s major accomplishments wasthe development of soybean milk as aprotein substitute in countries thatlacked sufficient dairy products.

In 1958, UNICEF began offeringvarious social services to children andtheir families. It set up counseling,youth, and day-care centers and spon-sored classes on child rearing andhomemaking. Three years later,UNICEF further enlarged its concernsby providing aid in the field of educa-tion at the request of individual coun-tries. This help included teacher training, curriculum development, and technical assistance.

UNICEF was awarded the 1965Nobel Peace Prize for its role in fur-thering international cooperation.Sadly, Maurice Pate died before theaward was made. However, his succes-sor as executive director, HenryLabouisse, paid tribute to Pate in hisacceptance speech. UNICEF used theprize money to create the Maurice PateMemorial Award, which is given an-nually “to strengthen the training orexperience of people serving in childwelfare-related fields in countries withwhich UNICEF is cooperating.”

As the only agency of the UnitedNations devoted exclusively to the wel-fare of children, UNICEF has contin-ued its assistance programs throughoutthe world. It has also launched majornew efforts: In 1976, which UNICEFproclaimed the International Year ofthe Child, it began an internationalcampaign to help governments providewide-ranging health care to womenand children. UNICEF representatives

also helped draft the UN Conventionon the Rights of the Child, which wasadopted unanimously by the GeneralAssembly in November 1989. In theearly 1990s UNICEF joined with theWorld Health Organization (WHO),another UN agency, in creating aworldwide immunization programagainst childhood diseases.

UNICEF spends millions of dollarseach year on its various programs inhealth, social services, and education.Most of this money continues to comefrom voluntary contributions made byUN-member nations; the remainder isprovided by private charitable organiza-tions and by profits from the sale ofUNICEF greeting cards.

UNICEF is administered by an ex-ecutive board of representatives from 30member nations. These representativesmeet regularly at UNICEF headquar-ters—part of the United Nations com-plex in New York City—to oversee therunning of the organization. UNICEFalso has more than two dozen regionaloffices throughout the world. Since itsfounding half a century ago, UNICEFhas contributed to the well-being of anestimated half billion children.


Black, Maggie. The Children and the Na-tions: Growing Up Together in the PostwarWorld. Sydney: Macmillan of Australia,1987.

Heilbroner, R. L. Mankind’s Children: TheStory of UNICEF. New York: Public AffairsCommittee, 1959.

Spiegelman, Judith M. We Are the Chil-dren: A Celebration of UNICEF’s First FortyYears. Boston: Atlantic Monthly Press,1986.

Yates, Elizabeth. Rainbow Around theWorld: A Story of UNICEF. Indianapolis:Bobbs-Merrill, 1954.

U N I T E D N A T I O N S C H I L D R E N ’ S F U N D • 1 8 5

United Nations Children’sFund(UNICEF)F O U N D E R

United Nations General Assembly

F O U N D I N G

December 1946London, England


New York, New York

P U R P O S E

Initially founded to aid refugee and homeless children in Europefollowing World War II; in 1950 re-directed its attention and resourcesto child welfare in developing countries


Aided millions of children in Eu-rope following World War II; since1950 has offered health and nutri-tion programs as well as various social services and educational assistance to an estimated halfbillion children in developing countries throughout the world


ené Cassin won the Nobel Peace Prize whenhe was more than 80 years old—an accom-plishment that might not have been pos-sible except for an odd coincidence. As ayoung Frenchman fighting for his country in

World War I, Cassin was severely wounded in the stomachby enemy shrapnel. He was taken to a field hospital, but thestaff there were overwhelmed with casualties. Like manyother victims, he was therefore left to himself, to get by asbest he could until medical help was available—or to die.

And then something of a miracle occurred. Cassin’smother appeared by his stretcher. When her son had goneoff to war, she had volunteered her services to the Frencharmy as a nurse. By coincidence, she had been assigned tothe very hospital where her wounded son was taken. WhenMadame Cassin discovered him, she recognized at once theseverity of his condition and insisted that he receive imme-diate medical attention.

Thanks to his mother’s efforts, René Cassin survived tobecome a distinguished legal scholar and peacemaker. Infact, though he suffered abdominal pain for the rest of hislife as a consequence of his war injuries, Cassin lived to benearly 90 years old.

The future Nobel Peace Prize winner was born René-Samuel Cassin (pronounced Kah-SAN) in 1887 to a pros-perous Jewish family in Bayonne, France. His father was amerchant, and both parents encouraged their son’s educa-tion. René was sent to a secondary school in the city of Niceto prepare him for entry to the University of Aix-en-Provence. He graduated from the university in 1908 with de-grees in both humanities and law. He then enrolled at theUniversity of Paris and earned a doctorate in social sciencein 1914.

Cassin practiced law before being drafted into the Frencharmy following the outbreak of World War I in August 1914.He was commissioned as an officer in the infantry and servedwith distinction until his near-fatal injury two years later.

After his recovery, Cassin became a professor of interna-tional law, first at the University of Lille and then at theUniversity of Paris, where he remained on the faculty until1960. During the 1920s he served as a French delegate tothe League of Nations. He also attended numerous disarma-ment conferences in Geneva, Switzerland, the headquartersof the League, during the 1920s and 1930s.

One of Cassin’s primary interests during this period wasseeing to it that both military and civilian French citizenswho had been disabled, widowed, or orphaned by war re-ceived government help. To work toward that goal he was

1 8 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

RRené Cassin

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René Cassin displays the telegram informing him that he has won the Nobel Prize.

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active in two organizations: he foundedthe Federal Union of Associations ofDisabled and Aged War Veterans andserved as its president, and he served asvice president of the High Council forWards of the Nation. Cassin did notconfine his efforts to France: he orga-nized conferences of war veterans inseveral other European countries topublicize their plight.

World War II broke out in Septem-ber 1939, and once again Germany andFrance were enemies on the battlefield.In June 1940, when the German armyinvaded France, Cassin left Paris andjoined French General Charles deGaulle’s Free French government-in-exile in London. For the next four years,Cassin served in several key positions inthe exile government: first as secretaryof the Council of Defense, which direct-ed the military activities of the exilegovernment, and then as commissionerof justice and public education.

When France was liberated fromGerman occupation in June 1944,Cassin and other Free French leadersreturned to their native country. Cassinwas appointed vice president of theCouncil of State, the administrativehigh court of France. He also served asa member of the Constitutional Coun-cil, a government body that decideswhether or not French laws are consti-tutional. In 1945 Cassin assumed an-other post as president of the council ofthe National School of Administrationin France.

When the United Nations was cre-ated as the successor organization to theLeague of Nations following the end ofWorld War II in 1945, Cassin was cho-sen by the French government to repre-sent his country as a delegate to theCommission on Human Rights. Thecommission had been established by theUnited Nations Charter in response to the many atrocities committed dur-ing the war, especially the killing ofmillions of Jews, Gypsies, and other minority populations in German-run

concentration camps. The commissionwas given the task of drafting a Univer-sal Declaration of Human Rights.

Eleanor Roosevelt, the widow ofU.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt,was chosen as chairwoman of theCommission on Human Rights, andRené Cassin served as vice-chairman.For several years, Roosevelt and Cassinworked together with other commis-sion members on the draft of the Dec-laration of Human Rights. The task wasdifficult and sometimes seemed impos-sible, as the drafters tried to take intoaccount the differing philosophies, reli-gious beliefs, and political systems ofpeoples throughout the world. Finally, aversion submitted to the UN GeneralAssembly by Cassin was adopted onDecember 10, 1948. Two years later, theUnited Nations officially proclaimedDecember 10 as Human Rights Day.

The UN Declaration of HumanRights proclaims the following princi-ples: all people are entitled to the rightto life, liberty, and personal security;freedom of conscience, religion, and as-sembly; equality before the law; free ed-ucation; and the right to work, equalcompensation for equal work, and rea-sonable working hours. Many new na-tions that have been formed since 1948have incorporated provisions of theDeclaration of Human Rights intotheir constitutions.

In 1966 the Declaration of HumanRights was drafted as a treaty andadopted by the UN General Assembly.Cassin was now chairman of the Com-mission on Human Rights, and he hadadded two covenants, or agreements, tothe original text: one specified civiland political rights, the other econom-ic, social, and cultural rights.

While serving with the Commis-sion on Human Rights, Cassin was alsoa cofounder of a UN agency, the Unit-ed Nations Educational, Scientific, andCultural Organization (UNESCO),created in 1945. He served as theFrench delegate to UNESCO until

R E N É C A S S I N • 1 8 7

René CassinB O R N

October 5, 1887Bayonne, France

D I E D

February 20, 1976Paris, France

E D U C AT I O N

Baccalaureate and diploma in law,University of Aix-en-Provence(1908); Ph.D., University of Paris(1914)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; legal scholar


As vice-chairman of the UN Com-mission on Human Rights, draftedthe UN Declaration of HumanRights (1948); led humanitarian efforts to aid disabled veterans,orphans, and other victims of

World War I; aided Free Frenchduring World War II; cofounder, UNESCO; member, Court of Arbitration, The Hague; president,European Court of Rights; helpeddraft the human rights provisions of the Helsinki Declaration (1975)


1952. During the 1950s, Cassin wasalso a member of the Court of Arbitra-tion at The Hague, and from 1965 to1968 he served as president of the Eu-ropean Court of Rights.

René Cassin was awarded the 1968Nobel Peace Prize on the 20th an-niversary of the adoption of the UNDeclaration of Human Rights. The ci-tation by the Nobel Prize Committeepraised Cassin for his perseverance inovercoming enormous difficulties todraw up a meaningful agreement ac-ceptable to people of diverse back-grounds. In accepting the award,Cassin called the Declaration ofHuman Rights “the first document ofan ethical sort that organized humanityhas ever adopted.” The adoption of thedeclaration, Cassin said, meant that forthe first time in history, humankindhad subjected itself to the rule of inter-national law.

In addition to his work for theUnited Nations, the Court of Arbitra-tion, and the European Court ofRights, Cassin also served as presidentof the International Institute ofHuman Rights in Strasbourg, France.

In 1972, the International Instituteand the American Jewish Committeejoined together to sponsor a conferencethat drafted the human rights provi-sions of the Helsinki Declaration, aninternational agreement signed by 35countries in 1975. Cassin was a strongsupporter of Jewish rights throughouthis life and served as president of theJewish Alliance in France.

Cassin received numerous otherhonors in addition to the Nobel PeacePrize, including the Croix de Guerre,the Grand Cross of the Legion ofHonor, the Goethe Prize, and theUnited Nations Human Rights Prize.He was married twice but had no chil-dren: after the death of his first wife, hemarried again in 1975 while recuperat-ing from a heart attack in a Paris hospi-tal. He died in Paris the following year,at the age of 88.


Abrams, Irwin. “René Cassin.” In TheNobel Peace Prize and the Laureates. Boston:G. K. Hall, 1988.

Andrus, Beth, and Sonia A. Rosen, eds.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,1948–1988: Human Rights, the United Na-tions, and Amnesty International. New York:AIUSA Legal Support Network, 1988.

Cassin, René. “How the Charter onHuman Rights Was Born.” UNESCOCourier, January 1968.

Green, James F. The United Nations andHuman Rights. Washington, D.C.: TheBrookings Institution, 1956.

The United Nations and Human Rights. NewYork: United Nations Department of Pub-lic Information, 1984.

1 8 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Eleanor Roosevelt displays a copy of theUniversal Declaration of Human Rights,adopted by the United Nations on De-cember 10, 1948. Roosevelt, who devotedmuch of her life to humanitarian concerns,was the chairwoman of the committeethat drafted the declaration.

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he International Labor Organization was cre-ated by the Treaty of Versailles, which wassigned in Paris, France, in April 1919 to markthe formal ending of World War I. The rootsof the organization, however, reach back to

the 19th century. In the 1860s, workers in Europe began joining together

into unions to demand improved working conditions fromtheir employers. They also called for the establishment ofsome kind of worldwide organization that would overseethese improvements and make certain that they were carriedout. During the 1890s, a series of international labor confer-ences was held in Europe. These conferences prepared theway for the founding, in 1900, of the International Associa-tion for Labor Legislation (IALL). The IALL had no real au-thority, but it acted as a clearinghouse for information andpublished reports on labor legislation around the world.

In the years prior to World War I, labor unions grew in membership in both Europe and the United States. After the Armistice ended the war in November 1918,

I N T E R N A T I O N A L L A B O R O R G A N I Z A T I O N • 1 8 9

InternationalLabor Organization

Y1 9 6 9

T

At an industrial training center in Peru sponsored by the International Labor Organization, students learn about the parts of an auto-mobile engine.The ILO created such centers throughout the world as part of its mission to train workers in various skills.

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representatives of various unions de-manded a voice in preparing the peacetreaty. Their demands led to the cre-ation of the International Labor Legis-lation Commission (ILLC) at the ParisPeace Conference, held in early 1919.The 15 members of the ILLC includedFrench labor leader Léon Jouhaux aswell as representatives from other Euro-pean countries and the United States.

As its contribution to the peace-making process at the conference, theILLC sought to establish peaceful rela-tions among the different social classesin every nation by working for socialjustice based on fair working condi-tions. To that end, the ILLC sponsoredthe creation of the International LaborOrganization (ILO) as part of theTreaty of Versailles. The ILO becamean agency of the League of Nations,which was also created by the Treaty.Both the League of Nations and theILO established headquarters in Gene-va, Switzerland.

Several months after its founding,the ILO sponsored the first Interna-tional Labor Conference, held in

Washington, D.C. The conferenceshave been held nearly every year sincethen, usually in Geneva. They are at-tended by representatives from ILOmember countries, which today num-ber more than 140. Each membercountry is allowed to send four dele-gates: two from the national govern-ment, one worker, and one employer.

At each conference, members con-tinue to develop the InternationalLabor Code, a guideline for the estab-lishment of fair working conditions.The code has two levels: Conventionsare rules agreed to by the entire confer-ence and must be put into practice byall member nations. Recommendationsare suggested but not required changesin a country’s labor practices. A com-mittee of experts within the ILO makescertain that member nations complywith conventions, and it reports itsfindings to the annual InternationalLabor Conference.

The first conventions, adopted in1919, are considered a kind of bill ofrights for workers throughout theworld. They call for a reasonable wage,

1 9 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

David Morse (left), longtime director-gen-eral of the ILO, meets with U.S. PresidentJohn F. Kennedy at the White House in1963.

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the establishment of an 8-hour day/48-hour week, equal pay for men andwomen doing the same work, and aban on child labor. Conventions adopt-ed by later conferences have called foran end to forced labor and discrimina-tion in employment, and for the estab-lishment of minimum-wage scales andhealth and safety standards. Since1919, the International Labor Codehas grown to include some 300 con-ventions and recommendations.

Besides adding new conventionsand recommendations to the Interna-tional Labor Code, the annual Inter-national Labor Conference elects theexecutive council of the ILO: 28 gov-ernment representatives, 14 workers’representatives, and 14 employers’ rep-resentatives. The executive council,called the Governing Body, is led by anelected director general and meetsthree times a year in Geneva. Its chiefduties include planning the annual In-ternational Labor Conference andoverseeing the International Labor Of-fice in Geneva. In addition to being aninformation clearinghouse, the Interna-tional Labor Office sponsors numerouspublications, including the annual YearBook of Labor Statistics. It also overseeshundreds of ILO-sponsored technicalexperts who work in countries all overthe world.

When World War II ended in1945, the League of Nations was dis-solved and replaced by the United Na-tions. At that time, the ILO becamethe first specialized agency of the UN.In the postwar years, the ILO adopted anew goal: furthering understanding be-tween rich and poor nations. As part ofthat goal, the ILO created the Interna-tional Institute for Labor Studies inGeneva in 1960. The institute bringstogether government administrators,union officials, and management andindustrial experts from all over theworld to study and do research in socialand labor policy. In 1965, the ILOfounded a related organization in Turin,

Italy: the International Center for Ad-vanced Technical and VocationalTraining, which has been attended byresidents of more than 100 countries.

The International Labor Organiza-tion was awarded the 1969 NobelPeace Prize for its 50 years of work forsocial justice as a basis for world peace.In making the presentation, the NobelCommittee praised the ILO for livingup to the ideal expressed in its unoffi-cial motto, a Latin phrase that is in-cluded in the cornerstone of the ILO’smain building in Geneva: Si vis pacem,cole justitiam—If you desire peace, culti-vate justice.

The ILO continues to further thewell-being of workingmen and womenthroughout the world. Through itsWorld Employment Program, the ILOhelps developing countries use humanresources efficiently. The ILO’s Interna-tional Program for the Improvement ofWorking Conditions and Environmentpromotes occupational health and safe-ty. Other ILO programs address suchcontinuing issues as labor-managementrelations, rural development, urban un-employment, international migration,and work issues of special concern towomen.


Alcock, Anthony. History of the Interna-tional Labor Organization. New York: Octa-gon, 197l.

Galenson, Walter. The International LaborOrganization: An American View. Madison:University of Wisconsin Press, 1981.

Johnston, G. A. The International LabourOrganisation: Its Work for Social and Eco-nomic Progress. London: Europa, 1970.

Shotwell, James T., ed. The Origins of theInternational Labor Organization. 2 vols.New York: Columbia University Press,1934.

The Story of Fifty Years. Geneva: Interna-tional Labor Organization, 1969.

I N T E R N A T I O N A L L A B O R O R G A N I Z A T I O N • 1 9 1

InternationalLabor OrganizationF O U N D E R

Created by the Treaty of Versailles

F O U N D I N G

April 1919Paris, France


Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

To improve working conditions,raise labor standards, and promoteeconomic and social stabilitythroughout the world


Developed the International LaborCode, which sets standards forworking conditions in countriesthroughout the world; sponsors vari-ous programs at its headquarters inGeneva and in urban and ruralareas throughout the world tostrengthen the workforce and tofoster productive relationships be-tween labor and management


rom earliest childhood, Norman E. Borlaug as-sumed that he was going to be a farmer whenhe grew up. He was born in 1914 on a farmnear Cresco, Iowa, that his Norwegian-immigrant parents had established some

years earlier. Cresco was the center of an area known as Little Norway because so many Norwegians had settledthere, and nearly all of them were farmers.

Norman’s grandfather had other ideas, however. Recog-nizing that his grandson was very bright, he encouraged theteenage Norman to attend college. Somewhat reluctantly,Norman agreed. After graduating in 1932 from the localhigh school—he captained the football team in his senioryear—he enrolled at the University of Minnesota.

Times were hard: the United States, like much of theworld, was in the midst of a major economic depression. Thefamily had limited financial resources, and Norman Borlaugwas forced to work his way through the university by labor-ing at a series of odd jobs. He was also a member of Min-nesota’s wrestling and football teams. Majoring in forestry,he took a year off to work as a field assistant with the U.S.Forest Service and received his undergraduate degree in1937. In September of that year, Borlaug married; the couplelater had two children.

In the fall, Borlaug began graduate study at the Univer-sity of Minnesota in plant pathology—the study of plant dis-eases—but had to alternate between study and work for theForest Service in Idaho and Massachusetts. He was an in-structor at the university during his last year of graduateschool and received his doctorate in 1941. Borlaug was im-mediately recruited by E. I. du Pont de Nemours, aDelaware-based chemical company, and worked there forthree years as a scientist studying the effects of recently de-veloped weed- and pest-killing chemicals on plants.

In 1944 Borlaug was hired for an agricultural project inMexico by the Rockefeller Foundation, a philanthropic organization in New York that provided technical aid to de-veloping countries. As a member of a four-person team ofagricultural scientists, Borlaug was supposed to help farmersincrease their small crop yields. As it turned out, Borlaugfound his life’s work when he went to Mexico.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, Borlaug developed new va-rieties of wheat that were suitable to Mexico’s climate andgrowing conditions. These varieties proved extremely pro-ductive in Mexico, and they have since been grown in othercountries throughout the world. Borlaug’s success in creatingnew varieties of wheat won him international acclaim as the father of the so-called Green Revolution, a worldwide

1 9 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

FNormanE.Borlaug

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increase in crop yields in developingcountries in the mid-20th century.These increased crop yields meant thedifference between life and death byfamine for millions, as the world’s pop-ulation exploded during this period.

Borlaug remained headquartered inMexico as a Rockefeller Foundationemployee, directing the Wheat Re-search and Production Program underthe auspices of the International Cen-ter for Maize and Wheat Improvementin Mexico City. While continuing todevelop new wheat varieties, he trav-eled frequently to countries in Asiaand Africa as an agricultural adviser.He was back in Mexico, working at anexperimental farm plot some 50 milesfrom the family’s home in Mexico City,on October 21, 1970, when his wifecame running into the fields to tell himhe had been awarded that year’s NobelPeace Prize. She had taken the callfrom the Nobel Committee and haddriven quickly into the countryside tofind her husband. Borlaug reportedlylooked pleased but kept on hoeing. “Istill have a day’s work to do here,” hesaid. “After that we’ll celebrate.”

In its presentation of the award toBorlaug on December 10, 1970, theNobel Committee praised him for im-proving the lives of millions throughhis leadership of the Green Revolution.Borlaug became the first agriculturalexpert and the 15th American to winthe Peace Prize.

Borlaug retired in 1979 as directorof the Wheat Research and ProductionProgram, but he continues to be a con-sultant to the International Maize andWheat Improvement Center. In 1983he was named a life fellow of the Rock-efeller Foundation. A year later he became Distinguished Professor of In-ternational Agriculture at Texas A&MUniversity, a post he still holds.

Borlaug has received many otherawards besides the Nobel Peace Prize,including honorary doctorates fromseveral universities and decorations

from governments throughout theworld. In 1977 he was named a recipi-ent of the United States Medal of Free-dom, the country’s highest civilianaward. Grateful citizens in CiudadObregón, the wheat capital of Mexico,named a street in his honor. Althoughhe has devoted most of his professionallife to fieldwork, Borlaug has publishedseveral books and more than seventyarticles. He is also a frequent speaker atinternational agricultural conferences.Borlaug says that he is pleased with theresults of the Green Revolution, but heremains cautious about the continuingthreat of overpopulation and has calledrepeatedly for population controlthroughout the world.


Bickel, Lennard. Facing Starvation: NormanBorlaug and the Fight Against Hunger. Pleas-antville, N.Y.: Reader’s Digest Press, 1974.

“Borlaug, Norman E(rnest).” In Current Bi-ography Yearbook 1971. New York: H. W.Wilson, 1972.

Freeman, Orville. World Without Hunger.New York: Praeger, 1968.

N O R M A N E . B O R L A U G • 1 9 3

Norman E.BorlaugB O R N

March 25, 1914Cresco, Iowa

E D U C AT I O N

B.S. (1937), Ph.D. (194)1, Univer-sity of Minnesota

O C C U PAT I O N

Agricultural scientist


Developed high-yield varieties ofwheat to increase the food supply in developing nations, earning himthe title “Father of the Green Revolution”


During a visit by U.S. President RichardNixon to Mexico in the early 1970s,Norman Borlaug (left) shows the Presi-dent the strains of high-yield wheat that he developed.

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or more than four decades after World War IIended in 1945, the Western democracies andthe Soviet Union were unofficially at war. Noformal declaration of war was ever made, andno battles were fought. The conflict was real,

however, and it expressed itself in ongoing tension as eachside developed even greater stockpiles of nuclear weapons.This so-called Cold War finally came to an end in 1989, butits conclusion was in part the result of efforts by one man,Willy Brandt, nearly two decades earlier.

Many Nobel Peace Prize recipients have been born poorand suffered childhoods filled with hardship, but none had aworse beginning than the 1971 winner. He was born HerbertErnst Karl Frahm in December 1913 in Lübeck, Germany, toan unmarried young shop clerk named Martha Frahm. Atthat time, illegitimate birth was considered a disgrace of theworst sort, and young Herbert had to endure the taunts ofother children. He grew up never knowing who his father

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Willy Brandt, mayor of West Berlin, on a visit to the UnitedStates in 1958 to confer with government officials. Brandt guidedthe city through the darkest days of the Cold War.

FWilly Brandt

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was. He discovered his identity manyyears later but never revealed it.

Herbert Frahm was raised by hismother and her family in near-poverty.He apparently had only two advan-tages, but they were crucial to his development: First, he was highly intel-ligent and did well in school. Second,he formed a close attachment to hisgrandfather, a laborer. AlthoughGrandfather Frahm had little formaleducation, he was well informed aboutliberal politics and a devoted memberof the Social Democratic party. Her-bert’s grandfather passed along his in-terest in politics to his young grandson.Herbert, however, dreamed of becom-ing a sea captain.

In secondary school—the presti-gious Lübeck Johanneum, which he at-tended on scholarship—Herbert Frahmwas encouraged by his history teacherto become a political writer. He begancontributing articles to the Social De-mocratic party newspaper, Volksbote,under the pseudonym “Willy Brandt.”The paper’s editor, Julius Leber, was im-pressed by the boy and arranged forhim to formally join the party when hewas not yet 17, more than a yearyounger than the minimum age nor-mally required.

Herbert Frahm was beginning tothink for himself, however, and he be-came disturbed by the growth of an-other political group, the National Socialist (Nazi) party. Despite its name,the Nazi party was rigidly conservative,and its leader, Adolf Hitler, wished toestablish himself as the ruling dictatorof Germany. Herbert Frahm was disap-pointed when the Social Democraticparty did not oppose the growing dan-ger of Hitler and his Nazis, and hejoined the more radical Socialist Work-ers party in 1931. A year later, he grad-uated from the Johanneum and washired as a clerk by a Lübeck shippingcompany, but he continued to writenewspaper articles under the name“Willy Brandt.”

When Hitler finally seized controlof the German government early in1933, Herbert Frahm went into hiding,for he was now considered a politicalenemy of the state. In April, friendsarranged for him to leave the countrysecretly and settle in Oslo, Norway,where he established the headquarters-in-exile of the Socialist Workers party.At this time he began using “WillyBrandt” as his real name, and he wasknown publicly by that name for theremainder of his life.

In Oslo, Willy Brandt was aided bythe Norwegian Labor party, whichhelped him get a job as chairman of arefugee organization in the city. He alsowrote articles for the party newspaper,Arbeiterbladet. In 1934 Brandt appliedfor and won a scholarship to the Uni-versity of Oslo, where he studied histo-ry and philosophy for several years.

Brandt lived in Norway until 1940.In the late 1930s, he traveled secretlyto Germany and to other Europeancountries to encourage undergroundopposition to the Nazis and to fascism,as their political philosophy was called.In 1937, he also spent time in Spain,writing about the Spanish Civil War(1936–39) for several Scandinaviannewspapers.

When Germany invaded Norwayin the spring of 1940, six months afterthe start of World War II, Brandt wasbriefly interned, or held prisoner, by thenew government. Later that year hemade his way to neutral Sweden andsettled there with his Norwegian wifeand their infant daughter. For the nextseven years, Brandt lived in Sweden,earning his living as a journalist. Dur-ing that time he also wrote five bookson contemporary European politics.

Brandt traveled to Germany inOctober 1946, a year after the warended, as a Norwegian newspaper cor-respondent covering the NurembergTrials. These were trials of Nazi leadersaccused of war crimes, and they werepublicized all over the world. Brandt

W I L L Y B R A N D T • 1 9 5

Willy BrandtB O R N

December 18, 1913Lübeck, Germany

D I E D

October 8, 1992Unkel, Germany

E D U C AT I O N

Secondary school diploma; attendedUniversity of Oslo

O C C U PAT I O N

Journalist; politician


As mayor of West Berlin and laterchancellor of West Germany, led ef-forts to end the Cold War betweenWestern nations and the SovietUnion


believed that all Germans had to ac-knowledge responsibility for the atro-cities committed by Hitler and his followers, and he said so publicly.

In late 1947, Brandt finally movedback to Germany after leaders of therevived Social Democratic party invit-ed him to work for the party at itsBerlin headquarters. As part of thepeace agreement that ended the war,Germany was now divided into twocountries: East Germany, which had aCommunist government and strongties to the Soviet Union, and WestGermany, which had established a democratic form of government with the encouragement of the UnitedStates and other Western Europeancountries. The city of Berlin, the historic capital of the country, was divided into separate—Communist and non-Communist—sections, too.

Brandt had divorced his first wifeseveral years earlier, and after movingto Berlin he married another Norwe-gian woman; they eventually had threesons. Brandt quickly emerged as aleader of the Social Democratic partyin West Berlin through his close associ-

ation with a prominent politiciannamed Ernst Reuter. Brandt attractedattention through his many speechesthat denounced the Communists andthe Soviet Union, especially the Sovi-et takeover of Czechoslovakia in thespring of 1948.

Beginning in June of that year, thefamous Berlin Blockade occurred: theSoviet Union sealed off West Berlinfor nearly a year from the rest of theworld, and residents were on the vergeof starvation. Months of suffering wererelieved only by the so-called BerlinAirlift, which was organized by theUnited States and brought food, cloth-ing, and medical supplies to the needyresidents. During this time of hard-ship, Brandt helped Ernst Reuter, nowthe mayor, to rally the spirits of thepopulation.

Brandt was elected as Berlin’s rep-resentative to the Bundestag, thelower house of the West German par-liament, not long after the blockadeended in 1949. The following year hewas also elected to the local Berlingoverning council and later served asits chairman. In both the Bundestagand on the local governing council,Brandt was an acknowledged leader. Inthe fall of 1956 he won national ac-claim when he single-handedly calmedan angry mob of tens of thousands ofWest Berliners who were protestingthe recent Soviet invasion of Hungary.His heroism in that situation helpedhim to be elected as mayor of WestBerlin in 1957.

As the mayor of half a divided city,surrounded and threatened by a Soviet-controlled nation, Willy Brandt was inthe middle of the Cold War. Despitethe difficulties, he managed to keepWest Berlin independent and free. Heremained firmly allied to the Westerndemocracies, including the UnitedStates, France, and England, and re-sisted attempts by the Soviet Union toincorporate West Berlin into East Germany.

1 9 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

The Berlin Wall was erected by East Ger-many in 1961 to prevent contact betweenthe two halves of the city.The wall was asymbol of Communist oppression fornearly 30 years.

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A major crisis occurred in August1961, when the East German govern-ment erected a wall between East andWest Berlin and patrolled it witharmed guards. This physical divisionmeant that East Germans and WestGermans were forbidden to cross backand forth between the two parts of thecity. Anyone attempting to enter orleave East Berlin was shot on sight byEast German guards. Brandt openly de-nounced the Berlin Wall, as it wascalled, and he became an internationalsymbol of courage for his defiance.

Brandt had become increasinglypowerful in the Social Democraticparty, and in 1963 he was elected partychairman. He made several unsuccess-ful attempts during the next few yearsto win election as West Germany’schancellor (prime minister). Brandt’schildhood still haunted him: one of hispolitical opponents, Chancellor Kon-rad Adenauer, always referred to him as“Herbert Frahm” in his speeches to callattention to Brandt’s illegitimate birth.

In 1966 Brandt became West Ger-man foreign minister in a coalitiongovernment. (A coalition governmentis one in which several political partiesshare power.) Three years later he wasfinally elected chancellor. Brandt dis-tinguished himself by working to securestable relations among Central andEastern European nations. As an oppo-nent of militarism, he publicly encour-aged troop reductions on all sides inEurope. In late 1970 he was acclaimedfor negotiating treaties that normalizedWest Germany’s relations with Polandand the Soviet Union, and for securingan agreement that allowed WestBerliners to visit relatives in EastBerlin and travel across East Germany.

Brandt’s success in easing interna-tional tension earned him the NobelPeace Prize for 1971. He was frustrated,however, because the Berlin Wall wasstill standing. During the next fewyears, while still serving as chancellor,he worked for West German participa-

tion in the European Common Marketand promoted West Germany’s admis-sion to the United Nations, which oc-curred in 1973.

Brandt retired as chancellor in1974 after one of his personal aides wasarrested as an East German spy. He re-mained chairman of the Social Democ-ratic party, however, until 1987. Duringthis time he also served as chairman ofan international socialist organizationthat called attention to the plight ofThird World nations and urged eco-nomic support for them. In 1985 he received another award for his peace-making efforts: the Einstein PeacePrize, established to honor physicistAlbert Einstein’s commitment to worldpeace.

Brandt lived to see a long-helddream come true: in 1989 the ColdWar officially ended as the SovietUnion made peace overtures to West-ern nations. The Berlin Wall camedown, and East and West Germanymoved toward reunification. Brandtdied in October 1992 at the age of 78after a long struggle with intestinalcancer. He was survived by his fourchildren and by his third wife, whomhe had married in 1983.


Binder, David. The Other German: WillyBrandt’s Life and Times. New York: NewRepublic Book Co., 1975.

Brandt, Willy. Arms and Hunger. NewYork: Pantheon, 1986.

———. In Exile: Essays, Reflections, Let-ters, 1933–1947. Philadephia: Universityof Pennsylvania Press, 1971.

———. My Life in Politics. New York:Viking, 1992.

———, as told to Leo Lania. My Road toBerlin. New York: Doubleday, 1970.

Prittie, Terence. Willy Brandt: Portrait of aStatesman. New York: Schocken, 1974.

W I L L Y B R A N D T • 1 9 7

n New York City more than 50 years ago, whileWorld War II raged in Europe and Asia, a youngGerman immigrant named Henry Kissingerdreamed of a better life for himself. He had graduat-ed as a straight-A student from a city high school in

1941, but he could not afford to attend a university full time.So after graduation he had gotten a job in a shaving-brushfactory in order to support himself. Every evening, after along day of work at the factory, he attended night school atCity College, which offered free classes to New York resi-dents at that time. Kissinger was studying accounting, andhe longed for the day when he could leave his job at the fac-tory and become a professional accountant.

For nearly a decade Henry Kissinger’s life had not beeneasy, although it had begun well. He was born in Fürth, Ger-

1 9 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

North Vietnamese negotiator Le Duc Tho and U.S. Secretary ofState Henry Kissinger shake hands after reaching a cease-fireagreement in January 1973 between their two nations.

IHenryKissingerLe Duc Tho

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many, in 1923 to Jewish parents whohad another son several years later. Hisfather was a teacher in a local highschool, and the Kissinger family led afairly comfortable existence until 1933,when Henry was 10 years old. In thatyear, Adolf Hitler and his National So-cialist (Nazi) party gained control ofthe German government. Hitler imme-diately began a program of discrimina-tion against Jews. Henry’s father losthis job, and life became increasinglydifficult for the family. Many Jews wereimprisoned by the Nazis, and theKissingers feared that they, too, wouldbe sent to jail.

The Kissinger family managed toescape from Germany, and they immi-grated to the United States in 1938.They settled in New York City, whereMr. Kissinger found work as a clerk andbookkeeper, while his wife became acook for wealthy families. Henry andhis brother attended local schools andlearned to speak English.

In 1943 Henry Kissinger’s dream ofbecoming an accountant was haltedabruptly when he was drafted into theU.S. Army. This setback, however,proved to be a blessing in disguise.After serving in combat in Europe,Kissinger became a German interpreterfor his commanding general and alsointerrogated German prisoners cap-tured by the U.S. Army. Army officialswere impressed by Kissinger’s ability,and when the war ended in 1945, hebecame an official with the militarygovernment that now ruled Germany.He also taught history at a school forU.S. soldiers in Germany before return-ing to the United States in 1946.

Kissinger had become interested ingovernment and politics during hisarmy service, and he decided to goback to college to study those subjects.He won a New York State Scholarship,which enabled him to attend HarvardUniversity. He enrolled there in thefall of 1946 and four years later re-ceived a bachelor’s degree with highest

honors. Kissinger remained at Harvardto do graduate work in government, re-ceiving an M.A. in 1952 and a Ph.D.two years later.

While Kissinger was a graduatestudent, he also worked as a consultantto the U.S. Army. In 1954, after re-ceiving his doctoral degree, Kissingerbegan working for the Council on For-eign Relations, a private foundationthat studied foreign policy issues. Hewas assigned to direct a research pro-gram on how the United States shouldrespond to the threat of nuclear war.

At that time the U.S. governmentwas in the midst of the so-called ColdWar with the Communist-run SovietUnion, and tensions between the twocountries threatened to erupt in nu-clear warfare. The U.S. government,under President Dwight D. Eisenhower,had an official policy of “massive retali-ation,” which meant that if the countrywas attacked by nuclear weapons, itwould respond with a strong nuclearcounterattack. Many people believed,however, that such a policy was too ag-gressive and might actually invite war.Although Kissinger was strongly anti-Communist, he believed that the United States had a better chance ofmaintaining peace in the world if ittook a less aggressive attitude towardthe Soviet Union. At the Council onForeign Relations, he devised a less ag-gressive defense policy, which he called“flexible response.” Under this pro-posed policy, the United States wouldexplore other alternatives before engag-ing in all-out nuclear war following anenemy attack. Kissinger discussed thispolicy in an important book, NuclearWeapons and Foreign Policy (1957),which was widely read. In 1961, “flexi-ble response” was adopted by PresidentJohn F. Kennedy as a key part of U.S.foreign policy.

Meanwhile, in 1956 Kissinger hadbecome the director of a study of East-West relations sponsored by the Rocke-feller Brothers Fund, another private

K I S S I N G E R & L E D U C T H O • 1 9 9

HenryKissingerB O R N

May 27, 1923Fürth, Germany

E D U C AT I O N

A.B. (1950), M.A. (1952), Ph.D.(1954), Harvard University

O C C U PAT I O N

University professor; governmentofficial


Initiated Strategic Arms LimitationTalks (SALT, 1969); mastermindedPresident Richard M. Nixon’s his-toric trip to China (1972); U.S.Secretary of State (1973–77); nego-tiated cease-fire in Vietnam War(1973)


foundation. The result of his study wasanother book about U.S. foreign policy,The Necessity of Choice (1961). In it heargued that the U.S. government hadto continually explore ways to avoidall-out war with the Soviet Union,even though it seemed unlikely thatreal peace between the two nationswould ever be achieved.

Kissinger joined the faculty of theCenter for International Affairs at Har-vard University in 1957 and was its as-sociate director from 1958 to 1960. In1962 he became a professor of govern-ment at Harvard, where his course onforeign policy was one of the most pop-ular offered by the university. From1959 to 1969 Kissinger was also directorof Harvard’s Defense Studies Program.

During his years at Harvard,Kissinger served as a consultant to vari-ous defense-related organizations in theU.S. government. He was also a foreign

policy consultant to several privatefoundations, and he participated inseveral international gatherings onworld affairs, including the Pugwashconferences (meetings of nuclear scien-tists who were committed to endingthe threat of nuclear war). In addition,he wrote numerous articles and severalmore books on foreign policy in thenuclear age.

In 1968 Kissinger was sent by Pres-ident Lyndon B. Johnson to Hanoi,North Vietnam, to establish peacetalks to end the Vietnam War. (TheUnited States had been drawn into thewar between North and South Viet-nam several years earlier, and severalmillion U.S. troops were helping SouthVietnamese troops fight against theCommunist North Vietnamese.) WhileKissinger was attempting to set uppeace talks, U.S. Presidential electionswere held and Richard M. Nixon waselected President. Nixon immediatelyasked Kissinger to become his foreignpolicy adviser, and Kissinger beganworking for the new President in Janu-ary 1969.

