The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility was formed as a "political and educational organization to disseminate
anti-nuclear
The anti-nuclear movement is a social movement that opposes various nuclear technologies. Some direct action groups, environmental movements, and professional organisations have identified themselves with the movement at the local, natio ...
views and information to the public".
[ The goals of the organization were a moratorium on ]nuclear power
Nuclear power is the use of nuclear reactions to produce electricity. Nuclear power can be obtained from nuclear fission, nuclear decay and nuclear fusion reactions. Presently, the vast majority of electricity from nuclear power is produced b ...
and the commercialization of alternative energy sources
Energy development is the field of activities focused on obtaining sources of energy from natural resources. These activities include production of renewable, nuclear, and fossil fuel derived sources of energy, and for the recovery and reuse ...
.[
]John Gofman
John William Gofman (21 September 1918 – 15 August 2007) was an American scientist and advocate. He was Professor Emeritus of Molecular and Cell Biology at the University of California at Berkeley.
Gofman pioneered the field of clinical lipidol ...
founded the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility in 1971, as a small non-profit, public interest association with four Nobel Laureates on its Board.[John W. Gofman, "Irrevy" - An irreverent illustrated view of nuclear power, Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, 1979]Linus Pauling
Linus Carl Pauling (; February 28, 1901August 19, 1994) was an American chemist, biochemist, chemical engineer, peace activist, author, and educator. He published more than 1,200 papers and books, of which about 850 dealt with scientific top ...
, Harold Urey
Harold Clayton Urey ( ; April 29, 1893 – January 5, 1981) was an American physical chemist whose pioneering work on isotopes earned him the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 1934 for the discovery of deuterium. He played a significant role in the d ...
, George Wald
George Wald (November 18, 1906 – April 12, 1997) was an American scientist who studied pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit.
In 1970, Wald pred ...
and James D. Watson
James Dewey Watson (born April 6, 1928) is an American molecular biologist, geneticist, and zoologist. In 1953, he co-authored with Francis Crick the academic paper proposing the double helix structure of the DNA molecule. Watson, Crick and ...
. Other scientists who were involved included Paul Ehrlich
Paul Ehrlich (; 14 March 1854 – 20 August 1915) was a Nobel Prize-winning German physician and scientist who worked in the fields of hematology, immunology, and antimicrobial chemotherapy. Among his foremost achievements were finding a cure ...
, John Edsall, and Richard E. Bellman
Richard Ernest Bellman (August 26, 1920 – March 19, 1984) was an American applied mathematician, who introduced dynamic programming in 1953, and made important contributions in other fields of mathematics, such as biomathematics. He founde ...
. The Board of Directors included Lewis Mumford
Lewis Mumford (October 19, 1895 – January 26, 1990) was an American historian, sociologist, philosopher of technology, and literary critic. Particularly noted for his study of cities and urban architecture, he had a broad career as a wr ...
, Ramsey Clark
William Ramsey Clark (December 18, 1927 – April 9, 2021) was an American lawyer, activist, and federal government official. A progressive, New Frontier liberal, he occupied senior positions in the United States Department of Justice under Presi ...
, Ian MacHarg, and Richard Max McCarthy
Richard is a male given name. It originates, via Old French, from Old Frankish and is a compound of the words descending from Proto-Germanic ''*rīk-'' 'ruler, leader, king' and ''*hardu-'' 'strong, brave, hardy', and it therefore means 'strong ...
. Actor Jack Lemmon
John Uhler Lemmon III (February 8, 1925 – June 27, 2001) was an American actor. Considered equally proficient in both dramatic and comic roles, Lemmon was known for his anxious, middle-class everyman screen persona in dramedy pictures, leadin ...
endorsed the goals of the Committee for Nuclear Responsibility.[Jerome Price (1982). ''The Anti-nuclear Movement'', Twayne Publishers, pp. 78-79.]
See also
*Anti-nuclear groups in the United States
More than 80 anti-nuclear groups are operating, or have operated, in the United States. These include Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Greenpeace USA, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, Musicians United for Safe Energy, Nevada ...
*Anti-nuclear movement in the United States
The anti-nuclear movement in the United States consists of more than 80 anti-nuclear groups that oppose nuclear power, nuclear weapons, and/or uranium mining. These have included the Abalone Alliance, Clamshell Alliance, Committee for Nuclear Re ...
References
{{U.S. anti-nuclear
Anti-nuclear organizations
Nuclear history
James Watson