SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY

The very survival of the human race is now seriously endangered as never before.

This is not something abstract to be concerned about sometime in the future. It is a very tangible and present-day reality. There is nothing more important for us all to be aware of and to address urgently at this time. It has become critical to find ways to reverse the catastrophic trajectory of our world before it is too late.

With my background, education, and experience, I have concluded that there is this urgent need for a new international organization of leading experts, led by psychiatrists and other mental health professionals, to educate and advocate for humanity's survival. I say "led by psychiatrists," because my own extensive education and experience have led me to believe it is human ways of thinking, combined with psychiatric concerns, which now need to be in the forefront, as I explain in detail in this extensive proposal.

My approach is very greatly influenced by and consistent with Albert Einstein's, when he emphasized that what is needed for survival is "a new way of thinking." Einstein came forward with the leading scientists and academics of his time. Their remarkable slogan stands out. They released a book and a movie by the same name, ONE WORLD OR NONE, and The Doomsday Clock, all of which are detailed in this proposal. In a private meeting in 2018 with Nobel laureate and creator of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), Dr. Bernard Lown, who was instrumental in helping to slow the nuclear arms race in the 1980's, he told me that a greater problem than nuclear war in our day was extreme "individualism". This helped me to conclude that psychiatrists, as well as leading international experts from many disciplines who support this cause—including history, political science, sociology, and international affairs—should now be urgently leading this cause. If the problem of human psychology is solved, solutions to all other problems would follow.

SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY is to be dedicated to this single overriding task for which it is named. Literally humans throughout the world must become aware, must be quickly and intensely educated, and must become engaged in demanding that their leaders urgently change their policies and priorities. As Einstein and his scientific colleagues forcefully declared in 1946 the most urgent world priority is to build an awareness of: "One World or None." For them, and now for us, this should not be a slogan, it must now become, and quickly, an urgent imperative, and the critical theme of SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY.

I obtained my doctorate in medicine and my master's in divinity at Yale University, after which I trained at Harvard Medical School and went on to teach at Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School for 17 years, occasionally also teaching at Yale School of Public Health and Yale College. These are a few quotes from former students whom I taught: "You were the highlight of my law school education. I think of you in my practice every day"; "I invited you to speak where I am now faculty, because you are my greatest inspiration"; and "Your Global Health Studies class had the reputation of being the best at Yale College—a class no one should miss. I am honored to have been your student." Now I feel a greater urgency to "Teaching the World," which is what I and others will continually devote ourselves to doing, daily, through SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY.

For Einstein and his colleagues, the overriding issue was to bring nuclear weapons under international control to prevent their scientific discoveries from threatening mass extinction. That is the key issue, even more urgent today, that could quite literally result in humanity's total demise within hours. As Einstein also told us, with weapons of mass destruction developing so fast, he and the scientists knew that far more destructive fusion nuclear bombs would be coming if not stopped by the new United Nations (UN). He was not sure what weapons would be used to destroy humanity in World War III, but he was sure what weapons would be used in World War IV: "sticks and stones."

Today, there are four major areas of concern SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY will focus on, because they have all literally become a threat not only to human prosperity, but to humanity's survival.

• Ending the threat of nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction
• Quickly alleviating climate disaster
• Preparing for pandemic diseases
• Preventing biological weapons and Artificial Intelligence being weaponized.

This is so, because each of these threats to humanity's survival requires major rethinking, just as Einstein warned many years ago. Either we will learn to live together; to appreciate our national, religious, and cultural differences, to use human resources for the betterment of humanity in "One World" rather than mass preparations for Armageddon, or we will find his prediction of "None" to come true.

This is why in this proposal I have considerably explained how this slogan, concept, and imperative of "One World or None" began, why it has become lost in time, why it must be resurrected and vigorously advanced as the concept to which we all have to adjust our thinking and our convictions. And I will explain why I have come to believe that psychiatric issues are now of such foremost importance.

ABOUT DR. BANDY LEE:

This is a summary of my background, which partially explains why I am now determined to pursue, with all my energy, education, experience, and creativity, to establishing SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY.

I am Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a forensic and social psychiatrist, educated and trained at Yale and Harvard Universities, with a doctorate in medicine and a master's in divinity. In recent years, I became publicly known for conceiving and editing the bestselling book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump: 27 Psychiatrists and Mental Health Experts Assess a President, published by Macmillan in 2017, and for cofounding the World Mental Health Coalition, a professional organization dedicated to societal safety. I am a recognized international expert on violence prevention. My highly-acclaimed textbook, Violence: An Interdisciplinary Approach to Causes, Consequences, and Cures, published by Wiley-Blackwell in 2019, is used in universities throughout the world. After completing my training at Harvard Medical School, I taught for 17 years as a professor in the Law and Psychiatry Division of Yale School of Medicine and helped launch Yale University's Global Health Initiative as a lecturer in the Global Health Studies Program of Yale College. For 19 years, I served as director of research for the Center for the Study of Violence, based mainly at Harvard Medical School. I helped with the World Health Organization's launch of the World Report on Violence and Health in 2002, as well as its Global Status Report in 2014. I consulted with the WHO Violence and Injury Prevention Department on several projects, led a project group for the WHO Violence Prevention Alliance for years, and cofounded the Yale Violence and Health Study Group for the MacMillan Center for [International and Area Studies]. I have worked as a psychiatrist in several maximum-security prisons, treating violent offenders and consulting with the U.S. Senate and governments on policies for violence prevention and criminal justice reform in New York City, California, Pennsylvania, New York State, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Alabama, Ireland, and France. In this capacity, I co-authored a report that led to a federal investigation and initiated major reforms at New York City's Rikers Island Correctional Facility. In 2024, the governor of New York State commissioned me to help reform its 44 prisons. I have authored more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, edited 17 academic books, and written a number of public education books and over 300 opinion articles, as detailed on my website, BandyLee.com.

A September 2022 article published in Mother Jones about me was titled, "The Psychiatrist who Warned Us that Donald Trump would Unleash Violence was Absolutely Right." That same month, articles about me were written in The Independent and in the Guardian, where for the first time it was reported that White House Chief of Staff General John Kelly had secretly bought my book as a "helpful guide to a president" he also found dangerous, and it was later discovered that the book helped him divert Trump from possibly using nuclear weapons against North Korea. Another article featuring my efforts, with a picture of former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley holding my book, was published in October 2024 in Forbes. In November 2025, when appearing on the very popular Daily Beast podcast, I was introduced in this way: "You are singly the most demanded guest. People from everywhere, from Australia, to Europe, from all sorts of States, from all sorts of states in the U.S., have said, 'You need to talk to Dr. Bandy Lee.'"