Kissinger proved to be an impor-tant figure in the Nixon administrationas he worked to establish peaceful rela-tions between the United States andother nations. During his first year asNixon’s adviser, Kissinger played amajor role in establishing the StrategicArms Limitation Talks (SALT), a seriesof negotiations that began in Novem-ber 1969 between the United Statesand the Soviet Union. He proposedother peacemaking strategies thatNixon adopted: the U.S. decisionnever to engage in chemical or biologi-cal warfare; a reduction in U.S. defensemissiles; and the return of Okinawa, aU.S. territory, to Japan.

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In 1968,Vietnamese women attempt tomove back into the city of Cholon, devas-tated by fighting during the Vietnam War.

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One of Kissinger’s most notable ac-complishments was arranging for thehistoric trip of Nixon to Communist-ruled China—the first visit of a U.S.President to that nation. China andthe United States had been enemiessince 1949, when the Communistscame to power there, but Nixon’s visitin 1972 restored diplomatic relationsbetween the two countries and easedyears of tension.

Meanwhile, Kissinger had contin-ued to seek an end to the ongoingVietnam War as Nixon’s representa-tive to a series of meetings in Pariswith representatives of the NorthVietnamese government. While thesemeetings were going on, Nixon waselected to a second Presidential termin 1972, and Kissinger became hisSecretary of State in January 1973.That same month, Kissinger reached acease-fire agreement with Le DucTho, the chief North Vietnamese ne-gotiator. Under the agreement, theUnited States withdrew its troopsfrom South Vietnam, and in exchangethe North Vietnamese governmentagreed to return American prisoners-of-war.

For these peacemaking efforts,Kissinger and Le Duc Tho were namedthe joint winners of the 1973 NobelPeace Prize. Many people opposed thechoice of these two men as winners ofthe award, however: Le Duc Tho hadspent most of his life engaged in war-fare, and Kissinger represented a gov-ernment that was blamed by many forprolonging the Vietnam War.

Worried about his personal safety,the U.S. government advised Kissingernot to go to Oslo to receive the award.When the U.S. ambassador to Norwayaccepted the award on Kissinger’s be-

half, there were major protest demon-strations in the city.

Kissinger continued to serve asSecretary of State, and when Nixon re-signed in 1974, Kissinger remained inoffice under President Gerald Forduntil 1977. During those years he mademajor efforts to end tensions betweenIsrael and neighboring Arab states inthe Middle East. Those efforts led toseparate cease-fire agreements betweenIsrael and the Arab states of Egypt andSyria.

Since leaving office in 1977,Kissinger has served as a private con-sultant to government and industry,and he continues to write books andarticles on foreign policy. Kissinger hasbeen married twice, and he has twochildren from his first marriage.

Little is known about the early lifeof Le Duc Tho (pronounced Lay-dook-toe), who was awarded the 1973 NobelPeace Prize with Henry Kissinger. Hewas born Phan Dinh Khai to a middle-class family in a small village of north-ern Vietnam in 1911. At that time Viet-nam, a country in Indochina, was acolony ruled by the French government.

As a child, Phan Dinh Khai at-tended French-run schools. There hisopposition to French rule grew. By thetime he was a teenager, he had becomea member of the local Communistparty, which met secretly to plot theoverthrow of the government. Whileworking as a postal clerk he organizedantigovernment protests. He was final-ly arrested and spent several years injail. Sometime during this period he as-sumed the name Le Duc Tho. Uponhis release in 1936, he served as region-al information specialist for the Com-munist party until he was arrestedagain three years later.

K I S S I N G E R & L E D U C T H O • 2 0 1

Le Duc ThoB O R N

October 11, 1911Nam Ha Province, Indochina

D I E D

October 13, 1990Hanoi, Vietnam

E D U C AT I O N

Attended local French-run elemen-tary and secondary schools

O C C U PAT I O N

Postal worker; political leader

M A J O R AC C O M P L I S H M E N T

With Henry Kissinger of the UnitedStates, negotiated a cease-fire thatended U.S. participation in theVietnam War (1973)


In 1944 Le Duc Tho was releasedagain from jail, and he quickly rose inthe Communist party leadership. Hebegan to organize uprisings against theFrench in 1945 and became a seniorparty official in the southern part ofVietnam. Years of warfare between theFrench and Communist-led nativesended with the defeat of French forcesin Indochina in 1954. As part of thepeace agreement, Vietnam was dividedinto two separate nations, North andSouth. North Vietnam became a Com-munist state, and South Vietnam triedto establish a democratic government.

In 1955 Le Duc Tho returned toNorth Vietnam from the south and set-tled in its capital, Hanoi. He became amember of the ruling council, calledthe Politburo, and served there until1986. During that time he became oneof the country’s most powerful politicalfigures. In 1957 Le Duc Tho was sentto Saigon, the South Vietnamese capi-tal, to advise military forces of the so-called National Liberation Front,which was trying to establish Commu-nist rule in South Vietnam. During thenext 15 years he played a major role indevising military strategy as conflict be-tween the two Vietnams grew into full-scale war.

By the late 1960s, several millionU.S. troops were fighting in Vietnamand many were being killed. There washeavy pressure on the U.S. governmentto end American involvement in thewar, and in 1969 President Nixonasked Henry Kissinger to seek a cease-fire with North Vietnam. Le Duc Thowas chosen by the North Vietnamesegovernment to be its major representa-tive at a series of talks with Kissinger inParis.

Finally, after four years of negotia-tions, a cease-fire was signed in January

1973. Le Duc Tho was named a cowin-ner of the Nobel Peace Prize that fallfor his role in establishing the cease-fire. However, he declined the award,saying that “peace has not yet been es-tablished.”

In fact, the fighting had continuedbetween the two Vietnams even afterU.S. troops withdrew in the spring of1973. Finally, in 1975, Saigon fell tothe Communists and North Vietnamannounced its victory in the war. Dur-ing the next decade, Le Duc Tho con-tinued to serve in the Politburo as thetwo countries were united under a sin-gle Communist government. He re-signed from the Politburo in 1986, fol-lowing a major reorganization in partyleadership.

Le Duc Tho was reportedly mar-ried twice, but nothing more is knownof his personal life. He died of throatcancer in 1990 at the age of 79.


Isaacson, Walter. Kissinger: A Biography.New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.

“Kissinger, Henry A[lfred].” In Current Bi-ography Yearbook 1972. New York: H. W.Wilson, 1973.

Kissinger, Henry. Nuclear Weapons and For-eign Policy. 1957. Abridged edition. NewYork: Norton, 1969.

———. White House Years. Boston: Little,Brown, 1979.

———. Years of Upheaval. Boston: Little,Brown, 1982.

“Le Duc Tho.” In Current Biography Year-book 1975. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1976.

Pace, Eric. “Le Duc Tho, Top Hanoi Aide,Dies at 79.” New York Times, October 14,1990, p. 32.

2 0 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

eán MacBride, cowinner of the 1974 NobelPeace Prize, is celebrated as one of Ireland’s lead-ing statesmen, but his mother is as well knownas her son in their native country. MacBride’smother was Maud Gonne (pronounced Gunn),

an actress who was celebrated for her beauty in 19th-centuryDublin, Ireland’s capital city. She is called “the Joan of Arcof Ireland” because she was a leading supporter of the move-ment for Irish independence from Great Britain. The greatIrish poet William Butler Yeats—who later won the NobelPrize for Literature (1923)—was in love with Maud Gonne,and she inspired many of his most famous poems. But MaudGonne chose to marry another Irishman, an army officernamed John MacBride. In 1904 their only child, Seán, wasborn in Paris, where the couple had gone to avoid prosecu-tion by British authorities for revolutionary activities.

Major John MacBride had founded the Irish Brigade,which fought against the British in the Boer War

M A C B R I D E & S A T O • 2 0 3

Seán MacBrideEisaku Sato

Y1 9 7 4

In his youth, Seán McBride fought with the Irish Republican Army.Many years later, after a career as a politician, he served as askilled negotiator on behalf of many humanitarian causes.Thisstreaky news photo was taken in 1972 in the Soviet Union.

S

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(1899–1902). He and his wife separat-ed shortly after Seán’s birth, andMacBride returned to Ireland in 1905,where he resumed a leading role in theIrish independence movement. He wasexecuted by the British in 1916 for par-ticipating in an uprising known as theEaster Rebellion.

Meanwhile, young Seán had grownup in Paris and attended a church-runschool there. However, he was filledwith Irish patriotic fervor, thanks to hismother, and after Major MacBride’s ex-ecution the two set off for Ireland. Hismother was arrested in London but es-caped to Dublin with the aid of herson. Twelve-year-old Seán MacBridesoon joined the Irish Republican Army(IRA), the revolutionary organizationfighting for independence.

For his antigovernment activities,Seán MacBride was imprisoned by theBritish on three separate occasions overthe next 14 years. Between prisonterms, and while working for the revo-lutionary movement full time, he at-tended a secondary school in CountyWexford and went on to earn a law de-gree from Dublin’s National University.

Political independence had beenpartially achieved in 1922 through thepartition (separation) of Ireland. Thesouthern part of Ireland, which includ-ed Dublin, was given its freedom fromBritish rule and became the Irish FreeState. The remaining part, NorthernIreland, continued to be governed byGreat Britain. The IRA opposed thepartition and continued to fight forcomplete independence and reunion.

In 1936 Seán MacBride becamethe IRA’s commander-in-chief, but heleft the organization a year later be-cause he opposed the organization’s use of violence to achieve its politicalgoals. He was admitted to the barshortly after resigning, and he soon

became the most successful trial lawyerin Dublin. In 1939 the IRA was out-lawed by the national government, butit continued to operate as a secret revo-lutionary organization.

During the years of World War II(1939–45), MacBride became active inthe national politics of his country,which had been renamed Eire in 1937,through his association with Eamon DeValera, a former IRA comrade who wasnow prime minister. In 1946 MacBrideformed a new political party, the Re-publican, whose Gaelic name was theClann na Poblachta. One of its goalswas the peaceful reunification of Ire-land and the complete withdrawal ofBritish forces. However, its major pur-pose was to work for economic reformin Ireland, a traditionally poor country.

Running on the Republican ticket,MacBride was elected to the Dail, thelower house of the Eire parliament, in1947 and held that seat for 11 years.One of MacBride’s major accomplish-ments during this period was helping topass the Republic of Ireland Act,which resulted in the official declara-tion of Eire as a republic in 1948.

In 1948–51 MacBride also served asIreland’s foreign minister and as vicepresident of the newly formed Organiza-tion for European Economic Coopera-tion (OEEC), a predecessor of the Euro-pean Economic Community (EEC). In1951 he was, in addition, president ofthe Council of Foreign Ministers of theCouncil of Europe. In the 1950sMacBride also served as an assistant sec-retary-general of the United Nations.

In 1961 MacBride helped organizeAmnesty International, a human rightsorganization with headquarters in Lon-don. He became one of the organiza-tion’s leading staff attorneys and alsoserved for a time as its chairman. From1963 to 1970 MacBride was secretary-

2 0 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

SeánMacBrideB O R N

January 26, 1904Paris, France

D I E D

January 15, 1988Dublin, Ireland

E D U C AT I O N

Attended private church-runschools in Paris and Ireland; diplo-ma in law, University of Dublin(1937)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; statesman


Foreign minister, Republic of Ire-land (1948–51); secretary-general,International Commission of Jurists(1963–70); president, InternationalPeace Bureau (1972–85)


general of the International Commis-sion of Jurists, another human rightsgroup. In 1972 he became head of theInternational Peace Bureau in Geneva,Switzerland.

MacBride’s many activities on be-half of human rights earned him ashare of the 1974 Nobel Peace Prize.Three years later he also received theInternational Lenin Prize, and thus be-came the second person to receive bothpeace awards. (The first was LinusPauling.)

MacBride continued to serve ashead of the International Peace Bureauuntil 1985, when he became presidentemeritus. His wife of 50 years, withwhom he had two children, died in1976. Seán MacBride died in Dublin inJanuary 1988, less than two weeks be-fore his 84th birthday.

Eisaku Sato, who shared the 1974Nobel Peace Prize with Seán MacBride,was the first Asian to win the award.Sato, who was born in the village ofTabuse, Japan, in 1901, was descendedfrom a famous samurai (Japanese war-rior), Nobuaki Sato, who had been aprovincial governor in the early 19thcentury.

After attending area schools, Satoentered Tokyo Imperial University,where he received a law degree in1924. After graduation he entered thecivil service, joining the Ministry ofRailways. He became an expert ontransportation during his 24 years ofservice, and traveled to the UnitedStates and Europe on behalf of theJapanese government in the mid-1930s.By the end of World War II he had be-come head of the national railway sys-tem, and in 1947–48 he served as viceminister of transportation.

Sato left the civil service in 1948to enter politics. He became active inthe Democratic-Liberal party and was

elected to a seat in the Diet, the Japan-ese parliament. He quickly rose in theparty ranks to become a close associateof Prime Minister Shigeru Yoshida, andduring the early 1950s he held severalparty and cabinet posts. In 1954 theYoshida government collapsed whenseveral of the prime minister’s associ-ates, including Sato, were accused (al-though never convicted) of acceptingbribes from a shipbuilding association.

After staying out of politics for sev-eral years, Sato became Japan’s financeminister in 1958 in the cabinet of hisbrother, Prime Minister NobusukeKishi. He remained in that post for twoyears. During the early 1960s, Satoheld various other cabinet posts whilehe worked for his longtime goal: be-coming prime minister.

In the fall of 1962 Sato made alengthy tour of Europe and the UnitedStates, meeting with major politicalleaders, including U.S. President JohnF. Kennedy. He headed several govern-ment agencies in succession and servedas chairman of the organizing commit-tee for the 1964 Olympic Games, heldin Tokyo. Later that year he was finallyelected prime minister by the JapaneseDiet.

During the postwar years, Japanhad recovered from near-destruction tobecome a major political power inAsia, largely because of economic aidfrom the United States. Sato had al-ready forged close ties with the U.S.,and upon becoming prime minister hepledged to continue that harmoniousrelationship while maintaining Japan’sindependence. As a staunch pacifist,Sato also promised to pursue peacefulrelations with other Asian nations.

Sato immediately began efforts tocarry out those pledges. During the1960s he re-established diplomatic rela-tions with South Korea, which had

M A C B R I D E & S A T O • 2 0 5

Eisaku SatoB O R N

March 27, 1901Tabuse, Japan

D I E D

June 2, 1975Tokyo, Japan

E D U C AT I O N

Diploma in law, Tokyo ImperialUniversity (1924)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; government official


Prime minister of Japan (1965–72);established peace as the cornerstoneof Japan’s foreign policy; restoredJapanese control of Okinawa (1972)


been Japan’s enemy during World WarII. He also toured 10 other Asian na-tions, seeking closer trade and culturalties. In addition, Sato’s pacifism ledhim to try to improve relations be-tween the Soviet Union and Commu-nist China during this period.

One of Sato’s greatest accomplish-ments was achieved in 1972, when hisnegotiations with U.S. envoy HenryKissinger led to the return of the islandof Okinawa to Japanese control. Short-ly afterward, Sato’s prime ministershipended when he was replaced as partyleader.

Eisaku Sato shared the 1974 NobelPeace Prize for his efforts to maintainpeace as the basis of Japan’s foreignpolicy. In particular, he was cited for ef-forts that led Japan to become the onlymajor power to renounce nuclear arms.In his acceptance speech in Oslo, Satocalled for world disarmament and forinternational regulation of the peacefuluses of atomic energy.

Sato’s selection as a Peace Prizewinner was controversial. Many of his

critics expressed doubt that he was atrue pacifist, especially since he hadendorsed U.S. bombing of North Viet-nam during the Vietnam War.

Sato, who was married and hadtwo sons, lived less than six monthsafter receiving the Nobel Peace Prize.In May 1975 he was stricken with acerebral hemorrhage while dining at arestaurant. He never regained con-sciousness and died in a Tokyo hospitaltwo weeks later, at the age of 74.


Blair, William G. “Seán MacBride of Ire-land Is Dead at 83.” New York Times, Janu-ary 16, 1988, p. 10.

Krebs, Albin. “Eisaku Sato, Ex-Premier ofJapan, Dies at 74.” New York Times, June 3,1975, p. 36.

“MacBride, Seán.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1949. New York: H. W. Wilson,1950.

“Sato, Eisaku.” In Current Biography Year-book 1965. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1966.

2 0 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Japanese prime minister Eisaku Satopledged his government to a policy ofpeace and called for world disarmament.Here, Sato (left) speaks at a banquet heldby the World Affairs Council of NorthernCalifornia. At the right is California gover-nor Edmund Brown, and standing behindSato is his interpreter.

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ndrei Sakharov (pronounced SOCK-ah-roff), who was born in Moscow in 1921 andwon the Nobel Peace Prize 54 years later,was the first Russian to receive the award.However, he was not the first person in hisfamily to be concerned with social issuesand the quest for peace. Sakharov camefrom a well-educated, politically liberal, and

highly cultured background. As he later remarked, he grewup in “an atmosphere of decency, mutual help, and tact,”and this atmosphere had a profound effect on determiningthe course of his life. One of his grandfathers, who conduct-ed a lifelong campaign to end capital punishment (the deathpenalty) in Russia, had an especially strong influence onSakharov.

Sakharov’s father was a noted physics professor atMoscow University who had written many books on thesubject, and when Andrei completed secondary school inMoscow he, too, decided to study physics at the university.He was such a brilliant student that he was exempted frommilitary service during World War II so that he could com-plete his undergraduate degree. After graduating in 1942 heworked as an engineer in a military plant until the warended in 1945.

A N D R E I S A K H A R O V • 2 0 7

AndreiSakharov

Y1 9 7 5

Russian physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov (center) leads a demonstration in Moscow protesting the exclusion ofcandidates, including himself, for government posts in a general election.

A

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Sakharov then returned to the uni-versity, where he completed graduatestudies in 1948. For the next decadeSakharov worked at a top-secret labo-ratory in Turkmenistan, a remote re-public in the Soviet Union. There hehelped develop nuclear weapons, in-cluding the hydrogen bomb, and alsoworked on projects to find peacefuluses for atomic energy.

Sakharov’s abilities brought himmany honors, including election tomembership in the Soviet Academy ofSciences when he was only 32 yearsold. Sakharov was never a member ofthe Communist party, which governedthe Soviet Union, but for many yearshe believed that he had a patrioticduty to develop nuclear weapons inorder to help protect his country. Bythe late 1950s, however, Sakharov hadbegun to question the wisdom of hiswork. In 1957 he wrote a letter to theSoviet premier, Nikita Khrushchev,asking that planned test explosions ofthe hydrogen bomb be canceled be-cause the radiation released by thetesting would eventually harm thou-sands of people.

When the testing went on asscheduled, Sakharov began sendingmore protests to government leaders,and these continued after his return toMoscow to work in a defense laborato-ry there. He complained not only aboutnuclear weapons development but alsoquestioned government policy in otherareas. He criticized Soviet science andeducation for being backward and alsopointed out other negative aspects ofSoviet life, including social injustice,censorship, and widespread poverty.

One of Sakharov’s major targetswas Lysenkoism, a theory named after aSoviet biologist who had first advanced

it in the 1930s. According to Lysenko-ism, environmental influences on a living organism could be inherited ge-netically by future generations. Thistheory had already been disproved inthe West, but many Soviet biologists—agricultural specialists in particular—were continuing to use it as the basis oftheir research. As a result, much of So-viet biological and medical science washopelessly backward. Sakharov andother prominent Soviet scientists pub-licly criticized Lysenkoism in the early1960s and eventually broke its hold onSoviet science.

The government of the SovietUnion tolerated Sakharov’s criticismsfor a number of years. By the late1960s, however, Soviet leaders hadbegun cracking down on dissidents notonly in Russia but in other Communistcountries allied with the Soviet Union.In the summer of 1968, as Soviettroops prepared to invade Czechoslova-kia to restore a Communist govern-ment there, Sakharov composed amanifesto that he circulated amongother members of Moscow’s intellectualcommunity.

The 10,000-word document, en-titled “Progress, Coexistence, and Intellectual Freedom,” examined thenumerous dangers that threatened thecontemporary world—“war, hunger, environmental pollution, stultifyingmass culture, and demagogic myths.”Sakharov then went on to argue thatthe only hope of saving the world fromthese dangers lay in cooperation be-tween East and West—between the Soviet Union and other Communistnations of the East, and the UnitedStates and its allies in the West. Final-ly, the document called upon the Sovi-et Union to end its decades-long policy

of suppressing free speech and to initi-ate widespread public debate.

Sakharov and his daring documentbecame internationally known after acopy of it was secretly removed fromRussia and printed in the New YorkTimes in July 1968.

Virtually overnight, Sakharov be-came a hero throughout the non-Communist world for his boldness instanding up to the repressive Sovietregime. The Soviet government re-sponded by ending his defense work,removing him from his top-securitylaboratory, and cutting his salary sub-stantially. However, it still allowed himto keep many of his state benefits, in-cluding a private car and driver, hisMoscow apartment, and a countryhouse. Sakharov was also given accessto a non-defense laboratory and al-lowed to remain a member of theAcademy of Sciences.

Sakharov refused to give up, how-ever. In the mid-1960s he had shiftedhis professional field of interest fromnuclear physics to theoretical studies ofmatter and the origins of the universe,and he continued to write and publisharticles about his findings. He also con-tinued his dissident activities by meet-ing frequently with other protesters inMoscow, by staging vigils outside court-rooms and prisons where political pris-oners were tried and detained, and bywriting open letters to the governmentthat were highly critical of Soviet poli-cy and were publicized abroad.

In November 1970, Sakharov andtwo fellow dissidents announced theformation of the Committee forHuman Rights. Its goal was the actualadoption by the Soviet Union of allthe terms specified in the United Na-tions Universal Declaration of Human

2 0 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Rights. Sakharov’s antigovernment activities further intensified after hismarriage the following year to a fellowdissident, Yelena G. Bonner, a physi-cian. (His first wife, with whom he hadthree children, had died in the late1960s.)

Four years later Sakharov wasnamed the winner of the 1975 NobelPeace Prize for what the Nobel Com-mittee called his “fearless personal com-mitment in upholding the fundamentalprinciples for peace between men.” TheSoviet government refused to letSakharov travel to Oslo to receive theaward but allowed Yelena Bonner to ac-cept it on her husband’s behalf.

The Soviets continued to tolerateSakharov’s dissidence until December1979, when he began a series of publicprotests against the invasion ofAfghanistan by Russian troops. Hecalled upon other countries around theworld to show their disapproval by boy-cotting the upcoming Olympic Games,scheduled for the summer of 1980 inMoscow. This time the governmentmoved to silence Sakharov. In Januaryhe was arrested, informed that he hadbeen stripped of all state honors, andtaken to Gorky, an isolated settlement250 miles east of Moscow. There hewas kept in detention and isolated fromthe world for nearly seven years.

During Sakharov’s exile he becamean international symbol of protest andcourage. Despite constant surveillanceby security police, Sakharov managedto write an account of his experience,together with another lengthy criticismof the Soviet regime. Called “A Timeof Anxiety,” the document was smug-gled out of the country and eventuallypublished in the New York Times. Backin Moscow, Yelena Bonner kept alive

the hopes of the dissidents until she,too, was sent to Gorky in 1984.

The political climate in the SovietUnion began to change a year later,when Mikhail Gorbachev became thecountry’s leader. Gorbachev indicatedthat he wanted to make changes in theSoviet Union so that it would be lessrepressive and more open to public de-bate and to change. As one gesture inthis direction, he freed Sakharov andhis wife from exile in December 1986.

Back in Moscow, Sakharov re-sumed his scientific research. At thesame time he assumed an active role inencouraging the liberalization of theSoviet system under Gorbachev. Hewas elected to the newly formed Con-gress of Peoples’ Deputies, where hecontinued to call for the democratiza-tion of the Soviet Union.

Sakharov had suffered for manyyears from a heart ailment, which hadworsened during his years in exile, andhe died suddenly in December 1989 ofa heart attack. At his death he wasmourned throughout the world as the“conscience” of the Soviet Union andhailed for his tireless campaign on be-half of human rights.


Bonner, Yelena. Alone Together. Translatedby Alexander Cook. New York: Knopf,1986.

LeVert, Suzanne. The Sakharov File. NewYork: Julian Messner, 1986.

Lozansky, Edward D., ed. Andrei Sakharovand Peace. New York: Avon, 1985.

Sakharov, Andrei. Memoirs. Translated byRichard Lourie. New York: Knopf, 1990.

A N D R E I S A K H A R O V • 2 0 9

AndreiSakharovB O R N

May 21, 1921Moscow, Russia

D I E D

December 14, 1989Moscow, Russia

E D U C AT I O N

B.A. (1942), Ph.D. (1948), MoscowUniversity

O C C U PAT I O N

Nuclear physicist


Helped modernize Russian scientificstudies (1960s); author of the mani-festo “Progress, Coexistence, andIntellectual Freedom” (1968),which urged cooperation betweenEast and West; founded Committeefor Human Rights (1970)


ne day in August 1976 in a working-classneighborhood of Belfast, Northern Ireland, agetaway car driven by a member of the IrishRepublican Army (IRA) went out of controland crashed into an iron railing, killing

three young children and seriously injuring their mother.This tragedy was the consequence of yet another confronta-tion between the IRA and British troops who were trying torestore order to a city and country wracked by civil war. Oneof the witnesses to the tragedy was a passerby named BettyWilliams. She was so horrified that she determined to devotewhat time she could to restoring peace to her troubled city.She immediately set out to collect signatures on a petitioncalling for an end to hostilities between the IRA and theBritish-controlled government of Northern Ireland.

The incident also touched another woman deeply:Mairead (pronounced MAH-raid) Corrigan, the sister of theinjured woman, Anne Maguire, and the aunt of the three

2 1 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Betty Williams, cofounder with Mairead Corrigan of Peace Peo-ple.They established the organization to end the long conflict inNorthern Ireland between Protestants and Catholics.

OMairead CorriganBettyWilliams

Y1 9 7 6

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dead children. A grieving Corrigan ap-peared on television the next day andcondemned the IRA for the violencethat had led to the death of her rela-tives. Two nights later she saw BettyWilliams read her petition on anothertelevision newscast, and she immedi-ately called Mrs. Williams and invitedher to the funeral. Together the two or-ganized a protest march of some 10,000women from Andersontown, where thedeaths had occurred, to the grave sites.Thus a peace movement was launchedthat resulted a year later in the award-ing of the Nobel Peace Prize to Corrig-an and Williams.

The origins of “the troubles”—thename that the Irish have given to theirlong civil war in the north—reachback into history, perhaps as far as thefirst invasions of Ireland by the Englishin the 12th century. Through the cen-turies the Irish resisted rule by GreatBritain, and by the late 1800s a strongmovement for independence hadgained momentum, led by an organiza-tion called the Irish Republican Army.Bloody uprisings in the early 1900s ledGreat Britain to divide the countryinto northern and southern Ireland in1921, each with its own parliament.The division, or partition, also separat-ed the island of Ireland along religiouslines: nearly all residents in the south-ern part are Roman Catholic, whiletwo-thirds of the residents of the northare Protestant.

When the 1921 division occurred,southern Ireland became an indepen-dent country, the Irish Free State,though its status as a dominion ofGreat Britain continued its ties to thatcountry. Sixteen years later the IrishFree State changed its name to Eire; in1948 it severed all ties with GreatBritain and became an independent re-public.

Since the 1921 division, NorthernIreland has been part of the UnitedKingdom, which also includes England,Scotland, and Wales. However, the Re-

public of Ireland has continued to in-sist that Northern Ireland is part of therepublic and that the country should bereunited.

After the division, the Irish Repub-lican Army continued to call for com-plete independence, and it remainedactive in both the north and the south.The IRA’s advocacy of violence andterrorism to achieve its ends caused itto be outlawed in 1939 by governmentsin both parts of the island. The IRAthen became an underground terroristorganization, dedicated to endingBritish rule in Northern Ireland.

The IRA and its supporters havetraditionally been Catholic and haveclaimed that they are working to im-prove working and living conditionsfor the mostly poor minority Catholicpopulation in Northern Ireland. TheIRA’s campaign against British domina-tion intensified in 1968 and thereafterwith demonstrations, bombings, andsniper shootings; it has continued, withbrief cease-fires, for nearly threedecades.

In response to IRA terrorism, mili-tant Protestant groups formed in thenorth and began conducting a terroristcampaign of their own. By the summerof 1976, when tragedy united BettyWilliams and Mairead Corrigan in aquest for peace, violence in NorthernIreland caused by confrontations be-tween Catholics, Protestants, andBritish troops had killed hundreds ofpeople, injured thousands, and de-stroyed millions of dollars’ worth ofproperty.

After their meeting at the funeral,Mairead Corrigan and Betty Williamsdiscovered that they had much in com-mon. They were both RomanCatholics from working-class back-grounds, they had been born only ayear apart in Belfast, and they had be-come office workers before completingsecondary school.

Mairead Corrigan was born in1944 to a window cleaner and his wife;

C O R R I G A N & W I L L I A M S • 2 1 1

Mairead CorriganB O R N

January 27, 1944Belfast, Northern Ireland

E D U C AT I O N

Business school

O C C U PAT I O N

Secretary


Cofounder, Peace People (1976), anorganization dedicated to ending vi-olence in Northern Ireland


she was the second of seven children.She left school at the age of 14 becauseher father could not afford to pay forfurther schooling. She supported her-self as a babysitter while attendingbusiness classes and eventually washired by the Guinness brewing compa-ny, where she rose to become privatesecretary to a director of the firm.

Corrigan’s memories of growing upin Belfast include fears of both the IRAand the British, and she claims that shewas never interested in Irish reunifica-tion. However, although she never feltanti-Catholic discrimination personal-ly, she believes that many Catholics inthe north are treated as second-classcitizens.

Betty Williams has similar feelings.She was the elder of two daughtersborn to a Catholic butcher namedSmyth and his Protestant wife, a wait-ress, in 1943. After her mother wasparalyzed by a stroke when Betty was13, she had to run the household her-self and care for her younger sister.Betty Williams remembers being

brought up in a spirit of tolerance byboth her father and her maternalgrandfather, a Polish Jew who had lostmost of his family in Europe duringWorld War II.

Like Mairead Corrigan, BettySmyth Williams attended Catholicschools and had few opportunities tomeet Protestant children. As a teenag-er she took classes at a secretarialschool in Belfast and was employed atvarious office jobs. She married RalphWilliams, an engineer in the merchantmarine and a Protestant, when she was18, and for several years she traveledwith her husband before they returnedto Belfast.

Betty Williams acknowledges thatfor a while she felt some sympathy forthe IRA in the ongoing civil war butgradually came to realize that violenceby either side could not be approved.In 1972 she decided to join Witness forPeace, an organization founded by aProtestant clergyman to bringCatholics and Protestants closer to-gether and to demonstrate for an endto violence.

Williams found herself drawn per-sonally into the conflict a year later,when she witnessed the sniper shootingof a British soldier on a Belfast street.When she rushed over to comfort thedying man, local women screamed ather that she had no business offeringcompassion to “the enemy.”

Although Mairead Corrigan wasbusy with a full-time job in the late1960s and 1970s, she spent much ofher free time doing volunteer work inthe poorest sections of Belfast. Shehelped set up a nursery school and or-ganized recreational facilities, and herwork brought her in contact with both

2 1 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Mairead Corrigan continues to work withPeace People in its efforts to bring an endto religious strife in Northern Ireland.

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Catholic and Protestant religious lead-ers. In 1972 Corrigan joined a localProtestant minister and attended ameeting of the World Council ofChurches in Thailand. A year later shetraveled to Russia for a Catholic orga-nization to make a film on religion inthat country. Throughout the early1970s, Corrigan witnessed confronta-tions between the IRA and Britishtroops, and she frequently visited jailedIRA members to persuade them to re-nounce violence.

In the aftermath of the tragic inci-dent in August 1976 that broughtMairead Corrigan and Betty Williamstogether, both women decided to cre-ate an organization devoted to bringinglasting peace to Ireland. With the helpof Ciaran McKeown, a journalist, theyfounded Peace People. McKeown sug-gested the organization’s name andplanned its strategy, composed a state-ment of its purpose called “Declarationof Peace,” and also wrote a pamphletthat Peace People distributed calledThe Price of Peace.

In late August 1976, Peace Peopleorganized its first public event, a marchfrom Catholic to Protestant sectors inBelfast to dramatize the cause of peace.Some 35,000 people participated, andother marches throughout NorthernIreland followed. Peace People and itstwo women founders became celebrat-ed all over the world for their heroism,and by mid-autumn they were men-tioned as obvious choices for that year’sNobel Peace Prize. However, PeacePeople had been founded after theNobel Committee’s deadline, and whenthe committee decided that there wereno other deserving candidates for thatyear’s award, it postponed the naming

of a winner. A group of Norwegiancivic leaders and journalists then estab-lished what they called the “NorwegianPeople’s Peace Prize” and raised$340,000 in private donations forPeace People. Williams and Corrigantraveled to Oslo in late November toaccept the prize.

In the following months, Williamsand Corrigan carried the nonviolentmessage of Peace People to other citiesin the United Kingdom and to coun-tries throughout the world, where theymade speeches and led more marchesand demonstrations. They were fre-quently threatened with death by ter-rorists on both sides of the conflict,and on several occasions they were setupon and beaten. Despite this, theycarried on and were encouraged by re-ports that violent acts related to theconflict had been reduced by morethan half by the late summer of 1977.

In the fall of 1977, Mairead Corrig-an and Betty Williams were named thewinners of the 1976 Nobel Peace Prizeat the same time that the 1977 awardto Amnesty International was an-nounced. The citation from the NobelCommittee praised the women for theircourage and for giving “fresh hope topeople who believed that all hope wasgone.” In accepting the award, bothwomen expressed regret that CiaranMcKeown, the cofounder of Peace Peo-ple, had not been named as a corecipi-ent, and they later shared part of the$140,000 cash award with him.

After winning the Peace Prize,Corrigan and Williams continued thework they had begun with Peace Peo-ple. They established programs to helpsurvivors of terrorist attacks, assist victims of violence in claiming com-

C O R R I G A N & W I L L I A M S • 2 1 3

BettyWilliamsB O R N

May 22, 1943Belfast, Northern Ireland

E D U C AT I O N

Secretarial school

O C C U PAT I O N

Office worker


Cofounder, Peace People (1976), anorganization dedicated to ending vi-olence in Northern Ireland


pensation from the government, buildcommunity centers in poor neighbor-hoods, and restore damaged businessesand schools. They also sponsored acampaign in which terrorists were per-suaded to surrender their weapons.Peace People raised more than $5 mil-lion to support these programs fromdonors throughout the world in thefirst few years after its founding.

Corrigan and Williams receivedother awards as well for their work withPeace People. These included the Carlvon Ossietzky Prize from the FederalRepublic of Germany and honorarydoctorates from Yale University.

Corrigan, Williams, and McKeownresigned from the staff of Peace Peoplein April 1978 in order to let others as-sume leadership roles in the organiza-tion. McKeown returned to his careeras a journalist, but Corrigan has con-tinued to participate in Peace Peopleactivities as director of an allied organi-zation, Peace People’s Commitment toActive Non-Violence. One of hermajor efforts is the establishment ofvolunteer work camps that bringCatholic and Protestant youths together.

After the death of Corrigan’s sisterAnne Maguire, who had lost three ofher children in the 1976 incident, Cor-rigan married her brother-in-law JackMaguire in 1981. She lives in Belfastwith her husband, their two sons, and

three stepchildren, and is known asMairead Corrigan-Maguire.

After continuing to work withPeace People for several years, BettyWilliams broke off contact with the or-ganization. However, she has contin-ued to be active in various politicalcauses and describes herself as “workingfor peace.” She divorced her first hus-band in 1982 and married an Ameri-can named T. J. Perkins. Today BettyWilliams Perkins lives in Florida withher second husband and her two chil-dren from her first marriage.


Boyd, A. “Everywhere but Ireland: Successof the Peace People.” Nation, April 16,1977, pp. 453–56.

“Corrigan, Mairead.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1978. New York: H. W. Wilson,1979.

Deutsch, Richard. Mairead Corrigan andBetty Williams. New York: Barron’s, 1977.

“Williams, Betty [Smyth].” In Current Biog-raphy Yearbook 1979. New York: H. W.Wilson, 1980.

2 1 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

n November 1960, a lawyer in London named PeterBenenson read a newspaper story that made himangry. The story described the plight of two stu-dents in Portugal who had committed the “crime”of drinking a toast to freedom in their dictator-led

country. They had been arrested and sentenced to sevenyears in prison.

Benenson, who had given legal assistance to politicalprisoners in Cyprus, Hungary, South Africa, and Spain dur-ing the 1950s, was outraged. To protest the action, he orga-nized a mass letter-writing campaign directed at Portugal’sdictator, Antonio Salazar. That campaign grew into a year-long effort—organized by Benenson and two associates, EricBaker and Louis Blom-Cooper—to publicize the plight ofmen and women throughout the world who had been im-prisoned for their political or religious beliefs. The effort wascalled Appeal for Amnesty, and it was launched on May 28,1961, through an article written by Benenson in the Observ-er, a London newspaper. (An amnesty is an official govern-ment pardon of a prisoner or prisoners.)

Benenson’s article attracted worldwide attention, andinquiries began pouring into his London office from peoplewho wanted to know what they could do to help. This over-whelming response led Benenson and his associates to turntheir yearlong appeal into a permanent organization dedi-cated to defending political and religious prisoners through-out the world. In July 1961 they met in Luxembourg withrepresentatives from Great Britain, the United States, Ire-land, Belgium, France, and Switzerland and foundedAmnesty International. Peter Benenson was elected its firstdirector-general.

A M N E S T Y I N T E R N A T I O N A L • 2 1 5

Amnesty International

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The logo of Amnesty International features a lighted candle ofhope emerging from a circlet of barbed wire.The organization,founded in 1961, defends political and religious prisoners.

I

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The new organization, staffed byvolunteer attorneys, began work imme-diately. One of its first cases was that ofJosef Beran, the archbishop of Prague,who had been imprisoned for giving asermon that criticized the Communist-run Czechoslovakian government. Irishpolitical leader Seán MacBride, whohad helped found Amnesty Interna-tional and now worked as one of itsstaff attorneys, was sent to Prague tosecure Beran’s release. MacBride even-tually persuaded Czech authorities tofree Beran as well as four other impris-oned bishops.

Amnesty International did notpublicize its success, however, nor hasit publicized the thousands of releases ithas secured since then. Since its found-ing, the organization has operatedunder the principle that governments

are more likely to free political prison-ers if they can do so quietly. (Govern-ments are usually reluctant to admitpublicly that they jail citizens on politi-cal or religious grounds.)

During the 1960s, Amnesty Inter-national succeeded in freeing thou-sands of political prisoners in Africa,Europe, and Asia as hundreds of chap-ters of the organization were estab-lished worldwide. In the early 1970s,Amnesty International launched acampaign to end torture and ensurehumane treatment of political and reli-gious prisoners. Campaign workers col-lected more than a million signatureson a petition calling for the outlawingof torture and submitted the petition tothe UN General Assembly in 1973.Four years later, Amnesty Inter-national proclaimed 1977 “Prisoners

2 1 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

A demonstration by Amnesty Internation-al volunteers protests the abusive treat-ment of political prisoners in Paraguay.

