On Wednesday, Feb. 19, Dr. Ira Helfand delivered a lecture in Rockefeller Hall to a group of concerned students, professors and other members of the greater Vassar community. Bekir Hodzic ’26 and Rahul Raghuraman ’27 introduced Helfand, a member of the International Steering Group of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), which won the Nobel Prize in 2017. Helfand is also former president of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), a founding partner of ICAN and recipient of the Nobel Prize in 1985. Additionally, he is the co-founder and former president of Physicians for Social Responsibility, the U.S. affiliate of the IPPNW.
Himadeep Muppidi, Professor of Political Science on the Betty Goff Cook Cartwright Chair, invited Helfand on behalf of the Political Science Department as a part of a greater weeks-long project. The Nobel Prize winner’s lecture is part of a series of events titled “NO Your NUKES Week.”
Across the semester, students have been invited to help fold 1,000 paper cranes, which are currently being showcased in an exhibit at the Frances Lehman Loeb Art Center—having opened on Feb. 24. During an organized gathering for the folding, students discussed the threat of nuclear weapons, ate pizza and watched the satirical comedy “Dr. Strangelove.” “NO Your NUKES Week” concluded with an interactive experience titled “Be Seriously Scared,” an experience about the dangers of nuclear war held on Feb. 25.
Helfand represented Back From The Brink, an organization that educates on the growing threat of nuclear weapons and the dangers they pose to public health and the environment. Next to the Nobel Prize that Helfand showcased was a sign-up sheet for the purpose of mobilizing the student body of Vassar to start a chapter.
Though he started the talk with an apology for his soft voice—due to some technical difficulties—his tone was firm, somber and deliberate. Having spent 45 years as a practicing physician, Helfand’s experience enabled him to clearly and succinctly make health-related points.
The Nobel Prize winner made three main points: First, nuclear war is a real, present danger; not a historical one. Helfand said that while the end of the Cold War drastically reduced the chance of nuclear conflict, it did not effectively deal with existing weapons. Helfand added: “The danger hadn’t really gone away. There were still tens of thousands of nuclear warheads in the world and they were sitting there in the arsenals of these countries, who were now having relatively good relations, just waiting for things to go bad. And now, things have gone bad.” He cited United States-Russia relations as the biggest flashpoint, and emphasized that even if a peace deal over Ukraine is forced without Kyiv’s input, the logic of escalation will make further conflict unavoidable. In addition to other political flashpoints, further threats included climate change pushing nations into resource wars, as well as missile command and control being vulnerable to cyberattacks.
The second point Helfand emphasized was that nuclear war would be more devastating to humanity than anything imaginable. He described two-mile fireballs and heat radiuses that could melt cars. “In the case of New York, Moscow, Beijing, 12 to 15, possibly 18 million [would be] dead within a half-hour.” He asserted it would be a situation where nobody would survive, but emphasized that such a catastrophic outcome could be avoided through global cooperation and decisive action.
The final point was one of hope: Even if the world is on the path to nuclear war, it does not have to be this way. He listed examples from the 1980s, where a swell of anti-nuclear sentiment prompted the United States and the Soviet Union to pivot their policy toward disarmament. Nuclear-armed nations entered the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) which adds legal binding to reduce arsenals. Nobody would win a nuclear war, so governments created legislation and partnerships to reduce the chances that it would be fought. Leaders today have drifted away from these commitments. “Nuclear weapons make us strong, but they do not make us safe,” asserted Helfand. He cited that his background made him frame nuclear weapons as a public health issue, rather than an issue of strategy. When governments think of nuclear war in terms of strategy, they ignore the reality that there would be no winners if it came to pass. It is Dr. Helfand’s hope that, since a nuclear conflict would affect everyone, nations should cooperate to get rid of this problem.
College students are passionate about global issues, such as conventional war and climate change. While nuclear issues are intertwined with conventional war issues, Helfand feels that people today fail to appreciate how quickly a conflict could go nuclear if these weapons are on the table. Helfand gave Vassar students the suggestion to create a chapter of the Students Nuclear Disarming Group, which already has chapters in several colleges and high schools. Their mission is to educate on the threat of nuclear weapons and to encourage their members of Congress to take action.
Helfand grew up during the Cold War, when drills and paranoia were the norm. He has understood that weapons of mass destruction can threaten our lives, but he also wants people to understand it does not have to be this way. “The stakes are incredibly high. We’re talking about your lives, the lives of everybody you know and care about. We’re talking about everything we’ve inherited from past generations. Everything that future generations are supposed to inherit from us, that’s going to disappear,” he said. “The stakes really couldn’t be higher.”