The Madness of Nuclear Deterrence

The dangers have only become more acute in the decades since I tried to convince Thatcher.

Mikhail Gorbachev

April 29, 2019 6:42 p.m. ET

‘Deterrence cannot protect the world from a nuclear blunder or nuclear terrorism,” George Shultz, William Perry and Sam Nunn recently wrote. “Both become more likely when there is no sustained, meaningful dialogue between Washington and Moscow.” I agree with them about the urgent need for strategic engagement between the U.S. and Russia. I am also convinced that nuclear deterrence, instead of protecting the world, is keeping it in constant jeopardy.

I asked her: “Are you really comfortable sitting on a nuclear powder keg?” I showed her a diagram representing the world’s nuclear arsenals, grouped into hundreds of squares. Each square, I told her, is enough to eliminate human civilization as we know it. I was unable to persuade Margaret Thatcher. We hear the same arguments today, including in the U.S. and Russia.

Yet nuclear weapons are like a rifle hanging on the wall in a play written and staged by a person unknown. We do not know the playwright’s intent. Nuclear weapons could go off because of a technical failure, human error or computer error. The last alarms me the most. Computer systems are now used everywhere. And how many times have computers and electronics failed—in aviation, in industry, in various control systems?

Nuclear weapons might also be launched in response to a false alarm. If the flight time of the missiles is reduced, leaving less time to detect a false alarm, the probability of a mistaken retaliatory launch is bound to rise.

Nuclear weapons could fall into the hands of terrorists. And who knows what other “surprises” these weapons have in store for us?

Those who believe nuclear weapons can save the world from war should recall the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. A dispute over the placement of Soviet nuclear weapons put the world on the brink of war. Recently published documents show how close the world came to the fateful line. It was not nuclear weapons that saved the world, but the sobering up of the two countries’ leaders, John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev. I am sure they thought long and hard, then and afterward, and their perception of nuclear weapons changed a great deal.

What’s more, they reached agreement on ending nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and under water, thus slowing the qualitative weapons race as well as protecting the air from the deadly products of nuclear explosions.

The opportunity to continue progress in nuclear arms control was then squandered. The military-industrial complex won out over common sense. Only much later, toward the end of the 1980s, were we able to stop the arms race. Today, the U.S. and Russia are at a perilous crossroads. They must stop and think. The veterans of the Cold War have spoken. It is now up to our nations’ leaders to act.

Mr. Gorbachev is former president of the Soviet Union.

The Threat of Nuclear War Is Still With Us: The U.S. must re-engage with Russia to ensure the ultimate weapon doesn’t spread and is never used.

Wall Street Journal

By  

George P. Shultz,

William J. Perry and

Sam Nunn

April 10, 2019 6:54 p.m. ET

 

 

The U.S., its allies and Russia are caught in a dangerous policy paralysis that could lead—most likely by mistake or miscalculation—to a military confrontation and potentially the use of nuclear weapons for the first time in nearly 74 years. A bold policy shift is needed to support a strategic re-engagement with Russia and walk back from this perilous precipice. Otherwise, our nations may soon be entrenched in a nuclear standoff more precarious, disorienting and economically costly than the Cold War. The most difficult task facing the U.S. is also the most important—to refocus on America’s most vital interests even as we respond firmly to Russia’s aggressions. 

The three of us experienced the low points of U.S. relations with the Soviet Union, and the nuclear dangers that arose. The 1962 Cuban missile crisis, the 1973 Arab-Israeli War, the 1979 Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and the 1981-83 confrontation over intermediate-range nuclear missiles were periods of increased tensions, reduced trust and rising nuclear risks. With Henry Kissinger, we wrote in 2007 that although the world escaped the nuclear knife’s edge of the Cold War through a combination of diligence, professionalism and good luck, reliance on nuclear weapons for deterrence is becoming increasingly hazardous and decreasingly effective as more states gain nukes of their own. The U.S. and other nuclear states have yet to take decisive steps toward the goal of a world without nuclear weapons, and the dangers continue to mount.

Deterrence cannot protect the world from a nuclear blunder or nuclear terrorism. Both become more likely when there is no sustained, meaningful dialogue between Washington and Moscow. The risks are compounded by the rising possibility that cyberattacks could target nuclear warning and command-and-control systems, as well as the continuing expansion of global terrorist networks. Since the crises broke out in Ukraine and Syria in the past few years, U.S. and Russian forces have again been operating in proximity, increasing the risk that an act of aggression, followed by an accident or miscalculation, will lead to catastrophe.

A new comprehensive approach is required to decrease the risks of conflict and increase cooperation, transparency, and security. This will require a united effort in Washington and with U.S. allies on a Russia policy that reduces the unnecessary nuclear danger we are currently courting, while maintaining our values and protecting our vital interests.

The U.S. must first address its own dysfunctional Russia policy, and Congress must lead the way. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should convene a new bipartisan liaison group of legislative leaders and committee chairmen to work with senior administration officials on strengthening the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and renewing dialogue with Russia. This model was used in the arms-control observer group led by Sens. Robert Byrd and Bob Dole in the 1980s. The group was able to build bipartisan consensus for a defense modernization program that strengthened America’s defenses and bolstered NATO’s deterrence, as well as a Russia policy that led to negotiations eliminating missiles in Europe. These policies helped end the Cold War.

Second, Presidents Trump and Vladimir Putin should announce a joint declaration reaffirming that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. This would renew the 1985 Reagan-Gorbachev statement that Americans and Russians received positively as the beginning of an effort to reduce risk and improve mutual security. A joint statement today would clearly communicate that despite current tensions, leaders of the two countries possessing more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons recognize their responsibility to work together to prevent catastrophe. This could also lead other nuclear states to take further steps to reduce nuclear risk. The timing of such a statement would also signal Washington and Moscow’s commitment to build on past progress toward disarmament, as next year will mark the 50th anniversary of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

Third, the U.S. and Russia must discuss a broad framework for strategic stability—including increasing decision time for leaders—in a period of global destabilization and emerging military technologies. In a positive step, Presidents Trump and Putin apparently agreed in Helsinki last summer to open a dialogue on strategic stability, focused on nuclear dangers that threaten both nations. Yet their inability to follow up by empowering their military and civilian professionals to follow through underlines how dangerously dysfunctional relations have become.

