reflections on the first century of the nobel peace prize

REFLECTIONS ON THE FIRST CENTURY OF THE

NOBEL PEACE PRIZE

by Irwin Abrams

This reflection on Nobel Peace Prize history includes recent awards. The correspon-dence between Alfred Nobel and Bertha von Suttner provides a background for thechallenge of assessing what constitutes peace work and the ambiguity of putting work-ers for peace into categories. Weighing the merits of awards to individuals and organi-zations respectively, institutional recognition becomes politically understandable, butseems less able to inspire emulation. Prizes for statesmen and political leaders get avery mixed evaluation in the light of historical context. Awards for human rightsillustrate the most recently recognized form of peace work, and the role of organizedcampaigns for the prize pales against the dramatic story of personal achievement inthe cause of humanity.

I have been reflecting on the Nobel Peace Prize for a long time, and what Ihave to say is not likely to be very new.1 My first reflections were published in1962, almost forty years ago, in “The Nobel Peace Prize: A Balance Sheet.”2

The essay was inspired by my analysis of the correspondence between AlfredNobel and Bertha von Suttner, which showed how she had influenced him toestablish this prize.3

I began this balance sheet with Nobel’s much-quoted remark to her:“My factories will perhaps make an end to war sooner than your congresses.The day that two army corps can annihilate one another in one second,the civilized nations will shrink from war and discharge their troops.” I waswriting during the Cold War, when that day had arrived. The invention ofnuclear weapons had actually brought about a state of potential mutual anni-hilation between the superpowers. They were shrinking from war, but notdischarging their troops.

The inventor of high explosives who endowed a peace prize was himselfa man of contradictions. As Baroness von Suttner wrote him in one of herlast letters, Nobel was “passionately in love with the far horizons of humanthought and profoundly distrustful of the pettiness of human folly.” Thisdistrust is evident in the letter he wrote her about his projected peace prize.

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It should be awarded only for thirty years, he said, for if the international sys-tem had not been reformed by then the world would be headed straight backto barbarism. Fortunately he did not put that in the final form of his will in1895, for in less than twenty years civilization was suffering through the FirstWorld War.

It was against a grim background of barbarism that I was drawing up mybalance sheet of the prize in 1962. The six decades of the prize had seen twoworld wars and the Holocaust, and we were then in a time of “mutual terror,”as Winston Churchill called it. But I noted that “if skepticism shared placewith hope in Nobel’s spirit,” there was much in the last sixty years that wouldnourish them both. “The prize has come to be the highest recognition one canreceive for service to mankind in humanitarian endeavor,” I wrote, and afterdiscussing all the awards I concluded, “Who could despair of a civilizationthat could produce a Nansen, a Jane Addams, or an Albert Schweitzer? Orqualities such as the heroism of a von Ossietzky, the dedication of an ArthurHenderson, the infinite patience of a Ralph Bunche, even the humility of aCordell Hull? Perhaps it has been the greatest service of the Nobel Committeeover the years to hold up before men the hope and promise of what they canbecome.”

Fresh from working with the Nobel–von Suttner correspondence, Iexplained in this early article on the prize that it was only by going beyondNobel’s original wishes that the Norwegian Nobel committees had made of it“a higher distinction than he could ever have hoped for.” Some twenty yearslater when I began to work on the book, my first publication, retitled “TheTransformation of the Nobel Peace Prize,” became a key chapter.4

In the very first awards of 1901, the committee recognized Nobel’s inten-tion to assist the organized peace movement with its prize for the veteran peaceactivist Frédéric Passy. At the same time the committee made perhaps the mostimportant decision in the history of the prize by using a broad interpretation ofNobel’s phrase in his will, “fraternity between peoples,” to give an equal awardto Henri Dunant, humanitarian founder of the Red Cross.5

CATEGORIES OF LAUREATES

Later Norwegian Nobel committees expanded even further this interpretationof Nobel’s phrase. In 1930 committee chair Fredrik Stang declared, “It isincumbent upon the Committee to seek out everything which gives a promisefor the future.”6 More recently the late committee chair Egil Aarvik explainedto me the addition of prizes for champions of human rights: “Nobel’s will

526 PEACE & CHANGE /October 2001

does not state this, but it was made in another time. Today we realize thatpeace cannot be established without a full respect for freedom.”

It is not easy to seek out everything that gives a promise of peace. In the1974 award ceremony, committee chair Aase Lionæs spoke of the “oneroustask” of choosing the prize winners. In that year she also had the onerous taskof defending the much-criticized choice of Premier Eisaku Sato of Japan,which had followed the even more unpopular selection the year before ofHenry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. So she spoke of how over the years it was tobe expected that committee decisions would give rise to what she euphemisti-cally called “discussions.” “This eloquently proves,” she said, “how difficult itis to define the concept of peace.” There were such a “great many varied fields”in which the prize winners had worked for peace: “they have included states-men negotiating round the conference table, defenders of human rights,experts on international law, rebels, humanists, idealists, pragmatists, dream-ers.”7 Conspicuously left off this list were the peace activists who had been fore-most in Nobel’s mind. Lionæs probably counted them among the dreamers.

I thought it would be helpful to readers of my book if I included tableslisting laureates by category, but I found this very difficult to do. Considerthe most recent award of 1999 to Doctors Without Borders. Should the doc-tors be grouped with the humanitarians for their efforts to relieve suffering orwith defenders of human rights, which is what makes them different frommost other humanitarian workers in conflict areas?8

Many individual laureates are multitalented and serve the peace causein different ways. Lord Boyd Orr (1949) can be classified with the humani-tarians for his work with the Food and Agriculture Organization, but hewas also prominent in work with peace organizations. Seán MacBride (1974)was given the prize for his work for human rights, but he also presided overthe International Peace Bureau. Lord Cecil of Chelwood (1937) worked forinternational organization as a representative of Britain in the founding ofthe League of Nations and in its meetings in Geneva, but he later resigned hisoffice and headed the League of Nations Union and the International PeaceCampaign. Alva Myrdal (1982) worked for disarmament as Sweden’s repre-sentative at the Conference of Disarmament in Geneva and only later in aprivate capacity. René Cassin (1968) won the prize for his human rightscontributions, but he could also be classified with the international jurists.

International civil servants, such as Hammarskjõld and Bunche workingwith the United Nations, could have a separate category, but I have preferredto characterize them as statesmen since their work was with states and gov-ernmental bodies. By including political leaders as well as statesmen, JohnHume and David Trimble (1998) would be listed.

Reflections on the First Century of the Nobel Peace Prize 527

A number of laureates have worked for peace out of religious inspirationand were prominent figures in organized religion, such as the Dalai Lama(1989), Archbishop Tutu (1984), Martin Luther King, Jr. (1964), FatherPire (1958), and Mother Teresa (1979). Only one laureate, however, workedfor peace entirely through ecumenical channels, Archbishop NathanSöderblom (1930), and I felt I should include a religion category just for him.Now I am thinking of including a separate category for laureates associatedwith religion, even though these would be overlapping. It has also been sug-gested that there could be a separate category for workers for disarmament,which would include both statesmen, such as Arthur Henderson (1934), andpeace activists, such as Linus Pauling (1962).

