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Old 04-30-2019, 11:33 AM
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Arrow Farewell to American statesman Richard Lugar

Farewell to American statesman Richard Lugar
By Dawn Stover, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists - April 29, 2019
RE: https://thebulletin.org/2019/04/fare...richard-lugar/

Richard Lugar, who for 36 years served as a Republican senator from Indiana, died yesterday at age 87. He is best known for his efforts to reduce the world’s stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. Lugar was pivotal in securing ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention and the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, and he was a supporter of international negotiations to reduce global warming. After retiring from the Senate, he founded The Lugar Center in Washington as “a platform for an informed debate” on nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction and other global issues.

In 1991, Lugar began a bipartisan partnership with Sen. Sam Nunn, a Democrat from Georgia, that led to the creation of the Defense Department’s Nunn-Lugar Cooperative Threat Reduction Program. “Our nation has lost an extraordinary statesman who made the world a safer and better place. I have lost a wonderful friend and trusted partner,” Nunn said in a statement released yesterday.

The Nunn-Lugar program provided funding and expertise for governments in the former Soviet Union to deactivate more than 7,500 nuclear warheads and destroy hundreds of intercontinental ballistic missiles, submarine-launched ballistic missiles, and nuclear air-to-surface missiles. It also upgraded security at weapons storage sites in Russia and transformed 500 metric tons of Russian weapons-grade uranium into fuel that generated nearly 10 percent of all the electricity consumed in the United States for 15 years.

In a statement posted on Twitter, former President Barack Obama recalled working with Lugar on nuclear nonproliferation efforts: “Dick always stuck to the facts. He understood the intricacies of America’s power and the way words uttered in Washington echo around the globe. But perhaps most importantly, he exhibited the truth that common courtesy can speak across cultures.”

Others paying tribute include Vice President Mike Pence, who called Lugar “one of our greatest statesmen,” and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who called him “the consummate US senator.”

(see next thread)
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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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Old 04-30-2019, 11:38 AM
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Arrow Senator Richard G. Lugar: An appreciation

Senator Richard G. Lugar: An appreciation
By: William Tobey, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists - April 30, 2019
RE: https://thebulletin.org/2019/04/sena...-appreciation/

Photo link: https://thebulletin.org/wp-content/u...-450819685.jpg
President Obama awards the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Sen. Richard Lugar in November 2013. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)

Sen. Richard Lugar—with his legislative partner, Sen. Sam Nunn—imagined the unimaginable. He championed a program to provide assistance to military forces in the former Soviet republics holding tens of thousands of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons aimed at the United States and our allies, shortly after America’s existential enemy, the Soviet Union, expired. All told, the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program provided more than $14 billion to, among other things, deactivate 13,300 nuclear warheads, eliminate 1,473 intercontinental ballistic missiles, and destroy almost 40,000 metric tons of chemical agents. The US departments of Defense and Energy also worked with Russia to improve security at 148 sites still holding nuclear weapons or weapons-grade material from Murmansk to Kamchatka.

In retrospect, these efforts may seem logical, even inevitable, but it was not always so. One of Senator Nunn’s aides recounted that in November 1991, “[j]ust before [a bill containing an earlier version of cooperative threat reduction] reached the Senate floor, Harris Wofford won a formerly Republican seat in a special Pennsylvania election, largely on the basis of an ‘America First’ platform. Wofford’s successful dark horse candidacy sent an anti-foreign aid shock wave through the House and Senate.” Republicans too were skeptical of spending money on such a recent and lethal enemy state. One senior Defense Department official reportedly mused, “Why would we bail out a country we spent decades trying to bankrupt?”

According to a history by Paul Bernstein and Jason Wood, two developments turned the tide of skepticism into a flow of funding for cooperative threat reduction. First Lugar, then the ranking Republican member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, joined Nunn’s effort, providing bipartisan support from a respected foreign policy-maker. The two had worked together as founding members of the Senate Arms Control Observer Group since 1985. Second, a report recently completed by a several Harvard scholars, “Soviet Nuclear Fission: Control of the Nuclear Arsenal in a Disintegrating Soviet Union,” offered facts and analysis in support of action. Soon, both houses of Congress passed the Nunn-Lugar legislation by wide margins, and President George H. W. Bush signed it into law December 12, 1991.

I traveled with senators Lugar and Nunn to Russia in August 2007 to commemorate the 15th anniversary of the cooperative program their legislation established. We met with policy makers and weapons scientists from Moscow to Mayak. Despite a revisionist narrative by Russian President Vladimir Putin arguing that the program was designed for unilateral US advantage, the gratitude and admiration expressed by Russian scientists, civilian managers, and military officers toward Lugar were genuine. This was with good reason. The disintegration of the Soviet Union left fences fallen, guards unpaid, and buildings crumbling at nuclear weapons establishments throughout Russia. The danger of theft of nuclear weapons or weapons-usable material was real. Had terrorists stolen a nuclear weapon, the most immediate danger would be to Russia itself.

Instead, the United States and Russia worked together to shore up nuclear security at dozens of sites, hosting hundreds of buildings, containing thousands of nuclear weapons. The United States purchased enough highly enriched uranium from Russia for over 20,000 nuclear weapons and turned it into power reactor fuel that supplied about 10 percent of American electricity for years.

We cannot know with certainty whether or not the Nunn-Lugar cooperative threat reduction program prevented any nuclear detonations and their attendant carnage. We do know, however, that the means, motive, and opportunity for such terrorist acts existed in the former Soviet Union. Unsecured nuclear weapons and fissile material were the potential means for radical terrorists motivated by a desire to commit acts of unlimited violence. Some, like Al Qaeda, tried to create the opportunity by launching an effort to design improvised nuclear explosives. Apparently, only lack of access to nuclear weapons or fissile material thwarted them. So far, in the race between those who seek to secure nuclear weapons and materials and those who would steal them, the forces of reason have prevailed. They could not have done so without the vision and leadership of Senator Richard Lugar.

He thought the unthinkable. He took a political risk to advance what looked to be an unpopular idea. He put the security of his country, and indeed the world, ahead of his own political interests. He reached out, not only to another political party but to America’s former mortal enemy. He ensured that there were walls around nuclear weapons and bridges between peoples. He did all this with humility and respect for those with whom he worked. These works made him a rare and worthy statesman and leave us all with much to appreciate and to emulate in the wake of his passing.

About the writer: William Tobey was deputy administrator for defense nuclear nonproliferation at the National Nuclear Security Administration from 2006 to 2009. He directs the US-Russia Initiative to Prevent Nuclear Terrorism at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

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Personal note: Some diplomats think outside the box for good of all mankind. Mr. Lugar was one of those men - he and any other's like him show how to get a job done that benefits the world and safeguards all peoples world wide.

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O Almighty Lord God, who neither slumberest nor sleepest; Protect and assist, we beseech thee, all those who at home or abroad, by land, by sea, or in the air, are serving this country, that they, being armed with thy defence, may be preserved evermore in all perils; and being filled with wisdom and girded with strength, may do their duty to thy honour and glory; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

"IN GOD WE TRUST"
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