This effort must begin now. America’s leaders cannot call a “time out” to wait for the aftermath of the Robert Mueller investigation or other issues to play out in Congress or the courts. Nor is there time to await a new U.S. administration, a new leader in the Kremlin, or the gradual resolution of current international disputes. The risks are simply too grave to put America’s vital interests on hold.

The U.S. and Russia should work toward a mutual vision for a more stable security architecture in the next five to 10 years, and identify the tools and policy initiatives necessary to get there. Our nations have a shared responsibility to communicate about crisis management, including between our armed forces, and to maintain our agreements on arms control and transparency. Where treaties are not likely or feasible, understandings and red lines are imperative.

The U.S. and Russia, joined by other nuclear states, must decisively confront the problems that threaten global security. It is essential that we re-engage with Russia in areas of common fundamental interest to both nations, including reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, keeping them out of unstable hands, preventing their use and ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.

Mr. Shultz served as secretary of state, 1982-89. Mr. Perry served as defense secretary, 1994-97. Mr. Nunn, a Democrat, was a U.S. senator from Georgia, 1972-97, and was chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Appeared in the April 11, 2019, print edition.

Nuclear age: Humanity is flirting with extinction

By David Krieger, opinion contributor — 03/05/19 04:00 PM EST 94

© Getty Images

The most stunning and frightening truth about the nuclear age is this: Nuclear weapons are capable of destroying civilization and most complex life on the planet, yet next to nothing is being done about it. Humanity is flirting with extinction and is experiencing the “frog’s malaise.” It is as though the human species has been placed into a pot of tepid water — metaphorically with regard to nuclear dangers and literally with regard to climate change — and appears to be calmly treading water while the temperature rises toward the boiling point. In this piece, I focus on the metaphorical pot of heating water, heading toward a boil, representing the increasing nuclear dangers confronting all humanity.

Disconcertingly, there is virtually no political will on the part of nations in possession of nuclear arsenals to alter this dangerous situation; and, despite legal obligations to negotiate in good faith for an end to the nuclear arms race and for nuclear disarmament, there is no major effort among the nuclear-armed and umbrella countries to achieve nuclear zero. While the non-nuclear-armed countries have negotiated a Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) and are working to bring this treaty into force, those countries that possess the weapons and those sheltering under their nuclear umbrella have not supported the new treaty.

All nine nuclear-armed countries boycotted international negotiations on banning and eliminating nuclear weapons. In addition, each of these countries is in the process of modernizing its nuclear arsenal, thereby wasting valuable resources on weapons that must never be used, and doing so while basic human needs for billions of people globally go unmet and unattended. Despite this unjust and deplorable situation, most of the 7 billion people on the planet are complacent about nuclear weapons. This only adds fuel to the fire under the frogs.

In the nuclear age, humanity is challenged as never before. Our technology, and particularly our nuclear weapons, can destroy us and all that we hold dear. But before we can respond to the profound dangers, we must first awaken to these dangers. Complacency is rooted in apathy, conformity, ignorance and denial — a recipe for disaster. If we want to prevail over our technologies, we must move from apathy to empathy; from conformity to critical thinking; from ignorance to wisdom; and from denial to recognition of the danger. But how are we to do this?

The key is education — education that promotes engagement; education that forces individuals and nations to face the truth about the dangers of the nuclear age. We need education that leads to action that will allow humanity to get out of the metaphorical pot of heating water before it is too late.

Education can take many forms, but it must begin with solid analysis of current dangers and critiques of the lack of progress in stemming the dangers of the nuclear age. We need education that is rooted in the common good. We need education that provides a platform for the voices of the survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. We need education that makes clear the instability and dangerous nature of nuclear deterrence. We need education that challenges the extreme hubris of leaders who believe the global nuclear status quo can survive indefinitely in the face of human fallibility and malevolence.

We need education that can break through the bonds of nuclear insanity and move the world to action. We need the public to speak out and demand far more of their leaders if we are to leap from the pot of heating water, avert disaster and reach the safe haven of nuclear zero.

David Krieger is a founder of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, and has served as its president since 1982. He is the author and editor of many books on nuclear dangers, including “ZERO: The Case for Nuclear Weapons Abolition.”

Mikhail Gorbachev: A Nuclear Arms Race Will Produce No Winners (Op-ed)

Despite everything, it is still in our power to avoid nuclear confrontation.

Mikhail Gorbachev

Kirill Zykov / Moskva News Agency, February 14, 2018

The fate of the INF treaty has politicians and ordinary people worried on every continent. I am also concerned, and not only because I signed that treaty with former U.S. President Ronald Reagan in Dec. 1987. These events are yet another manifestation of the dangerous and destructive trends in world politics facing us today.

The main idea guiding us on the path to signing the original treaty was expressed in a joint statement with the United States, adopted at our first meeting in Geneva: “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”

That INF Treaty was the first step, and it was followed by others — the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START I) and mutual steps towards eliminating a significant part of all tactical nuclear weapons. The two states revised their military doctrines to reduce their reliance on nuclear weapons, slashing their number by more than 80 percent from their highpoint during the Cold War.

The process started at that time had an affect beyond nuclear weapons alone. The Chemical Weapons Convention was signed in 1997 and the countries of Eastern and Western Europe agreed on a drastic reduction of their armed forces and weapons. This was the “peace dividend” from which everyone benefited — Europeans most of all — as a result of the end of the Cold War.

Ever since, the INF Treaty has served the security of our country, excluding the possibility of weapons capable of a “decapitation strike” being deploying near our borders.

I have to mention here that senior Russian officials sometimes criticized the treaty unfairly, lamenting the destruction of the missiles and claiming that they would still be useful to us. I always felt compelled to respond to such statements.

President Reagan and General Secretary Gorbachev signing the INF Treaty in the East Room of the White House

Wikicommons

In recent years, however, Russia has taken an unequivocal position in favor of preserving the INF Treaty. I hope this position reflects a deeper understanding of it’s importance.

