Reykjavik Revisited: Welcome and Opening Remarks

Take your seat please. I want to welcome you and say how really impressed and delighted I am that you are all here. That's a truly impressive group of people; very serious topics, papers as I have read them are wonderful papers, very educational and so I am looking forward to an important conference, now just to get started, our host is the Hoover Institution in here at Stanford, and John Raisian, the Director is here. I would ask him to say a few words, John. Well, thank you all for very very much for coming. It's a terrific distinguished group, we are honored to have here and the Hoover Institution is is doing very well and has lots of important issues going on, particularly has been helping not only has been organizing the the whole nuclear proliferation which is at least Hoover's perspective, as well as you know - secretaries involved in end view issues as well as ideology in terror and so it's a busy agenda and we are very exited about trying to make a little bit of a difference but this is an aghast group. I hope you had a productive two days and and anything we can do here at the institution to facilitate your needs. Please don't hesitate to ask us. Thank you for coming Thank you, John. I should say that as this project has gone underway and developed that is organized by Sid and Goodby and I here at Hoover. But it is very much a Stanford project because there are people from more around the campus here. Some have prepared papers, some are participating so it's a a major Stanford effort and benefits, you will get from the the diverse talents that you have in a place like Stanford University. This conference has been co-sponsored by us and Sam Nunn and his Nuclear Threat initiative, so Sam may be you could give us a word of good from your standpoint Thank you, George. I want to thank you and John Raisian and Sid Drell and the Hoover Institution and all those who have prepared papers and worked hard to make this conference such a potentially important event and I would say potentially because we have got a lot of work to do. I think the main virtue of the Wall Street Journal piece that Henry and George and Bill and I had our names on but which so many of you had a major role in shaping was that we have I believe around the globe and certainly in this country created political space for a lot of bright marks to really say what's on their mind on this subject. I think that has unleashed a lot of creative uses that would otherwise in my view have remained inhibited. None of us know precisely where this is going to lead and how rapidly we can move, we do know though - as I view at that the top of the mountain is a world without nuclear weapons and we can't see the top of the mountain. But I think we can't see that, we are heading down and not up in terms of globally and I think we can't see the there are paths leading upward and many of the papers we have today have suggested a number of those paths, so what is my hope that we can begin to turn around the direction in which we are headed and seek out that trials that lead upward and find hard ground and from that hard ground all sorts of things are possible in the years ahead, so I think this is an enormous opportunity, I am delighted that all of you are here and I guess I would close my brief remarks with a story I heard about a fellow who died and went up to heaven and Saint Peter greeted him and told him that he had a rare opportunity, he was going to be given a chance to basically talk on any subject he would choose before the heavenly host, the whole congregation of heavenly host the next day and he looked at Saint Peter and he said "well that's wonderful he said I am the world's greatest expert on the John's town flood, a terrible flood that happened happened some years ago in Pennsylvania and I can I know more about that than anybody, I have written books on this subject, I have given lectures all over, I have written papers, I am known as the expert and that would be appropriate Saint Peter for me to share my wisdom on that subject" and Saint Peter looked back and said yes that would be very appropriate, well remember one thing he said "what is it?" he said "Noah will be in the audience" well I see a lot of Noahs in this audience here today and I am going to learn a lot from this crowd so as simple so thank you George I appreciate your leadership and I am very proud to be a part of what I think is a very important effort. A few months ago I happened to be at a lunch that governor Schwarzenegger had in San Francisco for the Secretary General of the United Nations and since my wife Charolette runs all these kinds of the events, I got to sit next to the secretary general and we talked about this project and he was very much interested and as a results he has sent the person in the UN that he looks to to lead thinking on this subject, Mr. Sergio Duarte and he is here with us for this meeting and I would like to call on him for his comment. Then let me give one one statement these microphones are recording what's being said but they are not amplifying the sound in the room and so please speak up and if anybody doesn't hear, don't be shy just say speak louder please Thank you very much to Schultz and all distinguished members here I was sent here by secretary general Ban Ki-moon because of his commitment to these to disarmament to progress and I am [0:07:54] ____ not proliferation and these related - okay he mentioned that when he took office several times and the united nations of course has this disarmament one of its oldest goals. There have being several hundreds - literally hundreds of resolutions on that and I would say that some progress have been made under the ages of the United Nations. It is a vital part of policy of the United institutions, but sometimes we know it is dismissed often as a naive or utopian but the alternatives of disarmament in the eyes of the - much of the world appear as unrealistic or worse as inherently unstable or outright to dangerous as alternatives to to nuclear weapons to to nuclear disarmament. So we the proponents of disarmament have such extreme how the