PRIZES FOR INSTITUTIONS

Nobel never would have wanted his money to go to institutions, but theywere added to the statutes of the Nobel Foundation as one of the compro-mises that the executors had to accept to get the will probated. When Berthavon Suttner heard what was being done she wrote to Carl Lindhagen, theyoung lawyer who was advising the executors of the will, that she knew Nobelhad wanted to endow only individuals. As she explained to a fellow activist,institutions were “only a form, a body—but the soul of a society alwaysresides in an individual. It is the energy, the dedication, the sacred fire whichfills the heart and spirit, that is what propels a movement.”9

Lindhagen replied that her evidence that Nobel was thinking only ofindividuals was entirely convincing, but because of the opposition to the willit was impossible to arrange matters in any other way. She had to realize, hewrote, that Nobel had “only stated an idea, without indicating the practicalimplementation, which he left, with confidence, in other hands.” By demon-strating in court that this was the way Nobel ran his affairs, Lindhagen suc-ceeded in getting the will approved.10

Paragraph four of the Nobel Foundation statutes permitted each of theprize-awarding bodies to confer the prize upon an institution or association,but only the Norwegian Nobel Committee has made such awards. The firstsuch award was in the fourth year of the prize, to the Institute of InternationalLaw in 1904. The most recent was the 1999 award to Doctors Without Bor-ders, the nineteenth to an institution.

It was with an institution, the American Friends Service Committee,which shared the 1947 prize for humanitarian work during and after WorldWar II, that I had my only personal association with a Nobel Peace Prize.11

Yet I have no doubt that the true glory of the Nobel Peace Prize lies in the


committee’s best awards, those which have given us an array of individualspropelled by that “sacred fire which fills a heart and a spirit,” individuals whothrough the examples of their lives can give us hope for humanity.

I was naturally glad about the prize for the American Friends ServiceCommittee (AFSC), but I must recognize that this did little to enhance itsimage or the image of peace. The prize money was useful for several peaceactivities during the Cold War, and the Nobel medal did appear on papersthe AFSC issued and on its appeals for funds, as was the case with other laure-ate institutions. But 1947 was the last year that the Peace Prize could havebeen granted to a much more qualified individual candidate, Mahatma Gan-dhi. After John Sanness, former Nobel Committee chair, gave me the clue tolook at the chronology, I was able in my book to suggest why Gandhi did notreceive the prize.12 Now Øyvind Tønnesson has written an excellent accountof the full story.13 Gandhi’s absence from the Nobel lists stands out as themost serious omission of the Nobel Committee during the century.

What has been the lasting impact of the institutional prizes? When I lec-ture about the prizes, it is when I tell about the lives of certain laureates that Ican see eyes shining and sense that hearing about those lives might be makinga difference. Only compare the lasting inspiration of Fridtjof Nansen (1922)with whatever can be said of the Nansen International Office for Refugees(1938), which no longer exists, or even of the influence beyond its immediatework of the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, which hastwice received the prize (1955, 1981). It is, of course, of no small importanceto call the attention of the world to the plight of the refugees through theseprizes, and Nansen would be happy about that. But is this the best use of theprize?

Consider the moving story of Joseph Rotblat, who for conscience’s sakewalked away from making the bomb at Los Alamos and has spent the restof his life trying to save civilization from the use of the bomb and makingimportant contributions in nuclear medicine. How would that compare with adescription of the impersonal Pugwash Conferences, his co-laureate in 1995?14

Or think of the life of Léon Jouhaux (1951), the impoverished match-maker’sson who rose through the ranks to become a leader of the French trade unionmovement and a founder of the International Labor Organization (1969). Anaccount of that institution is far less likely to set a young person dreaming ofbringing about social justice in the world than following Jouhaux’s pathwayto peace.15

Many of the same peace activists who had been outraged that the NobelCommittee gave the 1904 prize to an institution, the Institute of InternationalLaw, instead of to an individual, Bertha von Suttner, apparently worked


together in 1910 to persuade the committee to give the prize to the Interna-tional Peace Bureau (IPB) because it needed the money. These veteran peaceworkers are now long forgotten, but among them were a number from whoselives today’s readers could draw inspiration. The IPB barely survived WorldWar I and ceased to exist after World War II, but its assets were given to a newinternational peace organization, which took the old name and is very muchalive today. It is recognized by the Nobel Committee as a valid successor, andits council is authorized to submit nominations for the prize, as other laureatesare able to do. In 1995 the IPB nominated Rotblat, who received the award.16

The committee takes less risk with an institutional selection, which usu-ally draws little criticism, and sometimes such a decision seems like a com-promise or simply a matter of faute de mieux.

At the award ceremony for the UN Peacekeeping Forces (1988), I wasthrilled at the spectacle provided by the young soldiers of peace on the stagewith their UN flags, and I appreciated the addresses by Egil Aarvik and UNSecretary-General Pérez de Cuéllar,17 but I regretted that the Nobel Commit-tee had not selected another nominee, Sir Brian Urquhart, who had succeededRalph Bunche to become the guiding spirit of UN peacekeeping operationsfor many years and who, I thought, clearly belonged in the Nobel Pantheon ofPeace. After retiring from the UN, Urquhart went on to be an elder states-man, and many words of wisdom about the world and the UN came from hisoffice in the Ford Foundation in New York across from UN headquarters.

PRIZES FOR STATESMEN AND POLITICAL LEADERS

The Oslo Committee made its first award to a statesman in 1906, to Presi-dent Theodore Roosevelt of the United States for his mediation in bringingan end to the Russo-Japanese War. This began a series of awards to statesmenand political leaders which, with the 2000 prize to Kim Dae-jung, brings thetotal in this category to 33, compared to 29 peace activists and organizations.

When Bertha von Suttner replied to Nobel’s letter of 1893 about settingup the Peace Prize, she disagreed with the idea itself, saying that there was noneed of incentive to work for peace, what was needed was money for themovement. She asked rhetorically: “What if the Queen of England convokeda conference, would she not be the one for the prize?” Nobel did not respond,but it is very doubtful if he had any idea that Queen Victoria or any regal per-sonage should get the prize for such an action.18

Indeed, only a few years later Emperor Nicholas II of Russia convokedthe First Hague Conference of 1899. Fortunately he was not actually nomi-nated in 1901, only suggested for an honorary prize by a group of five


Austrians, so members of the first Nobel Committee did not have to deal withhis candidacy.19 Fortunately, because they would not have known what docu-ments subsequently published have revealed, that the origin of the conferencedid not arise from high-minded ideals of the tsar, but rather from Realpolitikthinking of his ministers who were looking for a way to keep Austria-Hungaryfrom building more armaments.20

This case illustrates the risk that the Nobel Committee runs in givingprizes to statesmen. As I wrote in my book, although Theodore Rooseveltclaimed that his main motive was “the disinterested one of putting an endto the bloodshed,” we know that he was more interested in stabilizing thebalance of power in the Pacific. In his memoirs he declared that his greatestservice to peace was sending the United States battle fleet around the worldin 1907. He had not planned to go to Christiania to give the Nobel lectureuntil Andrew Carnegie cabled him in Africa, where he was on safari, that if hedid not do this it would prejudice the Norwegians against giving future prizesto Americans. When Roosevelt presented his lecture, he sang the praises ofthe “virile virtues.”21

Cartoonists had a field day drawing Roosevelt with the Dove of Peace onhis shoulder and the Big Stick in his hand. We now know from the researchof Asle Sveen that the Nobel Committee was aware of Roosevelt’s warlikepropensities from the critical report on Roosevelt by its adviser, HalvdanKoht, but that in the committee there was “foreign policy” interest in gainingfriendship with the United States for Norway.22 Norway was still in unionwith Sweden when Nobel’s will was discussed, and this is exactly what Swed-ish conservatives feared would happen.