A great danger, however, now looms over all that we have achieved in the years since the end of the Cold War. The decision of the United States to withdraw from the INF Treaty threatens to reverse the progress made.

And this is not the first such step. The U.S. refused to ratify the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) and the country’s unilateral decision in 2002 ended the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABMT).

Of the three pillars of global strategic stability — the ABMT, INFT, and START I — only one remains, the New START signed by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and former U.S. President Barack Obama in 2010, and its fate is unclear. Judging by statements that representatives of the U.S. administration have made, that, too, could “become a thing of the past.”

What has happened? What threat is compelling the United States to dismantle a system for limiting nuclear arms that has served the world for decades?

According to the text in the INF Treaty, “Each party shall, in exercising its national sovereignty, have the right to withdraw from this Treaty if it decides that extraordinary events related to the subject matter of this Treaty have jeopardized its supreme interests. It shall give notice of its decision to withdraw to the other Party six months prior to withdrawal from this Treaty. Such notice shall include a statement of the extraordinary events the notifying Party regards as having jeopardized its supreme interests.”

That is, a country taking the step of leaving the treaty should explain to the world community what has compelled it walk away from it.

Where is this threat to the “supreme interests” of the security of the U.S. — a country whose military spending is at least three times greater than that of all of its potential rivals? Has the U.S. communicated that threat to the world community, the public, and the UN Security Council? No, it has not.

A Forced Decision: Why the U.S. Withdrew From the INF Treaty (Op-ed)

Instead, it has leveled complaints against Russia for alleged violations that even experienced specialists have difficulty understanding. And it has presented those claims in the form of an ultimatum.

The U.S. justifies its position by pointing to the fact that other countries — particularly China, Iran, and North Korea — possess medium-range missiles. This is not a convincing argument, however. The arsenals of the U.S. and Russia still account for more than 90% of the world’s nuclear weapons. In this sense, the two countries really are still “superpowers.”

It is possible to suggest that Washington’s decision to withdraw from the treaty is based not on the reasons cited by U.S. leaders, but on something very different: Washington’s desire to free itself from any limitations on its weapons and to achieve absolute military superiority.

“We have more money than anybody else by far,” President Trump recently proclaimed, “we’ll build it [the nuclear arsenal] up until they come to their senses.”

Presumably, the U.S. wants to re-arm in order to dictate its will to the world. What else could it be?

But this is an illusory goal, a vain hope. It is impossible for one country to achieve hegemony in the modern world. This destructive turn of events will lead to a very different result: The destabilization of the global strategic situation, a new arms race, and greater chaos and unpredictability in world politics.

The security of all countries, including the United States, will suffer. This is the nature of the uncontrollable process that this decision will set in motion.

The INF Treaty Has Been Nixed. What’s Next? (Op-ed)

Trump said that the U.S. hopes to conclude “a new treaty that would be much better.”

What sort of treaty does he mean — one catered for building up nuclear weapons perhaps? Nobody should be fooled by such a promise. The same is true of the statement by U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who said that “the U.S. has no plans for the immediate deployment of new missile weapons.”

It only means that the U.S. does not have such missiles yet. And these statements clearly failed to convince the Europeans, who were understandably alarmed. Everyone remembers the “missile crisis” of the early 1980s, when hundreds of Soviet SS-20 and U.S. Pershing missiles were deployed on this continent. And everyone understands that a new round of the missile race could be even more dangerous.

I welcome efforts by European countries to save the INF Treaty. The European Union urged the U.S. to “consider the consequences of its possible withdrawal from the INF on its own security, on the security of its allies and of the whole world.”

German Foreign Minister Heiko Maas, who warned that “ending the treaty would have many negative consequences,” travelled to Moscow and Washington in an effort to find a solution to the problem. It is unfortunate that this attempt did not produce any results, but such efforts must continue — too much is at stake.

Those who would like to put the treaty to rest claim that the world has undergone major changes since it was concluded and that the agreement has simply become outdated as a result. The first half of that argument is certainly true, but the second is deeply mistaken. The subsequent changes in the world require not that we abandon the treaty — that laid the foundations of international security after the end of the Cold War — but that we take further steps towards the ultimate goal: The elimination of nuclear weapons.

This is where we should focus our efforts.

INF Is Just Another Unenforceable Treaty (Op-ed)

I would like to address all Americans, and particularly the Republican and Democratic members of Congress. It is unfortunate that the divisive domestic political situation in the U.S. in recent years has led to the breakdown of the entire U.S.-Russian dialogue, including on nuclear weapons. It is time to overcome inter-party disagreements and begin serious talks. I am confident that Russia is open for them.

With those relations at a standstill, we need new ideas capable of getting them moving again. The expert community can play a major role in this effort. In an article recently published by Rossiiskaya Gazeta and the Washington Post, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz and I called for the creation of a nongovernmental forum of Russian and U.S. experts to discuss the changes that have occurred in security-related issues over the past decades and to develop proposals for our respective governments.

Most important now is for politicians to make a serious change in their thinking. Militarized mindsets have led to military campaigns in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, and other countries. Their effects will be felt for a long time to come.

Politics, not weapons is the key to solving security problems. Although the disturbing events of recent weeks leave no room for complacency, we should not panic yet. We need to understand the situation as it develops and, most importantly, take action to prevent the world from sliding into an arms race, confrontation, and ultimately hostility. Despite everything, I believe it is still in our power.

Mikhail Gorbachev was the General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Soviet Union in 1985-1991 and President of the Soviet Union in 1990-1991. A Russian-language version of this article first appeared in Vedomosti. The views and opinions expressed in opinion pieces do not necessarily reflect the position of The Moscow Times.

World’s Most Dangerous Nuclear Weapon Rolls Off Assembly Line

In the upcoming season of presidential politics, the nuclear question belongs at the top of every candidate’s agenda.

Alexyz3d / Shutterstock

By

James Carroll,

TomDispatch

Published

February 12, 2019

Last month, the National Nuclear Security Administration (formerly the Atomic Energy Commission) announced that the first of a new generation of strategic nuclear weapons had rolled off the assembly line at its Pantex nuclear weapons plant in the panhandle of Texas. That warhead, the W76-2, is designed to be fitted to a submarine-launched Trident missile, a weapon with a range of more than 7,500 miles. By September, an undisclosed number of warheads will be delivered to the Navy for deployment.

