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

pacifist Pacifism is the opposition to war or violence. The word ''pacifism'' was coined by the French peace campaigner Émile Arnaud and adopted by other peace activists at the tenth Universal Peace Congress in Glasgow in 1901. A related term is ''a ...

and peace activist. He was an organizer with the Committee for Non-Violent Action 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 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. Among his theoretical works are a 1958 pamphlet presenting the case for nonviolent 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 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 are most common where there is no limit on the number of times that a person can run for office and little cost ...

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. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...

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 is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States. It is one of the Mountain states, sharing the Four Corners region with Arizona, New Mexico, and Utah. It is also bordered by Wyoming to the north, Nebraska to the northeast, Kansas ...

in 2008. In 2008, Lyttle came in second to last of 16 candidates in Colorado, for which he received 110 votes, beating only Gene Amondson of the

Prohibition Party The Prohibition Party (PRO) is a Political parties in the United States, 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 movemen ...

. 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, and

Abbie Hoffman Abbot Howard 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 proponent of the ...

'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

External links

Bradford Lyttle Papers
at TriCollege Libraries Archive & Manuscripts {{DEFAULTSORT:Lyttle, Bradford 1927 births Living people Activists from Chicago American pacifists American tax resisters Candidates in the 2008 United States presidential election Candidates in the 2016 United States presidential election Politicians from Chicago War Resisters League activists American Unitarian Universalists

Works

See also

References

External links