Bio
Sam Nunn
Sam Nunn is Co-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a charitable organization working to reduce the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. He served as a United States Senator from Georgia for 24 years (1972-1996) and is retired from the law firm King & Spalding.
Senator Nunn attended Georgia Tech, Emory University and Emory Law School, where he graduated with honors in 1962. After active duty service in the U.S. Coast Guard, he served six years in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve. He first entered politics as a Member of the Georgia House of Representatives in 1968.
During his tenure in the U.S. Senate, Senator Nunn served as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He also served on the Intelligence and Small Business Committees.
His legislative achievements include the landmark Department of Defense Reorganization Act, drafted with the late Senator Barry Goldwater, and the Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program, which provides assistance to Russia and the former Soviet republics for securing and destroying their excess nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
In addition to his work with NTI, Senator Nunn has continued his service in the public policy arena as a distinguished professor in the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs at Georgia Tech and as chairman of the board of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC.
William Perry
William J. Perry was the nineteenth United States secretary of defense, serving from February 1994 to January 1997. His previous government experience was as deputy secretary of defense (1993-94) and undersecretary of defense for research and engineering (1977-81).
Perry, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at Stanford University, with a joint appointment in the School of Engineering and the Institute for International Studies, where he is codirector of the Preventive Defense Project, a research collaboration of Stanford and Harvard Universities. His previous academic experience includes professor (halftime) at Stanford from 1988 to 1993, when he was the codirector of the Center for International Security and Arms Control.
George P. Shultz
George P. Shultz is the Thomas W. and Susan B. Ford Distinguished Fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He was sworn in on July 16, 1982, as the sixtieth U.S. Secretary of State and served until January 20, 1989. In January 1989, he rejoined Stanford University as the Jack Steele Parker Professor of International Economics at the Graduate School of Business and a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution.
He is a member of the board of directors of Fremont Group and Accretive Health. He is chairman of the J. P. Morgan Chase International Council and chairman of the Accenture Energy Advisory Board. He is also chairman of the California Governor's Council of Economic Advisors and co-chairman of the Committee on the Present Danger.
He was awarded the Medal of Freedom, the nation's highest civilian honor, on January 19, 1989. He also received the Seoul Peace Prize (1992), the Eisenhower Medal for Leadership and Service (2001), and the Reagan Distinguished American Award (2002). He is the recipient of the Elliot Richardson Prize for Excellence and Integrity in Public Service, The James H. Doolittle Award, and the John Witherspoon Medal for Distinguished Statesmanship.
The George Shultz National Foreign Service Training Center in Arlington, Virginia, was dedicated on May 29, 2002.
Philip Taubman
Philip Taubman is the author The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb. He worked for The New York Times for 30 years as a reporter and editor, including stints as chief of both the Washington and Moscow bureaus, and deputy editorial page editor. He has also worked at Esquire and Time magazines. He was twice awarded the George Polk Award - for National Reporting in 1981 and for Foreign Affairs Reporting in 1983. Since retiring from the Times in 2008, he has been a consulting professor at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation. He lives in the San Francisco Bay Area. His first book, Secret Empire: Eisenhower, the CIA, and the Hidden Story of America's Space Espionage, was published in 2004.
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Encyclopædia Britannica Article
- nuclear weapon
Bomb or other warhead that derives its force from nuclear fission, nuclear fusion, or both and is delivered by an aircraft, missile, or other system. Fission weapons, commonly known as atomic bombs, release energy by splitting the nuclei of uranium or plutonium atoms; fusion weapons, known as hydrogen bombs or thermonuclear bombs, fuse nuclei of the hydrogen isotopes tritium or deuterium. Most nuclear weapons actually combine both processes. Nuclear weapons are the most potent explosive devices ever invented. Their destructive effects include not only a blast equivalent to thousands of tons of TNT but also blinding light, searing heat, and lethal radioactive fallout. The number of nuclear weapons reached a peak of some 32,000 for the United States in 1966 and some 33,000 for the Soviet Union in 1988. Since the end of the Cold War, both countries have decommissioned or dismantled thousands of warheads. Other declared nuclear powers are the United Kingdom, France, China, India, Pakistan, and North Korea. Israel is widely assumed to possess nuclear weapons. Some countries, such as South Africa, Brazil, Argentina, and Iraq, have acknowledged pursuing nuclear weapons in the past but have abandoned their programs. See also Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty; Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty.
- nuclear weapon on britannica.com
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