The writings, media appearances, and conferences I organized, one of which was broadcast for the entire three hours on C-Span, are all detailed and linked to at my website.

Now I have decided that I have the background, the experience, the public trust, and the responsibility to establish a new international organization to be known as SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY, dedicated to the critical historic theme of: One World or None. I believe the most important thing I can devote myself to, using my knowledge about human psychology and dangerous behavior, as well as my background in social psychiatry and public health, is to help reorient society, not only in our country but worldwide, away from the self-destructive path our human race is on. That path quite literally is preparing to destroy human civilization with weapons that should never have been allowed to proliferate, must never be used, and thus must be brought under international control before it is too late. The other major dangers SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY will simultaneously have to address are, as noted, climate destruction, pandemic disease, biological weaponization, and harnessing artificial intelligence (AI), which we are already being warned could spin out of control.

I also wish to mention Mark Bruzonsky in some detail, as he has been instrumental in helping me with these conclusions and has worked with me for years on many endeavors. He would be instrumental in making this major, unprecedented, history-altering project successful.

After graduating from New York University (NYU) Law School as a prestigious Root-Tilden Scholar and Princeton University Graduate School, where he was also on complete merit scholarships covering all tuition as well as all living and travel expenses—he himself went on to accomplish historic breakthroughs in the Middle East; see his site, "History Making."

He met privately with Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and did what literally no one thought possible: convinced him to make his history-changing trip to Israel. As UN Representative of the International Student Movement for the United Nations (ISMUN), headquartered in Geneva, he visited 34 countries during those four years, and that was just the beginning. Right after his university studies, at a very different political time, Bruzonsky was asked by Nahum Goldman to be his Washington Representative of the World Jewish Congress. Goldman had founded both the World Jewish Congress and World Zionist Organization and was so prominent, that the Jewish Diaspora Museum in Israel was named for him. At that critical time in history Goldman had broken from all the established organizations as he began meeting with the leaders of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) literally desperate to get a Palestinian State established, greatly fearing what would result if this were not done then.

Shortly after coming to Washington, Bruzonsky's first book was a major overview of the Middle East published by Congressional Quarterly. A few years after that, he was commissioned by National Geographic to produce a major film-strip series about the countries in the Middle East. For ten years he wrote a unique "From Washington" column prominently published in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Pakistan, and other Middle East countries. He has written thousands of articles for many publications in many countries and has appeared on many TV programs including as live commentor for CTV during the historic White House Peace signing that brought Yitzhak Rabin and Yasser Arafat together for the first time, at which time unlike nearly all other commented he explained and predicted the agreement would fail.

He also served as special Middle East consultant for the Woodrow Wilson Center, then in the Smithsonian Castle, and In that capacity he arranged private, top-level meetings to help bring about peace in the region. After that he became Washington representative of the Goals for Americans Foundation, meeting with important Ambassadors and key people throughout Washington. He continued an illustrious career with a long list of accomplishments, personally working with personages such as Izzy Stone, David Ray Griffin, Graham McQuee, Ed Asner, Landrum Bolling, Seymour Hersh, Lee Hamilton, and many others.

Then since 2017, he became the primary consultant working with me and the World Mental Health Coalition toward the goals of societal safety and survival, and is now assisting me to with preparations for SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY.

As mentioned, in this proposal I explain why the concerns I mention have become all the more critically urgent at this time. I outline in some detail the necessary history going back to Albert Einstein and the nuclear scientists. It is vital to understand and appreciate why they immediately, following the first use of "their" bomb, with their scientific awareness of what was to come, urgently promoted this theme of One World or None with a conference, a historic book, and a short film. That is also when they at that time established the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, which quickly became known for the ominous Doomsday Clock, even though Einstein personally became worried it was not making the kind of impact he felt imperative, and it is thought urged before his death that the organization, not the concepts and the Clock, be reenergized or dissolved.

In this rest of this proposal, I outline how SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY can be established, what it will begin doing on an urgent basis, how it can quickly expand and have growing impact. SU will become in combination a novel kind of online academy, clearinghouse, meeting place, and international advocacy organization, dedicated to calling for the urgent understanding and implementation of the One World or None imperative. To be successful, I realize from the start that this effort will have to be well-funded and require quickly bringing together a collaboration among persons and organizations who share these imminent concerns and can all contribute together.

ORIGINS OF "ONE WORLD OR NONE"

"A human being is a part of a whole, called by us 'universe', a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest,... a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty.

The true measure of a human being is determined by the measure and the sense in which they have obtained liberation from the self. We will require a substantially new manner of thinking if humanity is to survive."

— Albert Einstein

Eighty years ago, immediately after World War II, the leading scientists realized they had the knowledge and the responsibility to take the lead in explaining and advocating an awareness of One World or None. The effort begun in 1946 by the nuclear scientists came about because they realized they understood best the unprecedented dangers of their scientific breakthroughs. However, their efforts quickly became sidetracked with the dawn of the "Cold War" and the very fast expansion in power and numbers, resulting in a kind of implicit legitimacy, of nuclear weapons. Indeed, the social and political situation changed so dramatically, that the man known as "the father of the atomic bomb," J.R. Oppenheimer, was himself ostracized and stripped of all positions and security clearances for increasingly warning against what was happening and unyieldingly advocating what he believed to be the One World or None imperative.

Those post-World War II efforts also lead to much academic as well as scientific and public support for enhancing the powers of the United Nations and to movements in the U.S. like the World Federalist Society, the World Without War Council, and internationally to such things as the Socialist International Movement. The basic unifying goals, made increasingly more urgent because of the rapid evolution of increasingly more destructive nuclear weapons and increasingly faster delivery systems, was to prevent nuclear war, to empower the institutions of the United Nations to resolve international issues through peaceful means and widely-accepted international law, and overall to foster a spirit of global human identity that could gradually replace the unchecked, competitive "national sovereignty" thinking.

However, it soon became evident that the San Francisco Conference that established the UN was also failing, just as had happened with the League of Nations that had been established in the aftermath of World War I at Versailles. And in fact the new atomic and then nuclear world quickly dissolved into unending proxy and regional wars often brought about by, exacerbated by, and financed and armed by, the two nuclear "superpowers", the U.S. and the U.S.S.R., in addition to lesser players including the United Kingdom and France, and then Israel, India, Pakistan, and China. As after World War I, World War II never really ended. But this time, rather than unleashing their strategic nuclear weapons on each other—the most powerful nation-states, with the U.S. in the lead, having allowed what became known as the military-industrial complex to bring about ever-growing militarization of the politics and economy of the country—began unleashing horrendous wars of destruction with sub-nuclear yet increasingly destructive "conventional" weapons on countries throughout the globe, during "the Cold War" and beyond.

