Center Supports Summit Efforts to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism

Nuclear Spring, the term President Barack Obama has given the spring of 2010, was highlighted by the Nuclear Security Summit, an international gathering of 47 world leaders who met in Washington, D.C. in April to discuss actions to prevent nuclear terrorism around the world.

Organized in large part by Belfer Center alumni Gary Samore, White House coordinator for WMD counter-terrorism and arms control, and Laura Holgate, senior director for WMD terrorism and threat reduction, the leaders concluded the Summit by signing a communiqué agreeing that security standards and accountability should improve. They also established a work plan regarding commitment to international initiatives and treaties. A number of countries made individual pledges to improve nuclear security.

The Center supported Summit planning with a number of suggestions and contributed to its efforts and goals through publications and numerous interviews recommending steps for and after the Summit. MatthewBunn's Securing the Bomb 2010 was released the day the Summit began and Graham Allison provided attending leaders with materials that included a nuclear terrorism threat assessment and fact sheet.

Allison, with Mohamed ElBaradei, former director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, and Ernesto Zedillo, former president of Mexico, wrote in an oped published by the International Herald Tribune on Saturday, April 9: "To address the array of nuclear threats and specifically the specter of a nuclear bomb exploding in one of our cities with consequences that will fundamentally change our lives and our world, the supreme requirement is for meaningful, sustained international cooperation." Links to all Center-related Nuclear Spring materials are available at: http://belfercenter.ksg.harvard.edu/nuclear-security-summit.html.