I first saw Joseph Rotblat in Oslo in 2001. He was on stage with most of the living Nobel Peace Prize Laureates for a CNN Special on the Centennial of the Nobel Prize. He was the oldest in the group, and slight of build. I believe he was 93 at the time. When the microphone was coming around to him, I expected to strain a bit listening to him speak, the way you exercise a little extra patience and tolerance in talking to grandparents. I couldn't have been more wrong. I didn't know at the time that I was listening to the last surviving professional associate of Albert Einstein. I just knew that when he took the microphone and started talking about US nuclear policy and its effect on the world, I and the rest of the audience were riveted. When he stopped, I felt that rush of energy and excitement you get when a speaker just knocks you off your chair. Most of the living Nobel Peace Prize Laureates were on stage with him. When he was finished talking, for all of us, he was one of the shining stars. The following year I heard him again, at the Nobel Laureates' Summit in Rome in November. Once again, his speech had such an impact on me that I wrote to his office afterwards and asked for a transcript so I could post it on the site -- which his wonderful assistant Sally promptly supplied.
He was not timid about his views. He felt that the US nuclear policy under the Bush administration was endangering the world. But he expressed his views without malice, without attacking anyone's character, without whining -- just pointing out, with years of experience and a sky-high IQ behind him, the facts. He had done much the same when the US was testing the hydrogen bomb in Bikini Atoll in the 60s. The alarm that he sounded at that time had started a ball rolling that became the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
This time, though, fewer people listened. Politicians and industries tied to nuclear development have much more PR skill and media power behind them today. Governments don't seem compelled to answer to people like scientists any more. And Joseph was just one man. Most of the scientists who had "come of age" with the realization of the real dangers to mankind posed by nuclear weapons, the leading scientists he had helped to mobilize for restraint and responsibility in weapons development, had passed away in the last decades. But even if he felt at times like the last lone voice, Joseph would never stop trying. I have continued to see Joseph at various gatherings of the Nobel Laureates, and have been in touch at times between events.
As the 2004 elections approached, we did an interview and press release with him. In the first hour of its release, 34,000 people downloaded the release. It stayed in the number one story under "Bush nuclear policy" on Google for more than a week.
	I was far from alone in my enchantment with Joseph Rotblat. In 2003 I had what I consider one of the most memorable experiences of my life so far. We brought Michael Douglas and Joseph together in Hamburg to tape an interview for our "What's So Hard About Peace?" series. We got to sit in the room while Michael asked him about his childhood in Poland, walking off the Manhattan Project, the difficult moral decisions he had made in his life. Some of the crew came up to me after the shoot and thanked me for having them there, saying that it had changed their lives. Two of the girls said they came away with crushes on him. (Not surprising. He was completely charming in his sweet temperament, humility and warmth). Michael's experience of the interview is probably best described by the expression on his face in the pictures taken afterwards.
Two months after the interview Joseph had a stroke. We all held our breath -- until we heard from Sally that he was working from his hospital bed. Still, when I last saw him, in 2004, he looked too frail. Sally, as always, was by his side. But now she was helping him walk more than we had seen in the past. He had lost none of his warmth, he still enjoyed a good laugh, but it was becoming apparent to all of us around him. We all knew we would be losing him. The day before he passed away, I received an email from Archbishop Desmond Tutu's office, about a letter some of the Nobel Laureates were signing, calling for reason and sanity on both sides in the Middle East. He said that Joseph Rotblat had just sent his best wishes to everyone from the hospital and they were just waiting for confirmation on his signature. It seems that true to form, the day before he died, Joseph Rotblat was still doing what he could to make the world a better place. Wherever you are now, Joseph, we wish you well. And thank you, for 96 years spent making our world a safer and more humane place to live. Mary Wald