University Professors Sign Petition Seeking End to Nuclear Tests

Four members of the University faculty have joined a group of the world's leading scientists in calling for an immediate end to all nuclear bomb tests. Their names were among the 9,000 signatures on a petition to the United Nations which urged that "an international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear bombs be made now."

Harvard professors who signed the paper were Edwin C. Kemble, professor of Physics, emeritus; Harlow Shapley, Paine Professor of Practical Astronomy, emeritus; Kenneth V. Thimann, professor of Biology; and Oscar Zarisk, professor of Mathematics.

Thimann said he signed because of his feeling that "a beginning has to be made somewhere." He said that testing would be a good area to restrict, since any action breaking the agreement "could be readily observed."

Pauling Presents Petition

Nobel Prize winner Linus Pauling of the California Institute of Technology presented the petition to United Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjold Monday. The document expressed the hope that since only three nations have the bomb, "an agreement for... control is feasible."

The paper stated that "an international agreement to stop the testing of nuclear bombs now could serve as a first step toward a more general disarmament." Pauling expressed the belief that it would be impossible to produce a "clean" nuclear bomb, with a minimum of radioactive fallout.