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Letter To Archbishop John Wester, To Urge Pope Leo XIV to Call for a Peace Conference

July 27, 2026by tobi in General

The following Letter to US Archbishop John Wester to Appeal to Pope Leo XIV to Call for a Peace Conference was sent on July 24, 2026. The Letter was initiated by Jack Gilroy in the International Peace Coalition meeting # 162, July 10, and has been endorsed by many individuals and organizations, expressing great urgent concern about the growing danger of nuclear war. Circulation of the Letter will continue over the coming days to galvanize increasing support for this Appeal.

July 24, 2026

Most Reverend John C. Wester, D.D.

Archdiocese of Santa Fe

Dear Archbishop Wester:

Congratulations on being named Pax Christi USA’s Teacher of Peace for 2026! It is such a well-deserved honor. Ever since your first trip to Japan and your pastoral letter, “Living in the Light of Christ’s Peace: A Conversation toward Nuclear Disarmament,” you have become a leading voice for the abolition of nuclear weapons in the Catholic Church and throughout the U.S. Establishing the “Partnership for a World without Nuclear Weapons” has extended that reach even farther. We are so pleased that you will be receiving this award in the coming months.

As you know, the threat of nuclear war seems to be increasing daily despite the 100 nations that have signed the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), 75 of whom have also ratified it. This year’s Non Proliferation Treaty Review Conference was a disappointment once again. New START was allowed to expire. Russia, the U.S., and Israel, all nuclear states, are at war. Finland’s president recently signed legislation to allow the import and transit of nuclear weapons. And Lithuanian leaders are said to have agreed to amend the constitution to allow Lithuania to host nuclear weapons in the future.

In short, we are getting as close to nuclear war as we were during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. That crisis ended with diplomacy that saved the planet, and Pope John XXIII was a key figure in making that happen. His influential role is not well known, but it was he who spoke out to set the needed moral tone that helped each side to act for peace.

This is how it developed: In fall 1962, Journalist Norman Cousins convened in Andover, Massachusetts, an informal discussion group of Soviet and American academicians. Providentially, they met on October 22, the evening Kennedy addressed the nation on the Soviet nuclear missile threat in Cuba and ordered the Navy to intercept any additional shipments.

Included among those invited by Cousins was a Vatican adviser to Pope John XXIII, Rev. Felix Morlion. He asked if a papal intervention might help defuse the situation. Cousins phoned the White House; a Soviet member of the informal group phoned Moscow. Both got a nihil obstat. Fr. Morlion notified the Vatican.

On October 25, Vatican Radio broadcast a strong appeal by Pope John for peace to world leaders, in particular Kennedy and Khrushchev. It stated in part: “With your hand on your conscience may each one hear the anguished cry which is raised to the skies from all parts of the earth: Peace, peace! We renew this solemn plea today.”

Pravda immediately printed the Pope’s message with a banner headline. And on October 28, when Khrushchev announced the pull-out of the missiles from Cuba, Pravda reprinted the Pope’s message, praising the Pope’s “realism on the question of peace.” In turn, the United States withdrew missiles from Turkey. Hundreds of millions gave a sigh of relief, and negotiations between the U.S. and the USSR led to the first nuclear test ban in 1963.

Weeks later, Khrushchev told Cousins how much he admired Pope John, saying: “During that week of the Cuban missile crisis the Pope’s appeal was a real ray of light. I was grateful for it.”

Several years after that, Khrushchev’s son Sergey said that the words of Pope John XXIII were strongly persuasive on the consciences of people, especially those of his father and Kennedy.

With this in mind, we were thinking it might be time for something similar to happen today. Might Pope Leo XIV call for a Peace Conference to withdraw nuclear weapons from the Russian border and call for the abolition of nuclear weapons worldwide? He already suggested something along these lines at the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when he prayed that those bombings would “serve as a call to the international community to renew its commitment to pursuing lasting peace for our whole human family — ‘a peace that is unarmed and disarming’” Perhaps the Vatican or another neutral location such as Vienna or Geneva could be the venue.

Would you be able to help bring this recommendation to Pope Leo? We believe you, as a strong and highly-respected advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons, would be the ideal diplomat to encourage Pope Leo to bring Heads of State Putin, Trump, and Xi Jinping together to plan an end to nuclear weapons and to pave a new road of economic conversion from a war economy to economic development for all people everywhere. Your intercession and the strong leadership of Pope Leo could move us away from the sheer madness we are now experiencing.

Sincerely,

Jack Gilroy, Pax Christi New York State Council; Veterans For Peace;
Ban Killer Drones; International Peace Coalition of the Schiller Institute

Rosemarie Pace, Ed.D., PCNYS Coordinator; USA Palestine Solidarity Working Group; Pax Christi International Sudan Working Group

In collaboration with The Pax Christi New York State Council

Pax Christi USA (PCUSA) Teacher of Peace Honorees who have endorsed this letter: (See more on these in the complete listing of endorsements below.)

James V. Albertini (2010)
Roy Bourgeois (1997)
Marie Dennis (2022)
James W. Douglass (1994)
Kathy Kelly (1998)
William P. Quigley (2003)
Martin Sheen (1999)

Endorsements as of August 9, 2026:

Maurizio Abbate, Chairman of ENAC – National Institute for Cultural Activities, Italy
Akbar Ahmed, Distinguished Professor, American University, Washington D.C., Former Pakistani Diplomat
Muhammad Salim Akhtar, National Director American Muslim Task Force on Civil Rights and Elections
Jim Albertini, PCUSA Teacher of Peace, 2010
Dr. Abdullah al-Ahsan, Professor of Comparative Civilization; former Vice President of JUST International, Movement for a Just World
All Saints Parish, Syracuse, New York
–> Fr. Fred Daley, Pastor
–> Meg Ksander, Pastoral Associate
Missy Androu, St Anthony Church Solidarity Community
Syed Azhar, National Director, Pakistani American Democratic Forum
Dr. Abdoulaye Balde, United States, Founding member Futa Islamic Center, New York
Karen Ball, Board Member, Pax Christi Texas, San Antonio Chapter
Roger C. Barnes, Professor Emeritus, University of the Incarnate Word, San Antonio, TX
Franco Battaglia, President of Chemical Physics, University of Moderna, founder, Italy
Anastasia Battle, Schiller Institute, International Peace Coalition Co-Initiator
William O. Beeman, Professor Emeritus and Former Chair of Anthropology, University of Minnesota
Carolyn Bentley, Pax Christi Dallas, TX & Dallas, TX Peace and Justice Center
Guus Berkhout, Emeritus Professor of Geophysics, Delft University of Technology; Member of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts & Science; ECD Ambassador, CLINTEL founder
Ronald Bettag, Schiller Institute, International Peace Coalition, Texas USA
Fr. Roy Bourgeois, PCUSA Teacher of Peace 1997
Kathy Boylan, Catholic Worker, Washington D.C.
Fr. Harry Bury, Twin Cities Nonviolent, Author. Member of U.S. Catholic Priests Association
Ken Butigan, Co-Director, The Catholic Institute for Nonviolence (DePaul University, Chicago)
Right Reverend John Bryson Chane D.D., 8th Bishop, Episcopal Diocese of Washington D.C.
Fr. Daniel Clayton, Priest of the Diocese of Dallas, TX
Catherine Clubb Foley, Pax Christi Houston, TX Member
James C. Cobey, Founder, Health Volunteers Overseas; Steering Committee, Voices From the Holy Land; Shared 1997 Nobel Peace Prize as part of work with Physicians for Humanity
Jay Coghlan, Executive Director, Nuclear Watch, New Mexico
Marjorie Cohn, Professor Emerita, Thomas Jefferson School of Law; Dean, People’s Academy of International Law
Gerry Condon, Facilitator, Nuclear Abolition Working Group of Veterans for Peace
M. Phyllis Cunningham, Pax Christi, Metro New York
Bob Cushing, A Founding Father of the Association of U.S. Catholic Priests
Dr. Thomas Clough Daffern, Director, International Institute of Peace Studies and Global Philosophy
Arthur Dawes, Pax Christi Texas Board President & the full Texas Pax Christi Chapter
Fr. John Dear, “Beatitude Center for the Nonviolent Jesus” & “The Nonviolent Jesus Podcast”
Pat Delgado, Pax Christi El Paso Coordinator & Pax Christi Texas Board Member
Sylvia Demarest, Retired Lawyer and Substack writer
Marie Dennis, Pax Christi USA (PCUSA) Teacher of Peace 2022, Ambassador of Peace, & Senior Program Director of Pax Christi International’s Catholic Nonviolence Initiative
Joan Dolan, Pax Christi Texas
Jim Douglass, PCUSA Teacher of Peace 1994, author
Imam Mohammad Ali Elahi, U.S., Islamic House of Wisdom, Dearborn Heights, MI
Joseph Essertier, Associate Professor, Nagoya Institute of Technology
Joseph Fahey, Co-founder & Former General Secretary of PCUSA
Professor Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University; Former U.N. Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories; Vice President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Mike Ferner, Former national president, Veterans For Peace
Norma Field, Professor Emerita, University of Chicago (Home of the Fermi Experiment)
Jill Frasier, Pax Christi Metro New York Board Member
Chrisopher Fogarty, President of Friends of Irish Freedom Chicago
Hiroshi Fujimoto, Research Fellow, International Peace Research Institute, Meiji Gakuin University (Japan)
Rev. David Gerlich, Honolulu, Hawaii, author of Jesus Christ He Still Matters
Paul Gessler, Veterans for Peace, Ft. Collins, Colorado
Sr. Carol Gilbert, Dominican Sister and Plow Shares activist
Liliani Gorini, Chairwoman of Movisol, Italy
Clare Grady, Plowshares Activist
Elliot Greenspan, Schiller Institute, International Peace Coalition, New Jersey USA
Claudio Guidici, Chairman of Uritaxi – Taxi drivers trade union
Joyce Hall, Pax Christi Dallas, TX Coordinator & Member of the Pax Christi TX Board
Rick Halperin, Director, Southern Methodist University Human Rights program
Jaap Hanekamp, Associate Professor of Chemistry, Utrecht University of the Netherlands
Jovita Harrah, Pax Christi Northern California
Leslie Harris, CODEPINK; Veterans For Peace; Dallas Peace and Justice Center
Fr John Heagle, Director of Priests Against Genocide
Johannes Heibel, Peace Activist, Germany
Ira Helfand, Former President of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War; Co-founder Back from the Brink
Bernie Holland, United for Peace, UK
Saskia Hostetler, Anti-war activist, technology harm advocate – Portland, Oregon, USA
Ivana Nikolic Hughes, President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Senior Lecturer in the Discipline of Chemistry at Columbia University
Vic Hummert, Former Maryknoll Priest and Author
Wally Ingle, Pax Christi Hawaii
Hadi Jawad, Human Rights Dallas, TX
Frank Kartheiser, Catholic Workers Movement, MA, USA
Professor Yoshiyuki Kato, Rikkyu University, Japan
Tarak Kauff, New York Member of Veterans For Peace; Editor: Peace & Planet New
Kathy Kelly, PCUSA Teacher of Peace 1998
Sr. Martha Ann Kirk, Th.D., University of the Incarnate Word
Dennis Kucinich, Former Mayor of Cleveland and Former U.S. Representative from Ohio
Jonathan Kuttab, Executive Director, Friends of Sabeel North America
Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, Washington, D.C.
Yuba Nath Lamsal, Former Nepal Ambassador to Denmark; with concurrent accreditation to Norway, Sweden, Finland and Lithuania, May 2017 to June 2021; a 30-plus years career in journalism, as editor of The Rising Nepal daily. An ardent opponent of nuclear weapons
Helga Zepp LaRouche, Founder, Schiller Institute, and Initiator of the International Peace Coalition
Kees le Pair, Assistant Professor American University Beirut, Lebanon; National Science Foundation, Wash. D.C.; research with Philips, Siemens; science advisor – Netherlands
Nydia Leaf, Pax Christi, Metro New York Member
Dr. Richard G. Linowes, President, Clarewood University, Reston, VA
Jeff Mason, Pax Christi Quad Cities, USA
Gavan McCormack, Emeritus Professor, Australian National University
Raymond McGovern, Former CIA Analyst, Current Peace Activist
Evalee Mickey, Peace activist, North Liberty, Louisiana, USA
Josef Miklosko, former Deputy Prime Minister of the Czech and Slovak Federal Republic; former Ambassador of the Slovak Republic in Italy, San Marino, and Malta; former secretary of the commission of the Conference of Bishops of Slovakia: Justice and Peace
Carlo Levi Minzi, Pianist, Italy
Claudia Morgan, Pax Christi Texas Board
Nick Mottern, Coordinator-Ban Killer Drones and the Weaponized Drone Ban Treaty Campaign
Muslim Democratic Caucus c/o President Amir Rahmam
Satoko Oka Norimatsu, Director, Peace Philosophy Centre; Editor, The Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus
Nancy Oetter, Regional Coordinator, Pax Christi Illinois
Melissa Parke, Executive Director International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN)
Johanna Parkinson, Dallas Area Interfaith
Margaret M. Power, President, Historians for Peace and Democracy (USA)
Pax Christi Little Rock, Arkansas

