Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons . Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term denuclearization is also used to describe the process leading to complete nuclear disarmament.
90-710: Doris May Lessing CH OMG ( née Tayler ; 22 October 1919 – 17 November 2013) was a British novelist. She was born to British parents in Iran , where she lived until 1925. Her family then moved to Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe ), where she remained until moving in 1949 to London, England. Her novels include The Grass Is Singing (1950), the sequence of five novels collectively called Children of Violence (1952–1969), The Golden Notebook (1962), The Good Terrorist (1985), and five novels collectively known as Canopus in Argos: Archives (1979–1983). Lessing
180-463: A telephone operator , and she soon married her first husband, civil servant Frank Wisdom, with whom she had two children (John, 1940–1992, and Jean, born in 1941), before the marriage ended in 1943. Lessing left the family home in 1943, leaving the two children with their father. After the divorce, Doris's interest was drawn to the community around the Left Book Club , an organisation she had joined
270-565: A decade is the Cooperative Threat Reduction Program (CTR) . While this program has been deemed a success, many believe that its funding levels need to be increased so as to ensure that all dangerous nuclear materials are secured in the most expeditious manner possible. The CTR program has led to several other innovative and important nonproliferation programs that need to continue to be a budget priority in order to ensure that nuclear weapons do not spread to actors hostile to
360-660: A five-volume secret file on Lessing built up both MI5 and MI6 was made public and placed in The National Archives . The file, which contains documents that are redacted in parts, shows Lessing was under surveillance by MI5 and MI6 for around twenty years, from the early-1940s onwards. Her associations with communist organisations and political activism were reported to be the reasons for the surveillance of Lessing. Disaffected, and turning away from Marxist political philosophy, Lessing became increasingly absorbed with mystical and spiritual matters, devoting herself especially to
450-492: A great writer." She attended the 1987 World Science Fiction Convention as its Writer Guest of Honor. Here she made a speech in which she described her dystopian novel Memoirs of a Survivor as "an attempt at an autobiography". The Canopus in Argos novels present an advanced interstellar society's efforts to accelerate the evolution of other worlds, including Earth. Using Sufi concepts, to which Lessing had been introduced in
540-517: A job as a clerk for the Imperial Bank of Persia . In 1925 the family moved to the British colony of Southern Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe) to farm maize and other crops on about 1,000 acres (400 ha) of bush that Alfred bought. In the rough environment, his wife Emily aspired to lead an Edwardian lifestyle. It might have been possible had the family been wealthy; in reality, they were short of money and
630-720: A list of "The 50 greatest British writers since 1945". Lessing was born Doris May Tayler in Kermanshah , Iran , on 22 October 1919, to Captain Alfred Tayler and Emily Maude Tayler (née McVeagh), both British subjects. Her father, who had lost a leg during his service in World War I , met his future wife, a nurse, at the Royal Free Hospital in London where he was recovering from his amputation . The couple moved to Iran, for Alfred to take
720-553: A new book. She died on 17 November 2013, aged 94, at her home in West Hampstead , London, of kidney failure, sepsis and a chest infection, predeceased by her two sons, but was survived by her daughter, Jean, who lives in South Africa. She was remembered with a humanist funeral service . Lessing's fiction is commonly divided into three distinct phases. During her Communist phase (1944–56) she wrote radically about social issues,
810-451: A phased withdrawal and verification for the destruction of all devices held by official and unofficial members of the nuclear club . The Global Zero campaign works toward building an international consensus and a sustained global movement of leaders and citizens for the elimination of nuclear weapons . Goals include the initiation of United States - Russia bilateral negotiations for reductions to 1,000 total warheads each and commitments from
900-645: A theme to which she returned in The Good Terrorist (1985). Doris Lessing's first novel, The Grass Is Singing , as well as the short stories later collected in African Stories , are set in Southern Rhodesia (today Zimbabwe ) where she was then living. This was followed by a psychological phase from 1956 to 1969, including the Golden Notebook and the "Children of Violence" quintet. Third came
990-442: A threat to nonproliferation and world peace . The precise use of terminology in the context of disarmament may have important implications for political Signaling theory . In the case of North Korea , "denuclearization" has historically been interpreted as different from "disarmament" by including withdrawal of American nuclear capabilities from the region. More recently, this term has become provocative due to its comparisons to
