BOSTON – On October 12, 2009, the National Archives and its 13 presidential libraries will host a day-long conference analyzing how nuclear weapons have challenged and reshaped the modern American presidency. The conference, which is free and open to the public, will be held at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum in Boston.
The Presidency in the Nuclear Age will convene leading historians, former and current foreign policymakers, and journalists to examine the race to build the nuclear bomb and the decision to use it; the Cuban Missile Crisis; the nuclear arms race and the Cold War; and the threat posed today by the spread of nuclear arms to terrorist organizations and rogue states.
Among those participating in the conference will be Pulitzer Prize-winning author Richard Rhodes; Chief Foreign Correspondent for ABC News Martha Raddatz; award-winning journalists Marvin Kalb and Leslie Gelb; Special Counsel to President Kennedy Theodore Sorensen; Deputy Special Assistant for National Security Affairs to President Kennedy Carl Kaysen; Director of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under Reagan Kenneth Adelman; Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Non-Proliferation, and Disarmament under Clinton Thomas Graham, Jr.; Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs for President George W. Bush Ambassador Nicholas Burns; President Obama’s Special Representative for North Korea Policy Ambassador Stephen Bosworth; and authors Graham Allison, Jennet Conant, Wilson D. Miscamble and Nicholas Thompson. President George H.W. Bush and former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger will speak via video.
President Franklin Roosevelt’s decision to develop an atomic bomb not only helped to end WWII, it reshaped the nature of the American presidency, concentrating immense power in the hands of one individual. Issues related to nuclear weapons have confronted every president since that time. Today, there may be no greater threat to the United States and no greater challenge facing the President than the potential spread of nuclear weapons to terrorist organizations and rogue states such as Iran and North Korea. The Presidency in the Nuclear Age will examine how the presidency and U.S. foreign policy has been reshaped during by the advent and spread of nuclear weapons.
The Presidency in the Nuclear Age conference will run from 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Participation is free, however reservations are required and may be made by calling (617) 514-1643 or by registering on the Kennedy Library website, www.jfklibrary.org. The program is subject to change due to speakers’ schedules. More information and an updated schedule of the conference can be found here.
The Presidency in the Nuclear Age is sponsored by Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute, Harry S. Truman Library Institute, Eisenhower Foundation, John F. Kennedy Library Foundation, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library and Museum, Richard Nixon Library and Birthplace, Gerald R. Ford Foundation, Jimmy Carter Library and Museum, Ronald Reagan Presidential Foundation, George Bush Presidential Library Foundation, William J. Clinton Presidential Library and Museum, George W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum, and the Foundation for the National Archives.