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of Conscience Year” to focus attentionon the many women and men through-out the world imprisoned for their personal beliefs, language, or ethnicorigin.

In the fall of 1977, Amnesty Inter-national was named the winner of thatyear’s Nobel Peace Prize for its serviceson behalf of human rights. In makingthe award, the Nobel Committee citedthe organization for contributing toworld peace by defending human digni-ty and opposing torture, violence, anddegradation.

Not long after the award cere-monies, Amnesty International spon-sored a conference in Stockholm, Sweden, on capital punishment (thedeath penalty). At its conclusion, astatement was issued that denouncedgovernment-ordered executions. Twoyears later, Amnesty International pub-lished a summary report of the confer-ence entitled The Death Penalty, whichwas circulated throughout the worldand which called for an end to capitalpunishment.

In the years since winning theNobel Peace Prize, Amnesty Interna-tional has continued to championhuman rights and to oppose govern-ment denial of those rights. In addi-tion to helping free thousands of polit-ical prisoners, it has sponsored majorcampaigns to call attention to the activities of repressive politicalregimes, including torture, and to end international arms traffic by these regimes. Amnesty Internationalalso sponsors so-called adoptiongroups, individuals who band togetherto work for the release of a politicalprisoner. Thousands of these adoption

groups are currently active throughoutthe world.

Headquartered in London,Amnesty International has thousandsof members throughout the world whopay dues that contribute to the supportof the organization. Amnesty Interna-tional is also funded by private grants,and much of its work is accomplishedby legal experts who volunteer theirservices.


Andrus, Beth, and Sonia A. Rosen, eds.The Universal Declaration of Human Rights,1948–1988: Human Rights, the United Na-tions, and Amnesty International. New York:AIUSA Legal Support Network, 1988.

Bronson, Marsha. Amnesty International.Morristown, N.J.: New DiscoveryBooks/Silver Burdett, 1994.

Power, Jonathan. Amnesty International:The Human Rights Story. New York: Mc-Graw-Hill, 1981.

A M N E S T Y I N T E R N A T I O N A L • 2 1 7

Amnesty InternationalF O U N D E R S

Peter Benenson, Eric Baker, andLouis Blom-Cooper

DAT E A N D P L AC E O FF O U N D I N G

1961Luxembourg


London, England

P U R P O S E

Human rights organization that defends prisoners jailed for their political or religious beliefs


Has secured the release of thou-sands of prisoners around the worldwho were jailed for their personalbeliefs


rom the time he was a small child growing upin a Jewish family in Poland, MenachemBegin (pronounced BAY-gin) was aware ofanti-Semitism—prejudice against Jews. Thatprejudice took a violent turn in 1920, during

the Russo-Polish War, when Menachem was only sevenyears old. At that time he and his family witnessed scenes ofextreme brutality against Jews in their hometown of BrestLitovsk, where Menachem Begin was born in 1913. His fa-ther, one of the leaders of the Jewish communal organizationin the town, said over and over again that the only way forJews to survive was to return to Israel, the land of their an-cestors in the Middle East.

For centuries Jews had dreamed of re-creating the an-cient nation of Israel, which had fallen to the Romans in the2nd century A.D. After the fall, the Jewish people migratedto Europe and eventually to other parts of the world. How-ever, a small Jewish community remained in the area, whichwas renamed Palestine. It was controlled by the Romansuntil the 7th century A.D. and then by a series of Arab rulersuntil the second decade of the 20th century.

For nearly 2,000 years, as Jews faced persecutionthroughout the world, they dreamed of returning one day to their homeland. In the late 19th century, the politicalmovement known as Zionism was founded in Europe tofocus those dreams. Leaders of the Zionist movement en-couraged Jews to immigrate to Palestine, and they called re-peatedly for the formal establishment of a new Jewish stateof Israel there.

By the early 1900s hundreds of Jews had migrated toPalestine, but they were considered outsiders: the region hadbeen ruled for 400 years by the Ottoman Empire, whose reli-gion was Islam. Then, in 1917, the Zionist cause received aboost: in that year, the control of Palestine passed to GreatBritain, and the British government pledged to create ahomeland there for Jews.

Menachem Begin took his father’s words seriously anddetermined that one day he would “return to Israel.” His first step in that direction was to join a local Zionist scoutingorganization when he was only 10 years old; the group pre-pared children for life on a kibbutz, or farm settlement inPalestine.

During the 1920s, as negotiations continued on the es-tablishment of a politically independent Jewish state inPalestine, Begin attended a Hebrew primary school and aPolish secondary school in Brest Litovsk. In 1929, while stillin secondary school, he joined Betar, a militant youth orga-nization with Zionist connections that demanded the imme-

2 1 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

FMenachemBeginAnwar Sadat

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diate creation of the new Israel. Beginentered the University of Warsaw in1931 to study law and a year later be-came the head of a division withinBetar. He worked part time as a tutorto pay his expenses and helped found a Jewish student defense group on the campus.

Begin received his law degree in1935, and in early 1936 he moved toCzechoslovakia to head the Betar orga-nization there. He returned to Polandin 1938 and early the following yearbecame the head of Polish Betar. TheBetar leadership was becoming increas-ingly impatient with the British gov-ernment for not moving more quicklyto keep its promise of creating a Jewishstate. That promise had been post-poned because there was considerableopposition from Arabs in Palestine,and that opposition had been expressedin frequent violent clashes with Jewishsettlers.

In the spring of 1939, the Britishgovernment enacted a series of mea-sures to restrict Jewish immigration toPalestine in order to prevent more vio-lence. These restrictions were an-nounced in the midst of intense perse-cution of Jews in Germany, many ofwhom had tried without success toenter Palestine. Begin responded to thenew restrictions by leading a massprotest by Betar members outside theBritish embassy in Warsaw. He was ar-rested by Polish police and spent sever-al months in prison. In late August, asGerman troops began their invasion ofPoland—the beginning of World WarII—Begin escaped and fled to Vilnius,Lithuania, with his wife, whom he hadmarried earlier that year, and a group ofBetar members.

After several months in Vilnius,Begin hoped to lead the group on toPalestine, but he was prevented fromdoing so when the Soviet Union an-nexed Lithuania in July 1940. The newCommunist government did not trustBegin or the Betar organization, and

Begin was arrested. He was sentencedto eight years of hard labor and sent toa work camp in the Siberian Arctic.However, when Germany attacked theSoviet Union in 1941, Begin and otherPolish prisoners were released to servein a newly formed Polish army. Laterthat year, Begin’s unit was sent toAmman, a city in the Middle Easterncountry of Transjordan. In May 1942he entered Palestine, where he becamehead of the Betar organization in thecity of Jerusalem.

By 1943 Begin had been dis-charged from the Polish army, and inDecember of that year he became com-mander of the Irgun, a paramilitaryZionist force. The Irgun had engagedin sabotage against British rule prior tothe outbreak of World War II, but afterthe war began in 1939 they had coop-erated with British authorities to op-pose their common enemy, Germany.

By the early 1940s, millions of Jewswere being imprisoned and killed bythe Germans in countries they now oc-cupied throughout Europe. When theIrgun learned of this, it began to take ahard-line stand against the British inPalestine, demanding that they end re-strictions on Jewish immigration andimmediately create an independentJewish state. When these demandswere not met, the Irgun declared waron the British administration in Pales-tine in early 1944, which earned themcondemnation by both the Jewish lead-ership in Palestine and the WorldZionist Organization.

The British responded by crackingdown on the Irgun, and Begin had toconceal his identity when it becameknown that the British had offered upto $50,000 for his capture, dead oralive. For several years he directed theIrgun’s operations while living under avariety of disguises in the cities of TelAviv and Jerusalem. He commanded a guerrilla force of some 2,000 mem-bers, and during a three-year period(1944–47) was responsible for a series

B E G I N & S A D A T • 2 1 9

MenachemBeginB O R N

August 16, 1913Brest Litovsk, Poland (now Brest,Belarus)

D I E D

March 9, 1992Tel Aviv, Israel

E D U C AT I O N

Master of Jurisprudence, Universityof Warsaw (1935)

O C C U PAT I O N

Political leader


Cosigned the Camp David Accords,a two-part peace agreement be-tween Israel and Egypt (1978)


of attacks, including the bombing ofthe King David Hotel in Jerusalem,which killed many civilians as well as soldiers.

Begin was later criticized for theseactivities and branded a terrorist evenby many of his fellow Jews, but heclaimed that the actions of the Irgunwere necessary to call attention to theplight of the Jewish people. Some 6million Jews had been killed by theGermans before the war ended in1945—including Begin’s parents andbrother.

In 1946 control of Palestine passedfrom Great Britain to the United Na-tions, and in December 1947 the UNdecided to partition (divide) Palestineinto separate sections for Jews andArabs. Following this decision theIrgun ended its secret operations. It wasreorganized as a regular military unitand joined forces with Haganah, thelong-established militia maintained bythe Jewish community in Palestine.

In May 1948 the Jewish state of Is-rael declared its independence. Howev-er, the celebrations were overshadowedby an act of violence that had occurreda month earlier, when Haganah andIrgun forces, which included Begin, at-tacked an Arab village in Palestine andkilled 250 civilians. This was anothercloud over Begin’s head, and like thebombing of the King David Hotel, itwould haunt him for the rest of his life.

Begin was opposed to the moremoderate political leader David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister andthe leader of the Labor party. In thesummer of 1948 Begin and his associ-ates formed a new political party, theHerut (Freedom), and he became itschairman. In 1949 he was elected to a seat in the Knesset, the Israeli parliament.

In 1952 Ben-Gurion announcedthat he wanted to negotiate with theWest German government for warreparations (payments for damages orproperty loss). Begin was strongly op-

posed to any dealings whatsoever withGermany, and he staged a majorprotest demonstration in Jerusalem.The demonstration turned into a riot,and Ben-Gurion had to call out thearmy to restore order. As a conse-quence, Begin was suspended from hisseat in parliament for 15 months.

Despite this setback, Begin contin-ued to increase his political power as heworked to enlarge the membership ofHerut. Under his direction it grew toinclude not only middle-class membersbut also many from the working class,and it became the second largest partyin Israel, after the Labor party. By themid-1960s, Begin had become chair-man of a coalition (temporary merging)of Herut and the Liberal party, and hewas recognized as the leader of the op-position to the Labor party.

In June 1967 the so-called Six-DayWar occurred between Egypt and Israel,during which Israel seized Arab-heldterritories along its borders. The warended with a UN-negotiated cease-fire,but the territories remained in Israel’spossession. Many Israelis were in favorof releasing the territories, but Beginand other political conservatives be-lieved that for reasons of security Israelhad to hold onto two of them: the GazaStrip and the West Bank of the JordanRiver. Begin emerged as the leader ofthis coalition of conservatives, whichbecame known as Likud (Unity).

Likud became a strong force in Is-raeli politics and helped elect YitzhakRabin as premier in 1974. Three yearslater Likud gained full control of thegovernment and Begin became primeminister. Upon taking office in June1977 he immediately announced thatthe main goal of his government waspeace, and he called for talks with theArab governments of Egypt, Jordan,and Syria—countries that had been op-posed to Israel since its founding. Healso expressed an interest in creatingstronger ties with the United Statesand France.

2 2 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin,who had been a terrorist in his youth,made history in 1978 when he met withEgyptian president Anwar Sadat to drawup a peace agreement.

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In November 1977, Egyptian presi-dent Anwar Sadat, a Moslem, made anunexpected gesture of peace to the stateof Israel: he offered to visit Jerusalem.Begin welcomed him openly, and along series of negotiations began on es-tablishing peaceful relations betweenEgypt and Israel. By the summer of1978, however, these negotiationsseemed to be failing, and U.S. PresidentJimmy Carter tried to save them byinviting both men to a conference atCamp David, in rural Maryland.

In August 1978 Begin and Sadatmet at Camp David over a 13-day peri-od and drew up two agreements, “AFramework for Peace in the MiddleEast” and “A Framework for the Con-clusion of a Peace Treaty BetweenEgypt and Israel.” Under these agree-ments, called the Camp David Ac-cords, Israel promised to give backmost of the Sinai Peninsula, a largemass of Egyptian-owned territory thatit had occupied since the Six-Day War.

For their efforts to make peace,Begin and Sadat were awarded the1978 Nobel Peace Prize. In presentingthe award, the Nobel Committee notedthat the Camp David Accords offered“a genuine opportunity for peace in anarea over which the shadow of war hashovered so long.”

Begin continued to serve as Israel’sprime minister for five more years, but during this period further conflictoccurred between Israel and neighbor-ing Arab countries. In 1982 major war-fare followed Israel’s invasion ofLebanon. Begin claimed that he had tosend troops into Lebanon to fightPalestinian guerrillas (guerillas are sol-diers not attached to an official army)who were menacing Israel along itsborder. As the war continued, Israelwas widely criticized for its actions, in-cluding the intensive bombing ofBeirut, the Lebanese capital, andBegin’s popularity declined.

Begin suffered another blow in thefall of 1982 when his wife died while

he was on a trip abroad. Begin began tolose interest in politics during the fol-lowing months, and he finally resignedas prime minister in September 1983.Thereafter Begin lived with one of hisdaughters in Jerusalem and was rarelyseen in public. In March 1992 he diedin a Tel Aviv hospital at the age of 78,a week after suffering a heart attack.

Anwar Sadat, who shared the 1978Nobel Peace Prize with MenachemBegin, also had a military background.Sadat was born in 1918 in the Egyptianvillage of Mît Abu el-Kôm, on the Niledelta. His father was a clerk in a mili-tary hospital, and the family were alldevout Moslems. Although they hadlittle money, Sadat’s parents insistedthat their son receive the best educa-tion possible. After attending a localMoslem primary school, Sadat was sentto secondary school in Cairo, theEgyptian capital.

As he was growing up, Sadat knewthat Egypt was not free and indepen-dent but under the control of theBritish government. Sadat dreamed ofbecoming an army officer, fightingBritish troops who occupied his coun-try, and winning Egypt’s independence.Even after Great Britain gave up muchof its governing authority to Egyptiancontrol in 1936, it still maintained

B E G I N & S A D A T • 2 2 1

Signing the Camp David Accords in Au-gust 1978 (from left): Anwar Sadat; U.S.President Jimmy Carter, who mediatedthe agreement; and Menachem Begin.

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military bases in Egypt and had consid-erable power there. That same year,Sadat was admitted to the AbbassiaMilitary Academy. There he becamefriendly with a fellow student namedGamal Abdel Nasser, who was to playan important role in Sadat’s life.

After graduating from the acade-my in 1938, Sadat and Nasser werecommissioned as army officers and sentto a garrison in northern Egypt. Therethey joined 10 other officers in form-ing a secret revolutionary group dedi-cated to Egyptian liberation. Thatgroup became the nucleus of the FreeOfficers Committee that overthrewKing Farouk of Egypt 14 years later.

Meanwhile, during World War II,which began in 1939, Sadat made sev-eral attempts to collaborate with theGermans in an effort to weakenBritain’s control of Egypt. Despite constant bungling and failure, Sadatpersisted, and in the fall of 1942 he was arrested after trying unsuccess-fully to work with a German spy. Sadat was court-martialed for the incident, dismissed from the army, and imprisoned.

Sadat escaped in November 1944and adopted a variety of disguises as heplotted and carried out further revolu-tionary activities. He was imprisonedagain in 1946, after a series of terroristattacks on pro-British Egyptian offi-cials, and remained behind bars forthree years. After his release in 1949,he worked as a newspaper reporter. In1950, through the intervention of in-fluential friends, he was able to get hisarmy commission restored.

After several years of plotting, the

Free Officers Committee, led by Nass-er, seized control of Egyptian militaryheadquarters on the night of July 22,1952, and demanded the abdication ofKing Farouk. Sadat missed most of theaction because he had been out oftown prior to the incident, but Nassergave him the job of announcing theseizure early the following morning.Sadat also oversaw the departure ofKing Farouk from the country.

During the next few years, an-other of the conspirators, General Mohammed Naguib, acted as the headof Egypt, which proclaimed itself a re-public in 1953. Nevertheless, Nasserremained a powerful force behind thescenes. During this time Sadat servedon the government’s RevolutionaryCommand Council but had little au-thority. In 1954 Naguib resigned andNasser became prime minister; twoyears later he was elected president.

After Nasser came to power, hekept Sadat in a series of minor govern-ment jobs, presumably because theEgyptian leader did not want Sadat togain too much authority. Sadat man-aged to stay in the public eye, however,by being active in the National Union,then the only political organization inEgypt, and he eventually became an of-ficial with the group. That led toSadat’s election in 1961 as president ofthe National Assembly, and he re-mained in that post for seven years.

By the late 1960s Sadat was one ofthe few men left around him that thenow-ailing Nasser trusted, and in 1969Sadat became Nasser’s vice president.In September 1970 Nasser suffered afatal heart attack, and Sadat automati-

2 2 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Anwar Sadat, a longtime Egyptian armyofficer, became president of Egypt in 1970and held that office until his assassinationin 1981.

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cally succeeded him as temporary presi-dent. The following month he wasnominated for the office by the Nation-al Assembly and later won a nationwideelection. During his campaign hepledged to recover Egyptian land lost in the Six-Day War between Israel andEgypt in 1967, even if this meant at-tacking Israel.

Sadat had not played a major rolein the Six-Day War or in the truce thatfollowed. In 1968 Nasser had begunwhat he called a “war of attrition”against Israel, meaning that he wouldtry to wear down that country by anymeans necessary until it gave up Egypt-ian territory. One month before hisdeath, Nasser had agreed to a 90-daycease-fire, which Sadat privately op-posed. However, as president, Sadat ex-tended the cease-fire for another 90days when it expired in November1970. As a consequence, Israel agreedto resume peace talks with Egypt.

Sadat emerged as a popular leaderand was praised for several actions inhis first years in office, including reduc-ing the powers of the secret police andexpelling Russian military advisers.However, by 1973 negotiations with Is-rael had stalled, and Sadat was increas-ingly accused of being ineffective. Atthis point he decided to act on hiscampaign promise to attack Israel.

On October 6, 1973, Sadatlaunched his invasion, joined by thearmy of Syria, one of Egypt’s Arabneighbors. The date of the attack hap-pened to be Yom Kippur, the holiestday in the Jewish religious calendar,and the Israelis were enraged. They im-mediately struck back so strongly that

they drove out the Syrians and went onto invade Egypt. By October 24, theywere within 45 miles of Cairo. Facedwith this threat, Sadat agreed to acease-fire. The U.S. government sentSecretary of State Henry Kissinger tonegotiate a peace settlement. Kissingersucceeded in persuading Israel to returna small portion of Egyptian territory,but months went by without any no-ticeable progress toward peace.

Sadat’s political support sharply de-clined as a series of setbacks occurredduring 1977. When he announced adecision to raise food prices, major riotsfollowed. He was repeatedly unsuccess-ful in his attempts to convene a peaceconference in Geneva, Switzerland (aneutral country), on the Middle East.Finally, the election of the militantMenachem Begin as prime minister ofIsrael threatened a possible Israelitakeover of Egypt.

In November 1977 Sadat decidedto make a bold move. Without notify-ing anyone, including the Egyptianparliament, of his decision, he an-nounced that he was willing to speakpersonally with the leaders of Israel inan effort to establish peace. A weeklater Sadat made his offer more specif-ic: he expressed his willingness to trav-el to Jerusalem for the meeting if Beginwould invite him. Begin quickly re-sponded and on November 19 Sadatwent to Jerusalem.

There Sadat addressed a meetingof the Israeli parliament and listed a series of demands, which included re-turning Arab lands seized in 1967 toEgypt and agreeing to the establish-ment of a homeland for thousands of

B E G I N & S A D A T • 2 2 3

Anwar SadatB O R N

December 25, 1918Mît Abu el-Kôm, Egypt

D I E D

October 6, 1981Cairo, Egypt

E D U C AT I O N

Royal Military Academy (Cairo)

O C C U PAT I O N

Military officer; political leader


Cosigned the Camp David Accords,a two-part peace agreement be-tween Israel and Egypt (1978)


stateless Palestinians in the MiddleEast. In return, Sadat offered both offi-cial diplomatic recognition of Israel byEgypt and permanent peace.

A series of negotiations betweenEgypt and Israel followed Sadat’s ad-dress. By the summer of 1978, howev-er, little progress had been made. Atthis point U.S. President Jimmy Carterinvited Sadat and Begin to meet at hisPresidential retreat in rural Marylandto try to iron out their differences. The 13-day conference at Camp Davidresulted in the production of two his-toric documents, “A Framework forPeace in the Middle East” and “AFramework for the Conclusion of aPeace Treaty with Israel.” Sadat andBegin, once deadly enemies, signedboth documents, the Camp David Ac-cords, on September 17.

Later that fall, Sadat and Beginwere declared cowinners of the 1978Nobel Peace Prize. The Nobel Com-mittee made it clear that in awardingthe prize to these “courageous” men, itwas not only honoring them but alsotrying to encourage the completion ofthe peace process. Popular opinionblamed Begin for delaying the processand cited Sadat as being more deserv-ing of the Peace Prize. Nevertheless,Begin personally attended the cere-monies in Oslo while Sadat sent a rep-resentative to accept his award.

Sadat continued in office for threedifficult years as peace negotiationscontinued. Many Egyptians expressedtheir opposition—often violently—tohis peace overtures to Israel, and by theearly fall of 1981 Sadat had begun a se-vere crackdown on his political oppo-nents. On October 6, 1981, as Sadatwitnessed a military parade in Cairocommemorating the 1973 war against

Israel, he was assassinated by a group ofmen posing as military officers whothrew hand grenades and fired riflesinto the reviewing stand.

Sadat was married twice. By hisfirst wife, a woman from his native vil-lage, he had three daughters. After divorcing her, he married a woman of Egyptian and English ancestry with whom he had a son and threedaughters.

To read more about the ongoingconflict between Israel and its MiddleEast neighbors, see the profile of the1994 Nobel Peace Prize winners on pages 276–82.


Friedlander, Melvin A. Sadat and Begin:The Domestic Politics of Peacemaking. Boul-der, Col.: Westview, 1983.

Gervasi, Frank. The Life and Times of Men-achem Begin. New York: Putnam, 1979.

Hirst, David, and Irene Beeson. Sadat.London: Faber and Faber, 1981.

Rosen, Deborah N. Anwar el-Sadat: MiddleEast Peacemaker. Chicago: Childrens Press,1986.

Sadat, Anwar. In Search of Identity: An Au-tobiography. New York: Harper & Row,1978.

Temko, Ned. To Win or to Die: A PersonalPortrait of Menachem Begin. New York:Morrow, 1987.

2 2 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

ne day in 1946, a Roman Catholic nun wastraveling by train from her convent in Cal-cutta, India, to a religious retreat in thesmall city of Darjeeling. Sitting in the train,she reflected on the sight she had left behind

in Calcutta: on her way to the railway station from the con-vent she had been driven past thousands of beggars, poorand homeless people of all ages dressed in rags and sufferingfrom disease and malnutrition.

The nun had long been aware of the misery that lay out-side her convent walls, for she had seen it often during her18 years in India. But on this particular day the experienceoverwhelmed her. She later recalled that as she sat on thetrain, she received a message from God to leave the conventand devote the rest of her life to helping the poor.

The nun, whose religious name was Mother Teresa, wasborn Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu in 1910 in Skopje, a city inthe Ottoman Empire that later became part of Yugoslaviaand is now part of the independent nation of Macedonia.

M O T H E R T E R E S A O F C A L C U T T A • 2 2 5

Mother Teresa of Calcutta wears the blue-and-white sari that shedesigned as a habit for members of the Missionaries of Charity,the religious order that she founded in 1950.

OMother Teresaof Calcutta(Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu)

Y1 9 7 9

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She was the youngest of three childrenof parents who had come from Albaniaand settled in Skopje. Her father was abuilding contractor and food importerwho was involved in the Albanian na-tionalist movement, and he died whenAgnes was less than a year old.

Agnes Bojaxhiu attended publicschools in Skopje and was active inRoman Catholic youth organizationsfrom an early age. By the time she was12, she knew that she wanted to be-come a foreign missionary, to spreadher religious beliefs in other countries.Three years later, at the age of 15, shelearned of the work of Catholic mis-sionaries in India and decided thatsomeday she would work there, too.

After graduating from secondaryschool, Agnes Bojaxhiu joined the Sis-ters of Loretto, a Roman Catholic

order of Irish nuns who ran a large mis-sion in Calcutta. After training as ateacher in Dublin, Ireland, she went toIndia in 1929.

The young nun adopted Teresa asher religious name in honor of a 19th-century French nun who had spent hershort life joyfully performing menialtasks. She became known as MotherTeresa in the late 1930s, after takingher final vows. She taught at St. Mary’sHigh School in Calcutta for nearly 19years and also served for part of thattime as principal of the school whileliving at the Sisters of Loretto convent.

After Mother Teresa experiencedher call from God on the train that dayin 1946, she applied for permissionfrom the bishop of Calcutta to workoutside the convent. Two years laterthat permission was finally granted,

2 2 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Mother Teresa visits with poor childrenaided by the Missionaries of Charity in thePhilippines.

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and Mother Teresa left St. Mary’s HighSchool to begin her life of helping thepoor.

Mother Teresa became a citizen ofIndia and adopted a new habit: a whitesari similar to those worn by India’spoor, which was trimmed in blue andfastened at the shoulder with a crucifix.She completed an intensive three-month nursing course in Patna, India,and then opened a school in the Cal-cutta slums. In 1950 she founded a newreligious order for women, the Mission-aries of Charity, and many of its firstmembers were former students from St.Mary’s High School. By the mid-1950s,more than two dozen had joined theorder.

The rules of the order were verystrict: members could own only onechange of clothing, had to eat the samediet as the poor people they served,and were required to work 16 hours aday. In addition to her school, MotherTeresa established a home for dyingpeople who had been abandoned onthe streets of Calcutta. Donationshelped her to expand her efforts, andby the early 1960s she had founded anorphanage, a leper colony, a home forthe elderly, a workshop to teach skillsto the unemployed, and shelters forhomeless mothers and children. Shealso set up clinics to provide inocula-tions and medical treatment.

Beginning in the mid-1960s, asMother Teresa’s work attracted morevolunteers, the Missionaries of Charityestablished similar centers for the poorin South America, Africa, Europe, theCaribbean, and North America. In1969 the government of India honoredher for her work, and two years latershe received the Pope John XXIIIPeace Prize from the Roman CatholicChurch.

In the fall of 1979 Mother Teresawas named the winner of that year’sNobel Peace Prize for her devotion tothe poor. In the words of the NobelCommittee, Mother Teresa contributed

to international peace by “bridging thegulf that exists between the rich na-tions and the poor nations” and “by herconfirmation of the inviolability ofhuman dignity.”

In accepting the award, MotherTeresa emphasized her belief that lovehad to be the basis for the establish-ment of peace in the world. She usedthe prize money to build more centersto serve the poor, including homes forlepers.

After winning the Nobel PeacePrize, Mother Teresa continued herwork in both India and other parts ofthe world. She made frequent speechesto publicize the need for greater con-cern for the poor among wealthy nations, including an address to theUnited Nations General Assembly in1985, on the occasion of its 40th an-niversary. She and her order also estab-lished and staffed hospices (hospitalsfor the dying) in large cities, includingNew York, for patients with the fataldisease AIDS.

In the last years of her life, MotherTeresa’s health declined, and in thespring of 1997 she had to retire as headof the Missionaries of Charity. She diedof a heart attack at her convent in Cal-cutta and was honored with a state fu-neral in her adopted country.


Clucas, Joan Graff. Mother Teresa. NewYork: Chelsea House, 1988.

Doig, Desmond. Mother Teresa: Her Peopleand Her Work. New York: Harper & Row,1976.

Le Joly, Edward. Mother Teresa of Calcutta:A Biography. New York: Harper & Row,1985.

Teresa, Mother. Life in the Spirit: Reflec-tions, Meditations, Prayers. New York:Harper & Row, 1983.

———. My Life for the Poor. New York:Harper & Row, 1985.

M O T H E R T E R E S A O F C A L C U T T A • 2 2 7

MotherTeresaof Calcutta(Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu)B O R N

August 27, 1910Skopje, Ottoman Empire (later Yu-goslavia; now Macedonia)

D I E D

September 5, 1997Calcutta, India

E D U C AT I O N

Secondary school

O C C U PAT I O N

Roman Catholic nun; missionary


Founded the Missionaries of Charity, a Roman Catholic religiousorder for women, to help the poorof Calcutta (1950); later expandedher work to cities throughout theworld


culptor and human rights advocate Adolfo PérezEsquivel remembers that as a poor child growingup in his native Argentina he developed a strongpassion for both art and God. His artistic talentwas obvious, and young Adolfo knew that some-

day art would become his vocation. He was also stronglydrawn to religion and read as much as he could about it. Henot only read about his own religion, Roman Catholicism,but also enjoyed works by people of other faiths, includingthe autobiography of the Hindu pacifist Mohandas Gandhi.His interest in religious teachings and his personal faith greweven stronger as he devoted his life to sculpture, and by thetime he was in his mid-30s he decided that his religious be-liefs compelled him to try to ease the suffering of his fellowArgentinians.

The future Nobel Peace Prize-winner was born AdolfoEsquivel in Buenos Aires to a poor Spanish fisherman and

2 2 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Argentinian sculptor Adolfo Pérez Esquivel became the leader ofa nonviolent protest movement in South America after learningof human rights abuses there.

SAdolfo Pérez Esquivel

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his wife who had emigrated to Argenti-na. His father became a traveling sales-man for a coffee company. After hismother’s death, which occurred whenhe was still a small child, Adolfo wastaken in by nuns and priests at a near-by Roman Catholic boarding school.

In addition to showing a talent fordrawing, Adolfo was an excellent read-er and excelled in many school sub-jects. He won a scholarship to a privatesecondary school in Buenos Aires, andafter graduation was awarded anotherscholarship to study at the NationalSchool of Fine Arts of Buenos Airesand La Plata.

Adolfo Esquivel received his di-ploma in 1956, the same year that hemarried Amanda Pérez, a pianist andcomposer. He then combined his wife’slast name with his own. Pérez Esquivelbegan a successful career as a sculptorand professor of art at several institu-tions in Buenos Aires, including theManuel Belgrano National School ofFine Arts. In his work he tried to ex-press such eternal concepts as mother-hood in a form that drew upon SouthAmerica’s Pre-Columbian heritage (theculture that existed before the arrivalof Europeans in the early 16th centu-ry). His sculptures were widely exhibit-ed in Argentina and won a number of awards, and some of them were ac-quired by South America’s leading museums.

By the mid-1960s, however, PérezEsquivel could not ignore the politicalsituation in Argentina. His countryhad been governed harshly by a seriesof military dictatorships for more thana decade, and there were frequentclashes between government troopsand citizens protesting not only the de-nial of civil rights but the terrible eco-nomic conditions in which most of thepopulation lived. Some opponents ofthe government had organized into ter-rorist units and committed violent actsthat were met with equally violent re-sponses from the military.

Other countries in Latin Americawere experiencing similar problems,and a grass-roots movement of priests,nuns, and church members had devel-oped to help the poor in these nations.In 1968, Pérez Esquivel attended a con-ference in Montevideo, Uruguay, wherechurch leaders joined with representa-tives of labor, student, and communitygroups to discuss the political, social,and economic problems that affectedLatin America. The conference tried toidentify ways to make positive changesin these countries through nonviolentmeans. As a consequence, it laid thegroundwork for an organization calledServicio de Paz y Justicia en AméricaLatina, or Service for Peace and Justicein Latin America, which was formallyfounded in 1971 at a second confer-ence in Costa Rica.

In addition to his membership inthis organization, Pérez Esquivel joineda group in Argentina dedicated to theprinciple of “militant nonviolence,”which based its beliefs on the teachingsof Mohandas Gandhi. This group be-came the Argentine branch of Servicefor Peace and Justice, and Pérez Esquivel organized one of its first pro-jects: creating workshops in weaving,carpentry, and ironworking in poorinner-city neighborhoods to teach resi-dents self-supporting skills. These weremodeled after similar workshops thatGandhi had established in India earlierin the century.

Pérez Esquivel’s involvement withService for Peace and Justice includedthe founding of its monthly magazine,Paz y Justicia, and taking part in peace-ful demonstrations to protest terrorism.In 1974 he became director-general ofthe organization, which now had chap-ters throughout Latin America, and es-tablished its official headquarters inBuenos Aires.

Pérez Esquivel resigned his teach-ing position to assume his new role,which involved constant travelingthrough Central and South America

A D O L F O P É R E Z E S Q U I V E L • 2 2 9

Adolfo PérezEsquivelB O R N

November 26, 1931Buenos Aires, Argentina

E D U C AT I O N

Diploma, National School of FineArts of Buenos Aires and La Plata(1956)

O C C U PAT I O N

Sculptor; human rights advocate


Cofounded (1971) the human rightsorganization Service for Peace andJustice and served as its director-general (1974–86); president, Inter-national League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples (1987)


to establish contact among the various far-flung chapters. He helped launchvarious campaigns sponsored by the organization, including support forEcuadorian Indians seeking to reclaimtheir land from the government, andhis activities led to his arrest on several occasions in the mid-1970s. He also traveled to Europe and theUnited States, seeking support for hisorganization.

In Pérez Esquivel’s home country ofArgentina, the political situation hadgrown even worse as a new militarygovernment, which had assumed powerin 1976, cracked down on its oppo-nents with extreme brutality. Tens ofthousands of Argentinians were jailedand tortured by government troops,and many were murdered. Equally re-pressive military governments in Chile,Bolivia, Paraguay, Brazil, and Uruguaywere treating their citizens in a similarbrutal fashion.

In response to this violence, PérezEsquivel led a campaign to publicize theUnited Nations Universal Declarationof Human Rights, a list of fundamentalliberties that governments of UN mem-ber nations—including the countries ofSouth America—had pledged them-selves to observe. Pérez Esquivel calledfor the enforcement of the Declarationof Human Rights throughout LatinAmerica, and he founded an organiza-tion to press for that enforcement inArgentina: the Ecumenical Movementfor Human Rights.

Pérez Esquivel made many publicspeeches that denounced the violence

of the Argentine government, and fi-nally, in early April 1977, he was ar-rested and jailed. Although he wasnever formally charged with any crime,he was told that he was being held as a“subversive.” As soon as news of his ar-rest became known, human rights ad-vocates organized an internationalcampaign to secure his release.

Pérez Esquivel was imprisoned fornearly 15 months, and during that timehe was frequently tortured. He was fi-nally released from prison in late June1978 but kept under house arrest fornine more months. After recoveringfrom his injuries, he resumed his workon behalf of Service for Peace and Jus-tice in early 1980.

By this time, the government hadeased its campaign against its oppo-nents, but some 10,000 to 20,000 Ar-gentine citizens were unaccounted for.They were known as the desaparecidos,or “disappeared ones,” and Pérez Es-quivel took up their cause. He joined alarge group of women who gatheredevery week at the Plaza de Mayo, acentral area in Buenos Aires, to appealpublicly for more information on theirmissing relatives.

For several years, Pérez Esquivelhad been nominated as a candidate forthe Nobel Peace Prize by previous win-ners, including Mairead Corrigan andBetty Williams. Finally, in October1980, he was named the winner of thatyear’s prize. The award was clearly in-tended to draw international supportfor his efforts to aid political prisonersin Argentina. The Argentine govern-

ment was angered by the Nobel Com-mittee’s choice and issued a statementclaiming that Pérez Esquivel had con-tributed to terrorism in the nation.However, elsewhere in the world PérezEsquivel was hailed as a courageouspeacemaker for his efforts on behalf ofhuman rights.

After winning the Nobel PeacePrize, Pérez Esquivel continued his ef-forts to help the women of the Plaza deMayo. Their demonstrations finallyended in 1984, after the governmentacknowledged that some 9,000 citizenshad been illegally imprisoned and exe-cuted. A number of military officerswere arrested and tried for these crimes,and some received prison terms.

Adolfo Pérez Esquivel retired asthe head of Service for Peace and Jus-tice in 1986 and was named honorarypresident, a title he still holds. Since1987 he has been president of the In-ternational League for the Rights andLiberation of Peoples, a worldwidehuman rights organization. He lives inBuenos Aires with his wife, with whomhe has three grown sons.


“Pérez Esquivel, Adolfo.” In Current Biog-raphy Yearbook 1981. New York: H. W.Wilson, 1982.

Pérez Esquivel, Adolfo. Christ in a Poncho:Testimonials of the Nonviolent Struggles inLatin America. Translated by Robert R.Barr. Maryknoll, N.Y.: Orbis, 1983.

2 3 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

n its first three years of operation (1951–54), the Of-fice of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees(UNHCR) aided nearly 2 million refugees, primarilyEuropean, and was awarded the 1954 Nobel PeacePrize for these efforts. The UNHCR continued to

carry out its mission of assisting refugees after receiving thishonor. By the end of 1955, it had resettled three-fourths of allrefugees in Europe—more than half a million people who hadbeen homeless since the end of World War II a decade earli-er. However, there were still an estimated 2.2 million refugeesworldwide who needed the services of the organization.

Less than a year later, another major refugee problemappeared in Europe following the outbreak of revolution inHungary. More than 160,000 Hungarian refugees had fled toneighboring Austria by the end of 1956. Within a few shortmonths, the UNHCR had helped resettle two-thirds ofthem, and it aided the remainder during the following year.

The United Nations declared 1959 World Refugee Year,and the UNHCR responded by making a major effort to resettle refugees who still remained in European camps. It

O F F I C E O F T H E U N H I G H C O M M I S S I O N E R F O R R E F U G E E S • 2 3 1

Office of theUN High Commissionerfor Refugees

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Hungarian refugees gather at a Red Cross center in Austria in early 1957, in the aftermath of the Hungarian revolution that had oc-curred the previous year.Thousands of refugees who fled from Hungary into neighboring countries were resettled with help fromthe Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees.

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undertook another major fund-raisingcampaign and raised millions of dollarsin contributions from public and pri-vate sources throughout the world. In1961 the UNHCR formally separatedits activities into two programs, one forrefugees displaced by World War II andanother for postwar refugees.

The postwar-refugee program facedits first major challenge in Africa shortlyafter its creation, when warfare createdinfluxes of refugees to Togo and theCongo. The UNHCR provided aid toapproximately 150,000 of these refugees,and as a result, many of them were ableto remain in their new countries.

Another challenge for the postwar-refugee program occurred in 1962 inNorth Africa. Algeria had begun itswar for independence from France in1958, and by early 1962 250,000 Al-gerian refugees had fled to Tunisia andMorocco. That spring the UNHCRjoined with the League of Red CrossSocieties to provide food, clothing,medical care, and schooling to theserefugees, and by the end of 1962 theywere able to return to their homes inAlgeria.

