Bernard T. Feld
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Through Physics and World War II
Early life
Feld was born in Brooklyn, New York. He graduated from the City College of New York with a bachelor of science degree in 1939. He began graduate school at Columbia University, but suspended his studies to join the American war effort. He spent the war serving as an assistant to Enrico Fermi and Leó Szilárd working on the Manhattan Project. After World War II, he returned to Columbia University to receive his PhD in 1945 with thesis advisor Willis Lamb.
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Career
I was involved in the original sin, and I have spent a large part of my life atoning for it. – Bernard T. Feld
Feld was on the faculty of MIT from 1948 until he retired in 1990. During this time, he was President of the Albert Einstein Peace Prize Foundation, editor of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, and head of the American Pugwash Committee.
Feld was a Ford Foundation Fellow and a visiting scientist at the European Center for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
The Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1995. Feld was a leader in these conferences, serving as U.S. Chairman from 1963 to 1973 and as International Chairman from 1973 to 1978. It was in this role that he attracted the anger of Richard Nixon's White House. He was eleventh on Nixon's list of enemies, a fact that pleased him tremendously.
"One month after the election of Ronald Reagan, Feld being an editor of 'Bulletin of the American Atomic Scientists' reported that his publication had decided to move the hands on the Doomsday Clock featured on its cover from seven to four minutes to midnight, because, as 'the year drew to a close, the world seemed to be moving unevenly but inexorably closer to nuclear disaster.' "