From: MIM SELLGREN <MIMSEL@COX.NET>Date: April 11, 2012 7:56:18 AM PDTSubject: women of 59 luncheonDear Gail--
I have been very torn between attending the luncheon on the 17th and attending the 50th anniversary weekend of the U.S. Grant Association meeting on May 18-19-20. This association has published all of U.S. Grant's papers. I was determined to find a way to do both but getting to Starkville Mississippi (where the papers are lodged at Mississippi State University) is no easy task and so I must start the day before (the 17th) to arrive in a timely fashion on the 18th.
Why would I want to do that? Well, U.S. Grant is my great, great grandfather and in recent years I have found I rather enjoy learning more about him at these gatherings, especially since others have done and are doing the work to uncover different aspects of his life. It is also an opportunity to see some cousins that I don't get a chance to see otherwise.
Would you mind forwarding this message to others? I can't figure a way to reply to all. I look forward to more gathering!!
Love to all Mms
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
Re: The Women of 59 Luncheon on May 17
Monday, March 12, 2012
WOMEN OF '59
SAVE THE DATE!
When: Thursday, May 17, 2012
11:30 am for luncheon
Where: The Faculty Club, Stanford
We will gather once again, this time to celebrate a milestone birthday, one we share with the Golden Gate Bridge! Most of us will observe it this year or next year, so the timing is just right. We hope to have a stimulating speaker, followed by great conversation.
Many thanks to Kay Sprinkel Grace for being our sponsor at the Club.
Some of you might want to organize other activities for after lunch or the evening, or even the next day.
Details to follow.
11:30 am for luncheon
Where: The Faculty Club, Stanford
We will gather once again, this time to celebrate a milestone birthday, one we share with the Golden Gate Bridge! Most of us will observe it this year or next year, so the timing is just right. We hope to have a stimulating speaker, followed by great conversation.
Many thanks to Kay Sprinkel Grace for being our sponsor at the Club.
Some of you might want to organize other activities for after lunch or the evening, or even the next day.
Details to follow.
Questions? E-mail Gail Stypula
P.S. It has been some time since we've done a mass e-mail like this one. No doubt
some of the addresses have changed or become obsolete. Please pass this e-mail on to other classmates we might have omitted and let Charlotte Turner know if anyone wants/needs to be added to this Women of '59 group. Thanks!
Thursday, February 2, 2012
MEETING OF THE MINDS BULLETIN
February, 2012
Hello
friends....we send you greetings and hope that 2012 is going well for
you so far. Here are few items we want to share with you.
• DEBRIEFING WITH THE SAA
In
November, Kay, Gay and I met with Carolyn Manning and Leslie Winick of
the SAA to report on the M.O.M. event. With great enthusiasm, we told
our story, with an emphasis on what made it work and what made it
unique:
• The spirit of '59
was embodied in the original concept, creative planning, our strong
volunteer bench, and the enthusiastic response. Past reunions and other
class gatherings have fostered a sense of class identity which is alive
and well after fifty plus years.
• It was an "intellectual feast"
with a simple, flexible and uncrowded schedule. In fact, as an
"un-reunion", M.O.M. attracted many classmates who had not attended
class reunions in the past.
• The program design was ideal: the
idyllic summertime campus, the dSchool which unleashed our creative
juices, and our incomparable A-list speakers. Other program elements
that worked so very well: Open Space discussions, Jeffersonian Dinner
conversation, the Power Point presentation, Lagunita dorm life, breaking
bread together morning, noon and night!
• The personal touch in
our messages and responses to requests made everyone feel welcome on
arrival and ready to hit the ground running. The initial email survey
was indispensable, giving us valuable ideas for the program, schedule
and logistics, as well as confirming that we had enough interest to make
it a GO.
• The group's size and informal agenda facilitated
spontaneity, full participation and candid interactions with our
speakers and among ourselves. We shared the stories of our lives in an
atmosphere of support and trust.
• Building community:
for our three and a half days together, we built a true community.
Lifelong friends shared a new experience; new friendships were forged
between classmates who had never met before!
• Impact:
Participants reported on major changes in their lives as a result of
M.O.M. Many reported wanting to be more intentional and committed going
forward. The impact is best exemplified in this quote from a classmate: "These three days have made me want to re-invent myself."