By 1963 the UNHCR was able toturn its entire attention from Europe toAfrica and Asia. During the next few

2 3 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Nearly 7 million Pakistani refugees pouredinto India in 1971, fleeing political turmoilin their nation. Many of them were aidedby the Office of the UN High Commis-sioner for Refugees.

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years, the organization aided thousandsof refugees in Mozambique, Senegal,and Ethiopia. In the early 1970s, theUNHCR aided some 10 millionrefugees who had fled to India fromEast Pakistan during that country’s civilwar. (As a consequence of the war, EastPakistan became independent of WestPakistan and was renamedBangladesh.)

Also in the early 1970s, theUNHCR established an ongoing pro-gram to resettle disabled refugees. Inthe mid-1970s the UNHCR helpedclose to half a million refugees in vari-ous African nations return to theirhomes in Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique,and Angola after these countries gainedtheir independence from Portugal.

A major refugee problem occurredin Southeast Asia following the end ofthe Vietnam War in 1975, and it re-ceived much of the UNHCR’s atten-tion during the next decade. Severalhundred thousand so-called Boat Peo-ple fled Vietnam by sea, seeking refugein Malaysia, Hong Kong, Indonesia,and Thailand. Many died before reach-ing their destinations, but many morecrowded into these already overpopu-lated countries and filled hundreds oftemporary camps.

While attempting to offer aid tothese refugees, the UNHCR estab-lished the Orderly Departures Programwith the government of Vietnam inMay 1979. Under this program, Viet-namese were provided with both exitvisas and, if they qualified, entry visasfor admittance to another country.Many did not qualify, however, and theexodus of Boat People continued.

While the UNHCR was devotingits full attention to the refugee problemin Southeast Asia, it was awarded asecond Nobel Peace Prize in 1981. The

prize was given not only for theUNHCR’s many accomplishments butalso to call attention to the continuingplight of refugees all over the world.

In the years following receipt of itssecond Peace Prize, the UNHCR hascontinued to assist refugees around theworld. During the early 1980s it re-mained focused on refugees in South-east Asia, and by 1986 more than100,000 Vietnamese had been resettledunder the Orderly Departures Program.In the mid-1980s the UNHCR turnedits attention again to Africa to aidthousands of Ethiopians who had fledto Somalia and Sudan following afamine in their country. Most were ableto return to Ethiopia after receivingemergency assistance as well as live-stock, tools, and seeds.

In the last decade the UNHCRhas helped millions of refugees fleeingturmoil in Central America, Africa,and Asia, despite the fact that it hashad fewer resources in recent years. Asit looks ahead to the 21st century, theOffice of the UN High Commissionerfor Refugees intends to aid peoplethroughout the world who need its ser-vices. However, the UNHCR—facedwith having to run its programs ontighter budgets—hopes that politicalsolutions can be found to many futurecrises before they produce large refugeepopulations.


Holborn, L. Refugees: A Problem of OurTime. 2 vols. Metuchen, N.J.: ScarecrowPress, 1975.

“Office of the United Nations High Com-missioner for Refugees.” In Nobel PrizeWinners. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987.

O F F I C E O F T H E U N H I G H C O M M I S S I O N E R F O R R E F U G E E S • 2 3 3

Office of theUN HighCommissionerfor RefugeesF O U N D E R S

Founded by the United Nations as asuccessor to the InternationalRefugee Organization

DAT E A N D P L AC E O F F O U N D I N G



Geneva, Switzerland

P U R P O S E

To aid refugees throughout theworld by providing them with mate-rial and legal assistance and perma-nent settlement

M A J O R AC C O M P L I S H M E N T S ,1 9 5 4 – 1 9 8 1

Resettled nearly half a million Eu-ropean refugees remaining fromWorld War II; aided 160,000refugees fleeing Hungarian Revolu-tion (1956–57); sponsored major re-lief programs in North Africa(1962), Central Africa (mid-1960sand mid-1970s), India (early1970s), and Southeast Asia (1975onward) that aided more than 12million refugees


hen he was a boy, the future Mexicandiplomat Alfonso García Robleswanted very much to become a priest,a goal that his parents encouraged. Asa teenager, however, García Robles

became convinced that he could help people more by join-ing his country’s foreign service and becoming a diplomat.His decision to study law and international relations at theNational University of Mexico—instead of enrolling at aseminary to be trained as a priest—was justified many yearslater when he won the 1982 Nobel Peace Prize.

Alfonso García Robles was born into a prosperous familyin Zamora, the capital of the Mexican state of Michoacán,in 1911. After attending local private schools, he enrolled atthe National University in Mexico City and graduated in1933. For five years, beginning in early 1934, he did gradu-ate work in international law abroad, first at the Universityof Paris and then at the International Law Academy at TheHague, the Netherlands. In 1939, while still in Europe, hejoined the Mexican foreign service and was sent to the Mex-ican embassy in Stockholm for two years.

García Robles returned to Mexico City in 1941 to become head of the government’s Department of Inter-national Organizations. Over the next few years he rose toa higher post, director-general of political affairs and thediplomatic service. In 1945 he traveled to San Francisco aspart of the Mexican delegation to the conference thatfounded the United Nations. A year later he was given aleave of absence to serve as director of the UN Secretariat’sDivision of Political Affairs, and he remained in this postfor 11 years.

García Robles returned to Mexico City in 1957 to be-come head of the Department for Europe, Asia, and Africawithin the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. In his five years ofservice there he represented Mexico at several importantconferences on international law. García Robles’s next as-signment was in Brazil, where he served as Mexico’s ambas-sador from 1962 to 1964.

Shortly after García Robles’s appointment to his Brazil-ian post, the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis occurred follow-ing the discovery by the U.S. government that the SovietUnion had installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, off the coastof Florida. After tense negotiations, the U.S. governmentpersuaded Soviet authorities to remove the missiles, andwarfare was avoided. However, the incident alarmed othergovernments in the western hemisphere, and García Roblescalled upon Latin American nations to sign a treaty estab-lishing the region as a nuclear-free zone—in other words,

2 3 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

WAlfonsoGarcía RoblesAlva Myrdal

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pledging themselves to forbid any nu-clear weapons within their borders.

In April 1963 the heads of Bolivia,Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, and Mexicosigned a declaration that endorsed thisproposal, and in November of the sameyear the United Nations General As-sembly adopted a resolution supportingsuch a treaty. However, by 1964, whenGarcía Robles returned to Mexico Cityto become undersecretary for foreignaffairs, he was dismayed that nothingfurther had been done to create thetreaty. That November he called a con-ference of Latin American diplomats inMexico City for the purpose of drawingup the nuclear-free-zone agreement.

Following the conference, a seriesof negotiations among Latin Americangovernment leaders occurred for morethan two years. Finally, in February1967, a final draft of the treaty—which

García Robles coauthored—was ap-proved. Called the Treaty for the Pro-hibition of Nuclear Weapons in LatinAmerica, or the Treaty of Tlatelolco—it was signed on February 14 by repre-sentatives of 14 Latin American na-tions at Tlatelolco Plaza, the site of theForeign Affairs Ministry in MexicoCity. Later, 10 more Latin Americannations signed the treaty. In addition,the United States, Great Britain, theSoviet Union, the People’s Republic ofChina, France, and the Netherlandssigned separate agreements to thetreaty, called protocols, in which theypledged that they would never intro-duce weapons into Latin America oruse them in the region.

In the latter part of 1967, GarcíaRobles led the Mexican delegation tothe United Nations disarmament con-ference in Geneva, Switzerland. There

G A R C Í A R O B L E S & M Y R D A L • 2 3 5

Alfonso García RoblesB O R N

March 20, 1911Zamora, Mexico

E D U C AT I O N

L.L.B., National University of Mex-ico (1933); graduate study in law,University of Paris and Internation-al Law Academy, The Hague(1934–39)

O C C U PAT I O N

Diplomat


Held major diplomatic posts in theMexican government and with theUnited Nations; established andcoauthored the Treaty for the Pro-hibition of Nuclear Weapons inLatin America (the Treaty ofTlatelolco, 1967); coauthored theNuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of1968; chairman, UN DisarmamentCommittee (1985)


As Mexico’s ambassador to the United Nations, Alfonso García Robles addresses theGeneral Assembly in 1975. He won the Peace Prize seven years later for his efforts tohalt the spread of nuclear weapons.

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2 3 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

he met and worked closely with AlvaMyrdal, the Swedish sociologist whowould share the Nobel Peace Prizewith him 15 years later. As an out-growth of the conference, the NuclearNonproliferation Treaty of 1968 wascreated. This treaty, which García Rob-les coauthored, called upon countriesthroughout the world to stop thespread of nuclear weapons. It was even-tually signed by more than a hundrednations.

After serving as Mexico’s ambas-sador to the United Nations for fiveyears, beginning in 1970, García Robles was appointed foreign ministerof his country in 1975. A year later, heasked to be appointed as Mexico’s per-manent representative to the UN Dis-armament Committee in Geneva. Inthat capacity, García Robles continuedto work for international disarmamentfor more than a decade.

García Robles made a major con-tribution to the cause of world peace in1982, when he introduced a motion in

the UN General Assembly calling forthe United Nations to launch an inter-national disarmament crusade. Themotion was not adopted, but GarcíaRobles’s call received widespread sup-port as millions of people demonstratedagainst nuclear weapons later that yearin the United States and in many Eu-ropean countries.

Alfonso García Robles’s longtimesupport for nuclear disarmamentearned him a share of the 1982 NobelPeace Prize. After winning the awardhe continued his crusade, and in 1985he was elected chairman of the UNDisarmament Committee.

García Robles has been marriedsince 1950 to a former diplomat fromPeru whom he met while leading aUN mission to the Middle East; thecouple has two sons. In addition to ful-filling his formal duties, García Robleshas written more than 300 articles onforeign affairs and is the author ofnearly two dozen books, many of themon disarmament.

Alva Myrdal, cowinner of the1982 Nobel Peace Prize for her owncrusade on behalf of disarmament, wasalready quite familiar with the awardsestablished by her fellow Swede AlfredNobel: eight years earlier, her husband,Gunnar Myrdal, had shared the 1974Nobel Prize in Economic Science.

Alva Myrdal was born AlvaReimer in Uppsala, Sweden, in 1902.Her father was a building contractorwho served as a member of the citycouncil and was especially interested insocial welfare issues, including adulteducation for workers. Alva ReimerMyrdal later said that her father andher teacher in primary school, SwedishQuaker leader Per Sundberg, had thegreatest influence on her while she was

Alva Myrdal, who shared the 1982 NobelPrize with García Robles for her nucleardisarmament work, was also an expert onsocial welfare issues, including those in-volving child welfare, training for the dis-abled, and the status of women in thework force.

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growing up. (The Quakers, or Friends,are members of the religious sect calledthe Society of Friends, founded in the18th century by the EnglishmanGeorge Fox. Quakers are pacifists: theyare opposed to warfare for any reason.)

Both of Alva Reimer’s parents en-couraged their bright daughter to enrollat the University of Stockholm aftershe completed secondary school, al-though women at that time were notexpected to pursue higher education.She received a scholarship to study so-cial science at the university and re-ceived her undergraduate degree in1924. Later that year she married Gun-nar Myrdal, a lawyer who later becamea renowned economist.

Following her graduation and mar-riage, Alva Myrdal became active inthe Workers’ Educational Association,an organization devoted to the promo-tion of adult education. She shared herinterest in social welfare issues withher husband, and the two of them de-cided to pursue further studies in thatfield. From 1925 to 1928 they attendedgraduate classes in economics and so-cial science at the universities of Lon-don, Leipzig, and Stockholm. In1929–30 they traveled in the UnitedStates on a fellowship from the Rocke-feller Foundation, and then studied inSwitzerland before returning to Swe-den in 1932.

During the 1930s, both Alva andGunnar Myrdal became recognized au-thorities in socioeconomics, a field ofstudy that includes both sociology andeconomics. Alva Myrdal also did grad-uate work in philosophy, psychology,and philosophy, and received a com-bined master’s degree from the Univer-sity of Uppsala in 1934. That year sheand her husband published their first

important study, “Crisis in the Popula-tion Problem,” which led to the pas-sage of social welfare legislation inSweden and several other Scandina-vian countries.

As a recognized expert on popula-tion studies, Alva Myrdal went on towrite other articles on the subject, bothalone and in collaboration with herhusband. By the end of the 1930s, AlvaMyrdal’s primary academic field hadbecome sociology, while her husbandwas now a professor of economics andpublic finance at the University ofStockholm.

Alva Myrdal was especially inter-ested in child welfare, and she pub-lished many articles on the subject.One of her major accomplishments wasthe founding of a training college inStockholm for nursery and kinder-garten teachers in 1936. She becameits director and served in that capacityfor 12 years. She also served as thehead of several government commis-sions on education, including one ontraining for the disabled.

Another major concern of AlvaMyrdal’s throughout her life was equali-ty for women in the workforce, fromthe least skilled to the most highlytrained professionals. As a member ofthe Labor party (also known as the So-cial Democratic party), she was activein party affairs and edited a monthlypublication aimed at women. In addi-tion, she served on government com-mittees concerned with women work-ers’ issues and addressed these issues asa representative to international laborconferences during the 1940s. Her con-cerns for the status of business and pro-fessional women led her to an activeleadership role in several national orga-nizations concerned with their welfare.

G A R C Í A R O B L E S & M Y R D A L • 2 3 7

Alva MyrdalB O R N

January 31, 1902Uppsala, Sweden

D I E D


E D U C AT I O N

B.A., University of Stockholm(1924); M.A., University of Uppsala (1934)

O C C U PAT I O N

Sociologist


Became one of Sweden’s leading ex-perts on social welfare issues affect-ing women and children; director,United Nations Department of So-cial Affairs (1950–55); Swedish ambassador to India (1955–61);member of Swedish Parliament(1962–73); head of Sweden’s dele-gation to the UN disarmament conference in Geneva (1962–66);author (and coauthor with her hus-band, Gunnar Myrdal) of numerousarticles and books on social andeconomic issues, including disarmament


In the years immediately followingthe end of World War II in 1945, AlvaMyrdal devoted much of her time toaiding European refugees and helpingmany of them resettle in Sweden. Shealso served as Sweden’s delegate toUNESCO, the United Nations Edu-cational, Scientific, and Cultural Orga-nization, and in 1950 she was nameddirector of the UN’s Department of So-cial Affairs. In this role she supervisedinternational projects relating tohuman rights, the status of women,population growth, and other areas.

In 1955 Alva Myrdal left her Unit-ed Nations post to become Sweden’sambassador to India, where she servedfor six years and became widely ad-mired. When she returned to Stock-holm in 1961, the Swedish foreignminister asked her to become his spe-cial assistant on disarmament. This wasa new field for Alva Myrdal, but withcharacteristic energy she studied thesubject intensely and it quickly becamethe major focus of her interest. Follow-ing her election to the Swedish parlia-ment in 1962, she became head of hercountry’s delegation to the ongoingUN disarmament conference in Ge-neva. Although her term of office offi-cially ended in 1966, she continued toattend the conference until 1973,when she retired from government ser-vice. One milestone that occurred dur-ing that period encouraged AlvaMyrdal to continue her work: in 1968,Sweden renounced the manufacture,import, and use of nuclear weapons.

Now working independently, AlvaMyrdal became a one-woman crusadeon behalf of disarmament. She gavemany speeches, wrote numerous arti-

cles, and published an influential book,The Game of Disarmament: How theUnited States and Russia Run the ArmsRace (1977). In that book she attackedboth countries for wasting enormousamounts of money on weapons insteadof spending that money on health care,housing, and education.

Alva Myrdal’s crusade won her theAlbert Einstein Peace Prize in 1980.Two years later, she shared the 1982Nobel Peace Prize with Alfonso GarcíaRobles. Alva Myrdal was forced to giveup her campaign for peace in 1984,when her chronic heart disease grewworse. She spent most of the next twoyears in a Stockholm hospital and diedin February 1986 at the age of 84.

Alva and Gunnar Myrdal had ason and two daughters; one of theirdaughters, Sissela Myrdal Bok, becamea noted philosopher. Gunnar Myrdalsurvived his wife by little more than ayear and died in May 1987.


Bok, Sissela. Alva Myrdal: A Daughter’sMemoir. Reading, Mass.: Addison-Wesley,1991.

García Robles, Alfonso. The Denuclear-ization of Latin America. Translated by Marjorie Urquidi. New York: Carnegie En-dowment for International Peace, 1967.

“García Robles, Alfonso.” In Nobel PrizeWinners. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987.

Myrdal, Alva. The Game of Disarmament:How the United States and Russia Run theArms Race. New York: Pantheon, 1977.

“Myrdal, Mrs. Alva.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1950. New York: H. W. Wilson,1951.

2 3 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

n 1967 a young Pole named Lech Walesa (pro-nounced Lek Va-WENZ-a) could hardly haveimagined that one day he would win the NobelPeace Prize—or that he would be elected presidentof his country. Walesa had recently completed sev-

eral years of military service, required of all male Polish citi-zens. Before entering the army, he had worked briefly as anelectrician, the trade that his vocational school in Lipno,Poland, had prepared him for. Now he was back in Gdansk,a port city on the Baltic Sea, to resume his work in the ship-yard there. Despite the hardships imposed by the Commu-nist government, Walesa was confident that he could earn areasonably good living. Eventually, he wanted to marry andraise a family: that was his dream.

Walesa was born in 1943 in Popowo, Poland, during theoccupation of that country by German troops in World WarII. He was one of eight children. His father, a carpenter, wassent to a German forced-labor camp sometime after Lech’s

L E C H W A L E S A • 2 3 9

Lech Walesa

Y1 9 8 3

Polish labor leader Lech Walesa speaks to his fellow workers in the Gdansk shipyards in 1980, the year he founded Solidarity.

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birth, and the injuries that he receivedthere caused his death in 1946.

From earliest childhood, LechWalesa was a devout Roman Catholic,the religion of his family and much ofPoland. He attended local Catholic

schools before receiving his vocationaltraining. Walesa later recalled that hewas never a very good student, but hewas always a popular leader in school.His army service and his early years asan electrician passed uneventfully, and

2 4 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Pope John Paul II, a native of Poland,greets crowds during a visit to Warsaw in1979.

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in 1969 Walesa married; he eventuallybecame the father of eight children.

Walesa’s life began to change inDecember 1970, when the governmentannounced a sharp rise in food prices.Many citizens staged protest demon-strations in cities throughout Poland.In Gdansk a group of shipyard workers,led by Walesa and others, called astrike, demanding improvements intheir working conditions as well as alowering of food prices. As they joinedother Poles in protest, police shot atthem, trying to force them back to theshipyard. Before order was finally re-stored, 55 workers had been killed.

Walesa avoided injury, and he re-turned to his job after the governmentagreed to several of the workers’ de-mands. However, as economic con-ditions in the country grew worse,Walesa and other shipyard workersformed a labor union—illegal at thetime in Poland—to press for change.When prices were raised again in 1976,Walesa joined new protest demonstra-tions in Gdansk and was fired. For thenext few years, he supported his familyby doing odd jobs while he became in-volved with the growing Polish labormovement. He also joined an anti-Communist discussion group, edited anantigovernment newspaper, and found-ed a trade union. In 1979 he joinedwith other labor leaders to present a series of demands to the government,which included recognition of tradeunions and the right of workers tostrike. Although he was followed bythe secret police and arrested sev-eral times, Walesa continued these activities.

In the summer of 1980 a new waveof riots occurred in Poland followingthe government’s announcement that

it was raising meat prices. Walesa andother union members at the Gdanskshipyard went on strike. They refusedto continue working until fired strikingemployees, including Walesa, had beenrehired. The government was forced tonegotiate with the strikers, and Walesaserved as their spokesman.

After several weeks, the peacefulnegotiations ended with the signing ofthe Gdansk Agreement, a major victo-ry for Walesa. Under the terms of theagreement, workers throughout Polandgot the right to form unions and tostrike. They also received wage increas-es and other benefits, and securedother concessions, including the releaseof political prisoners who had opposedthe Communist regime. In return, allunion members had to agree to respectthe sovereignty of the Communistparty.

When the government had notcomplied with the agreement by earlyOctober, Walesa and his followersstaged a one-day warning strike. Twoweeks later, a court in Warsaw, the Pol-ish capital, legally recognized the vari-ous labor unions in the country as asingle organization, called Solidarity.Walesa became chairman of Solidarity’snational commission, and in this rolehe continued to put pressure on thegovernment to fulfill the other terms ofthe Gdansk Agreement. A series ofsmall strikes occurred in the followingmonths as the demands remainedunmet, and in March 1981 anotherbrief nationwide strike was called bymost of Poland’s 13 million industrialworkers, more than two-thirds of whomwere members of Solidarity.

Solidarity held its first nationalcongress in September 1981 and re-elected Walesa as party chairman. As

L E C H W A L E S A • 2 4 1

Lech WalesaB O R N

September 29, 1943Popowo, Poland

E D U C AT I O N

Vocational school

O C C U PAT I O N

Electrician; labor leader


Founded Solidarity, a nationwidelabor alliance in Poland (1980);president of Poland (1990– )


one of their goals, delegates called forfree elections in Poland. Three monthslater a group of Solidarity leaders inGdansk challenged the Communistgovernment to hold a national referen-dum (vote) on whether or not itshould continue to lead the country.Walesa disagreed with this demand, forhe feared that the government wouldrespond with violence. He believedthat change had to be achieved slowly,and through nonviolent negotiation,not confrontation.

Walesa’s fears were confirmed onDecember 13, 1981, when the govern-ment responded to the demand by pro-claiming martial law. Union leaders,including Walesa, were arrested andSolidarity was banned as army unitstook control of cities and townsthroughout the country. In December1982 Walesa was released from solitaryconfinement. He was given back hisold job in the Gdansk shipyard butfound that his movement had been de-stroyed.

In the fall of 1983, as Walesa andother Poles remained tightly in the gripof martial law, the Nobel Peace PrizeCommittee named Lech Walesa as thewinner of that year’s award. In an-nouncing the award, the committeepraised Walesa as “an inspiration and ashining example to all those who,under difficult conditions, fight forfreedom and humanity.” Because Wale-sa was afraid that he would not be al-lowed to re-enter Poland if he attendedthe award ceremony in Oslo, he senthis wife instead.

Walesa continued to work inGdansk but did not end his criticism ofthe government as he slowly rebuiltSolidarity in secret. In January 1986 hewas arrested after charging that voterfraud had occurred in parliamentaryelections the previous year, but was re-

leased a month later when he withdrewthe charges. In 1988 Solidarity wasonce again given legal status in Poland,and Walesa was encouraged by signsthat the Communist government wasslowly crumbling as calls for democraticreform swept across the country. In themid-1980s Walesa also wrote his auto-biography, which was smuggled out ofPoland and published in English trans-lation as A Path of Hope (1987).

Finally, a breakthrough came inthe spring of 1989 when the govern-ment and opposing factions came to anagreement on major political and eco-nomic reforms, including free elections.In June candidates endorsed by Soli-darity won a majority of seats in thePolish parliament, and a year laterLech Walesa became president of thenew Polish republic.

Walesa has won numerous awardsfor his work on behalf of a free Poland,including the Presidential Medal ofFreedom from the United States andmembership in the French Legion ofHonor. He remains a loyal member ofthe Roman Catholic Church and credits its teachings with helping himto develop his philosophy of nonvio-lent protest.


Eringer, Robert. Strike for Freedom! TheStory of Lech Walesa and Polish Solidarity.New York: Dodd, Mead, 1982.

Stefoff, Rebecca. Lech Walesa: The Road toDemocracy. New York: Ballantine, 1992.

Vnenchak, Dennis. Lech Walesa andPoland. New York: Franklin Watts, 1994.

Walesa, Lech. The Struggle and the Triumph:An Autobiography. Translated by FranklinPhilip and Helen Mahut. New York: Ar-cade, 1992.

2 4 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

hen he was a teenager in the mid-1940s, Desmond Tutu had an experi-ence that he would never forget. Hewas standing with his mother on astreet corner in the city of Johan-

nesburg, South Africa, when a priest wearing a long blackcassock and a large black hat walked by. Noticing Tutu’smother, the priest did what any polite man would have donein the presence of a woman: he raised and lowered his hat asa symbol of respect.

What made the experience remarkable to DesmondTutu was that the priest was white, whereas Tutu’s motherwas black. In South Africa, white men did not show respectto black women. In that country, which was ruled by a mi-nority white population that had occupied it since the 19thcentury, blacks were considered inferior and unimportant.

Who was this extraordinary white man who acted kind-ly toward his mother? Desmond Tutu soon found out. The

D E S M O N D T U T U • 2 4 3

Desmond Tutu

Y1 9 8 4

Desmond Tutu rose from poverty to become an archbishop andhead of the Anglican Church in southern Africa, and to lead acampaign of nonviolent resistance to apartheid.

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man’s name was Trevor Huddleston,and he was an Anglican (Church ofEngland) priest in Sophiatown, Johan-nesburg’s black slum neighborhood.Huddleston believed strongly in theequality of all human beings, a centralteaching of Christianity, and he taughtthat belief to his parishioners. In thefollowing decade, Huddleston was tobecome a leading voice for racial equal-ity in South Africa, and as he did so hegave Desmond Tutu’s life special mean-ing. Largely because of Huddleston’s in-fluence, Desmond Tutu also became anAnglican priest.

Desmond Tutu was born in the fallof 1931 in the gold-mining town ofKlerksdorp, South Africa. His father, amember of the Bantu tribe, was aschoolteacher; his mother, who be-longed to the Tswana tribe, worked forwhite families as a servant.

Although the family was originallyMethodist, they joined the AnglicanChurch during Desmond’s childhood.When he was 12, the family moved toJohannesburg, and his mother foundwork as a cook at an Anglican mission-

ary school for the blind. Desmond wasimpressed by the concern that the mis-sionaries showed for their students, butit was Trevor Huddleston’s act of kind-ness to his mother that drew him closerto the Anglican faith. He becamefriendly with the priest, who encour-aged him to pursue his education.Their friendship deepened after Tutubecame seriously ill with tuberculosis:during his 20 months in the hospital,Huddleston visited him almost daily.

During his high school years, Tutuearned money by selling peanuts atrailroad stations and caddying at awhite golf course. Although he was re-ligious, he did not yet plan to becomea priest. He knew that he wanted tohelp other people, and for many yearshe had dreamed of becoming a doctor.However, his family could not affordthe medical school tuition after hegraduated from high school, and he de-cided to become a teacher. He enrolledat a training school for black teachersin Pretoria, South Africa, and after re-ceiving his diploma, he went on to theUniversity of Johannesburg, where heearned a bachelor’s degree in 1954.

Tutu taught at black high schoolsin Johannesburg and in the town ofKrugersdorp for several years. His plansto make teaching his career endedabruptly in 1957, however, when thegovernment introduced a new, inferiorcurriculum for all black students. Tutuand several colleagues resigned inprotest, and he now had to choose an-other career.

The priesthood seemed the logicalchoice, and Tutu enrolled at an Angli-can theological college in Johannes-burg. He received his diploma in 1960and was ordained a year later. Tutuserved black churches in the SouthAfrican towns of Benoni and Albertonbefore being sent to London for further

2 4 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Trevor Huddleston receives an honorarydoctor of divinity degree from WhittierCollege, a Quaker institution in southernCalifornia, in May 1994, a month beforehis 81st birthday. Huddleston, an Anglicanpriest who ministered to South Africa’sblack community for many years and ac-tively opposed apartheid, inspiredDesmond Tutu to enter the priesthood.

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training in 1962. There he earned un-dergraduate and graduate degrees in di-vinity at a theological school whileworking in several Anglican parishes.

The Anglican Church sent Tutuback to Africa in 1967, where hetaught at both a theological seminaryand at what is now the National Uni-versity in Lesotho, a Bantu tribal en-clave within South Africa. He returnedto England in 1972 to become associatedirector of a scholarship fund for theol-ogy students in Africa and Asia. In thisposition he traveled widely on bothcontinents for the next three years. In1975 Tutu was named the Anglicandean of Johannesburg (a dean is the ad-ministrative head of a cathedral), and ayear later he became bishop of Lesotho.

In the nearly two decades of Tutu’srise from divinity student to bishop inthe Anglican Church, significantchanges had occurred in his country.For one thing, there was now a power-ful movement among blacks calling forequality and an end to apartheid (pro-nounced uh-PAR-tide), the system offorced separation of the races that wasintroduced by the South African government in the late 1940s. Thatmovement was growing despite thegovernment’s 1960 ban on the AfricanNational Congress. That organization,which had been led by Albert Luthuli,was dedicated to securing the peacefulindependence of African nations. In1961 the Union of South Africa hadbroken its long political ties with GreatBritain, following repeated British criti-cism of South Africa’s treatment ofblacks. It was now the independent Re-public of South Africa.

As black protests grew, the govern-ment cracked down even harder, andTutu found himself drawn into theconflict in the 1970s. From the outset,Tutu tried to persuade blacks to reject

violence as they sought to make thegovernment change its policies.

Shortly before becoming the bish-op of Lesotho in 1976, Tutu becameaware of a growing antigovernmentmovement among angry young blackyouths in Soweto, a black township inJohannesburg. Working with a local ac-tivist, Tutu tried to channel their angerinto peaceful demonstrations. At thesame time, he wrote a letter to theSouth African prime minister, warninghim that a tense situation had devel-oped in Soweto. The prime minister ig-nored the letter, and a month later, inJune 1976, riots broke out. The govern-ment responded by sending in troops,who shot to death at least 600 blacks.The prime minister blamed Tutu forthe riots, and the priest now cameunder suspicion from the governmentfor radical activities.

Tutu continued to advocate nonvi-olent opposition to the government’sracist policies. In 1978 he became gen-eral secretary of the South AfricanCouncil of Churches, an interdenomi-national group associated with theWorld Council of Churches. TheSouth African Council of Churchesrepresented 13 million Christians inthe country, more than 80 percent ofthem black. In his post as general sec-retary, which he held for seven years,Tutu called repeatedly for the SouthAfrican government to end apartheid.He used council funds to provide legalassistance to blacks who were arrestedfor protesting against the governmentand to help their families. He also be-came an outspoken opponent of thegovernment’s so-called homelands poli-cy, under which blacks were removedagainst their will from cities and reset-tled in barren rural areas. In addition,he expressed his support for the out-lawed African National Congress.

D E S M O N D T U T U • 2 4 5

DesmondTutuB O R N

October 7, 1931Klerksdorp, South Africa

E D U C AT I O N

Diploma, Bantu Normal College,Pretoria; B.A., University of Johan-nesburg (1954); L.Th., St. Peter’sTheological College, Johannesburg(1960); B.D., M.Th., King’s Col-lege, London (1966)

O C C U PAT I O N

Anglican clergyman


Bishop of Lesotho (1976–78); gen-eral secretary, South African Coun-cil of Churches (1978–85); Bishopof Johannesburg (1985–86); Arch-bishop of Cape Town and Metropol-itan of Southern Africa (1986– );president, All Africa Conference ofChurches (1987– )


The government had at first beenmerely annoyed by Tutu’s public opposi-tion, but it became outraged in theearly 1980s when Tutu began askingother nations to put economic pressureon South Africa to end its racist prac-tices. He suggested that such pressurebe delivered in a variety of ways, mostnotably by restricting trade with SouthAfrica and by refusing to invest in busi-nesses within the country. In response,the government ordered a formal inves-tigation of the financial affairs of theSouth African Council of Churches.The report issued early in 1984 de-nounced Tutu and his activities.

Later that year Tutu traveled toNew York City to study for a year atthe General Theological Seminary. Hewas in New York when he learned thathe had been named the winner of the1984 Nobel Peace Prize. In a statementthat accompanied its announcement,the Nobel Peace Prize Committee de-clared that the award was “a renewedrecognition of the courage and heroismshown by black South Africans in theiruse of peaceful methods in the struggleagainst apartheid.” The committeepraised not only Tutu and the SouthAfrican Council of Churches but also other individuals and groups inSouth Africa who were working forhuman rights.

In November 1984, one month be-fore receiving the Nobel Peace Prize inOslo, Desmond Tutu was named theAnglican bishop of Johannesburg—thefirst black to hold that post. Not longafterward he was elevated to archbish-op. Rather than move to the bishop’sofficial residence in the white sectionof Johannesburg, Tutu chose to live inSoweto as a gesture of his ties to theblack community, and he continued hiscall for the peaceful achievement ofblack equality in South Africa.

In 1986 Tutu became archbishopof Cape Town, South Africa’s largest

city. Along with this appointment, hereceived the title Metropolitan ofSouthern Africa, which made him thehead of the Anglican Church in sever-al African countries. In 1987 he be-came head of the All Africa Confer-ence of Churches.

Tutu’s dream of achieving racialequality in South Africa moved closerto reality in 1994, when free electionsopen to all races were held for the firsttime in his country and ANC leaderNelson Mandela became president. In1995 Tutu headed a government com-mission investigating human rightsabuses. His report contributed to thedrafting of a new constitution forSouth Africa, which went into effect in December 1996.

Desmond Tutu has received manyother awards for his work on behalf of human rights and is the author ofnumerous articles and reviews; he hasalso written four books. He has beenmarried since 1955 and has four grownchildren.


Du Boulay, Shirley. Tutu: Voice of the Voiceless. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,1988.

Honor, Deborah Duncan, ed. Trevor Hud-dleston: Essays on His Life and Work. Ox-ford: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Huddleston, Trevor. Naught for Your Comfort. New York: Doubleday, 1956.

Tutu, Desmond. Crying in the Wilderness:The Struggle for Justice in South Africa.Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans, 1990.

———. Hope and Suffering: Sermons andSpeeches. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Eerdmans,1984.

———. The Rainbow People of God: TheMaking of a Peaceful Revolution. New York:Doubleday, 1994.

Wepman, Dennis. Desmond Tutu. NewYork: Franklin Watts, 1989.

2 4 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

he organization called International Physi-cians for the Prevention of Nuclear War wasofficially founded in 1980, but its origins goback to 1961. In that year, Dr. Bernard Lown,a heart specialist at Harvard University’s

School of Public Health, heard a speech by Philip Noel-Baker, a British diplomat and longtime advocate of disarma-ment. In his speech Noel-Baker warned against the medicalperils of nuclear warfare, especially the long-term effects ofradiation from atomic explosions.

Inspired by Noel-Baker’s speech, Lown joined with sev-eral other U.S. doctors to form Physicians for Social Re-sponsibility (PSR), and he served as the organization’s firstpresident. For nearly two decades, PSR publicized the terri-ble after-effects of nuclear explosions in an effort to help endthe international arms race.

One of Lown’s longtime friends was Yevgeny Chazov,also a heart specialist and director of a heart research centerin Moscow. In 1979 Lown suggested to Chazov that they or-ganize an international movement of physicians similar toPSR. A year later, Lown and Chazov met in Geneva,Switzerland, with four other physicians—two Russians andtwo Americans—and founded International Physicians forthe Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW).

IPPNW quickly grew, and by the mid-1980s had 135,000members in 41 countries. From the outset, IPPNW made ed-ucation a major focus and sponsored major initiatives to in-form the public of the dangers of nuclear war. One of thegroup’s earliest educational efforts occurred in 1982, when itorganized a televised discussion by American and Russianphysicians on the medical aspects of nuclear war. The pro-gram was broadcast live throughout the Soviet Union andlater aired on videotape in the United States and Europe.

That same year, IPPNW published a collection of essays,Last Aid: The Medical Dimensions of Nuclear War, by medicalspecialists from the United States, Great Britain, the SovietUnion, and Japan. The book was circulated throughout theworld and has been used frequently as a university and med-ical school textbook.

In the first years after its founding, IPPNW sponsored astudy of children’s reactions to the threat of nuclear war. Italso created the Soviet-American Physicians Campaign, anexchange program in which teams of doctors tour eachother’s countries and hold public forums to discuss the dan-gers of nuclear warfare. Many of IPPNW’s educational effortsare carried out by chapter affiliates throughout the world,and IPPNW provides them with publications, research data,and access to a large reference library.

I N T E R N A T I O N A L P H Y S I C I A N S F O R T H E P R E V E N T I O N O F N U C L E A R W A R • 2 4 7

InternationalPhysicians forthe Preventionof Nuclear War

Y1 9 8 5

Dr. Bernard Lown of the United States and Dr.Yevgeny Chazovof Russia cofounded International Physicians for the Preventionof Nuclear War in 1980.

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In addition to being an education-al organization, IPPNW sponsors majorscientific research on not only themedical but also the psychological andbiospheric (environmental) effects ofnuclear war. In both its research andeducational efforts, it has worked close-ly with both the United Nations andthe World Health Organization.

IPPNW’s efforts to publicize theconsequences of nuclear war earned itthe 1985 Nobel Peace Prize. BothLown and Chazov, who were then co-presidents of the organization, attendedthe award ceremonies in Oslo and ac-cepted the Peace Prize on behalf ofIPPNW.

Today IPPNW maintains interna-tional offices in London, England, andCambridge, Massachusetts. It has200,000 members, who belong to localchapters in 81 countries. In the UnitedStates, Physicians for Social Responsi-bility is the IPPNW chapter. Chapterrepresentatives from around the worldmeet every two years at an internation-al conference sponsored by IPPNW.More frequent regional meetings arealso held.

Although IPPNW was initiallyfounded to focus only on nuclear war,in recent years it has publicly pro-claimed the dangers arising from anyform of warfare. In particular, it has fo-cused both its research and its educa-tional efforts on the negative effects ofmilitarism (a government’s emphasison military power) on Third World(underdeveloped) countries. IPPNWpublishes research studies, brochures,and books on the dangers of warfare,many of which are available to thegeneral public.


“International Physicians for the Preven-tion of Nuclear War.” In Nobel Prize Win-ners. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987.

Makhijani, Arjun, et al., eds. NuclearWastelands: A Global Guidebook to NuclearWeapons Production and Its Health and Envi-ronmental Effects. Report of the SpecialCommission of International Physiciansfor the Prevention of Nuclear War and theInstitute for Energy and EnvironmentalResearch. Cambridge: MIT Press, 1995.

2 4 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

InternationalPhysiciansfor the Prevention ofNuclear WarF O U N D E R S

Bernard Lown and Yevgeny Chazov

DAT E A N D P L AC E O F F O U N D I N G



Cambridge, Massachusetts, andLondon, England

P U R P O S E

Founded to express the oppositionof the worldwide medical communi-ty to nuclear weapons and warfare,and to educate the public on theirharmful medical effects; in recentyears, has widened its focus to in-clude opposition to all forms of war-fare, and has also publicized war’sharmful psychological and environ-mental effects


Has alerted millions throughout theworld to the harmful effects of war-fare by sponsoring major public education programs and scientificresearch projects


A policeman attempts to treat burn victims on the outskirts of Hiroshima, Japan, on Au-gust 6, 1945, several hours after an atomic bomb was dropped on the center of the city.

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lie Wiesel (pronounced Vee-ZEL) wanted tobe a writer from the time he was a small boy.At the age of 12, he wrote a series of com-mentaries on the Bible. When he was 19 anda university student, he began working as a

journalist. By this time, Wiesel knew that someday he want-ed to write books, and he knew what their subject would be:the systematic killing of 6 million Jews by the leaders of theGerman government during World War II (1939–45).