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#17328580770781080-527: A vast collection of professional and personal correspondence, including the Whitehorn letters, a collection of love letters from the 1940s, written when Lessing was still living in Zimbabwe (then Southern Rhodesia). The collection also includes forty years of personal diaries. Some of the archive remains embargoed during the writing of Lessing's official biography . Companion of Honour The Order of
1170-479: A yield equivalent to 12,500 tonnes of TNT , the blast and thermal wave of the bomb destroyed nearly 50,000 buildings (including the headquarters of the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division ) and killed 70,000–80,000 people outright, with total deaths being around 90,000–146,000. Detonation of the " Fat Man " device exploded over the Japanese city of Nagasaki three days later on August 9, 1945, destroying 60% of
1260-482: Is a new danger, which cannot be addressed by deterrence: "The classical notion of deterrence was that there was some consequences before which aggressors and evildoers would recoil. In a world of suicide bombers, that calculation doesn't operate in any comparable way". George Shultz has said, "If you think of the people who are doing suicide attacks, and people like that get a nuclear weapon, they are almost by definition not deterrable". Andrew Bacevich wrote that there
1350-559: Is no feasible scenario under which the US could sensibly use nuclear weapons: For the United States, they are becoming unnecessary, even as a deterrent. Certainly, they are unlikely to dissuade the adversaries most likely to employ such weapons against us -- Islamic extremists intent on acquiring their own nuclear capability. If anything, the opposite is true. By retaining a strategic arsenal in readiness (and by insisting without qualification that
1440-434: Is tempting and easy to say we can't get there from here, [...] we must chart a course toward that goal." During his presidential campaign, former U.S. President Barack Obama pledged to "set a goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and pursue it." The United States has taken the lead in ensuring that nuclear materials globally are properly safeguarded. A popular program that has received bipartisan domestic support for over
1530-647: Is the Sovereign of the Order of the Companions of Honour, and a maximum of 65 members. Additionally, foreigners or Commonwealth citizens from outside the Commonwealth realms may be added as honorary members. Members are organised into a single class and are appointed by the monarch of the Commonwealth realms in their capacity as sovereign of the order. While membership of the order confers no title or precedence , those inducted into
1620-841: The Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament , Peace Action , Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs , Greenpeace , Soka Gakkai International , International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War , Mayors for Peace , Global Zero , the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons , and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation . There have been many large anti-nuclear demonstrations and protests . On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to
1710-589: The Cold War arms race . It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history. In recent years, some U.S. elder statesmen have also advocated nuclear disarmament. Sam Nunn , William Perry , Henry Kissinger , and George Shultz have called upon governments to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and in various op-ed columns have proposed an ambitious program of urgent steps to that end. The four have created
1800-484: The Dalai Lama ". Others have argued that nuclear weapons have made the world relatively safer, with peace through deterrence and through the stability–instability paradox , including in south Asia. Kenneth Waltz has argued that nuclear weapons have created a nuclear peace , and further nuclear weapon proliferation might even help avoid the large scale conventional wars that were so common prior to their invention at
1890-696: The Great Peace March for Global Nuclear Disarmament . There were many Nevada Desert Experience protests and peace camps at the Nevada Test Site during the 1980s and 1990s. On May 1, 2005, 40,000 anti-nuclear/anti-war protesters marched past the United Nations in New York, 60 years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki . In 2008, 2009, and 2010, there have been protests about, and campaigns against, several new nuclear reactor proposals in
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#17328580770781980-590: The International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for its work to draw attention to the catastrophic humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons and for its ground-breaking efforts to achieve a treaty-based prohibition of such weapons". One of the earliest peace organisations to emerge after the Second World War was the World Peace Council , which