Pax Christi Metro New York Board
Pax Christi New York State Council: John Amidon, Ben Salmon Chapter Pax Christi Upstate New York; Veteran For Peace; Co-Founder Kateri Peace Conference; Tom Casey, Pax Christi Western New York; Pierre Fidelia, Pax Christi Metro New York Board President; Bob Keeler, Pax Christi Long Island; Ed Kubik, Pax Christi Long Island; Mary Beth Moore, SC, Pax Christi Long Island; Mark Scibilia-Carver, Ben Salmon Chapter Pax Christi Upstate New York
Lorin Peters, Pax Christi Moderator of the Northern California Chapter, Pax Christi U.S. Disarmament Working Group
Bill Quigley, Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace 200; Emeritus Professor of Law, Loyola University New Orleans, Louisiana
Steve Rabson, Professor Emeritus, Brown University, Veteran, U.S. Army
Judith Robinson, Retired Russia Desk Officer for USAID, Dept. of Commerce BISNIS Unit, & State Department Education & Transportation USA
Paz Rosales, RSCJ, Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Spain
Jean Ross, Vote Climate Board Chair
Alessia Ruggeri, Trade unionist, Italy
Susan Schnall, President Veterans for Peace USA
Meinrad Schneckenleithner, former Vice-President Pax Christi Austria
E. Martin Schotz, MD, author and active advocate for peace and nuclear disarmament
Martin Sheen, Actor & Pax Christi USA Teacher of Peace 1999
Aftab Siddiqui, President, Dallas, TX Peace and Justice Center
Martin Sieff, Former Chief Political Correspondent, United Press International, Three time Pulitzer Prize Nominee
Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus — Province of Venezuela Provincial,
Sister Fernanda Vacas Navarro, RSCJ
Sister Emilia M. Martinez Rivas, RSCJ
Alice Slater, World Beyond War
Rev Robert Smith, Pastor, New Bethel Baptist Church, Detroit, MI; and Founder Haiti Mission Alliance
Fr. Martin Solma, SM – Kalaepohaku Marianist Coummunity, Honolulu, Hi
St Lucy’s Catholic Church, Syracuse NY, Fr Jim Mathews, Pastor; Margot Goldsmith, Pastoral Assistant; Corinne Driscoll, Chair of Justice & Peace Committee
John Steinbach, Coordinator, Hiroshima Nagasaki Peace Committee-North Capitol Area, Washington, D.C.
Elaine Sullivan, M.Ed., LPC; LMFT, Counselor; former Benedictine Nun, Dallas, TX
Fr. Bernard Survil, U.S. Catholic Priests Association
Alice Sutter, Raging Grannies NYC
David Swanson, Executive Director of World Beyond War
Diane Swords, Syracuse Peace Council
Br. Terence J Taffe, Cap., MA, LMSW. Province of St Mary, Capuchin Order
Takao Takahara, Professor, and former Director of International Peace Research Institute, Meiji Gakuin University, Tokyo, Japan
Fr. Tim Taugher, Pastor, St. Francis of Assisi Parish, Binghamton, NY
Kateri Tekakwitha Interfaith Peace Conference
Ellen Thomas, Proposition One Campaign for a Nuclear-Free Future
Chris Todhunter, Teacher, The School of Philosophy and Economics Science in London, author
Dr. Mohammad A. Toor, Chairman of Board of Trustees Pakistani American Congress; President, American Pakistani Physicians for Justice & Democracy; Chairman of American Muslim Alliance
Regis Tremblay, Crimea, Director “Thirty Seconds to Midnight”
Patricia Tweedy, Pax Christi Metro New York Board
Veterans for Peace Chapter 10, Albany NY
Lawrence B. Wilkerson, Colonel, U.S. Army (Retired), Former Chief of Staff to the U.S. Secretary of State
Jim Wohlgemuth, Veterans For Peace Coordinator of the Hector Black Chapter – Nashville, TN
Ann Wright, Retired Colonel, US Army, and Diplomat; author, Dissent: Voices of Conscience; Whistleblower; Board of Directors, CODEPINK
Zool Zulkowitz, New York Directors Guild of America; Artistic Director, The Rising Together Theater Company; Jewish Voice for Peace; Veterans For Peace

Hiroshima Day –This Does Not Have to Happen Again

August 11, 2026by tobi in General, International Peace Coalition

Report on IPC #166

The 166th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) took place on August 7, 2026—81 years after the August 6th and 9th, days in 1945 when the world’s first use of nuclear weapons laid waste to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, killing at least 110,000 civilians, with many more dying later from the impact of the radiation. With the U.S. President Donald Trump Administration now openly “revising” its nuclear doctrine, making the use of nuclear weapons more likely in the proposed wars with Russia and China, the appropriate title of the event was “The Art of Reversing Our Criminal Course.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the initiator of the IPC and the founder of the Schiller Institute, opened the event, noting that we are closer to a nuclear war than at any time in history, including the time of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. She noted that there are no international arms control treaties left in existence; the international trust among nations and parties, even among so-called allies, has completely broken down and the old order no longer exists. In that context, for there to be a discussion by the so-called “U.S. Deputy Secretary of War” Elbridge Colby, as reported by NBC News, that the Pentagon is considering revising its nuclear doctrine to move away from deterrence towards nuclear war fighting—at a time when there are already two regional conflicts, in Ukraine and Southwest Asia, with the potential for the use of nuclear weapons and there is the rising danger that other nations may decide they need to acquire nuclear weapons—is incomprehensible! She noted that Iran has not only survived but defeated the most powerful military power in the world, the United States, which is backed by a strong military power, Israel. Despite Trump’s protests, the West is running out of munitions to fight forever wars. The signing of a military agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey (a member of NATO), and Pakistan (a nuclear power state) demonstrates the dramatic shifts taking place across the region. A new global architecture assuring both security and development for all nations is required, with justice for all, if these wars are to be stopped and no new wars are to be launched, she said.

Behind this crisis is the now over two quadrillion dollars in debt imposed on the trans-Atlantic economies, which is being addressed not by constructing a new system, but by returning to the methods of Hjalmar Schacht, Adolf Hitlerʼs president of the German Reichsbank and Minister of Economics from 1933 to 1937—diverting all available credit away from the real economy into military production and war-fighting. Underlying all of this is the Malthusian mentality of depopulation, as demonstrated by the recent call by the Sustainable Development Magazine calling for reducing the world’s population by half—to less than four billion by 2200.

The first speaker was Dr. Akiko Mikamo, the author of the book “8:15 A True Story of Survival and Forgiveness from Hiroshima,” now reprinted under the title “The Hiroshima Boy,” and producer of the documentary “8:15 Hiroshima, From Father to Daughter,” which describes in vivid detail the impact and the suffering of her father and mother, who were both in the death zone of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, but survived. She said that the annual event in Hiroshima commemorating the Aug 6, 1945 event this year saw 127 countries send representatives, while events were held around the world. She described the events, with pictures of the destruction of buildings and people. She said her father, Shinji Mikamo, refused to simply blame the United States, but blamed war. She closed by noting that people often respond to being harmed or being fearful, by striking out—which is also used to justify war. This is an endless cycle, she said, “which must be broken.”

Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a world expert on the impact of nuclear weapons, began by comparing Acting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Adolf Hitler near the end of World War II. He said, if Hitler had admitted defeat after Operation Bagration (June 1944)—when the Russian troops had destroyed within 3 weeks 28 of 32 German army divisions in Byelorussia and were at the Polish border, and it was clear that the war was over for Germany—the lives of 2-3 million Germans could have been spared. So, also with Zelenskyy today, who refuses to admit defeat.

On the proposed new U.S. nuclear doctrine, Dr. Postol said neither side could win a nuclear war, but could only unleash global destruction. He noted that he had warned that President Joe Biden’s administration had approved a few years ago the development of “super-fuses” for its “prompt strike” nuclear weapons, which by dramatically improving the targeting accuracy of the warheads, doubles the killing power per warhead against very hard targets—which, he said, would allow the use of lower yield nuclear warheads to destroy Russian nuclear missiles in their silos. The war hawks today may imagine the same now, but there is no such thing as a “tactical” nuclear weapon. He warns that many otherwise intelligent scientists don’t understand, and argue they can go ahead to “win” a nuclear war.

Dr. Postol added that proliferation is also a serious danger. Iran, he said, is being told by the United States openly that they are threatening to destroy Iran’s society and culture. In that light, Iran may believe that only building a nuclear weapon can prevent it. Iran is not likely to try, but they could build one if pressed to do so by upgrading their 60% enriched uranium. However, Iran could, with only its current armaments, virtually destroy the small state of Israel, and such an operation would leave Israel also in an existential crisis, which could lead to their own use of nuclear weapons.

Even the Saudis are worried about an Iranian bomb, while they also believe they can no longer rely on the United States to defend them, and are therefore reconsidering their own nuclear weapon plans. Acquisition of nuclear weapons may also be being considered by the Japanese, the South Koreans and Taiwan, Dr. Postol worried, due to their consideration of China’s nuclear weapons.

