of cooperative storage, dismantling and distraction of soviet nuclear and chemical weapons. commemorations of the acts 25th anniversary, a panel of government officials and policymakers discuss their role in implementing the legislation. this 80 minute program was cohosted by the national security archive. the carnegie corporation, the carnegie endowment and the nuclear threat initiative. ladies and gentlemen, thank you for your attention, we have real heroes of the implementation of non-lugar. i turn this panel over to david hoffman to inaugurate the extraordinary individuals. they are in your program. i will not spend our time going over those, but i want to turn it to david hoffman for his penetrating questions and

authoritarian moderation. thank you all again for joining us for the second panel. you heard in the first panel discussion about the hopes and wheresappointment that the rubber meets the road is where this panel is about. from 25 yearsnow of experience, it is one thing to give a good speech on the senate floor, it is another thing to get a missile silo closed in ukraine. i've hope this will help us understand how some of those accomplishments were actually carried out. my experience and my reporting that there were hundreds, probably thousands of people involved in this implementation. in my six years in moscow, almost every week i met people that were working on cpr and going to far corners. chin ater going to sue

the enormous factory, with senators and being surprised at the incredible effort that was going on way in the far corners of russia to destroy that huge stockpile of chemical weapons. it was not something you heard much about in washington. factory as big as any chemical factory i have seen. the idea of those warheads carrying deadly chemicals being brought by train into that factory with both russians and americans taking them apart, it was a sight to see. big question for everybody on this panel will be how did we get to actually accomplish something with this program? i think my big question for you , you were there very early withaughed the last

russian officials at our test sites. you were there almost until recently with the remediation decades. what is the key to building trust in all of this? how did you do it? thank you, david good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. it is a great cause her to be here with such a distinguished audience and the group that really laid out on lugar for us lugar for us. how do we build up the personal relationships? is the personal relationships. for me, the single most is captured in an american song. it is called walk a mile in your shoes.

for us to walkt a mile in the russian shoes. how did we ask convince the russian nuclear weapons scientist to go through all of these things with us? safety, tor weapons the people related things, it was important to understand what was it like inside of russia. david, you mentioned in your opening, that in your book, you got ane russians inheritance from hell. that is what the nuclear complex was. when we got into the russian did,ities in 1992, and we we were not just sitting around the conference table, we were doing experiments together. what we found out what the russian scientist wanted to do with science. they wanted to create new knowledge. they wanted to build new things.

engineers like to build things. scientists create new knowledge. you have all heard of the make a megatonske a lots -- two megawatts. it was fantastic. megatons to make it -- megaguise. we created together the highest magnetic field ever created on this earth. in their los alamos. and we spentthere, weeks working together hand-in-hand, you could barely tell who was doing what. is that, to the russians, the nuclear complex was not an inheritance from hell.

for theit was the means revival of a great russia to nuclear weapons. i usually tries to give the inheritance from hell to an american side. as you heard, there were tens of thousands of loose materials. and one million kilograms of this stuff. perhaps, hundreds of thousands in the nuclear complex. sale ofe experts, this everything. that's what we were concerned about. way the russians licked that it. the weapons were to ensure the sovereignty of the country. especially when everything was coming apart. the nuclear material, especially the laddonia. platonium.addonia --

uranium was down blended to make our electricity. the best and the brightest in all of russia. the engineoing to be of their economic recovery. some exports, we did have problems in the 1990's. russia became a responsible clear exporting state. that is what they viewed as being important. that is what they were trying to make sure survive. witharned that by working them. with the enormous support of the program from here, we were able to do things together with the russian navy,. end there were no loose nukes essentially no loose

people. a responsible exporting state. as i like to stay -- say, when i , the sayingington that there is plenty of blame to go around. plenty ofse, there is craze and credit to go around. you just heard the american thernment, secretary perry, people who allowed us to do those things in the apart -- in the department. charlie curtis was our partner in all of this. jim turner was there. .any of you most of all, it was really the .ussian nuclear scientists their patriotism, professionalism, dedication and their willingness to suffer. they had to suffer in the 1990's to make it through.

