Subjects range from science and religion … Up to the time of Stalin’s death, it was really quite horrible. If you could only begin to tolerate each other, you would be perfectly happy.” I would go on to suggest that the overridingly urgent necessity is to come to an agreement; this is far more important than the precise form the agreement takes. RUSSELL: Neither of these conflicting interests will be arbitrated equitably and amicably until we have a truly representative and authoritative world government. Full credit must be given to him for this. That is why I am opposed to Civil Defense preparations. But we still need much more freedom and frankness in sexual instruction. PLAYBOY: Does your disarmament plan involve also the abandonment of conventional weapons? . In the absence of one, it will be a tug-of-war, a question of who is stronger. Today things are utterly different. His greatest hits are a good substitute for the intelligent conversation you are missing. RUSSELL: He carried out the promise he made in the letter replying to my cable—the promise to do nothing rash that would risk conflict. Within hours of my communication, 12 Soviet ships had turned back from their Cuban destination and Khrushchev had stopped further shipment. The filmmaker who tamed “The Elephant Man” undertakes the grandest vision of them all—the realization on the screen of the epic universe created by Frank Herbert. There are military commanders in power on both sides, and their vested interest is in exercising that power. In the case of the Cuban crisis, on the other hand, Khrushchev has shown himself to be less belligerent than Kennedy, and in effect, at a crucial moment last October, was responsible for avoiding a war of nuclear devastation. That year has passed, and nuclear holocaust has not yet overtaken us. Young people don’t realize how much change there has been. All rights reserved. The truth is that neither is wickeder than the other. Speaking as a mathematician, I should say that the odds are about three to one against survival. Philosophers--England. RUSSELL: I still take exactly the same view. PLAYBOY: Have your views changed since you returned from a trip to Russia in 1920 to write one of the earliest and sharpest criticisms of the Soviet regime? If the long and stormy life of Bertrand Arthur Russell can be said to possess any unifying thread, it is an enduring attitude of passionate skepticism, a lifelong refusal to accept any truth as immutable, any law as infallible or any faith as sacred. There are all these different possibilities. RUSSELL: It does rather look that way. PLAYBOY: In 1957 you wrote in The New Statesman, the liberal British journal, an appeal to Premier Khrushchev and then-President Eisenhower for just such a lessening of world tension, to which both the Russian leader and John Foster Dulles responded with public reassurances. Unless state officials are made responsible to all us underlings, nothing will ever be achieved by nationalization. Almost everybody is already part of something big. I was rather pleased. No man in history has ever had the chance to murder on such a scale. But I think the true explanation lies deeper than that. They would spend their money on consumer goods instead. You might, for example, have North America as one group, Europe as another, Russia as a third, China as a fourth, and so on. Once, at a dinner, the young Russell “was left tête-à-tête” with William Gladstone, the “Grand Old Man” of British politics. This left Cuba illegally blockaded in violation of international law. With me it is purely a practical question of whether to do it or not, a method of propaganda. Then, of course, I was defending the rights of conscientious objectors in World War I. I do not wholly share their views, but I felt, and still feel, that one should respect their convictions. The Americans tell you they stand for freedom: What they mean is that you must be quite willing to perish in order to be free in hell. At the same time, the Western spokesman should start by admitting that the universal victory of communism would be preferable to the destruction of mankind. AMONG MANY other achievements, Bertrand Russell is the only philosopher to have cut an album of his work. PLAYBOY: In addition to disseminating your views personally on both sides of the Iron Curtain, you were the initiator of a series of peace conferences, of which the first was held in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, between groups of scientists from East and West. A continued program of economic and educational aid to underdeveloped countries, meanwhile, would be a significant means of strengthening the Western position. They got publicity both inside and outside of Russia. PLAYBOY: In a scathing reference to President Kennedy, Premier Khrushchev and Prime Minister Macmillan, you said in 1961 that “they are the wickedest people who have ever lived in the history of man, and it is our duty to do what we can against them.” Did you actually mean to say that Kennedy, Khrushchev and Macmillan are the worst of a gallery of villains which includes Hitler and Attila? It has always been practiced at different times and places. I am inclined to prefer the American system, but only because it is more allied with what I am used to. For one thing, as a result, the test-ban negotiations came very much closer to success than they would otherwise have done. On his death, Russell was eulogised as “the English Voltaire”, a witty, polymathic rebel. I believe that if a blockade is defensible when applied to Cuba, then the precedent can be applied also to Berlin and even to Britain, which is an advanced American nuclear base. One appreciative listener has commented: “Imagine if this guy had a podcast.” The informal online archive will have to suffice. I haven’t changed my earlier views in that respect.