Elie Wiesel was born in 1928 in what is now Romaniato a Jewish couple. His father owned a grocery store and wasactive in the Jewish community in the town of Sighet. TheWiesels were very religious, and Elie and his three sisterswere taught the traditions of Judaism as well as the tales andfolklore of the Hasidim, a sect within the Jewish faith.

Wiesel attended local schools and led a fairly normal lifeuntil the spring of 1944, when German troops overran thearea and ordered the deportation of Sighet’s 15,000 Jews toconcentration camps. Even before the official beginning ofWorld War II in September 1939, the German government,

E L I E W I E S E L • 2 4 9

Elie Wiesel

Y1 9 8 6

Elie Wiesel, a survivor of Nazi concentration camps during WorldWar II, has devoted his life to public discussion of the Nazis’ massmurder of the Jews, an event he named the Holocaust.

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under the direction of Adolf Hitler,had begun persecuting Jews. By theearly 1940s, the Germans had set up anextensive system of camps where theysent Jews as well as disabled people,Gypsies, homosexuals, political oppo-nents, and others whom Hitler called“undesirables.” These camps were notonly in Germany but in several otherEuropean countries that Germantroops now occupied. Once at thecamps, inmates were forced to workuntil they died of disease or starvation;those unable to work were put to deathin gas chambers.

Elie Wiesel and the other membersof his family were taken to a concen-

tration camp in Poland calledAuschwitz. His mother and youngersister were killed almost immediately;Elie, along with his father, was separat-ed from his two older sisters. He didnot learn that they survived until afterthe war ended. After a year of hardlabor at Auschwitz, Wiesel and his fa-ther were sent in early 1945 toBuchenwald, a concentration camp inGermany, where the father starved todeath.

After Buchenwald was liberated byAmerican troops in April 1945, theteenage Wiesel traveled with hundredsof other orphans to a resettlementcamp in France. There he was looked

2 5 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

U.S. congressmen investigating Nazi atroci-ties during World War II are shown a pileof corpses at the Buchenwald concentra-tion camp in 1945.

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after by a Jewish children’s aid organi-zation for several years and learned toread and speak French. In 1948 hemoved to Paris and enrolled at the uni-versity to study literature and philoso-phy. He supported himself not only as apart-time journalist but also by workingas a choir director, Hebrew teacher,and translator.

While Wiesel was still attendingthe university, his newspaper work tookhim briefly to the new state of Israel,the Jewish homeland, and to Tel Aviv,one of its major cities. After leavingthe university without receiving a de-gree, Wiesel traveled to India in 1952as a correspondent for a Tel Aviv news-paper and acquired a working knowl-edge of English. Other assignments fol-lowed, and a few years later he was sentto New York City to report on theUnited Nations. One day in 1956Wiesel was struck by a taxi in the cityand had to spend a year in a wheel-chair. When he was unable to have hisFrench travel documents extended,U.S. immigration officials allowedWiesel to become a permanent resi-dent. He later became a U.S. citizen.

Ever since his release fromBuchenwald, Wiesel had been con-vinced that his life was spared for a rea-son: “to give testimony, to bear wit-ness” to the terrible events that he andother Jews had endured and that somany had not survived. But Wiesel hadvowed in 1945 that he would remainsilent on the subject for 10 years, inorder to be certain that he knew whathe wanted to say.

Wiesel’s opportunity to end his si-lence came a year ahead of schedule. In 1954 he interviewed the FrenchRoman Catholic novelist FrançoisMauriac, who had won the 1952 NobelPrize for Literature. Mauriac said thatChristians had to acknowledge some

responsibility for the mass killings ofJews, and he urged Wiesel to writeabout his concentration camp experi-ences. Wiesel immediately began towrite the story in Yiddish, a languageformed from German and Hebrew. Twoyears later Wiesel completed an 800-page manuscript, which was publishedin Argentina. When he could not finda publisher for the lengthy book inFrance, he condensed the manuscriptto 127 pages, translated it into French,and published it in 1958 as La Nuit. Itwas dedicated to the memory of hisparents and sister. Two years later itwas published in English translation asNight.

Wiesel is credited with being thefirst person to use the word “Holo-caust” to describe the extermination ofthe Jews during World War II. But afterwriting about the events of the Holo-caust in Night, he turned his attentionto the theme of the Holocaust sur-vivor—himself. In a series of short,semi-autobiographical novels writtenin French, he examined different waysin which those who survived the campscame to terms with the guilt they felt.These books appeared in English trans-lation as Dawn (1961), The Accident(1962), The Town Beyond the Wall(1964), The Gates of the Forest (1966),and A Beggar in Jerusalem (1970),which became a best-seller.

During the 1960s, Wiesel wasmoved by accounts of anti-Semitism(persecution of Jews) in the SovietUnion. He made several visits to thecountry to observe Jewish life there andwrote a book about his experience (TheJews of Silence, 1966). Wiesel becameone of the earliest champions of SovietJewry and on several occasions calledupon the Soviet Union to allow Jewsto emigrate to Israel. He also criticizedJews in Western democratic nations for

E L I E W I E S E L • 2 5 1

Elie WieselB O R N

September 30, 1928Sighet, Transylvania (now Romania)

E D U C AT I O N

Attended the University of Paris(1948–52)

O C C U PAT I O N

Writer


Through numerous writings, begin-ning with the book La Nuit (Night,1958), has drawn international at-tention to the Holocaust


their indifference to their fellows inRussia. Anti-Semitism in the SovietUnion inspired Wiesel’s first play,translated as Zalmen; or, The Madnessof God (1968).

Wiesel returned to his hometownof Sighet, Romania, in the fall of 1964and realized during his brief visit thatthe Holocaust had destroyed all memo-ries of his birthplace. He later wroteabout the experience in a book pub-lished in English as Legends of OurTime (1968), a collection of essays andshort stories. During the next decadeWiesel published two additional collec-tions, One Generation After (1970) and A Jew Today (1978), in which hediscussed suffering in South Africa,Vietnam, Biafra, and Bangladesh—strife-torn places that he has visited—from a sympathetic Jewish perspective.He also published several collections ofHasidic tales; another novel, called TheOath (1973); and another play aboutJewish suffering, The Trial of God(1979). In addition, during the late1970s and early 1980s he wrote severalstudies of the Bible and biblical figures.

By 1980 Wiesel had found his mes-sage as a writer: All Jews, he believes,have to bear witness to all human suf-fering, not just their own. Remainingsilent and indifferent, he feels, is thegreatest sin of all. Wiesel has becomebest known, however, for drawing pub-lic attention to the Holocaust, whichwas not widely discussed until the1970s. To some extent, he is troubledby this attention, for he worries thatthe terrible events have become trivial-ized. Sometimes, he says, few words arebetter than more words—something herealized in 1945 when he imposed thevow of silence upon himself.

For many years, Wiesel’s eloquentadvocacy of brotherhood and his sym-pathy for human suffering led him to bementioned frequently as a candidate forthe Nobel Peace Prize. In the fall of1986 he was finally named as the win-ner of that year’s award. The NobelCommittee called him “a messenger tomankind” bringing news of “peace,atonement, and human dignity.” Wieselaccepted the award on behalf of allHolocaust survivors and their children,and he expressed the belief that itwould enable him to “speak louder” and“reach more people” with his message.

Wiesel has continued to writebooks, essays, and short stories sincewinning the Nobel Peace Prize, andhas also received other awards for bothhis humanitarianism and his literaryaccomplishments. He is a popular lec-turer and has spoken frequently on theHolocaust and on biblical topics. Dur-ing the early 1970s he taught Judaicstudies at the City University of NewYork, and since 1976 he has been aprofessor of humanities at Boston Uni-versity. Wiesel is married to a fellowHolocaust survivor and is the father ofa son and a stepdaughter.


Schuman, Michael. Elie Wiesel: Voice fromthe Holocaust. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow,1994.

Wiesel, Elie. All Rivers Run to the Sea:Memoirs. New York: Knopf, 1995.

———. From the Kingdom of Memory:Reminiscences. New York: Schocken, 1995.

———. Night. 1958. Translated by StellaRodway. New York: Hill & Wang, 1960.

2 5 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

n the fall of 1960, a 20-year-old youth from CostaRica named Oscar Arias Sánchez enrolled at BostonUniversity to study medicine. In choosing the med-ical profession as a career, Arias was going againstfamily tradition, for he was descended from a long

line of businessmen and politicians. Only weeks after Arias began his studies in Boston, he

watched a series of debates between John F. Kennedy andRichard Nixon, who were running against each other in theupcoming U.S. Presidential election. The debates claimedArias’s entire attention, and he was especially impressed byKennedy. Not only was the future President full of youthfulvigor, but he seemed to represent a fresh, open approach topolitics as he encouraged all Americans to take an activerole in their government.

Arias admired Kennedy so much that he even traveledto the candidate’s home on nearby Cape Cod to meet him.That experience changed Arias’s life. Vowing to makeKennedy his role model, he abandoned medicine and re-turned to his homeland to study political science—takingwhat he hoped were the first steps toward becoming presi-dent of Costa Rica.

Oscar Arias Sánchez was born in Heredia, near theCosta Rican capital of San José, in 1940. His family ownedone of the largest coffee plantations in the country. In addi-tion to being businessmen, male family members had alsoserved in the executive and legislative branches of the na-tional government for several generations.

Arias attended local schools, where he excelled in soc-cer, and he completed the equivalent of junior college beforegoing to the United States to study medicine in 1960. Re-turning to Costa Rica after only a few months in Boston, heenrolled at the national university in San José. During hisyears of study there, he became an active member of the Par-tido de Liberación Nacional (National Liberation party), orPLN, one of Costa Rica’s major political parties.

Arias attracted the attention of national PLN leaderswhen an essay he had written contrasting freedom with totalitarianism was published in a local magazine. As a con-sequence, he was hired to work part time at party head-quarters, and in 1965–66 he was an aide to presidential candidate Daniel Oduber during his unsuccessful campaign.

After receiving his degree in political science in 1966,Arias won a grant from the British government to do gradu-ate study at the University of Essex. There he earned a doc-torate with a dissertation on Costa Rican politics that waslater published locally. From 1969 to 1972 Arias was a pro-fessor of political science at his alma mater, the University of

O S C A R A R I A S S Á N C H E Z • 2 5 3

OscarArias Sánchez

Y1 9 8 7

Once a medical student, Oscar Arias Sánchez changed his careerplans to politics after meeting with U.S. Presidential candidateJohn F. Kennedy in 1960.

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Costa Rica. During his years there hewrote a second book, on Costa Ricanpressure groups, that earned him a na-tional award.

While he was still on the faculty ofthe University of Costa Rica, Ariasserved as an economic adviser to Presi-dent José Figueres. In 1972 Arias leftthe university to join Figueres’s cabinetas minister of national planning. Hecontinued in that post when DanielOduber succeeded Figueres as presidentin 1974, and he remained in the cabi-net until 1977.

As minister of national planning,Arias established programs to encour-age economic growth, technologicaldevelopment, and full employment.Under his leadership, a large park wasconstructed in the center of San José.In the fall of 1976 he sponsored a wide-ly publicized conference in San José atwhich various prominent people dis-cussed the future of Costa Rica.

During the 1970s, Arias also heldvarious positions in the PLN and even-tually was elected to the party’s top post,secretary-general. In those years he fre-quently traveled abroad as Costa Rica’srepresentative to various internationalconferences on economic and social is-sues, including development in ThirdWorld (underdeveloped) countries.

Arias left the cabinet in July 1977to campaign for a seat in the nationallegislature, and in February 1978 hewas elected to represent his hometown,Heredia. During his three years in thelegislature, he led attempts to bringabout constitutional and election re-form. He resigned in May 1981 to cam-paign for PLN presidential candidateLuis Alberto Monge, who was electedin February 1982.

Arias continued as secretary-gener-al of the PLN until January 1984, whenhe resigned to pursue his party’s nomi-nation for president. Under national

2 5 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

As president of Costa Rica, Arias (farright) and the heads of four other CentralAmerican nations sign a joint peace agreement on August 7, 1987.

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law, Monge could not run for a secondterm, and national elections werescheduled for February 1986. Arias re-ceived the nomination, and after an in-tensive campaign, he achieved the goalhe had set for himself in 1960: he waselected president of Costa Rica. Likehis hero John F. Kennedy, he was alsothe youngest president in his country’shistory.

During the campaign, Arias pro-claimed himself a “peace candidate,”and after he took office he was true tohis word. Several of Costa Rica’s Cen-tral American neighbors—El Salvador,Nicaragua, and Guatemala—were involved in civil wars. Arias was deter-mined that Costa Rica, a neutral na-tion, would not be drawn into theseconflicts.

Shortly after taking office in May1986, Arias met with the presidents ofGuatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, andNicaragua to discuss a previously pro-posed peace accord for the region. Theaccord called for demilitarization andthe holding of democratic elections inall Central American countries. At theconclusion of the talks, the participantsacknowledged that further details ofthe accord needed to be worked out.However, they issued a declarationcalling for continued open discussionsto encourage democracy in CentralAmerica and to promote regional eco-nomic development. They also calledfor the future creation of a CentralAmerican parliament.

At a follow-up meeting a year later with the heads of Honduras,Guatemala, and El Salvador, Arias pro-posed a new regional peace plan forCentral America. It called for immedi-ate cease-fires in ongoing wars and for the suspension of military aid fromoutside sources, including the UnitedStates. Cease-fires would then be

followed by peace negotiations, freeelections, and national guarantees ofhuman rights.

After considerable debate in theUnited States and other Latin Ameri-can countries, a version of Arias’s re-gional peace plan was signed inGuatemala City on August 7, 1987, byArias and the presidents of Guatemala,El Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua.The agreement, which was to take ef-fect three months later, was widelyhailed for bringing the possibility oflasting peace to a long-troubled region.

In October 1987 Oscar AriasSánchez was named the winner of thatyear’s Nobel Peace Prize for his effortsto end conflict in Central America. Amonth later, his peace plan took ef-fect, and many of its terms were metby participating countries in the yearsthat followed. Although CentralAmerica is still far from conflict-free,the peacemaking efforts of Arias werea historic milestone in efforts towardthat goal.

During the remainder of his presi-dential term, Arias tried with limitedsuccess to solve major economic prob-lems in his country. After leaving officein the spring of 1990, he founded theArias Foundation for Peace to continueworking for an end to conflict in Cen-tral America. Arias is married to a biochemist and has two children. Inaddition to the Nobel Peace Prize, hehas won many other awards and re-ceived honorary doctorates from Har-vard and other universities.


“Arias Sánchez, Oscar.” In Current Biogra-phy Yearbook 1987. New York: H. W. Wil-son, 1988.

O S C A R A R I A S S Á N C H E Z • 2 5 5

Oscar AriasSánchezB O R N

September 13, 1940Heredia, Costa Rica

E D U C AT I O N

Undergraduate degree, University ofCosta Rica (1966); doctoral degreein political science, University ofEssex (1969)

O C C U PAT I O N

Politician


President of Costa Rica (1986–90);initiated a peace plan to end on-going conflict in Central Americannations (1987)


he United Nations Peacekeeping Forceswere created by the United Nations SecurityCouncil in 1948. The forces are an “army ofpeace” that has brought calm to troubled re-gions throughout the world.

The first assignment for UN Peacekeeping Forces was inthe Middle East, in June 1948. Nearly 300 peacemakers—specially trained soldiers from 16 countries, including theUnited States—were sent to Beirut, Lebanon, and the SinaiPeninsula as the UN Truce Supervision Organization. Theywent there to support a UN truce mission that had estab-lished temporary peace between Arabs and Israelis soon afterthe establishment of the new state of Israel.

Less than a year later, another unit of PeacekeepingForces called the UN Military Observer Group in India andPakistan was sent to the border between those two countriesin January 1949. This unit numbered about three dozen “sol-diers of peace” from 10 countries. Their job was to enforce acease-fire that had temporarily ended the ongoing war be-tween India and Pakistan.

During the next four decades UN Peacekeeping Forceswere sent to other major world trouble spots, includingCyprus, Syria’s Golan Heights, southern Lebanon,Afghanistan, and the Iran-Iraq border. During these years,some 10,000 individuals representing more than 36 countries

2 5 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

TUnited NationsPeacekeepingForces

Y1 9 8 8

The United Nations Iran-Iraq Military Observer Group (UNIIMOG), a unit of United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, arrives in Bagh-dad in August 1988 to monitor a cease-fire during the Iran-Iraq War.

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served in Peacekeeping Forces through-out the world. Their job was not easy:members of the forces risked theirlives—and often lost them—to keepthe spirit of peace alive and to preventhostile opponents from engaging in all-out war.

In 1988, the 40th-anniversary yearof their founding, the United NationsPeacekeeping Forces were announcedas the winners of that year’s NobelPeace Prize. In the words of the NobelCommittee, “the Peacekeeping Forcesthrough their efforts have made impor-tant contributions toward the realiza-tion of one of the fundamental tenetsof the United Nations.” The commit-tee called the forces representatives of“the manifest will of the community ofnations to achieve peace through nego-tiations” and praised them for making“a decisive contribution toward the ini-tiation of actual peace negotiations.”

UN Secretary-General Javier Pérezde Cuellar accepted the award on be-half of the forces. The prize money,about $388,000 in U.S. dollars, wasused to pay some of the expenses of thePeacekeeping Forces, which in recent

years had been in debt. The 1988award was the fourth Nobel Peace Prizewon by an organization associated withthe United Nations. (UN agencies alsowon the award in 1954, 1965, and1981.)

Since winning the Nobel PeacePrize, the UN Peacekeeping Forceshave continued to serve around theworld in ever-increasing numbers. Inthe 1990s, units of Peacekeeping Forcesnumbering in the thousands have beensent to Angola, Bosnia, Haiti, Somalia,and other regions in an effort to endconflict. As local wars continue to flareup throughout the world, it seems like-ly that the “army of peace” will contin-ue its mission for some time to come.


Patterson, Charles. The Oxford 50th An-niversary Book of the United Nations. NewYork: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Rule, Sheila. “U.N. Peacekeeping ForcesNamed Winner of the Nobel Peace Prize.”New York Times, September 30, 1988, pp. 1, 10.

U N I T E D N A T I O N S P E A C E K E E P I N G F O R C E S • 2 5 7

United NationsPeacekeepingForcesF O U N D E R

United Nations Security Council

DAT E A N D P L AC E O FF O U N D I N G

1948New York, New York


New York, New York

P U R P O S E

To maintain cease-fires betweenwarring factions and reduce ten-sions through negotiation


Since their creation, have broughtpeace to troubled regions through-out the world


A UN armored personnel carrier patrols the streets of war-torn Sarajevo during a visitin 1994 by UN Secretary-General Boutros Boutros-Ghali.

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n 1937 Buddhist monks in the mountainous Asiancountry of Tibet came to the end of a long search.In the small village of Taktser they found a two-year-old boy to take the place of their late religiousleader, the 13th Dalai Lama. (A lama is a Buddhist

monk; “dalai” [pronounced DAL-lay] means “ocean,” a sym-bol of vast wisdom.)

The monks were members of Gelugpa, the most promi-nent Buddhist sect in Tibet. According to tradition, everyDalai Lama is a reincarnation—a reborn version—of theprevious holder of the title. When the monks discoveredtwo-year-old Lhamo Thondup in Taktser, they found manyresemblances between the child and the 13th Dalai Lama,who had died in 1933. This led them to conclude thatLhamo Thondup was his successor.

2 5 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Lhamo Thondup, born to a Tibetan peasant family, became theDalai Lama, the spiritual and political leader of Tibet, when hewas just two years old.

IThe Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso)

Y1 9 8 9

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At that time the region aroundTaktser was controlled by a Chinesegovernor, who demanded a large sum ofmoney before he would allow themonks to take the child and his familyto the holy city of Lhasa, the Buddhistreligious center in Tibet. After long ne-gotiations the money was paid, and inFebruary 1940 the 14th Dalai Lamawas duly installed on Lhasa’s LionThrone, the traditional chair of genera-tions of Dalai Lamas. He was now ad-dressed as “Gyalwa Rinpoche” (“thevirtuous and precious one”), and theshortened version of his new officialname was Tenzin Gyatso.

The 14th Dalai Lama had beenborn in Taktser in July 1935 to a simplepeasant couple. He was one of fivechildren. At the Potala Palace, thethousand-room building in Lhasawhere he was taken to live in 1940, hewas privately tutored by other monks.He was exceptionally bright and stud-ied not only the Buddhist religion butalso English, math, and world geogra-phy. He eventually earned the equiva-lent of a doctoral degree in philosophy.Guided by his teachers, the 14th DalaiLama ruled as both the spiritual andpolitical leader of Tibet.

For centuries Tibet had been underBuddhist rule, although regions of thecountry were periodically taken over bysecular invaders from neighboringChina. In the 20th century, Tibet hadbeen almost entirely free of Chinesedomination since 1912, when the 13thDalai Lama had evicted most of theChinese who had settled in the country.

The new Dalai Lama knew onlypeace until 1950, when troops from therecently established Communist gov-ernment of China invaded his country.After a series of negotiations betweensenior monks and Chinese authorities,Tibet was declared a province of Chinabut was allowed to keep its religiousand political system intact.

During the 1950s, as more andmore Chinese moved into Tibet, the

Dalai Lama tried to maintain Tibet’speace and dignity. He traveled to Bei-jing, China’s capital, several times tomeet with the Chinese premier, MaoZedong, and he visited many parts ofChina. As a man of peace, the DalaiLama worked hard to keep all-out war-fare from breaking out between the twocountries. However, in many regions ofTibet a series of small wars were con-tinuing between local Tibetans andChinese troops. The Dalai Lama felthelpless to change the situation be-cause, like all Buddhists, he opposed vi-olence in any form. Therefore, he re-fused to take either side, although hewas pressed by both the Tibetans andthe Chinese to do so.

In early 1959 the growing militan-cy of the Chinese occupying Tibet ledto a rebellion by Tibetans, and thou-sands of them were killed by Chinesetroops. Because the Dalai Lama repre-sented Tibet itself, Tibetan leadersfeared that his death at the hands ofthe Chinese would symbolize the endof Tibet, too. Therefore, they helpedhim flee south, along with his motherand sister, to India. There he wasgranted asylum and eventually settledin the Indian town of Dharamsala, inthe Himalayas near the border withPakistan.

In the following decade, China im-posed a strict Communist governmenton Tibet and declared that the DalaiLama was no longer the country’s legit-imate ruler. The Chinese waged waragainst Tibetan Buddhists, killingmonks and nuns and destroying monas-teries and priceless artwork. In themid-1960s, China renamed the countryand it became known as the Tibet Au-tonomous Region.

As the head of Tibet’s government-in-exile, the Dalai Lama offered strongbut peaceful protests against the ac-tions of the Chinese and worked toarouse world opinion against the de-struction of his homeland. He succeed-ed in getting the United Nations

T H E D A L A I L A M A • 2 5 9

TheDalaiLama (Tenzin Gyatso)B O R N

July 6, 1935Taktser, Tibet

E D U C AT I O N

Privately tutored

O C C U PAT I O N

Buddhist religious leader


Has been a lifelong advocate ofpeace as the leader of Tibetan Buddhists


General Assembly to pass several reso-lutions calling for the respect of humanrights in Tibet. To further publicize hiscause, he wrote an autobiography, MyLand and My People (1962), which be-came an international best-seller.

For a number of years, the DalaiLama was unable to travel outsideIndia because the Indian governmentdid not wish to risk offending the Chi-nese. During his confinement inDharamsala he helped the immigrantcommunity of some 80,000 Tibetanswho had, like himself, fled to northernIndia. He worked hard to preserve Ti-betan culture and religion, and heoften led Buddhist religious cere-monies. He also studied Western cul-tures and current events, and kept uphis knowledge of these areas throughcontacts with Western journalists whotraveled to India to interview him.

The ban on the Dalai Lama’s travelwas lifted in 1967, when he was allowedto visit Japan. Six years later he made asix-week tour of Europe. In the 1970sthe national Chinese government inBeijing began easing the harshness of itsrule. The government allowed monas-teries to reopen in Tibet, and in 1979 itinvited the Dalai Lama to return.

The Dalai Lama was wary of theoffer, however, and neither acceptednor rejected it. Instead he immediatelyresumed his travels abroad. He attend-ed an international Buddhist peaceconference in Mongolia and visitedMoscow, and he also made his first tripto the United States. There he visitedBuddhist congregations, gave talks oncollege campuses, and met with gov-ernment officials. He returned to theUnited States for additional visits inthe early 1980s. Over and over again,he stressed the need for an end to vio-lence between nations and a commit-ment to world peace.

By now the Dalai Lama was hailedinternationally as a man of courage,and he realized that in exile he coulddo more to help Tibet than he could ifhe returned home to live under aCommunist regime. Since the late1950s, he had received a series ofawards for his courageous stand andbeen named an honorary citizen of halfa dozen countries, including the Unit-ed States. In 1989 he was awarded thatyear’s Nobel Peace Prize for his lifelongopposition to violence.

Today the Dalai Lama continues tolive in Dharamsala, where he is still re-garded by Tibetan Buddhists as theirspiritual leader. In addition to his auto-biography, he has written a number ofbooks on Buddhism and its pacifistteachings, including A Human Ap-proach to World Peace (1984).


Dalai Lama. My Land and My People. NewYork: Potala, 1983.

———. Freedom in Exile: The Autobiogra-phy of the Dalai Lama. New York: Harper-Collins, 1990.

Freise, Kai. Tenzin Gyatso, the Dalai Lama.New York: Chelsea House, 1989.

Levenson, Claude B. The Dalai Lama: ABiography. London: Unwin Hyman, 1988.

2 6 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

The Dalai Lama’s home in exile inDharamsala, India.

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he Russian political leader Mikhail Gor-bachev may not have seemed a likely inter-national peacemaker in his early years, buthis friends remember that his political skillsmarked him as a leader even in childhood.

Eventually he would use those skills to put his country onthe road to peace—and win the Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts.

Gorbachev was born in the small town of Privolnoye in1931 to a Russian peasant couple. His first experience of waroccurred in 1942, when German troops occupied his townand the surrounding countryside during World War II. De-spite this disruption, Gorbachev continued his studies inlocal schools. Following graduation, he enrolled at MoscowSate University and earned a law degree some years later, in1955.

Although Gorbachev was not an especially good stu-dent, he persisted in studying law because he believed itwould help him find a career in government. In the early1950s he joined the ruling Communist party—the only po-litical party then allowed in the Soviet Union—and becameactive in its youth division, the Young Communist League(Komsomol), in his home district of Stavropol. There herose in the organization’s leadership, and by the early 1960she had secured a government appointment as head of agri-culture for Stavropol. To help him in his new post, he tookcourses on the economics of farming at the Stavropol Agri-cultural Institute and earned a degree in the field in 1967.

Gorbachev excelled in his government post as he reor-ganized the local state-run farms to make them more produc-tive. During the late 1960s he was also appointed to a seriesof leadership positions with increasing responsibility in theCommunist party. By 1970 he had risen to a prominentparty post in the national legislative body, the Supreme Soviet. A year later Gorbachev became a member of thepowerful Soviet Central Committee, the country’s primarygoverning body. In this capacity he traveled as a delegate toparty congresses throughout the Soviet Union. He also madetrips to several Western European countries, which expand-ed his knowledge of these areas. Gorbachev is a friendlyman, and his pleasing personality helped ease many tensionsthat had long existed between Communist and non-Communist nations in Europe—tensions that were known as the Cold War.

Gorbachev’s administrative talents and his ability to getalong with people were looked upon favorably by top partyleaders, and several of them helped to advance his career. In 1978 he climbed further upward when he was named

M I K H A I L G O R B A C H E V • 2 6 1

Mikhail Gorbachev

Y1 9 9 0

Soviet premier Mikhail Gorbachev addresses the UN GeneralAssembly on December 7, 1988. His efforts to improve rela-tions with Western nations led to the end of the Cold War.

T

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national agriculture secretary, a postthat took him to Moscow, the Sovietcapital. In this position Gorbachev wasless successful than he had been asStavropol’s agriculture secretary, but hestill continued to be popular with partyofficials. By the fall of 1980 he had be-come a full voting member of the Polit-buro, the Communist Party’s policy-making body.

In the early 1980s the SovietUnion went through an unsettled peri-od as a succession of its heads of statedied after short terms in office. In 1982Gorbachev advanced still further tothe top post of general secretary whenhe became the chief assistant to YuriAndropov, the new holder of that posi-tion. Andropov surprised many Rus-sians by introducing numerous reforms,including a widespread fight against

corruption in government. As An-dropov’s right-hand man, Gorbachevhelped him carry out these reforms.

It was apparent that Andropov wasgrooming Gorbachev to be his succes-sor, but after Andropov’s unexpecteddeath in early 1984, Gorbachev waspassed over for the top post in favor ofKonstantin Chernenko. However,Chernenko was old and sick, and as hebecame increasingly unable to carryout his duties, Gorbachev quietly as-sumed more and more of them. WhenChernenko himself died in March1985, Gorbachev was finally electedgeneral secretary by the Central Com-mittee.

Upon taking office, Gorbachev an-nounced that economic developmentwas one of his major goals. As for therole of the Soviet Union in interna-tional affairs, Gorbachev vowed tomaintain his country’s strong defensesystem, but he said that he would con-tinue to follow its traditional policy of“peaceful coexistence” with non-Com-munist nations.

Gorbachev strengthened his powerby forcing the resignation of olderPolitburo members and replacing themwith younger associates who were sym-pathetic to his goals. He then embarkedon a series of political, social, and eco-nomic reforms designed to liberalize thecountry. He used two Russian words tocharacterize his new goals: glasnost,meaning “openness,” and perestroika,or “restructuring.”

During the next few years Gor-bachev carried out these reforms byfreeing thousands of political prisoners,including physicist and peace activistAndrei Sakharov, encouraging greaterfreedom of expression, and allowingmany Russians to leave the country. Healso led a full-scale attack on govern-mental corruption. In addition, hecalled for a realistic look at recent

2 6 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Premier Gorbachev and U.S. PresidentRonald Reagan at the signing of the Inter-mediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) onDecember 8, 1987, in Washington, D.C.This was the first international agreementto reduce nuclear weapons stockpiles.

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Russian history and criticized previousefforts to hide the failures of the Com-munist government. Gorbachev en-couraged greater independence amongmember republics of the Soviet Unionby easing Moscow’s control of theirgovernments.

To improve relations between theSoviet Union and Western nations, es-pecially the United States, Gorbachevheld a series of talks with PresidentRonald Reagan. These led to the sign-ing of a nuclear-arms-eliminationtreaty in 1987 (the Intermediate Nu-clear Forces Treaty, or INF). Two yearslater, Gorbachev ended the SovietUnion’s long occupation of Afghan-istan. By this time, Communist governments throughout Eastern Europe were beginning to fall, andGorbachev encouraged this process byacknowledging it as inevitable and re-fusing to try to stop it.

In 1990 a newly created nationallegislative body in the Soviet Unionvoted to end the Communist party’s70-year control of the government, andmembers then elected Gorbachev ex-ecutive president of the Soviet Union.Later that year, Gorbachev was award-ed the 1990 Nobel Peace Prize for hisefforts to ease tension between Easternand Western nations.

However, despite the internationalacclaim that Gorbachev had earned forhis efforts to liberalize his country, hispopularity declined rapidly in the Sovi-et Union following his receipt of theNobel award. The Soviet economy wasin danger of failing completely, and theeasing of central control had led to theeruption of tensions between differentethnic minorities in many of the Sovietrepublics.

By the end of 1991, Gorbachevhad dissolved the Communist partyand replaced the old Soviet Unionwith a looser confederation of its

member republics, called the Com-monwealth of Independent States(CIS). In December of that year, be-lieving that he could no longer rulethe country effectively, Gorbachev re-signed the presidency.

In recent years Gorbachev hasserved as president of the InternationalFoundation for Socio-Economic andPolitical Studies, a research organiza-tion he founded in Moscow to help re-build his country. He remains active inRussian public life as the CIS stillstruggles to overcome the disastrous ef-fects of Communist rule.

Gorbachev is married to a formeruniversity professor of political scienceand has one daughter. He is the authorof half a dozen books on contemporarypolitics and the peacemaking process,and has also written several volumes ofmemoirs.


Butson, Thomas. Mikhail Gorbachev. NewYork: Chelsea House, 1986.

Gorbachev, Mikhail. The Coming Centuryof Peace. Mamaroneck, N.Y.: Richardson& Steirman/Eagle Publishing Corp., 1985.

———. Speeches and Writings. 2 vols. NewYork: Pergamon, 1986–87.

———. A Time for Peace. Mamaroneck,N.Y.: Richardson & Steirman/Eagle Pub-lishing Corp., 1986.

Kaiser, Robert G. Why Gorbachev Hap-pened: His Triumphs and His Failure. NewYork: Simon & Schuster, 1991.

Morrison, Donald, and the Editors of Time.Mikhail Gorbachev: An Intimate Biography.New York: Time, Inc., 1988.

Sheehy, Gail. The Man Who Changed theWorld: The Lives of Mikhail S. Gorbachev.New York: Harper, 1990.

Smith, Hedrick. The New Russians. NewYork: Random House, 1990.

M I K H A I L G O R B A C H E V • 2 6 3

Mikhail GorbachevB O R N

March 2, 1931Privolnoye, Russia

E D U C AT I O N

Law degree, Moscow State Univer-sity (1955); diploma, StavropolAgricultural Institute (1967)

O C C U PAT I O N

Political leader


General secretary, Communist Partyof the Soviet (1985–90); presidentof the Soviet Union (1990–91); ledreform movement to liberalize thegovernment and end 70 years ofCommunist rule


ntil 1988, few people outside of her nativeBurma had heard of Aung San Suu Kyi(pronounced Ong Sahn Soo Chee) In fact,she was not that well known in her owncountry either. However, her father, Aung

San, was—and still is—one of the most revered figures inBurma’s history. His face is as well known there as GeorgeWashington’s is in the United States—and for the same rea-son: he is considered the father of his country.

Aung San Suu Kyi was the youngest of Aung San’s threechildren and his only daughter. He had died when she wastwo years old, and she had spent most of her life abroad.During that time Burma had gone steadily downhill becauseof years of misrule by dictators. When Suu Kyi returned toBurma in the spring of 1988, she discovered that a pro-democracy movement was in progress, and that it had beeninspired by the deep love the Burmese still felt for her father.It thus seemed natural for Suu Kyi to assume the leadershipof the movement. Less than four years later, Suu Kyi’s strug-gle for democracy was known throughout the world, and shereceived the 1991 Nobel Peace Prize.

Aung San Suu Kyi was born in Rangoon, Burma, in1945, at the end of World War II. Her father, an army gener-al, was the leader of a nationalist movement to secureBurma’s independence from Great Britain, which had con-trolled the Southeast Asian nation for more than half a cen-tury. Although British rule had formally ended in 1937, thecountry did not become completely independent until 1948.However, Aung San did not live to see independence cometo Burma: he was assassinated in 1947 by political opponents.

Suu Kyi lived with her widowed mother in Rangoon forthe next 13 years and attended school there. Her lifechanged dramatically in 1960, however, when her motherwas appointed Burma’s ambassador to India. She spent thenext four years in New Delhi, living in the luxurious ambas-sador’s residence. During those years, a military dictatornamed Ne Win seized control of the Burmese government.He was to rule the country for nearly three decades.

Despite the temptation to lead a leisurely life filled withhorseback riding, ballet lessons, and partygoing, Suu Kyi ex-celled in her studies at the private school she attended inNew Delhi. At that school she learned for the first timeabout Mohandas Gandhi, India’s legendary nationalist leaderwho preached a philosophy of nonviolent resistance to allforms of wrongdoing. Twenty-five years later, Gandhi wouldhave a strong influence on Suu Kyi’s life.

In 1964 Suu Kyi traveled to England to enroll at OxfordUniversity, where she studied politics, philosophy, and eco-

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UAung SanSuuKyi

Y1 9 9 1

nomics. She was eager to learn aboutWestern culture, but she maintainedher Buddhist religion and her devotionto Burmese culture. After graduating in1968, she taught for a while in Englandand then worked as a researcher at theUnited Nations headquarters in NewYork City.

In 1972 Suu Kyi married MichaelAris, a scholar of Tibetan civilizationwhom she had met at Oxford. For ayear after the marriage, she and herhusband lived in Bhutan, an indepen-dent kingdom in the Himalayas. Whilehe served as a tutor for the royal family,Suu Kyi worked in the country’s for-eign ministry. The couple then re-turned to Oxford, where Michael Arisresumed his university career and SuuKyi gave birth to their first son. A sec-ond son was born four years later.

For 12 years—from 1973 to1985—Suu Kyi lived the comfortablelife of an Oxford professor’s wife.While she was caring for her family,however, she never forgot Burma. Shegrew increasingly interested in her fa-ther’s life, and she wrote a brief biogra-phy of him that was published in Eng-land in 1984.

Suu Kyi’s emerging independenceand her desire to learn more about herfather led her to travel to Japan in1985, where she spent the year as a vis-iting scholar at the Center for South-east Asian Studies at the University ofKyoto. By the end of her stay in Japan,she felt a complete identification withher father and his dream for a democra-tic Burma. Her feelings were intensifiedby the knowledge that Burma, underthe dictator Ne Win, had declined so-cially, politically, and economically.

Once the richest country in South-east Asia, Burma was now one of thethree poorest nations in the world. Inaddition to physical hardships, theBurmese also had to live under a politi-cal system that prohibited free elec-tions and severely limited such basiccivil rights as freedom of speech and

freedom of the press. By 1986, Suu Kyibecame convinced that one day shewould return to Burma and fight forthe democratic cause—the cause thather father had died for.

After her studies in Kyoto, Suu Kyiwas reunited in 1986 with her family inIndia, where her husband was doing re-search. She spent a year there writing abook on Burma and India under colo-nial rule. In 1987, when the family re-turned to England, Suu Kyi enrolled asa doctoral student in Burmese literatureat the University of London.

In April 1988 Suu Kyi was calledto Rangoon to care for her dying moth-er. When she arrived, she discoveredthat a series of confrontations were tak-ing place between armed soldiers andsmall groups of university studentsprotesting various government policies.

A U N G S A N S U U K Y I • 2 6 5

Aung San Suu Kyi addresses a group ofsupporters in Rangoon in July 1989,shortly before she was placed underhouse arrest by the Burmese government.

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During the next few months, the clash-es increased and grew more violent,and by June several hundred studentdemonstrators had been killed. In JulyNe Win resigned and was replaced byan even harsher military ruler, GeneralSaw Maung.