my 10 minute presentation and give you a few minute answer to your question. david: let me follow up for one second. don't you think there was a little bit of denial in those attitudes? to the leadersnt of the two laboratories with your little briefcase of pictures and said, you guys left plutonium in that mountain. will you help us find it and get rid of it? it was not as if there was anything loose in this. the dangers were real in the russian nuclear complex. economically, things just collapsed. yes, there were real concerns. some of them were quite easy to understand. for example, the fresh fuel for the russian navy.

some were not easy to understand, such as, what was left behind. andy weber and his colleagues were closing tunnels. what was not appreciate it was the fact that there were lots of other experiments done. nuclear material that was not blown up in a mushroom cloud. so yes, those things were left behind. quite frankly, from a russian perspective, the way we finally solved the problem was with the russians, americans and the cause six -- americans together. did those experiments, who would've ever thought that that test site would be in somebody else's hands it was that i said, did you leave something behind that ?ou are concerned about

the answer was that we are not going back. that stuff was loose. andy weber worked on this for many years. trilateral cooperation, we did manage to litigate the problem. >> it took 17 years. resilience. i would like to turn to implementation of another problem that was a little more linear and less mysterious. icb is the question of the time of the collapse. this is a source of great concern for the united states for many years, and all of them were brought back to russia. we have with us to people who helped work on the implementation of this problem. arms control and cooperative

threat control, i would like to hear about how they could accomplish it. gloria: i truly apologize for the quality of my voice. it is an honor and pleasure to be here with so many colleagues and friends. some of who i have not seen for the past 20 years or so. anniversaryric 25th of the signing of the nunn-lugar legislation. the first thing i would like to say is, the one who implemented it. that legislation itself was brilliant. and insightfully assess the problems and the trends that it sought to address. it was well crafted enable many of us here in the room to find practical solutions and problems. our implementation of the legislation was a very

entrepreneurial activity. we knew the problems on the goals of the legislation, but despite our intelligence, we did not know exactly what the situation would be on the ground , and how our goals could be the act provided the authority and flexibility we needed to get the job done. when a request came in, many of them very unique and unforeseen request from the former soviet countries. for instance, remove weapons grade uranium from causing's don. -- kazakhstan. russia, the operation of the isp ecp in each case, we found the authority in the law that we needed to get those jobs done. is anly, nunn-lugar

exercise in international cooperation, it has also been an example of an interagency cooperation in the u.s.. ,hatever i was able to do whatever we were able to do dependent on the cooperation and mentorship as a negotiator of my state jim and the department. the blessing of jim who came to our office from the controller's office in d.o.d. and knew how to work the budget. also jack, i see you here, who is our assigned legal counsel from this dot office of general counsel. end, always found a way to make it happen. there were so many other colleagues from other dod

offices and agencies within the u.s. government. it was a great example of transcending the division that exist between agents. i would like to tell a story, because it illustrates the extraordinary cooperation we had in the former soviet union. and how it often depended on one courageous individual. 1995, dr. perry led a working group from moscow. one of those long-lost bilateral regular bilateral forms. we were at a big rectangular the russians were there with their various programs and offices represented from them ministry of defense and the same from dod.

i was there to brief on the program.r i received a tap on the shoulder from behind. i looked around, there was standing a person who i did not yet know was the general. he said are you the nunn-lugar person? are you the person we talked to about nunn-lugar assistance? we went off in another part of the room. he told me about his fears about the security of nuclear weapons. which were under his control, because it was -- as it was earlier described when being stored,ted, maintained, etc. he talked about very specific concerns. that thereerned could be a hijacking on the tracks, a stoppage of a weapon

strain and theft of weapons. concerned that there were demobilized officers who did not have housing, living on strategic tracks towards the basis because they had nowhere to go. that corruption or greed could lead to communication between them and their still employed colleagues, that could lead to the theft and perhaps black-market sales of a nuclear weapon. he was concerned about the reliability of their people and personnel working on the commanding control of nuclear weapons, transport and storage. asked to talk with us and possible assistance that we might provide. we went back to moscow.

