Ralph B. Schoenman ’57

One of our classmates devoted to controversial causes, Ralph died Sept. 30, 2023, in California. 

He came to Princeton from John Burroughs High School in Burbank, Calif. He left Princeton after sophomore year but returned as a member of the Class of 1958. He roomed with a fellow high school classmate, Keith Groneman. Other classmates who took classes with him remember him as the class socialist or Trotskyite, unusual in the conservative 1950s.

Ralph moved to Great Britain, where he became known for many years as an associate of the noted British philosopher Bertrand Russell. Ralph became general secretary of the Bertrand Russell Peace Foundation, producing seminars in which leading intellectuals, such as Jean-Paul Sartre, participated. They opposed nuclearism in all of its forms, the Vietnam War, the American-backed Shah of Iran, and Zionism in Palestine. The Bertrand Russell War Crimes Tribunal, modeled after the Nuremberg trials of Nazis and the Japanese War Crimes trials, was one of their projects, focusing on alleged war crimes by the United States in the Vietnam War. Ralph became a harsh critic of many U.S. government officials, of capitalist executives, and of Princeton University. Shortly before Bertrand Russell’s death, he disassociated from Ralph.

Moving back to Princeton for a while, Ralph became friendly with Professor Richard Falk, who shared many of his political views. Ralph was also known for visiting prisoners in the Trenton jail. In 2002, he became close to Mya Shone, a documentary filmmaker in California, producing the Taking Aim radio show, and then to the production of a webcast. He also befriended and gave information to Joan Mellen, a Temple University professor and author of 24 books, some of which explore the CIA’s role in various events, including the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. 

Ralph is survived by Mya and numerous other social activists, whom he inspired.