By early August the protest move-ment had gained momentum as tens ofthousands of people from all walks oflife marched in Rangoon and otherBurmese cities. Many of them carriedlarge placards bearing the photo ofGeneral Aung San, Burma’s hero. Sol-diers began firing into the crowds ofdemonstrators, and in one five-day pe-riod, August 8–13, some 3,000 peoplewere killed. As Suu Kyi tended hermother at the family estate on InyaLake, on the outskirts of Rangoon, shelistened to radio reports of these

events, and she decided that she couldno longer remain a bystander. On Au-gust 26 Suu Kyi made her first publicappearance on behalf of the demon-strators as she spoke to a crowd of halfa million at a Buddhist shrine in down-town Rangoon. Up until then, thedemonstrators had been united only bytheir opposition to the government.They had not yet focused on what theywanted to achieve, and they did nothave a single leader. In her speech, SuuKyi gave the demonstrators a focus: shetold her audience that they must workfor the restoration of basic humanrights in Burma—and the most impor-tant of them all was the right to holdfree elections.

Aung San Suu Kyi not only hadher father’s name; she also looked verymuch like him. Her effect on the

2 6 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Pro-democracy demonstrators march inRangoon in August 1988. Featured onmany of their banners were portraits ofAung San, a Burmese national hero andthe father of Aung San Suu Kyi.

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crowd was electric, and she realizedthat she would have to remain in Ran-goon after her mother’s death to headthe struggle for human rights. In Sep-tember she founded a political party,the National League for Democracy, towork for those rights. On behalf of theparty, she began traveling throughoutBurma, encouraging the people to seekfreedom—but to do so without usingviolence. She preached nonviolentcivil disobedience—the philosophy ofGandhi that she had learned about in aNew Delhi classroom 25 years earlier.

Armed soldiers often tried to breakup Suu Kyi’s pro-democracy rallies. Shewas frequently threatened and her fol-lowers were often arrested. She neverbacked down, however, and continuedto speak out. She traveled to the mostremote areas of Burma, often using cattle-drawn carts or primitive rafts for transportation.

Finally, in July 1989, the govern-ment retaliated by placing Suu Kyiunder house arrest. Her contact withher family was severely restricted, hertelephone line was cut, and her onlycontact with the outside world was asmall shortwave radio on which shecould hear international news broad-casts.

Despite appeals throughout theworld from human rights organizationsto free Suu Kyi, she was still underhouse arrest in the fall of 1991, whenthe Nobel Peace Prize committee an-nounced that she was the recipient ofthat year’s award for leading “a democ-ratic opposition which employs nonvi-olent means to resist a regime charac-terized by brutality.” Because she couldnot leave her house, much less thecountry, her older son, now 18 yearsold, accepted the Peace Prize in Osloin December for his mother.

Suu Kyi remained under house ar-rest for six years. During that time Saw

Maung renamed the country Myanmarand its capital Yangon. In response tocontinuing protests he did grant smallreforms, and even allowed a free na-tional election to be held. When helost, however, he declared the electioninvalid.

While she was in captivity, SuuKyi tried to lead as normal a life as pos-sible. She observed Buddhist ritualsand practices, read, sewed, and fol-lowed international events on hershortwave radio. Finally, without fan-fare, Suu Kyi was notified in July 1995that she was no longer under house ar-rest. The news of her release traveledquickly around the world and made thefront pages of every major newspaper.

Following her release, Suu Kyi im-mediately set out to revive the Nation-al League for Democracy. Her house onInya Lake became the headquarters ofthe party. Today Suu Kyi continues tocall for democratic rule in her nation,and she hopes someday to achievewhat her father gave his life for half acentury ago.


Aung San Suu Kyi. Freedom from Fear andOther Writings. New York: Viking, 1991.

“Aung San Suu Kyi.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1992. New York: H. W. Wilson,1993.

Dreifus, Claudia. “The Passion of Suu Kyi.”New York Times Magazine, January 7, 1996,pp. 32ff.

Parenteau, John. Prisoner for Peace: AungSan Suu Kyi and Burma’s Struggle forDemocracy. Greensboro, N.C.: MorganReynolds, 1994.

Shenon, Philip. “Head of Democratic Op-position Is Released by Burma Military.”New York Times, July 11, 1995, pp. 1, 8.

A U N G S A N S U U K Y I • 2 6 7

Aung SanSuuKyiB O R N

June 19, 1945Rangoon, Burma (now Yangon,Myanmar)

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., Oxford University (1968);doctoral study, University of Lon-don (1987–88)

O C C U PAT I O N

Scholar; human rights activist


Founder, National League forDemocracy, a nationwide move-ment to restore democratic govern-ment to Myanmar (Burma)


ometime in 1959—no one remembers exactlywhen—a sixth child, a girl named RigobertaMenchú, was born to Vicente Menchú and hiswife, poor peasants who lived in the village ofChimel in northern Guatemala. In the next few

years, the Menchús had three more children. As soon as they were able, these children and the

children of other Guatemalan peasant families—Mayan Indians—worked from October until February beside theirparents on coffee and cotton plantations along the southerncoast. Their 18-hour days of labor began at 3:00 A.M. andended at dusk. Working conditions were terrible, and theyearned very little. For the remaining months of the year theyhelped their parents farm small plots of land to raise beansand corn for food.

Millions of Mayan Indian Guatemalans—as many as 8million, or 80 percent of the population—lived, and still livetoday, like the Menchús. Most of them are illiterate, havenever attended school, and are plagued by malnutrition, dis-ease, and cruel treatment by the ruling class of wealthylandowners—the remaining 20 percent of the population inGuatemala that is descended from European settlers, primar-ily Spanish.

In the 1960s, relations between the Mayan Indians andthe landowners grew worse as the government allowedlandowners to seize more and more Mayan land. RigobertaMenchú grew up in the midst of increasing clashes betweenthe Mayans and the landowners, which turned into a civilwar. As a small child she worked with her family on the cof-fee and cotton plantations. By the time she was eight, two ofher brothers had died—one from starvation and the otherfrom pesticides sprayed on the crops. In 1971, when she was12, her family sent her to Guatemala City to work as a maidin the home of a wealthy family, but she was treated badlyand returned to Chimel after several months.

Upon her return, Rigoberta discovered that her fatherhad been imprisoned for protesting the seizure of Mayanland near the village. When Vicente Menchú was released ayear later, he resumed his efforts to organize opposition tothe takeover of Mayan Indian land. This time he was joinedby Rigoberta, who traveled throughout the countryside withhim and listened admiringly to his speeches. One day Vi-cente told his daughter that after his death she would haveto carry on his work, and she took his words seriously.

The Menchús were Christians who also held to the traditional beliefs of the Mayan religion, and their faith sus-tained both father and daughter. As she grew older, Rigo-berta became more active in her father’s cause, and she

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SRigobertaMenchú

Y1 9 9 2

personally encouraged fellow peasantsin their fight to keep their land.

In the late 1970s Vicente Menchúfounded a political organization whosename in English is the Committee ofPeasant Unity; it is more widely knownas the CUC, the initials of its Spanishname. The CUC was created to ad-vance the cause of the Mayan Indians,and Rigoberta and her brothers becameactive members. Rigoberta, who thenspoke only a Mayan dialect and couldnot read or write, realized that to fightfor her rights she needed to knowSpanish, the language of those whoruled Guatemala. She taught herself toread, write, and speak the language,

and she also learned other Indian dialects.

The Menchú family’s political ac-tivities were being watched closely bygovernment authorities, and in Sep-tember 1979 they began to clampdown. That month one of Rigoberta’sbrothers was captured and burned aliveby government troops. Four monthslater, in January 1980, Vicente waskilled during a demonstration inGuatemala City. In April Rigoberta be-came an orphan: her mother was kid-napped, tortured, and left to die on ahillside near their village.

By now, Rigoberta Menchú hadbecome one of the CUC’s most active

R I G O B E R T A M E N C H Ú • 2 6 9

RigobertaMenchúB O R N

1959Chimel, Guatemala

E D U C AT I O N

Self-educated

O C C U PAT I O N

Human rights activist


As an active member of the Com-mittee of Peasant Unity (CUC),worked for fair treatment ofGuatemala’s Mayan Indian popula-tion; author of a best-selling autobi-ography, I, Rigoberta Menchú;founder, Vicente Menchú Founda-tion, a human rights organization


Rigoberta Menchú accepted the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of the Indian peo-ples of Central and South America.The Nobel committee cited her “work for socialjustice and ethno-cultural reconciliation” in awarding her its prize.

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members. She began organizing laborstrikes at Guatemalan plantations toprotest working conditions. The CUCgrew to include not only members ofGuatemala’s Mayan population but alsomany non-Indians who were sympa-thetic to the Mayan cause, includinguniversity professors, students, andRoman Catholic nuns and priests.

By the summer of 1981, RigobertaMenchú’s activities had put her life indanger as the government sought hercapture. She managed to escape toneighboring Mexico, where thousandsof other Guatemalan refugees had set-tled. There she was aided by membersof a Roman Catholic organizationcalled the Guatemalan Church inExile. Through them she met otherpeople who were sympathetic to theplight of the Mayan peasants.

In 1982 Menchú traveled to Eu-rope, where she met an anthropologistand journalist named Elisabeth Burgos-Debray. She told the woman her lifestory, and it was published as her auto-biography a year later. The book quick-ly became a best-seller and has beentranslated into more than a dozen lan-guages. The English version, called I,Rigoberta Menchú, was first published in1984 and is widely read on collegecampuses in the United States.

Living in exile in Mexico City,Menchú devoted herself to drawing in-ternational attention to the politicaland social problems of Guatemala,which has the most violations againsthuman rights of any country in thewestern hemisphere. She also followedthe ongoing civil war in Guatemala be-tween government troops and peasantrebels fighting for equality. In 1987Menchú cofounded the National Com-mittee for Reconciliation, a group thatcontinues to appeal to the Guatemalangovernment to negotiate with CUCand other rebel groups and end thelong civil war.

Menchú’s struggles to bring justiceto the Mayan Indians of Guatemala

earned her the 1992 Nobel Peace Prize.The news of her award was greetedwith joy by Menchú and her supportersaround the world, but there was criti-cism as well. Guatemalan officials criticized the Nobel Committee’schoice, and prominent members ofGuatemela’s upper class publicly ridi-culed her. In other countries, conserv-ative political commentators accusedher of being a Communist revolution-ary interested only in encouraging violence, not in establishing peace.

Menchú used the $1.2 millionprize money to establish a foundationin memory of her father. The VicenteMenchú Foundation works to promotehuman rights and education among in-digenous (native) populations not onlyin Guatemala but throughout Northand South America.

Rigoberta Menchú’s long-helddream of peace in Guatemala was final-ly realized in 1996. On September 19,the Guatemalan government and rebelgroups signed the first agreement to-ward ending the country’s 36-year-longcivil war. On December 29, the finalagreements, which included the frame-work for establishing a more open, de-mocratic society in Guatemala, weresigned. Menchú was a prominent guestat both events, ending her long exilefrom her home country.

Menchú continues her work withthe foundation she established. Shealso travels frequently, making speecheson behalf of human rights.


Menchú, Rigoberta. I, Rigoberta Menchú:An Indian Woman in Guatemala. Translatedby Ann Wright. London: Verso, 1984.

“Menchú, Rigoberta.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1993. New York: H. W. Wilson,1994.

2 7 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

rom the time of his birth in 1936, there waslittle doubt that F. W. de Klerk, cowinner ofthe 1993 Nobel Peace Prize, would one daybecome active in the political life of his nativeSouth Africa. After all, he had been born into

a prominent Afrikaner family whose male members had longplayed a prominent role in national affairs. Afrikaners aredescendants of Dutch, German, and French settlers whobegan arriving in South Africa in the 17th century. Theyhave their own language, Afrikaans, and most of them be-long to the Dutch Reformed Church. The de Klerks, howev-er, belonged to the Reformed Church of South Africa, amore liberal denomination.

The white population has always been a small minorityin South Africa—today it numbers only 14 percent—but itcontrolled the country’s government until very recently.More than half of the whites are Afrikaners, and they havelong dominated South African politics. De Klerk’s own fami-ly included members of parliament and a prime minister; his

D E K L E R K & M A N D E L A • 2 7 1

FF. W. de KlerkNelson Mandela

Y1 9 9 3

Nelson Mandela (center), head of the African National Congress, and South African prime minister F.W. de Klerk receive the 1993Nobel Peace Prize from Francis Sejersted, chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, in Oslo.

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father, an educator who served in sev-eral national cabinets, was acting presi-dent of South Africa in the 1970s.

Frederik Willem de Klerk was bornin Johannesburg. From childhood hewas known by his initials, F. W., to dis-tinguish him from his maternal grand-father, after whom he had been named.Following graduation from high school,de Klerk attended Potchefstroom Uni-versity, a church-run institution, wherehe edited the college newspaper andwas active in the student branch of theNational party. He received a law de-gree with honors in 1958 and marriedshortly afterward; he and his wife even-tually had three children.

Upon graduation, de Klerk stillhad only limited English-languageskills, since most of his education hadbeen in Afrikaans. In the summer of1958 he traveled to England, and whenhe returned to South Africa he joineda firm of English-speaking lawyers tocontinue improving his English.

In 1961 de Klerk opened his ownpractice in Vereeniging, a mining townnear Johannesburg, and remained therefor 11 years. During that time he wasactive in National party affairs. In 1972he was asked to return to Potchef-stroom University as a law professor,but before he could do so he was pickedby the National party to run for a par-liamentary seat from Vereeniging.

De Klerk won the election andmoved to Cape Town, the national cap-ital. During the next few years he wasgroomed by National Party leaders forhigher office. Beginning in 1978 heheld a series of cabinet posts under asuccession of prime ministers, and byDecember 1986 he had become theleader of the lower house of parliament.

De Klerk’s rise in politics coincidedwith the growth of a movement forconstitutional reform in South Africa.This movement concerned the contro-versial issue of apartheid (pronounceduh-PAR-tide), a policy of racial separa-tion introduced in the country in the

late 1940s. Under apartheid, the ma-jority nonwhites were allowed to haveonly limited contact with whites, andthey were denied political power.

There were different categories ofnonwhites, including people of mixedraces (called “coloreds”) and variousAsian nationalities, but those who suf-fered the most under apartheid werenative blacks, who made up 75 percentof South Africa’s total population.They received inferior or no schooling,were required to live in certain areas inpoor housing, and had few job opportu-nities except as servants or laborers.

For many years South Africa hadbeen criticized throughout the worldfor its policy of apartheid, and manycountries had put increasing economicpressure on South Africa to end thepractice. In the early 1980s, PrimeMinister P. W. Botha responded togrowing international criticism of theSouth African government by an-nouncing a limited program of consti-tutional reforms that went into effectin 1984.

Under these reforms, some non-whites—“coloreds” and Asians—wereallowed to participate in South Africa’sgovernment. Also under Botha’s re-forms, the presidency of South Africawas changed from a largely ceremonialposition into a powerful political role,more important than that of the primeminister. However, none of these re-forms improved the condition ofblacks, and pressure grew even greaterto end apartheid entirely.

Apartheid had been created byleaders of F. W. de Klerk’s own Nation-al party, and de Klerk himself had sup-ported efforts to keep racial separationin place in South Africa. However, hewas a practical man, and by the mid-1980s he realized that the combinedpressure from the black majority, inter-national human rights organizations,and economic restrictions would even-tually lead to the end of white domina-tion in his country. As a politician who

2 7 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

F.W. deKlerkB O R N

March 18, 1936Johannesburg, South Africa

E D U C AT I O N

J.D., Potchefstroom University(1958)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; political leader


As president of South Africa(1989–94), introduced reforms thatgave nonwhite residents civil rightsin South Africa; participated in ne-gotiations with African NationalCongress leader Nelson Mandelathat led to national elections opento all citizens of the country (1994)


was skilled in negotiation and compro-mise, he assumed a major role in mak-ing the transition from apartheid toequality as smooth as possible.

During the late 1980s, as he con-tinued to hold his parliament seat, deKlerk worked closely with Botha whilealso serving as minister of education.He was also the head of the NationalParty in the Transvaal, South Africa’slargest state. In 1989 Botha suffered astroke and de Klerk became partyleader and acting president. In Septem-ber of that year he was elected to thepresidency.

De Klerk took office in the midstof major public protests againstapartheid, led by both blacks and whitesympathizers. In the past, police andgovernment troops had cracked downon similar demonstrations, and deathsand injuries had resulted. De Klerk announced that peaceful demonstra-tions would now be allowed. To easetensions, he met with leading antia-partheid activists, including Archbish-op Desmond Tutu.

During the next few months, deKlerk took steps toward further reform.In February 1990 he lifted the 30-yearban on the African National Congress(ANC), a political organization thathad sought political rights for blacksthroughout Africa. He also freed ANCleader Nelson Mandela, South Africa’shighest-ranking black political figure,who had been in prison for more than25 years.

In August 1990, after a series ofjoint meetings, de Klerk and Mandelasigned an agreement called the PretoriaMinute. Under this agreement, thegovernment released several thousandpolitical prisoners, and the ANCagreed to halt its campaign of armedstruggle against the government. ThePretoria Minute also called for continu-ing negotiations on the creation of anew constitution for South Africa.

A constitutional convention final-ly began in December 1991, and dis-

cussions were led in the followingmonths by de Klerk and Mandela. InSeptember 1992 the two men signedanother agreement, this time providingfor the election of a new legislaturethat would draft a new constitution. InJune 1993 another important agree-ment was reached between de Klerkand Mandela: the new elections—thefirst in the history of South Africaopen to citizens of all races—werescheduled for April 27, 1994.

De Klerk and Mandela shared the1993 Nobel Peace Prize for their coop-eration in bringing open elections toSouth Africa. In April 1994, fourmonths after the prizes were awarded inOslo, Mandela was elected SouthAfrica’s president. De Klerk becamedeputy president.

When Nelson Mandela becameSouth Africa’s first black president, hefulfilled a long-held dream: he was atlast in a position to lead his country’snonwhite population to full equality.Yet he realized that the “long walk tofreedom” he had begun so many yearsearlier would have to continue beforejustice was finally achieved.

Mandela was born Rolihlahla Dal-ibhunga Mandela in 1918 in the vil-lage of Mvezo, on South Africa’s south-eastern coast. He acquired the firstname “Nelson” later, in school. His fa-ther, the local tribal chief, died whenMandela was nine. He was then placedunder the guardianship of the tribal re-gent, who taught him that true leader-ship could be achieved only throughconsensus—obtaining the full agree-ment of all followers.

Despite his tribal upbringing, Man-dela was more heavily influenced byWestern values, which he learned inschool. After attending local institu-tions run by British Methodists, hestudied at an area college. He moved toJohannesburg in 1941 and was hired asa clerk in the office of a liberal whitelawyer. A year later he earned a bache-lor’s degree through a correspondence

D E K L E R K & M A N D E L A • 2 7 3

Nelson MandelaB O R N

July 18, 1918Mvezo, South Africa

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., University of South Africa(1942); diploma in law, Universityof Witwatersrand (1946)

O C C U PAT I O N

Attorney; political leader


Led efforts by the African NationalCongress (ANC) to promote racialjustice in South Africa; negotiatedwith South African president F. W.de Klerk for the establishment ofnational elections open to all citi-zens; president of South Africa(1994– ); author of an autobiogra-phy, Long Walk to Freedom (1994)


course from the University of SouthAfrica, and in 1943 he began studyinglaw part time at the University of Wit-watersrand.

Through work, school, and friend-ships, Mandela became interested inpolitics, and in 1944 he joined theAfrican National Congress, the blackpolitical organization then led by Al-bert Luthuli. Mandela helped createthe ANC’s Youth League, which grewinto the dominant force in the organi-zation. The Youth League was moreradical than its parent organization,and it worked to overthrow the white-run government in order to achievefull democracy in the country.

Fearing the increased demands ofblacks for power in South Africa, thegovernment began establishing the sys-tem of racial separation called apartheidin the late 1940s. In 1952, with the re-strictive laws now in place, the ANCleaders wrote a letter to the prime min-ister demanding that the laws be re-pealed. When the letter was ignored,Mandela and other ANC memberslaunched the Campaign for the Defi-ance of Unjust Laws. They participated

in a series of illegal but nonviolent ac-tions: entering “whites only” areas suchas toilets and restaurants, and takingpart in strikes against employers.

For these activities, Mandela andother ANC members were accused ofbeing Communists—the Communistparty was banned in South Africa—and were prohibited from attending po-litical gatherings on several occasionsduring the next few years. Meanwhile,Mandela had established the firstblack-run law practice in South Africa,and he did not resume his political ac-tivities until 1955. A year later, he andmore than 200 other black resistanceleaders were accused of plotting tooverthrow the government and werecharged with treason. They remainedfree on bail until 1959, when their trialfinally began. When it ended two yearslater, they were acquitted.

However, a year earlier the ANChad been banned by the government.When Mandela continued his associa-tion with the organization after his trialended, a warrant was issued for his ar-rest. Mandela abandoned his law prac-tice and went into hiding, working at aseries of menial jobs.

Up until this point Mandela hadbeen committed to nonviolent opposi-tion to apartheid, but the government’sown use of violence to end demonstra-tions convinced him that the ANChad to begin a militant struggle of itsown. He helped create an armed wingof the ANC called Spear of the Na-tion, which planned to overthrow thegovernment through acts of sabotage.After a year of living underground andeluding capture, Mandela was finallyarrested in the summer of 1962. He wascharged with several minor violationsof apartheid laws, convicted, and sen-tenced to five years in prison.

In the summer of 1963, governmentauthorities raided ANC headquarters at

2 7 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Black South Africans line up to vote forthe first time in elections held on April 26,1994. Nelson Mandela won the presiden-tial election on that date, six months afterreceiving the Nobel Peace Prize.

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a farm in Rivonia and discovered docu-ments outlining the proposed campaignof Spear of the Nation. Mandela was re-tried on charges of treason, and he andother ANC leaders were sentenced tolife in prison in June 1964. The so-called Rivonia Trial and its outcome at-tracted international attention, andmany prominent individuals and humanrights organizations pleaded unsuccess-fully with the South African govern-ment to release the prisoners.

Mandela was jailed for more than25 years. For most of that time he wasconfined to maximum-security prisons,his activities were severely restricted,and he was not allowed to have visi-tors. The outside world did not forgethim, however, and an internationalcampaign was organized by humanrights activists to secure his release.

By the late 1980s, as the SouthAfrican government became liberalizedunder President P. W. Botha, therewere signs that Mandela would eventu-ally be freed. It is now known that sev-eral high government officials met withhim in prison to discuss the terms ofhis release. Finally, on February 2,1990, several months after Botha leftoffice, his successor F. W. de Klerk lift-ed the ban on the ANC. Nine dayslater, Mandela was freed.

Mandela’s release was headlinenews around the world. After restingfor several months, the 72-year-oldMandela embarked on a trip aroundthe world. He visited major cities andmet with world leaders, including U.S.President George Bush. When he re-turned to South Africa, he began theseries of meetings with de Klerk thatled to the historic agreement to holdfree elections on April 27, 1994—andto Mandela’s receipt with de Klerk ofthe 1993 Nobel Peace Prize.

Mandela ran for president of SouthAfrica in April 1994 and was easily

elected, winning two-thirds of the vote.After taking office in May, he beganwork on a national program to bringfull equality to all South African citizens. Under his leadership, apostapartheid constitution became law in December 1996.

Mandela has been widely praisedfor reaching out to all ethnic groups inSouth Africa, whites and nonwhitesalike, and including representatives ofeach group in his cabinet. Throughthese efforts, he has gained the confi-dence of many South Africans whohad once strongly opposed granting political rights to nonwhites.

Mandela has been married severaltimes and has five children. He has re-ceived other honors, including a jointhonorary degree in 1990 from 38 blackAmerican universities and colleges. Hisautobiography, Long Walk to Freedom,was published in 1994.


Clark, Steve. Nelson Mandela Speaks: Forg-ing a Democratic Nonracial South Africa.New York: Pathfinder, 1993.

“de Klerk, F(rederik). W(illem).” In Cur-rent Biography Yearbook 1990. New York:H. W. Wilson, 1991.

Mandela, Nelson. Long Walk to Freedom:The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela.Boston: Little, Brown, 1994.

———. No Easy Walk to Freedom. Lon-don: Heinemann, 1973.

“Mandela, Nelson.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1995. New York: H. W. Wilson,1996.

Ottaway, David. Chained Together: Man-dela, de Klerk, and the Struggle to RemakeSouth Africa. New York: Times Books,1993.

D E K L E R K & M A N D E L A • 2 7 5

n 1994, for the first time in the history of the NobelPeace Prize, the award was shared by three winners,all of them politicians: Yasir Arafat, Shimon Peres,and Yitzhak Rabin. All three men had been ene-mies of one another at various times in the past. In

1994, however, they were honored by the Nobel Peace PrizeCommittee for their cooperation in trying to bring lastingpeace to the Middle East.

Yitzhak Rabin (pronounced Rah-BEAN) was the oldestof the three. He was born in 1922 to a Jewish family in thehistoric city of Jerusalem, at that time part of Palestine.Palestine’s population was mostly Arab, and the predomi-nant religion was Islam.

Historically, Palestine was the site of the ancient Jewishnation of Israel, which had fallen to Roman invaders in the2nd century A.D. Rome governed the area until the 7th cen-tury A.D., when it came under the control of Arab rulers.

After the fall, most Jews had migrated to Europe andeventually to other parts of the world, but a small Jewish pop-ulation remained in Palestine. For centuries, Jews dreamed of

2 7 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

As Israel’s prime minister,Yitzhak Rabin worked to improve hisnation’s relations with neighboring countries in the Middle East.

IYasir ArafatShimon PeresYitzhak Rabin

Y1 9 9 4

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returning to their homeland, and by thelate 19th century an internationalmovement called Zionism had devel-oped to focus those dreams. Encouragedby Zionist leaders, Jewish settlers beganmoving back to Palestine to join thesmall Jewish population there. Thesenew settlers included Yitzhak’s Rabin’sparents, who emigrated from Russia inthe early 20th century. By the time ofhis birth, several thousand Jews had es-tablished settlements, many of themfarms, in Palestine.

In 1917 control of Palestine passedfrom the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) toGreat Britain. The British promised toestablish a Jewish state within the terri-tory. However, this idea was not popu-lar with the majority Arab (Islamic)population, and a series of violent con-flicts began. Those conflicts continuedthrough Rabin’s childhood as GreatBritain delayed plans to create the newIsrael.

Both of Rabin’s parents were in-tellectuals and active Zionists. Rabinand his younger sister were raised to be strong supporters of the new Israel.Like many other children of Jewishsettlers, they were sent to agriculturalschools to prepare them for lives asfarmers, since Palestine was largelyrural.

After graduating from an agricul-tural secondary school in 1940, Rabinplanned on further study in the UnitedStates. However, World War II hadbegun a year earlier, and Great Britainwas now at war with Germany. Rabinhad to abandon not only his plans togo to America but also his intention tobecome a farmer. Although he had nointerest in becoming a soldier, he feltcompelled to join a Jewish under-ground army called Haganah. He wasassigned to a commando wing of Ha-ganah called Palmach, which workedwith the British government to fightGermans who had infiltrated Palestineand the nearby countries of Lebanonand Syria.

After the war ended in 1945,Rabin abandoned his plans to studyabroad. Instead, he concentrated hisenergies on helping to found the newJewish state by continuing to servewith Palmach, which was now fightingthe British. Some years earlier, GreatBritain had begun restricting Jewishimmigration to Palestine because ofcontinued hostilities between Jews andArabs, a policy that Palmach opposed.

When Rabin participated in a Pal-mach-sponsored raid on a camp wherewould-be Jewish immigrants were beingheld to be deported to their countriesof origin, he became a wanted man.After a series of other raids with Pal-mach, Rabin was arrested by theBritish in the summer of 1946 and sentto prison. That November, not longafter his release, Great Britain turnedits control of Palestine over to theUnited Nations.

In December 1947, the UN votedto partition Palestine into two states,one Jewish and the other PalestinianArab. Israel declared itself an indepen-dent state in May 1948, and angryArabs responded by invading Israeliterritory. In the months of warfare thatfollowed, Rabin commanded a Palmachbrigade. He later participated in nego-tiations that led to an armistice, ortemporary halt to the fighting, in 1949.

By this time Palmach had beenmerged with the Israeli Defense Forces(IDF), the country’s new military unit.Rabin became an officer in the IDFand served for the next 20 years. He re-ceived regular promotions, and by 1964he had become chief of staff, the topposition in the IDF. During these yearssmall-scale warfare had continued be-tween Israelis and Arabs, and Rabinwas accused by many of aggravating thehostilities rather than trying to endthem.

In early June 1967 the so-calledSix-Day War occurred between Israeland its Arab neighbors—Egypt, Jordan,Iraq, and Syria. Israel won the brief

A R A F A T , P E R E S & R A B I N • 2 7 7

Yasir ArafatB O R N

August 24, 1929Cairo, Egypt

E D U C AT I O N

B.Eng., University of Fuad (nowCairo University) (1956)

O C C U PAT I O N

Politician


Founder (mid-1950s) and chairmanof Fatah; co-founder and chairman(1969– ) Palestine Liberation Orga-nization (PLO); head of the Pales-tine National Council (1993– )


war, and in doing so it took possessionof large expanses of Arab territory: theSinai Peninsula and the Gaza Stripfrom Egypt, the West Bank of the Jor-dan River from Jordan, and the GolanHeights from Syria.

Although defense minister MosheDayan played a major role in Israel’svictory, most Israelis considered Rabinthe real hero, and he began to betalked about for a government post.His immediate desire was to become Is-rael’s ambassador to the United States,his country’s strongest supporter. Rabinreceived the appointment in 1968, andduring the next five years he succeededin getting the United States to contin-ue supplying Israel with military assis-tance and other forms of aid.

When Rabin returned to Israel in1973, he ran for a seat in Israel’s parlia-ment, the Knesset, as a member of theLabor party. The elections, scheduledfor late October, had to be postponedwhen Egypt and Syria—who were stilldemanding that seized Arab lands bereturned—made a surprise attack on Is-

rael on October 6. This date was YomKippur, the holiest day in the Jewishreligious calendar, and the conflict be-came known as the Yom Kippur War.Israeli troops succeeded in driving backthe invaders within two weeks, andUnited Nations Peacekeeping Forceswere sent to the area to restore order.

When the postponed electionswere finally held in December, Rabinand other Labor party candidates werevictorious. In April 1974 Golda Meirresigned as prime minister and Rabinsucceeded her. At 52, he became theyoungest person, as well as the first na-tive-born Israeli (sabra) to hold thepost of prime minister.

Rabin served for three years, dur-ing which time he led efforts tostrengthen defense forces and improvethe economy. He also participated in aseries of peace talks with Egypt thatwere mediated by U.S. Secretary ofState Henry Kissinger. However, a po-litical scandal involving family financesforced Rabin to leave his post as primeminister in 1977. For the next sevenyears he remained in parliament undera series of more conservative primeministers. One of them was MenachemBegin, who signed a peace agreement,called the Camp David Accords, withPresident Anwar Sadat of Egypt in1978.

When no party had a clear majori-ty following national elections in 1984,a coalition (shared) government wasformed. Following the terms of anagreement reached by party leaders,two Israeli politicians, Shimon Peres(pronounced SHEE-moan PAIR-ez)and the more conservative YitzhakShamir, served successive two-yearterms as prime minister, while Rabinserved as defense minister for the entirefour years.

Peres was born in 1923 in a smallPolish village that is now part of Be-larus. (Its exact location is unknown.)His parents were enthusiastic Zionists,and in the early 1930s the family emi-

2 7 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Israeli political leader Shimon Peres at apress conference in New York City in May1991. Peres, who had served as Israel’sprime minister in the mid-1980s, returnedto that post in 1995 following the assassi-nation of Yitzhak Rabin.

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grated to Palestine. There Peres be-came an active member of Zionistyouth organizations and, like Rabin, hewas sent to an agricultural school toprepare for a future career as a farmer.

After graduating from the agricul-tural school in 1941, Peres receivedfurther training at a kibbutz, or farmingsettlement, instead of joining the mili-tary. He then founded a new kibbutz inthe Jordan Valley of Palestine andworked there as one of its leaders. Pereshad continued his strong involvementin Zionist organizations, and those con-nections led to his appointment in1947 as director of manpower for Ha-ganah, the Jewish Palestinian defenseorganization. Following the establish-ment of the state of Israel in May 1948and the creation of the Israeli DefenseForces, Peres became a member of theIDF and served as head of the naval de-partment in the defense ministry.

In 1949 Israel’s first prime minister,David Ben-Gurion, sent Peres toWashington, D.C., as the head of amission to secure U.S. military aid.Peres remained there for several yearsand won praise for his skill in negotiat-ing continued aid for his country. Dur-ing this time he also continued his formal education by attending classesat several American institutions, in-cluding Harvard University.

Peres returned to Israel early in1952 and continued working in the de-fense ministry, where he was soon ap-pointed director-general. In his sevenyears in that post, Peres mastermindedthe development of Israel’s weapons in-dustry and nuclear research. He alsocreated close ties between his countryand France, which became the mainsupplier to Israel of weapons that itcould not produce.

Peres’s formal political careerbegan in 1959, when he won a seat inthe Israeli parliament. Prime MinisterBen-Gurion chose Peres to join hiscabinet as deputy minister of defense,and Peres held that office for seven

years. In 1962, on a return visit to theUnited States, he persuaded PresidentJohn F. Kennedy to sell major defensiveweapons systems to Israel. By 1967, theUnited States had replaced France asIsrael’s leading supplier of arms.

After leaving his post as deputy de-fense minister in 1965, Peres continuedto serve in parliament. In 1969 he re-joined the cabinet, this time under thenew prime minister, Golda Meir, andduring the next four years held a seriesof positions relating to immigration,economic development, transportation,and communications.

Peres had now emerged as theleader of the Labor party, but in 1974,following Golda Meir’s resignation asprime minister, he lost the party leader-ship to Yitzhak Rabin. When Rabin be-came prime minister that year, he ap-pointed Peres to the post of defenseminister as a gesture of reconciliation.

Nevertheless, bad feeling persistedbetween Peres and Rabin even as Peresworked to strengthen Israel’s defenseforces. Following Rabin’s forced resig-nation in 1977, Peres left his cabinetposition to become chairman of theLabor party. During the next sevenyears, Peres continued to serve in par-liament, along with Rabin, while heworked to strengthen the party.

Peres and Rabin returned to powerin 1984, when Peres became primeminister and Rabin defense minister.As prime minister, Peres guided Israelthrough a severe economic crisis andimproved the country’s diplomatic rela-tions with other nations. Putting theirhard feelings aside, Peres and Rabinjoined to negotiate a withdrawal of Is-raeli troops from Lebanon, where thetroops had served since 1982 to pre-vent attacks against Israel from thatcountry. However, Peres was unable tomake progress in resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict.

At the end of his two-year term in1986, Peres became both vice primeminister and foreign minister under his


Shimon PeresB O R N

August 16, 1923Poland (now Belarus)

E D U C AT I O N

Diploma, Ben Shemen AgriculturalSchool, Tel Aviv; attended NewYork University, New School of So-cial Research (New York), and Har-vard University (1949–52)

O C C U PAT I O N

Politician


Chairman of the Israeli Labor party(1977– ); member, Israeli parlia-ment; holder of a series of cabinetposts, including head of defense andforeign ministries; prime minister ofIsrael (1984–86,1995– )


successor, Yitzhak Shamir, while con-tinuing as party chairman. Rabin, whocontinued as defense minister, faced amajor challenge in late 1987, whenPalestinian Arabs in the Israeli-occupied territories began a major uprising, called an intifada. The upris-ing was violent, and Rabin respondedwith violent counterattacks.

For years the Palestinians had beendemanding the creation of their ownstate, which had never occurred inspite of the 1947 UN declaration.Their demands were represented by agroup called the Palestine LiberationOrganization (PLO), led by a Palestin-ian political leader named Yasir Arafat.

Arafat had been born in Cairo,Egypt, in 1929 to a successful Arabmerchant. Arafat’s mother died whenhe was four years old, and he went tolive with an uncle in her home city ofJerusalem, then the capital of Palestine.The daily conflict between nativeArabs and immigrant Jews made astrong impression on Arafat, and whenhe returned to Cairo in his early teenshe was a strong supporter of Arabrights. By the time Israel declared its

independence in 1948, Arafat had al-ready become involved in smugglingarms into Palestine to help the Arabswhile he continued his studies at the University of Fuad (now CairoUniversity).

Arafat claims that he tried to fightin the Arab-Israeli conflict that fol-lowed Israel’s independence, but hewas turned down by Palestinian sol-diers—the very soldiers to whom hehad provided weapons. His anger atthis refusal was intensified by the peacesettlement in 1949, which put asidethe issue of Palestinian statehood andleft close to a million Palestinianswithout a homeland.

While continuing his studies inengineering at the university, Arafatparticipated in a student military train-ing program and became president ofthe Palestinian Students’ League. Aftergraduating in 1956, he worked for awhile in Egypt and then immigrated toKuwait, where he established a success-ful engineering company.

In college Arafat had often dis-cussed forming a political group toevict Israel from Palestine, and some-time in the late 1950s he and severalcolleagues founded such a group: thePalestinian National Liberation Move-ment. The first letters of this name inArabic spell HATAF, the Arabic wordfor “death,” and the organization soonbecame known by its initials in reverse:Fatah.

Fatah encouraged an armed strug-gle against Israel through the publica-tion of an underground magazine, Filistinuna (Our Palestine). At the sametime Fatah distanced itself from theleadership of Arab nations, which atthat time were stressing Arab unityrather than independent action againstIsrael.

By the early 1960s Arafat hadgiven up his business to run Fatah, andbeginning in 1965 he launched thefirst of a series of raids into Israeli terri-tory. As these raids increased, Fatah’s

2 8 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Yasir Arafat, head of the Palestine Libera-tion Organization, arrives in the UnitedStates on September 12, 1993, for his historic meeting in Washington, D.C., withIsraeli leaders Yitzhak Rabin and ShimonPeres.The next day, Arafat, Rabin, andPeres signed the “Declaration of Principleson Interim Self-Government Arrange-ments,” an important step toward estab-lishing peace in the Middle East.

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reputation as a major force grew amongPalestinians and their sympathizers.

Arab-Israeli relations grew evenworse following Israel’s victory in theSix-Day War of 1967 and its capture ofArab land. Following the war, Arafatand Fatah began operating in the Is-raeli-occupied territories. In one majorbattle with Israeli troops in Jordan inthe spring of 1968, Fatah inflictedheavy casualties on the Israelis, andthis victory brought Arafat and his or-ganization international attention.

In 1964 Fatah had joined withother Palestinian liberation groups informing the Palestine Liberation Orga-nization (PLO), an umbrella group.Five years later, following a string ofmilitary successes by Fatah, Arafat be-came chairman of the PLO. Under hisleadership it grew into a powerful orga-nization as it masterminded repeatedguerrilla attacks against Israel.

The PLO launched its attacks fromseveral adjoining Arab nations, but bythe early 1970s it was using Lebanon asits headquarters. In addition to directattacks on Israel, the PLO became in-volved in terrorist operations in othercountries to call attention to the Palestinian cause, most notably at the 1972 Olympic Games in Munich,where PLO fighters assassinated Israeliathletes.

Although much of the worldviewed Arafat as a criminal, he nowhad the grudging respect of most Arableaders, who acknowledged his right tospeak as the sole representative of thePalestinian cause. The United Nationsallowed the PLO observer status at itssessions, and the General Assemblypassed a resolution supporting the rightof Palestinians to self-determination.