What makes this particular nuke new is the fact that it carries a far smaller destructive payload than the thermonuclear monsters the Trident has been hosting for decades — not the equivalent of about 100 kilotons of TNT as previously, but of five kilotons. According to Stephen Young of the Union of Concerned Scientists, the W76-2 will yield “only” about one-third of the devastating power of the weapon that the Enola Gay, an American B-29 bomber, dropped on Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. Yet that very shrinkage of the power to devastate is precisely what makes this nuclear weapon potentially the most dangerous ever manufactured. Fulfilling the Trump administration’s quest for nuclear-war-fighting “flexibility,” it isn’t designed as a deterrent against another country launching its nukes; it’s designed to be used. This is the weapon that could make the previously “unthinkable” thinkable.

There have long been “low-yield” nuclear weapons in the arsenals of the nuclear powers, including ones on cruise missiles, “air-drop bombs” (carried by planes), and even nuclear artillery shells — weapons designated as “tactical” and intended to be used in the confines of a specific battlefield or in a regional theater of war. The vast majority of them were, however, eliminated in the nuclear arms reductions that followed the end of the Cold War, a scaling-down by both the United States and Russia that would be quietly greeted with relief by battlefield commanders, those actually responsible for the potential use of such ordnance who understood its self-destructive absurdity.

Ranking some weapons as “low-yield” based on their destructive energy always depended on a distinction that reality made meaningless (once damage from radioactivity and atmospheric fallout was taken into account along with the unlikelihood that only one such weapon would be used). In fact, the elimination of tactical nukes represented a hard-boiled confrontation with the iron law of escalation, another commander’s insight — that any use of such a weapon against a similarly armed adversary would likely ignite an inevitable chain of nuclear escalation whose end point was barely imaginable. One side was never going to take a hit without responding in kind, launching a process that could rapidly spiral toward an apocalyptic exchange. “Limited nuclear war,” in other words, was a fool’s fantasy and gradually came to be universally acknowledged as such. No longer, unfortunately.

Unlike tactical weapons, intercontinental strategic nukes were designed to directly target the far-off homeland of an enemy. Until now, their extreme destructive power (so many times greater than that inflicted on Hiroshima) made it impossible to imagine genuine scenarios for their use that would be practically, not to mention morally, acceptable. It was exactly to remove that practical inhibition — the moral one seemed not to count — that the Trump administration recently began the process of withdrawing from the Cold War-era Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, while rolling a new “limited” weapon off the assembly line and so altering the Trident system. With these acts, there can be little question that humanity is entering a perilous second nuclear age.

That peril lies in the way a 70-year-old inhibition that undoubtedly saved the planet is potentially being shelved in a new world of supposedly “usable” nukes. Of course, a weapon with one-third the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, where as many as 150,000 died, might kill 50,000 people in a similar attack before escalation even began. Of such nukes, former Secretary of State George Shultz, who was at President Ronald Reagan’s elbow when Cold War-ending arms control negotiations climaxed, said, “A nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. You use a small one, then you go to a bigger one. I think nuclear weapons are nuclear weapons and we need to draw the line there.”

How Close to Midnight?

Until now, it’s been an anomaly of the nuclear age that some of the fiercest critics of such weaponry were drawn from among the very people who created it. The emblem of that is the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a bimonthly journal founded after the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by veteran scientists from the Manhattan Project, which created the first nuclear weapons. (Today, that magazine’s sponsors include 14 Nobel Laureates.) Beginning in 1947, the Bulletin’s cover has functioned annually as a kind of nuclear alarm, featuring a so-called Doomsday Clock, its minute hand always approaching “midnight” (defined as the moment of nuclear catastrophe).

In that first year, the hand was positioned at seven minutes to midnight. In 1949, after the Soviet Union acquired its first atomic bomb, it inched up to three minutes before midnight. Over the years, it has been reset every January to register waxing and waning levels of nuclear jeopardy. In 1991, after the end of the Cold War, it was set back to 17 minutes and then, for a few hope-filled years, the clock disappeared altogether.

It came back in 2005 at seven minutes to midnight. In 2007, the scientists began factoring climate degradation into the assessment and the hands moved inexorably forward. By 2018, after a year of Donald Trump, it clocked in at two minutes to midnight, a shrill alarm meant to signal a return to the greatest peril ever: the two-minute level reached only once before, 65 years earlier. Last month, within days of the announced manufacture of the first W76-2, the Bulletin’s cover for 2019 was unveiled, still at that desperate two-minute mark, aka the edge of doom.

To fully appreciate how precarious our situation is today, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists implicitly invites us to return to that other two-minutes-before-midnight moment. If the manufacture of a new low-yield nuclear weapon marks a decisive pivot back toward jeopardy, consider it an irony that the last such moment involved the manufacture of the extreme opposite sort of nuke: a “super” weapon, as it was then called, or a hydrogen bomb. That was in 1953 and what may have been the most fateful turn in the nuclear story until now had just occurred.

After the Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb in 1949, the United States embarked on a crash program to build a far more powerful nuclear weapon. Having been decommissioned after World War II, the Pantex plant was reactivated and has been the main source of American nukes ever since.

The atomic bomb is a fission weapon, meaning the nuclei of atoms are split into parts whose sum total weighs less than the original atoms, the difference having been transformed into energy. A hydrogen bomb uses the intense heat generated by that “fission” (hence thermonuclear) as a trigger for a vastly more powerful “fusion,” or combining, of elements, which results in an even larger loss of mass being transformed into explosive energy of a previously unimagined sort. One H-bomb generates explosive force 100 to 1,000 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb.

Given a kind of power that humans once only imagined in the hands of the gods, key former Manhattan Project scientists, including Enrico Fermi, James Conant, and J. Robert Oppenheimer, firmly opposed the development of such a new weapon as a potential threat to the human species. The Super Bomb would be, in Conant’s word, “genocidal.” Following the lead of those scientists, members of the Atomic Energy Commission recommended — by a vote of three to two — against developing such a fusion weapon, but President Truman ordered it done anyway.