2070-604: The Nuclear Security Project to advance this agenda. Organisations such as Global Zero , an international non-partisan group of 300 world leaders dedicated to eliminating all nuclear weapons, have also been established. In 1945 in the New Mexico desert, American scientists conducted " Trinity ", the first nuclear weapons test , marking the beginning of the atomic age . Even before the Trinity test, national leaders debated
2160-599: The Sufi phase, explored in her 70s work, and in the Canopus in Argos sequence of science fiction (or as she preferred to put it "space fiction") novels and novellas. Lessing's Canopus sequence received a mixed reception from mainstream literary critics . John Leonard praised her 1980 novel The Marriages Between Zones Three, Four and Five in The New York Times , but in 1982 John Leonard wrote in reference to The Making of
2250-431: The Sufi tradition. At the age of fifteen, Lessing began to sell her stories to magazines. Her first novel, The Grass Is Singing , was published in 1950. The work that gained her international attention, The Golden Notebook , was published in 1962. By the time of her death, she had published more than 50 novels, some under a pseudonym. In 1982 Lessing wrote two novels under the literary pseudonym Jane Somers to show
2340-473: The United Nations with the petition signed by more than 11,000 scientists calling for an end to nuclear-weapon testing . The " Baby Tooth Survey ", headed by Louise Reiss , demonstrated conclusively in 1961 that above-ground nuclear testing posed significant public health risks in the form of radioactive fallout spread primarily via milk from cows that had ingested contaminated grass. Public pressure and
2430-718: The United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan 's plan to reform the UN as presented in his report to the General Assembly in July 1997. Its goal is to promote nuclear disarmament and non-proliferation and the strengthening of the disarmament regimes in respect to other weapons of mass destruction , chemical and biological weapons . It also promotes disarmament efforts in the area of conventional weapons , especially land mines and small arms , which are often
2520-726: The United States–Russia Strategic Stability Dialogue (SSD) in 2021 under president Joe Biden . When the extreme danger intrinsic to nuclear war and the possession of nuclear weapons became apparent to all sides during the Cold War, a series of disarmament and nonproliferation treaties were agreed upon between the United States, the Soviet Union, and several other states throughout the world. Many of these treaties involved years of negotiations, and seemed to result in important steps in arms reductions and reducing
2610-636: The White House Peace Vigil in Washington, D.C. He was later joined on the vigil by anti-nuclear activists Concepcion Picciotto and Ellen Benjamin . On June 12, 1982, one million people demonstrated in New York City's Central Park against nuclear weapons and for an end to the cold war arms race . It was the largest anti-nuclear protest and the largest political demonstration in American history. International Day of Nuclear Disarmament protests were held on June 20, 1983, at 50 sites across
2700-460: The collapse of the Gaddafi regime after disarmament. The Biden administration has been criticized for its reaffirming of a strategy of denuclearization with Korea and Japan, as opposed to a "freeze" or "pause" on new nuclear developments. Similarly, the term "irreversible" has been argued to set an impossible standard for states to disarm. Eliminating nuclear weapons has long been an aim of
2790-611: The Companions of Honour is an order of the Commonwealth realms . It was founded on 4 June 1917 by King George V as a reward for outstanding achievements. It was founded on the same date as the Order of the British Empire . The order was originally intended to be conferred upon a limited number of persons for whom this special distinction seemed to be the most appropriate form of recognition, constituting an honour dissociated from either
Doris Lessing - Misplaced Pages Continue
2880-614: The Nobel Prize for Literature by the Swedish Academy in its 106-year history. In 2017, just 10 years later, her Nobel medal was put up for auction. Previously only one Nobel medal for literature had been sold at auction, for André Gide in 2016. During the late-1990s Lessing had a stroke, which stopped her from travelling during her later years. She was still able to attend the theatre and opera. She began to focus her mind on death, for example asking herself if she would have time to finish
2970-543: The Nuclear Security Project to advance this agenda. Nunn reinforced that agenda during a speech at the Harvard Kennedy School on October 21, 2008, saying, "I'm much more concerned about a terrorist without a return address that cannot be deterred than I am about deliberate war between nuclear powers. You can't deter a group who is willing to commit suicide. We are in a different era. You have to understand
