On Tuesday, Nihon Hidankyo, an association of survivors of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, became the fourth organization to win the Nobel Peace Prize for work advocating the abolition of nuclear weapons.

In accepting the award, Terumi Tanaka who survived the attack on Nagasaki when he was 13, declared, “It is the heartfelt desire of the hibakusha [A bomb survivors] that, rather than depending on the theory of nuclear deterrence, which assumes the possession and use of nuclear weapons, we must not allow the possession of a single nuclear weapon. ”

This plea from the hibakusha gets to the heart of the current nuclear threat. The nine countries that possess nuclear weapons claim that their weapons will deter other countries from using them because no rational person would launch a suicidal nuclear war. But there is no reason to believe that these weapons possess such a magical power. In fact Russian President Vladimir Putin makes almost daily threats to use his nuclear arsenal as have U.S. presidents in the past, and experts warn us that we are closer to nuclear war than we have ever been.

The only way to guarantee that we do not destroy our world with a nuclear war is to get rid of these weapons once and for all. The Back from the Brink campaign (http://www.PreventNuclearWar.org), which started here in western Massachusetts, is building a national movement to convince the U.S. government to enter into negotiations with the other eight nuclear armed states for a verifiable, enforceable agreement to eliminate their nuclear arsenals, according to a negotiated timetable.

State Sen. Jo Comerford has introduced a resolution, S. 1487, in the state Senate and Congressman Jim McGovern has introduced a resolution, H. Res. 77, in the U.S. House of Representatives supporting this initiative. Residents of the Valley should be grateful for the leadership they have shown and grateful to the hibakusha of NihonHidankyo for their decades of work to alert the world to the ongoing danger of nuclear war and the urgent need to abolish nuclear weapons.

Ira Helfand

Leeds