global security and the security of nations would be enhanced by the elimination of those weapons. There are of course no shortages of steps to consider that have already been put forward to international community to achieve for the same. Steps can be taken unilaterally, it can't be taken bilaterally. The United States of the Russia federation was this some 97 percent of the world's nuclear weapons, so it's generally considered as up to them to take that bilateral steps but we can't do that also multilaterally in in the United Nations. The importance of - for instance of the force of the CTBT cannot be on this court. The work of approbatory commission has been very important in this - in this to this end and it would advice both disarmament and not proliferation goals if we get the CTBT to come into force In your work you have already recognized that the goal is to eliminate nuclear weapons not just to regulate them but the preferable ultimate goal is not to look at disarmament, it is elimination of all weapons of mass destruction, reduction and control of conventional arms for limited national security and international peace enforcement purposes and strengthening of international institutions for the peaceful settlement of disputes, the for more than 50 years the event has persuade these collective goals under the rhetoric general and complete disarmament and he went short to provide the foundation for these efforts as several multilateral treaties also do and the United Nations of course is willing and able I think to cooperate with the US or work advances, you have succeeded I think in bringing the awareness of these problems to the general public and I think that what means to be done is to bring it to the decision makers we progress on nuclear disarmament must be hand in hand with the elimination of every threats to security or the dawn of world peace. On the contrary disarmament has tremendous potential to serve international peace and security and it's not a byproduct of peace and security. To achieve these goals, states must be congruent with their international commitments. States must accordingly adjust their policies, budgets, institutions and regulations so that they are line with the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons - we have to hear today all year programs for the stewardship of nuclear weapons not the disarmament, not the stewardship of disarmament that I think this is what you are trying to do here We hear of revolutions of in military affairs but no revolution in disarmament affairs, we hear of measures to reduce arsenals but not to relationship of those measures to treat the obligations that countries have accepted. I think it's fair to say that that there are four criteria indispensable to disarmament in order trades to be undertaken security. We must have a binding commitments to ensure that they are permanent, it must be irreversible to prevent strategic nuclear surprises, it must be transparent to enhance confidence building and there must be verification to confront the implementation of disarmament and prevent cheating. I urge to reaffirm to these standards, I mean while you also might want to consider the desirability of encouraging gulf states possessing nuclear weapons to ease your joint political declaration indicating their common ambition to seek to achieve this comes from the NBT- nuclear disarmament by a specific historic date, we are not binding such a declaration would help in designing and implementing national plans for disarmament. Reduction in the reduction in conventional arms also assure the company progress in nuclear disarmament. The entire world community would welcome real progress in nuclear disarmament and the contributions we can make in achieving it. United Nations who undoubtedly play many vital rules in advancing this goal helping to sustain the global rule of law, educating the public, providing common forums for debate and treaty negotiation, conferring collective legitimacy and serving as the world's central means of enforcing a green towards and we are at your disposal for that. I encourage your support for our efforts in the United Nations and I am looking forward to hear your views and discussions on how we can best move forward, thanks Thank you very much. Here is the way we planned to conduct this, we have the papers which you have read and we ask each of the paper writers to make a little five minute statement about it whatever he or she was to call to her attention, in other words we are not going to look for a summary of the paper, we are assuming that you have read them and then we will have discussion and we have designed this conference room for just such occasions. That's we find that you have the best conversation if it's at a round table and so the two tier structure is designed to give enough spaces so we can get a reasonable number of people around the same table. And we will move you around as the program goes on, if you get in the upper tier which if anybody of you have to sleep but then you might miss something. But anyway that's the way we intend to proceed now. Sid has a bell and he is the soul keeper of the bell and if he thinks somebody is talking too long, he is going to ring the bell because what we to get is a conversation. As you could imagine governor Schwarzenegger is where he should be, at this point of time he is in southern California and he sends his regrets, he wanted to be here but obviously he shouldn't be here and he won't be here. it is interesting the amount of support that has come forward for what we are doing for example of my colleagues in the former secretary of state club and in addition to myself and Henry, Collin Powel, Jim Baker, Madeleine Albright, Warren Christopher and Larry Eagleburger all supporters and there are a number of former secretaries of defense national security advisors, some of whom are here. They are of course and Bud McFarland is here and others Richard Allen - so there is a lot of support and that we will read to you something that has come in and which I will read tonight and it will be a public document tonight but - I got a letter from Nancy Reagan