3060-560: The Ransom Center contain nearly all of her extant manuscripts and typescripts up to 1999. Original material for Lessing's early books is assumed not to exist because she kept none of her early manuscripts. The McFarlin Library at the University of Tulsa holds a smaller collection. The University of East Anglia 's British Archive for Contemporary Writing holds Doris Lessing's personal archive:
3150-519: The Representative for Planet 8 that "[o]ne of the many sins for which the 20th century will be held accountable is that it has discouraged Mrs. Lessing... She now propagandises on behalf of our insignificance in the cosmic razzmatazz", to which Lessing replied: "What they didn't realise was that in science fiction is some of the best social fiction of our time. I also admire the classic sort of science fiction, like Blood Music , by Greg Bear . He's
3240-637: The Soviet Union had not yet developed it. In 1950, the WPC launched its Stockholm Appeal calling for the absolute prohibition of nuclear weapons. The campaign won support, collecting, it is said, 560 million signatures in Europe, most from socialist countries, including 10 million in France (including that of the young Jacques Chirac ), and 155 million signatures in the Soviet Union – the entire adult population. Several non-aligned peace groups who had distanced themselves from
3330-498: The Soviet point of view. At first there was limited co-operation between such groups and the WPC, but western delegates who tried to criticize the Soviet Union or the WPC's silence about Russian armaments were often shouted down at WPC conferences and by the early 1960s they had dissociated themselves from the WPC. After the 1986 Reykjavík Summit between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and the new Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev ,
3420-584: The UN General Assembly stated that use of nuclear weaponry "would exceed even the scope of war and cause indiscriminate suffering and destruction to mankind and civilization and, as such, is contrary to the rules of international law and to the laws of humanity". The UN Office for Disarmament Affairs (UNODA) is a department of the United Nations Secretariat established in January 1998 as part of
3510-543: The US), this time under one cover, with the title The Diaries of Jane Somers: The Diary of a Good Neighbour and If the Old Could , listing Doris Lessing as author. Lessing declined a damehood (DBE) in 1992 as an honour linked to a non-existent Empire; she had previously declined an OBE in 1977. Later she accepted appointment as a Member of the Order of the Companions of Honour at the end of 1999 for "conspicuous national service". She
3600-701: The United Kingdom, the first Aldermaston March organised by the Direct Action Committee and supported by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament took place on Easter 1958, when several thousand people marched for four days from Trafalgar Square , London, to the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment close to Aldermaston in Berkshire , England, to demonstrate their opposition to nuclear weapons. CND organised Aldermaston marches into
3690-707: The United States and the Soviet Union concluded two important nuclear arms reduction treaties: the INF Treaty (1987) and START I (1991). After the end of the Cold War, the United States and the Russian Federation concluded the Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (2003) and the New START Treaty (2010). The US withdrew from the INF Treaty in 2019 under president Donald Trump , and launched
Doris Lessing - Misplaced Pages Continue
3780-745: The United States insisted on an enforcement regime that would have overridden the UN Security Council veto. This soon led to deadlock in the UNAEC. Operation Crossroads was a series of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific Ocean in the summer of 1946. Its purpose was to test the effect of nuclear weapons on naval ships. Pressure to cancel Operation Crossroads came from scientists and diplomats. Manhattan Project scientists argued that further nuclear testing
3870-406: The United States rededicate itself to the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons, concluding: "We endorse setting the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons and working energetically on the actions required to achieve that goal." Arguing a year later that "with nuclear weapons more widely available, deterrence is decreasingly effective and increasingly hazardous," the authors concluded that although "it
3960-564: The United States. There is an annual protest against U.S. nuclear weapons research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California and in the 2007 protest, 64 people were arrested. There have been a series of protests at the Nevada Test Site and in the April 2007 Nevada Desert Experience protest, 39 people were cited by police. There have been anti-nuclear protests at Naval Base Kitsap for many years, and several in 2008. In 2017,