we talked about how we could be helpful. some of you may remember those meetings spared we went over our experience with reliability of personnel with safety of nuclear weapons. team, then we went back to moscow in march. we had several days of meetings with this team. the group of colonels and lower-level generals talking in a most extraordinary way about the problems. of theired disclosure mishaps and non-mishaps. in included discussions about the personnel reliability problems they had. fears about what could happen to their nuclear weapons. questions, it also

about anconcerns of -- antiquated way of keeping tracks of the whereabouts of the nuclear weapons. sort of pre-digital era. while in transit and in storage. question,hen asked a can you be more specific, tell us more. generals and colonels, the general manager was there sometimes at the table, sometimes elsewhere. say,would look to him and can we talk about this? this,h case he went like go ahead. we had that thing discussion back at dod about how much we could disclose. of this discussion and in the months and years following, we provided assistance with detecting

threats to weapons trains, help also someing weapons, sharing of experience on personal reliability, including testing and other methods. 19 95d of our march meeting in moscow, where we comment thesed this general invited his team and to have lunch and to tour the monastery and meet someone from the patriarchs office. of this rather extraordinary day, which is at the end of an extraordinary week , i asked general maslin why did you bring us here? he said " because god is watching us and watching what we do."

or the ethicalod imperative to cooperate with the common good, this type of attitude we could use a lot more of today. [applause] god is watching over some of us, but it requires human endeavor. i think you as a negotiator and diplomat have put a lot of time and effort into making some of this happened. tell us how it worked. >> thank you. is alwaysatic world divided into two pieces. procedure and substance. lot about the a substance, i want to talk about the procedure. between the nunn-lugar legislation and the missiles and

silos, there was another area that had to do with creating legal framework. defining what it was or what we were planning to do with our counterparts in russia, ukraine, kazakhstan. funds as weate the started specific projects. task of an interagency group. it was initially headed by general builder and's. the father of carnegie president. let me speak a little bit about bill burns senior. armsd been head of the control agency after a distinguished military career. he had been asked if he would pick up a nunn-lugar negotiations to negotiate the labor freeware. he accepted. he had other things he preferred to do, but he talked to us about

a noble cause. he became the first head of the interagency delegation that travel to various capitals to negotiate the legal framework. ofer the change presidencies, he decided to step down. he was doing all of this pro bono. he wanted to spend more time at home with his family. -- at that point i was at the lewis institute of peace. at the kearny goal -- kearny e carnegie history. they came to see me at the institute of peace and asked me what i take bill burns's place? i did nothing wrong about it. i thought it was important to do so i accepted. i was told that i had to understand that this was in interagency effort, it was not

the state department in charge. all of the money came from the pentagon. had tore, the agreements be signed by the pentagon representative who was gloria duffy. i got to set up lunch and help with the negotiations. gloria signed the agreements. in the process, i want to mention to attorneys that helped me and gloria very much, you have already mentioned one of them. jack period and roy gardner -- jack beard and roy gardner. i think it is fair to say that jack beard probably created this legal framework. umbrella agreement that describe the scope of the operations, with the four countries we were negotiating with. there were also implementing agreements, which described in more specific terms, what it is exactly that would be done.

silo and so forth. the task of the interagency group was essentially to umbrella agreement with these four countries. also a series of implementing agreements. bill burns already done some of that. .e finished the negotiations he started with russia, we had not gotten very far with ukraine or kazakhstan. in march of 1993, i took over that job, , i took the job for one year. in the process of that year, thanks to a really effective team, jim turner was my department energy deputy, sitting in the front row. there wasder, back

from osd. there are many others of us. gloria played the important role as the dod deputy. first year,f the the only year i was actually doing that job, we had negotiated something like 30 agreements. four or three umbrella agreements. the cooperative threat reduction offers put out a report that came to my attention, that may be very pleased. went up almost in a straight line from where they had been. was a lot that was done. it was mainly due to the people on the team. it was a remarkable group. i wish i did give you all of the names. i remember them very well, but there were many others as well. gloria is right to emphasize how many people supported in this operation. i wanted to mention one other

thing. i had the feeling that idea,ugar was such a good we should try to expand it and move into other areas. we actually did that. in 1995, we created something called safe and secure dismantlement. this came out of the gore commission. it was in important element of what we were doing with the russians at that point. i think it is not ever given enough credit for what it did. what we were thinking about were two things. one cooperation with the russians on security and materials. what we were thinking about were two things. we developed a fairly elaborate rapport and how that would be done. the other part was dismantling the test nuclear warheads. fast-tracken

authority to negotiate an agreement to exchange restricted data, which is quite -- quite a remarkable thing. even in those days it was quite remarkable. we made quite a bit of progress in doing that. we also tried to negotiate implementing a scope agreement on what we were actually going .o do a lot of it had to do with exchanging data. we had to get a proper database. is, wet of the matter overreach. we were asking for a lot of historical data about materials. i suspect the russians do not actually have. offer to all of you who are doing these things in the future, never overreach. realize what the limits are. do that and take another step later on. in any event, we were making some progress at the end of

