SIGNED BY NOBELIST. A Generation in Search of a Future. A Speech Delivered as Part of the 'March 4th Movement" at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Dr. George Wald of Harvard by Wald, George - 1969

Stoughton, Massachusetts: Dwight E. Agner, The Press of the Nightowl, 1969. Limited edition, #187 of 200 copies.

1969 SIGNED LIMITED EDITION ANTI-WAR SPEECH BY NOBELIST GEORGE WALD together with 1973 SOCIAL ACTIVIST BOOK INSCRIBED TO WALD, WITH HIS ANNOTATIONS REGARDING AMERICAN SOCIETY.

8 inches tall slim hardcover, salmon paper-covered boards, ivory cloth spine with blindstamped title, [vi], 20 pp, Colophon with inscription on facing page, "With all good wishes, George Wald." Fine in custom archival mylar cover. TOGETHER WITH The New Socialist Revolution. An Introduction to Its Theory and Strategy by Michael P. Lerner, New York, Dell Publishing Co., 1973. Color printed paper covers, xvi, [2], 332 pp, inscribed verso front cover, "To George Wald,/ Who has earned the respect & admiration of all of us involved in the struggle to fundamentally transform American society--many thanks for the good work you have done in the past--and my hope that we will work together in a rejuvenated & successful movement in the future./ Michael P. Lerner." Annotated by George Wald throughout the first 70 pages, "Part 1--Analysis of American Society."

GEORGE WALD (1906 – 1997) was an American scientist who studied pigments in the retina. He won a share of the 1967 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine with Haldan Keffer Hartline and Ragnar Granit. In 1970, Wald predicted that "civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind." Wald spoke out on many political and social issues and his fame as a Nobel laureate brought national and international attention to his views. He was a pacifist and vocal opponent of the Vietnam War and the nuclear arms race. On March 4, 1969, much research and teaching at MIT came to a halt, as students, faculty, and staff held a "Scientists Strike for Peace." The strike protested the continuing U.S. war against the Vietnamese people, and university complicity in those policies. Most of the day was spent in intense public debate and analysis of the relationship among universities, scientists, and the prosecution of the war. As he stated in his speech (offered here), Wald bemoaned that "Our government has become preoccupied with death, with the business of killing and being killed." With a small number of other Nobel laureates, he was invited in 1986 to fly to Moscow to advise Mikhail Gorbachev on a number of environmental questions. While there, he questioned Gorbachev about the arrest, detention and exile of Yelena Bonner and her husband, fellow Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov (Peace prize, 1975). Wald reported that Gorbachev said he knew nothing about it. Bonner and Sakharov were released shortly thereafter, in December 1986.

DWIGHT E. AGNER (1940-2002) was a leading book designer, typographer and printer in the South. He was vice-president of Graphic Composition in Athens, Georgia, a former design and production manager at Louisiana State University Press and owner of the Press of the Nightowl (publisher of A Generation in Search of a Future.

MICHAEL P. LERNER (born 1943) is an American political activist, the editor of Tikkun, a progressive Jewish interfaith magazine based in Berkeley, California, and the rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in Berkeley. While at Berkeley, Lerner became a leader in the Berkeley student movement and the Free Speech Movement, chair of the Free Student Union, and chair from 1966 to 1968 of the Berkeley chapter of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS). Distressed over the disintegration of SDS in 1969, Lerner sought to re-organize New Left cadres formerly associated with SDS in a new organization called the Seattle Liberation Front (SLF) on January 19, 1970. After the "Day After" demonstration SLF had called on February 17, 1970 (to protest the verdicts in the Chicago Seven trial) turned violent, Lerner and others were arrested and charged with inciting a riot. Lerner and his co-defendants became known as the "Seattle Seven". During their trial, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover issued a public statement (repeated on radio and television) that described Lerner as "one of the most dangerous criminals in America", even though he had never engaged in any act of violence. The New Socialist Revolution (offered here) is a synthesis of the Old and New Left, urging a socialist revolution in the United States.