This American winner of two Nobel Prizes - the first in chemistry for his discoveries on the structure of the molecule and the nature of the chemical bond; the second for peace - did pioneering work in many areas of his field, including medical applications. His books on chemistry are basic to understanding the subject. He did research and taught at the California Institute of Technology (1922-64), was research professor at the Center for the Study of Democratic Institutions in California (1963-67), and taught at the University of California, San Diego. Understanding the threat to the human system from radioactive fallout in the postwar days of indiscriminate atomic-bomb testing, he conducted a personal crusade in the 1950s and early 1960s, seeking a halt to the tests. Because of his views on atomic bombs, Pauling suffered considerable persecution at the hands of the U.S. government in the form of denial of passport and similar limitations as a dangerous radical. He was one of the people most responsible for the change in American public opinion that resulted in the 1963 international ban on above-ground testing. In 1962, he received the Nobel Prize for peace in recognition of his efforts, from an international community that had admired him throughout the threat it felt from fallout experiments by the two major nuclear powers. His No More War (1958) is still a valuable primer on the nature of the three giant nuclear bombs - atomic, hydrogen, and thermonuclear - and of the effects of radiation on human beings. He was instrumental in securing the signatures of 52 Nobel laureates for the "Mainau Declaration of Nobel Laureates" in 1955, which ended: "In extreme danger no nation will deny itself the use of any weapon that scientific technology can produce. All nations must come to the decision to renounce force as a final resort of policy. If they are not prepared to do this they will cease to exist." Linus Pauling died in 1994.
