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The article presents the message of Bertrand Russell and a letter of Anne Eaton to her father, Judge Walter T. Kinder of Cleveland related to the first Pugwash Conference on Science and World Affairs, held in Pugwash, Nova Scotia on July 7-10 1957. Russell's message outlines the background of the manifesto issued by him, Einstein and nine other scientists that have led to the Pugwash meeting and expresses his hopes and expectations for their work. Anne Easton's letter captures the reality and spirit of the conference.

This is the third special Applications section which is published in Journal of the American Statistical Association. The first, on survey research methods, appeared in June 1986 and the second, on statistical graphics, appeared in June 1987. In March 1987 the coordinating and applications editor appointed me as the editor for a special section on computational statistics. The special section was announced in "Amstat News" in June 1987, and it was advertised by word of mouth, letters to leading research institutions, and letters to several hundred leading researchers. Potential authors were invited to submit an extended abstract of their work before the deadline of September 15, 1987. It is tempting to provide a breakdown of the 97 abstracts into categories, but a preliminary attempt created far too many categories because of the diversity of topics. But all of the manuscripts clearly fell into the broad definition. The editorial board favored statistical papers using computing over computational papers using statistics.