4050-490: The United States. Key programs: List of countries' nuclear weapons development status represented by color. While the vast majority of states have adhered to the stipulations of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, a few states have either refused to sign the treaty or have pursued nuclear weapons programs while not being members of the treaty. Many view the pursuit of nuclear weapons by these states as
4140-601: The United States. Large demonstrations and the disruption of US naval visits led the New Zealand government to ban nuclear-armed and powered ships from entering the country's territorial waters in 1984. Hundreds of thousands of people took part in Palm Sunday and other demonstrations for peace and nuclear disarmament in Australia during the mid-1980s. In 1986, hundreds of people walked from Los Angeles to Washington, D.C. in
4230-494: The WPC advised their supporters not to sign the Appeal. The WPC had uneasy relations with the non-aligned peace movement and has been described as being caught in contradictions as "it sought to become a broad world movement while being instrumentalized increasingly to serve foreign policy in the Soviet Union and nominally socialist countries." From the 1950s until the late 1980s it tried to use non-aligned peace organizations to spread
4320-419: The acceptance of title or the classification of merit. It is now described as being "awarded for having a major contribution to the arts, science, medicine, or government lasting over a long period of time". The first recipients of the order were all decorated for "services in connection with the war " and were listed in The London Gazette . The order consists of the monarch of the Commonwealth realms, who
4410-402: The allocation of this award to that country's citizens in preference to other Australian honours. The last Australian member, Doug Anthony , former Deputy Prime Minister of Australia, died on 20 December 2020. Companions from other Commonwealth realms continue to be appointed, Dame Kiri Te Kanawa , a New Zealand soprano, was given the award in 2018 and Canadian author Margaret Atwood was given
4500-402: The atomic bomb "encapsulated the very worst direction in which society was moving". Peace movements emerged in Japan and in 1954 they converged to form a unified "Japanese Council Against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs". Japanese opposition to the Pacific nuclear weapons tests was widespread, and "an estimated 35 million signatures were collected on petitions calling for bans on nuclear weapons". In
4590-457: The author of Atomic Obsession , has also dismissed the need to interfere with Iran's nuclear program and expressed that arms control measures are counterproductive. During a 2010 lecture at the University of Missouri , which was broadcast by C-SPAN , Mueller has also argued that the threat from nuclear weapons, especially nuclear terrorism , has been exaggerated, both in the popular media and by officials. Former Secretary Kissinger says there
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#17328580770784680-410: The award in 2019. Sebastian Coe , Baron Coe CH represented the Order at the 2023 Coronation . The insignia of the order is in the form of an oval medallion, surmounted by a royal crown (but, until recently, surmounted by an imperial crown ), and with a rectangular panel within, depicting on it an oak tree, a shield with the Royal Coat of Arms of the United Kingdom hanging from one branch, and, on
4770-400: The city and killing 35,000–40,000 people outright, though up to 40,000 additional deaths may have occurred over some time after that. Subsequently, the world's nuclear weapons stockpiles grew. In 1946 the Truman administration commissioned the Acheson-Lilienthal Report , which proposed the international control of the nuclear fuel cycle , revealing atomic energy technology to the USSR, and
4860-419: The decommissioning of all existing nuclear weapons through the new United Nations (UN) system, via the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC). With key modifications, the report became US policy in the form of the Baruch Plan , which was presented to the UNAEC during its first meeting in June 1946. As Cold War tensions emerged, it became clear that Stalin wanted to develop his own atomic bomb and that
4950-465: The difficulty new authors face in trying to get their work printed. The novels were rejected by Lessing's UK publisher but later accepted by another English publisher, Michael Joseph , and in the US by Alfred A. Knopf . The Diary of a Good Neighbour was published in Britain and the US in 1983 and If the Old Could in both countries in 1984, both as written by Jane Somers. In 1984 both novels were republished in both countries ( Viking Books publishing in
5040-442: The dropping of atomic bombs on two Japanese cities in 1945 was justified), the United States continues tacitly to sustain the view that nuclear weapons play a legitimate role in international politics ... . In The Limits of Safety , Scott Sagan documented numerous incidents in US military history that could have produced a nuclear war by accident. He concluded: while the military organizations controlling U.S. nuclear forces during