Now in our time I believe psychiatrists, physicians, and other experts of human behavior have the knowledge and the responsibility to take the lead to prevent the far more catastrophic World War III, since what is at issue now is the consciousness that this should be concerning at all. World War III is casually talked about, even by top world leaders, as something to be seriously contemplated and planned. Nuclear war is discussed as something to be "won"—as if there were such a thing—than something to be avoided at all cost. Insanity is often defined as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. More than ever, we need a new way of thinking, a new mindset, if we are to be able to avert World War III and to reallocate human resources and talents away from creating weapons of destruction and toward creating shared mechanisms of collective human welfare and betterment, and—it must be realized—collective survival.

The ability to make this choice is now no longer operational but psychological and spiritual. Indeed, at this critical time when humans are threatening to become the first species in evolutionary history to bring about its own extinction, we must urgently find ways to curb humanity's drive toward conflict, confrontation, and developing and creating ever more destructive weapons and technologies that are literally thousands if not millions of times more destructive than those of World War II. The scientists of that era were already aware of what they were discovering, and they were tremendously troubled by the implications for humanity. That is why they very quickly and urgently came forward with productions under the theme, One World Or None. Einstein insisted then, as we must even more urgently now: "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive." Before he died, Einstein proclaimed his greatest mistake in life was encouraging Franklin D. Roosevelt to rush the development of atomic weapons, because he wrongly believed Germany was doing so—and then on not insisting they immediately be brought under international control when the UN was created.

In recent years, even the very establishment- and politically-connected, current-day keepers of the Doomsday Clock have moved its minutes closer to Doomsday World Cataclysm. Far its inaugural, alarmist position in 1947, when the hands were at seven minutes to midnight, it has since January 2020 been advancing in seconds rather than minutes—and as of 2026 is at 85 seconds to Midnight. Adding to this were the dangers emanating from "climate change," but also the mental instability of political leaders, as Bulletin stated in January 2018. Even so, many have criticized that it has not been moving fast enough. It had remained at 100 seconds through explosions in Eastern Europe and in the Middle East, which placed the globe in a more perilous position than ever, and it was reluctantly moved to 90 seconds, then 89, until January 2026, when under considerable criticism they tepidly moved the clock just 85 seconds to midnight.

I have myself written about this situation a number of times in the "Newsletter by Dr. Bandy X. Lee" I began four years ago. At the end of this proposal, I include a few of my most important essays, as they document the evolution of thinking and ongoing concerns that have led to my decision to dedicate myself fully to this new vision and purpose.

LOOKING BACK: Detailing the Origins of One World or None and the Doomsday Clock

In this proposal for creating SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY below is a review in more detail of the history of the One World or None movement. This is followed by an outline of how SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY can be created and quickly launched, what team of persons will be needed, what funding will be required, and what the immediate action plan will be, once funding has been obtained. One of the first steps I intend to take is to assemble a leading group of psychiatrists, social scientists, and international affairs specialists to draft what I am calling, PHYSICIANS PRESCRIPTION FOR SURVIVAL, in honor of Dr. Lown's legacy. It will be the credo of SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY and provide in succinct statement form the reasons why everyone should wish to be supportive of this undertaking and advocate this new mindset of, ONE WORLD OR NONE. Very importantly, we who are academics, intellectuals, and experts will need to adjust quickly to engage with modern technology to enable, as never before, the spread of novel and vital information in positively, rather than negatively, "viral" ways.

For more than a hundred years, leading international personalities and a few organizations have endeavored to advance an urgently needed, sustainable, and global, truly New World Order. Decade after decade, year after year, this has become more and more urgent, even as every efforts have so far miserably failed.

In our own lifetime our world itself has been transformed far more than ever before in human history in such a short time. A hundred years ago, there was no plane travel, no instantaneous international communication, no computers, and nothing human in space. There was little concept of what we know today about a universe not just of millions of stars but millions of galaxies! We also hardly imagined that there would be a whole universe at the subatomic level, as quantum physics would reveal. There was no such thing then as the Internet, not to mention smart phones, social media, and artificial intelligence. In this short period of human history, we have become a truly global, singular human race, talking and videoing instantly with anyone, anywhere, at practically no cost. With our modern-day travel and communications, we can literally traverse the world both physically and virtually every day, more than one could even imagine doing in a lifetime just a generation ago.

The same has happened with weapons of war. American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton, based on his extensive interviews of Hiroshima bombing survivors, coined the phrase, "one bomb, one city"—meant to encapsulate the devastating power of a single nuclear weapon to destroy totally an entire city. Today, literally one bomb has more destructive power than all the bombs dropped cumulatively in World War II! Many countries now have the ability to use weapons of mass destruction that were unimaginable just a few years ago. The weapons now instantly ready for cataclysmic use, along with the actual plans to use them, have the capability literally to destroy all human civilization in a matter of hours. And more and more super-fast, indestructible weapons for land, sea, air, and space, are being rushed to development. Weapons of mass destruction are now not only nuclear but biological, chemical, cyber, and artificial intelligence-propelled, as well.

Yet because of the largely unchanged ways our world is organized and governed, such ultimate acts of obliterating human civilization are actually regularly contemplated and war-gamed by national military commanders, political leaders, and even played by millions on home and pocket computers. Most war-gaming is highly classified and super-secret. But recently it has become known that the most senior military officials have stated it is their responsibility not to only prepare for nuclear war but to devise strategies to "win". It has also publicly come to light that, forty years ago, during the Reagan Administration, hundreds of military officials including the secretary of defense conducted a twelve-day nuclear war game known as "Proud Prophet." Even then, the conclusion was that, if such a war began, it would likely lead to the destruction of human civilization. The weapons and delivery systems have far advanced in the decades since. "How to win a nuclear war" gaming has become commonplace and even takes place at universities, stimulated and subsidized by the omnipresent "military-industrial complex" President Eisenhower devoted his final speech to the nation to warn against in 1961.

