Open Letter by Sir Joseph Rotblat
Sir Joseph Rotblat 
, recipient of the 1995 Nobel Peace Prize, has sent the following Open Letter to the University of California Community. He asks the students, faculty and staff of the University to "raise your voices and demand that the University get out of the business of making weapons of mass destruction".
Dear Students, Faculty and Staff of the UC Community:
My name is Joseph Rotblat. I am 93 years old. I worked as a scientist on the Manhattan Project to create the atomic bomb. I resigned from this project in late 1944 when I realized that the Germans would not succeed in creating their own atomic weapons and therefore the Allied powers would not need these weapons to deter the Germans.
Since that time I have worked for a world free of nuclear weapons. In 1955, I was one of 11 signatories of the Russell-Einstein Manifesto warning humanity about growing nuclear dangers. In 1957, I was a founder of the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, I received the Nobel Prize for Peace along with Pugwash for our efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons.
I am writing to ask you to take a great step forward for humanity by disassociating your great University from the oversight and management of the US nuclear weapons laboratories. For more than 50 years, the UC system has provided respectability to these laboratories that carry out research, develop and test nuclear weapons that could destroy civilization and probably the human species.
Please raise your voices and demand that the University of California get out of the business of making weapons of mass destruction. In doing so, you will send a message to your country and to the world. It is time to end the nuclear weapons threat to civilization and humankind. The students, faculty and staff of the University of California can help lead the way.
Remember your humanity!
