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Jeremy J. Stone (November 23, 1935 – January 1, 2017) was an American scientist who was president of the
Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who wo ...
from 1970 to 2000, where he led that organization's advocacy initiatives in
arms control Arms control is a term for international restrictions upon the development, production, stockpiling, proliferation and usage of small arms, conventional weapons, and weapons of mass destruction. Arms control is typically exercised through the u ...
, human rights, and
foreign policy A State (polity), state's foreign policy or external policy (as opposed to internal or domestic policy) is its objectives and activities in relation to its interactions with other states, unions, and other political entities, whether bilaterall ...
. In 2000, he was succeeded as president by Henry Kelly. Stone continued his work at a new organization called Catalytic Diplomacy. Stone was the son of the journalist
I. F. Stone Isidor Feinstein "I. F." Stone (December 24, 1907 – June 18, 1989) was an American investigative journalist, writer, and author. Known for his politically progressive views, Stone is best remembered for ''I. F. Stone's Weekly'' (1953–1971), ...
.


Early life

Born in 1935, Stone studied at the Bronx High School of Science (1951–53) during which time he taught Three-dimensional chess at the
New School for Social Research The New School for Social Research (NSSR) is a graduate-level educational institution that is one of the divisions of The New School in New York City, United States. The university was founded in 1919 as a home for progressive era thinkers. NSSR ...
. After attending MIT for one year, he graduated from
Swarthmore College Swarthmore College ( , ) is a Private college, private Liberal arts colleges in the United States, liberal arts college in Swarthmore, Pennsylvania. Founded in 1864, with its first classes held in 1869, Swarthmore is one of the earliest coeduca ...
in June 1957. As a consultant to the
RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation (from the phrase "research and development") is an American nonprofit global policy think tank created in 1948 by Douglas Aircraft Company to offer research and analysis to the United States Armed Forces. It is financed ...
in the summer of 1958, he invented the Cross-Section Method of
Linear Programming Linear programming (LP), also called linear optimization, is a method to achieve the best outcome (such as maximum profit or lowest cost) in a mathematical model whose requirements are represented by linear function#As a polynomial function, li ...
.


Education

Stone received a Ph.D. in mathematics from
Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is consider ...
in 1960 and joined Stanford Research Institute (SRI) as a research mathematician where he worked on Error Correcting Codes. In 1962, he left SRI to work at
Hudson Institute The Hudson Institute is a conservative American think tank based in Washington, D.C. It was founded in 1961 in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, by futurist, military strategist, and systems theorist Herman Kahn and his colleagues at the RAND Corporat ...
on issues of war and peace.


Career

In 1963, he began working on an arms control proposal for preventing anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems. In 1964-1966 he was a research associate at the
Harvard Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...
Center for International Affairs (CFIA) where he wrote two books: ''Containing the Arms Race: Some Specific Proposals'' (MIT Press, 1966) and ''Strategic Persuasion: Arms Control Through Dialogue'' (Columbia University Press, 1967). He taught
mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...
and arms control at Pomona College from 1966-68. In June 1970, Stone became the CEO of the
Federation of American Scientists The Federation of American Scientists (FAS) is an American nonprofit global policy think tank with the stated intent of using science and scientific analysis to attempt to make the world more secure. FAS was founded in 1946 by scientists who wo ...
(FAS), founded in 1945 by atomic scientists as Federation of Atomic Scientists (FAS). In June 1973, as a consequence of his activism in criticizing
Pentagon In geometry, a pentagon (from the Greek πέντε ''pente'' meaning ''five'' and γωνία ''gonia'' meaning ''angle'') is any five-sided polygon or 5-gon. The sum of the internal angles in a simple pentagon is 540°. A pentagon may be simpl ...
spending practices, his name appeared as one of the 150 listed on the "enemies" list of President Nixon. During the 30 years of Stone's stewardship, he and the federation contributed to policy debates on the nuclear arms race, human rights, ethnic violence and civil conflict, small arms, controlling biological and chemical weapons, energy conservation, global warming, and related subjects. Several of Stone's arms control initiatives bore fruit. According to the 2002 book ''Unarmed Forces'' by Matthew Evangelista, the Russians were calling the ABM Treaty "Jeremy Stone's proposal" as early as 1967. Stone designed and secured
Carter Administration Jimmy Carter's tenure as the 39th president of the United States began with his inauguration on January 20, 1977, and ended on January 20, 1981. A Democrat from Georgia, Carter took office after defeating incumbent Republican President ...
approval of a follow-on to SALT II ("Shrink SALT II") which was proposed in secret by President Carter at the 1979 Vienna Summit. He invented a finesse (the Bear Hug Strategy) that may have helped to make
START II START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yelts ...
possible. And he created an entirely new approach ("No One Decision-Maker") to the issue of no-first-use of nuclear weapons. In the 1970s, Stone and FAS helped catalyze the opening of scientific exchange with
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. It is the world's most populous country, with a population exceeding 1.4 billion, slightly ahead of India. China spans the equivalent of five time zones and ...
in 1972. He persuaded the American scientific community to set up human rights committees to defend the rights of Russian scientists and was a leading American advocate for Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov, who in 1976 described Stone as "creative, articulate and brave." Stone was instrumental in stopping an illegal U.S. Government program of mail opening by the CIA. He is credited with having made major contributions to changing U.S. policy on Cambodia at a time when that policy had allied the United States to the genocidal Khmer Rouge. He also waged an effective campaign to have the CIA and the KGB work together on issues of common concern. And he once was assigned, by
Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist, cosmologist, astrophysicist, astrobiologist, author, and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is research on ext ...
, the difficult task of determining whether to warn the East Coast of the United States of a possible impending earthquake. In April 1999,
PublicAffairs PublicAffairs (or PublicAffairs Books) is an imprint of Perseus Books, an American book publishing company located in New York City and has been a part of the Hachette Book Group since 2016. PublicAffairs was launched in 1997 by Peter Osnos. ...
published his memoir, ''"Every Man Should Try": Adventures of a Public Interest Activist'', in which he documented his achievements and failures–including those noted above. (The book was published in Russian in March 2004 with an introduction by Academician
Evgeny Velikhov Evgeny Pavlovich Velikhov (born on February 2, 1935; in Russian: ''Евгений Павлович Велихов'') is a physicist and scientific leader in the Russian Federation. His scientific interests include plasma physics, lasers, control ...
.) In December 1998, he led the first American scientific delegation in 20 years to Iran and, in September 1999, hosted the return visit of the
Academy of Sciences of Iran The Academy of Sciences of the Islamic Republic of Iran ( fa, فرهنگستان علوم جمهوری اسلامی ایران) was established in 1988. It is one of the four academies of the Islamic Republic of Iran. The other three are: Irania ...
. Introducing this delegation to a host of scientific organizations in Washington, including the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nati ...
, led to an agreement to restart the (post-1979 revolution) Iranian-American scientific exchange. Stone published his second memoir, ''Catalytic Diplomacy: Russia, China, North Korea, and Iran'', in October 2009. It covers his work from 1999 to 2006.