It is never discussed how this way of organizing and governing our world is bringing us literally to the brink of self-annihilation, how meaningless strict obedience to these plans will be if we no longer exist as a species, and how we might draw ourselves out of this "insanity". Despite the unparalleled scientific developments, the greater "connectedness" of the world community, and advanced forms of national and international government, the thinking of most national leaders and citizens about the world community and how we are governed has not progressed much at all. Instead, even at the brink of our annihilation, be it by nuclear war, climate collapse, or societal disintegration, we have not been able to adapt ourselves to a more life-affirming World Order. Valiant efforts to chart a better course have been made along the way, but they have faltered because of the failure to restructure the world in a way that allows for our collective psyche, in our profound tendency for self-destruction, to change. It is worth reexamining historic efforts, in order to learn from their mistakes and to apply them to our current situation.

At the end of World War I, "The War to end all Wars", the Paris Peace Conference of 1919 stands as a stark reminder of our failures. Key persons involved resigned, refusing to even attend the signing. Woodrow Wilson's feeble talk about democracy and self-determination dwindled into the formation of a fragile, colonialist-endorsing League of Nations, which was doomed from its inception. Even that the United States refused to join. Instead of achieving the promised peace, the conference that ended WW I deepened Europe's fractures, setting country against country once again.

British novelist Henry James wrote about and foresaw the unstable forces roiling across Europe that would soon spiral into World War II.

In the Middle East, the false boundaries of a neo-colonial "Mandates" system would unleash tremendous bloodshed and conflict to the region, as Egyptian author Naguib Mahfouz powerfully depicted in fictional works such as Cairo Trilogy. Instead of ending wars, the Versailles Conference and the League of Nations instigated and hastened World War II, which would erupt in less than two decades, as immortalized in David Fromkin's The Peace to End All Peace and Margaret MacMillian's brilliant book, Paris 1919: Six Months that Changed the World.

The failure of the League of Nations led inexorably to the eruption of an even more catastrophic World War II, during which the once basic distinction between military and civilian targets dissolved. By its conclusion, the advent of nuclear weapons led to even louder calls for the end of international warfare. Yet, the machinery of war—now more powerful and insidious than ever—proved unstoppable. At the founding conference of the United Nations in San Francisco, John F. Kennedy attended as a journalist, while Cord Meyer, a visionary junior member of the American Delegation, wrote that the goal was to forge "a genuine federation of the nations so they would not be free to make war, but would be subordinate to a higher law."

Throughout the early years of the twentieth century, there had already begun considerable social and political thinking about how to reorganize nations into a viable and sustainable international community. Scientific breakthroughs leading to ever more destructive weapons of war, along with new means of international travel and communication, were all coming together to bring about new urgency and new ways of considering the world's social and political arrangement. Indeed, revolutions in thinking about means of governance were reflected in movements for Socialism, Communism, International Law, World Federalism, and Universal Human Rights. Whereas these gained adherents, all were eventually undermined, blocked, and pushed under, because no comparable structure was established to match the ever-expanding military-industrial complex that that now included Congress, much of the media, and even universities.

An important early example in the United States was Wendell Willkie, a leading political figure who had been the Republican presidential candidate against FDR in 1940. With World War II underway, he wrote a book dubbed, "The Best Seller of Our Time," and titled, ONE WORLD. Long forgotten now, on the back of this book was the following summary under the title, "Around The World in 49 Days":

"In ONE WORLD Wendell Wilkie gives a highly personal account of his meetings with Stalin, Chaing Kai-shek, General Montgomery, General Chennault and other United Nations leaders. He tells of his talks with prime ministers and kings, and with teachers, soldiers, librarians, factory workers, and farmers around the world. He reports a great awakening that is going on among the peoples of the world and his deep conviction that the United Nations must learn to work together after the war is over."

Just a few years later, fearing the new destructive scientific capabilities they themselves had brought into being, the remarkable development I have referred to took place. In 1946, the year after the first use of nuclear weapons and the creation of the United Nations, the greatest nuclear scientists, including Einstein, and Oppenheimer, and H.H. Arnold, as well as other distinguished personalities such as Walter Lippmann, came together urgently and vehemently to propose that it had become essential to outlaw the atomic weapons already-existing atomic weapons, and the far more destructive nuclear weapons they knew were now possible to create. They boldly proclaimed humanity must no longer tolerate international war. They gathered together to promote their concerns at a conference that led to a major book and a short, ten-minute movie. Both were titled, ONE WORLD or NONE.

This should have been the start of a sustained and growing international movement demanding a true New World Order. Indeed, the very month after atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities, Einstein personally spoke out boldly:

"As long as nations demand unrestricted sovereignty, we shall undoubtedly be faced with still bigger wars, fought with bigger and technologically more advanced weapons.... The most important task of intellectuals is to make this clear to the general public and to emphasize over and over again the need to establish a well-organized world government... The only salvation for civilization and the human race lies in the creation of a world government, with security of nations founded upon law."

He was speaking of a more democratic, and thus an increasingly just and equal arrangement of human civilization. The post-World War II efforts that garnered much intellectual as well as scientific support for the UN, including the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists and the Doomsday Clock, had as their basic unifying goal—now made much more urgent because of the rapid evolution of more and more destructive nuclear weapons and delivery systems—to prevent nuclear war. The world was to empower the institutions of the UN to resolve international issues through peaceful means and international law, and to foster a spirit of a global human community that could gradually replace the competitive, "national sovereignty" thinking.

But instead such thinking got quickly sidetracked and nearly lost to history, as what became known as the Cold War erupted. The old thinking and thinkers retained and in fact greatly enhanced their power. And the embryonic United Nations went through a long series of tests, ultimately to prove grossly conceptually and structurally inadequate. Although atomic weapons have not been used since World War II, and thermonuclear weapons have never been deployed, the world has come perilously close to nuclear devastation at least a dozen times. We cannot afford to keep pushing our luck. Furthermore, the expenditures on nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction have continued to escalate into absurd amounts and dimensions. Many of the world's most thoughtful scientists, intellectuals, political leaders, and journalists have warned that we are now much closer than ever to a catastrophic outbreak of World War III.

After years of research and personally meeting with many of the most senior military and political persons who were intimately involved in the concept of "Mutual Assured Destruction" ("MAD"), investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen has written a chilling and an extraordinarily insightful book, Nuclear War: A Scenario. Her work powerfully dramatizes our current predicament, where in minutes fear, accident, "miscalculation", or "misjudgment" could lead to total destruction of our world. The terrifying and absurd weapons now hang over civilization like an omnipresent Sword of Damocles. The Wall Street Journal writes about this book: "Annie Jacobsen gives us a vivid picture of what could happen if our nuclear guardians fail.... Terrifying."