Carolyn
and Leslie were very positive in their response, though we think
somewhat surprised, not that we had pulled it off but that we had
created something entirely new in the world of alumni activities. We
came away from the meeting understanding that the most critical success factor
was that M.O.M. was ALL OURS...from beginning to end, built upon what
we know about each other, our interests, passions and style. And of
course, now we know a lot more!
• NEXT STEPS?
Many
of you have asked when is the next one? We've realized we can't do it
every year because of the enormous effort required. We agreed, however,
that we want to infuse every future class of '59 event with the spirit of M.O.M.: the
warm welcome, full participation, learning, listening, and always
creating the space and the time for our great conversations.
We
promised the SAA we would provide a summary of the concept, planning
and execution, potentially as a model for other classes who might want
to do something similar, as well as a good record for ourselves. This
"M.O.M.-in-a-Box" summary is a work in progress!
• DONATIONS TO SPEAKERS' PROJECTS
At
the final accounting of our M.O.M. funds, we had a surplus, thanks to
the greater than expected turnout. We decided the best use of the
surplus was to donate to the projects that each of our faculty speakers
told us about. Your planning team felt that you would all support this
decision because of your enthusiastic response to their projects. These
donations will be on their way soon, and we can provide details when
they are complete.
• CLICK HERE….
Sent along by Emory Lee...
As
a spectator on the second floor of the d.school building, you might
observe students standing at a project table or sitting on foam cubes or
an assembly of executives paired up at cocktail tables doing some
cutting and pasting.
• CLASS NOTES & OTHER MAGAZINE ARTICLES
In
the January/February issue of Stanford Magazine, check out Margi's
column for a great report on Meeting of the Minds. This is the first one
she was able to write after the fact so it includes some of the
unexpected things that actually happened! Magazine timelines being what
they are, her earlier columns had to be written before the event and
published after the event. It takes a creative writer to deal with
this!
Also,
FYI, take a look at page 29 for a piece on the Longevity Center and
page 43 for a book review of "The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and
Their Quest to Ban the Bomb".
• IN CLOSING....recently
I heard Tom Brokaw call ours "the luckiest generation". Our parents
left us their "greatest" legacy in the world of opportunity we have
enjoyed. I like his term a lot better than being called the "silent"
generation. In any case, it's wonderful knowing that you are all out
there making a joyful noise.
Keep in touch!
Gail Stypula, on behalf of THE QUAD - Kay Grace, Gay Hoagland, and Howard Elkus.
Tuesday, November 29, 2011
November 2011 MoM Bulletin
Holiday
greetings to all of our M.O.M. friends. I think you will agree that our
campus gathering in August was a major highlight of 2011.
Linda Euler Anderson sends along a great article on William Perry. Here's the link for your reading pleasure: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/
Also, David Brooks of the New York Times has a new project, called "Life Report," that is right up our alley. It's about US! He invites us to add our stories on his blog. I will write to him about our generation, our class of '59 - maybe he can come up with a name that defines us!
We hope you will stay in touch and let us know what you're doing and what the impact of M.O.M. has been for you. I will assemble your responses for the next M.O.M. bulletin. We will have other updates for you as well.
Linda Euler Anderson sends along a great article on William Perry. Here's the link for your reading pleasure: http://www.paloaltoonline.com/
Also, David Brooks of the New York Times has a new project, called "Life Report," that is right up our alley. It's about US! He invites us to add our stories on his blog. I will write to him about our generation, our class of '59 - maybe he can come up with a name that defines us!
We hope you will stay in touch and let us know what you're doing and what the impact of M.O.M. has been for you. I will assemble your responses for the next M.O.M. bulletin. We will have other updates for you as well.
ON BEHALF OF THE QUAD: Kay, Gay & Howdy
Monday, September 26, 2011
MoM reflections by Carol Magdiel Hoge
Dear Quad,
What a gift the four of you created for
your classmates. Whereas a "bad barrel" (to use Philip Zimbardo's
metaphor) produces bad apples, the four of you created a "good barrel"
which allowed us to bring forth our best and share our best with one
another.
