During its lifetime Pugwash has held 36 large conferences—in capitalist, communist and Third World countries—and a number of smaller, specialized symposia. The next conference will be held this August in Austria. Early conferences discussed the consequences of nuclear, chemical and biological warfare, and disarmament and world security; recently, development issues have been added. The participants in the early years were mainly natural scientists, but later social scientists were encouraged to attend.
Pugwash has active national groups in a number of countries. International activity is organized by the organization's secretary-general, Martin Kaplan, in Geneva, and by Joseph Rotblat, the former secretary-general, in London.
The problem is that Pugwash fails to attract young scientists—a failure that will prove fatal. One reason is that Pugwash has always been an elitist organization. Of the world's 2.5 million research scientists, only about 1,000 have ever been to a Pugwash conference. That's a small number compared ...