I consider myself extremely fortunate to have met with Dr. Bernard Lown in the years before his death in 2021. Dr. Lown was already world-renowned for inventing the heart defibrillator when, in 1980, at the height of the Cold War, he decided that he and his medical colleagues must act urgently to prevent nuclear disaster. He felt the need to get the message out that no medical care would be of use after a nuclear war, since nearly all advanced life forms would have perished. He founded Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and later the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), which grew to 135,000 members in sixty countries within five years and won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1985. When I met with him, he gave me a copy of what I consider an extraordinarily important book, Prescription for Survival: A Doctor's Journey to End Nuclear Madness.

Even before the end of World War II, a quite remarkable coalition of publishers including Simon & Schuster, Doubleday Doran & Company, Keynal & Hitchcock, and Columbia University Press, all came together to publish PREFACES TO PEACE. This title refers to a symposium in which they reprinted four major books, starting with Wendell Wilkie's ONE WORLD; and including THE PROBLEMS OF LASTING PEACE by Herbert Hoover and Hugh Gibson; THE PRICE OF FREE WORLD VICTORY by Henry Wallace; and BLUE-PRINT FOR PEACE by Sumner Welles. As the back cover of the book boldly states:

"The ideas that have been advanced about the post-war world up to this time by American political leaders have been put into a single volume for the consideration of all thoughtful citizens."

In 1947 Albert Einstein wrote, quite possibly in desperation, a remarkably bold and insightful public open letter to the General Assembly of the United Nations which began with these words:

"As I see it, this is the way for the nations of the world to break the vicious circle which threatens the continued existence of mankind, as no other situation in human history has ever done. We are caught in a situation in which every citizen of every country, his children, and his life's work, are threatened by the terrible insecurity which reigns in our world today. The progress of technological development has not increased the stability and the welfare of humanity. Because of our inability to solve the problem of international organization, it has actually contributed to the dangers which threaten peace and the very existence of mankind."

Einstein concluded what should be considered this historic letter saying:

"The United Nations now and world Government eventually must serve one single goal, the guarantee of the security, tranquility, and the welfare of all mankind."

Other major world figures in history that were known for associating themselves with Einstein's call for a totally "new way of thinking," in order to avoid the Doomsday Clock from striking midnight are Bertrand Russell, Jean-Paul Sartre, Simone de Beauvoir, and Buckminster Fuller, among others.

Many years later, in 1993, Stanford University Press published—after years of painstaking research, and opening with Einstein's quote "A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive"—Lawrence S. Wittner published a book titled, ONE WORLD OR NONE: a History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement Through 1953, with subsequent volumes. Some twenty years before Professor Richard Falk at Princeton published the book, THIS ENDANGERED PLANET: Prospects for Human Survival, focusing on the imperative of international law and Einstein's challenge to humanity. In the recent 2023 centennial edition of the Council on Foreign Relations Foreign Affairs quarterly, this book was singled out to be awarded the recognition of being one of the six most important books about international affairs published in the last century.

Now in 2026 we are even closer to the precipice of human disaster. The extreme dangers of nuclear, biological, and space warfare continue to escalate, while global earth climate destruction threatens in very visible ways, no longer a distant, future concern. And the risk of global pandemics is greater than ever, and scientists developing artificial intelligence have raised alarms about the dangers of their own discoveries, much like the atomic scientists of the past.

Even if our world avoids the worst outcomes, humanity must urgently unite its combined knowledge, expertise, and resources to address these supreme dangers. In doing so, we have within our grasp peace, prosperity, and a dramatically-improved quality of life. This was a key lesson from our work at the World Health Organization: when we take a scholarship-based, public health approach to violence prevention, we not only reduce violence but enhance life in virtually all dimensions. Yet, instead of embracing this path, we are increasingly dividing ourselves, viciously vilifying each other while expending ever greater amounts of human resources and talent to develop ever greater means of destruction that sooner or later, if not contained and reversed, will inevitably bring about human-made global catastrophe.

In today's situation, we cannot wait for another World War to create the imperative for a truly new and rational New World Order. In the past, atomic scientists led the charge. Now, it is the time for experts in human psychiatry, social science, and international affairs to take the lead. Now, especially psychiatrists and healers of the mind must try in essence to heal the world, mentally as well as physically, because if we do not, we face the catastrophic outcome foreseen in ONE WORLD OR NONE and the Doomsday Clock.

As Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung stated in his book, This Symbolic Life:

"Indeed, it is becoming ever more obvious that it is not famine, not earthquakes, not microbes, not cancer but man himself who is man's greatest danger to man, for the simple reason that there is no adequate protection against psychic epidemics, which are infinitely more devastating than the worst of natural catastrophes. The supreme danger which threatens individuals as well as whole nations is a psychic danger. Reason has proved itself completely powerless, precisely because its arguments have an effect only on the conscious mind and not on the unconscious.... It is therefore in the highest degree desirable that a knowledge of psychology should spread so that men can understand the source of the supreme dangers that threaten them. Not by arming to the teeth, each for itself, can the nations defend themselves in the long run from the frightful catastrophes of modern war. The heaping up of arms is itself a call to war. Rather must they recognize those psychic conditions under which the unconscious bursts the dykes of consciousness and overwhelms it."

This is why I have called our era, "the Psychological Age," analogous in importance to "the Atomic Age"—because now the collective survival of our species depends on the mastering of our own minds.

That is the great raison d'etre and motivation for creating the new organization to be known as SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. Our statement of principles, Prescription for Survival, which be our short, succinct but powerful statement of purpose. Our overall theme will be the imperative that survival itself now requires bringing about the new mindset inherent in the ONE WORLD OR NONE thinking. And the new organization will also establish and become known for what we will call, "THE REAL DOOMSDAY CLOCK," one not manipulated and controlled by political, financial, and national interests—which will more likely be at 35 seconds, rather than 85. Hence, the purpose of this project is to demonstrate that, when we face facts and truth, knowledge can be a guide to finding effective solutions for the most overwhelming problems.