Helga responded that China is the only nation with a plan similar to her own Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture, referring to Chinaʼs Four Global Initiatives for development, security, civilization and governance.

Dr. Postol agreed. He also noted that the United States has had two presidents: Biden had essentially forced Russia to do what they did not want to do, in their attack on Ukraine, and Trump who started (together with Israel) an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran. We should be thankful, he said, that, like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin is rational, which is our best hope that neither would use nuclear weapons.

Moderator Dennis Speed asked Dr. Postol about the 1946 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, which concluded that Japan would have surrendered even if the U.S. had not dropped the bomb, even if Russia had not threated to enter the war against Japan, and even if the U.S. had not threatened to invade.

Dr. Postol said that he believed the United States was planning to invade, estimating that millions of Americans and many millions of Japanese would die, and thus they decided to drop the bomb, believing that would save more lives that they would through an invasion. He added that whether it was right or wrong, it was done, and the horror of the result must serve to help prevent it even happening again.

This provoked a discussion amongst the participants, in particular from Zepp-LaRouche on the absolute lack of needed use of nuclear weapons, as Japan was prepared to surrender. Further discussion will be had.

John Steinbach, of the Washington based Hiroshima and Nagasaki Committee described the makeup of the 1946 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey as essentially being the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—which included many members who were against the use of the bomb. But, Hap Arnold, who Steinbach said was an asset of President Truman, and was the only one in favor of using the bomb, won the argument. He also described the process by which scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard approached Franklin Roosevelt explaining to him that a nuclear weapon was possible with the newly discovered principles of nuclear technology, and that Germany was trying to build such a device, and that the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb was necessary. However, when it was discovered that the Germans were not able to do this, rather than dropping the project, the target was switched to Japan.

Jack Gilroy described the open letter he and the IPC and the Schiller Institute had prepared to send to Archbishop John Wester, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, To Urge Pope Leo XIV to Call for a Peace Conference, as Pope John XXIII had done in 1962 at the urging of President John Kennedy and his associates to stop the Cuban Missile Crisis. Gilroy called on the moderator Anastasia Battle to read the letter, which she did.

The discussion period was based on a letter sent in by Sister Paz (“peace” in Spanish), a nun in Spain, about how to deal with the darkness coming from the financial and military oligarchy, suggesting that only the Infinite can answer that question. John Steinbach and Dr. Postol basically said “Amen.” Helga Zepp LaRouche called for the letter drafted by Jack Gilroy to the Pope to serve as a rallying point for people worldwide to focus attention on both the danger and the solution, to follow the lead of Mahatma Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, and act Imago viva Dei.

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Schiller Institute and International Peace Coalition Press Release

August 5, 2026by Jason Ross in General

Letter to Archbishop John Wester to Urge Pope Leo XIV to Call a Peace Conference to Stop Nuclear War Signed by Prominent Peace Organizations and Activists

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On Friday, July 31, at an online Roundtable Conference, “Solve the Immigration Crisis With Development: The Strategic Significance of Pope Leo’s Encyclical,” sponsored by EIR News Service and the International Peace Coalition, Jack Gilroy, a long-time peace activist with the Pax Christi New York State Council, Veterans for Peace, Ban Killer Drones, and the International Peace Coalition of the Schiller Institute, released the news that he, in collaboration with other leading peace activists, has written a letter to the U.S. Catholic Archbishop John Wester, the strongest advocate in a U.S. Archdiocese working for the banning of nuclear weapons. (Wester’s Santa Fe, New Mexico diocese is the home of Los Alamos.) The letter urges the Archbishop to request that Pope Leo XIV convene an emergency international peace conference with Presidents Putin, Xi, and Trump, to halt the present wars, stop the expansion of nuclear weapons to Russia’s border, and ban nuclear weapons, as we face the greatest threat of nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis. Over 130 prominent peace activists and several leading peace organizations have already signed the letter.

Gilroy stated at the conference that, in organizing support for the diplomatic initiative called for in this letter, “It’s primarily Pax Christi and the International Peace Coalition that have worked together for the past three weeks to fulfill what the International Peace Coalition is all about: to try to prevent war—nuclear war—and to use development as the alternative, as the answer, to the constant military buildups.”

“All of that is possible”, Gilroy stated, “but we asked, ‘Where are we going to find the answer?’ And we are looking back at history, and we think diplomacy can work, does work. But getting diplomacy started is… extremely difficult.”

In recounting the history of diplomacy to stop a nuclear war, Gilroy cited the famous case of Pope John XXIII, during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which is detailed in the letter. A trio of concerned citizens—US journalist Norman Cousins, an influential Soviet citizen, and Belgian monk Fr. Felix Morlion—just happened to be discussing the need for nuclear disarmament when President Kennedy announced on national TV a blockade of Cuba in response to the discovery that Soviet missiles had been placed there. With the consent of Kennedy and Khrushchev, Morlion contacted the Pope, to whom he was an advisor, and urged him to help diffuse the crisis, which seemed to be heading toward WWIII.

The Pope agreed and delivered a very stirring message for peace. It stated in part: “With your hand on your conscience may each one hear the anguished cry which is raised to the skies from all parts of the earth: Peace, peace! We renew this solemn plea today.” This poignant cry for peace had a tremendous effect on both Kennedy, the first Catholic president, and Khrushchev, who saw that it was published in full on the front page of Pravda. Khrushchev characterized the speech as “the first ray of real light” during the crisis. Cousins then served as a liaison between Kennedy, Khrushchev and the Pope until the Pope’s death on June 3, 1963. Seven days later, Kennedy delivered his American University commencement address, which was the most powerful and visionary call for peace by a US president in the 20th Century. Cousins had written the first draft, and Kennedy refused to give the Pentagon intelligence community, or the State Department, any say.

As Jack Gilroy states in the letter to Archbishop Wester, “With this in mind, we were thinking it might be time for something similar to happen today.” Pope Leo XIV, he noted, had already suggested something along these lines at the 80th anniversary of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki when he prayed that the bombings would ‘serve as a call to the international community to renew its commitment to pursuing lasting peace for our whole human family—a peace that is unarmed and disarming,’ Perhaps the Vatican or another neutral location such as Vienna or Geneva could be the venue.”

Gilroy concludes the letter with this appeal to Archbishop Wester: “Would you be able to help bring this recommendation to Pope Leo? We believe you, as a strong and highly-respected advocate for the abolition of nuclear weapons, would be the ideal diplomat to encourage Pope Leo to bring Putin, Trump, and Xi Jinping together to plan an end to nuclear weapons and to pave a new road of economic conversion from a war economy to economic development for all people everywhere. Your intercession and the strong leadership of Pope Leo could move us away from the sheer madness we are now experiencing.”

Jack Gilroy stated in his presentation at the July 31 conference that one of the signers of the letter, Peter Kuznick, Professor of History and Director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, Washington, D.C., was the lead speaker at a peace conference in Nagasaki, Japan on July 25, where, before many Japanese public officials, Kuznick brought up the significance of widely circulating this letter internationally. Several Japanese figures have already signed. Kuznick has also discussed this appeal to the Pope in a recent Consortium News webinar, “How Close Are We to Nuclear War?”, with fellow letter signer, Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and Co-Founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), hosted by Consortium News Editor-in-Chief, Joe Lauria.