What worked so well was the structure
of the reunion. For me, returning to Lagunita Court where I had lived
as a sophomore, sent me back mentally to 1956 and reawakened the
excitement and enthusiasm I felt at that time. When I woke up in my
dorm room on the first full day of our reunion, I woke up with a student
mind set, eager to meet new people and consider new ideas.
If
gathering our group together at a dormitory was the first stroke of
genius, without question, taking us off to the D-School was the second.
There we were, all softened up and expectant, when wow! Welcome to 2011
at Leland Stanford Jr. University! The best part of the D-School
experience was joining in small groups to "learn by doing." Quckly we
realized how much each classmate had to contribute to problem solving,
and quickly we comprehended the power of the D-School techniques.
Suddenly we didn't feel like 74 year-old alumni-- grandparents and
great-grandparents, who had been undergraduates in the era of the slide
rule. The rejuvenation process which began the evening before, was
continuing. We were seeing new possibilities, and we were feeling
great.
The rest of the program was an
unfolding. Our minds were open. We were gelling as a group, and after
each lecture we wanted to hear one another's responses. Here a month
after the reunion, I'm still wondering if what satisfied me most were
the words spoken by the remarkable roster of speakers, or the comments
and discussions which followed. My classmates brought lifetimes of
accumulated knowledge and experience to their observations. It was such
a pleasure to hear what they had to say.
By
Saturday afternoon, when Larry Wagner gathered us together to take our
picture, we were such a happy group. When I look at that picture I
cannot find even one face that isn't positively shining. Sheldon
Breiner's beautiful slide show captured the reunion step by step,
including those wonderful pictures on the deck of the Elliot Program
Center where there is such peace and joy in our faces.
Certainly
by now the Alumni Association is aware of the success of our reunion,
and especially of the structure of the gathering, of the "good barrel"
which bought out the best in us. It's a structure which can easily be
duplicated for mini-reunions of other classes, but aren't we proud that
the Class of '59 thought of it first?
Thank you, thank you, Kay, Gay, Gail and Howdy,
Carol Magdiel Hoge
Wednesday, September 14, 2011
Meeting of the Minds - Bulletin 4
To: All Participants of Meeting of the Minds
Dear
Friends: We write today in the afterglow of the time we shared on
campus just two weeks ago. You are ALL to be congratulated and thanked
for taking a leap of faith with us and signing on to a completely new
venture. You each contributed to the "mindfulness" of the program with
your thoughts and ideas. You also brought great heart, great spirit,
endless humor and the sum total of your LIFE! You made the Open Space
Discussions and the Jeffersonian Dinner sparkle and sizzle. You were a
great audience with brilliant questions for our speakers. Your openness
to the dSchool process and your enthusiasm for it resonated through our
days and nights together.
The
spontaneous sharing of your personal stories was memorable and moving.
The Power Point loop of classmates' creations was awe-inspiring (soon to
be a DVD we hope). You were great sports about dorm life as we
encountered a few surprises!
We’re
hoping classmates will send contributions to further some of the
wonderful work we heard about from our speakers. (Links to all of them
are on the blog.) They came at great effort but fortunately they each
appreciated “the best questions I can remember,” “ the pleasure of
talking with an audience this smart,“ and “the fun of this
conversation” ... so we’re hoping they felt it was worth their time.
We
were all, of course, blown away by each of our speakers - their ideas
and passions, their personal examples, their achievements. The whole
event was an inspiration as well as an intellectual feast for all of us
who were lucky to be there. It seems many of us had been seeking a
different kind of gathering on campus, one with a more mentally
challenging as well as collegial focus than is typically possible. It
was exciting to see so many of you who hadn't been to reunions often, or
ever, for that matter!
Our
80+ classmates and guests used words like “life-changing”, "it made me
want to re-invent myself", and "I'm ready to commit to more active
involvement in issues important to this world".....to describe the
impact of the experience. We hope we offered a model of deep engagement
with ideas, with each other, and with the University. We hope that it
will also be valuable to those at the University who are thinking about
the future relationship of Stanford to its growing cohorts of older,
very-active alums.
Thank
you again for your patience as we threaded our way through the maze of
details and requirements for organizing an event on campus. We are proud
that we did it on our own initiative, that it was self supporting, that
it retained the personal touch and incomparable Class of '59 style
throughout!