The statesmen awards present the Nobel Committee with a difficultproblem. On the one hand, as Lionæs pointed out in the award ceremony forWilly Brandt in 1971, as “an active statesman of international stature he has agreater chance and a greater responsibility than others of making a contribu-tion that may bear the longed-for fruits of peace.”23 Moreover, a statesman islikely to be named for a recent action, which is consistent with Nobel’s direc-tive in his will that the prize be given for a contribution in the preceding year.On the other hand, this precludes a longer perspective and the examinationof documents, which could tell more about the statesman’s actual motivesand what actually happened. The king in the New Yorker cartoon tells thequeen who is berating him, “Let history be my judge.” But it was really goingto be the historians.

Does a prize not reward a statesman for what in his office he should bedoing anyway, keeping the peace? And is it not his highest responsibility topreserve the national interest of his country? At the very best his policy could


be motivated by enlightened national interest, but hardly by that spirit ofaltruism that characterizes laureates who dedicate years of effort for peace.All these objections to statesman awards may be valid, but when the NobelCommittee considers its candidates for international peacemakers, who elsebut statesmen can by their actions bring about a pacific resolution to an inter-national conflict?

But what does it do for the prize when a statesman of not very highmoral standing, such as former Premier Sato of Japan, receives it?24 Would itbe unreasonable to recommend that the Nobel Committee consider this fac-tor when making statesmen awards? Presumably it entered into the commit-tee considerations when the candidacy of President Clinton was beingconsidered. He had earned credit for his peacemaking policies and had beennominated more than once. Many Europeans scoffed at the puritanical quali-ties of my countrymen during Clinton’s recent “Time of Troubles,” but I donot expect to see Bill Clinton standing next to Mother Teresa in a futureNobel Pantheon of Peace.

Until the most recent decades, it was the period between the wars whenmost statesmen awards were granted. Few of them have stood the test oftime. Even the award to President Woodrow Wilson for his contribution tothe establishment of the League of Nations was not uncontested. It madeits way through the Nobel Committee with some difficulty and was finallyapproved only by a divided vote.

Wilson’s prize illustrates how decisions for active statesmen can be influ-enced by ongoing events. We happen to know how the committee treatedthis particular candidacy because one of the members, Halvdan Koht, was ahistorian and could not refrain from taking notes, which later became avail-able to researchers and have been utilized by recent researchers.25

Wilson might have done better if the Nobel Committee had consideredhim in 1918 before the war ended, when the League was one of his war aimsand he was promising “peace without victory.” However, the committee hadmade only one choice while the war was on, an easy institutional one, for theInternational Red Cross Committee (1917), and there was no award in 1918.When the committee discussed Wilson in 1919 the Versailles Treaty hadbeen negotiated, through which Wilson got his League but at the expense ofagreeing to a very harsh treaty with Germany, which liberals and peace activ-ists considered a betrayal.

From Koht’s notes we know that there was strong disagreement aboutWilson in 1919, and the committee postponed the decision until 1920.By then Wilson had failed to secure United States adhesion to the Leaguebecause of inept domestic policies that have been much criticized. There was


worldwide support for his candidacy, however, and by a divided, three-to-two vote the committee finally granted Wilson the postponed 1919 prize.

Historians have not generally treated the statesmen of the 1920s kindly.Sir Austen Chamberlain (1925) and Aristide Briand and Gustave Stresemann(1926) were celebrated for the Locarno Pacts, which stabilized western Euro-pean borders but did nothing for eastern ones, where the next war began.Chamberlain summed up his attitude toward the League of Nations: “Beingtemperamentally inclined to moderate and unsensational ways, I do not sup-pose if I had had anything to do with the League’s foundation that I shouldhave aimed at anything so ambitious. However, there it was when I came intooffice as Foreign Minister.”26

Stresemann had been annexationist in his war aims during the FirstWorld War, and there is still some doubt among historians as to how manyof these he retained. Still, Stresemann was the only one of the three who wentto Oslo to give a Nobel lecture, which not many of the early statesmen win-ners did.

The Nobel Committee gave half the 1929 prize to Frank Kellogg, U.S.Secretary of State, the coauthor with Briand of the Paris Pact for the Out-lawry of War. This was the last statesman prize during the period of postwarhopefulness, but while the pact was widely supported by public opinion andother statesmen found it difficult not to sign, the treaty did not call for anysanctions against violators and outlawed only wars that were not wars ofdefense, with the war-making states left to make the distinction. In the Nur-emberg trials after World War II, a court of the victors convicted Nazi leadersof violating the Paris Pact, but there is no agreement among internationallawyers that this was justified.27

Among more recent statesmen awards, several have done very poorlyin public opinion, the most unpopular of all having been the 1973 awardto Henry Kissinger and Le Duc Tho. Le Duc Tho declined his prize, andKissinger tried to return his when the war ended with North Vietnam havingconquered South Vietnam. Kissinger was told that the Nobel Foundationstatutes did not permit him to do this. If he had returned the prize the recordof the committee would be better, as would Kissinger’s. It is not generallyknown that he sought to give back his prize, nor has he been given credit forusing the prize money to establish a scholarship fund for children of Ameri-can servicemen killed or missing in Vietnam, which he would have continuedif he returned the prize money.28

The Nobel Committee’s loss of its first Asian laureate when Le Duc Thorejected the prize may have been a factor in the ill-advised prize in 1974to former Premier Eisaku Sato of Japan, for which the Tokyo press offered


“the best black humor award” to the Nobel Committee. Critics of that prizesuspected that the Nobel Committee had been influenced by the campaignin Sato’s behalf, which his wealthy supporters had organized. Olav Njølstadhas given a better explanation.29

Four years later when the Nobel Committee awarded the 1978 prize toMenachem Begin of Israel and Anwar el Sadat of Egypt, rumors circulated inOslo that the pro-Israel sentiments of the committee chair, Aase Lionæs, hadbeen a factor in adding Begin to what would have been a more justifiableindividual prize for Sadat. Sadat’s dramatic visit to Jerusalem had openedthe way for the peace negotiations at Camp David, which President JimmyCarter had brokered six weeks before the Nobel Committee announced theprize.

The negotiations were to have led to a peace treaty, but on the very daythat the Nobel Committee made its announcement, October 27, these treatynegotiations were at an impasse and the negotiating session planned for thatafternoon was called off. Sadat did not attend the award ceremony. Beginwas there, but out of concern for his safety the event was moved from theuniversity hall to the Akershus castle fortress, where police and soldiers withsub-machine guns could provide effective security.