5130-544: The early 2000s, the George W. Bush administration repeatedly pushed to fund policies that would allegedly make nuclear weapons more usable in the post–Cold War environment. To date the U.S. Congress has refused to fund many of these policies. However, some feel that even considering such programs harms the credibility of the United States as a proponent of nonproliferation. Former U.S. officials Henry Kissinger, George Shultz, Bill Perry, and Sam Nunn (aka 'The Gang of Four' on nuclear deterrence) proposed in January 2007 that
5220-455: The end of World War II . In the July 2012 issue of Foreign Affairs Waltz took issue with the view of most U.S., European, and Israeli, commentators and policymakers that a nuclear-armed Iran would be unacceptable. Instead Waltz argues that it would probably be the best possible outcome, as it would restore stability to the Middle East by balancing Israel's regional monopoly on nuclear weapons . Professor John Mueller of Ohio State University ,
5310-543: The exceptional structure of the novel. She explained in Walking in the Shade that she modelled Molly partly on her good friend Joan Rodker , the daughter of the modernist poet and publisher John Rodker . Lessing did not like being pigeonholed as a feminist author. When asked why, she explained: What the feminists want of me is something they haven't examined because it comes from religion. They want me to bear witness. What they would really like me to say is, 'Ha, sisters, I stand with you side by side in your struggle toward
5400-557: The farm delivered very little income. As a girl Doris was educated first at the Dominican Convent High School , a Roman Catholic convent all-girls school in the Southern Rhodesian capital of Salisbury (now Harare ). Then followed a year at Girls High School in Salisbury. She left school at age 13 and was self-educated from then on. She left home at 15 and worked as a nursemaid . She started reading material that her employer gave her on politics and sociology and began writing around this time. In 1937 Doris moved to Salisbury to work as
5490-413: The golden dawn where all those beastly men are no more.' Do they really want people to make oversimplified statements about men and women? In fact, they do. I've come with great regret to this conclusion. The Doris Lessing Society is dedicated to supporting the scholarly study of Lessing's work. The formal structure of the Society dates from January 1977, when the first issue of the Doris Lessing Newsletter
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#17328580770785580-440: The impact of nuclear weapons on domestic and foreign policy. Also involved in the debate about nuclear weapons policy was the scientific community, through professional associations such as the Federation of Atomic Scientists and the Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs . On August 6, 1945, towards the end of World War II , the " Little Boy " device was detonated over the Japanese city of Hiroshima . Exploding with
5670-411: The late 1960s when tens of thousands of people took part in the four-day events. On November 1, 1961, at the height of the Cold War , about 50,000 women brought together by Women Strike for Peace marched in 60 cities in the United States to demonstrate against nuclear weapons . It was the largest national women's peace protest of the 20th century. In 1958, Linus Pauling and his wife presented
5760-542: The left shoulder. Nuclear disarmament Disarmament and non- proliferation treaties have been agreed upon because of the extreme danger intrinsic to nuclear war and the possession of nuclear weapons. Proponents of nuclear disarmament say that it would lessen the probability of nuclear war occurring, especially considering accidents or retaliatory strikes from false alarms. Critics of nuclear disarmament say that it would undermine deterrence and make conventional wars more common. Nuclear disarmament groups include
5850-405: The left, a mounted knight in armour. The insignia's blue border bears in gold letters the motto IN ACTION FAITHFUL AND IN HONOUR CLEAR , Alexander Pope 's description (in iambic pentameter ) in his Epistle to Mr Addison of James Craggs the Younger , later used on Craggs's monument in Westminster Abbey . Men wear the badge on a neck ribbon (red with golden border threads) and women on a bow at
5940-439: The light of the weapons build-up and statements of US President Ronald Reagan . Reagan had "a world free of nuclear weapons" as his personal mission, and was largely scorned for this in Europe. Reagan was able to start discussions on nuclear disarmament with Soviet Union . He changed the name "SALT" ( Strategic Arms Limitation Talks ) to "START" ( Strategic Arms Reduction Talks ). On June 3, 1981, William Thomas launched
6030-425: The mid-1960s by her "good friend and teacher" Idries Shah , the series of novels also uses an approach similar to that employed by the early 20th-century mystic G. I. Gurdjieff in his work All and Everything . Earlier works of "inner space" fiction like Briefing for a Descent into Hell (1971) and Memoirs of a Survivor (1974) also connect to this theme. Lessing's interest had turned to Sufism after coming to