Everyone
was a volunteer at this and all of you pitched in with great gusto.
Some people took on specific tasks and we want to single them out for
special praise.... Marion Duncan Smith; Connie King Turkington; Judy
Font; Elaine Knoernschild; Randy Fowkes; Ami Sadler; Chatty Collier;
Bonnie Pomeroy Stern; Anne MacGillivray Franke; Dave Cox; Carroll
Estes; Jane Sanders; Jim Seeley; Carole Pewthers; Bob Kahn; Clee Houser; Larry and Marilyn Wagner; Sheldon Breiner.
WITH FONDEST MEMORIES....'til we meet again....
"THE QUAD"
Kay Sprinkel Grace
Gay Hoagland
Gail Aguilar Stypula
Howard Elkus
Monday, September 12, 2011
Track Two Diplomacy in Action!!! with William J. Perry, Ph.D.
Track Two Diplomacy in Action!!! with William J. Perry, Ph.D.
Saturday, August 27, 2011, Stanford University Alumni Center
Dr. Perry began his remarks with these words by Robert Frost:
“…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
He indicates that he has taken the less traveled road for most of his life—including working as a high-tech wizard in Silicon Valley (ESL) and working as an intelligence analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His government positions have included serving as the nineteenth United States secretary of defense (February 1994 to January 1997), deputy secretary of defense (1993–94), and undersecretary of defense for research and engineering (1977–81).
Dr. Perry defines two tracks of diplomacy:
He is an active Track Two diplomat, working in a “gang of four” with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D., former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, and former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz, Ph.D. The gang of four met for the first time in 2006, to co-author an editorial.
Track Two with North Korea
Dr. Perry went to to South Korea in 2008 to attend the inauguration of the South Korean president. The next day he was driven across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to North Korea to attend the performance of the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang. The orchestra’s welcome in North Korea was broadcast on live television and included a standing ovation by citizens and the playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” (Dr. Perry notes that music is a universal language.) This followed his Track One dealing with North Korea in 1994, when the country was starting to reprocess plutonium. We came close to a second Korean War at that time, when North Korea promised to turn Seoul into a sea of flames and prepared to send troops to the south. Then North Korea backed down and promised to not make plutonium. Following an agreed upon framework, North Korea froze the building of and then eventually dismantled its nuclear plants. This drama unfolded between 1994 and 2002.
However, in August 1998, North Korea test-fired a long-range missile, leading to Dr. Perry being asked by President Clinton to engage in Track One and a Half diplomacy with North Korea. In May 1999, Dr. Perry led a delegation to North Korea. When he took medicine to a children’s hospital, the children said, “Is he here to kill us?” Such comments demonstrate the effect of a lifetime of propaganda. A first-ever summit with South Korea and Japan followed, and North and South Korea marched together in the next Olympics Games. Then, with the election of a new president in the U.S., diplomacy and talks between North Korea and the U.S. were terminated. Inspectors were ejected from nuclear plants, and North Korea now has an arsenal of seven or eight nuclear arms.
Dr. Perry states that disarmament talks have stalled subsequent to the North Korean nuclear tests. However, two Stanford professors are now trying to go back to North Korea to reopen talks on nuclear disarmament.
Track Two with China
Dr. Perry indicates that America’s relationship with China in the next few years is critically important. President Nixon recognized China in 1971, but his acts of diplomacy were impeded by the cultural revolution. President Carter recognized China just as the revolution ended, and this was the beginning of a cooperative program with China. In 1980, as part of that new cooperation, Dr. Perry led the first military delegation to China. When Ronald Reagan became president, Dr. Perry returned to Stanford and continued Track Two diplomacy with China.
Between 1979 and 1989, our relationship with China was never better. Then the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in Beijing brought an abrupt decline in our relationship with China. The relationship has never returned to the 1979-89 level.
President Clinton restarted the relationship with China by sending Dr. Perry there in 1994; it was a positive trip with a modest return. The road to friendship proved to be rocky. China conducted a missile test that landed quite close to Taiwan. Washington Post headlines at the time included “China Plans Live-Ammunition Tests,” and “Verbal war heats up over Taiwan.” But by 1996, we had some agreements, though modest, in place.