Subsequent events strengthened the case for Sadat’s prize and weakenedthe claims of Begin. Religious fanatics, angered by his policy toward Israel aswell as by suppression of their activities, assassinated Sadat, making him amartyr to peace. On the other hand, Begin’s government started a war inLebanon, which led to calls in the Norwegian parliament to revoke his NobelPeace Prize, one more example of the risky business of granting this prize tostatesmen.30

It will be interesting to know more about the Nobel Committee’s dis-cussion of the 1978 prize when and if documents become available. From thememoirs of Baron Stig Ramel, former executive director of the Nobel Foun-dation, we know that the committee wrote him to ask whether Carter couldbe included with Begin and Sadat even though Carter had not been properlynominated by the deadline. Baron Ramel, with whom I have discussed this,discouraged such a move as being inconsistent with the statutes.31

PRIZES FOR HUMAN RIGHTS

The first prize for human rights is sometimes considered to have been the 1935award to Carl von Ossietzky, the anti-militarist journalist who was imprisonedin a Nazi concentration camp. While this was a major factor in the campaignfor the prize, the Nobel Committee is not on record for granting the prize to


Ossietzky as a victim of the Nazis, even though this was the first prize for some-one considered beyond the pale by his own government.

The first prize winner to be given the award for human rights outrightwas Albert Lutuli (1960), leader of the African National Congress and itsnonviolent struggle against apartheid in South Africa. This was followed bysimilar grants to fourteen other individuals, most of them dissidents, and oneinstitution, Amnesty International. If Doctors Without Borders were to beclassified here, this would make a total of sixteen. Six of these prizes weregranted in the final decade of the last century, clearly making human rights afavorite category of recent Nobel committees.

In granting prizes for dissidents in conflict with their own government,the Nobel Committee has usually explicitly acknowledged that this was for anonviolent struggle like Lutuli’s. For Protest, Power and Change: An Encyclo-pedia of Nonviolent Action, I was asked to write about Lutuli, Adolfo PérezEsquivel (1980), Lech Walesa (1983), Desmond Tutu (1984), the DalaiLama (1989), Aung San Suu Kyi (1991), Rigoberta Menchú Tum (1992),and Nelson Mandela (1993).

Mandela was often nominated during his long prison sentence for hisleadership in the struggle against apartheid. While Lutuli and Tutu weregranted the prize for their part in this struggle, however, Mandela was finallygranted the prize not for human rights but rather for his efforts with FrederikW. de Klerk to gain the peaceful termination of apartheid and to lay thefoundations of a new democratic South Africa. Before he went to prisonMandela had headed the armed wing of the African National Congress, and Isuspect that he was not named earlier for the prize because of his commit-ment to the way of violence.

There has been controversy about the prize for Rigoberta Menchú Tum,a Mayan Indian, who received the prize for “her work for social justice andethno-cultural reconciliation.” She says in her autobiography that in herstruggle for social justice she had not chosen “the armed struggle,” and chairFrancis Sejersted quoted this passage in his presentation address at the award.Critics of her award claimed that she had indeed at one time joined the vio-lent movement of the Guatemalan guerrillas.

In 1999 American anthropologist David Stoll published a critical exami-nation of Rigoberta’s autobiography, in which he found many factual inaccu-racies. In the volume I edited on Nobel Peace Lectures, for the biographicalsection from Les Prix Nobel, to which the laureates are asked to contribute,I reprinted the biographical summary published by the Rigoberta MenchúFoundation in 1997, which repeats some of the inaccuracies of the autobiog-raphy. Stoll’s book and mine were both published in 1999. If a new edition


of the lectures were to be published, I would want to add some footnotes tothe biographical summary.32

Stoll approves of Rigoberta’s Nobel Prize and has no question aboutthe atrocities committed by the Guatemalan army, although he feels thather autobiography does not give a correct picture of the relationship of theMayan peasants to the revolutionary movement. Whether or not Rigobertaapproved of the violent struggle at one time, what Sejersted emphasized inhis presentation was her contribution today in “maintaining a disarminghumanity in a brutal world.”

In response to critics who demanded that the Nobel Committee revokethe prize (which could not be done under the Nobel Foundation statutes),Geir Lundestad, Secretary of the Nobel Committee, explained that the deci-sion to award Rigoberta the prize “was not based exclusively or primarily onthe autobiography.” As in other such cases in recent times, the Nobel Com-mittee engages an expert to write a special report on candidates on the shortlist about whom the committees’ own advisers have no special information.In any case, both Sejersted and Lundestad are historians, and when historiansuse an autobiography as a source they are quite aware of the factor of selectivememory. In Rigoberta’s case, the circumstances of the interviews she gave,which provided the foundation for the book, must be taken into consider-ation, as well as the cultural approach of a Mayan Indian to tribal memories.

CAMPAIGNS

The Nobel Committee frowns upon campaigns organized on behalf of candi-dates. After a short period when the nominees were publicly identified, thecommittee stopped releasing the names, and it discourages nominators frommaking their nominations public. Many of these names make their way to thepress anyway, so apparently the committee’s wishes are not always followed.

It may be of interest to explain why the AFSC committee on which Iserved, which recommends nominees to the AFSC board, decided to publi-cize the names of our nominees and the reasons for the choice. This is notpart of a campaign for our nominee, but is done in the hope that it might beof some help to the nominee in his or her own efforts for peace. Several of ournominees have told us that not only did this mean much to them personally,but that word of Quaker support had actually gained them adherents in theirwork.33

Despite the committee’s position, there have been a number of success-ful campaigns. For the very first prize in 1901 there was a campaign forDunant, organized by Rudolf Müller, a German teacher, and Hans Daae, a


Norwegian military doctor. They recruited nominators and submitted morepages of documentation than did the nominators of Passy, who had beenworking for peace for more than thirty years. Daae also personally convincedBjørnstjerne Bjørnson, a member of the committee who had already decidedon Passy, to support Dunant as well.34

I have studied three other successful campaigns, those for NormanAngell (1933), Carl von Ossietzky (1936), and Emily Greene Balch (1946),in each case having been able to use the records of the organizers. Angellorchestrated the campaign himself, getting Jane Addams to nominate himand recruiting other nominators. He drafted a letter of nomination for him-self to be sent by a friend. This was not in keeping with the letter or the spiritof the Nobel Foundation statutes, which do not permit candidates to nomi-nate themselves.35

The story of the international campaign that won the prize for Carl vonOssietzky has been told many times. I was already writing my book on theprize when by accident I learned that Konrad Reisner, one of the Paris groupof German exiles who organized the campaign, was living in a nearby city. Ibecame so fascinated by his story that I spent many months in research, usingthe archives of the Paris committee at the International Institute of SocialHistory in Amsterdam and the Ossietzky archives at the University ofOldenburg in Germany, now named after Ossietzky, and interviewing WillyBrandt.36 This probably delayed the completion of my Nobel book by a year,whereas to study Angell’s papers I had only to drive a few hours to Ball StateUniversity.

The Paris campaigners for Ossietzky did a skilled job of recruiting nomi-nators and arranging for letters of support from eminent intellectuals andpoliticians. They circulated a brochure with information about Ossietzky,the case for his selection, and a sample letter of nomination, with detailsabout procedures. In this task they were able to call upon a network of Ger-man exiles like themselves in England, Sweden, Czechoslovakia, Switzerland,the United States, and elsewhere. Willy Brandt was their organizer in Oslo,recruiting supporters, especially among his Labor Party friends, and sendingreports and advice to Paris. They carefully concealed their own part in thecampaign so that the German government would be impressed by the qualityof the international support. The German government never found out whowas running the show.

The primary purpose at the start of the campaign was not to win theprize for Ossietzky, but to turn the spotlight of publicity upon his situationin the concentration camp, hoping to stop his mistreatment and save his life.When I talked recently with Konrad Reisner, the only survivor of the Paris


campaigners, he confirmed this once again. It was as the campaign developedthat the Paris group realized that what they were doing was a way to speak tothe conscience of the world that was more effective than making generalappeals against Nazi atrocities.

