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DEL.ICIO.USWhat keeps Sam Nunn awake at night
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
For those of you not into the Oscars tonight, the New York Times Magazine published an excellent piece this weekend on Sam Nunn and his worries about the spread of nuclear weapons.
For local historians, one of the best tidbits concerned the negotiations between Nunn and Ted Turner, the media mogul whose donation of $250 million in stock allowed the Nuclear Threat Initiative to open. A small taste:
Turner considered establishing an organization to revive the dormant nuclear-disarmament movement. But foreign-policy specialists he met with persuaded him to focus on more realistic, incremental change.
A mutual friend connected Turner with Nunn, who was then practicing law at an Atlanta firm.
According to one person familiar with N.T.I.’s founding, who does not want to be named because he works with N.T.I. and does not have permission to speak on its behalf, “There was this very prolonged dance where people were trying to come up with ideas that were exciting enough for Turner but sensible enough for Nunn,” who was uncomfortable with Turner’s passion for disarmament, a movement Nunn had long considered irresponsible.
Nunn and Turner found common ground, however, in a narrower mission: responding to the threat of “loose nukes,” or the possibility that nuclear weapons and materials might be smuggled out of the former Soviet Union and find their way into malevolent hands.
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By BPJ
February 26, 2007 12:35 PM | Link to this
Read the article about Nunn and the Nuclear Threat Initiative in the NY Times Sunday Magazine - it is probably the most important article published this year. We all need to be informed on this topic, and ask candidates about their support of Nunn’s proposals.