The PLO’s activities were disrupt-ed somewhat following the breakout ofa bloody civil war in Lebanon in themid-1970s, but the organization con-tinued to launch damaging raidsagainst Israel. Finally, in June 1982, Is-rael fought back by invading Lebanon

to crush PLO operations there. Arafatand the PLO were forced to flee in ahumiliating defeat. When they tried toreturn later that year, they were pushedout again, not only by Israelis but alsoby Arabs opposed to Arafat.

Arafat and the PLO were forced totake refuge in Tunis, the capital ofTunisia, where they established newheadquarters. During the 1980s, in aneffort to reestablish his ties with lead-ers of the Arab world, Arafat held a series of talks with King Hussein ofJordan, a moderate Arab who hadforced the PLO out of his countrysome years earlier. Arafat hoped thathe could join with Jordan in negotiat-ing a peace settlement with Israel, butJordan seemed unwilling to involve it-self with Arafat.

With the outbreak of the intifadauprising among Palestinians in Decem-ber 1987, Arafat and the PLO gainednew attention and respect in the Arabworld. Many people, most of themyoung Palestinians, participating in theuprising were members of Fatah, andthey looked to Arafat as their leader.Arafat responded by giving the intifadahis full support. He now believed thatthe Palestinians were in a strong posi-tion to negotiate a peaceful settlementwith the Israel government.

Israel and its leaders had consis-tently opposed the PLO’s demands fora Palestinian state, claiming that sucha state would threaten Israel’s security.By the spring of 1988, however, as theintifada continued, Defense MinisterRabin had come to realize that thePalestinians’ demands would not sim-ply vanish.

While continuing to oppose thecreation of an independent Palestine,Rabin made two moves toward peace:He suggested that Israel might giveJordan authority over some of the ter-ritory that it still occupied. (The SinaiPeninsula had been returned to Egyptin 1982.) He also indicated that hewas willing to negotiate with the


YitzhakRabinB O R N

March 1, 1922Jerusalem, Palestine (now Israel)

D I E D

November 4, 1995Tel Aviv, Israel

E D U C AT I O N

Diploma, Kadoorie AgriculturalHigh School

O C C U PAT I O N

Politician


Chief of staff, Israeli Defense Forces(1964–68); Israeli ambassador tothe U.S. (1968–73); defense minis-ter (1984–90); prime minister of Israel (1974–77, 1992–95)


PLO if it would acknowledge Israel’sright to exist as a nation.

Rabin’s stand put him in conflictwith the more conservative Prime Min-ister Shamir, who remained firmly op-posed to any compromises with thePLO. Shamir’s stand prevailed, al-though Rabin continued as defenseminister until 1990. That year Shamirformed a new government, and Rabinwas ousted in Shamir’s attempts tomaintain a strongly conservative gov-ernment that took a hard line againstthe PLO.

Meanwhile, in November 1988,the Palestine National Council, thePLO’s parliament-in-exile, had adopteda resolution proclaiming the existenceof an independent Palestinian state onthe West Bank and the Gaza Strip. Theresolution also acknowledged the exis-tence of Israel as a permanent state.

The next month, in a speech to aspecial session of the UN General As-sembly in Geneva, Switzerland, Arafatdeclared that the PLO was renouncingterrorism and that it supported therights of “all parties” in the MiddleEast, including Palestine, Israel, andtheir neighbors, to live in “peace andsecurity.”

There were positive responsesthroughout the world to Arafat’s decla-ration, and in the following monthsmore than 70 countries formally recog-nized Palestine as an independent state.Israel and its major allies were stillskeptical of Arafat’s intentions, al-though the United States expressed aninterest in supporting diplomatic nego-tiations between Israelis and the PLO.

A major shift in Israel’s positionoccurred in 1992, when Shamir left of-fice as prime minister. He was succeed-ed by Yitzhak Rabin, who had takenback control of the Labor party fromShimon Peres. With the support ofPeres, now foreign minister, Rabin im-

mediately began to work toward a ne-gotiated peace settlement.

After a series of secret talks be-tween Israeli and PLO representativesin Norway in the summer of 1993—talks in which Peres played an activerole—a breakthrough followed: Israelagreed to work toward Palestinian self-rule in the occupied territories. Rabintook a further step toward peace bywriting a letter to Arafat stating Israel’swillingness to recognize the PLO as thesole representative of the Palestinianpeople. He also indicated that he waswilling to begin peace negotiationswith the PLO. A “Declaration of Prin-ciples on Interim Self-GovernmentArrangements” was drawn up by PLOand Israeli representatives, and on Sep-tember 13, 1993, this historic docu-ment was signed in Washington, D.C.,by Rabin and Arafat.

Peace negotiations were in progressa year later when Rabin, Arafat, andPeres were announced as the winnersof the 1994 Nobel Peace Prize for theirjoint efforts to create peace in the Mid-dle East. Not long after that announce-ment, in late October 1994, Israelsigned a peace treaty with Jordan, andin the following months the two coun-tries began to establish not only diplo-matic relations but also a series of cooperative programs involving suchareas as tourism, economic develop-ment, and environmental protection.

In September 1995 Rabin signedanother historic agreement that ex-panded Palestinian self-rule in theWest Bank. It also authorized the with-drawal of Israeli troops from manyWest Bank settlements.

Although Israel’s peace overtureswere praised throughout the world, theywere not supported by all Israelis. Alarge number of conservatives in Israelwere strongly opposed to making peacewith the PLO, and they bitterly criti-

cized Rabin, calling him a traitor. OnNovember 4, 1995, Rabin was assassi-nated by an Israeli right-wing extremistas he left a peace rally in Tel Aviv. Hewas survived by his wife of nearly 50years and two grown children.

Shimon Peres succeeded Rabin asprime minister and inherited the ongo-ing task of establishing peace betweenIsrael and its Arab neighbors. In addi-tion to the Nobel Peace Prize, Pereshas received many other awards, in-cluding the French Legion of Honor.He is married and has two grown sons.

Yasir Arafat continues to lead thePLO and its Palestine National Councilas they work toward the creation of anindependent Palestine. He lives in theGaza Strip with his wife, a PalestinianChristian whom he married in 1991.


“Arafat, Yasir.” In Current Biography Year-book 1994. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1995.

Golan, Matti. The Road to Peace: A Biogra-phy of Shimon Peres. New York: Warner,1989.

Hart, Alan. Arafat: A Political Biography.Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1989.

Kiernan, Thomas. Arafat: The Man and theMyth. New York: Norton, 1976.

Peres, Shimon. Battling for Peace: A Mem-oir. New York: Random House, 1995.

“Peres, Shimon.” In Current Biography Year-book 1995. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1996.

Rabin, Yitzhak. The Rabin Memoirs.Boston: Little, Brown, 1979.

“Rabin, Yitzhak.” In Current BiographyYearbook 1995. New York: H. W. Wilson,1996.

Slater, Robert. Rabin of Israel. New York:St. Martin’s, 1993.

2 8 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

he village of Pugwash, Nova Scotia, has only800 inhabitants, but thanks to the peacemak-ing efforts of a physicist named Joseph Rot-blat and several of his associates, Pugwash isnow famous throughout the world. The rise

to fame of the tiny town began in 1955, when a wealthyAmerican industrialist named Cyrus Eaton made a gesturefor peace.

Eaton had been born poor in Pugwash in the late 19thcentury. He had gone to the United States to make his for-tune, and while becoming a multimillionaire he also becamea humanitarian. By 1955 Cyrus Eaton’s main humanitarianinterest had become the achievement of world peace, and hewas determined to do all that he could to make it a reality.

In that year, two world-famous men, German-bornphysicist Albert Einstein and British philosopher-mathe-matician Bertrand Russell, along with Rotblat and severalother scientists, called for a conference on science and worldpeace. When Eaton read about their proposal, he invitedthem to hold the conference at his Pugwash estate, which hehad built after making his fortune. The invitation was ac-cepted, and the first gathering, organized by Rotblat, washeld there in 1957. The conferences became an annual af-fair, attended not only by scientists but also by prominentthinkers in other fields. For his role in establishing and

J O S E P H R O T B L A T • 2 8 3

Joseph Rotblat

Y1 9 9 5

Internationally prominent scientists gather in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, in 1957 to attend the first annual Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs. Organized by physicist Joseph Rotblat, the conferences have given birth to major peacemaking efforts,including the creation of nuclear arms limitations treaties.

T

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running the Pugwash Conferences onScience and World Affairs for nearlyforty years, Rotblat received the 1995Nobel Peace Prize.

Joseph Rotblat’s quest for worldpeace predates the first Pugwash con-ference. In fact, it goes back a decade,to December 1944. For several yearsRotblat had been working in LosAlamos, New Mexico, on a top-secreteffort to build the first atomic bomb.World War II was raging in Europe andthe Far East, and the United States andGreat Britain wanted to beat Germanyin developing the bomb.

Germany had invaded Rotblat’shomeland of Poland in 1939, and hewas only too happy to help defeat theGermans. However, in December 1944he learned that the war would be overbefore Germany could develop its ownbomb, and he worried that the U.S.-made bomb would be used on other tar-gets. He concluded that the bomb wasdangerous and wrong, and he abruptlyresigned from the project. His crusadeagainst atomic weapons had begun.

Joseph Rotblat was born in War-saw, Poland, in 1908 to a prosperousJewish businessman and his wife. Heattended the Free University of Polandafter graduating from secondary schooland earned a master’s degree there in1932. He continued his studies inphysics at the University of Warsawand received a doctorate in 1938.

In 1939, as war threatened to eruptin Europe, Rotblat won a fellowship tostudy at the University of Liverpool inEngland with the celebrated physicistJames Chadwick. As he was preparingto leave Poland, an important event inthe history of science occurred: twoGerman chemists devised a way to splitthe uranium atom, a process called nu-clear fission that caused the release ofan enormous amount of energy.

After hearing of this event, physi-cists in major European universities im-mediately began trying to cause a chainreaction of such explosions, in order to

release a continuous powerful stream ofwhat became known as atomic, or nu-clear, energy. There were several possi-ble uses for such energy, but as wardrew closer, the creation of a powerfulbomb powered by nuclear fissionseemed the most important goal.

Because he had limited funds, Rot-blat had to leave his wife behind whenhe went to Liverpool in the summer of1939. By the time he was able to sendfor her in early September, Germanyhad invaded Poland. His wife disap-peared, and Rotblat never saw heragain. She is believed to have died in aconcentration camp.

Rotblat tried to ease his sorrow bydevoting all his attention to his work.With Chadwick he investigated thepossibility of creating an atomic bomb.By 1941 Rotblat and several other sci-entists had independently proved thatthe necessary chain reactions could beproduced and that such a bomb waspossible. Learning of this possibility,the British and U.S. governments setup a joint research effort, called theManhattan Project, in Los Alamos,New Mexico, to work on the develop-ment of the A-bomb, as it was called.

Rotblat went to Los Alamos tojoin the Manhattan Project, but hisconscience increasingly bothered him:he was troubled by the many lives thatwould be destroyed by an A-bomb ex-plosion. Finally, in December 1944, heresigned before the project was com-pleted, for he was convinced that sucha weapon should never be used.

Rotblat returned to Liverpool towork in his laboratory. Less than a yearlater, the United States dropped atomicbombs on the Japanese cities of Hi-roshima and Nagasaki, ending WorldWar II—and officially beginning thenuclear age. Rotblat was distressed bythe news of the explosions, but by nowhe had shifted the focus of his workfrom weapons to medicine. He beganto investigate the relationship betweenradioactive fallout—particles and gases

2 8 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Josef Rotblat (right) congratulates philoso-pher and peace activist Bertrand Russell, acofounder of the Pugwash Conference, ata celebration on his 90th birthday in 1962.

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released by the explosion of nuclearweapons—and human disease, specifi-cally cancer. His research earned him asecond doctoral degree, from the Uni-versity of Liverpool, in the late 1940s.

By now Rotblat was a British citi-zen. He moved to London, where hecontinued working on his cancer andradioactivity studies at St. Bartholo-mew’s Hospital. He was now convincedthat fallout from nuclear explosions wasdeadly and posed a great threat to hu-mankind. He was therefore dismayed asthe United States, the Soviet Union,and other nations began a nuclear armsrace and tested increasingly powerfulweapons that released enormous quanti-ties of radioactive matter.

In the early 1950s Rotblat joined agrowing number of thoughtful andhighly educated men and women inthe sciences and other fields who wereexpressing alarm over the nuclear armsrace. In 1954 Rotblat met BertrandRussell, a leading opponent of nuclearweapons. Russell suggested that an in-ternational conference be held to dis-cuss the issue. That suggestion resultedin the 1955 public proclamation signedby Rotblat, Russell, and Einstein. Twoyears later the first Pugwash Confer-ence on Science and World Affairs washeld in Nova Scotia.

Twenty-two internationally knownscientists from countries throughoutthe world came to Pugwash in 1957.After several days of discussions, they issued a report listing the dangers of nuclear testing, calling for arms control, and asking scientiststo accept social responsibility for their actions.

With Rotblat serving as secretary-general of the conferences, they became an annual affair. At each meet-ing, the latest research on the dangersof nuclear weapons was presented andnuclear-related activities of countriesthroughout the world were reviewed.The conferences attracted the atten-tion of world leaders and played a

major role in the growing movementfor a ban on all nuclear weapons.

Slowly but surely, the Pugwashconferences brought about change: Aninternational treaty banning above-ground testing of nuclear weapons wassigned in 1963. Peace talks to end hos-tilities between the United States andNorth Vietnam were begun in the late1960s, thanks to pressure from Pug-wash. A treaty limiting nuclear missilesystems was signed in 1972 by theUnited States and the Soviet Union—the first of a series of agreements tolimit nuclear arms that were made be-tween the two nations during the nexttwo decades.

Rotblat’s office at St. Bartholo-mew’s was the Pugwash headquartersfor many years. He organized each con-ference and kept careful records of theproceedings. In 1988 he was electedpresident of Pugwash. He retired fromSt. Bartholomew’s in 1976 and contin-ues to live in London.

In October 1995, a month beforehis 87th birthday, Joseph Rotblat wasnamed the winner of that year’s NobelPeace Prize. According to the PeacePrize Committee, the award was madenot only to honor Rotblat’s work withPugwash but also to protest continuingnuclear arms testing in the world—specifically, recent explosions set off by France and China, the only coun-tries that still have nuclear weaponstesting programs. Rothblat donatedhalf of the $1 million award to thePugwash conferences.


Landau, Susan. “Joseph Rotblat: From Fis-sion Research to a Prize for Peace.” Scien-tific American, January 1996, pp. 38–39.

Marshall, Eliot. “Physicist Wins NobelPeace Prize.” Science, October 20, 1995, p. 372.

Stevenson, Richard W. “Nobel Prize Goesto A-Bomb Scientist Who Turned Critic.”New York Times, October 14, 1995, p. 3.

J O S E P H R O T B L A T • 2 8 5

Joseph RotblatB O R N

November 4, 1908Warsaw, Poland

E D U C AT I O N

B.S. and M.S., Free University ofPoland (1932); D.Sci., University ofWarsaw (1938); Ph.D., Universityof Liverpool (1949)

O C C U PAT I O N

Physicist; antinuclear activist


Cofounded the Pugwash Confer-ences on Science and World Affairs(1957– ), an annual gathering ofprominent scientists opposed to nuclear weapons; secretary-generalof Pugwash (1957– 73); president(1988– )


he Southeast Asian nation of Indonesia is acollection of many small islands in the Indi-an and Pacific oceans. For centuries the vari-ous islands of Indonesia were ruled ascolonies, some by the Portuguese and some

by the Dutch. After World War II ended in 1945, these is-lands gradually secured their independence from Europeanrule and became provinces of the new nation of Indonesia.

By 1975, only the island of Timor was not entirely underIndonesian rule. The western half of the island, a formerDutch colony, had been turned over to Indonesia by theDutch in 1949, but the eastern half was still a Portuguesecolony. Finally, in early 1975, Portugal abandoned thecolony and civil war erupted. The Roman Catholic majoritypopulation wanted independence, but many of the minorityMuslim population wanted to become part of Indonesia, alargely Muslim nation. As warfare continued, Indonesiantroops marched into East Timor, as the region was nowcalled, and annexed it as a province of Indonesia.

Many East Timorese resisted this takeover, and theyfought against the Indonesian soldiers who continued to oc-cupy their land. In response, Indonesia tried to put down allopposition to its rule by invoking harsh and violent measuresagainst the people. The fighting has continued for morethan 20 years, and an estimated one-third of East Timor’spopulation has been killed.

Until the late 1980s, few people outside East Timor wereaware of what was happening there. One man who changedthat was a Roman Catholic priest named Carlos FelipeXimenes Belo. In 1988 Belo, the newly appointed bishop ofEast Timor, decided that it was time for him to make theworld take notice of atrocities in his native country.

For many years, Belo had distanced himself from theharsh government as much as he could, quietly ministeringto the needs of East Timor’s large Roman Catholic popula-tion and trying to give them hope. He knew only too wellwhat was happening: over and over again, he heard storiesabout attacks against the East Timorese—family memberskilled at random, crops and livestock seized, villages burned,all in an effort to stamp out resistance to Indonesian rule.

Belo had been born in Portuguese Timor in 1948, andhe loved the land and its people. His parents were rice farm-ers in a small village about 100 miles east of Dili, then thecapital of the colony, and as a child he drove water buffaloin the rice fields. But Belo did not want to be a farmer: hewas studious by nature, and his mother encouraged his inter-est in books and religion. At the age of 20, he traveled to

2 8 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

TCarlosFelipeXimenesBeloJosé Ramos-Horta

Y1 9 9 6

José Ramos-Horta (left) and Bishop Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belodisplay their 1996 Nobel Peace Prize certificates and medals atthe award ceremony.The two men shared the prize for theirlongtime efforts to bring peace to their native East Timor.

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Lisbon, Portugal, to enter a RomanCatholic seminary there, and eventual-ly he decided to become a priest. Aftermany years of study, in Lisbon as wellas at seminaries in Rome and the Por-tuguese colony of Macao, Belo was or-dained in 1981.

Belo returned to East Timor thatyear to become the head of a seminarynear the town of Baucau, where thou-sands of Indonesian troops were quar-tered to keep order. Belo had, ofcourse, known of the Indonesiantakeover of his homeland while he wasabroad, but he had not realized the fullextent of the horror that the new gov-ernment had inflicted on his people.Traveling around the countryside, hediscovered that many villages had nomale residents; they had been forciblyremoved and made to fight against theindependence movement.

But Belo kept silent, believing thatit was his duty to nurture the spirituallife of the people, not to join in politi-cal movements, even though otherpriests on the island were openly sym-pathetic to those fighting for indepen-dence. During the 1980s, Belo wasgiven increasing authority within theRoman Catholic Church in EastTimor, in large part because of his non-involvement in politics, and in 1988he was named bishop of East Timor,the highest church post on the island.

As a bishop, Belo decided that hecould be silent no more; he had tospeak out. He approached military au-thorities on the island about theirtreatment of his people, but he was re-buffed and told to mind his own busi-ness. If he did not, he was warned, hewould be killed. Ignoring their warn-ings, he began condemning humanrights abuses in statements read duringchurch services. In early 1989 he sent aletter to the United Nations secretary-general, Javier Pérez de Cuellar, de-scribing the injustices occurring in EastTimor and asking that the UN sponsor

a referendum (vote) in East Timor onindependence. But there was no re-sponse; the annexation of East Timorhad happened years earlier, and theleading Western nations had no desireto antagonize Indonesia.

On November 12, 1991, the plightof Belo’s people was made terribly clearto him. That morning, several thou-sand young East Timorese beganmarching to a cemetery near the bish-op’s residence in Dili. They werepeacefully protesting the recent gov-ernment killing of a member of the in-dependence movement. Suddenly gov-ernment troops began shooting, andscores of wounded protesters ran intoBelo’s garden seeking refuge. Withouthesitation, he took in several hundred,many of them teenagers, and saw thatthey received medical attention. Hethen went to the cemetery and washorrified to find bullet-riddled bodies ofprotesters lying everywhere, even inthe small chapel on the cemeterygrounds. At that moment, Belopromised himself that such disregardfor human life had to stop.

Secretly cooperating with followersof José Ramos-Horta and other EastTimorese political activists, he helpedsmuggle two witnesses of the massacreto Geneva, Switzerland, where theytestified before the UN Human RightsCommission about the systematic ex-termination of their people and cul-ture. In the face of death threats andassassination attempts, Belo began call-ing more openly upon the Indonesiangovernment to end its persecution ofthe East Timorese. He became a heroto the people, and as a consequencemembership in the Roman CatholicChurch in East Timor more than dou-bled over the next few years.

Gradually the story of what washappening in East Timor was picked upby journalists in the West, and govern-ments and organizations began re-sponding. Indonesia was criticized pub-

B E L O & R A M O S - H O R T A • 2 8 7

Carlos FelipeXimenes BeloB O R N

1948Wailacalma, Portuguese Timor (nowEast Timor)

E D U C AT I O N

Attended local schools; studied forthe priesthood at Roman Catholicseminaries in Lisbon, Macao, andRome (1968–81)

O C C U PAT I O N

Roman Catholic priest


Bishop of East Timor (1988– ); ledefforts to end mistreatment of theEast Timor population by the In-donesian government


2 8 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

licly by high officials of several nationsfor its failure to preserve human rights.The prisoner-welfare organizationAmnesty International issued a reportthat documented torture on the island.In the United States, a major weaponssupplier to Indonesia, Congress passedlegislation barring the sale of smallarms and crowd-control equipment tothat nation, which had been usingthem against the East Timorese.

The Indonesian government final-ly responded to international pressureby setting up a commission to studyhuman-rights abuses in East Timor.One of the first cases it investigatedwas the 1995 killing of six unarmedcivilians by soldiers near Dili. Two ofthe soldiers were court-martialed andgiven brief jail terms—a relatively lightpunishment but notable because thiswas the first time that governmenttroops had been held accountable fortheir treatment of the East Timorese.In the meantime, further appeals fromBelo to the United Nations were beingheeded. The UN began sponsoring aseries of negotiations with Portugueseand Indonesian officials to discuss op-tions for peace in East Timor.

As Belo continued to press for anend to human-rights abuses, politicalactivist José Ramos-Horta remainedfirmly committed to gaining indepen-dence for East Timor. Ramos-Hortahad been an outspoken supporter ofthe independence movement since1975, when Indonesian troops hadbegun taking over his country.

Ramos-Horta was born in Por-tuguese Timor in 1949. His father wasa Portuguese political activist who hadbeen deported to the island; his motherwas Timorese. Ramos-Horta attendedlocal schools and then studied for ex-tended periods in Europe. As an ado-lescent he had supported independencefor the Portuguese colony, and by 1975he had become a leader of the Revolu-tionary Front for an Independent East

Timor, an organization known asFretilin for short.

Soon after the Indonesian annexa-tion, Ramos-Horta and other Fretilinleaders went into self-imposed exileabroad, where they continued to pressfor independence. Ramos-Horta livedfor a while in New York City, where heattended graduate school and workedas a journalist. He later moved to Aus-tralia, where he has continued his jour-nalistic career and also remained activein Fretilin, which supports uprisingsand guerrilla warfare among the EastTimorese.

For their work in drawing atten-tion to the plight of East Timor, CarlosBelo and José Ramos-Horta werenamed joint winners of the 1996Nobel Peace Prize. Both men continuetheir work to resolve the crisis in EastTimor. Belo remains committed toending violence and establishing re-spect for human rights, while Ramos-Horta insists that only independencewill satisfy the East Timorese.

José Ramos-HortaB O R N

December 26, 1949Dili, Portuguese Timor (now East Timor)

E D U C AT I O N

Attended local schools and universities in Europe and theUnited States

O C C U PAT I O N

Journalist and political activist


Led campaign to gain indepen-dence for East Timor and to drawinternational attention to mis-treatment of the East Timorpopulation by the Indonesiangovernment



“East Timor Activists Win Nobel Prize.”Christian Century, October 30, 1996, pp.1031-32.

Raffaele, Paul. “Champion of a ForgottenPeople [Belo].” Reader’s Digest, February1997, pp. 185-94.

Tomasky, Michael. “The Low-Profile Lau-reate [Ramos-Horta].” New York, Novem-ber 25, 1996, pp. 20-21.

J O D Y W I L L I A M S A N D T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L C A M P A I G N T O B A N L A N D M I N E S • 2 8 9

f all the weapons devised by mankind, landmines, invented in the mid-19th century,are among the most deadly. Without warn-ing, these explosive devices, shallowlyburied in the earth, can be set off by a mere

footstep, killing or maiming anyone nearby. Land mineshave been used in warfare throughout the world, and theyare unique among weaponry: years after a conflict, whenonce-warring nations are again at peace, land mines plantedlong ago to kill the enemy live on undetected below ground,ready to explode without warning if anyone walks overthem.

Humanitarian aid worker Jody Williams learned first-hand about the terrible legacy of land mines in the early1980s, during a mission to wartorn El Salvador on behalf ofa Los Angeles–based aid group. Williams’s job was to obtainartificial limbs for children who had lost arms and legs fromexploding land mines.

Williams was deeply troubled by the sight of so manyhorribly wounded children, and by the knowledge that evenmore young victims had not survived at all: small childrenare usually killed outright by land-mine explosions. Nor wasthere any foreseeable end to the catastrophe: land mineskept on being planted in El Salvador and other warring na-tions in Central America, causing destruction, crippling,and death.

And Central America was just one of many regionswith land-mine victims. In the Southeast Asian nation ofCambodia, for example, land mines had killed thousandsand left an estimated 40,000 people missing limbs. Therewere similar statistics from other wartorn nations in Asia,Africa, and the Middle East.

During the 1980s, Williams continued to work withland-mine victims as an employee of other humanitarian aidorganizations, and her frustration grew. From a study by theInternational Red Cross, she learned that some 100 millionland mines were buried throughout the world. Each yearthey claimed an estimated 26,000 victims, nearly all of themcivilians.

After nearly a decade of helping land-mine survivors,Williams decided that the only way to end such pointlesssuffering was to find and destroy every single land mine inthe world and to ban their future use.

Such goals seemed hopeless. Digging up land mines is adangerous and painstaking task—how could 100 million ofthem be found and destroyed? And it hardly seemed likelythat military leaders would allow their nations to give up

OJodyWilliamsandthe InternationalCampaign toBanLandmines

Y1 9 9 7

the use of a weapon that had been soeffective in waging war. But JodyWilliams was determined to achieveher goals.

Williams was no stranger toachievement—or to a commitment toease human suffering. Born in a smalltown in Vermont in 1950, Williamsfelt herself drawn at an early age tohelping the defenseless. For years shelooked after a handicapped youngerbrother and defended him againstschoolyard taunts.

At the University of Vermont,Williams majored in psychology; shethen studied to become a Spanishteacher. During this period she livedfor a while in Mexico, where the ex-tremes of poverty and wealth disturbedher.

Inspired to “save the world” bypursuing a career in international rela-tions, Williams moved to Washington,D.C., in the late 1970s and enrolled atthe Johns Hopkins School of Ad-vanced International Studies to earn amaster’s degree. By the time she gradu-ated, however, Williams knew that she did not want to join a large governmental organization. She want-ed a job that brought her into immedi-

ate contact with people who neededhelp, and she began working for Med-ical Aid to El Salvador, a Los Ange-les–based group founded by actor EdAsner to help victims of that nation’slong civil war.

After her work in El Salvador,Williams was associated with other re-lief organizations in Central America,where she continued to help land-minevictims. In 1991 she joined the Wash-ington, D.C.–based Vietnam Veteransof America Foundation, another hu-manitarian association. The head ofthe foundation, Robert Muller, was adisabled Vietnam War veteran; likeWilliams, he had spent much of hisprofessional career aiding land-minevictims.

In the fall of 1991, Williams andother foundation representatives metwith officials of Medico International,a German medical aid group, to discusstheir mutual efforts on behalf of land-mine victims. By this time, bothWilliams and Muller had decided thatfitting artificial limbs was not enough.The only solution, impossible though itseemed, was to eliminate and ban allland mines.

At Muller’s direction, Williamsbanded together with friends and asso-ciates from other humanitarian relieforganizations to form the InternationalCampaign to Ban Landmines, or ICBL.Their goals were twofold: to secure atotal worldwide ban on land mines andto establishment an international fundto pay for the clearing of all land minesstill present in the earth.

As the coordinator of ICBL,Williams encouraged nations through-out the world to create local, affiliatedorganizations to achieve these goals.During the next six years, ICBL grewinto an alliance of more than 1,000human rights, civic action, and veter-ans’ groups worldwide, and it attractedthe support of many well-known fig-ures, including Diana, Princess ofWales.

2 9 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

JodyWilliamsB O R N

October 9, 1950Rutland, Vermont

E D U C AT I O N

B.A., University of Vermont(1972); M.A., Johns HopkinsSchool of Advanced InternationalStudies (1984)

O C C U PAT I O N

Humanitarian aid worker andhuman rights advocate


As founding coordinator (1991) ofthe International Campaignto Ban Landmines (ICBL), ledworldwide effort to destroy all landmines, and ban their productionand use


As coordinator of the International Cam-paign to Ban Landmines, Jody Williams hascreated worldwide awareness of the dan-gers of land mine use.The organization’sefforts led to the signing of the first inter-national treaty to ban land mine produc-tion and use in 1997.

Image Not Available

ICBL’s success was astonishing:Thanks to their efforts, the EuropeanParliament passed a resolution in 1995banning land mines in EuropeanUnion member nations. A year later atthe so-called G7 conference, a gather-ing of leaders of the world’s major na-tions, the group called for an interna-tional ban. By 1997, more than 50countries had prohibited the export ofland mines, 15 countries had destroyedtheir stockpiles, 30 countries hadbanned the use of land mines, and 20countries had banned their production.In addition, many countries had begundetecting and destroying land mines intheir soil, using the resources of theICBL land-mine clearance fund. ICBLhad also persuaded major weaponsmanufacturers, such as Bofors in Swe-den, to stop producing land mines.

On October 10, 1997, JodyWilliams and the International Com-mittee to Ban Landmines were de-clared the winners of that year’s NobelPeace Prize. In granting the award, theNobel Committee praised Williamsand ICBL for their outstanding accom-plishments on behalf of peace in such abrief period.

At the time the award was an-nounced, an international treaty to banland mines was being drafted, againthanks to the efforts of ICBL. Onlyweeks later, on December 3, 1997, JodyWilliams watched as leaders of 120 na-tions met in Ottawa, Canada, to signthe treaty—the first-ever comprehen-sive agreement banning global produc-tion and use of land mines. Williamsrejoiced, but her happiness was tem-

pered by the knowledge that the Unit-ed States had not signed the treaty:President Bill Clinton refused becausehe claimed that land mines were stillneeded to protect U.S. troops in vari-ous parts of the world, especially on theborder between North and SouthKorea.

Getting the U.S. to sign the treatyis a challenge that Williams willinglyaccepts. She vows to continue her cru-sade against these deadly weapons untilevery nation has signed the treaty—and the last land mine on earth hasbeen destroyed.


DePalma, Anthony. “As U.S. Looks On,120 Nations Sign Treaty Banning LandMines.” New York Times, December 4,1997, pp. A1, A14.

Goldberg, Carey. “Peace Prize Goes toLand-Mine Opponents.” New York Times,October 11, 1997, pp. A1, A6.

J O D Y W I L L I A M S A N D T H E I N T E R N A T I O N A L C A M P A I G N T O B A N L A N D M I N E S • 2 9 1

InternationalCampaign toBan Land-minesF O U N D E R S

Jody Williams, together with repre-sentatives of the Vietnam Veteransof America Foundation, Washing-ton, D.C., and Medico Internation-al, Frankfurt, Germany

F O U N D I N G

1991Washington, D.C.


Washington, D.C.

P U R P O S E

To destroy all land mines in exis-tence and to secure a worldwide banon their production and use


Elimination of many land mines incountries throughout the world anda ban on their production; led ef-forts to create the first internationaltreaty banning land mines, signedby 120 nations in Ottawa, Canada,in 1997


YEAR WINNERS BIRTH/DEATH COUNTRY

1901 Jean Henri Dunant 1828–1910 SwitzerlandFrédéric Passy 1822–1912 France

1902 Élie Ducommun 1833–1906 SwitzerlandAlbert Gobat 1843–1914 Switzerland

1903 William R. Cremer 1828–1908 Great Britain

1904 Institute of International Law 1873– Switzerland

1905 Bertha von Suttner 1843–1914 Austria

1906 Theodore Roosevelt 1858–1919 United States

1907 Ernesto Moneta 1833–1918 ItalyLouis Renault 1843–1918 France

1908 Klas Arnoldson 1844–1916 SwedenFredrik Bajer 1837–1922 Denmark

1909 Auguste Beernaert 1829–1912 BelgiumPaul d’Estournelles de Constant 1852–1924 France

1910 International Peace Bureau 1891– Switzerland

1911 Tobias Asser 1838–1913 NetherlandsAlfred Fried 1864–1921 Austria

1912 Elihu Root 1845–1937 United States

1913 Henri La Fontaine 1854–1943 Belgium

1917 International Committee of the Red Cross 1863– Switzerland

1919 Woodrow Wilson 1856–1924 United States

1920 Léon Bourgeois 1851–1925 France

1921 Karl Branting 1860–1925 SwedenChristian Lange 1869–1938 Norway

1922 Fridtjof Nansen 1861–1930 Norway

1925 J. Austen Chamberlain 1863–1937 Great BritainCharles G. Dawes 1865–1951 United States

1926 Aristide Briand 1862–1932 FranceGustav Stresemann 1878–1929 Germany

1927 Ferdinand Buisson 1841–1932 FranceLudwig Quidde 1858–1941 Germany

Appendix 1A Century of Nobel Peace PrizeWinners

2 9 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S


1929 Frank B. Kellogg 1856–1937 United States

1930 Nathan Söderblom 1866–1931 Sweden

1931 Jane Addams 1860–1935 United StatesNicholas Murray Butler 1862–1947 United States

1933 Norman Angell 1873–1967 Great Britain

1934 Arthur Henderson 1863–1935 Great Britain

1935 Carl von Ossietzky 1889–1938 Germany

1936 Carlos Saavedra Lamas 1878–1959 Argentina

1937 Robert Cecil 1864–1958 Great Britain

1938 Nansen International Office for Refugees 1931–1939 Switzerland

1944 International Committee of the Red Cross 1863– Switzerland

1945 Cordell Hull 1871–1955 United States

1946 Emily Greene Balch 1867–1961 United StatesJohn R. Mott 1865–1955 United States

1947 American Friends Service Committee 1917– United StatesFriends Service Council 1927– Great Britain

1949 John Boyd Orr 1880–1971 Great Britain

1950 Ralph J. Bunche 1904–1971 United States

1951 Léon Jouhaux 1879–1954 France

1952 Albert Schweitzer 1875–1965 France

1953 George C. Marshall 1880–1959 United States

1954 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees 1951– Switzerland

1957 Lester Pearson 1897–1972 Canada

1958 Dominique-Georges Pire 1910–1969 Belgium

1959 Philip Noel–Baker 1889–1982 Great Britain

1960 Albert Luthuli 1898(?)–1967 South Africa

1961 Dag Hammarskjöld 1905–1961 Sweden

1962 Linus Pauling 1901–1994 United States

1963 International Committee of the Red Cross 1863– SwitzerlandLeague of Red Cross Societies 1919– Switzerland

1964 Martin Luther King, Jr. 1929–1968 United States

1965 United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 1946– United States

1968 René Cassin 1887–1976 France

1969 International Labor Organization 1919– Switzerland

A P P E N D I X 1 • 2 9 3

2 9 4 • P E A C E M A K E R S


1970 Norman E. Borlaug 1914– United States

1971 Willy Brandt 1913–1992 West Germany

1973 Henry Kissinger 1923– United StatesLe Duc Tho 1911–1990 North Vietnam

1974 Seán MacBride 1904–1988 Republic of IrelandEisaku Sato 1901–1975 Japan

1975 Andrei Sakharov 1921–1989 Soviet Union

1976 Mairead Corrigan 1944– N. IrelandBetty Williams 1943– N. Ireland

1977 Amnesty International 1961– Great Britain

1978 Menachem Begin 1913–1992 IsraelAnwar Sadat 1918–1981 Egypt

1979 Mother Teresa of Calcutta 1910–1997 India

1980 Adolfo Pérez Esquivel 1931– Argentina

1981 Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees 1951– Switzerland

1982 Alfonso García Robles 1911– MexicoAlva Myrdal 1902–1986 Sweden

1983 Lech Walesa 1943– Poland

1984 Desmond Tutu 1931– South Africa

1985 International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 1980– United States

1986 Elie Wiesel 1928– United States

1987 Oscar Arias Sánchez 1940– Costa Rica

1988 United Nations Peacekeeping Forces 1948– United States

1989 The Dalai Lama 1935– Tibet

1990 Mikhail Gorbachev 1931– Soviet Union

1991 Aung San Suu Kyi 1945– Myanmar

1992 Rigoberta Menchú 1959– Guatemala

1993 F. W. de Klerk 1936– South AfricaNelson Mandela 1918– South Africa

1994 Yasir Arafat 1929– PalestineShimon Peres 1923– IsraelYitzhak Rabin 1922–1995 Israel

1995 Joseph Rotblat 1908– Great Britain

1996 Carlos Felipe Ximenes Belo 1948– East TimorJosé Ramos-Horta 1946– East Timor

1997 Jody Williams 1950– United StatesInternational Campaign to Ban Landmines 1991– United States

A P P E N D I X 2 & 3 • 2 9 5

arbitration—the settlement of disputes by a neutral outsider, called an arbiter, or judge.

arms control—limiting, regulating, reducing, or eliminating a nation’s armed forces and weapons.

conscientious objector—a person who refuses to participatein warfare for moral or religious reasons.

disarmament—giving up or reducing armed forces andweapons; supporters of nuclear disarmament want to ban allnuclear (atomic) weapons.

Geneva Conventions—a series of international agreements(the first was signed in 1864 in Geneva, Switzerland) providing for the humane treatment of prisoners of war.

internationalism—a policy of cooperation among nations;supporters of world government are called internationalists.

international law—a body of rules that regulate the rights of nations in their relations with one another.

pacifism—opposition to war or violence as a means of set-tling disputes; a pacifist is a person who supports pacifism.