LOOKING AHEAD: Plan for Involving Psychiatrists and Physicians in GLOBAL SURVIVAL

We also plan to have what I am calling a PHYSICIANS' MANIFESTO, which will be in effect a modern-day update to the Hippocratic Oath and to the expansion made after World War II known as the Declaration of Geneva. This new PHYSICIANS' MANIFESTO will of course incorporate the goals of SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY, detailing that psychiatrists and physicians now have to realize they must in fact treat collective social and mental diseases, going far beyond individuals—and to do so with the help of social scientists and international affairs experts. In a very real sense, we medical people must recognize and treat what are very much like mass psychosis at times, abuse by unfit leaders at others, and the extreme dangers arising from unchecked and extreme national sovereignty, which is the enormously dangerous opposite of the urgent awareness of One World or None. The reason for this is that the basic theme for psychiatrists and all physicians today should be not only be to "do no harm" but to "heal the world" of the harm already taking place and deeply ingrained, before it is too late. Among its purposes, this Manifesto is to give physicians around the world, at this time of the Doomsday Clock's advancement, a statement of purpose that meets the needs of our time. Then we must give them a sense that they are joining a potent and effective new worldwide movement of medical professionals that will fill the gap that has caused us to be in our current predicament. We must offer a compelling new home, a bold new organization, and a fast-paced strategy and action plan that will allow us all together to create a meaningful, effective, and sustainable organization that can also have fast-growing outreach and impact to fill a much-needed, critically necessary, role. So in this section of this proposal I will now outline:

• How will we establish SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY?
• Why this PHYSICIANS MANIFESTO is so important
• What will our activities and strategy be to make it known and quickly to attract support
• What persons will be needed to bring into the organization in what capacities
• What amount of start-up funding will be initially required
• Once established after initial funding for six months, to which foundations, organizations, individuals we can appeal to for ongoing funding, allowing for very fast expansion and impact.

Once we have the organizational concept of SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY and the associated PHYSICIAN'S MANIFESTO ready, we need a realistic strategy to quickly be able to publicize and promote it. We need to be able to get psychiatrists and other physicians in the U.S. and worldwide to know about it, to want to endorse it, and to want to associate with it.

FUNDING: To get this organization started in a serious and fast-paced way we will need start-up funds for the first six months of $550,000. Let me detail what we will begin doing as soon as start-up funding is available. Then properly established and underway, soon into our first year we will begin applying for foundation grants and maybe for some major medical school and university affiliations. This is a major undertaking, by far the greatest I have ever undertaken in my life, and it must be pursued with unyielding and persistent determination, speed, and credibility. I have already begun to assemble noted physicians, including many of the most eminent psychiatrists who I know personally, whom will be enthusiastic about helping endorse this new organization. But we academics and medical people do not have the kind of funds and organizational know-how needed to launch this effort in a major way—we are not, to be candid, financial people, for that we have to turn to others who are. The steps I will immediately begin taking once start-up funding is secured include:

• Properly established the organization with the help of a notable attorney and accountant
• Apply for tax-exempt status
• Have a professional website designer make a most attractive website which can also facilitate easy communications and quickly evolve and expand.
• Create what I term an activist six person Board of Directors, initially six persons. By activist I mean these persons will each take on specific assignments and report weekly to the Board what they have done and accomplished.
• Create an International Advisory Board which in addition to medical persons will include notable academics, journalists, scientists, and public officials known for sharing our concerns. I expect these persons will also be able to help us quickly find key additional international persons who will want to join with us.
• Design a plan of action and hire a small team of six people who can carry it out with distinct responsibilities.
• Begin holding regular virtual meetings with the Advisory Board to get their input, ideas, criticisms, and build a fast-paced working organization.
• Among those persons I will hire will be a key person to contact and meet with persons at Medical Schools and Universities to get them involved and a key media person to help us build a strategy for getting both traditional and social media attention.
• Begin a substack publication and podcast specially devoted to the theme of ONE WORLD OR NONE and promoting Physicians Worldwide. Though we will be led by physicians we will welcome the participation and involvement of many other persons including journalists, academics, politicians, and persons retired from their professions who realize the critical importance of the goals of Physicians Worldwide and the imperative to promote the One World Or None mindset.
• Begin preparations for a new book for worldwide distribution, in free pdf form as well as traditional print form, with the same theme as the original book published by Einstein, Oppenheimer and the other nuclear scientists 80 years ago.

PERSONNEL: In today's world there is no need for physical office with all the expenses that involves. Right from the start I will assemble a small dedicated team of a few key persons to work with me on contacting physicians, working with media, contacting universities, and development of a truly world-class website which will be the most go-to place in the world for everything to know, past and present, about One World or None from its origins to its new resurgence. Once we have an impressive start, we may be in a position to have professional fundraising persons fund-raising person who is also a notable and respectable physician well-connected with foundations and philanthropists.

EDUCATION and MEETINGS MOSTLY ONLINE: Unlike the past when for instance One World or None was born in 1946, and when Bernard Lown established his Nobel Prize Winning organization in 1980, we now live in a world quite unimaginable at that time. Ours is a world of instant information, communications, with everyone literally reachable all the time by cellphone, zoom, and conferencing. Businesses and news organizations have understood this and totally adjusted to this new world already some years ago. It's hard to believe that the internet was born, albeit in far more primitive fashion, less than 30 years ago; that we have only had advanced smart cellphones for little more than a decade; and that the first version of Zoom only became available 13 years ago. Just look at the impact of Facebook, Google, TikTok, Amazon, and online podcasts and novel news organizations on our lives.

Republish the book ONE WORLD OR NONE in a new form with information about SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY for publication in many countries and languages.

Physicians Worldwide will organize from the start realizing that things can be done today in hours and days that previously took weeks, months, and years; that online advertising and promotions can reach literally millions of people in days; that "influencers" and quick-thinking people and organizations can use social media to reach vast numbers of people quite quickly. Academics, like myself, have previously thought of in-person meetings and symposium organized many months in advance, attended by small numbers of people, and involving considerable planning and travel costs. Now, in most cases, our meetings and symposium will be on line with "virtual" becoming the norm rather than the exception. Not only will this mean a tremendous savings in time and costs, it will greatly facilitate people becoming involved if what we will be doing is shown to be very important, timely, and in fact unique. While once and awhile the key people in Physicians Worldwide will meet in person, as personal contact and relations remain of special importance for such persons, most of our work and contacts will be done quickly, easily, and inexpensively "virtually". For nearly everyone involved in Physicians Worldwide the norm will be all information at the website, all meetings online.

Indeed, ONE WORLD or NONE will become known as the driving theme of SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. become something of an online University. Our website should quickly become the most important source of not only information about One World or None but in this age of the internet a regular meeting place for like-minded concerned persons worldwide. Once we have initial funding, we need a realistic strategy to quickly be able to publicize and promote it. We need to be able to get psychiatrists and other physicians in the U.S. and worldwide to know about it, to want to endorse it, and to want to associate with it.

