Book Description

On September 27, 2007, Quinnipiac University and the Albert Schweitzer Institute hosted former US President Jimmy Carter and several internationally-known experts at a forum to discuss nuclear disarmament. This book includes papers and transcripts of talks delivered at that conference. It contains the transcript of President Carter’s keynote address, in which he discusses his experiences in the White House when he and Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev tangled over the size of their respective nuclear arsenals. Carter relates, “I knew the entire time I was president, that 26 minutes after we detected the launching of an intercontinental ballistic missile, that that missile would strike Washington DC or New York or any other target that the Soviets had chosen.” This imminent nuclear threat, Carter notes, strengthened his commitment to peace after he left the White House; the very first conference he scheduled at the Carter Center in Atlanta was on nuclear disarmament. Other papers include talks by Jonathan Granoff, President of the Global Security Institute, who discusses the collective denial that the world seems to have toward nuclear weapons; Ira Helfand, who describes the physical, medical and biological impacts of a massive nuclear explosion should such a disaster occur in or near an urban center; Hirotami Yamada offers a heart-wrenching account of how, as a boy, he survived the atomic bomb blast in his hometown of Nagasaki in August 1945 while the rest of his family perished; Dr. Neil Araya, of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, discusses the connection between public health and nuclear weapons. Other papers consider historical, philosophical, linguistic and educational issues related to nuclear weapons and the ongoing struggle for peace.