Since 1997, Dr. Perry has met annually with Chinese officials. He believes the meetings are fruitful, including an agreement between China and Taiwan to begin direct air travel.
Track Two with Iran
Iran has nuclear weapons. Why do we care?
War is more likely.
They could provide a domino effect on proliferation.
The danger of nuclear terrorism increases.
And Iran apparently believes their poisonous propaganda about Israel.
Iranian’s nuclear weapons program began with the Shah, but it was suspended after the Revolution when the program was considered anti-religious.
But the current administration in Iran appears to be heading towards a nuclear weapon under the cover of a civil nuclear program.
In late September Dr. Perry is meeting with the Iranian foreign minister in New York to discuss nuclear disarmament.
Track Two with Russia
In the 1980s, Dr. Perry went to the Soviet Union almost every year. Mikhail Gorbachev promised glasnost or free speech, and Dr. Perry was surprised when it really happened. He was there when the revolution started. During a visit to Tallinn, Estonia, Dr. Perry witnessed the Soviet Union flag being replaced by the Estonian flag.
The current issue between the U.S. and Russia involves the anti-missile system being built by the U.S. in Eastern Europe. Early in September Dr. Perry will be in a Track Two meeting with Russian scientists to see if they can arrive at recommendations to their two governments on how to proceed on this sticky issue.
The Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Working for the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons occupies most of Dr. Perry’s professional life now. He is devoting the remainder of his career to advancing this goal, but the final elimination of nuclear weapons must be finished by the next generation. Dr. Perry speaks in his classes of the danger of nuclear weapons. He works with graduate students, counting on their picking up the torch and finishing the job. Dr. Perry makes biweekly trips to Washington, DC, and he makes numerous international trips. He does this because he believes that time is not on our side.
Disarmament leadership has to come from the United States. Dr. Perry supports New START, the international treaty between the US and Russia requiring both sides to reduce the number of nuclear weapons they have deployed. However, the treaty barely passed the U.S. Senate ratification vote, so President Obama has backed off moving forward on a follow-on treaty.
Dr. Perry believes that Iran is more dangerous than North Korea. Both countries used civilian nuclear knowledge to develop nuclear weapons. However, the unintended consequences of Iran’s development of nuclear weapons-- namely, an attack by Israel--would be much farther reaching.
Pakistan presents the most danger relative to having a nuclear bomb. The country has about 100 nuclear weapons and is making more. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s government is under siege: this is part of the danger. Pakistan has lost three wars to India since the two countries separated. If they had a fourth war, Pakistan would still lose but might resort to the use of nuclear weapons. A Track Two meeting between the U.S. and Pakistan at Stanford is now being planned.
Regarding non-state terrorism: an overriding danger is catastrophic terrorism. But terrorists can’t build a nuclear weapon from scratch. On the other hand, if the terrorists could get their hands on fissile material (e.g., plutonium) they could still build a crude bomb, which, though crude, could cause devastation equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb.
Dr. Perry believes that his primary achievement as Secretary of Defense was the dismantlement of 8,000 weapons in the former Soviet Union and the U.S. Stanford University and Harvard University are leading the training of the next generation of diplomats. Michael McFaul of the Hoover Institution is President Obama’s top Russian adviser. Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is Obama’s top European advisor. She was an instrumental facilitator of disarmament while she was an assistant to Secretary Perry.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) chaired by former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. NTI has produced a video, “Nuclear Tipping Point,” which is available at http://www.nti.org. Although the video is free, Dr. Perry asks that we play it in front of a gathering of people—that we do something useful with it. The public has unfortunately dismissed the question of nuclear disarmament. NTI hopes to raise public awareness, believing that education about this will lead to disarmament. One concern is “political exceptionalism:” a belief that the rules don't apply to me. We need to recognize that we are part of the planet. Though partisanship was rampant after the 1994 Congressional election, it is as bad now as Dr. Perry has ever seen it. [Note: Several attendees indicated that they would start/join nuclear disarmament groups in their communities.]
