We must elect World Peace or World Destruction.

Near the start of his presentation of a plan for international control of atomic energy, Baruch frames the issue as a choice between peace and destruction. He immediately argues that terror has not prevented people from using earlier weapons and that atomic weapons pose a new defensive problem. He goes on to propose an international control authority and penalties for violations.

Humanity must deliberately choose a peaceful international arrangement rather than accept the danger of nuclear destruction.

“Elect” means choose, not vote a particular politician into office. This is an argument for an international atomic-control agreement, not an election slogan or advice about personal happiness.

Society, Politics, Change, War

• We are here to make a choice between the quick and the dead.
• Peace is never long preserved by weight of metal or by an armament race.
• We are now facing a problem more of ethics than of physics.
• Plato is dear to me, but dearer still is truth. (paraphrase) Aristotle
• Freedom cannot be bestowed — it must be achieved. Elbert Hubbard

• en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Bernard_Baruch

Bernard Baruch, Address to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (the Baruch Plan) (1946), Address to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, 14 June 1946; opening paragraph beginning “Behind the black portent of the new atomic age”. Checked at Quotogeny, https://quotogeny.com/q/we-must-elect-world-peace-or-world-destruction/ (27 October 2026).

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