One World—Is It Feasible? [1952]

After Russell debated the merits of world government with Herbert Samuel, 1st Viscount, on 22 February 1952, the recording of their discussion aired for the first time on the BBC’s General Overseas Service on 9 March 1952. It was rebroadcast on the same service the following day, when it also featured on the Pacific and North American Services. Since the First World War Russell had steadfastly maintained that a lasting and stable peace could only be achieved under a proper system of international governance. Samuel was sceptical about much more than the impediments to greater world unity posed in the short term by seemingly unbridgeable Cold War divisions. The copy-text is a transcription from a mimeograph located on microfilm at the BBC Written Archives Centre, Reading. But the revolutionary character of Russia today is the main factor in the unrest of the world, and the great source of peril to all mankind.