Resignation from FAS

After resigning from the presidency of the Federation of American Scientists on June 1, 2000, he formed the small nonprofit, Catalytic Diplomacy, which from 1999 to 2006 worked mainly on cross-straits relations between China and Taiwan; U.S.-Russian arms control; U.S. relations with Iran; and U.S. relations with North Korea. Beginning in 2007, along with a small group of activists, Stone worked on issues involving
Myanmar Myanmar, ; UK pronunciations: US pronunciations incl. . Note: Wikipedia's IPA conventions require indicating /r/ even in British English although only some British English speakers pronounce r at the end of syllables. As John C. Wells, Joh ...
(Burma), Cuba, Afghanistan, and Iran. In 2004, he catalyzed the first public visit to Iran in a quarter century of a U.S. Government official,
James Billington James is a common English language surname and given name: *James (name), the typically masculine first name James * James (surname), various people with the last name James James or James City may also refer to: People * King James (disambiguat ...
, the
Librarian of Congress The Librarian of Congress is the head of the Library of Congress, appointed by the president of the United States with the advice and consent of the United States Senate, for a term of ten years. In addition to overseeing the library, the Libra ...
. In 2010, Stone created an organization, Catalytic Longevity, to advance a dietary approach called "carbohydrate concentration". In 2014, he reported on his work on religion on a website a
www.catalyticreligion.org
This website documents the idea that the main architects of the three largest Western religions—Christianity (
Apostle Paul Paul; grc, Παῦλος, translit=Paulos; cop, ⲡⲁⲩⲗⲟⲥ; hbo, פאולוס השליח (previously called Saul of Tarsus;; ar, بولس الطرسوسي; grc, Σαῦλος Ταρσεύς, Saũlos Tarseús; tr, Tarsuslu Pavlus; ...
),
Islam Islam (; ar, ۘالِإسلَام, , ) is an Abrahamic religions, Abrahamic Monotheism#Islam, monotheistic religion centred primarily around the Quran, a religious text considered by Muslims to be the direct word of God in Islam, God (or ...
( Mohammad), and Protestantism ( Martin Luther)--all suffered from a mental disorder that encourages the creation of new religion. The disorder is a form of temporal lobe epilepsy called Geschwind Syndrome. Stone received the Science and Society Award of the Forum on Physics and Society of the American Physics Society. In June 1985, he was awarded an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Swarthmore College. And, in 1995, the Federation of American Scientists gave Stone its annual Public Service Award.


Personal life

Stone was the son of journalist
I. F. Stone Isidor Feinstein "I. F." Stone (December 24, 1907 – June 18, 1989) was an American investigative journalist, writer, and author. Known for his politically progressive views, Stone is best remembered for ''I. F. Stone's Weekly'' (1953–1971), ...
and Esther Stone, and nephew of journalist and film critic Judy Stone. He resided, with his wife Betty Jane Stone, who predeceased him, in
Carlsbad, California Carlsbad is a coastal city in the North County region of San Diego County, California, United States. The city is south of downtown Los Angeles and north of downtown San Diego. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 114,746. ...
.


In popular culture

The Stanford-based professor and hero of
Michael Crichton John Michael Crichton (; October 23, 1942 – November 4, 2008) was an American author and filmmaker. His books have sold over 200 million copies worldwide, and over a dozen have been adapted into films. His literary works heavily feature tech ...
's 1969 novel and movie The Andromeda Strain is named "Dr. Jeremy Stone". Stone was at Stanford in 1969, but unlike the fictional character was studying post-graduate economics, not biology. There is also a comic strip hero with the name Dr. Jeremy Stone, whose alter ego is the superbly muscled Maul.


References


External links


Eric Alterman, "Of Scientists and Spies", ''The Nation'' (January 13, 2000)
* nytimes.com

{{DEFAULTSORT:Stone, Jeremy 1935 births 2017 deaths Activists from California American people of Russian-Jewish descent Jewish activists Jewish American scientists The Bronx High School of Science alumni Harvard University people People from Carlsbad, California Stanford University alumni Swarthmore College alumni Pomona College faculty 21st-century American Jews