Jeremy Stone

Jeremy J. Stone was president of the Federation of American Scientists from 1970 to 2000, where he led that organization's advocacy initiatives in arms control, human rights, and foreign policy. In 2000, he was succeeded as president by Dr. Henry Kelly. Stone continued his work at a new organization called Catalytic Diplomacy. [Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report, [http://www.fas.org/faspir/v52n5.htm September/October 1999] ] Stone is the son of the journalist I.F. Stone.

Born in 1935, Stone studied at the Bronx High School of Science (1951-53) during which time he taught Three-dimensional chess at the New School for Social Research. [New School Bulletin, September 1, 1952] After attending MIT for one year, he graduated from Swarthmore College in June 1957. As a consultant to the RAND Corporation in the summer of 1958, he invented the Cross-Section Method of Linear Programming. [The Cross Section Method: An Algorithm for Linear Programming, Rand Corporation Paper P-1490, September 16, 1958]

He received a Ph.D. in mathematics from Stanford University in 1960 and joined Stanford Research Institute (SRI) as a research mathematician where he worked on Error Correcting Codes. [Multiple-Burst Error Correction with the Chinese Remainder Theorem, J. Soc. Industrial Appl. Math., Vol 11, No.1, March 1963] In 1962, he left SRI to work at Hudson Institute on issues of war and peace. ["Every Man Should Try": Adventures of a Public Interest Activist" (PublicAffairs, 1999), Chapter 1 ("First Thoughts on Anti-Ballistic Missile Systems")]

In 1963, he began working on an arms control proposal for preventing anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. ["Should the Soviet Union Build an Anti-Ballistic Missile System?" (March, 1963); and "Anti-ballistic Missiles and Arms Control" (December 12, 1963), Hudson Institute paper HI-314P] In 1964-1966 he was a research associate at the Harvard Center for International Affairs (CFIA) where he wrote two books: "Containing the Arms Race: Some Specific Proposals" (MIT Press, 1966) and "Strategic Persuasion: Arms Control Through Dialogue" (Columbia University Press, 1967). He taught mathematics and arms control at Pomona College from 1966-68.

In June 1970 Stone became the CEO of the Federation of American Scientists (FAS), founded in 1945 by atomic scientists as Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS). In June 1973, as a consequence of his activism in criticizing Pentagon spending practices, his name appeared as one of the 150 listed on the "enemies" list of President Nixon.

During the 30 years of Stone's stewardship, he and the Federation contributed to policy debates on the nuclear arms race, human rights, ethnic violence and civil conflict, small arms, controlling biological and chemical weapons, energy conservation, global warming, and related subjects.

Several of Stone's arms control initiatives bore fruit. According to the 2002 book "Unarmed Forces" by Matthew Evangelista, the Russians were calling the ABM Treaty "Jeremy Stone's proposal" as early as 1967. ["Unarmed Forces," Matthew Evangelista, Cornell University Press, 1999, esp. pp. 201-2 on Stone's priority in this effort to ban ABM systems] Stone designed and secured Carter Administration approval of a follow-on to SALT II ("Shrink SALT II") which was proposed in secret by President Carter at the 1979 Vienna Summit. ["Every Man Should Try", Chapter 20 ("Should SALT II Be Ratified and What Form Should SALT III Take?"); and Jimmy Carter, "Keeping Faith: Memoirs of a President" (University of Arkansas Press, 1995), pp. 248 and 251,] He invented a finesse (the Bear Hug Strategy) that may have helped to make START II possible. ["Every Man Should Try", Chapter 21 ("START Talks: The Sakharov Finesse, Stone Variety"); and "Unarmed Forces", p. 333] And he created an entirely new approach ("No One Decision-Maker") to the issue of no-first-use of nuclear weapons. ["Every Man Should Try", Chapter 10 ("The No-One-Decision-Maker Approach to No First Use of Nuclear Weapons")]

In the 1970s, Stone and FAS helped catalyze the opening of scientific exchange with China in 1972. ["Every Man Should Try", Chapter 12 ("Catalyzing Exchanges with an Ill Premier Zhou Enlai")] He persuaded the American scientific community to set up human rights committees to defend the rights of Russian scientists ["Science", January 16, 1976, "Academy versus Federation of Scientists"] and was a leading American advocate for Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, who in 1976 described Stone as "creative, articulate and brave." ["Every Man Should Try", chapters 14-16 (Defending Sakharov Through NAS and Moscow; Defense of Sakharov via Dobrynin and the Media; Would Moscow Give Sakharov to Kennedy?); the Sakharov quotation is at p. 152]

He was instrumental in stopping an illegal U.S. Government program of mail opening by the CIA. ["Science", June 27, 1975, "The CIA's Mail Cover"] He is credited with having made major contributions to changing U.S. policy on Cambodia at a time when that policy had allied the United States to the genocidal Khmer Rouge. [J. Stone, "Secret U.S. War in Cambodia", "New York Times", November 16, 1989; also, "Every Man Should Try", Chapter 24] He also waged an effective campaign to have the CIA and the KGB work together on issues of common concern. ["Every Man Should Try", Chapter 22 ("Forging a CIA-KGB Connection While Working for Neither")] And he once was assigned, by Carl Sagan, the difficult task of determining whether to warn the East Coast of the United States of a possible impending earthquake. ["Science", March 31, 1978, "East Coast Mystery Booms: A Scientific Suspense Tale" and "Every Man Should Try", Chapter 17]

In April 1999, Public Affairs Press published his memoir, "Every Man Should Try": Adventures of a Public Interest Activist", in which he documented his achievements and failures–including those noted above. (The book was published in Russian in March 2004 with an introduction by Academician Evgeny Velikhov.)

In December 1998, he led the first American scientific delegation in 20 years to Iran and, in September 1999, hosted the return visit of the Iranian Academy of Sciences. Introducing this delegation to a host of scientific organizations in Washington, including the National Academy of Sciences, led to an agreement to restart the (post-1979 revolution) Iranian-American scientific exchange. [Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report, [http://www.fas.org/faspir/v52n5.htm September/October 1999] , "FAS Breakthrough in Scientific Relations with Iran," pp. 6-7]

After resigning from the Presidency of the Federation of American Scientists on June 1, 2000, he formed the small non-profit, Catalytic Diplomacy, which has worked mainly on Cross-Straits Relations between China and Taiwan; U.S.-Russian arms control; U.S. relations with Iran; and U.S. relations with North Korea. In 2004, he catalyzed the first public visit to Iran in a quarter century of a U.S. Government official, namely that of James Billington, the Librarian of Congress. [D. Jehl, "Librarian of Congress on a Rare, Discreet Visit to Tehran," "New York Times", November 4, 2004, Section A, p. 14]

Stone has received the Science and Society Award of the Forum on Physics and Society of the American Physics Society. In June 1985, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Swarthmore College. And, in 1995, the Federation of American Scientists gave Stone its annual Public Service Award. ["FAS Award to Stone for Public Service," Federation of American Scientists Public Interest Report, [http://www.fas.org/faspir/pir0295.html January/February 1995] ]

Personal

Dr. Stone is the son of I.F. Stone and Esther Stone. He resides, with his wife B J Stone, in Somerset, MD.

Notes

References

[Alterman, Eric (January 13, 2000). [http://www.thenation.com/doc/20000131/alterman Of Scientists and Spies.] "The Nation"