As we head into the proverbial “Guns of August,” Gilroy’s letter makes clear that “we are getting as close to nuclear war as we were during the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. That crisis ended with diplomacy that saved the planet, and Pope John XXIII was a key figure in making that happen.” Today, he is calling on prominent figures around the world to urge Pope Leo XIV to play the same role, and he is calling on more peace activists and organizations to sign the letter.

This letter was written in collaboration with the Pax Christi New York State Council, and Rosemarie Pace, Ed.D., PCNYS Coordinator; USA Palestine Solidarity Working Group; Pax Christi International Sudan Working Group.

This is a link to the letter, with the list of signers:

Letter To Archbishop John Wester, To Urge Pope Leo XIV to Call for a Peace Conference

The letter has been endorsed by 7 recipients of the annual Pax Christi USA “Teacher of Peace” Award: Jim Albertini (2010); Roy Bourgeois (1997); Marie Dennis (2022); James W. Douglass (1994); Kathy Kelly (1998); William Quigley (2003) and Martin Sheen (1999). Archbishop Wester is this year’s recipient of the “Teacher of Peace” award.

Some of the many prominent individuals endorsing the letter include: Professor Richard Falk; Ira Helfand; Professor Peter Kuznick; former US Congressman Dennis Kucinich; Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Founder, Schiller Institute), Melissa Parke (Executive Director of ICAN); Susan Schnall (President, Veterans for Peace USA); Col.(ret) Lawrence Wilkerson; Col.(ret) Ann Wright, and Professor Ivana Hughes (President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation). Please consult the entire list for more on these and all other endorsers, and their organizational affiliation.

U.S. organizations that have endorsed the letter include Veterans for Peace and Historians for Peace and Democracy.

For more information, and/or to add your name to the letter, please contact Ron Bettag at ronbettag@gmail.com

EIR Roundtable: Solve the Immigration Crisis with Development; What You Need to Know About the Strategic Significance of Pope Leo’s Encyclical

July 27, 2026by tobi in General

EIR has issued the following invitation to its July 31 Emergency Roundtable Dialogue.

As the Iran and Ukraine wars fester and threaten to escalate into nuclear World War III, it has become clear that, if humanity is to survive, we will have to discover and implement a way to achieve a durable peace for all, based on development for all, security for all, and above all human dignity for all. In the last two months, a new strategic factor has come into play which brings that opportunity a lot closer.

Pope Leo XIV’s recent week-long trip to Spain, combined with his May 15 first encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas, has issued a call for humanity to act as one in its common purpose of seeking peace and development for all nations by ending colonialism in all its forms once and for all; he has grounded that call to action in a concept of Man’s essential dignity (“The desire for goodness, beauty and truth is rooted in the very DNA of humanity”); and he has specifically applied this approach to the horrendous problem of global forced migration that affects hundreds of millions of desperate migrants—and the countries that receive them: “We are speaking, above all, of people created in the image and likeness of God, rather than of legal categories or problems to be managed.”

In so doing, the Pope has followed through on his earlier commitment to the Coincidence of Opposites method of the XV century Cardinal Nicholas of Cusa, and he has also spoken not only for Catholics, but for many billions more of other faiths who share this outlook. He has introduced a principle which, if spread and applied globally, can play a major role in the construction of a new international security and development architecture.

As EIR Editor-in-Chief Helga Zepp-LaRouche wrote in a June 17 statement about the Pope’s encyclical:

“Of all the important and urgent speeches delivered recently by politicians and experts from many countries with the aim of preventing the strategic situation from escalating into a catastrophe that would wipe out the human race, Pope Leo XIV’s intervention—with his encyclical Magnifica Humanitas and the addresses he delivered during his recent trip to Spain—is, in my best judgment, by far the most important. When historians later examine the question of what—hopefully—proved to be the decisive factor in bringing Western civilization, in the midst of a deep spiritual and cultural crisis, to change course, they will come upon the role played by the Pope, and the willingness of a sufficiently large number of believers and people of good will to take his words to heart and bring about a change in policy…

“At the same time, he indicates the way out of the crisis, which is within reach, namely, that people summon up the highest ideal of the Christian view of humanity, and put it into practice…

“Among the various aspects of these [failed Western] policies, all of which are building blocks of the new Tower of Babel, are the idolatry of profit at the expense of the poorest, the financial interests that fuel tensions and conflicts to keep the war industry up and running, and support for modern forms of slavery.”

Zepp-LaRouche then quoted the Pope’s encyclical Magnifica Humanitas:

“81. A litmus test for social justice today is the treatment of migrants, refugees and those forced to move due to poverty, violence, climate change and environmental disasters… It means promoting the right to remain in one’s homeland in peace and security by addressing the root causes that force people to migrate, including those linked to economic injustices and the climate crisis. When these rights are respected, migration can become an opportunity for encounter and mutual enrichment among peoples.”

Zepp-LaRouche insisted:

“Instead of clinging to an inhuman neo-colonialist mindset, the governments of Europe and the U.S. are called upon to immediately commit to international cooperation aimed at completely eradicating poverty and underdevelopment in all nations on this planet.”

These tasks are both immediate and achievable. Zepp-LaRouche stated in a June 17 webcast:

“The continent of Africa will have 2.5 billion people by the year 2050. And that means that if you want to deal with the migration crisis in a human way, we have to create 1 billion new productive jobs in the next 25 years. And that would be a totally welcomed reversal of the present policy. It would at the same time also help the European governments and countries to get out of the economic crisis by having a tripartite cooperation with the BRICS countries.

“And for the United States, the same thing is valid. If you look at the migration crisis at the U.S.-Mexican border, it’s definitely the same approach which the United States should take in respect to the so-called Western Hemisphere. By joining hands with China, rather than trying to drive China out of Latin America, they should join and build things like the Chancay port, which is already built in Peru, but connect it to a bi-oceanic railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific. And in that way connect that with other great infrastructure projects. That would eliminate the root causes for the migrant problem in Latin America as well.”

The combination of the extremely dangerous global situation and this new hopeful strategic flank, require full deliberation by leading international thinkers. That is the purpose of the upcoming July 31 EIR Roundtable Dialogue, which will consist of two panels: A) Pope Leo and the Dialogue of Civilizations; B) Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No Refugees, No War.

📅Online roundtable forum: 11 a.m. ET on Friday July 31 2026
Livestream in English on YouTube, and in Spanish, German and French simultaneous interpretation on Zoom.
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83910952588?pwd=oriOURhs2ZOjZzAtzGzhv5MZAhsiDu.1
Passcode: 850621

Panel 1 (11:00—1:00)

A Dialogue of Civilizations: Development or World War III

Moderator: Dennis Speed

Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany): Editor-in-Chief, EIR
Liu Chang (China): spokesman for the Embassy of China in the U.S
Rostam Adabinia (Iran): Minister Counselor, embassy of Iran in Mexico
Richard Falk (U.S.): professor emeritus of international law, Princeton University
Remi Lebrun (France): Schiller Institute
Fr. Harry Bury (US), Twin Cities Nonviolent, Author. Member of U.S. Catholic Priests Association
Jack Gilroy (U.S.): member Veterans for Peace, Pax Christi
Daisuke Kotegawa (Japan): former Executive Director for Japan, IMF

Q&A

Panel 2 (1:30—3:30)

Solving the Migrant Crisis: Does Mankind Have the Moral Fitness to Survive?

