Please Help! by Professor Martin Hellman of Stanford

http://nuclearrisk.wordpress.com/2011/10/04/please-help/

Please Help!
Posted on October 4, 2011 by Nuclear Risk

Society has repeatedly rejected even minor changes in our nuclear weapons posture as too risky, even though the baseline risk of our current strategy is unknown. To plug that gaping hole in our national security, please sign our petition asking Congress to authorize a National Academies study of the potential risks posed by nuclear weapons, both from nuclear terrorism and nuclear war. Unlike ratifying a treaty, where ⅔ of the Senate is required, a single, interested congressional representative can make this happen, so we have a real shot at success if you will help.

The petition has been signed by Adm. Bobby Inman (USN, Retired), former Director of the National Security Agency and Deputy Director of the CIA, so you know it makes good sense for our national security. Other prominent signers include Stanford University’s former president, Donald Kennedy, and two Stanford Nobel Laureates (Prof. Kenneth Arrow in Economics, and Prof. Martin Perl in Physics).

The petition can be signed on line or you can download a printable version to circulate in person. Both versions include a list of Frequently Asked Questions and a sample email or “elevator pitch” for bringing up the issue.

If you belong to an organization working on a related issue, be sure to read “Why Should My Organization Support the Petition to Study Nuclear Risk?“and consider asking your group to participate. The petition is a great ice breaker that lets you then bring up your group’s specific goals.

Thank you for considering this request.

Martin Hellman

For further reading: My recent paper in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “How Risky is Nuclear Optimism,” explains the need for such a study in more detail.



For further reading: My recent paper in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, “How Risky is Nuclear Optimism,” explains the need for such a study in more detail.

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About Nuclear Risk
I am a professor at Stanford University, best known for my invention of public key cryptography -- the technology that protects your credit card. But, for almost 30 years, my primary interest has been how fallible human beings can survive possessing nuclear weapons, where even one mistake could be catastrophic.
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http://nuclear-news.net/2011/10/10/nuclear-disarmament-is-possible-and-essential-mikhail-gorbachev

Nuclear disarmament is possible, and essential – Mikhail Gorbachev,

A Farewell to Nuclear Arms, by Mikhail Gorbachev, Straits Times, 10 Oct 11, MOSCOW - Twenty-five years ago this month, I sat across from Ronald Reagan in Reykjavik, Iceland to negotiate a deal that would have reduced, and could have ultimately eliminated by 2000, the fearsome arsenals of nuclear weapons held by the United States and the Soviet Union.

For all our differences, Reagan and I shared the strong conviction that civilised countries should not make such barbaric weapons the linchpin of their security. Even though we failed to achieve our highest aspirations in Reykjavik, the summit was nonetheless, in the words of my former counterpart, ‘a major turning point in the quest for a safer and secure world.’

The next few years may well determine if our shared dream of ridding the world of nuclear weapons will ever be realised.

Critics present nuclear disarmament as unrealistic at best, and a risky utopian dream at worst. They point to the Cold War’s ‘long peace’ as proof that nuclear deterrence is the only means of staving off a major war.

As someone who has commanded these weapons, I strongly disagree. Nuclear deterrence has always been a hard and brittle guarantor of peace. By failing to propose a compelling plan for nuclear disarmament, the US, Russia, and the remaining nuclear powers are promoting through inaction a future in which nuclear weapons will inevitably be used. That catastrophe must be forestalled.

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