1996, probably. a friend of mine from the russian embassy came to see me and said we will have to post -- postpone the next meeting. were actually getting to the point where we talked about negotiations, and talking about where it would be. we began to work out how this would be done. the rug was pulled out at the 1996. i do not know exactly what happened, but something happened in moscow that made it clear that this was not on. the entire thing collapse. there have been other interested talk about war had dismantlement, which we still don't do. but i recommend something like that get started again. with that i will close. [applause] i suspect that jim gave

,s a very representative diplomatic explanation of some moments that were very germanic in actuality. that's a secure and dismantlement program included between thet russians and the united states. the united states would take one of the rail cars that were transporting the nuclear with and -- nuclear weapons, put it on a barge, fly to sandy missed national laboratory rate was taken apart and where tickets were developed to make the rail carts more secure. i think that example a lot. i was the correspondent of the washington post in moscow. i missed that story. [laughter] traumatic it was a cooperation ahead tangible results in making the world a

little safer. especially when you saw those railcars with the wood insides without a team indication device with various guards, without security blankets. it was all done cooperatively and quickly. senatorhe things that nunn-lugar mentioned today was that they were proud of getting it signed and in place. it was really an authorization. we see her in the halls of congress and everybody knows that the real important thing is getting the money appropriated. ,hat was long and difficult especially in those first few years and expectations have been raised. nunn-lugar existed as an authorization. getting the mom just money appropriated and spent in the pentagon was extremely difficult. i hope the general will enlighten us about how you did that. let me say, when jim and

done their work, like these brilliant surgeons, they left the operating peter and said, ok so it up. sew it up. and i would be back there wondering if he is going to survive and, am i going to get blamed for this? i would mostly like to talk about the projects i work on with general muslims. -- general maslin. let me talk about some of those programs. they all had to do with nuclear warheads. i would've hoped that as we got into this program, we would have started on something a little less controversial or sensitive been nuclear warheads. launched right into the

warheads. tend to be at the top of the dismantlement scheme. the same way they sit on top of a missile, which ironically is the most secure place for them to be when they are in a silo. only start to dismantle and process, we take the warheads off and start them on their journey. it was everything having to do and warheads that general the 12 main director was concerned with. once we were able to get the warhead off, we dealt with the other things that were related with a lot of emphasis of getting rid of the missiles. terriblyles were not difficult once we got the fuel separated from them. we could easily destroy those in a manner that the treaty could

recognize. was a lot more complicated. the fuel was difficult for us to deal with because, it was clearly not a threat related item. it was an item that had to be taken care of so that we could continue with this entire process. particularly, liquid fuel. that got us into programs that were horribly complicated and expensive. containers, railroad tinkers, even forcing gus to work on railways. rail roads in order to get all of that taking care. in the end we were going to destroy or conferred that fuel. it was a long, complicated business.

with the missiles taking care of them, the silos were absolutely straight or it it was an ugly, brute force that blew up those silos. provided bulldozers that would sweep all of the debris into the holes. at that point, a lot of us would have liked to have walked away from the program before we ever heard the word remediation. remediation was a loaded concept . once we started talking about its, we knew at the end of would be ordering sunflower seeds. in fact, remediation was not the end of it. the general reminded us, it is fine when you take your of the the partapon system,

of the structure is the unit. he would have liked to invited us back to the grounds where we colors retard. then he point to all the soldiers and say, surely you will find a civilized way to deal with my office this year. that was housing. housing is enormously complicated. secretary perry wanted to do this. in ukraine, we did get involved using aest effort defense conversion ankle. in russia itself we never did it. it was a big disappointment for the general. the things that we did manage to do to help them -- help him as in 1992.harge the problems he had were enormous.