Moderator: Anastasia Battle

Dennis Small (U.S.): EIR Ibero-America director
Mário Maurici (Brazil): Member and First Secretary of the São Paulo State Legislature
Donald Ramotar (Guyana): former President of Guyana
María de los Ángeles Huerta (Mexico): former congresswoman
Diane Sare (U.S.): independent candidate for President of the United States
SEM Ambassador Youssouf Abassalah, Ambassador of the Republic of Chad to Germany
Timothy Ninsiima (Uganda): youth leader
Claudio Celani (Italy): co-editor, EIR Strategic Alert Service
Adama Coulibaly (Burkina Faso): former Chief of Staff to the Min. of Communication

Q&A

Live Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche: On the Escalation Ladder to Nuclear War: Where Are the Responsible Figures?

July 28, 2026by tobi in General, Helga Webcast

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her live dialogue and discuss the issues and solutions that move the world and its people. Send your questions & comments to questions@schillerinstitute.org.

Please share the YouTube link with your friends, acquaintances, and colleagues to increase the reach of the solutions presented by the LaRouche movement.

Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 11am ET/ 5pm CET

In her new article “On the Escalation Ladder to Nuclear War: Where Are the Responsible Figures?”, soon to be published in the EIR Magazine, Helga Zepp-LaRouche addresses the current danger of nuclear war resulting from an escalation in two volatile flashpoints—Ukraine and the Middle East.

Zepp-LaRouche writes:

The strategic situation threatens to spiral completely out of control in the short term due to two escalating regional wars—in Ukraine and the Middle East—potentially resulting in a global economic depression within weeks or, at most, months, or perhaps even leading in the short term to a nuclear Third World War. This existential concern is shared by a large portion of the population in the so-called “collective West,” yet the political establishment of the West—with few exceptions—makes not the slightest attempt to bring the war in Ukraine to an end through diplomacy and negotiation. While such efforts do exist regarding the war against Iran, they currently lack the necessary programmatic approach, and consequently, the requisite impact.

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche for her weekly Live Dialogue and discuss her analysis and the implications for the current strategic situation.

On the Escalation Ladder to Nuclear War: Where Are the Responsible Figures?

July 28, 2026by tobi in General, Helga statement, article, transcript

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

July 26—The strategic situation threatens to spiral completely out of control in the short term due to two escalating regional wars—in Ukraine and the Middle East—potentially resulting in a global economic depression within weeks or, at most, months, or perhaps even leading in the short term to a nuclear Third World War. This existential concern is shared by a large portion of the population in the so-called “collective West,” yet the political establishment of the West—with few exceptions—makes not the slightest attempt to bring the war in Ukraine to an end through diplomacy and negotiation. While such efforts do exist regarding the war against Iran, they currently lack the necessary programmatic approach, and consequently, the requisite impact.

In the so-called Middle East—or more accurately, Southwest Asia—the United States is sinking into a strategic quagmire through its repeated bombing campaigns. These campaigns offer no prospect of a winner but will bring unspeakable suffering to millions of civilians across many countries, further impoverish the world’s poorest, trigger new refugee crises, and—in the worst-case scenario—escalate into a global war. This two-times unprovoked war of aggression against Iran has already fundamentally altered the balance of power in the region: the world’s strongest military power—the United States—and Israel, also an extremely powerful military force, have failed to defeat Iran, a nation of medium strength whose resilience was clearly vastly underestimated. The U.S.’s unilateral withdrawal from the Memorandum of Understanding signed on June 17 was likewise unprovoked, given that Article 5 of the MoU had officially granted Iran control over the Strait of Hormuz. Thus, whether they admit it or not, the U.S. has now lost the war with Iran—adding it to the list that includes Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, and Syria, alongside various other retreats.

The Gulf Cooperation Council states will have to draw the inevitable conclusion that the presence of U.S. military bases on their soil did not guarantee the promised security, but instead turned them into targets for Iranian retaliatory strikes. Recent mutual attacks on civilian infrastructure—and desalination plants in particular—threaten to potentially depopulate these desert nations. Kuwait relies on desalinated water for approximately 42% of its needs, the UAE for 52%, Bahrain for 68%, and Qatar for 77%. Without these desalination plants, these states are essentially deserts where no one can live.

After 13 nights of merciless American attacks on military and civilian installations in Iran, there is now a pause, likely due less to the allegations of war crimes than to a shortage of the U.S.’s ammunition—something one cannot say without risking imprisonment, according to U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Mike Waltz—and probably also protests from Gulf States fearing for their survival. Furthermore, the renewed fighting between Yemen and Saudi Arabia has demonstrated the consequences for the global economy should the Bab el-Mandeb Strait be blocked; such a scenario would force an additional 12-15% of global trade and roughly 30% of container shipping to take the significantly longer detour around Africa’s Cape of Good Hope.

The Sword of Damocles Looms

Despite the daily fluctuations by U.S. President Donald Trump, regarding the likelihood that this arbitrarily instigated war could still be ended by a “deal,” the Sword of Damocles continues to hang over everyone’s heads. Namely, the risk that the advice of certain warmongers to invade Iran with U.S. ground troops might be heeded—leading to massive shipments of “body bags” of dead soldiers back home, and, as a last resort, the use of tactical nuclear weapons to eliminate the Iranian nuclear facilities.

If this inhumane and desperate act of madness were to occur, it would immediately escalate beyond the region. Even though Iran has no formal military assistance pact with any other country, it is hardly conceivable that Russia and China would stand idly by while nuclear weapons are used against Iran. Annie Jacobsen, American author of the 2024 bestselling book Nuclear War: A Scenario, emphasized in an interview this week that anyone at the Pentagon who has considered this scenario knows that a nuclear war, however it begins, can only end in one way: with total, apocalyptic annihilation.

It is an almost macabre speculation about which war is more dangerous: the one against Iran or the one in Ukraine, which is in reality a complete proxy war by NATO against Russia.

General (ret.) Harald Kujat, former Inspector General of the German Armed Forces and Chairman of the NATO Military Committee, recently warned in the Swiss newspaper Zeitgeschehen im Fokus (Current Events in Focus), quoting the actuality of quotes of former Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, that the situation was worsening day by day, just as it had been in August 1914. He accused Western political leaders of never having attempted to prevent the war through diplomacy, but on the contrary, of having done everything in their power to prolong it and of providing financial, political, and material support.

Kujat ruthlessly criticizes the Western governments, and especially the German government: He criticizes the multiple transgressions of Russia’s absolute red lines, such as Ukraine’s attacks with NATO and/or U.S. support against strategic targets of Russia’s nuclear triad; the German government’s attempts to promote Ukraine’s NATO accession, another absolute red line for Russia; and, more generally, NATO’s de facto participation in Ukraine’s war against Russia, a war that would have ended long ago without massive arms deliveries, financial aid, training, satellite reconnaissance, and real-time target data, etc., and which Russia views as precisely that. Kujat rejects the claim that the coming war with Russia is inevitable, a claim the population is being prepared for daily through propaganda, as he does in many other articles, by pointing to the lack of cui bono and Russia’s insufficient capacity to invade a European country. Conversely, the conventional war for which Europe appears to be preparing, coupled with a delayed and questionable U.S. involvement, threatens to create a situation in which neither side can achieve a swift victory, thus creating the risk of the first use of nuclear weapons by one side or the other to force a resolution. According to Kujat, a nuclear winter would last approximately fifty years.