In 1952, as the first H-bomb test approached, still-concerned atomic scientists proposed that the test be indefinitely postponed to avert a catastrophic “super” competition with the Soviets. They suggested that an approach be made to Moscow to mutually limit thermonuclear development only to research on, not actual testing of, such weaponry, especially since none of this could truly be done in secret. A fusion bomb’s test explosion would be readily detectable by the other side, which could then proceed with its own testing program. The scientists urged Moscow and Washington to draw just the sort of arms control line that the two nations would indeed agree to many years later.

At the time, the United States had the initiative. An out-of-control arms race with the potential accumulation of thousands of such weapons on both sides had not yet really begun. In 1952, the United States numbered its atomic arsenal in the low hundreds; the Soviet Union in the dozens. (Even those numbers, of course, already offered a vision of an Armageddon-like global war.) President Truman considered the proposal to indefinitely postpone the test. It was then backed by figures like Vannevar Bush, who headed the Office of Scientific Research and Development, which had overseen the wartime Manhattan Protect. Scientists like him already grasped the lesson that would only slowly dawn on policymakers — that every advance in the atomic capability of one of the superpowers would inexorably lead the other to match it, ad infinitum. The title of the bestselling James Jones novel of that moment caught the feeling perfectly: From Here to Eternity.

In the last days of his presidency, however, Truman decided against such an indefinite postponement of the test — against, that is, a break in the nuke-accumulation momentum that might well have changed history. On November 1, 1952, the first H-bomb — “Mike” — was detonated on an island in the Pacific. It had 500 times more lethal force than the bomb that obliterated Hiroshima. With a fireball more than three miles wide, not only did it destroy the three-story structure built to house it but also the entire island of Elugelab, as well as parts of several nearby islands.

In this way, the thermonuclear age began and the assembly line at that same Pantex plant really started to purr. Less than 10 years later, the United States had 20,000 nukes, mostly H-bombs; Moscow, fewer than 2,000. And three months after that first test, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved that hand on its still new clock to two minutes before midnight.

“A Madman-Theory Version of the World”

It may seem counterintuitive to compare the manufacture of what’s called a “mini-nuke” to the creation of the “super” almost six decades ago, but honestly, what meaning can “mini” really have when we’re talking about nuclear war? The point is that, as in 1952, so in 2019 another era-shaping threshold is being crossed at the very same weapons plant in the high plains country of the Texas Panhandle, where so many instruments of mayhem have been created. Ironically, because the H-bomb was eventually understood to be precisely what the dissenting scientists had claimed it was — a genocidal weapon — pressures against its use proved insurmountable during almost four decades of savage East-West hostility. Today, the Trident-mounted W76-2 could well have quite a different effect — its first act of destruction potentially being the obliteration of the long-standing, post-Hiroshima and Nagasaki taboo against nuclear use. In other words, so many years after the island of Elugelab was wiped from the face of the Earth, the “absolute weapon” is finally being normalized.

With President Trump expunging the theoretical from Richard Nixon’s “madman theory” — that former president’s conviction that an opponent should fear an American leader was so unstable he might actually push the nuclear button — what is to be done? Once again, nuke-skeptical scientists, who have grasped the essential problems in the nuclear conundrum with crystal clarity for three quarters of a century, are pointing the way. In 2017, the Union of Concerned Scientists, together with Physicians for Social Responsibility, launched Back from the Brink: The Call to Prevent Nuclear War, “a national grassroots initiative seeking to fundamentally change U.S. nuclear weapons policy and lead us away from the dangerous path we are on.”

Engaging a broad coalition of civic organizations, municipalities, religious groups, educators, and scientists, it aims to lobby government bodies at every level, to raise the nuclear issue in every forum, and to engage an ever-wider group of citizens in pressing for change in American nuclear policy. Back From the Brink makes five demands, much needed in a world in which the U.S. and Russia are withdrawing from a key Cold-War-era nuclear treaty with more potentially to come, including the New START pact that expires two years from now. The five demands are:

• No to first use of nukes. (Senator Elizabeth Warren and Representative Adam Smith only recently introduced a No First Use Act in both houses of Congress to stop Trump and future presidents from launching a nuclear war.)

• End the unchecked launch-authority of the president. (Last month, Senator Edward Markey and Representative Ted Lieu reintroduced a bill that would do just that.)

• No to nuclear hair-triggers.

• No to endlessly renewing and replacing the arsenal (as the U.S. is now doing to the tune of perhaps $1.6 trillion over three decades).

• Yes to an abolition agreement among nuclear-armed states.

These demands range from the near-term achievable to the long-term hoped for, but as a group they define what clear-eyed realism should be in Donald Trump’s new version of our never-ending nuclear age.

In the upcoming season of presidential politics, the nuclear question belongs at the top of every candidate’s agenda. It belongs at the center of every forum and at the heart of every voter’s decision. Action is needed before the W76-2 and its successors teach a post-Hiroshima planet what nuclear war is truly all about.

The No First Use Act On Nuclear Weapons Is One Sentence Long — But Its Impact Could Be Hug

By Caroline Burke

14 hours ago

On Jan. 30, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and Rep. Adam Smith introduced a bill that was just one sentence long — but its importance shouldn’t be underestimated. Despite its length, the No First Use Act on nuclear weapons has big aims: to define, in blunt terms, the United States’ relationship to nuclear weaponry for the coming years. The sentence is 12 words long, but couldn’t be more specific: “It is the policy of the United States not to use nuclear weapons first.

“The bill was jointly introduced by Warren and Smith, who is the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee. According to The Washington Post, the lawmakers introduced it by explaining that the bill aimed to confirm what “most Americans already believe — that the United States should never initiate a nuclear war.”

In a joint statement on the bill, as released by Warren on her website, the lawmakers said,

Our current nuclear strategy is not just outdated–it is dangerous. By making clear that deterrence is the sole purpose of our arsenal, this bill would reduce the chances of a nuclear miscalculation and help us maintain our moral and diplomatic leadership in the world.