and I will just read it out, "thank you for letting me dear George, thank you for letting me know of the new effort to rid the world of nuclear weapons. It was always Ronnie's dream that the world would one day be free of nuclear arms. He felt that as all as such weapons were around, sooner or later they would be used. The result would be catastrophic. I am very encouraged that you are working on this important goal and I know Ronnie would approve of the careful and serious way it is being approached. Each step is essential to bringing the vision closer to reality. Ronnie had many hopes for the future and a number of them were important to America and to mankind than the effort to create a world free of nuclear weapon. As Ronnie said, these are totally irrational, totally inhuman, good for nothing but killing and possibly destructive of life on earth. I agree and applaud your effort to create a safer world. Thank you again for all you are doing and please keep me informed of your progress" So we will make this letter available and I think it it may have some impact as for example how Nancy spoke up on stem cell research, it had a huge impact around and this is an unambiguous statement and I will read this out tonight and it will be put on the website or something so it's a public document and I will be down at the Reagan library in a couple of weeks and give her a personal report on the progress of our meeting. And now I would like to ask Jim Goodby - who I have missed oh Max Kampelman how could I miss Max Kampelman. Thank you George, at the very outset. I also would want to thank you George and Sid Drell you know, at the moment you are not paying attention to me but I do want to thank you George and Sergio Duarte and all of your colleagues here at the Hoover institute for elevating our deep concern about nuclear weapons of mass destruction and turning them into a broad national effort to revive president Reagan's serious goal, the world to destroy those threats to our lives and to our civilization. It's encouraging for me at least to note that Senator Sam Nunn here, one of our country's most respected and experienced national defense experts and leaders as enlisted his organization with this joint effort to restore sanity to the international community. We obviously have serious challenges ahead. The drive for sanity must be an international one, if it's to be effective. I recently returned from a week in London where I met and talked with the leaders in and out of government, members of parliament and both major political parties Sam Nunn and I met both of us met with then British foreign minister in Washington who strongly identified herself and her government with our goal of a zero and who later said to me that she reviewed every word in that commitment with her Prime minister and that she reflected the policy of her government with the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons from the world. In recent days I was also interviewed at length by a Russian television crew television crew because of the interest they set in what we were doing and they called my office as the campaign we went into it really a quite some some length I was told that some of it at least was broadcasted in Moscow but I didn't understand what what was broadcasted and what was not broadcasted. What is obviously required is world leadership by the United States toward that goal of zero, I believe our leadership should be galvanized within the united nations. This is my belief which sensibly represents the people of the world so that the aspirations of the American people and the people of the world should jointly find an expression of that goal in that forum of the world. We should be willing to share that leadership in my opinion Russia with England, with others who may share our aspirations originally expressed by president Reagan and Gorbachev It is appropriate here to note President Reagan's statement that "for the eight years I was president, I never let my dream of a nuclear free world fade from my mind". We should also never forget President Kennedy's reminder that the world was not meant to be a person in which man awaits his execution. The goal of zero must be our goal and our national goal now and we must never forget my opinion that our children and our grand children and we are in danger of annihilation. I believe that the president of the united states should speak in behalf of the American people to the people of the world at the general assembly of the United Nations and propose that the development and possession of nuclear arms be considered an international crime, punishable by total world economic, political and cultural isolation and we who possess most of those weapons that now exist in the world would be equal he should say to depart and to separate ourselves as we emphasize our zero goal. The Security Council should be designated by our resolution to provide the means to prevent cheating and taking the steps necessary to reach the goal of zero because I certainly have found in my discussions that the issue of cheating is a realistic one by people who are sensitive to the needs of of the objectives and we must deal with this question of choosing and verification and I really commend George, the organizers of this meeting for elevating this issue of verification to be a major one at these sessions. and I commend those of that verification group that you have organized here and who are with us today for their serious contributions to this indispensable role. I spent a great deal of time talking to a number of our friends in the Bush Administration on this subject and while I am not without hope and increasingly coming to think that the realities of the political calendar mean that this issue may have to be left for our next President to advance. I am encouraged that there are candidates on both sides of the political isle who have spoken favorably of our objective and whose representatives have talked to me. A crucial question for our group is what can we do to help the President whoever he or she maybe to move forward on this issue with bipartisan support in our country and with appropriate