The campaign publicity got results. The Nazi government feared that ifOssietzky were to die in the concentration camp, the plans for a great propa-ganda demonstration at the Berlin Olympic Games would be jeopardized.They ordered their diplomats abroad to support the candidacy for the prizeof Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the modern Olympic Games, andcalled Ossietzky a traitor because he had been convicted of publishing revela-tions about the secret rearmament of the Weimar government. Ossietzky wasfinally given a proper medical examination and then transferred to a hospitalin Berlin, but his physical condition had so deteriorated that the campaign,while it did win him the prize, could not save his life. The Quaker representa-tive there helped him move to a sanatorium, where he lived for only a fewmonths before he died.

Agents of the Gestapo saw to it that his ashes were buried in secret, butthe news of his death brought outstanding expressions of tribute to his mem-ory from intellectuals and politicians who had taken part in the campaign forhis prize. Thomas Mann said “the figure of this brave and pure minded jour-nalist could grow in time to a fighter for humanity and a martyr of legendaryproportions.” To Heinrich Mann the campaign for Ossietzky’s prize hadbeen historic. He declared, “In one moment the conscience of the worldarose and the name which it spoke was his.”

That Thomas Mann’s predictions have come true was evident in the cer-emonies in both East and West Germany in 1989 celebrating the one hun-dredth anniversary of Ossietzky’s birth. When Willy Brandt himself receivedthe Nobel Peace Prize in 1971, he said that Ossietzky’s Nobel Prize “was amoral victory over the ruling powers of barbarism” and expressed a “belatedthanks” to the Nobel Committee for making that choice.

In the long view of history there is truth in what Brandt said. At a timewhen the Nazi and Fascist leaders were riding high internationally, the NobelPrize for Ossietzky did strike a blow against Hitler in world opinion, and theNobel Committee was indeed acting courageously in the face of Germangovernmental opposition to its choice. Since the German governmentassumed, as other governments have mistakenly believed before and since,that the Norwegian Nobel Committee was responsible to the governmentand not independent, the German foreign office ordered its diplomat in Osloto put pressure on the Norwegian government to prevent the award. How-ever, partly because of this very pressure, but also because of the opposition of


conservatives in Norway and other reasons, the Nobel Committee was verycareful in its pronouncements to treat Ossietzky as simply an opponent ofGerman rearmament and to avoid even mentioning where he happened to beat the time.

Breaking tradition, the king of Norway and the royal family did notattend the ceremony, either because they sought to avoid harming Norway’srelations with Germany or because they sympathized with the Norwegianconservatives’ opposition to the prize. Recent research has shown that whenin 1935 the Nobel Committee had discussed Ossietzky, no member haddeclared for him. It was only when the campaign picked up steam in 1936and the committee composition changed that Ossietzky was selected.

Under these circumstances, in his presentation address at the award cere-mony, which the German government had not permitted Ossietzky to attend,chairman Fredrik Stang spoke only of Ossietzky’s extraordinary work forpeace as a journalist. Stang declared, incorrectly, that “no less than six previ-ous recipients of the Nobel Peace Prize” had testified to this. The chairmandid not even mention Ossietzky’s persecution by the Nazi government.Ossietzky “is not just a symbol,” Stang declared; “He is something quite dif-ferent and something much more. He is a deed; and he is a man. It is on thesegrounds that Ossietzky has been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, and on thesegrounds alone.”

The committee had clearly been influenced by the international cam-paign, although on the record the prize was not granted simply to strike ablow against Hitler. It is in retrospect that this award ennobled the prize.

Emily Greene Balch was, with Jane Addams, cofounder of the Women’sInternational League for Peace and Freedom and her successor as honoraryinternational president. In the fall of 1945 the WILPF asked MercedesRandall to organize a campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize for Balch. As chair-man Jahn of the Nobel Committee said at the award ceremony, “the name ofEmily Balch may not be familiar to many of us here.” Randall, indeed, wasworking from scratch, and she had only six weeks to get everything submittedby the deadline. The job she did was exemplary, enlisting the help of thenoted American philosopher John Dewey, using the European network ofWILPF branches, and generating a stream of letters to Oslo from a distin-guished list of scholars and public figures. Balch took no part in this, butwhen Randall shared with her some of the results she commented that shewas both “flattered and abased. It is as good as going to one’s funeral withouthaving to die first.”37

The case of Father Pire (1958) presents a good example of how a cam-paign can influence the Nobel Committee. Pire actually took the initiative,


when looking for funds for his refugee work, to write a begging letter to theNobel Foundation in Stockholm along with letters to the Ford andRockefeller Foundations. The Nobel Foundation replied that it gave nogrants but the Norwegian Nobel Committee had given prizes for refugeework. Pire then naively began to send descriptions of his refugee projects toOslo. More to the point was naming one of his refugee villages after Nansenand inviting the Norwegian ambassador to the inauguration. This ambassa-dor and the Belgian ambassador to Norway, as well as some of Pire’swell-connected friends, now took matters into their own hands. Theyarranged for Pire to be invited to the Norwegian embassy in Brussels when amember of the Norwegian Nobel Committee happened to be there, and tobe invited to give a speech in Oslo shortly before the committee was to meet.They even managed to have King Olav in attendance. The result was theprize of 1958. Had Pire not been so highly qualified, someone who in hisperson dignified the prize, this may well not have happened.38

An extensive campaign was mounted for Elie Wiesel (1986), for whomparliamentarians from the United States and the Federal Republic of Ger-many, as well as others, were systematically urged to support his nomination.Wiesel had nothing to do with these efforts, and one would like to think thatthe Nobel Committee was influenced mainly by his special qualifications.

In another case the candidate took what seemed to him to be all the rightsteps, going to greater lengths than anyone else in the history of the PeacePrize. The story of Armand Hammer, who spent vast sums in his vainattempt practically to buy the prize, is almost incredible. His biographer,Edward Jay Epstein, has documented these efforts, using sources includingfiles of the CIA and Soviet intelligence agencies and innumerable reports ofthe litigation in which Hammer was involved.39

Hammer, a businessman who became Lenin’s favorite capitalist, tookover Occidental Petroleum in 1956 and made it one of the largest industrialcompanies in the United States. He used the corporate treasury for extensivephilanthropic activities and to bankroll his quest for the Nobel Peace Prize.As Epstein writes, he wanted the prize because it “was an honor so brilliant itwould obscure all his past offenses: his money laundering for Soviet intelli-gence, his bribing of government officials, and his personal use of corporatefunds.”

He established the Armand Hammer Conference on Peace and HumanRights because he felt these were the categories for which the prize wasgranted. The purpose of the Conference, which held meetings in world cities,was to promote dialogue between the Soviet bloc and the West. The first con-ference was in Oslo in December 1978. During the week he displayed the


Armand Hammer Art Collection there and invited the members of the NobelCommittee to its gala reception. Needing a prestigious person to nominatehim for the peace prize, he went after President Jimmy Carter, who refused.Then he sought to get Prince Charles to persuade Prime Minister MargaretThatcher to nominate him. Since Prince Charles was a sponsor of UnitedWorld Colleges, Hammer financed the United States campus for the school.

