PRESS NOTICE: Interviews available (Boston) December 5, (Oslo) December 9-11
For more information contact Joseph Gerson at Josephcgerson@gmail.com or 617-216-0576
Joseph Gerson, who helped to launch the nuclear weapons freeze movement of the 1980s and who has worked closely with Japanese and other atomic and hydrogen bomb witness/survivors (Hibakusha) has been invited to join the delegation of this year’s Nobel Peace Prize recipients. He will participate in the Nobel Peace Prize ceremony and other related events in Oslo Norway, December 10 & 11. (See schedule below)
Dr. Gerson, who was first invited to join the World Conference against A- & H-Bombs in Terry Rockefeller Hiroshima in 1984 following a successful Save Our Harbor campaign that blocked Pentagon efforts to transform Boston, Rhode Island, and New York harbors into nuclear weapons bases. Over the past 40 years he has led Hibakusha speaking tours across the United States, including the State House in Boston, led “Global Hibakusha” delegations to the United Nations, Europe, and has served as a keynote speaker at the World Conference against A- & H- Bombs on an annual basis.
Dr. Gerson’s book With Hiroshima Eyes: Atomic War, Nuclear Extortion, and Moral Imagination was published in 1995 on the eve of the 50th anniversary of the atomic bombings, and he served on the Historians Committee that consulted with the Smithsonian Institute amidst the controversy over its 50th anniversary exhibit about the A-bombings. He also served as the lead organizer for international conferences and rallies involving up to 25,000 people in New York on the eves of the 2010s, 2015, and 2020 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conferences and has spoken in numerous NPT PrepCom and Review side events at the United Nations in New York and Europe.
SCHEDULE IN OSLO
- December 9, noon one of four speakers, at a rally of Hibakusha, Norwegian, Japanese and other international disarmament activists and advocates
- December 10 – Noon – Nihon Hidankyo delegation member in official Nobel Peace Prize Ceremony – Oslo City Hall
- December 10 Nihon Hidankyo delegation member reviewing torchlight parade from balcony of the Grand Hotel
- December 10 – Formal banquet hosted by the King of Norway in Nihon Hidankyo’s honor. Also International Peace Bureau, as former Vice President, which repeatedly nominated Nihon Hidankyo for the Nobel Peace Prize
- December 11 – Participating in the opening of the Nobel Peace Prize Exhibition 2024 at the Nobel Peace Center
- Peace Prize Press Events Dec. 9-11
Joseph Gerson – Summary Bio: Dr. Joseph Gerson is President of the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security (CPDCS), Co-chair of the Committee for a Sane U.S.-China Policy, and former Vice-President of the International Peace Bureau, where he now serves as an advisor. He has worked closely with Nihon Hidankyo (Japan Confederation of A- & H-Bomb Sufferers Organizations) for forty years. As the Co-Convener of the Peace & Planet International Network he organized massive rallies and marches to the United Nations, as well as side events on the eves of and during Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Reviews and PrepComs. Since shortly before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine he has participated in a confidential track II process with senior arms control and national security figures from Russia, Europe, and the United States. He has also served as the Vice President of the Nobel Peace Prize recipient organization the International Peace Bureau.
Dr. Gerson educates and organizes at local, national, and international levels for peaceful and just alternatives to U.S. foreign and military Asian and European peace movements, advocates, and scholars. He formerly served the American Friends Service Committee as a Middle East specialist and Disarmament Coordinator. He was a co-founder of the United for Peace and Justice Coalition.
Joseph was a 1960s Civil Rights movement activist, a Vietnam War-era draft resister, Director of Arizonans for Peace (1969-73), Southwest field organizer for Clergy and Laity Against the Vietnam War (1971-73), Director of the War Resisters International in London and Brussels (1973-75) Peace Secretary and Director of Programs for the American Friends Service Committee’s New England and Northeast Regional Offices (1976-2020), and launched the Campaign for Peace, Disarmament and Common Security in 2017. He helped to launch the 1980s Nuclear Weapons Freeze movement and led the successful opposition to a Regan era campaign to transform Boston Harbor into a nuclear weapons base. As co-convener of the Peace & Planet International Network he organized major international civil society conferences and led international civil society mobilizations for the 2010, 2015 and 2022 Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conferences, organized Peace & Planet conferences, and coordinated peace movement planning to Second Meeting of States Parties to the Treaty for Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. He has been active in movements calling for ceasefires and peace negotiations in the Ukraine and Gaza Wars and with Indo-Pacific and European partners is currently deeply engaged in developing a common security policy resource for the Indo-Pacific region.
This past August he returned to Hiroshima and Nagasaki where he delivered a keynote speaker at the World Conference against Atomic and Hydrogen Bombs.
Dr. Gerson did his undergraduate work at Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service and received his PhD in politics and international security studies from the Union Institute and College. His books include Empire and the Bomb: How the US Uses Nuclear Weapons to Dominate the World, The Sun Never Sets…Confronting the Network of U.S. Foreign Military Bases, The Deadly Connection: Nuclear War and U.S. Foreign Military Intervention, and With Hiroshima Eyes: Atomic War, Nuclear Extortion and Moral Imagination. His articles have appeared in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Boston Globe, Eurasia Review, Common Dreams, Truthout and other publications.
The Campaign for Peace, Disarmament, and Common Security Board of Directors are: Gretchen Alther, Jim Anderson, John Crawford, Michaela Czerkies, Steve Gallant, Brian Garvey, Joseph Gerson, Gary Goldstein, Paul Joseph, Terry Rockefeller, Jerald Ross, Emily Rubino, Elaine Scarry, Mark Solomon, Paul Shannon, Mark Solomon, Paul Shannon, Michael Van Elzakker, Ann Wright