Newswise — Maybe, just maybe, it isn't too late.
That was the message at Rowan University (Glassboro, N.J.) on April 11 when three of the nation's most-respected experts on nuclear arms and disarmament took part in a symposium to honor the 40th anniversary of the Glassboro Summit.
The two-day summit, hastily convened at then-Glassboro State College in the summer of 1967 between President Lyndon Johnson and Russian Premier Alexei Kosygin, focused the world's attention on the escalating conflict in the Middle East, especially following the Six-Day War.
While the Johnson-Kosygin meeting did not yield treaties per se, it enabled a thaw in Cold War animosity that, historians believe, resulted in further dialogue between the superpowers and the eventual dismantling of thousands of nuclear warheads.
Moderated by veteran journalist and former CBS News anchor Dan Rather, the symposium featured panelists in a frank discussion about the state of nuclear weapons and the threats posed by them today.
The symposium was the capstone to a yearlong celebration of the 40th anniversary of the summit. The Hollybush Lecture Series featured a baker's dozen of thought-provoking talks, including addresses by former Sen. Bob Graham of Florida and Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, son of the late Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev.
Introducing the April 11 panel, Rowan President Dr. Donald Farish said the debate on nuclear nonproliferation is painfully absent on the campaign trails of the three major candidates for president: Senators John McCain, Hillary Clinton and Barak Obama.
"Does American foreign policy regarding the development of nuclear weapons by nations such as Iran amount to anything more than the Field of Dream plan "if you build it we will come?" Farish asked. "Who, and where, are the world leaders to move this discussion into the mainstream?"
The panelists, Joseph Cirincione, president of The Ploughshares Fund; Rose Gottemoeller, director of the Carnegie Moscow Center; and Dr. William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, reminded the audience of about 700 that great strides were made by the United States and Russia in the years following the Glassboro Summit.
While other nations, including China, India and Pakistan, have since developed nuclear weapons, the U.S. and Soviet Union once possessed tens of thousands of warheads each but have pared stockpiles since the height of the Cold War to perhaps a fourth, the panelists said.
Cirincione was especially optimistic.
"We are in a period of rapid political change," said Cirincione, author of Bomb Scare: The History and Future of Nuclear Weapons. "This is a time of opportunity for non-proliferation."
He derided the so-called Bush doctrine of pre-emptive engagement with Iraq as "a disaster" but said a group of former hawks — George P. Shultz, William J. Perry, Henry A. Kissinger and Sam Nunn — are leading the charge for disarmament.
The men, three former secretaries of state and a U.S. senator (Nunn), penned a letter in the Wall Street Journal in 2007 making the case for non-proliferation.
Rather, who earlier in the day addressed a public relations and journalism master class on campus, also bemoaned the lack of attention the issue of nuclear disarmament has gotten in the race for president.
"It gets some coverage but suffers underexposure," he said.
Potter, who is also a professor of nonproliferation studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies, said the issue today is not just traditional nuclear weapons but the raw materials non-state aggressors could use to build a "dirty bomb."
"We need to reduce the stuff of nuclear weapons like highly enriched uranium," he said.
Gottemoeller, the Moscow Center Director for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, who has lived the past few years in the Russian capital, said the former Soviets are "itching for peace. It's not just the officials but the average citizen" she meets on the street, she said.
Gottemoeller said the U.S. and Russia are still "the big dogs," with several thousand nukes each, and China, a relative newcomer, has perhaps a few hundred.
Though none of the panelists downplayed the risk of nuclear war completely, they agreed the chance for it is low. One scenario for war mentioned was a conflict over Taiwan in which the Chinese invade that country and the U.S., stretched militarily by deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan, respond with a nuclear weapon.
"But that's a real hypothetical," Cirincione said following the symposium. "It's not something I'd consider likely."
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