6120-504: The order are entitled to use the post-nominal letters CH . Appointments to the order are generally made on the advice of prime ministers of the Commonwealth realms. For Canadians, the advice to the Sovereign can come from a variety of officials. Originally, the order was limited to 50 ordinary members, but in 1943 it was enlarged to 65, with a quota of 45 members for the United Kingdom , seven for Australia , two each for New Zealand and South Africa , and nine for India , Burma , and
6210-428: The other British colonies . The quota numbers were altered in 1970 to 47 for the United Kingdom, seven for Australia, two for New Zealand, and nine for other Commonwealth realms. The quota was adjusted again in 1975 by adding two places to the New Zealand quota and reducing the nine for the other countries to seven. Whilst still able to nominate candidates to the order, the Cabinet of Australia has effectively stopped
6300-409: The other key nuclear weapons countries to participate in multilateral negotiations for phased reductions of nuclear arsenals. Global Zero works to expand the diplomatic dialogue with key governments and continue to develop policy proposals on the critical issues related to the elimination of nuclear weapons. The International Conference on Nuclear Disarmament took place in Oslo in February 2008, and
6390-425: The pacifist left. But now many mainstream politicians, academic analysts, and retired military leaders also advocate nuclear disarmament. Sam Nunn , William Perry , Henry Kissinger , and George Shultz have called upon governments to embrace the vision of a world free of nuclear weapons, and in three op-eds in The Wall Street Journal proposed an ambitious program of urgent steps to that end. The four have created
6480-518: The pivot of the entire activity of the Communist Parties", and most western Communist parties followed this policy. Lawrence Wittner , a historian of the post-war peace movement, argues that the Soviet Union devoted great efforts to the promotion of the WPC in the early post-war years because it feared an American attack and American superiority of arms at a time when the USA possessed the atom bomb but
6570-622: The previous year. As reported by the UN Press, "On the one hand, we saw record levels of military spending and division within important arms-control frameworks, including the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons. On the other hand, we also saw the first-ever Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons" Despite a general trend toward disarmament in
6660-411: The realisation that Marxism ignored spiritual matters, leaving her disillusioned. Lessing's novel The Golden Notebook is considered a feminist classic by some scholars, but notably not by the author herself, who later wrote that its theme of mental breakdowns as a means of healing and freeing one's self from illusions had been overlooked by critics. She also regretted that critics failed to appreciate
6750-583: The research results subsequently led to a moratorium on above-ground nuclear weapons testing, followed by the Partial Test Ban Treaty , signed in 1963 by John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev . On the day that the treaty went into force, the Nobel Prize Committee awarded Pauling the Nobel Peace Prize , describing him as "Linus Carl Pauling, who ever since 1946 has campaigned ceaselessly, not only against nuclear weapons tests, not only against
6840-429: The risk of nuclear war. Only one country ( South Africa ) has been known to ever dismantle an indigenously developed nuclear arsenal completely. The apartheid government of South Africa produced half a dozen crude fission weapons during the 1980s, but they were dismantled in the early 1990s. In its landmark resolution 1653 of 1961, "Declaration on the prohibition of the use of nuclear and thermo-nuclear weapons,"
6930-636: The spread of these armaments, not only against their very use, but against all warfare as a means of solving international conflicts." Pauling started the International League of Humanists in 1974. He was president of the scientific advisory board of the World Union for Protection of Life and also one of the signatories of the Dubrovnik-Philadelphia Statement . In the 1980s, a movement for nuclear disarmament again gained strength in
7020-457: The two older children with their father Frank Wisdom. She later said that at the time she saw no choice: "For a long time I felt I had done a very brave thing. There is nothing more boring for an intelligent woman than to spend endless amounts of time with small children. I felt I wasn't the best person to bring them up. I would have ended up an alcoholic or a frustrated intellectual like my mother." As well as campaigning against nuclear arms , she
7110-556: The weapons of choice in contemporary conflicts. Following the retirement of Sergio Duarte in February 2012, Angela Kane was appointed as the new High Representative for Disarmament Affairs . On July 7, 2017, a UN conference adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons with the backing of 122 states. It opened for signature on September 20, 2017. The 2022 United Nations Disarmament Yearbook described highlights and challenges in