Appendix 2A Short Peace Glossary

1625Dutch jurist Hugo Grotius introduces the idea of internationallaw in his book The Law of War and Peace

1668

Society of Friends (Quakers), first religious denomination createdto work for peace, established in England by George Fox

1815

New York Peace Society founded; first nonreligious organizationin the world dedicated to preserving peace; forerunner of theAmerican Peace Society, established in 1828

1863

Red Cross Society founded in Geneva, Switzerland

1864

First Geneva Convention, guaranteeing humane treatment ofprisoners of war, signed by 12 nations

1867

International League of Peace and Freedom founded in Paris

1873

Institute of International Law founded in Ghent, Belgium

1889

Interparliamentary Union founded in Paris

1891

International Peace Bureau founded in Rome

1899

First Hague Conference, international peace conference attendedby representatives of 26 nations

1899

Permanent Court of Arbitration (the Hague Tribunal)—the firstinternational arbitration court in the world—founded at TheHague, the Netherlands

1901

First Nobel Peace Prizes awarded

1907

Second Hague Conference, international peace conferenceattended by representatives of 44 nations

Appendix 3A Peace Timeline:Milestones on the Road to Peace

1915

Women’s International League of Peace and Freedom (WILPF)founded at The Hague, the Netherlands

1919League of Nations founded in Paris by the Versailles Peace Treaty,which ended World War I; although the League became inactivein 1938, it did not formally end until 1946

1921Permanent Court of International Justice (World Court) foundedin Geneva, Switzerland

1922

Washington Conference: U.S., Great Britain, France, Italy, andJapan sign a series of international arms-control agreements—thefirst in the world—in Washington, D.C.

1928

Kellogg-Briand Pact, also known as the Pact of Paris, signed by 15nations, including the U.S.; the treaty renounced warfare as ameans of resolving difficulties— the first such international agree-ment in the world

1945

United Nations founded in San Francisco

International Court of Justice, principal judicial arm of the UN,founded as successor to Permanent Court of International Justice

1946

U.S. presents Baruch Plan, the first proposal to control nuclearweapons, to UN General Assembly

1948

United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, world’s first international“peace army,” established by UN Security Council in New YorkCity

1952

UN General Assembly establishes the UN DisarmamentCommission to work for arms control among UN-member nations

1953

U.S. proposes Atoms for Peace, leading to the creation of theInternational Atomic Energy Agency, a UN-sponsored organiza-tion, in 1957

1961

UN-sponsored treaty establishes Antarctica as nuclear-free

1963

Limited Test Ban Treaty, prohibiting the testing of nuclearweapons in the atmosphere, in outer space, or underwater, signedby the U.S., the U.S.S.R., and Great Britain

1967

Treaty of Tlatelolco, signed by 21 Latin American nations inMexico City, bans nuclear weapons in Central and South America

1968

United Nations approves Treaty on the Non-Proliferation ofNuclear Weapons, which prohibits nations from giving nuclearweapons to other nations; ratified by more than 120 nations, thetreaty went into effect in 1970

1969

U.S. and U.S.S.R. begin SALT—Strategic Arms Limitation Talks

1972

First SALT Treaty (SALT I) signed by U.S. and U.S.S.R., limitingnumbers of certain types of weapons that each nation can main-tain

1975

Helsinki Accords—series of agreements supporting internationalcooperation and human rights—signed by 36 nations, includingU.S. and U.S.S.R.

1979

Second Salt Treaty (SALT II) signed by U.S. and U.S.S.R., impos-ing further limitations on numbers of weapons held by each nation

1987

U.S. and U.S.S.R. sign the INF Treaty, which bans intermediate-range nuclear forces; to ensure compliance, the treaty allows repre-sentatives from each nation to inspect the other’s weapons supplies

1990

Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe, providing forthe destruction of numerous nonnuclear weapons in Europe, signedby U.S., U.S.S.R., and 20 other nations; treaty went into effect in1992

1991

First Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty—START I—signed by U.S.and U.S.S.R., reducing number of long-range nuclear missiles heldby each nation

Collapse of U.S.S.R. ends 45-year-long Cold War with U.S. andother Western nations

1993Second Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty—START II—signed byU.S. and Russia, further reducing nuclear-missile holdings

1996Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), signed by U.S. andRussia, bans all nuclear weapons tests and other nuclear explo-sions; to date, 146 nations have signed the treaty

2 9 6 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Albert Einstein Peace Prize Foundation60 Revere Drive, Suite 250Northbrook, IL 60062Founded: 1979 International activities include funding the annualInternational Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs.

Bertrand Russell Peace FoundationBertrand Russell House, Gamble StreetNottingham NG7 4ET, EnglandFounded: 1963

Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR)Kuhlenstrasse 5A-725436 Uetersen, GermanyFounded: 1914 U.S. chapter: Fellowship of ReconciliationP.O. Box 271Nyack, NY 10960

Friends World Committee for Consultation1506 Race StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19102Founded: 1937

International Peace Bureau41, rue de ZurichCH-1201 Geneva, SwitzerlandFounded: 1891

International Peace Research Associationc/o Paul Smoker, General SecretaryAntioch CollegeYellow Springs, OH 45387Founded: 1965

International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War 126 Rogers StreetCambridge, MA 02142Founded: 1980

Jane Addams Peace Association777 United Nations PlazaNew York, NY 10017Founded: 1948

Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for Nonviolent Social Change449 Auburn Avenue N.E.Atlanta, GA 30312Founded: 1980

Pax Christi InternationalU.S. division: Pax Christi U.S.A.348 East 10th StreetErie, PA 16503Founded: 1972

United Nations*United Nations PlazaNew York, NY 10017Founded: 1945

War Resisters League339 Lafayette StreetNew York, NY 10012Founded: 1923

War Resisters InternationalCaledonian RoadLondon N1 9DX, EnglandFounded: 1921

Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom(WILPF)Case Postale 28CH-1211 Geneva 20, SwitzerlandFounded: 1915U.S. division: WILPF1213 Race StreetPhiladelphia, PA 19107

For a complete listing of peace organizations, see Encyclopediaof Associations, 33th edition (1998).

*For names and addresses of individual UN agencies, see theYearbook of the United Nations, published annually by theDepartment of Public Information, United Nations, UN Plaza,New York, NY 10017. To request a list of all UN publications,phone 800-253-9646 or 212-963-8302.

A P P E N D I X 4 • 2 9 7

Appendix 4Major International Organizations Working for Peace

In addition to the books listed below, see book and articlelistings that follow each entry in text. Titles preceded by anasterisk (*) are especially appropriate for younger readers.

General

*Abrams, Irwin. The Nobel Peace Prize and the Laureates.Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988. (Brief profiles of Nobel PeacePrize winners, 1901–1987.)

Burns, Richard Dean, ed. Encyclopedia of Arms Control andDisarmament. 3 vols. New York: Scribners, 1993.

Gray, Tony. Champions of Peace: The Story of Alfred Nobel,the Peace Prize, and the Laureates. New York: TwoContinents, 1976.

Josephson, Harold, ed. Biographical Dictionary of ModernPeace Leaders. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1985.

Laszlo, Ervin, and Jong Youl Yoo, eds. World Encyclopedia ofPeace. 4 vols. New York: Pergamon, 1986.

Nobel Prize Winners. New York: H. W. Wilson, 1987.(Profiles of Nobel Prize winners in all fields, 1901–1986.)

*Pauli, Hertha E. Toward Peace: The Nobel Prizes and Man’sStruggle for Peace. New York: Ives Washburn, 1969.

Roberts, Nancy L. American Peace Writers, Editors, andPeriodicals: A Dictionary. Westport, Conn.: GreenwoodPress, 1991.

*Schraff, Anne. Women of Peace: Nobel Peace Prize Winners.Springfield, N.J.: Enslow, 1994.

*Wintterle, John, and Richard S. Cramer. Portraits of NobelLaureates in Peace. New York: Abelard-Schuman, 1971.

Alfred Nobel and the Nobel Peace Prize

Bergengren, Erik. Alfred Nobel: The Man and His Work.New York: Nelson, 1962.

Fant, Kenne. Alfred Nobel: A Biography. Translated from theSwedish by Marianne Ruuth. New York: Arcade, 1993.

History of the Peace Movement

Allen, Devere, ed. Pacifism in the Modern World. 1929.Reprint. New York: Garland, 1971.

Andrew Carnegie’s Peace Endowment. 2 vols. New York:Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1985.

Brock, Peter. Freedom from War: Nonsectarian Pacifism,1814–1914. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1991.

———. Pacifism in Europe to 1914. Princeton, N.J.:Princeton University Press, 1972.

———. Pacifism in the United States: From the Colonial Erato the First World War. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton UniversityPress, 1968.

———. Studies in Peace History. Syracuse, N.Y.: SyracuseUniversity Press, 1991.

Ceadel, M. Pacifism in Britain, 1914–1945. Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1980.

Chamberlain, Austen. Down the Years. London: Cassell,1935.

Chatfield, Charles. For Peace and Justice: Pacifism inAmerica, 1914–1941. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1971.

Chatfield, Charles, ed. Peace Movements in America. NewYork: Schocken, 1973.

Chatfield, Charles, and Peter van den Dungen, eds. PeaceMovements and Political Cultures. Knoxville: University ofTennessee Press, 1988.

Chickering, Roger. Imperial Germany and a World WithoutWar: The Peace Movement and German Society 1892–1914.Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1975.

2 9 8 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Further Reading

Choate, Joseph H. The Two Hague Conferences. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1913.

Cooper, S. E., ed. Internationalism in Nineteenth-CenturyEurope. New York: Garland, 1976.

Davis, Calvin D. The United States and the Second HaguePeace Conference. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press,1975.

Davis, Hayne. Among the World’s Peacemakers. 1907.Reprint. New York: Garland, 1972.

De Benedetti, Charles. Origins of the Modern American PeaceMovement. Millwood, N.Y.: KTO Press, 1978.

De Benedetti, Charles, ed. Peace Heroes in Twentieth-Century America. Bloomington: Indiana University Press,1986.

Falnes, O. J. Norway and the Nobel Peace Prize. 1938.Reprint. New York: AMS Press, 1967.

Hull, W. I. The Two Hague Conferences and TheirContributions to International Law. 1908. Reprint, New York:Garland, 1972.

Kelen, Emery. Peace in Their Time: Men Who Led Us In andOut of War. New York: Knopf, 1963.

Knock, Thomas. To End All Wars: Woodrow Wilson and theQuest for a New World Order. New York: Oxford UniversityPress, 1992.

Martin, David A. Pacifism: An Historical and SociologicalStudy. New York: Schocken, 1966.

*Meltzer, Milton. Ain’t Gonna Study War No More: The Storyof America’s Peace Seekers. New York: Harper & Row, 1985.

Moritzen, Julius. The Peace Movement of America. 1912.Reprint, New York: Garland, 1971.

Rappard, William E. The Quest for Peace Since the WorldWar. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1940.

Stienstra, Deborah. Women’s Movements and InternationalOrganizations. New York: St. Martin’s, 1994.

Trueblood, Elton. The People Called Quakers. New York:Harper & Row, 1966.

Yarrow, C. H. Mike. Quaker Experiences in InternationalConciliation. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1978.

The League of Nations

Bonsal, Stephen. Unfinished Business. New York: Doubleday,Doran, 1944.

Jones, S. S. The Scandinavian States and the League ofNations. 1939. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press,1969.

Knudson, John I. A History of the League of Nations. New York: T. E. Smith, 1938.

Northedge, F. S. The League of Nations: Its Life and Times,1920–1946. London: Holmes & Meier, 1986.

Walters, F. P. A. A History of the League of Nations.1952.Reprint, Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1986.

The United Nations

Osmanczyk, Edmund Jan. The Encyclopedia of the UnitedNations and International Relations. New York: Taylor &Francis, 1990.

*Patterson, Charles. The Oxford 50th Anniversary Book of theUnited Nations. New York: Oxford University Press, 1995.

Bibliographies and Peace Research Guides

Carroll, Berenice A. Peace and War: A Guide toBibliographies. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1983.

Cook, Blanche Wiesen, ed. Bibliography on Peace Research inHistory. Santa Barbara, Calif.: ABC-Clio, 1969.

Publications of the Carnegie Endowment for InternationalPeace, 1910–1967. New York: Carnegie Endowment forInternational Peace, 1971.

van den Dungen, Peter, ed. From Erasmus to Tolstoy: ThePeace Literature of Four Centuries. Westport, Conn.:Greenwood Press, 1990.

*Walter, Virginia. War and Peace Literature for Children andYoung Adults: A Resource Guide to Significant Issues.Phoenix, Ariz.: Oryx Press, 1993.

*The WISH List: A Bibliography of Books for Peace.Hammond, Ind.: Hammond Public Library/Women’s Actionfor Nuclear Disarmament, 1987.

F U R T H E R R E A D I N G • 2 9 9

References to main biographical entries areindicated by bold page numbers; references toillustrations are indicated by italics.

Abolitionism, 13, 23, 130-31Academy of International Law, 37Addams, Jane, 7, 96-100, 109, 126, 127Afghanistan, 209, 256, 263African liberation movement, 166-67African National Congress (ANC), 166,

167-68, 245-46, 271, 273-75Afrikaners, 271-72Aid to Displaced Persons, 160-61Albert Schweitzer Fellowships of America,

149Algeria, 177, 232American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), 98American Friends Service Committee, 130-

34American Jewish Committee, 188American Peace Society, 64American Society of International Law, 55Amnesty International, 204, 215-17Angell, Norman, 101-103, 109, 126Anglican Church, 244-45Angola, 233, 257Anti-Semitism, 87, 218, 251-52Apartheid, 167-68, 243-46, 272-75Arab-Israeli War (1948), 140, 142Arafat, Yasir, 276-82Arbitration, 17, 20-21, 23, 24, 39, 45, 46, 51,

55, 68-69, 95, 99, 106, 163Argentina, 112, 228-30Arias Foundation for Peace, 255Arias Sánchez, Oscar, 253-55Aris, Michael, 265Armenia, 116-17, 154, 155, 177Arnoldson, Klas, 38-41, 48, 71Asser, Tobias, 25, 48, 49-52Association for International Conciliation,

45Association of Scandinavian Free States, 40Aung San Suu Kyi, 264-67Austria, 52, 132, 145

Bajer, Fredrik, 38-41, 47, 48, 58Baker, Eric, 215Balch, Emily Greene, 124-29Bangladesh. See East PakistanBarton, Clara, 15, 60Battle of Solferino (1859), 12-14, 59Beernaert, Auguste, 42-46Begin, Menachem, 218-24, 224, 278

Belgium, 57, 160-61Belo, Carlos Felipe Ximenes, 286-88Benenson, Peter, 215Ben-Gurion, David, 220-21, 279Beran, Josef, 216Berlin Wall, 196-97Betar (Zionist youth organization), 219Blom-Cooper, Louis, 215Bojaxhiu, Agnes Gonxha. See Teresa of

Calcutta, MotherBolivia, 110-12Bonner, Yelena G., 209Borlaug, Norman, 192-93Bosnia, 257Botha, P. W., 272-3, 275Bourgeois, Léon, 37, 45, 46, 67-69Boyd Orr, John, 135-38Bradford Conference (1974), 48Brandt, Willy, 194-97Branting, Karl H., 70-73Briand, Aristide, 78, 82-85, 92, 100Buddhists, 258-60Buisson, Ferdinand, 86-89Bulgaria, 154Bunche, Ralph J., 139-42, 170Burma, 264-67Bush, George, 275Butler, Nicholas Murray, 46, 84, 96-100, 109

Camp David Accords (1978), 221, 224, 278Capital punishment, 217Carnegie, Andrew, 24, 46, 55, 99Carnegie Corporation, 141Carnegie Endowment for International

Peace, 46, 55, 73, 84, 99-100Carter, Jimmy, 221, 224Cassin, René, 186-88Cecil, Robert, 113-15, 162Central America, 54-55, 230, 255, 268-70Central American Court of Justice, 54-55Central Prisoners of War Agency (CPWA),

118-19Ceylon, 153CGT–Force Ouvrière (CGT–Work Force),

145Chaco War, 110-12Chadwick, James, 284Chamberlain, J. Austen, 77-81, 84, 85Chamberlain, Neville, 7-79Chazov, Yevgeny, 247-48China, 123, 170, 176, 201, 259-60Christian Council of South Africa, 166Churchill, Winston, 152, 164

Civil Rights Act (U.S., 1964), 181Civil rights movement (U.S.), 142, 179-82Civil War, U.S. (1861-65), 23Cleveland, Grover, 24Cold War, 153, 194, 196-97, 199-200Columbia University Teachers College, 99Committee of Peasant Unity (CUC), 269-70Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS),

263Communism, 199, 201-2, 208-9, 216, 239,

241-42, 259-60, 261-63Concentration camps, 119, 145, 187, 249-51Confédération Générale du Travail (General

Confederation of Labor; CGT), 144-45. Seealso CGT–Force Ouvrière

Congo, 43, 142, 147, 170-71, 177, 232Conscientious objectors, 126, 133, 162Convention Relating to the Status of

Refugees (1951), 154-55Coolidge, Calvin, 81, 91Corey, Robert B., 173-74Corrigan, Mairead, 7, 210-14, 230Costa Rica, 253-55Council on Foreign Relations, 199Cremer, William R., 17, 22-24, 41, 43, 48Crimean War (1853-56), 9, 16, 131Cuba, 31, 121, 122, 234Cuban Missile Crisis, 234Cyprus, 142, 256Czechoslovakia, 145, 208, 216

Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation, 171Dalai Lama, 258-260Danish Peace Society, 41Danish Women’s Association, 41Dawes, Charles G., 77-81, 83-84Dawes Plan, 80-81, 83-84, 85, 88, 91Dayan, Moshe, 278Declaration of the International Rights of

Man (1929), 26De Klerk, F. W., 271-75Denmark, 40, 41D’Estournelles de Constant, Paul, 42-46, 68,

99De Valera, Eamon, 204Disarmament, 43-44, 48, 51-52, 73, 88-89,

106, 134, 163, 164, 174-75, 206, 208, 234-36, 238, 247-48, 262, 263, 284-85. See alsoNuclear weapons

Displaced persons (DPs), 160-61Dreyfus, Alfred, 87Ducommun, Élie, 18-21, 22, 28-29, 35, 41,

47, 48

3 0 0 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Index

Dumbarton Oaks Conference (1944), 122,123, 157

Dunant, Henri, 7, 12-17, 48, 59-60, 61

East Pakistan, 177, 233Eaton, Cyrus, 283Economic nationalism, 121-22Ecuador, 230Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights, 230Ecumenism, 94-95, 128Edward VII, King (England), 24Egypt, 201, 221-24, 278, 280-82Einstein, Albert, 108, 109, 197, 283, 285Eisenhower, Dwight D., 152, 199El Salvador, 255Ethiopia, 118, 145, 233European Common Market, 100European Community, 84, 170European Court of Rights, 188European Economic Community (EEC), 204European peace movement, 16-17, 18-21, 25-

26, 28-29, 32, 35-36, 39, 51-52, 58, 86, 87,97-98, 99, 131

European Recovery Program. See MarshallPlan

European Union, 84, 170“European Villages,” 159, 161

Famine relief, 75, 76, 102, 131, 132Fatah, 280-81Fight the Famine (relief organization), 102Food and Agricultural Organization (FAO),

137, 157, 164, 185Ford, Gerald, 201Ford Foundation, 155Foreign Missions Conference of North

America, 128Fox, George, 130, 237Frahm, Herbert. See Willy BrandtFrance, 131-32, 145, 149, 187, 279Franco-Prussian War (1870-79), 15, 16-17,

23, 39, 46, 68, 87, 131Frank, Ann, 161French Society for Friends of Peace, 15, 17Fried, Alfred, 29, 48, 49-52, 88Friends Service Council, 132-34

Gabon, 148-49Gandhi, Mohandas, 178, 182, 228, 229, 264,

267García Robles, Alfonso, 234-38Garibaldi, Giuseppe, 34, 35Gdansk Agreement (1980), 241

General World Union of Churches forInternational Understanding, 95

Geneva Convention, 14, 37, 60, 72, 118, 176Geneva Protocol, 78, 106, 115German Peace Society, 51, 88, 108Germany, 64-66, 78, 80-81, 83-84, 85, 108-9,

132, 145, 195, 196-97Glasnost, 262Gobat, Charles A., 18-21, 28-29, 47, 48Gonne, Maud, 203-4Good Neighbor policy (U.S.), 121Gorbachev, Mikhail, 209, 261-63Great Britain, 77-78Great Depression (U.S.), 122Greece, 76, 116, 154Green Revolution, 192-93Greenland, 74Guatemala, 255, 268Guinea-Bissau, 233

Haganah, 220, 277Hague Tribunal, 20, 21, 24, 37, 44, 45, 50-51,

55, 68-69, 92, 188Haiti, 122, 127, 257Hammarskjöld, Dag, 169-71Harding, Warren G., 80Heart Open to the World, 161Helsinki Declaration (1975), 188Henderson, Arthur, 104-6Hitler, Adolf, 66, 79, 85, 89, 103, 106, 108-9,

195, 199, 250Hiroshima, Japan, 248Holocaust, 251-52Honduras, 177, 255Hoover, Herbert, 81, 115House of Documentation, 57, 58Huddleston, Trevor, 243-44Hull, Cordell, 120-23Hull-House, 97, 98Human Rights Day (Dec. 10), 187Hungary, 231Hussein, King (Jordan), 281

India, 138, 142, 164, 178, 225-27, 256Indochina, 123Indonesia, 184Institute of International Law, 25-26, 49, 50Integration, racial, 153, 166-67, 179-82International Arbitration and Peace

Association, 28, 56International Arbitration League, 24International Association for Labor

Legislation (IALL), 189

International Campaign to Ban Landmines,289-91

International Center for Advanced Technicaland Vocational Training, 191

International Commission of Jurists, 205International Committee of the Red Cross, 7,

14-15, 59-61, 75, 76, 114, 118-19, 176-77International Court of Justice, 26International Emergency Food Council, 138International Federation of League of

Nations Societies, 115International Institute of Human Rights, 188International Institute for Labor Studies, 191International Labor Code, 190-91International Labor Legislation Commission

(ILLC), 190International Labor Organization (ILO),

144, 145, 189-91International League for Peace and Freedom,

16-17, 18, 87International League for the Rights and

Liberation of Peoples, 230International Liaison Committee of

Organizations for Peace (ILCOP), 48International Movement of Red Cross and

Red Crescent Societies. See InternationalCommittee of the Red Cross; League ofRed Cross Societies

Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF;1987), 262, 263

International Peace Campaign, 115International Physicians for the Prevention

of Nuclear War (IPPNW), 247-48International Prisoners’ Relief and

Information Agency (IPRIA), 61, 118International Peace Bureau (IPB), 19, 20-21,

29, 35, 41, 47-48, 58, 89, 205International Red Cross. See International

Committee of the Red Cross; League ofRed Cross Societies

International Refugee Organization (IRO),154, 159

International Union of Peace Societies(IUPS), 47-48

International Workingmens’ Association(IWA), 23

International Year of the Child (1976), 185Internationalism, 52, 57, 73, 101, 114Interparliamentary Bureau, 20-21Interparliamentary Union, 17, 20, 24, 28, 41,

43, 44, 45, 47, 58, 72-73Intifada, 280, 281Iran, 256

I N D E X • 3 0 1

Iraq, 256Ireland, 131, 203-5Irgun, 219Irish Republican Army (IRA), 203-4, 210-14Islands of Peace, 161Israel, 153, 201, 218-24, 251, 276-82Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), 277, 279Italian-Ethiopian War, 118, 145Italy, 34-36, 118, 145

Japan, 17, 54, 118-19, 123, 200, 204-6, 248Japanese Americans, 127Jews, 103, 117, 119, 127, 133, 154, 187, 199,

249-31John XXIII, Pope, 227John Paul II, Pope, 240Johnson, Lyndon B., 181, 182, 200Jones, Rufus M., 131-33Jordan, 170, 221, 278, 281Jouhaux, Léon, 143-45, 190

Kellogg, Frank B., 84, 90-92Kellogg-Briand Pact (1928), 79, 84, 91-92,

100Kennedy, John F., 190, 199, 205, 253, 279King, Martin Luther, Jr., 142, 178-82Kissinger, Henry, 198-202, 206, 223, 278Korea, 153, 176Khrushchev, Nikita, 208Korean War (1950-53), 153, 170, 176Kreiser, Walter, 108

La Fontaine, Henri, 48, 56-58Labor union movement, 22-23, 105, 125,

144, 189-90, 241-42Lange, Christian, 70-73League of Nations, 26, 33, 46, 47-48, 52, 55,

57, 58, 64-65, 68, 69, 72, 73, 75-76, 78, 80,88-89, 91, 98, 102, 113, 114-15, 121

League of Red Cross Societies, 176-77, 232.See also International Committee of theRed Cross

League of the Rights of Man, 87Lebanon, 170, 222, 256, 279Le Duc Tho, 198-202Leopold II, King (Belgium), 43, 44“Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” 180, 181Libya, 36Lieber, Francis, 25, 26Linus Pauling Institute of Science and

Medicine, 175Lithuania, 219Lloyd George, David, 77-78, 105Locarno Pact (1925), 78, 79, 84, 85Lombard Union for International Peace and

Arbitration, 35Lown, Bernard, 247-48Lumumba, Patrice, 170Luther, Martin, 94Luthuli, Albert, 165-68, 169, 171, 245, 274Luxembourg, 57Lysenkoism, 208

MacBride, John, 203-4MacBride, Seán, 48, 203-6, 216Maguire, Anne, 210Mandela, Nelson, 168, 271-75Manhattan Project, 284Mann, Thomas, 109Mao Zedong, 259March for Jobs and Freedom (1963), 181Marshall, George C., 145, 150-53, 184Marshall Plan, 145, 153, 170, 184Martin Luther King, Jr. Center for

Nonviolent Social Change, 182Marx, Karl, 23Mauriac, François, 251Mayan Indians, 268-70McKeown, Ciaran, 213McKinley, William, 31, 53, 80Meir, Golda, 278, 279Menchú, Rigoberta, 268-70Middle East conflicts, 201, 220-24, 256, 276-

82Missionaries of Charity, 227Moneta, Ernesto, 34-37, 48Monroe Doctrine, 31-32Montgomery (Ala.) bus boycott (1955-56),

178, 180Mother Teresa. See Teresa of Calcutta,

MotherMott, John R., 124-29Mozambique, 233Munich Pact (1938), 79Mussolini, Benito, 114Myanmar. See BurmaMyrdal, Alva, 7, 48, 234-38Myrdal, Gunnar, 236

Nansen, Fridtjof, 7, 74-76, 116-17, 154, 161,163

Nansen International Office for Refugees, 76,116-17, 154

Napolean III, 12, 87Napolean Bonaparte, 40Nasser, Gamal Abdel, 222, 223National Association for the Advancement

of Colored People (NAACP), 179-80National Committee for Reconciliation

(Guatemala), 270National League for Democracy, 267Nazi party, 85, 89, 103, 108-9, 195-96, 199Ne Win, 264, 265, 266Nixon, Richard M., 193, 200, 201, 202, 253Nobel, Alfred, 7, 8-11, 27, 28, 29, 47, 94,

237Nobel Foundation, 10-11Nobel Peace Prize

establishment of, 7, 8, 10-11Nobel Prize for Chemistry, 172-74Noel-Baker, Philip J., 48, 137, 162-64, 247Nonviolent resistance, 168, 178, 180, 229,

245, 264, 267North Atlantic Treaty Organization

(NATO), 153, 158

Northern Ireland, 204, 210-14Norway, 11, 72, 75Nuclear fission, 284Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (1968), 236Nuclear weapons, 149, 172-75, 208, 234-36,

247-48, 262, 263, 284-85Nuremberg Trials, 195-96

Office of the United Nations HighCommissioner for Refugees, 117, 154-55,231-33

Okinawa, Japan, 200, 206Organization for European Economic

Cooperation (OEEC), 170, 204Organization of American States (OAS), 153Ossietzky, Carl von, 107-9

Pacifism, 51-52, 73, 88-89, 101, 126-27, 131,205

Pakistan, 142, 232, 256Palestine, 219-20, 276-82Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO),

280-83Palestine National Liberation Movement

(Fatah), 280-81Palmach, 277Panama Canal Zone, 31Pan-American Conferences, 121-22Pan-American Union, 112Paraguay, 110-12, 117, 216Paris Peace Conference (1919), 58, 67, 69,

72, 83, 102, 114, 129, 162. See also Treatyof Versailles

Parks, Rosa, 180Partido de Liberación Nacional (PLN;

National Liberation Party), 253-55Passy, Frédéric, 12-17, 19, 24, 29, 40, 41, 43,

48, 87, 89Pate, Maurice, 183-85Pauling, Linus C., 7, 48, 172-75, 205Peace People, 212, 213-14Perestroika, 262Pearson, Lester B., 137, 156-58Peres, Shimon, 276-82Pérez de Cuellar, Javier, 257Pérez Esquivel, Adolfo, 228-30Permanent Court of Arbitration. See Hague

TribunalPershing, John J., 79, 80, 151Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR),

247, 248Pire, Dominique-Georges, 159-61Poland, 132, 217-19, 239-42Political prisoners, 215-17, 230Portugal, 215, 233Potsdam Conference (1945), 152Pratt, Hodgson, 56-58Pretoria Minute (1990), 273Prisoners of war, 14-15, 52, 61, 75, 76, 118-

19, 128, 170, 176-77Prussia, 40Pugwash conferences, 200, 283-85

3 0 2 • P E A C E M A K E R S

Quakers, 97, 125, 126-27, 130-34, 162, 236-37, 244

Quidde, Ludwig, 86-89

Rabin, Yitzhak, 221, 276-82Racism, 141, 142, 166-68, 243-44, 245-46,

271-75. See also ApartheidRamos-Horta, José, 286-88Reagan, Ronald, 262, 263Red Crescent Societies, 60, 118, 176Refugee Convention (1933), 117Refugees, 116-17, 127, 154-55, 159-61, 176-

77, 183-84, 231-33, 238Renault, Louis, 34-37Resistance (World War II), 145, 160Riis, Jacob, 125Rockefeller Brothers Fund, 199Rockefeller Foundation, 192-93Rolin-Jacquemyns, Gustave, 25, 49Roosevelt, Eleanor, 187-88Roosevelt, Franklin D., 112, 122, 123, 127,

137, 145, 151, 152Roosevelt, Theodore, 7, 17, 21, 29, 30-33,

45, 53, 54, 91Root, Elihu, 53-55, 100Root-Takahira Agreement (1908), 54Rotblat, Joseph, 283-85Rowett Research Institute, 136-37Russell, Bertrand, 109, 283-85Russia, 17, 28, 76, 105, 116, 132, 154. See

also Soviet UnionRussian-Turkish War, 28Russian Revolution (1917), 76, 105, 116Russo-Japanese War (1904-05), 17, 32Russo-Polish War, 218

Saar, 117Saavedra Lamas, Carlos, 110-12Sadat, Anwar, 218-24, 278Sakharov, Andrei, 207-9, 262Salazar, Antonio, 215Sato, Eisaku, 203-6Saw Maung, 266, 267Scandinavian Interparliamentary Union, 41Schweitzer, Albert, 7, 146-49, 161Senegal, 233Serbia, 132Servicio de Paz y Justicia en América Latina,

(Service for Peace and Justice in LatinAmerica), 229, 230

Sharpeville Massacre (1960), 167-68Six-Day War (1967), 221, 223, 277-78, 281Socialism, 71Society of Friends. See QuakersSöderblom, Nathan, 93-95, 148Solidarity, 241-42Somalia, 257South Africa, 165-68, 243-46, 271-75South African Council of Churches, 245-46South American Anti-War Pact (1933), 111Southern Christian Leadership Conference

(SCLC), 181

Soviet-American Physicians Campaign, 247Soviet Union, 153, 155, 261-63, 207-9Spanish-American War (1898), 31, 54, 121Spanish Civil War (1936-39), 118, 133, 145,

154, 195Stalin, Joseph, 152Starr, Ellen, 96-97Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 13Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT),

200Stresemann, Gustav, 78, 82-85Studd, J. K., 128Suez Canal Convention (1888), 26, 50Suez Canal Crisis (1956), 142, 158, 170, 176-

77Suffrage, 39, 41, 71-72, 97, 113, 131Sundberg, Per, 236Suttner, Bertha von, 10, 15, 27-29, 48, 51Sweden, 38-39, 71, 238Swedish Lutheran Church, 93-94Swiss Popular Bank (SPB), 18Syria, 201-221, 256, 278

Teller, Edward, 174Tenzin Gyatso. See Dalai LamaTeresa of Calcutta, Mother, 7, 225-27Tibet, 258-60Togo, 232Treaty of Portsmouth (1905), 32Treaty of Tlatelolco (1967), 235Treaty of Versailles (1919), 65-66, 67, 80, 83,

85, 88, 102, 189, 190Truman, Harry S., 152, 153Truman Doctrine, 153Tshombe, Moise, 170Tunisia, 281Turkey, 728, 6, 116Tutu, Desmond, 243-46, 273

Union of International Associations, 57-58Unitarianism, 124-25United Nations, 26, 66, 122, 123, 157, 169-

171, 248. See also individual branches of theUN

United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF),183-85

UN Commission on Human Rights, 187UN Convention on the Rights of the Child,

185UN Declaration of Human Rights, 187-88,

208, 230UN Disarmament Committee, 235, 236UN Economic and Social Council, 164UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural

Organization (UNESCO), 187-88, 238United Nations Peacekeeping Forces, 169,

170, 256-57, 278UN Relief and Rehabilitation

Administration (UNRRA), 154, 157, 159,164

University of Peace, 161

Van Heuven Goedhart, G. J., 155Verne, Jules, 82-83Vicente Menchú Foundation, 270Victor Emmanuel II, King (Sardinia), 35Vietnam War, 164, 182, 200-202, 206, 233,

285Vietnamese Boat People, 233Voting Rights Act (1965), 181

Walesa, Lech, 239-42Weimar Republic, 85, 89Westlake, John, 25, 49Wheat Research and Production Program,

193Wiesel, Elie, 249-51Wilhelm II, Kaiser, 85, 89Williams, Betty, 7, 210-14, 230Williams, Jody, 289-91Wilson, Woodrow, 33, 62-66, 67-68, 88, 98,

101, 121, 122, 129, 131Women’s International League for Peace and

Freedom (WILPF), 98, 126-27Women’s rights, 40-41, 57, 97-98, 237-38Workingmen’s Peace Association (WPA),

23-24World Alliance for Order and Civilization,15World Bank Commission on International

Development, 158World Council of Churches, 95, 129, 213,

245World Friendships, 161World Health Organization (WHO), 185,

248World Refugee Year (195), 231-32World War I, 23, 33, 36, 46, 47-48, 61, 64-

65, 77-78World War II, 79, 145, 151-52, 183-84World Zionist Organization, 220World’s Student Christian Federation, 128

Yom Kippur War (1973), 223, 278Young Men’s Christian Association

(YMCA), 13, 128-29Yugoslavia, 257

Zionism, 17, 219, 220, 277, 279Zulus, 165-67

I N D E X • 3 0 3

Acknowledgments

The author wishes to thank Wendy Chmielewski, curator of the SwarthmoreCollege Peace Collection, and Mary Ellen Chijioke, curator of the FriendsHistorical Library of Swarthmore College, for their invaluable assistance.

Picture CreditsAgence France Presse/Corbis-Bettmann: 290; American Friends Service Committee: 131, 132, 133; AmnestyInternational USA: 215; Archive Photos: 286; R. Steven Burns: 244; courtesy of the Jimmy Carter Library: 221;Corbis-Bettmann: 196; The Hague/Peace Palace Library: 36, 42, 44, 49, 50; © 1998 C. Herscovici, Brussels/ArtistsRights Society (ARS), New York/Art Resource, NY: cover (background); Theodore Roosevelt Collection, HarvardCollege Library: 32; International Labour Office: 143, 144, 189, 190; International Physicians for the Prevention ofNuclear War: 247 (copyright Willem Diepraam), 248 (Yoshito Matsushige); courtesy Linda Pauling Kamb: 172;© Photo: Knudsen/Nobel Institute/Intra Media, Oslo: 2, 19, 20, 22, 27, 34, 40, 72, 88, 94, 107, 120, 127, 210, 218,222, 236, 253; courtesy of the Leo Baeck Institute: 117; Library of Congress: cover (bottom left inset), 12, 16, 26,30, 38, 52, 53, 54, 55, 56, 63, 67, 76, 78, 80, 82, 84, 86, 90, 92, 100, 101, 104, 106, 111, 135, 150, 156, 258, 260;Martin Luther King Jr. Library, Washington, D.C.: cover (top right inset), 225, 243; National Archives: 152 (306-NT-901-72), 200, 250 (courtesy of United States Holocaust Memorial Museum Photo Archives, Desig. # 12.325W/S # 747870); courtesy of the National Portrait Gallery, London: 58; National Swedish Art Museums, SwedishPortrait Archives: 70 (photo by Richard Bergh), 93 (photo by Svante Nilsson); Peace People Headquarters, Belfast:212; Photo Bibliothèque Nationale, Vienna, courtesy of the Comité International de la Croix-Rouge: 60 (HIST1682/27); Photothèque Comité International de la Croix-Rouge: 14 (HIST 97, artist Horage Vernet), 59 (HIST1446/10A, photo from Croix-Rouge britannique—Imperial War Museum, London), 75 (HIST 1061/27), 118(HIST 1180), 119 (Photo Alb. GRIVEL), 177 (HIST 296); Project SAVE Armenian Archives, Watertown, Mass.,courtesy of Margaret Kedonian Melickian: 116; Pugwash Conference on Science & World Affairs: 283, 284;Ronald Reagan Library: 262; reproduced with permission of the Library Committee of the Religious Society ofFriends in Britain: 134; Reuters/Corbis-Bettmann: 207, 254, 265, 266, 271, 274, 276, 278, 280; Franklin D.Roosevelt Library: 188; Southern Evening Echo, Southampton: 216; Swarthmore College Peace Collection: cover(bottom right inset), 96, 98, 124 (Papers of Emily Greene Balch), 126 (Records of the Women’s InternationalLeague for Peace and Freedom, U.S. Section); UNICEF: 183 (#1680/Anders Engman), 184 (#ICEF-2371), 232(#116,233/Balcomb/Mullick/Nelson-jr); UN Photo Library: 68 (#189150, Geneva), 121 ( # 024477), 122(R/ARA), 139 (#31216), 140 (#16037), 154 ( #34991), 169 (#59778), 231 (#52532/SC/jt), 256 (#174113/J. Isaac),257 (#188854/ A. Burridge), 261 (#172543/Y. Nagata), 269 (#182000/M. Grant); photo courtesy of United StatesHolocaust Memorial Museum: 249; UPI/Corbis-Bettmann: cover (top left inset), 113, 146, 148, 159, 163, 165, 166,176, 178, 180, 182, 186, 193, 194, 198, 203, 206, 226, 228, 235, 239, 240; Photograph courtesy of ManisCollection, University of Nevada, Las Vegas Library: 174; Woodrow Wilson House, National Trust, Washington,D.C.: 64; YMCA of the USA Archives, University of Minnesota Libraries: 128.

Ann T. Keene was born in Chicago and educated at Swarthmore College andIndiana University. She writes and edits nonfiction for both children andadults, specializing in biography, and has taught writing and literature atIndiana University and George Mason University. Keene is the author of fiveprevious books for young adults, including Earthkeepers: Observers andProtectors of Nature, also in the Oxford Profiles series. She is the editor of theOxford American Children’s Encyclopedia (1998) and is a contributor toOxford’s forthcoming American National Biography.

Documents

Peacemakers: Winners of the Nobel Peace Prize (Oxford Profiles)