nukes 20,000 tactical that he had to bring back from the forward areas. including the former soviet union. he had us referred to 3000 nuclear warheads in kazakhstan and ukraine. wild on top of a normal dismantlement scheme in that had 2000 warheads that had to be taking care of. huge problem. good humorll with and amazing grace. it is too bad he was not here today to personally receive his award. did,of the things we material containers were at the begin. there is the beginning of our project that was the tail end of the dismantlement team when they

finally went out there and the missiles had the material removed from them. they had to go into some containers. this was primarily before and without the general and mize involvement. amazingly successful. he came up with the specs, the containers are made in new mexico. delivered.y were they were delivered with delays, but they were built in delays that we could not escape. i would have thought that the success of this program would've given them the confidence that they were dealing with a serious partner. i don't agree ever earned confidence. at the beginning of the process, as these warheads were being loaded to start on that journey to the dismantlement land, the first thing was a stop measure

to get arming blankets. a simple project. the initial ones came out of u.s. army stocks in western europe. buy aas a contract to whole bunch. they were brought in and the help that the early part of that process with a little more security. the general said it would have if we canmore helpful find a container to put the warhead into before it went into the railcar. we came up with this fortified container, or super containers we called them. the specs contract was let out. it was awarded to the british at 150th east.

super containers were delivered to russia. the railcars were discussed how those were improved with kits that were sent back for perm to install. with all of this activity going russia divided into five response areas in case there was an accident, or in incident. they ask us for assistance, which we eventually provided to provide each of those regions with a large response kit to safety.with . things to mitigate in incident, should it happen.

one of the most complicated things was, to keep track of all movingsiles as they were around. it was suggested and accepted that there be an automated -- inventoryrol of control of programs feared this would involve -- programs. this would involve computers. it was very technical and sensitive. i think the general had confidence we would provide some serious assistance, but he surely had doubts that all of these computers we were providing them might also allow us to keep track of his inventory as he was keeping track of his inventory. we bought ar -- tonic of computers.

--onder how many of those when they got through security inspections were in operating orders? it was always interesting to me. finally, besides they were going morere stuffed with warheads than ever been intended for. there was a need to improve the security. the actual, technical response was fairly simple. a whole bunch of fences and sensors and intrusions, all of this was straightforward and could be provided. some of those contracts could .ctually let in russia the hiccup was, the federal acquisition regulation. -- far becauser

beingvented us from responsive. it's one of the reasons the program stretched out for a long time. all of these protection should've been in place, but it was difficult. wouldr require that you -- if we provide assistance, we had to be on-site that it was being used correctly. that it was not going to some place. -- unauthorized we worked on this forever to see if we could come up with an agreement to satisfy both sides. proposal was something like, plato's allegory

of the cave. ct inspectorsd and watchugh a cave on the far walls as reflections of our assistance were paraded behind us, then sign off. we could not exactly by that, but we came up with something that made the people nervous and did not completely satisfied the general. the last thing we did was to to build aistance technical training base for all of these new procedures and bank appears could be tried out. concepts could be worked out. time and cost a lot of money. hopefully it is still being used.

hopefully it is still being appreciated by the russian side. i just want to say in quick , this is a very productive relationship we had with a very sensitive subject. fill your here could've had a far wider consequence than any place else. 10 years before i had an officer killed in east germany for trespassing on a soviet training range. this was not a sensitive area. even -- yet,e not we had this horrible outcome. 10 years later i was discussing moslin,eral muslin --

how both sides could agree that official material arising from a dismantlement site and being put actually cameer from a missile and not another source of nuclear materials. we got to that level of specificity, it was amazing to me and i was delighted to have done this with a very fine officer and a very fine representative of the russian people. [applause] we have a lot of bridges up in fear. we thought that we would try and speed up the pace just a little bit because are are a lot of people we would like to hear from. time is slipping through my fingers a little bit. reef, -- brief

comments from a handful of people. one highlight of their experience with nunn-lugar, and may be a lesson to be learned with that. i will start with charlie curtis. charlie: i wrote an introduction to the amazing work that documented the cooperation ,etween the u.s. and russia particularly its laboratories and the scientific institutes. , this wasout in that fatedd cooperation -- cooperation where the scientists on both sides understood the dangers that the russian federation was facing in the post-soviet period.

for became the advocates operation. not only the instruments for securing weapons and materials, but also the advocates that validate internally within the russian federation. you heard bill perry talk about that on military to military cooperation. i think that is what made this extraordinary program work. it's that the people who knew the dangers became the advocates and supporters of the cooperation that grew out of this danger. i do not know whether it was a situation from hell, but it was certainly a hellacious problem. theas an urgent problem in case of the security of materials. they were very broadly intributed in large numbers.

