Bradford Lyttle (born November 20, 1927) is an American

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition or resistance to war, militarism (including conscription and mandatory military service) or violence. Pacifists generally reject theories of Just War. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campai ...

and

peace activist A peace movement is a social movement which seeks to achieve ideals, such as the ending of a particular war (or wars) or minimizing inter-human violence in a particular place or situation. They are often linked to the goal of achieving world pe ...

. He was an organizer with the

Committee for Non-Violent Action The Committee for Non-Violent Action (CNVA) was an American anti-war group, formed in 1957 to resist the US government's program of nuclear weapons testing. It was one of the first organizations to employ nonviolent direct action to protest again ...

of several major campaigns against militarism, including "Omaha Action", against land-based nuclear missiles (1959) and "Polaris Action" against submarine-based nuclear missiles (1960). Lyttle and several others walked from San Francisco to New York City, and then through parts of Europe to Moscow, Russia, from December 1960 until late 1961. The action was called the

San Francisco to Moscow March During the 20th century a number of peace walks were organized involving the citizens of the United States and the USSR. These peace walks, or peace marches, represented citizen diplomacy initiatives promoting peace and Nuclear disarmament throug ...

for Peace. Several participants, including Lyttle, walked the entire distance. He also walked in the Quebec-Washington-Guantanamo Peace Walk (1963). In 1965 Lyttle gave lectures on 'Non-Violent resistance' for the newly founded

Free University of New York The Free University of New York (FUNY) was an educational social enterprise initiated by Allen Krebs, Sharon Krebs and James Mellen in July 1965. as reproduced in FUNY began as a home for professors dismissed from local universities for prot ...

. Among his theoretical works are a 1958 pamphlet presenting the case for

nonviolent Nonviolence is the personal practice of not causing harm to others under any condition. It may come from the belief that hurting people, animals and/or the environment is unnecessary to achieve an outcome and it may refer to a general philosoph ...

national defense against aggression; and a mathematical formula called "The Apocalypse Equation", which argues that, over time, the probability of nuclear missiles being used approaches 100%. Lyttle claimed that a University of Chicago statistician had checked his work on the "Apocalypse Equation." In Note 21 to his Presidential Address to the American Statistical Association published in 1988, University of Chicago Statistics Professor

William Kruskal William Henry Kruskal (; October 10, 1919 – April 21, 2005) was an American mathematician and statistician. He is best known for having formulated the Kruskal–Wallis one-way analysis of variance (together with W. Allen Wallis), a widely use ...

mentions Lyttle's "Apocalypse Equation" as an example of the error of casually assuming the independence of events when calculating the probability of a resultant event over time, as an example which "stretches to the limit … the appropriateness of probabilistic data." He is also the founder and

perennial candidate A perennial candidate is a political candidate who frequently runs for elected office and rarely, if ever, wins. Perennial candidates' existence lies in the fact that in some countries, there are no laws that limit a number of times a person can ...

for the office of

President of the United States The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States of America. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal gove ...

of the United States Pacifist Party. He ran as a

write-in candidate A write-in candidate is a candidate whose name does not appear on the ballot but seeks election by asking voters to cast a vote for the candidate by physically writing in the person's name on the ballot. Depending on electoral law it may be poss ...

in the 1984, 1996, and 2000 elections, and on the ballot in the state of

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of the ...

in 2008. In 2008 Lyttle came in second to last of sixteen candidates in Colorado for which he received 110 votes, beating only Gene Amondson of the

Prohibition Party The Prohibition Party (PRO) is a political party in the United States known for its historic opposition to the sale or consumption of alcoholic beverages and as an integral part of the temperance movement. It is the oldest existing third party ...

. In Colorado, Amondson came in last place among all candidates with ballot access (though Amondson won enough votes elsewhere to surpass Lyttle's total nationally). Lyttle has been arrested for nonviolent peaceful demonstrations many times. In 1996, Lyttle, Civil Rights Movement historian Randy Kryn,

David Dellinger David T. Dellinger (August 22, 1915 – May 25, 2004) was an American pacifist and an activist for nonviolent social change. He achieved peak prominence as one of the Chicago Seven, who were put on trial in 1969. Early life and schooling Delli ...

, and

Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard "Abbie" Hoffman (November 30, 1936 – April 12, 1989) was an American political and social activist who co-founded the Youth International Party ("Yippies") and was a member of the Chicago Seven. He was also a leading proponen ...

's son, Andrew, were among eleven people arrested for a

sit-in A sit-in or sit-down is a form of direct action that involves one or more people occupying an area for a protest, often to promote political, social, or economic change. The protestors gather conspicuously in a space or building, refusing to mo ...

at the Chicago Federal Building during the first

Democratic National Convention The Democratic National Convention (DNC) is a series of presidential nominating conventions held every four years since 1832 by the United States Democratic Party. They have been administered by the Democratic National Committee since the 18 ...

held in Chicago since 1968.UPI report, August 28, 1996
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Works

* ''National Defense Thru Nonviolent Resistance'' (1958) * ''Essays on Nonviolent Action'' (1959) * ''Peace and independence for South Vietnam: By nonviolent resistance or guerilla warfare?'' (1965) * ''You Come With Naked Hands: The Story of the San Francisco to Moscow March for Peace'' (1966) * ''The Chicago Anti-Vietnam War Movement'' (1988)
''Peace Activist: The Autobiography of Bradford Lyttle'' (Kindle Edition 2014)

''The Flaw in Deterrence'' (2017)

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lyttle, Bradford 1927 births Living people American pacifists American tax resisters Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election 21st-century American politicians Activists from Chicago War Resisters League activists Politicians from Chicago

Works

See also

References