A Conversation with HELEN CALDICOTT
Australian physician Helen Caldicott, co-founder and first president of the Physicians for Social Responsibility and the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament, is best known as a leader of the nuclear-freeze movement. In her autobiography, A Desperate Passion (Norton, 1996), Dr. Caldicott discusses her current concerns about the proliferation of nuclear power plants, the long-term medical consequences of the 1986 Chernoble disaster, and the American environmental movement. In an October 1996 interview by Steve Moore, she talks about these concerns, as well as about the effects of her activism on her family life.
Tell me how it was that you first began to think about writing an autobiography.
Well, one of the reasons I wanted to write it was to correct the history of the physicians' movement. I founded Physicians for Social Responsibility. It grew into an enormously effective and influential organization. And then there was some funny business that went on, sort of a coup d'etat, and I was evicted summarily without wanting to be. And then the history was re-written by those who had evicted me and I wasn't in it, although I'd done most of the work, and neither were many of the people who did the work with me. But I had to get over my grief about it. It was pretty profound. And then at the same time, another man started an international physicians organization that brought together all the national groups that I had started all over the world. And he lobbied for two years actively to get the Nobel Prize for that group and himself, and he won. I didn't think anyone deserved Nobel Prizes: we hadn't eradicated any weapons. Our work was just starting.
So my grief was twofold: one, I lost the mechanism or tool that I had created to save the planet from nuclear war, and two, the history was totally ass-up, if you will. So I thought "Well, I have to write the true history," because it was a very important time in history, and an important movement. So I wrote it for that.
I wrote it also for women. There aren't many models for women who do big things and who get kicked in the teeth. And I also wrote it because I learned a lot. I had a spiritual journey after this all happened. I learned to realize that you create your own reality.
What do you feel was your greatest sense of accomplishment during that period of your life?
Well, in retrospect, it was the end of the Cold War, when the Berlin Wall came down. But when it happened I was in the midst . . .my husband had just left me, on my 50th birthday, and I was menopausal, and I was absolutely shattered. So when the Berlin Wall came down I remember watching it in a sort of fugue state. It didn't seem to have reality to my reality that I was going through. It was only later that I realized what an enormous accomplishment that was, and that we helped to do that because Gorbachev learned about the medical effects of nuclear war. That's partly why he allowed the wall to come down, and for the Cold War to end.
There's a sense in the media, that the nuclear threat is not as great as it once was. Do you agree with that?
Impending global catastrophe is not so profound now as it was in the 80's, but America still has 15,000 or so nuclear weapons, and 18 Trident submarines patrolling the seas all the time, each with enough weapons to destroy every major city in the Northern Hemisphere. A mad submarine commander, could, if he so desired, without linking with the Pentagon, set off his bombs. And that's the end of life, certainly in the Northern Hemisphere. And Russia has about 12,000, and America is presently in the Soviet Union helping them to decommission some of their old ones. America is now about to do sub-critical testing to design a whole new generation of nuclear weapons, both for use on the earth and for use in Star Wars. It's a fantasy. It means putting nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors in space, orbiting the earth. We are still in enormous danger. Now is the time that we could actually produce elimination of nuclear weapons, by America rising to its full moral height and saying to other nations, "We are going to abolish nuclear weapons now, you and me." If that doesn't happen within five years, I predict that within ten years, 20 nations will have the bomb.
What is the greatest obstacle to that?
America. The labs. I spoke recently at Los Alamos. I said, "You know, you should stop doing this evil. Anyway, you shouldn't be working in the labs; they are too contaminated with radioactivity. Why don't you fill the desert up with solar panels, and supply the whole of America with solar power?" The old men booed me. These are the nuclear priesthood. And the young men and women were very quiet and thoughtful.
So, we are in the hands of mad people. They have the power in the Pentagon, and they have the power in the White House. But the majority of Americans (a) don't know what's going on, (b) would care intensely if they did, and (c) that could change the whole thing. We need another huge movement like we had during the Freeze times in the 80's. Do I have the energy to do it again? To be the anti-nuclear bag lady going to three cities a day? I actually don't. I'm 58. But it can be done. I believe it can be done easily, with access to the right media.
Were you aware, as you were writing, of the reader, and if so, who was your audience?
I write for women really. I'm not ashamed of anything in my life. It's been tough from time to time, but we all have tough lives. It's so important for us to be honest with each other. So I wrote it all down. No holds barred. People say itÿs almost a brutal honesty. But I don't see what's wrong with honesty, because that creates intimacy and we learn from each other.
What kind of reaction have you been getting from the people who have read it?
Well, interestingly, it's the women who like it. Women have said, "Look, I'm 46. I've given up. I'm cynical. I've got three kids, I was an activist in the early part of my life, but now I've got to get going again." It's activating people.
Do you learn things about your own life from listening to your readers?
Yeah, when they open up and tell me what they're going through. Often I can help them, because I've been through it myself. I spoke at a feminist book shop recently. And the women there wanted answers to their lives' journey. And it was lovely to be able to share what I went through, and had gone through, and evolved through. You can't talk to people when you are going through it, when you are in pain. You've got to get through it, rise from the ashes like the phoenix, to be able to help other people who are going through it at the time. There are a lot of people who are deserted by their spouses. That's why The First Wives Club is proving to be so popular. Not only did those women get through it and support each other, but they also did something really political, they helped other women. We need support groups, we need each other.