a circumstance in which the was not paidratus the defenses were not secure. the insider threat was not protected at all. the anecdote to all of that is, thed the privilege of going dinner at thed very beginning of the lab to lab program. essence aesenting, in proposal. initial up and gave an toast. it is one of russia's great weapons secrets is to get everybody drunk at these dinners. but, trying to be careful he gave a nice toast and i stood

up immediately afterwards to i amduce my toast i said, told that one should not let in interval passed between the first toast and the second toast than is any greater the than it takes a bullet to pass from one side of the table to the other side of the table. i thought i was pretty funny. it turns out it was a kgb toast. [laughter] charlie: it was a great privilege to have worked with so defense, andstate the department of energy, in particular, its laboratories. think that this is a time when government worked. when our congress work together on a bipartisan basis. when the inner agency worked together with many people

sitting in this room. let us hope for that day in the future will be recovered. there is great opportunity for cooperation still between russia and the united states. and a habit of cooperation on rains nuclear. research, safety, security, environmental remediation. basiswant to start on a of a sound foundation, rebuilding a cooperative relationship between our two countries, i think that is the footing we should start with. [applause] victor.ext on my list,countrie,

a couple minutes, please. i just moved from the agency to the department of energy, which decided they wanted to play in this game. acrossst thing that came my desk was the joint verification experiment. we had to treaties language for ratified because we cannot verified. the united states and soviet union agreed to have a joint verification ratified experimene they would come to our test site and measure a yield of explosions. right on site in one of the most secret places in the u.s. same in thethe soviet union. in the course of those , our scientists were like brothers with their scientists. before long, i don't think it

test,year that we had two which showed that if we combine the two countries, we could verify compliance with these treaties. in the course of all of this, the friendships that were developed tween the u.s. and the soviet side -- scientists, we found out that the soviet union was very fragile. one of the provisions of the itaty was going to be that, had to be done on national soil, could not be in antarctica. the russians would say, we cannot agree to that, because we are not sure that kazakhstan will be a part of the soviet union. it may be falling apart.

i think that triggered an hour scientist mind the need to russiansdealing with in scientific manners. program begin. i used to have to go after your guys who went all over the place in russia. exactlytified what needed to be done. the signs that we did through that program and later on, they were part of this whole effort. -- let me just move on. one of the things that happened legislationn-lugar passed as we were facing all

this with the soviet union. in of the things i asked russia -- and secretary baker wanted to know what could we do right now to get the program really flying. i sent a message back to post then my office, laboratories on projects that we could start right now. , this was about midnight there time. a reply toy i got coordinate with all of the laboratories. i have a copy of it with me. it was been reviewed by the inner agencies in one to two days. immediately to the soviets. they accepted it. we found a couple of them could

not work for technical reasons. many of those were the basis, and the wonderful work that we have heard from all of you. we need to begin to think -- as someone suggested, what will we do next? can we persuade the next president that his special relationship with russia could lead to some interesting things unexpected by all of us? [applause] ok, glen. microphone, the archive has a new posting of documents, some of which go to this event. of them is a- one memorandum of a discussion of 1993, about the state of

employment in many of the russian nuclear laboratories. namely, a memo to moscow saying the workers have not been paid. i think that was a problem that glenn confronted in his early days. give us a quick highlight. and dod asked to develop a framework for carrying out a biological engagement program with russia. reports after. we address the bio security issues, safety issues. the centerpiece was a have a biological research program. the defense department came back saying, in possible, we have to have results now. it will be too complicated and too sensitive, we cannot do it. give us a chance. they gave us a little money and we developed eight pilot projects, got them through isdc

within two months. contracts were ready to sign. vector, all of them calling for one-year demonstration projects of less than $100,000. .hey were all funded seven out of eight were considered success stories. the biological research program was on its way. over the next three years, dod spent $10 million in contracts sr a research project, h h with 20 million. there was one disappointment. said,five years later we let us go back and take a look at what the impact has been. we think that these have long-term implications for

russia. we were unsuccessful and no one went back to look. i am convinced that, how we looked at those biological research program results fiber tenures later, we would have seen magnificent results and would have strengthened greatly, our call for my money in this area. lesson learned. think about the long term. [applause] david: thank you very much. ken fairfax. i will remind you in that posting online is the famous moscowhat ken wrote from embassy that there were holes in the fence in the russian nuclear facilities. a quick one. honored to be