Even though both wars had ostensibly different triggers, the underlying dynamic in both stems from the same cause: the West as a whole could not resist the temptation, after the end of the Cold War, to succumb to an arrogant triumphalism. And while it was initially the Anglo-American neoconservatives who attempted to establish a unipolar world order, it was later the Europeans who adapted to this attempt, even sabotaging Trump’s initially perhaps earnest peace policy through a “coalition of the willing.” The unspeakable demonization of Russia only flared up again when Russian President Vladimir Putin set about asserting Russia’s role as a world power and sought to halt its containment. And China has done nothing wrong except violate the Wolfowitz Doctrine, which states that no nation or group of nations can ever be allowed to surpass the United States in political, economic, or military strength.

As a result of the boundless overconfidence of leading circles in the West, who accepted Western dominance in the world as their inherent birthright, and a long series of errors and mismanagement, as well as the complete lack of a positive vision for the future, which is now being replaced by aggressive militarism, the world order lies in ruins. We have—hopefully—only a very small window of opportunity left to end these wars through genuine diplomacy and to rebuild the shattered trust.

A New Framework for International Relations

There is only one promising way to save world peace: We must immediately place the establishment of a new global security and development architecture on the international agenda and seriously create a new framework for international relations. This must be based on the UN Charter, the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and the lessons of the Peace of Westphalia, which emphasize that a peaceful order can only succeed if it takes into account the interests of “the other.”

In other words, the principle of indivisible security must be reinstated. Besides the Schiller Institute’s proposal for such a new architecture, formulated in the Ten Principles, China, with its four global initiatives, and especially its Global Governance Initiative, has so far made the most comprehensive proposal in this regard.

The month of August must be used intensively to prepare the formalization of the discussion on a new architecture, to initiate initial diplomatic preparations, and to take corresponding steps in parliaments and other relevant institutions. This year’s UN General Assembly—if we make it to September—may be humanity’s last chance to escape annihilation.

Kujat writes in the cited article: “To prevent the worst from happening, Europeans are now more than ever required to correct miscalculations and to act with realism, a sense of responsibility, and reason. In the current situation, negotiations to end the war must be seen not only as preventing a major European war, but also as an opportunity to avert Ukraine’s military defeat and to secure its continued existence as a sovereign, independent, and viable state. Now, individuals with strategic judgment and security policy foresight are needed, individuals who are guided by German interests and the constitutional mandate for peace, in order to find ways out of the danger of a major European war.”

These individuals, who exist in every country, must now step forward and demonstrate their responsibility. At stake is the mandate for peace enshrined in the German Basic Law and the question of whether we, as a human species, are morally capable of survival.

Please contact: helga-zepp@proton.me

Brazil Presidential Advisor Celso Amorim: The Money for Wars Is Taken Away From Development

July 25, 2026by tobi in General

July 25, 2026 (EIRNS)–Celso Amorim, Special Advisor to Brazilian President Lula da Silva, stated that peace and development are indivisible; each requires the other to be achieved, he emphasized in an exclusive July 24 interview with EIR’s Dennis Small. He spoke of how the wars ongoing around the world harm the global economy, taking government monies out of the health care, infrastructure and other investments needed, especially in the developing countries, while increasing the costs of such basic inputs as fuels and fertilizers. As for the growing danger of nuclear war, Amorim reiterated Brazil’s long-standing advocacy of nuclear disarmament by all nations, without distinction.

Brazil seeks respectful relations with all nations, China, the United States, India, et.al., with pragmatic cooperation on economic projects despite their differences. That is why Brazil seeks a multipolar world, as seen in its participation in groups such as the BRICS. That is why Brazil also seeks to foster South American integration. With such neighbors as Peru, South America can accomplish in the 21st century what the United States did in the 19th century, establishing a usable link between the Atlantic and the Pacific.

Is such a world possible? Amorim insisted: “If you do not believe in the future, what is the point of life? For our children and our grandchildren, and the children of other people…”

Brazil, a founding member of the BRICS, is the largest country in South America, both in population and territory. Amorim, today Special Advisor to the President, served as Foreign Minister in President Lula’s first two terms in office (2003-2010), and Defense Minister under President Dilma Rousseff from 2011-2013.

Grow the International Youth Movement for Peace through Development | Schiller Institute International Youth Conference

July 22, 2026by David Dobrodt in General

On July 18, 2026, the Schiller Institute hosted a landmark international youth conference: “Grow the International Youth Movement for Peace through Development.”

Passionate young scientists, activists, and students from across five continents joined the Schiller Institute and keynote speakers Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Dr. Naledi Pandor to discuss the urgent steps required from the world’s youth to prevent nuclear WW3 and global economic catastrophe.

Keynote Speakers & Highlights

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Founder of the Schiller Institute, delivered a powerful address warning of the current dangers of global conflict, while proposing a philosophical and practical shift based on Nicholas of Cusa and Friedrich Schiller. She introduces critical global infrastructure initiatives, including the Oasis Plan and the need to create one billion new productive jobs in the next twenty years, just to fulfill the requirements of Africa’s youth.
Dr. Naledi Pandor, Former Minister of International Relations and Cooperation of South Africa & Chancellor of Nelson Mandela University, commemorated International Nelson Mandela Day with an urgent call to action for youth to combat poverty and implement a comprehensive agenda for Africa’s industrialization, food security, and educational transformation.

Take Action & Join the Movement!

We need young visionaries to help shape a better future. Here is how you can get involved right now:

Visit Our New Website: youth.schillerinstitute.com.
Register for the Next International Youth Class: Join us on August 15th for a class taught by Megan Dobrodt titled “The World Needs More People: The Science of Vernadsky and LaRouche”: https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/20260815_youth_class04 (Available with Spanish and French interpretation).

Next Live Event: Save the date for the upcoming EIR roundtable event on July 31st, focusing on human-centered solutions to the global migrant crisis.

#SchillerInstitute #YouthMovement #PeaceThroughDevelopment #GlobalSouth #HelgaZeppLaRouche #NalediPandor #OasisPlan #EconomicSovereignty #NelsonMandelaDay #PhysicalEconomics

Live Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche: We Are Approaching a Nuclear War which Will Destroy Civilization

July 21, 2026by tobi in General, Helga Webcast

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her live dialogue and discuss the issues and solutions that move the world and its people. Send your questions & comments to questions@schillerinstitute.org.

Please share the YouTube link with your friends, acquaintances, and colleagues to increase the reach of the solutions presented by the LaRouche movement.

Wednesday, July 22, 2026, 11am ET/ 5pm CET

In an interview on YouTube, Harald Kujat of Germany warned against the military buildup against Russia in the following words. Gen. Kujat is a retired German Four-Star Air Force General; former Chief of Staff of the German Armed Forces; and was Chairman of the NATO Military Committee from 2002-2005.

“We are dealing with a nuclear power—namely, the largest nuclear power on this Earth. Through the use of nuclear weapons, we are capable of bringing about the end of the world. And if that is not an incentive to prevent an escalation into a war with the largest nuclear power, then I do not know what else it would take. At the very least, it would mean that here in Europe, the use of nuclear weapons would trigger at least a 50-year Nuclear Winter.

“How is this European continent supposed to survive if there is a war here? We have witnessed the destruction of the Second World War. A future war would surpass that by many times over. Where has this historical knowledge actually gone among our politicians? Where is the understanding of the dangers we are exposed to today?”