Though the bill is shockingly short in length, the joint statement by Warren and Smith outlined three main goals for the piece of legislation; specifically, for how the legislation would strengthen national security

First, the two legislators believe the act would “[reduce] the risk of a nuclear miscalculation by an adversary during a crisis.” Second, they maintain that it would “[strengthen] our deterrence and increasing strategic stability by clarifying our declaratory policy.” And lastly, the lawmakers asserted that it would “[preserve] the U.S. second-strike capability to retaliate against any nuclear attack on the U.S. or its allies.”

This isn’t the first time the No First Use Act has been floated for consideration in recent history. During his presidency, Obama reviewed similar legislation, but many of his cabinet advisors were openly and starkly against the bill, so he eventually decided against it.

There are multiple strains of reasoning held by opponents of the No First Use Act. One argument is that a statement like this by the United States could destabilize nuclear policy internationally, causing allies of the United States to feel nervous and enemies of the U.S. to disbelieve the compact. Vipin Narang, a professor of political science at MIT, said to Vox, “A declaration, without any attendant changes to the US’s ability to actually use nuclear weapons promptly, absent changes to the actual posture, alert levels, etc. — your adversaries won’t believe it.”

Narang continued, “There’s a real concern here that your allies might…And for our allies, at least, not declaring one way or another that we might use nuclear weapons in their defense in a conventional attack against them may help reassurance at the margins.”

The fate of the bill, for now, is unclear. In the release of its new nuclear weapons policy in early 2018, the Trump administration declared that a policy like the one Warren and Smith are proposing was unnecessary.

PERSONAL COMMENT: I support the bill, but only as a beginning. Our goal should be to abolish nuclear weapons — and war — forever. If we want humans and other life forms to re,win alive on this plant, we must end the violence. (LeRoy)

Can Elizabeth Warren and Adam Smith, Defying Trump, Persuade Americans to Get Serious About Nuclear-Arms Control?

By James Carroll

February 1, 2019

“No first use” harkens back to the informal moral consensus that America is not a nation to start a nuclear war. Warren and Smith’s bill aims to enshrine that consensus in law.

Photograph by Education Images / UIG / Getty

“It is the policy of the United States to not use nuclear weapons first.” This is the elegantly simple declamation of a bill, introduced on Wednesday by Representative Adam Smith, Democrat of Washington, the new chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The proposed legislation would reverse the longstanding American policy of being theoretically prepared to initiate a nuclear conflict without first being subject to a nuclear attack.

Deterrence theory, which was adopted during the height of the Cold War, seemed to require that a country threaten its readiness to launch a preëmptive nuclear onslaught even before an enemy got to zero with its own countdown. Over the years, though, daylight fell between deterrence theory and strategic conduct. “No first use” became taken for granted as a matter of practice: the United States was not going to start a nuclear war. Barack Obama came close to turning that stance into policy late in his Presidency. Warned off by the national-security élite, including his own Secretaries of Defense, Energy, and State, who did not want to send softening signals to Russia and China, he declined to do so.

But the Trump Administration’s Nuclear Posture Review, issued a year ago this month, went fully the other way, openly declaring that the United States would launch nuclear strikes in response to “non-nuclear strategic attacks,” a vaguely characterized category that could be interpreted to include, say, cyber assaults on the American information infrastructure. Now, a readiness to use a nuclear weapon for the first time since the attack on Nagasaki is a central part of national-security doctrine, a perfect match to the Administration’s across-the-board bluster. First use is a readymade organizing principle for Donald Trump.

Smith and Warren are now openly defying that Trump doctrine. “No first use” can be understood as a kind of mantra, a symbol of a larger purpose—to move away from the decades-old paralysis of nuclear mania. That it could inhibit even a nuclear abolitionist such as Obama shows how multifaceted the problem remains.

Smith has introduced such a bill previously, but now he is joined by a colleague who stands at the pinnacle of the nation’s interest. Warren, who has all but announced a 2020 Presidential bid, embraced “no first use” in a major foreign-policy address at American University, in November, as one of what she called “three core nuclear-security principles.” The other two were “no new nuclear weapons” and “more international arms control, not less” —both of which point away from the road that the Trump Administration has taken. In renouncing the first-use doctrine, Warren joined an eminently practical concern—“To reduce the chances of a miscalculation or an accident”—to an ethical one. “To maintain our moral and diplomatic leadership in the world, we must be clear that deterrence is the sole purpose of our arsenal,” she said.

Introducing the No First Use Act marks a major move, for Warren, from the realm of rhetoric to actual lawmaking designed, at the very least, to prompt congressional consideration of a crucial national-security question. The Republican pushback came quickly. Senator Deb Fischer, of Nebraska, who chairs the Senate Armed Services Committee’s subcommittee on strategic forces, said that the proposal “betrays a naïve and disturbed world view.” Such dismissal will no doubt come from many quarters.

How the initiative plays out in the push and pull of Presidential politics will say less, perhaps, about campaign competitions and media preoccupations than about the general attitude of the American electorate toward the subject. When it comes to the dangers posed by nuclear arsenals, complacency reigns, even as the Trump Administration goes steadily about the business of opening up a new nuclear age. When Trump launched his “fire and fury like the world has never seen” tirade against North Korea, in August of 2017, there was a short-lived rush of nuclear anguish, with many people of a certain age recalling incidents of Cold War Armageddon dread. But, with Trump’s irrational about-face on North Korea, which seems based on what he has called the “love” between him and Kim Jong Un, and which his own intelligence chiefs discounted earlier this week, the broad fear of nuclear war resumed its place in the deep recesses of American denial.