included. my perspective is not from the manager or leader of program, but from the worker bee. when i was in moscow in 1993, my job was to help with which a circle force. for the doe force. in the course of that work i got to know the russian nuclear complex. sedalia and russia has a different meaning than it did in the u.s. nuclear materials before they entered the special nuclear programs. i got to know the programs and i were shocked by what i saw. i wrote about holes in the fences, i also wrote about scientists who were not being paid. and if they wear it with seven dollars a month. i wrote about incredible dedication and knowledge and the strain it was under. i wrote a lot, i think a couple hundred a year was normal. writing was not enough.

i became with no authority, no rank and no funding, a gaslight. i would i would ask that look about take abilities try to pair them up with other people. targeting, writing computer code for other company. writing for developing the oil deep underground. it kept the system safe. there i was as a worker bee. later i worked with charlie curtis a lot to implement programs on nonplayer information -- nonproliferation. the luckexciting was of being in moscow at the right

place at the right time. i have the worker be advice. always do your job but never let that prevent you from doing the job that needs to be done. >> thank you. [applause] >> ok. starr, you are on. project sapphire if you please. begets newking thinking and cooperative overtures sometimes result in return cooperation and that is the story of sapphire. created new thought and it allowed us to self problems in new ways that had not been contemplated before. it was a gift that kept on

giving. of 600lved the removal kilograms of highly enriched uranium, enough to make several dozen weapons. size.r than hiroshima a weapon that was insecurely stored in kazakhstan. it was the courage of the cause asked on people based on months and months of american thinking. perhaps american thinking about cooperation. overtures about who operation. armed, --ons about cause extent on and whether it should remain so. perhaps it gave them the courage. they contacted bill and andy. in 1993, it took until january 1993 for ash carter to say, i

30t that uranium out in days. 10 months later it was out. but only because of the level of the love love interagency cooperation that was probably unprecedented because we had not only the funding but the thinking. it allowed us to contemplate different thinking. cooperatively removing that uranium from kazakh is stan from could not -- kazakhstan. another joint cooperative project to dismantle labor biological weapons facility. that project lead them to say, can you keep doing this? preemptive acquisition kind of stuff? the answer was yes and every years,r the next several

there were many preemptive acquisitions, some of which became public. many of which did not. --ncely because of principally because of jack beard. you never said, it cannot be done. our joke was, we all love jack because he kept us out of jail. he never said it could not be done he said, let me to gear out a weight to do that. it was the new thinking that led to a whole series of counter proliferation and non-blue -- counter proliferation and nonproliferation. thank you to our colleagues in kazakhstan for the opportunity for new thinking. >> thank you, jeff. [applause] >> susan cook.

susan: i cannot resist saying, i worked this program in either the national council staff or the national secretary of defense through three administration. i joined one week after the legislation was signed in was told, ok. interagency in group to figure out what to do next. it has been in my blood and heart ever since. i will talk about when i was in 1999. the umbrella agreement with russia was about to expire. it is lost to history about why they were down for seven years. things had changed in russia and the united states. the program was not very popular in the congress and there was a series of congressional

restriction on our authorization. difficulties with funding on an annual basis. havet our peril would we changed the umbrella agreement greatly. because that would have been bad at home. so russians, on the other hand, there were different constituencies. i looked at my russian colleagues to tell a lot better what was going on. there were those that did not or thee tax exemption liability protection. the privileges and immunities. the audits and examinations. all of the things that were extremely important. was we did not

have a big interagency group. jacks the very famous beard and i who pretty much worked the renewal negotiation. becauseooking very bad we were at loggerheads. i had no flexibility because of congress and then my counterpart from the ministry of foreign affairs said, stay home. give us a couple of weeks. basically what happened was a coalition of the foreign ministry, the minister of think it was the minister of atomic energy at the time. those ministries with whom we had very good, productive projects, working relationships,

they really wanted to keep it something wewas really had to change the hour of the expiration of the agreement, believe it or not to get it into the wire. but that coalition, our partners. agreement wenta through a couple of more renewals. this time with some changes. until 2015. thank you. host: susan, thank you. [applause] host: we have two more. give us one highlight and some lessons, please. friends.ed