As Sweden was the home base of the Nobel Foundation, Hammerbrought his art collection to Stockholm and invited the Swedish royal familyand other celebrities to the opening. Hammer’s London consultant toldEpstein that Hammer had spent five million dollars buying himself awardsand honors that he thought would influence the Nobel Committee.

When Prince Charles finally declined to support Hammer’s candidacy,the entrepreneur courted Begin with gifts and promises for Israel, and Beginnominated him in 1988. A remaining obstacle was Hammer’s conviction forcertain crimes in 1976. To clear his name he gave large gifts to the Republi-can Party, seeking a presidential pardon. President Ronald Reagan disap-pointed him, but in August 1989 Hammer received a pardon for compassionfrom President George Bush. However, in December 1990 Hammer died ofcancer at the age of ninety-two.

Another wealthy campaigner for himself was Roichi Sasakawa, a formerJapanese war criminal and gambling boss who established an office in Oslo tolobby for his prize. Also in the news has been the campaign of Juan AntonioSamaranch, president of the International Olympic Committee. Not somuch has been heard from him since the exposure of the extensive bribery ofcommittee members to win their support for cities seeking to be chosen asthe site of the Olympic Games.

RECENT PRIZES

Since 1990 the Nobel Committee has given a diversity of prizes: four forindividual champions of human rights (individual awards in 1991 and 1992and a joint award in 1996); nine statesmen and political leaders (individualawards in 1990 and 2000 and joint awards in 1993, 1994, and 1998); andfour for the organized peace movement (joint awards for an individual and aninstitution in each year, 1995 and 1997). The only prize for humanitarianachievement went to the Doctors Without Borders (1999), an organizationthat defends human rights while providing medical relief.

Of all the categories, the human rights prizes stand up the best. In eachcase—Aung San Suu Kyi in 1991, Rigoberta Menchú in 1992, and BishopBelo and Ramos-Horta in 1996—the recipients were worthy persons and


their causes were aided by the prize.40 Suu Kyi was still restricted in her move-ments by the military dictators of her country even after she was freed fromhouse arrest, but she and her cause have been given worldwide publicity andsupport, and there have been recent reports that governmental leaders haveconferred with her. Tragically, however, her dying husband was refused apermit by the government to visit her before his death. For me, she remainsone of the noblest figures in the Nobel Pantheon of Peace, courageous, dedi-cated, deeply spiritual, prepared to make untold personal sacrifices for herBuddhist convictions.

Despite the controversy about Rigoberta’s book, the prestige of the prizehelped her to move toward greater leadership of the indigenous peoples of theworld, aiding them to gain status with the United Nations. Now leading amore settled life with her husband and son, she has written the second install-ment of her autobiography, this time perhaps with more control of thecontent.

Of these three, the prize may have had the greatest political influence forBishop Belo and José Ramos-Horta, bringing support to their little countryof East Timor at the time when it was most needed. Both laureates have beenmuch aided in taking leadership during the transition to independence bytheir Nobel Prize status.

The prizes for statesmen and political leaders have done less well thanthese human rights prizes. Best of all were the awards for Kim Dae-jung in2000 and the prize shared by Mandela and de Klerk in 1993.41 More ques-tionable were the joint awards to Arafat, Peres, and Rabin in 1994 and toHume and Trimble in 1998.

Kim Dae-jung of South Korea was given the last of the Nobel Commit-tee’s century of prizes “for his work for democracy and human rights andfor peace and reconciliation with North Korea.” Once again the committeeused the prize to further an ongoing peace process. Kim Dae-jung’s so-called“Sunshine Policy” had led to a summit meeting with his counterpart, KimJong Il of North Korea, the first meeting of these two heads of state of coun-tries still technically at war after five decades. This was a prize for a statesmanwho had worked for reconciliation with North Korea since 1971. WhenSouth Korea was ruled by an anticommunist authoritarian dictatorship hehad suffered beatings, attempted assassinations, a death sentence, and exile.His staunch Catholic faith had seen him through.

When Kim Dae-jung came to Washington recently to meet new Presi-dent George Bush, instead of continued support for his conciliatory policytoward North Korea, he found that the United States would pursue an old,Cold War hawkish stance toward the communist state. He left for home


humiliated and angry. Whatever happens to the peace process on the Koreanpeninsula, however, Kim Dae-jung’s lifetime effort for peace will continue toearn him a high place among all the Peace Prize winners. He could have beengiven a Nobel Prize for human rights when he was a persecuted dissident.

The 1993 prize for Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk was politically asuccessful statesman award. The peace process in South Africa continued asthese two ended apartheid and effectively arranged for elections. Personally,however, their relationship was strained soon after they left Oslo, if notbefore. Mandela had often been nominated for the Peace Prize during hislong prison sentence, but before he went to prison he had headed the armedwing of the African National Congress, and the Nobel Committee made noawards to dissidents advocating violent opposition to their governments. Hewould have been well qualified for the prize for his nonviolent policy towardthe South African government when he left prison, and especially for thespirit in which he conducted himself. As head of state he went on to worldstature, and in his personal life was happily remarried.

De Klerk, on the other hand, had to deal with the question of hisresponsibility for the excesses committed by the security forces when heheaded the South African government. In his press conference at Oslo beforethe award ceremony, he was responsive and forthright and quite won hisaudience. At home in South Africa, however, many, presumably includingMandela, refuse to believe that he could be completely ignorant of what wasgoing on. After a period of leading the opposition in the parliament, de Klerkwithdrew from political life. His complicated marital situation also receivedunfavorable public attention.

The other two shared political awards represent less than a success story.Nobel Peace Prizes have featured the Middle East since the well-earned prizein 1950 for Ralph Bunche,42 continuing with the 1978 awards to Begin andSadat, and seeming to have reached a high point with the prizes for Arafat,Rabin, and Peres in 1994.43 After the assassination of Rabin, the peace nego-tiations were stalled during the government of Netanyahu, but even thoughRabin had a successor in Ehud Barak, negotiations moved very slowly,despite the efforts of the United States to serve as mediator. A serious conflictresulted, and the Israelis elected Ariel Sharon to end it, but the situation onlyworsened. The prize of 1994 celebrated the “Oslo Accords” too soon.

The individualized statesman award went to Mikhail Gorbachev in1990. Gidske Anderson, then chair of the Nobel Committee, declared thatthe prize was granted “in recognition of the leading role Gorbachev has playedin the radical changes that have taken place in East-West relations,” wherehis personal contribution was “decisive.” Only eight months after coming to


power in March 1985, Gorbachev had the first of the four summit meetingswith President Ronald Reagan, which led to arms agreements. ReversingKremlin policies, he allowed communist governments in Eastern Europe tocollapse and free governments to arise, and he did not oppose the reunifica-tion of Germany and its membership in NATO.

Gorbachev himself thought his major achievement was his policy ofperestroika, restructuring Soviet society with the introduction of new free-doms. Anderson made it clear in her presentation speech at the award cere-mony, however, that the prize had nothing to do with the Soviet Union’sinternal affairs; it was for his achievement in international politics.

Gorbachev gave his postponed Nobel lecture in June 1990. In August1991 an abortive coup of hard-liners led to the success of Yeltsin andGorbachev’s resignation as president of the Soviet Union, which disinte-grated. While Gorbachev remained immensely popular abroad, this was farfrom true at home. In the 1996 election when he tried to make a comeback,he won only 1 percent of the votes.

