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Leadership Profiles

Bruce Blair

Organization: 
Global Zero, Washington, DC

With growing consensus that the utility of nuclear weapons has declined since the end of the Cold War, some of history’s most ardent proponents of a strong U.S. nuclear posture -- former Secretaries of State Henry Kissinger and George Shultz, to name a few – are now calling for a “world free of nuclear weapons.” For Bruce Blair, founder and president of the World Security Institute, this is the first time in the nuclear age that eliminating nuclear weapons has become feasible. Read more >>

Trita Parsi

Organization: 
National Iranian-American Council, Washington, DC

Action by the U.S. House of Representatives in the waning days of the 110th Congress was not the “October surprise” on Iran that many had feared. Instead, urged by a coalition of peace and security organizations and, notably, a growing chorus of their Iranian American constituents, members of Congress withdrew support for a resolution calling on the President to impose a naval blockade of Iran. The campaign to defeat H. Con Res. Read more >>

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Victoria Holt

Organization: 
Henry L. Stimson Center, Washington, DC

In principle, at least, the world can no longer look the other way while civilian populations are subjected to genocide and mass atrocities, as they were in Rwanda. “In 2005 the UN General Assembly did a pretty amazing thing,” says Victoria Holt, co-director of the Future of Peace Operations project at the Henry L. Stimson Center. Read more >>

Rachel Kleinfeld

Organization: 
Truman National Security Project, Washington, DC

After countless national elections, Rachel Kleinfeld remembers becoming increasingly frustrated with the candidates’ rhetoric on national security.  Loathe to be labeled as “soft” on defense, many otherwise progressive candidates parroted right-wing slogans, while others who voiced opposition to the war in Iraq, for example, were marginalized as representing the far-left wing of American politics. Read more >>

Naila Bolus

Organization: 
Ploughshares Fund, Washington, DC

Naila Bolus remembers the “perfect storm” of challenges that confronted organizations addressing peace and security just after 9/11.  “We suddenly faced the urgent need to reframe our issues in the context of the threats of nuclear terrorism and efforts by the U.S. Read more >>

Joe Cirincione

Organization: 
President, Ploughshares Fund

Joe Cirincione is unstoppable, making speeches, appearing on television and radio, writing a book, publishing articles and op-eds, all with one a dramatic theme: this is our moment. The moment to set the U.S. and the world on a path toward reducing and ultimately eliminating nuclear weapons. Read more >>

Michael Douglas

Michael Douglas is one of Hollywood’s most celebrated actors and producers, with over 30 years of achievement in theatre, film and television.  Yet when he was named UN Messenger of Peace in 1998, he told UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan that the honor “means as much to me as either of my two Oscars.”  He said that he would use his celebrity status to call for the elimination of nuclear weapons and nonproliferation of small arms. Read more >>

Kennette Benedict

Organization: 
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

With the announcement on January 17, 2007 by Kennette Benedict, executive director of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, that the hands of the famous “doomsday clock” had been moved two minutes closer to midnight, people everywhere understood the gravity facing the world in a way that no speech, no report, indeed, that no words, could convey.  Over a thousand news outlets worldwide covered the event, quoting  Benedict, who said, "this c Read more >>

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Dipankar Banerjee

Organization: 
Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies, New Delhi

 After three and a half decades in the Indian Army, Major General Dipankar Banerjee retired, not to a life of relaxation and leisure, but to take on the formidable challenge of preventing war in a region beset with conflict and armed with nuclear weapons.  Several tough tours of duty in Jammu and Kashmir were enough to convince General Banerjee that “counter force is a poor tool to end violence. Instead what is required is understanding, patience and conciliation. Bringing peace is hard work, but a challenge that we owe to ourselves and to humanity.” Read more >>

Gareth Evans

Organization: 
International Crisis Group

"For the last decade or so, the international community has been sleepwalking when it comes to this potential catastrophe," said Gareth Evans, announcing his decision to head the new International Commission on Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.  The commission was formed by the governments of Australia and Japan. Read more >>