partnership with a civilized world outside of the United States. I would challenge I believe his hand, we know that terrorists are at work to master the no longer mystery of nuclear weapon technology. We also know that the civilized world is vulnerable to attack. We are told that there are more than 27000 nuclear weapons in existence and that about 40 countries are on route toward that capacity. Our efforts to interrupt this process and restrain the spread has failed, it's like urging people when we talk to other countries, it's like urging people to stop smoking while you have a cigarette hanging from your lips and that's the problem we are facing now as we face the rest of the world. It's not difficult to pursued rational men and women that nuclear weapons ought to be abolished but I find that's quickly accompanied by a kind of too good to be true spirit I respectfully suggest that there is power in the oath, our founders adopted the declaration of independence and proclaimed that we were all created equal and this was in the midst of a serious war that we were losing and it would in the midst of us our society, which was one end which slavery flourished, women didn't have legal rights and our laws included property qualifications for voting and yet here we go with a declaration of independence at that time and I am certain in my mind that the pragmatic politicians of that days said, "What kind of nonsense are you doing now at the middle of a war?" But we did it and it became a national oath for us to this to this day We must learn there is power in the oath our Country's strength was and is our commitment to move from our is to that ought. And once we could agree that nuclear weapons ought to be eliminated, we would have taken a major step towards their elimination. Now, our program tomorrow will include a vital step of how we can work with other nations to make the pursuit of a World free of nuclear weapons and we must make that a joint enterprise and I am pleased you have that on the agenda for tomorrow and I look forward to that discussion. The UN, I am aware has been a disappointment to many of us including to me. I have had my problems with the United Nations but it's the only appropriate forum for our Country and our President to adopt and thereby to use it as a vehicle for peace and for stability and for dignity and that I believe was the essence of President Truman's original message to the UN and its birth and I think we must work to restore that potential. When President Reagan returned to Washington, Georgia I hope I am not going too long. But I have an incident that I perhaps would like to share with I Have got my hand on Sid's bell. Well, I am waiting for But he is got to look he got to get relationally pretty soon All right well that may be what I should say. I was going to report really George on that experience you and I jointly had when the President came back from his first meeting with Gorbachev and I remember him incidentally mentioning that he suggested zero to Gorbachev and I also remember the consternation in that room as they heard the President say that. He didn't respond at least he didn't respond until Reykjavik. When he repeatedly offer much to the dismay of many of those in the administration if you recall correctly and any of them. You are among the paper that pattered them on the head. Yeah. And said "You learn better." Yeah. But I I remember that visibly as as we as we are now involved in this kind of discussion. I think there was an important statement made at that meeting. It was in Geneva in 1985 - that was a an agreement as I put it a nuclear war can never be won and should never be fought or something like that and that was kind of a touchstone for much of what happened Well and it's how I I will finish up by simply saying that diplomacy is now called for by the United States. American leadership is essential there are other countries ready to join with us. I have reason to believe that Mr. Putin would be from what I am told by people associated with him would very much like to be he looked up on his recent suggestion about Iran as about I am told, I never met them out but I am told that there is opening now for the United States to ensure leadership and I really hope that this meeting that you have called and have arranged here can set the tone which produces that kind of American Government Leadership toward the goal that we all share Thank you Max, I think you said what can this group do and at least as we have said about organizing this conference; we have proceeded on the basis of what this group can do. They say, "If you are going to get there, what are the things that you would have to accomplish in the process to feel confident that you are getting there in a secure and careful way and so the papers are designed in a sense to be able to say to a President if he or she should be interested. Well here are some of the steps that you need to take and here are some papers that talk about them and here are some people who are interested and who are willing to work on it and here are some people who are willing to say that and say we support this. So it's I think for this conference it's the steps and examining carefully and saying that we get them under control and then after the conference to have the people who have written the papers revise them and say see it fit in the line of the discussion and we will then publish them as quickly as we can get the pressures to role. So this will be moving things along. I may just say where we go with this project remains the same but it is interesting that the government of Norway has asked that we help them organize a conference on this subject sometime next year probably, in February or something like that, so we have said that we they will exam us, then approach by them and I have to do that and we would make available of course the papers and we will try to provide, to put forward a little summary statement about them or something of that kind, we will circulate all these things of course to all of you. Well, now I want to turn to Jim Goodby for a brief statement and then we will get to the papers direct.