7200-629: The world has changed." In 2010, the four were featured in a documentary film entitled Nuclear Tipping Point . The film is a visual and historical depiction of the ideas laid forth in The Wall Street Journal op-eds and reinforces their commitment to a world without nuclear weapons and the steps that can be taken to reach that goal. Global Zero is an international non-partisan group of 300 world leaders dedicated to achieving nuclear disarmament. The initiative, launched in December 2008, promotes
7290-627: The year before. It was here that she met her future second husband, Gottfried Lessing . They married shortly after she joined the group, and had a child together (Peter, 1946–2013), before they divorced in 1949. She did not marry again. Lessing also had a love affair with RAF serviceman John Whitehorn (brother of journalist Katharine Whitehorn ), who was stationed in Southern Rhodesia, and wrote him ninety letters between 1943 and 1949. Lessing moved to London in 1949 with her younger son, Peter, to pursue her writing career and socialist beliefs, but left
7380-587: Was also made a Companion of Literature by the Royal Society of Literature . In 2007 Lessing was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature . She received the prize at the age of 88 years 52 days, making her the oldest winner of the literature prize at the time of the award and the third-oldest Nobel laureate in any category (after Leonid Hurwicz and Raymond Davis Jr. ). She was also only the eleventh woman to be awarded
7470-610: Was an active opponent of apartheid , which led her to being banned from South Africa and Rhodesia in 1956 for many years. In the same year, following the Soviet invasion of Hungary , she left the Communist Party of Great Britain . In the 1980s, when Lessing was vocal in her opposition to Soviet actions in Afghanistan, she gave her views on feminism, communism and science fiction in an interview with The New York Times . On 21 August 2015,
7560-594: Was awarded the 2007 Nobel Prize in Literature . In awarding the prize, the Swedish Academy described her as "that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny". Lessing was the oldest person ever to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature, at age 87. In 2001 Lessing was awarded the David Cohen Prize for a lifetime's achievement in British literature . In 2008 The Times ranked her fifth on
7650-539: Was directed by the Communist Party of the Soviet Union through the Soviet Peace Committee . Its origins lay in the Communist Information Bureau 's (Cominform) doctrine, put forward 1947, that the world was divided between peace-loving progressive forces led by the Soviet Union and warmongering capitalist countries led by the United States. In 1949, Cominform directed that peace "should now become
7740-545: Was first drawn to public attention in 1954 when a hydrogen bomb test in the Pacific contaminated the crew of the Japanese fishing boat Lucky Dragon . One of the fishermen died in Japan seven months later. The incident caused widespread concern around the world and "provided a decisive impetus for the emergence of the anti-nuclear weapons movement in many countries". The anti-nuclear weapons movement grew rapidly because for many people
7830-592: Was held shortly after the signing of the New START , and resulted in a call of action toward eliminating all nuclear weapons. Representatives from 60 countries were invited to the conference. Non-governmental organizations were also present. Among the prominent figures who have called for the abolition of nuclear weapons are "the philosopher Bertrand Russell , the entertainer Steve Allen , CNN 's Ted Turner , former Senator Claiborne Pell , Notre Dame president Theodore Hesburgh , South African Bishop Desmond Tutu and
7920-774: Was organized by The Government of Norway , the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Hoover Institute . The Conference was entitled Achieving the Vision of a World Free of Nuclear Weapons and had the purpose of building consensus between nuclear weapon states and non-nuclear weapon states in relation to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty . The Tehran International Conference on Disarmament and Non-Proliferation took place in Tehran in April 2010. The conference
8010-708: Was published. In 2002 the Newsletter became the academic journal Doris Lessing Studies . The Society also organises panels at the Modern Languages Association (MLA) annual Conventions and has held two international conferences in New Orleans in 2004 and Leeds in 2007. Lessing's literary archive is held by the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center , at the University of Texas at Austin . The 45 archival boxes of Lessing's materials at
8100-405: Was unnecessary and environmentally dangerous. A Los Alamos study warned "the water near a recent surface explosion will be a 'witch's brew' of radioactivity". To prepare the atoll for the nuclear tests, Bikini's native residents were evicted from their homes and resettled on smaller, uninhabited islands where they were unable to sustain themselves. Radioactive fallout from nuclear weapons testing
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