In memoriam: Alva Myrdal, 1902-1986
Dear, admired friend of peacemakers the world over.
“..(The) Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) (was) set up to commemorate the 150 years of peace for Sweden from 1814. I was chairman of the government committee which formulated its constitution and plans of work. The follow-up of these was assured by Gunnar Myrdal, as chairman of SIPRI’s international board until 1973. SIPRI’s internationally recruited staff has scrupulously kept its independence as a research organization.
“We disarmers have to persist in doing everything in our power to campaign for public enlightenment. The present competitive escalation of the arms race is a flagrant miscalculation endangering the security of us all. More security can only be assured by reversing the trend, by beginning and continuing to disarm and to demilitarize our societies….
“Such a strategy of truth means, in the final instance, facing the arms race as the major intellectual and moral dilemma of our time. As it has been created solely by mankind,it lies within our power to solve it.”
— Alva Myrdal, in The Game of Disarmament
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