Whether Gorbachev’s ending of the Cold War was a result of Reagan’sbuild-up of U.S. armaments, as many American conservatives like to think,or whether the Nobel Committee was correct that Gorbachev’s actions werepersonally decisive is a question to be left for future historians to debate. Inany case, he established a foundation with plans for a library, an archive, anda perestroika museum. He is president of the International Green Cross, anenvironmental equivalent of the Red Cross, which he set up in 1992. Hemaintains a presence abroad with visits to heads of state and State of theWorld forums, which his foundation has run in San Francisco and elsewhere,and where attendees can meet political, intellectual, and artistic world elite todiscuss topics that have to do with world peace.

In Northern Ireland, the Good Friday agreements for which the 1998prize was given to John Hume and David Trimble have been in a state ofsuspension for many months.44 The non-political award of the 1976 prizeto Mairead Corrigan-Maguire and Betty Williams recognized an importanteffort for reconciliation between Catholics and Protestants,45 but the spectac-ular marches ended and there is no agreement as to whether they had anylasting effect. However, as individuals the two laureates have continued theirwork for peace. Betty Williams gives much-appreciated lectures for peace inthe United States, where she now lives, and promotes safe havens for childvictims of world conflicts. Mairead has remained in Northern Ireland, stillworking with a diminished Peace People organization, but in her own personhaving attained significant stature through her international work for peace.


As for the two peace organizations which were honored with the prize,in 1995 it was a remarkable individual, Joseph Rotblat, who stole the showand conspicuously continues his work, while the Pugwash Conferences, hisco-laureate, has remained little known to the public. The consequences for theco-laureates of 1997, the International Campaign to Ban Landmines (ICBL)and Jody Williams, have been somewhat different. The ICBL has continuedto be a dynamic movement, with many national ICBL branches working hardfor the implementation of the Ottawa Treaty and communicating through avery active cyberspace network. Jody Williams, who received the prize for hervery significant work as coordinator of the ICBL, now serves as ambassadorwith speeches and diplomatic duties.46

Looking at the work of the Norwegian Nobel committees throughoutthe century, I feel that the high regard in which the Peace Prize is held every-where is well deserved. My earlier judgment does not change as I revise myNobel Peace Prize book of 1988: the Norwegian committees have tried toremain faithful to the highest aim of Alfred Nobel, “however the circum-stances and the thinking of the time may have influenced a particular awardand whatever the criticisms from advocates of different conceptions of peace.”

Recent research has begun to reveal more about the discussions underthe great candelabra in the committee conference room at the NorwegianNobel Institute, which were always supposed to be kept confidential. We arehearing more about individual differences and what were called “unpleasant-nesses.” To me, the results of those discussions are most important, and inthis regard the general record of committee decisions over the years is a verygood one.

Whether it was the spirit of Alfred Nobel looking on from his portraitin the conference room, the presence of laureates past in their pictures onthe wall, or some other guardian angels whose guidance so often prevailed,we cannot know. Perhaps John Sanness, then committee chair, summed itup best when he said in his presentation address of 1980, “The NorwegianNobel Committee has frequently been accused, both at home and abroad, oflooking at the world through Norwegian spectacles, from the standpoint ofNorwegian attitudes and interests.”47 Sanness gladly accepted the accusation.I think that it is true that Norwegian spectacles have had much to do with thesuccess of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. Nobel knew what he was doingwhen in his will he confided the awarding of his prizes for “champions ofpeace” to Norwegians.

Now, as in 1962, for me it is still the individuals who represent the gloryof the Nobel Peace Prize. The statesmen and political leaders who have wonthe recent prizes, except for Kim Dae-jung and Mandela, whose high stature


was not increased by the prize, do not impress me as do Suu Kyi, Rotblat,Rigoberta, Bishop Belo, and Ramos-Horta. Sadly, Rabin has joinedOssietzky, Martin Luther King, Jr., Hammarskjõld, and Sadat in that impor-tant group whose work for peace led to their martyrdom.

In speaking of individuals and institutions, Bertha von Suttner wroteof “the energy, the dedication, the sacred fire which fills the heart andspirit—this is what propels a movement.” It is this sacred fire which fills theheart and spirit of so many of those to whom Norwegian Nobel Committeeshave granted the Peace Prize. It is these great spirits whom the Nobel Com-mittees have set before us; despite the barbarism and the “pettiness of humanfolly,” which we still see too much around us, they can still give us faith inand hope for humanity.

NOTES

With thanks to Professor Geir Lundestad, Director of the Norwegian NobelInstitute, this article is adapted from a paper presented at the institute’s ResearchSeminar in May 2000.

1. “Writings of Irwin Abrams on the Nobel Peace Prize 1957-2000,” YellowSprings, Ohio, May 2000, http://antioch-college.edu/~iabrams.

2. Irwin Abrams, “The Nobel Peace Prize: A Balance Sheet,” American Journal ofEconomics & Sociology 21 (July 1962): 225–43.

3. Irwin Abrams, “Bertha von Suttner and the Nobel Peace Prize,” Journal ofCentral European Affairs 22 (October 1962): 286–307, esp. 296, 298, 300.

4. Irwin Abrams, “The Transformation of the Nobel Peace Prize,” Peace &Change 10 (Fall/Winter 1984): 1–25; Irwin Abrams, The Nobel Peace Prize and theLaureates: An Illustrated Biographical History, 1901–1987 (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988),19–30.

5. Abrams, Peace Prize, 34–40. Dunant often used the Anglicized form of hisname, Henry. In Nobel’s original Swedish, folkens förbrödandt, conveys a strongersense of forging the bonds of brotherhood between “peoples” than does the officialEnglish translation, “nations.”

6. Les Prix Nobel en 1930 (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1931), 85. This remark waspart of Stang’s toast in honor of the laureates Kellogg and Söderblom at the eveningbanquet.

7. Les Prix Nobel en 1974 (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1975), 51.8. Irwin Abrams, “Doctors Without Borders (‘Médecins Sans Frontières’)” in

Nobel Channel (www.nobelchannel.com); Encyclopedia Americana, new edition of2001.


9. These words were actually written to Fredrik Bajer of Denmark. See Abrams,“Bertha von Suttner,” 301.

10. Abrams, Peace Prize, 8; Abrams, “Bertha von Suttner,” 302–03.11. Irwin Abrams, “The Quaker Peace Testimony and the Nobel Peace Prize,”

in The Pacifist Impulse in Historical Perspective, ed. Harvey I. Dyck (Toronto: Univer-sity of Toronto Press, 1966), 207–22; Abrams, Peace Prize, 148–50.

12. Abrams, Peace Prize, 137.13. Øyvind Tønnesson, “Mahatma Gandhi, the Missing Laureate,”

http://www.nobel.se/essays/gandhi/index.html (accessed May 16, 2000).14. Irwin Abrams, “Joseph Rotblat and the Pugwash Conferences on World

Affairs,” in The Nobel Prize Annual 1995 (NY: IMG Publishing, 1996), 61–69;Joseph Rotblat, “Leaving the Bomb Project,” in Ending War: The Force of Reason, ed.Maxwell Bruce and Tom Milne (NY: St. Martin’s, 1999), 9–15.