With regard to funding, let me mention a few things for perspective that have come to my attention. When Mehdi Hassan independently began Zeteo a few years ago he raised $4 million to do so. When also a few years ago Tucker Carlson began TCN, he first raised $16 million. I and my colleagues are independent academic, intellectual, and public service persons who are not familiar with such kinds of fund-raising and have never done so in this way before. But we strongly believe SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY is far more urgent and by far more deserving that what these persons are doing. Furthermore, the once but no longer independent keeper of the Doomsday Clock, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists which claims to be following in the steps of Einstein and Oppenheimer, would in fact today be denounced by them for being so ineffective. It has become a very establishment organization controlled by the State Department (where the current President spent her career), the Council on Foreign Relations (where the past President spent much of her career), and behind-the-scenes the Democratic Party. With a considerable yearly budget of more than $4 million all we get are some admittedly interesting articles, many well-paid bureaucrats who fit right into today's Washington, a few minimally attended meetings few people even know about, and the Doomsday Clock announcement, which this year actually ended early as they ran of largely unknown journalists asking mostly supportive and boring questions.

Let me detail what we will begin doing as soon as start-up funding is available for SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. Once properly established and underway, we will begin applying for foundation grants and maybe for some major medical school and university affiliations. This is a major undertaking, the greatest I have ever undertaken in my life, and it must be pursued with unyielding and persistent determination, speed, and credibility. I have already begun to assemble noted physicians, including many of the most eminent psychiatrists who I know personally, whom I believe will be enthusiastic about helping endorse and support SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. But we academics and medical people do not have the kind of funds and organizational know-how needed to launch this effort in a fast and major way -- we are not, to be candid, financial people and organization people, for that we have to turn to others who are. That also goes for younger social media people whom we must engage.

Unlike the past when for instance One World or None was born in 1946, and when Bernard Lown established his Nobel Prize Winning organization in 1980, we now live in a world quite unimaginable at those times. Ours is a world of instant information, communications, with everyone literally reachable all the time by cellphone, WhatsApp, Zoom, and conferencing. Businesses and news organizations have understood this and have quickly adjusted to this new world already beginning to do so some years ago. It's hard to believe that the internet was born, albeit in far more primitive fashion, 30 years ago, that we have only had advanced smart cellphones for about a decade, and that the first version of Zoom only became available 14 years ago. Just look at the impact of Facebook, Google, TikTok, Amazon, online podcasts, and novel news organizations now have on our lives!

SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY will organize from the start realizing that things can be done today in hours and days that previously took weeks, months, and years; that online advertising and promotions can reach literally millions of people in days; that "influencers" and quick-thinking people and organizations can use social media to reach vast numbers of people quite quickly, if done right in "viral" ways. Academics, like myself, have previously thought of in-person meetings and symposium organized many months in advance, attended by small numbers of people, and involving considerable planning and travel costs. Now, in most cases, our meetings and symposium will be on line with "virtual" becoming the primary norm rather than the exception. Not only will this mean a tremendous savings in time and costs, it will greatly facilitate people becoming involved if what we will be doing is shown to be very important, timely, and in fact unique. While once and awhile the key people will meet in person, as personal contact and relations remain of significant importance, nearly all of our work and contacts will be done quickly, easily, and inexpensively "virtually". For nearly everyone involved the norm will be all information very well organized and constantly updated at the website, all meetings online.

Indeed, we are calling our efforts from the start a modern-day online University with the theme of ONE WORLD or NONE. Our website must become the most important worldwide source of not only information about One World or None but in this age of the internet a regular meeting place in many ways for like-minded concerned persons worldwide.

HOW SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY WILL LAUNCH IN A UNIQUELY MAJOR WAY

The urgency of the need to project SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY and the ONE WORLD OR NONE theme in a very major way very quickly means we have to do something unprecedented and unique. Modern internet technology makes that possible as does social media which can be used to spread new ideas and information very quickly....to even make things "go viral" as the slogan goes. To make this happen, as soon as funding makes possible, we will have to hire key persons, many of them young and adept known as influencers and podcasters, who are adept at using and spreading things via social media.

The first major thing we we will have these persons do is help us prepare a very dramatic and far-reaching launch event for SURVIVAL UNIVERSITY. To do this different staff people will have different responsibilities including:

• Contact Universities throughout the US and Canada to especially get professors of political science, psychiatry, economics, sociology and their student to join on-line the SU Launch event.
• Contact think-tanks and civil organizations about SU and also to join on-line on SU Launch Day
• Contact C-Span as well as major on-line broadcasters and broadcasters to get their involvement and coverage.
• Contact universities, think-tanks, civil organizations, and organizations in Europe, Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Latin-America, African-Asian just as other persons will be doing in the US/Canada

Our thinking about such a major event is just beginning. To make this as professional and enticing as possible, we will need to hire an excellent organization with a proven success record of organizing major on-line international events. The main live event may take place in the Ballroom of the National Press Club in Washington, DC where I have organized three major events on other themes in recent years, including one thought to be so important it was broadcast on C-span for the entire three hours.

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TWO ESSAYS WRITTEN by Bandy Lee in 2024

HUMANITY MARCHING TOWARD COLLECTIVE SUICIDE?

J. Robert Oppenheimer made this scorpion in a bottle statement a long time ago. He did so in 1950 when our world was still at the dawn of the nuclear age he had played such a unique role in creating, and of the "Cold War" he had tried so desperately to prevent. The year before, the Soviet Union had much faster than expected exploded its first atomic bomb and as a result President Truman had tasked Oppenheimer to rush to build nuclear bombs that he knew would be immensely more devastating. How and why Oppenheimer refused resulting in his being severely ostracized and threatened by our own government and much of the media, how and why he then fled his comfortable Princeton home taking himself and his family into exile in a remote location in the Virgin Islands where he thought they might survive nuclear war, is such a compelling story for us all to ponder, as well as such a commentary about how far our whole world has regressed.

Now, 74 years later, the situation Oppenheimer so hauntingly feared then has escalated far beyond what even he could have imagined would come to be. There are now many super scorpions, each with weapons of far greater destructive capability, in far greater numbers, deliverable in far faster and multiple unstoppable ways. The Doomsday Clock Oppenheimer, Einstein, and their leading scientist colleagues had inaugurated a few years earlier before he made this Scorpion Statement is now far closer to Midnight Armageddon than ever before.

So what do I and my professional psychiatric colleagues conclude about this predicament of humanity that is consuming our own lives constantly threatening what I have taken to terming "Ultimate Violence"? And what can we professional psychiatrists advocate be done now to avert the looming "Ultimate Violence" and reverse the Doomsday Clock before it is too late?