Warren is not taking her cues on this question from the polls. If she were, she would, like most other politicians, likely leave it alone. For two generations, Americans have not known how to think about the nation’s nuclear policy, or its arsenal, and so, for the most part, it seems, they haven’t. The twenty-first century’s stalling of arms reduction, and the withering of the U.S. commitment to the arms-reduction-treaty regime, have ranked low on the scale of the nation’s problems, as perceived from across the political spectrum. Obama’s brief emergence as a globally celebrated nuclear eliminationist, and his inexorable fade from that stance when he was actually in power, says less about a leader’s fecklessness than about the deadly lock that nuclear weapons have had on one Congress after another, on the ever-burgeoning defense industry, and on the American mind

There was an exception, which came during the fraught period of the first term of the Reagan Administration, when a burst of nuclear-war anxiety swept across much of the world. In Europe, the deployment of American cruise and Pershing II missiles ignited unprecedented grassroots protests. In this country, that anxiety inspired the Nuclear Freeze Movement—which called for a freeze on the super-powers’ nuclear arsenals at their then current levels—with municipalities, civic and professional groups, religious institutions, and cohorts of educators, physicians, and scientists all banding together against what felt like an imminent nuclear catastrophe. By March of 1982, the grassroots had sprouted a forest, and the nuclear-freeze resolution, “A Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race,” inspired a bill in Congress by sponsors that included two Massachusetts Democrats: Senator Ted Kennedy and Representative Ed Markey, who is now Warren’s colleague in the Senate. (Markey, with Representative Ted Lieu, of California, reintroduced a similar bill of his own this week) Three months later, a million anti-nuke protesters gathered in New York City. A year after that, the nuclear-freeze resolution passed in the House.

The idea of the freeze then opened into the larger idea of nuclear reduction, and, over time, to a wide embrace of the goal of nuclear abolition. Members of the Pentagon’s nuclear priesthood, including General Lee Butler and Admiral Eugene Carroll, Jr., and civilian architects of the nuclear-security state, such as Paul Nitze and William Perry, began to speak out against nukes. For a time, liberation from the grip of the absolute weapon seemed possible. Even Reagan had been preparing to move past the idea of freezing nuclear-arms levels to reducing them. Then, Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union, a historic shift occurred, and, against all predictions, the Cold War ended, not with conflagration but with negotiation. (On Friday, the Trump Administration suspended the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, which came out of those negotiations, in 1987, following a long-running disagreement over Russia’s compliance.)

“No first use” is a simple idea, as the freeze was, and that is its strength. It is common-sensical, and harkens back to the informal moral consensus that America is not a nation to start a nuclear war. That consensus should be enshrined in law, but, even if all that comes of the Smith-Warren initiative is a renewed public debate, that will be more than salutary. Consideration of the No First Use Act not only in Congress but on the campaign trail can point forward to a new grappling with the unexamined set of nuclear questions, starting with Warren’s other two core principles: of no to new weapons and yes to arms control. More than her proposals for the recovery from income inequality, her effort to unbolt the nuclear lock on the American economy and culture can be historic.

Senators Introduce Bill to Prevent Nuclear Arms Race

Thursday, January 31, 201

https://www.merkley.senate.gov/news/press-releases/merkley-senators-introduce-bill-to-prevent-nuclear-arms-race

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Oregon’s Senator Jeff Merkley and Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), Edward J. Markey (D-MA), Ron Wyden (D-OR), and Bernie Sanders (I-VT), along with Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Kamala Harris (D-CA), and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), today announced the introduction of the Prevention of Arms Race Act of 2019, legislation that would pull the United States and Russia back from the brink of a 21st Century nuclear arms race. Merkley and Markey are members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and Warren and Gillibrand serve on the Senate Armed Services Committee.

“There’s a reason that kids today don’t do duck-and-cover drills in schools and that nobody has bomb shelters in their backyards anymore. That reason is because of key agreements like the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty,” said Merkley. “This era of stability is put at great risk by President Trump’s decision to unilaterally pull out of the INF Treaty. This decision ignores all the lessons from the Cold War. There is no doubt that that Russia is violating the INF Treaty, but the right path forward is to work to bring them back into compliance, not free them to produce more nuclear weapons. Blowing up the Treaty risks the proliferation of nuclear-capable systems by Russia, threatening Europe and jeopardizing decades of bipartisan efforts to reduce nuclear dangers with Russia.”

“A nuclear arms race would endanger the entire world and threaten every single person in our country, and Congress has a responsibility to ensure that President Trump does not start one. President Trump’s imminent unilateral withdrawal from a bipartisan weapons treaty with Russia, without consulting Congress, would mean the Prevention of Arms Race Act is more important than ever,” said Gillibrand. “A reckless withdrawal would further damage our relationships with our allies, Russia would not be legally constrained from deploying larger numbers of their previously prohibited missiles, and the world would be much less safe. I urge my colleagues to support this bill to prevent a new arms race, and I will continue to do everything I can to keep all Americans safe.”

“Pulling out of the INF Treaty plays squarely into Russia’s hands while undermining America’s security and betraying our NATO allies,” Markey said. “The Trump administration needs to work more closely with our NATO allies to force Russia back into compliance. And as the chance of a confrontation between American and Chinese forces rises the Indo-Pacific, it makes little sense to add further ambiguity over whether U.S. missiles stationed around the region are nuclear-armed. This legislation will help ensure that we don’t match two major adversaries missile-for-missile, trigger a new nuclear arms race, and incur unacceptable amounts of risk in an already tenuous security environment.”

“If Donald Trump walks out of the INF Treaty, he will risk a new destabilizing and costly arms race and antagonize important allies,” said Wyden. “The administration should instead be working with European allies to pressure Russia back into compliance.”

The Senators’ legislation comes in advance of the Trump Administration’s expected action this weekend to unilaterally withdraw the United States from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF)  treaty. The State Department set a February 2, 2019 deadline for Russia to return to compliance with the Treaty after a hasty and un-vetted declaration by President Trump in October that the United States intended to withdraw from the landmark treaty with Russia. The INF was originally signed by President Reagan and Soviet General Secretary Mikhail Gorbachev in 1987.

The United States first declared Russia to be in violation of the Treaty in 2014, and experts agree it is critical that the United States continue to work to bring Russia back into compliance and hold it accountable for its violation. A U.S. withdrawal of the INF Treaty will not eliminate Russia’s violating missile; instead it emboldens Russia to deploy greater quantities of nuclear-capable systems and without legal restriction. And withdrawal will not eliminate China’s expansive arsenal of intermediate-range missiles; rather, the collapse of the Treaty will dim future prospects of limiting or eliminating China’s inventory of these weapons.

