Earlier this week, I spoke at the Nuclear Energy Assembly to help commemorate their 60th anniversary. The multi-day event was hosted by the Nuclear Energy Institute. My speech focused on strategic leadership as exemplified by the Atoms for Peace initiative – and the need again for a view of energy that factors in the long-term perspective.
Nuclear Energy Assembly Atoms for Peace . . . 60 Years Later Washington, D.C.May 14, 2013
Mr. Chairman, Distinguished Guests,
What a pleasure it is for me to address this Assembly today, to help mark the 60th anniversary of the founding of the Nuclear Energy Institute, originally the Atomic Industrial Forum.
Also sixty years ago this December 8, in a speech before the United Nations, President Dwight D. Eisenhower outlined a strategic vision for the United States and for the world. It changed the way we see the potential of atomic power and ushered in a new era of international cooperation and partnership in a security sensitive area—nuclear science−which until that time had threatened us all.
It was a vision for the future that would be long-term in nature and bold in its results. It placed the United States at the forefront of events, assuring that it would be through our guidance and our standards that the world would make a transition to the peaceful use of this mighty source of power and energy. It brought the Soviet Union back to the arms control bargaining table—leading to the declassification of an entire area of nuclear science, fusion—and it engaged former colonial countries in peaceful cooperation rather than in the pursuit of nuclear weapons.
To read the speech in its entirety, please visit the NEI’s website.