THE ROCKEFELLER UNIVERSITY

NEW YORK.N.Y. 10021
June 3, 1975

To my fellow Nobel laureates:

I wish to endorse the accompanying request for statements

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made by a faculty group at the University of North Carolina

and to urge you to respond to this effort.

I know that many scientists and scholars are reluctant to
make public statements concerning matters beyond their
special fields of competence. However, I agree with the
sponsors of this effort that the problems facing mankind
at present are so critical and so urgent that we, as
citizens of the world, should lay aside that reluctance
and give our views for whatever they are worth. I feel
that we should recognize that the problems on which we
are asked to comment are problems which should be viewed
froma long-range global perspective, but which, to a
large extent, have fallen by default to politicans whose
attitudes are frequently nationalistic and short-range.
And I also feel that most of my fellow Nobel laureates
have broader outlooks which more than compensate for any
deficiency in specific expertise.

In short, I believe that if a majority of the Nobel
laureates will submit statements as requested, this

project could have a significant influence on intellectual

and political leaders throughout the world, and thereby
have very important results.

  

Edward L. Tatum