Ruth Adams

Ruth Salzman Adams an arms-control activist and a former longtime editor of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who devoted most of her life to ensuring that a broad array of scientists and scholars focused on solutions for world peace, died in February 2005 of cancer at her La Jolla home. She was 81.

"She was very interested in nuclear weapons, but also understood that the issues of poverty and development in Third World countries were as much a part of people's sense of security ... or insecurity as nuclear weapons are in the developed world," said Kennette Benedict, who succeeded Adams as director of the international peace and security program of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in Chicago.

She was survived by her husband of 51 years, Robert McC. Adams, daughters Gail Lorien, Beth Skinner, and Megan Adams.

Early life

Adams was born in Los Angeles, July 25, 1923, the older of two children. She grew up in mining camps in Nevada because of her father, a mining engineer, who, she once told the Washington Post, "was always looking for a pot of gold and never found it." He abandoned the family when she was quite young. Her mother supported Adams and her sister by becoming a rural visiting nurse in Minnesota.

She first entered the labor force in 1942 as recreation director in a wartime Oregon shipyard (and was terminated after organizing an interracial dance.

Pugwash movement

Adams was an early participant in the Pugwash peace movement, which brought together American and Soviet scientists concerned about the nuclear threat. She was the only woman present in 1957 at the first Pugwash conference in Nova Scotia, sponsored by such eminent scientists as Albert Einstein and Linus Pauling.

"She was as knowledgeable as many of the Pugwash participants, even though she was not a scientist," said Victor Rabinowitch, a friend of 50 years and chairman of Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. "She really believed in the importance of scientists in political roles. She held that view until her death -- that scientists had a unique responsibility to inform the public about the dangers of nuclear war."

In the later decades of the Cold War she "frequently had a facilitating role in maintaining the flow of policy-oriented communication and understanding on nuclear issues between senior Western and Soviet scientists".

Hyde Park peace activism

In 1962 Adams served on the Advisory Council of the Hyde Park Community Peace Centre, with Sidney Lens and Quentin Young.

Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights

In November 1967, Ruth Adams signed a Chicago Committee to Defend the Bill of Rights advertisement in the Hyde Park-Kenwood Voices opposing efforts by Senator Dirksen to re-institute the McCarran Subversive Activities Control Act of 1950.

IPS

Ruth Adams was Chair of the Institute for Policy Studies.

Service

Adams was a Fellow, American Academy of Arts and Sciences, her edited and co-edited books include works on human migrations, the anti-ballistic missile, and contemporary China. At the time of her death she was a Board member, Trust for Mutual Understanding and the Maki Foundation; and a course director and consultant to the Italian School on Disarmament and Research on Conflict (ISODARCO). Formerly she had been Program Director for Peace and International Cooperation of the John D. and Catherine T, MacArthur Foundation; and prior to that Editor, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Ruth Adams was a former Trustee, Rocky Mountain Institute, former Board member, Council for a Livable World, former Council member, Federation of American Scientists, former Executive Director or the Illinois American Civil Liberties Union, former Organizing Committee and Governing Board member of the International Centre for Insect Physiology and Ecology in Nairobi, Kenya, former Visiting Scholar, Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation, University of California, San Diego; former Board member, Women's National Forum, the Chicago Network. Her numerous awards include the Public Service Award of the Federation of American Scientists, the Adlai Stevenson Award for International Human Understanding of the United Nations Association, and the Forum on Physics and Society Award of the American Physical Society.