The INF Treaty permanently led to the elimination of entire classes of U.S. and Russian nuclear and conventional ground-launched ballistic and cruise missiles – 2,692 in total – supported by on-site inspections that allowed both sides to “trust but verify” compliance with the Treaty. The administration has not properly consultation with Congress – a co-equal branch of government – on its plans to pull out of INF. The move is also the latest example of the President ignoring the objections of U.S. NATO allies who have declared that the INF Treaty “has been crucial to Euro-Atlantic security.”

The Prevention of Arms Race Act of 2019 prohibits funding for the procurement, flight-testing, or deployment of a  U.S. ground-launched or ballistic missile – with a range of between 500 and 5,500 kilometers – until the Trump Administration provides a report that meets seven specific conditions. That report would be required to:

1)      Identify a U.S. ally formally willing to host such a system, and in the case of a European country, have it be the outcome of a NATO-wide decision;

2)      Detail recent diplomatic efforts to bring Russia back into compliance with the Treaty;

3)      Assess the risk to U.S. national security and that of our allies stemming from Russia being able to deploy greater numbers of intermediate range missiles;

4)     Identify what programs the United States would need to pursue to offset additional Russian capabilities and at what cost;

5)     Identify what mission requirements with respect to the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China will be met by INF-type systems;

6)      Identify the degree to which INF-compliant capabilities, such as sea and air-launched cruise missiles, can meet those same mission requirements; and

7)      Detail the costs to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and the ability to maintain consensus within the NATO Alliance should the INF Treaty collapse.

“NO FIRST USE” POLICY FOR NUCLEAR WEAPONS

January 30, 2019

Washington, DC – Today, Representative Adam Smith (D-WA), Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, and United States Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, introduced the bicameral No First Use Act, to establish in law that it is the policy of the United States not to use nuclear weapons first.

Today the United States explicitly retains the option to be the first to use nuclear weapons in a conflict, even in response to a non-nuclear attack. The No First Use Act would codify what most Americans already believe—that the United States should never initiate a nuclear war.

“Our current nuclear strategy is not just outdated—it is dangerous,” said the lawmakers in a joint statement. “By making clear that deterrence is the sole purpose of our arsenal, this bill would reduce the chances of a nuclear miscalculation and help us maintain our moral and diplomatic leadership in the world.”

The No First Use Act would strengthen U.S. national security by:

• Reducing the risk of a nuclear miscalculation by an adversary during a crisis
• Strengthening our deterrence and increasing strategic stability by clarifying our declaratory policy
• Preserving the U.S. second-strike capability to retaliate against any nuclear attack on the U.S. or its allies

###

Counterpoint: Scrap the nuclear arms race and use the money to benefit the people on both sides

Posted Jan 17, 2019 at 8:02 PM

In this week’s Point/Counterpoint, writers are addressing the question: Should the U.S. beef up its nuclear arsenal to keep pace with Russia?

In December Russia tested a new weapons delivery system that it calls Avangard.

Launched by a rocket, a vehicle that could carry a nuclear payload detaches and glides back to earth at 20 times the speed of sound.

In major fanfare accompanying the test, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed that the system can evade any existing missile defenses.

In a document titled “Nuclear Posture Review” that it released last February, the Trump administration made its case for mass spending to keep ahead of Russia on nuclear weapons.

The document stated that Russia would “deploy new nuclear warheads and launchers” as part of a “complete modernization of its nuclear arsenal.”

The Trump administration, as stated in the review, plans to continue a nuclear modernization plan initiated by the Obama administration.

Obama’s plan was no small potatoes, calling for over a trillion dollars in expenditures over the next 30 years.

Trump also wants to develop several pricey new nuclear weapons systems: a submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) and a new nuclear submarine-launched cruise missile (SLCM).

Trump’s review acknowledges that the upgrade costs are “substantial,” coming to 6.4 percent of the overall defense budget.

The Arms Control Association, a Washington-based think tank, reports its own projection of the cost as much higher. The Congressional Budget Office, which has also weighed in on the issue, agrees on a much higher likely price tag.

The Obama projections plus the Trump add-ons envisage expenditures well above what Russia is spending. The policy question today is whether the United States should commit to these expenditures.

The answer the Trump administration does not want to hear is a resounding “No.” But that is the answer it needs to hear. We should not keep upping the ante with Russia.

It takes two to wage an arms race, and we, unfortunately, have given impetus to Russia.

That is hardly of Trump’s doing alone. The Obama administration tickled the Russian bear in 2016 by installing a ground-based missile defense system in Romania, supposedly to deter rogue states in the Middle East. But Russia saw it as a threat, calling it an “attempt to destroy the strategic balance” in Europe.

At the same time, Obama was pushing NATO activities closer to the Russian border. In 2017 U.S. and other NATO-country forces began regular deployments in eastern European countries that used to be part of the Soviet Union. Again, Russia took our action as a threat.

A few months ago Trump said that the United States will withdraw from the Intermediate Nuclear Force treaty, a 1987 agreement with Russia that has kept both countries from deploying nuclear missiles in Europe for the last 30 years.

Trump says that the withdrawal is a response to Russian violations of that treaty, but the withdrawal fuels Russian trepidations.

While Russia and the United States are far and away the countries with most of the world’s nuclear weapons, the U.S.-Russia tension is not the only element in the overall nuclear weapon picture.

We are trying to force Iran to forgo developing nukes. Iran is a party, as are we, to the 1968 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which aims at dissuading non-nuclear states from acquiring nuclear weapons.

As an incentive to non-nuclear powers to stay on the sidelines, the treaty includes a pledge by the nuclear powers to reduce their existing nuclear arsenals. By building up instead of down, we undermine our message to Iran.

Nor does our build-up help as we ask other countries to pressure North Korea to scrap its incipient nuclear arsenal.

Both Russia and the United States are wasting billions that could be put to better use improving the lives of their populations. The only sure outcome of an arms race is that there are no winners.

John B. Quigley is distinguished professor of law at The Ohio State University. A native of St.Louis, he holds a law degree from Harvard University.