i am following very closely the discussion and i would like to contribute to the discussion as well. in the beginnings of the 1990's and mid 1990's i had some problems with implementation of the nunn-lugar program this was part of the general staff work and central of administrative defense of russia. after i served in the military in russia, i had to address .ertain problems state cooperation and the department of international cooperation which was responsible for the implementation of the nunn-lugar program. i had my own responsibilities and oversight of the

implementation of the program and i would like to use the remaining time to say the discussion is intense and there's not much time. i would like to make a proposal, mr. moderator. i believe our conference, this come upconference, must with a proposal to the dissenters of the nunn-lugar regarding the need to rename the law adopted an hour passed in 1991. the law was called the reduction of the soviet nuclear threat. let's make a proposal to address the congress with the proposal. creation of the system of cooperation between russia and the united states and the nuclear area. i believe that would be a better

match to the discussion that we have all been artistic painting that we'lllast -- have been participating in in the last hour. this document is about the cooperation between the russian rhetorician and the united states of america, particularly in the nuclear area in the name of the title adopted in 1991 has been obsolete for quite a while. i am just getting, actually, but -- so, in any case what is happening has nothing to do with despite the fact we were working on the reduction of the soviet nuclear threat as part of the 1991 law. i like to say something very important, like to express my gratitude not only to those

assembled in this hall but also to those who are not here with participated in implementation of the law on the ground. military diplomats, military personnel, representatives of agencies, scientists, engineers, and workers. that broughtfforts about what we are referring to in this implementation of the law of nunn-lugar program. that we well leave do not do-- if we that, i believe we will leave this hall unsatisfied. i am talking but hundreds of people on your part and thousands of people on the part of the russian federation. that is what i want to say.

thank you. [applause] host: thank you. dan, give us some highlights and lessons, please. dan: as the last person standing panel and this panel, i will be quick. thatower of this idea was it addressed a profound in existential need. now the historic inevitability is over, it was an outrageous idea. i can remember with ash carter a "gimme"- it was not that this would happen.

one, the power of unconventional thinking. number two, the power of unconventional relationships. bill started with the talk that went out of the meetings between porsche else in and president bush and camp david. there were seven working groups. those were going great. seven working groups. i was at the national security council, had two of them. want to talk about is material control. there was no protection and again. i do not know why but there was not. anywhere.ot get the whole time during the bush administration we tried and tried. kevlar blankets, material containers, rail containers. i could not get a new deal. i cannot get anywhere. we were stuck. meeting after meeting,

there were bureaucratic impediments. foreigndealing with ministry at the time. finally, charlie curtis got into office. and people just kept saying, wait for charlie. wait for charlie. things will get better. and they did. charlie came over one morning to the white house where i was trying to get this thing going. we had records. charlie told me that sid hecker had been over. they had formed really good personal connections. and there was a chemistry. scientists know that scientists always differ. but maybe just maybe if we plucked this out of the bureaucratic cul-de-sac it had gotten stuck in and tried to do something very different in a

lab-to-lab context, scientists talking to scientists, building something from the ground up maybe it would create constituencies in their system doting to d scientific -- scientific cooperation that scientists live and breathe for. that is what we did. with charlie's support, we got unstuck. the material now is in much better protection and the thousands of facilities whose security has been upgraded os directly to the power of unconventional thinking and the power of personal relationships and the trust that develop that goes back to bill perry's very first point about senator nu nn's point. we need to be talking to our colleagues at again. the problems we face are just as grave as ever.

post: thank you. thank you all for your patience. these have been very long panels. we are going to the next panel. having thought about this for many years, given the great uncertainty in the international sphere today, i came away from this day thinking, it could've been a lot worse. thank god. thank you again. thank you. [applause] announcer: you are watching american history tv. 48 hours of programming on american history every weekend on c-span3. follow us on twitter at c-span history for information on our schedule and to keep up with the latest news.

night on thenday communicators, outgoing chair talks about his three-year tenure as head of the commission. the issue ccabout facing the trump administration. should dialthat you back the fdc and give a lot of the responsibility to the ftc is something the networks have been dealing with for years. before i joined, there was an article in the washington post that said, in essence, here is how the networks tend -- in 10 to got the fcc. it would be tragic of that happened. announcer: watch "the --municators" sunday night monday night at