HARVARD CARDIOLOGIST CELEBRATES PEACE PRIZE OVERSEAS

Author: Steven Erlanger, Globe Staff

Date: Saturday, October 12, 1985
Page: 5
Section: NATIONAL/FOREIGN

"The day was chaos. It was pleasurable, intense, demanding and came as an immense surprise," said Lown early this morning in a telephone interview from Geneva.

Lown and the cofounder of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, Dr. Yevgeni Chazov, a noted Soviet cardiologist, were in Geneva for talks with the World Health Organization, with which their group recently has affiliated.

"We were having a news conference at 11 a.m. with WHO," Lown said, when a Norwegian official interrupted, saying, 'Would you mind if I make a statement?' " Lown said.

"I felt so embarrassed - I was in tears, really in tears. Chazov was with me, which was the first coincidence. And it happened also to be the fifth anniversary of the founding of IPPNW, which was started in Geneva."

Lown said he and Chazov had a suspicion they might win the prize this year (they also had been nominated last year) for their group had come to represent "people's diplomacy" - East-West dialogue underneath and beyond the barriers of governments, political systems and ideologies.

"Given what's happening here next month," said Lown, referring to the US-Soviet summit meeting in Geneva Nov. 19-20, "I think it's a prod from the Europeans to say, 'Look, political leaders, at the example being set by the physicians. They're getting along, cooperating, making inroads in helping people to get along.'

"I do believe that this is in a way a message to the summit. The Norwegian people, through their parliament, have decided to send a message which I'm sure is supported by all the people of the world."

Lown said despite their hopes, "the Russians were skeptical - they said it would never happen." But Chazov, too, is thrilled, Lown said, and returns to Moscow today.

Lown, who is in Geneva with his wife, Louise, said they had been afraid to call his mother, who is nearly 90, so early in the morning US time. "She'd think something horrible had happened. But the press called her, of course, and now she's become a celebrity."

He said he had not thought much about the prize money, "but it's no issue. It goes to the organization."

What he wanted to talk about, even at 1 a.m., was the group's prime concern - the prevention of a nuclear war whose horrendous casualties the physicians know they could never treat.

"Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev have an opportunity to give a Nobel Prize to every person in this world," Lown said. "Reagan especially has an opportunity, with one stroke, to announce that as a gesture of good will, the United States will stop nuclear explosions forthwith, which would be a major step in the halting of the arms race."

The international doctors' group has been promoting what it calls "a medical prescription for the prevention of nuclear war," an immediate moratorium on all nuclear explosions and testing, to remain in effect until the successful negotiation and signing of a universal, comprehensive test-ban treaty.

Gorbachev has announced such a moratorium, but only for a period of five months; Reagan rejects it until the current series of US nuclear tests is completed. But a moratorium is the ideal first step, Lown believes, for it is easily verifiable and "does not depend on trust."

Lown said he and his wife celebrated last night. "A patient of mine flew in and invited 22 of us for dinner. We feasted on pastas and raviolis and veal and champagne."

When it was suggested that this hardly sounded like a cardiologist's prescription for a long life, Lown laughed and said: "Health is first a function of equanimity, and enjoying oneself is never a block to health."

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