Let's go right to the heart of the situation. There is something terribly wrong with the way our world is organized, with how it is so badly governed, with how humanity's resources are so foolishly and grossly inequitably misallocated for war and destruction rather than for human advancement and protection. The overall conclusion I am led to is that there is something very wrong with our collective human consciousness, with our collective mental health. Such awareness, such phrasing, is quite a conceptual and professional leap I realize, but yes I am jumping to the conclusion that there is a kind of collective mental illness contagion that has both infected and entrapped humanity, like the scorpions in Oppenheimer's bottle, and that the time has come to face this reality and desperately try to extricate ourselves. The task is indeed cosmic but I further conclude it is the most urgent and vitally important imperative of our times. The task is nothing less than to help our own leading country, and all of humanity, find a way to achieving a new more sane collective mental health in order to survive and prosper.

When it comes to international affairs, the United Nations, still in its infancy when Oppenheimer viewed the future so ominously, has been a tragic failure. The "One World Or None" new way of thinking that Oppenheimer, Einstein, and the other leading scientists urgently advocated as their collective prescription to prevent eventual Doomsday has been so tragically misunderstood, all too forgotten, even discredited. Rampant unchecked nationalism and unbounded super dangerous "national sovereignty", have in many crucial ways expanded totally out of control, maddeningly disregarding the extreme costs and risks now involved. Our own country, we have to understand and admit, is considerably responsible for this now desperate state of affairs.

For Oppenheimer and his colleagues, the looming Doomsday clock danger resulting from the nuclear discoveries they had made and which had so quickly led to the immediate use of the new horrendous atomic weapon of mass destruction, became the central focus of their lives. Rather than pursuing applications of their discoveries for human advancement and betterment, the opposite resulted. Now there is more danger on a much vaster scale, much more. The failure of the United Nations and the "One World Or None" sanity have also led humanity to impending climate destruction as well as increasing dangers of worldwide pandemics and most recently potentially killer artificial intelligence. All of these Doomsdayish dangers are now racing ahead out of control with applications designed for human destruction rather than betterment. The highly educated, best trained, and most experienced experts among us in all of these disciplines have been warning about these now multiple escalating dangers for some time. But humanity has resisted all pleas, the scientific facts, and even the observable evidence. Humanity seems to be engaged in a kind of collective mental denial, even derangement, that has furthered the now multiple reasons for having to conclude that the Doomsday clock is ticking unchecked louder and faster.

Indeed in our country nearly all of our political leaders as well as the "mainstream" corporate media are responsible for the predicament we are in. It's not a conscious collective suicidal death-wish. It's not an unconscious one either. Those responsible for bringing about this situation, who are also those who should be responsible for leading the way to reversing the hands of the Doomsday Clock, instead keep denying we are actually in the situation we are in and keep trying to convince us all, as well as themselves it seems, that their ways are leading to salvation while in reality their ways are provoking, encouraging, and nurturing increasingly destructive conflicts. There is a collective inability, for multiple reasons, to focus on the truly important matters in a serious and rational way commensurate with the magnitude of the dangers. Indeed, rather than supporting the course we are on we should all be condemned it and demanding major changes.

These are all the reasons that after considerable study and anguish I have come to conclude that there are psychological and collective mental health reasons that help explain what I will keep calling our predicament. And if this is true then we have to apply psychological and mental health understanding and prescriptive therapies to save us from Doomsday.

The Russians are actually warning about how they might be provoked by threats against them into using tactical nuclear weapons or how the situation with NATO could even accidentally escalate out of control. The Americans are claiming such warnings are bogus and irresponsible, and yet they and their allies are actually rushing to prepare for just such a possible outcome despite continual however bogus claims of their own that that is not what they are doing. And even though the two primary scorpions remain, as in Oppenheimer's time the U.S. and Russia, today the possibility of a nuclear war either by decision or accident erupting inaugurated by other countries in the world may even be greater -- India, Pakistan, North Korea, China, Israel.

Back to the bottom line: Our national and international institutions are seriously failing and grossly endangering us all. That includes our universities and our media. It also includes those who have taken over once independent institutions including the official "Doomsday Clock" which I have written about before. It took the official gatekeepers, now dominated by big money, corporate and political interests, and the Council on Foreign Relations, from January 2020 to January this year to even move the clock ahead another 1/10th of the previous setting at 100 seconds to Midnight. Those who read my writing may remember that earlier this year I explained why the Clock should have already been moved to 60 seconds and more recently to 50 seconds.

So what should be the rational and psychologically most healthy way of approaching today's situation? That comes next in Part 2.

URGENTLY NEEDED - A NEW FOREIGN POLICY TO AVOID WORLD WAR III

"US foreign policy is based on an inherent contradiction and fatal flaw. The aim of US foreign policy is a US-dominated world... Unless US foreign policy is changed to recognize the need for a multipolar world, it will lead to more wars, and possibly World War III."

With this ominous introduction my esteemed colleague Professor Jeffrey Sachs opens his recent article titled The Need for a New US Foreign Policy.

In this article Sachs provides a short, to-the-point, overview of the current moment in history, rightly focusing on the urgent need for major changes in US thinking and policies, and also on the critical US-China relationship.

The very fact that there is so much talking, writing, and actual planning these days about "nuclear war" and "World War III" should in itself cause us to totally rethink how we have gotten into what I have come to call a "death spiral" and what we need to do, and to do urgently, to get out of it.

Time has nearly run out. Months ago I stated that the Doomsday Clock, ticking away toward Armageddon Midnight, should in my judgement be moved from 90 to 60 seconds. Now I believe it should be advanced further to 50 seconds.

Underlying Sachs' analysis is the tragic reality that the major movements since the two World Wars in the last century, followed by the Cold War and the many devastating Proxy Wars that have ensued -- movements to bring the world under control, to create a respected and empowered United Nations, to outlaw nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction, to move our world toward disarmament and away from Armageddon -- these all have failed.

We humans are now facing "Ultimate Violence", possibly even civilizational extinction, what the Christian fanatics prophesize as the "End of Days". We are on the threshold. And in our own country, the country most responsible for leading the world to this point since we have been the self-proclaimed greatest and "exceptional" country, our political and economic systems have failed us, our leaders have failed us, our leadership as the world's dominant country has betrayed us and human kind overall.

We need Jeffrey Sachs and others among our most learned and accomplished economists, political scientists, and psychiatrists, to be empowered in Washington as key advisers to our political leaders who have not only so badly failed us but are leading us all toward the Ultimate Violence from which there will be no recovery this time.