————

We in the Schiller Institute, which founded and convenes the International Peace Coalition weekly, fully agree with this assertion of General Kujat that the world–not only Europe–is sliding towards a pit of war which looks, with every passing day, more likely to be a nuclear war, from which no nation would recover; and at this point, no one can say how long it will be before we cannot reverse that slide.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, remarked today that General Kujat’s statement expresses the view of humanity’s future, which she has held for some time. “We have never been at this level of danger before,” she said, not in the Cuban Missile Crisis, not in World War II.

The march to world war must be stopped before the arrogant and ignorant confidence of so many political “leaders” of the West makes it unstoppable.

Therefore we are organizing our political activities and economic collaborations, and the independent campaigns of Diane Sare for President, Jose Vega in the Bronx C.D. 15, and those independent candidates around the country who will accept this responsibility, to stop this march to world war, and to open regional paths to economic development and peace.

This is epitomized by the proposed “Extended Oasis Plan for Southwest Asia” which must be implemented, now after 50 years since it was first proposed by the American economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche, in order to restore peace in that region.

“The United States Is Engaged in Self-Attrition”

July 18, 2026by tobi in General, International Peace Coalition

Report on 163rd meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC)

July 17, 2026 (EIRNS)—The 163rd consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) opened with remarks by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and IPC initiator. She observed that for the 6th day in a row, the United States has massively bombed Iran, targeting civilian infrastructure. Iran has responded by attacking U.S. bases and has asked the Houthis in Yemen to target the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea, another important chokepoint in addition to the Strait of Hormuz. This can “plunge the world into a depression, a hunger catastrophe, an energy crisis,” as early as August, Zepp-LaRouche warned.

In Europe, “Ukrainians have started to massively target Russian facilities in the Black Sea, and in retaliation Russia has begun to hit ports in the Odessa region—that massively affects grain, oil and fertilizer” Zepp-LaRouche said, noting that this poses a double-edged threat to world food supplies, since Russia alone supplies over 10% of global grain exports. On the other hand, she said, you have the insane decision by Germany to purchase the U.S.-made Tomahawk cruise missiles and station them on German soil—we are facing a resumption of the medium-range nuclear missile crisis from the 1980s.

In the United States, an increasingly delirious U.S. President Donald Trump went on national TV to charge that 220 million files on U.S. voters were stolen by China in 2020.

Zepp-LaRouche tempered her presentation with some favorable developments. She reported that Russia, China and the Vatican are working to curtail abuses of artificial intelligence (AI). Russia and China have agreed to form for this purpose the World Artificial Intelligence Cooperation Organization, to be headquartered in Shanghai. Similarly, at the summer residence of Pope Leo XIV in the city of Castel Gandolfo, Italy, in a 3-day meeting, 30 Nobel Prize laureates and top experts agreed upon the Rome Declaration on Nuclear Weapons and AI. Meanwhile, in the United States, 104 Congressmen voted to de-fund Israel. This was not sufficient to pass the amendment, but it was nonetheless significant, marking the first time that a substantial number of Congressmen defied the wishes of the Israel lobby.

Jack Gilroy is a regular IPC participant, representing Veterans for Peace, Pax Christi–Upstate New York, and Pax Christi International. He gave an updated report on the initiative to emulate the diplomacy of Pope John XXIII during the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, when Pope John served as an intermediary between U.S. President John Kennedy and Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev and helped to defuse a situation where the world was on a hair-trigger for nuclear war.

Joe Maxwell is the former Lt. Gov. of Missouri; a lawyer; a retired First Sergeant and 20-year veteran in the Missouri National Guard; Cofounder of Farm Action; and current President of the Farm Action Fund. He commended the Schiller Institute and the IPC for 163 weeks of leadership. He went on to present an exhaustive report on the impact that American farmers and rural communities are facing because of the wars that were initiated in Ukraine and Iran, coming on top of an already difficult situation for independent family farms. The United States is losing, on average, 63 farms a day (small, and middle-sized)—as American families are struggling to afford food. Four companies control 85% of the cattle processing in the U.S. Maxwell went on to present similar statistics for other commodities. Farmers in the U.S. are also being squeezed on the input side; fertilizer prices have doubled, and diesel fuel has gone up 40%. U.S. farmers will lose $31 billion this year, between the monopolistic policies of international agribusiness and the wars.

U.S. independent presidential candidate Diane Sare listed the chokepoints that imperil the world economy: the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab al-Mandeb Strait on the Red Sea, the “Epstein class” takeover of Albania on the Adriatic Sea, and Ukraine’s attacks on Russian shipping routes in the Black Sea. She lamented that these threats were worsening while the United States is being led by a “witless, malignant narcissist in the White House.” The world is still coasting on oil that was in transit before Hormuz was closed, so there is a delayed reaction to the closure of the strait, but soon the full impact will be felt.

Sare reported that a critical flank is the battle around the 2027 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) in the Congress. Representatives Thomas Massie (R-KY) and Ro Khana (D-CA) have an amendment to strip the now-notorious section 219 from the NDAA, the section which effectively merges the military and intelligence functions of the United States with those of Israel. The move to strike it is an action which Sare supports (see her statement. She reported on how Congressman Adam Smith (D-WA) changed his vote on another amendment, Amendment #8, also introduced by Rep. Thomas Massie, to strip $3.3 billion in U.S. military aid to Israel from the 2027 State Department appropriations bill. This is proof in principle that Congress can change, in order to respond to the wishes of their constituents.

Zepp-LaRouche posed a question to Maxwell: what are the delayed effects of fertilizer shortages? He responded by saying that if you cut off nitrogen fertilizer, it takes about a year for the impact of higher prices and shortages to be felt. The result is less food, and mass hunger. Co-moderator Dennis Speed followed up, by suggesting that the IPC should explore the relationship between attacks on agriculture and the migrant crisis, because food shortages compel people to move in search of food in order to survive. Zepp-LaRouche agreed that the denial of development will cause the migrant crisis to explode.

“The United States is Depleting Itself”

Dennis Speed introduced frequent IPC participant Larry Johnson, who signed on to the meeting after finishing another commitment. Johnson is a former CIA intelligence official and a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). Johnson noted that Iran had lived through six days of continuous bombing since he had spoken at the last IPC meeting one week ago. Contrary to the frequent, hysterical proclamations of triumph coming from the Trump administration, “Iran holds the strategic edge in this battle,” Johnson said. He painted a devastating picture of the attrition in U.S. military capabilities under the conditions of the war with Iran: at the rate in which missiles are being consumed, Lockheed Martin made only 7 days’ worth of missiles over the past year. We are running out of ordnance. “The United States is engaged in self-attrition,” Johnson said. “All Iran has to do is hammer U.S. bases every day with ballistic missiles… the United States is being effectively driven from the Persian Gulf.” After the United States denied China access to its Global Positioning System in the 90s, China created an independent BeiDou Navigation Satellite System which Iran is now accessing. “The United States is depleting itself.” The U.S. has caused global shortages of diesel and aviation fuel, which inevitably affects our military capabilities.

Discussion

Zepp-LaRouche asked Johnson whether there are people in the Pentagon that understand the consequences of these policies and who can respond intelligently. Johnson answered that they have underestimated Iran’s resolve. Before long, Trump will be forced to make major concessions and find some way to sell them to his base in a face-saving way, claiming that he is magnanimously responding to Iranian pleas for mercy. Meanwhile, the U.S. is systematically relocating its forces out of the region, to move them out of range of Iranian missiles.

In response to a question about the 41-43 million persons who attended the funeral of Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Zepp-LaRouche called it the largest demonstration in world history, and an assertion of “thousands of years of identity of a civilization.”

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