Catalytic Diplomacy for Peace: Lessons Learned from the Half Century of Experience of Two Swarthmore Graduates
Jeremy J. Stone ‘57 Swarthmore College, Honorary Doctor of Laws for peace activities ’85 and B.J. Stone, ’57
On April 19, 2016, Dr. Jeremy Stone spoke to approximately 150 students in Science Center Room 101 at Swarthmore College*
Creative ideas, pursued with personal diplomacy through political structures, can make a real difference to peace and conflict. Stone will reference successes and failures. These include inventing five tabled Washington-Moscow Summit arms control proposals. They also include: catalytic undertakings in initiating scientific exchange with China, Vietnam and Iran; efforts to end the Cambodian civil war; stabilizing the conflict between Mainland China and Taiwan; defending human rights in Russia and Constitutional rights in America; and a series of failures to reverse current American doctrine on first use of nuclear weapons.
Dr. Jeremy J. Stone graduated from Swarthmore College in 1957 before going on to complete a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University. After holding positions at the Hudson Institute, the Harvard Center for International Affairs (CFIA), and Pomona College, he became the CEO of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS)–founded in 1945 as the Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS)– which focused on policy related to the nuclear arms race, human rights, ethnic violence and civil conflict, small arms, controlling biological and chemical weapons, energy conservation, global warming, and other related subjects.
Through what Stone calls “catalytic diplomacy” and with the assistance of his wife, B.J. Stone ’57, they shaped a range of negotiations over nuclear weapons during the Cold War, played a key role in renewing scientific exchange with U.S. and China (1972) and U.S. and Iran (1999), and worked to contain super-Maoist movements in North Korea, Cambodia and Peru, among other topics.
Swarthmore College awarded Dr. Stone an Honorary Doctor of Laws degree in 1985 for his career pursuing peace as a public interest activist. He is the author of two books on arms control: Containing the Arms Race: Some Specific Proposals (MIT Press, 1966) and Strategic Persuasion: Arms Limitations Through Dialogue (Columbia University Press, 1967) as well as two memoirs: Every Man Should Try: Adventures of a Public Interest Activist (Public Affairs Press, 1999) and Catalytic Diplomacy: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran.
Dr. Jeremy Stone ’57 lecturing, in June, 1979, to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on the arms limitation treaty called SALT II. The Senators from left to right are: Charles Percy, Jacob Javits, Frank Church, George McGovern, and Joseph Biden.
Dr. Jeremy Stone ’57 and his wife, B.J. Stone ’57, in 1972, negotiating, after dinner, with Prime Minister Zhou En-lai of the People’s Republic of China in 1972–a month after relations with Communist China were opened by President Nixon.
Sponsored by the Program in Peace and Conflict Studies and Catalytic Diplomacy
(*The video above is a re-recording of the lecture Dr. Stone delivered at Swarthmore College.)
Three students – Jonathan Emont ’12, Lorand Laskai ’13, and James Mao ’12 – provided essential research assistance.