15. Abrams, Peace Prize, 155–57, 195–98.16. Abrams, Peace Prize, 69–71; Irwin Abrams, “Je me souviens,” in Catalogue

of the International Peace Bureau Centenary Exhibition 1892-1992 (United NationsLibrary, Geneva, May–June 1992), 2–5.

17. Irwin Abrams, “The Work of the United Nations Peace-Keeping Forces,” inThe Nobel Prize Annual, 1988 (NY: IMG Publishing, 1989), 79–93.

18. Abrams, “Bertha von Suttner,” 298.19. Norwegian Nobel Committee Archives. Nominations, 1901.20. Irwin Abrams, “A History of European Peace Societies” (unpublished thesis,

Harvard University, 1938), 412–15; Arthur Eyffinger, The 1899 Hague Peace Confer-ence (The Hague, London, Boston: Kluwer Law International, 1999), 20–25; JostDülffer, Regeln gegen den Krieg? Die Haager Friedenskonferenzen von 1899 und 1907(Frankfurt am Main: Ullstein, 1978), 30–330. Eiffinger and Jost give more weight tothe personal influence of Nicholas II in the convoking of the 1899 Conference.

21. Abrams, Peace Prize, 40–41, 56–59.22. Asle Sveen, “The Peace Prizes awarded to Theodore Roosevelt (1906) and

Elihu Root (1912),” addendum to Ivar Libæk, “The Nobel Peace Prize: Some Aspectsof the Decision-making Process during the years 1901–17,” Norwegian Nobel Insti-tute Research Seminar, 2000; Øyvind Tønnesson, “Controversies and Criticism,”http://enm.nobel.se:1895/prize/peace/controversies/index.html.

23. Les Prix Nobel en 1971 (Stockholm: Norstedt, 1972), 79.24. Abrams, Peace Prize, 210–12.25. Abrams, Peace Prize, 81–82, 84–88; Asle Sveen, “The Nobel Peace Prize:

Some Aspects of the Decision-making Process during the years 1919–1931,” Norwe-gian Nobel Institute Research Seminar, 2000.

26. Abrams, Peace Prize, 101.


27. Abrams, Peace Prize, 82–84, 100–05; Robert H. Farrell, Peace in Their Time:The Origins of the Kellogg-Briand Pact (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1952).

28. Abrams, Peace Prize, 203–08.29. Abrams, Peace Prize, 210–12; Olav Njølstad’s article in this issue of Peace

& Change.30. Abrams, Peace Prize, 221–26.31. Stig Ramel, Pojken i dörren (Stockholm: Atlantis, 1994), 256–58; Irwin

Abrams, Interview with Stig Ramel, Stockholm, May 11, 1999.32. Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1992 (Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell,

1993), 31, 157–58; Irwin Abrams, “The Work of Rigoberta Menchú Tum,” in TheNobel Prize Annual 1992 (NY: IMG Publishing, 1993), 77–87; Irwin Abrams, ed.,Nobel Lectures Peace 1971–1995, 3 vols. (Singapore and London: World ScientificPress, 1997-1999): vol. 3, 25, 35, 50; David Stoll, Rigoberta Menchú and the Story ofAll Poor Guatemalians (Boulder: Westview, 1999).

33. Irwin Abrams, “Who Deserves the Nobel Peace Prize? How the AFSC makesits Nominations,” Friends Journal (December 1997): 15–17.

34. Abrams, Peace Prize, 45; Willy Heudtlass, “J. Henry Dunant and the EventsLeading to the Award of the First Nobel Peace Prize,” International Review of the RedCross (June 1964): 283–96. It was a Norwegian doctor, Dagmar Sørbøe, who initi-ated in 1982 a campaign to win the prize for International Physicians for the Preven-tion of Nuclear War. Working with James Muller of the Harvard Medical School andwith the support of George Kennan of the Institute of Advanced Study at Princeton,nominators were rounded up in Norway, the U.S., and the Soviet Union, which ledto the grant of the 1985 prize to the IPPNW. Sørbøe has recently given the author afile of correspondence about the campaign.

35. Abrams, Peace Prize, 120–23.36. Irwin Abrams, “Carl von Ossietzky Retrospective,” in The Nobel Prize

Annual 1989 (Boston and NY: G. K. Hall and IMG, 1989), 13–23; Irwin Abrams,“The Multinational Campaign for the Nobel Peace Prize for Carl von Ossietzky,”paper presented at the international conference, “Peace Movements 1919-1939: AComparative Study,” Stadtschlaining, Austria, September 1991; Irwin Abrams, “Carlvon Ossietzky and the First Nobel Peace Prize for Human Rights,” paper presented atthe Joint Annual Convention of the British International Studies Association and theInternational Studies Association, London, March 28–April 1, 1989. Today I wouldrevise the title of this last item.

37. Abrams, Peace Prize, 142–46; Irwin Abrams, “The First Quaker Nobel PeacePrize Winner,” Friends Journal (December 1996): 18–19; Mercedes Randall,Improper Bostonian: Emily Greene Balch (NY: Twayne, 1964); Elinor MurrayDespalatovic and Joel M. Halpern, “Emily Greene Balch—Balkan Traveler, PeaceWorker and Nobel Laureate,” in Black Lambs and Grey Falcons: Women Travellers in


the Balkans, ed. John B. Allkock and Antonia Young (Bradford: Bradford UniversityPress, 1991), 35–64.

38. Abrams, Peace Prize, 167–70.39. Edward Jay Epstein, “The Quest for the Nobel Prize,” in Dossier: The Secret

History of Armand Hammer (NY: Random House, 1996), 333–43.40. Irwin Abrams, “The Work of Aung San Suu Kyi,” in The Nobel Prize Annual

1991 (NY: IMG Publishing, 1992), 77–85; Irwin Abrams, “Bishop Belo and JoséRamos-Horta,” in The Nobel Prize Annual 1996 (NY: IMG Publishing, 1997), 56–57.

41. Irwin Abrams, “The Work of Nelson Mandela and F. W. de Klerk,” in TheNobel Prize Annual 1993 (NY: IMG Publishing, 1994), 58–69; Mark Gevisser,“Strange Bedfellows,” Foreign Affairs 79 (January/February 2000): 173–78; Mandela:The Authorized Biography by Anthony Sampson (NY: Knopf, 1999); and The LastTrek—A New Beginning: An Autobiography by F. W. de Klerk (NY: St. Martin’s,1999), a perceptive review essay by a South African journalist.

42. Abrams, Peace Prize, 152–55. This entry is revised in the new edition of thisbook to be published in 2001. See also Irwin Abrams, “Ralph J. Bunche,” in DerFriedens-Nobelpreis von 1901 bis heute, 12 vols. (Munich and Zug, Switzerland: Edi-tion Pacis, 1987–1993): vol. 6, 88–97.

43. Irwin Abrams, “The Work of Yitzhak Rabin, Shimon Peres and YasirArafat,” in The Nobel Prize Annual 1994 (NY: IMG Publishing, 1995), 58–69.

44. “David Trimble” and “John Hume” in 2001 edition of EncyclopediaAmericana.

45. Abrams, Peace Prize, 216–19.46. Irwin Abrams, “The International Campaign to Ban Landmines and Jody

Williams,” in The Noble Prize Annual 1997 (NY: IMG Publishing), 54–67.47. Irwin Abrams, ed., Nobel Lectures Peace 1971–1980 (Singapore: World

Scientific, 1997), 242.


reflections on the first century of the nobel peace prize

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