Former Director Browne, Lab scientists to discuss future of nuclear weapons

Talk is Oct. 23 in Santa Fe

October 19, 2010—A talk by Richard Rhodes, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb and Twilight of the Bombs, will be followed by a discussion between the author and a panel of experts, including former Laboratory Director John Browne and other Los Alamos scientists.

The talk is from 1 to 4 p.m. Oct. 23 in the Forum at Santa Fe University of Art & Design (formerly College of Santa Fe), 1600 St. Michael’s Drive. Admission is $15 for Santa Fe Council on International Relations (CIR) members and $20 for non-members and guests.

The notion of eliminating nuclear weapons has been a topic of discussion at the highest levels for at least 25 years. More recently, President Obama, as well as George Shultz, Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, and Bill Perry have argued for a world free from nuclear weapons.

Expert panel

The panel, consisting of the author and former Director Browne; Damon Giovanelli, former Lab director of Physics Research; Terry Hawkins, acting director of the Lab's Office of Counterintelligence; and Steve Younger, former director of the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, will discuss the future of nuclear weapons. The discussion, facilitated by Jay Davis, president of the Hertz Foundation and a National Security Fellow at the Center for Global Security Research at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, will address issues, such as:

• the nuclear threat to the U.S.
• vulnerabilities of Western society
• challenges and risks to the U.S. and her allies as the stockpiles declines
• possible international initiatives. 

Rhodes is the author or editor of 23 books including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb, Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, and The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without Nuclear Weapons.

The talk is sponsored by CIR. For more information, contact CIR event coordinator Bill Heckel at (505) 983-4302.