Dr. Perry believes that before Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein had a desire for nuclear weapons but did not have one yet. Hussein did have chemical weapons, which don’t compare to nuclear weapons. A nuclear exchange during the Cold War would have been the end of civilization. Dr. Perry says that we were close to that in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today's biggest danger is nuclear terrorists. They could change our life as we know it. Between 20,000 and 30,000 weapons still exist in the world. Dr. Perry does not expect that they will all be dismantled in his lifetime.
With respect to Afghanistan, we went there to defeat Al Qaeda, and that is taking much longer than expected. The draw-down of the U.S. military is possible, but it is still a couple of years away.
Additional Dangers
The danger in disarmament is that the bad guy could get ahold of fissionable material (e.g., plutonium).
There is a danger of cyber war. Cyber war is like a nuclear terrorist threat in that most people don't understand it. The Defense Department is aware of the dangers of cyber attacks and is working to counter. They believe that an effective defense requires a capable offense.
Congratulations to the Class of ’59: Dr. Perry says we're the best informed group he's ever spoken to :-)
Saturday, August 27, 2011, Stanford University Alumni Center
Dr. Perry began his remarks with these words by Robert Frost:
“…Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference."
He indicates that he has taken the less traveled road for most of his life—including working as a high-tech wizard in Silicon Valley (ESL) and working as an intelligence analyst during the Cuban Missile Crisis. His government positions have included serving as the nineteenth United States secretary of defense (February 1994 to January 1997), deputy secretary of defense (1993–94), and undersecretary of defense for research and engineering (1977–81).
Dr. Perry defines two tracks of diplomacy:
- Track One – Diplomacy by government officials
- Track Two – Diplomacy by former government officials
He is an active Track Two diplomat, working in a “gang of four” with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, Ph.D., former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, and former U.S. Secretary of State George P. Schultz, Ph.D. The gang of four met for the first time in 2006, to co-author an editorial.
Track Two with North Korea
Dr. Perry went to to South Korea in 2008 to attend the inauguration of the South Korean president. The next day he was driven across the demilitarized zone (DMZ) to North Korea to attend the performance of the New York Philharmonic in Pyongyang. The orchestra’s welcome in North Korea was broadcast on live television and included a standing ovation by citizens and the playing of the “Star-Spangled Banner.” (Dr. Perry notes that music is a universal language.) This followed his Track One dealing with North Korea in 1994, when the country was starting to reprocess plutonium. We came close to a second Korean War at that time, when North Korea promised to turn Seoul into a sea of flames and prepared to send troops to the south. Then North Korea backed down and promised to not make plutonium. Following an agreed upon framework, North Korea froze the building of and then eventually dismantled its nuclear plants. This drama unfolded between 1994 and 2002.
However, in August 1998, North Korea test-fired a long-range missile, leading to Dr. Perry being asked by President Clinton to engage in Track One and a Half diplomacy with North Korea. In May 1999, Dr. Perry led a delegation to North Korea. When he took medicine to a children’s hospital, the children said, “Is he here to kill us?” Such comments demonstrate the effect of a lifetime of propaganda. A first-ever summit with South Korea and Japan followed, and North and South Korea marched together in the next Olympics Games. Then, with the election of a new president in the U.S., diplomacy and talks between North Korea and the U.S. were terminated. Inspectors were ejected from nuclear plants, and North Korea now has an arsenal of seven or eight nuclear arms.
Dr. Perry states that disarmament talks have stalled subsequent to the North Korean nuclear tests. However, two Stanford professors are now trying to go back to North Korea to reopen talks on nuclear disarmament.
Track Two with China
Dr. Perry indicates that America’s relationship with China in the next few years is critically important. President Nixon recognized China in 1971, but his acts of diplomacy were impeded by the cultural revolution. President Carter recognized China just as the revolution ended, and this was the beginning of a cooperative program with China. In 1980, as part of that new cooperation, Dr. Perry led the first military delegation to China. When Ronald Reagan became president, Dr. Perry returned to Stanford and continued Track Two diplomacy with China.
Between 1979 and 1989, our relationship with China was never better. Then the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989 in Beijing brought an abrupt decline in our relationship with China. The relationship has never returned to the 1979-89 level.
President Clinton restarted the relationship with China by sending Dr. Perry there in 1994; it was a positive trip with a modest return. The road to friendship proved to be rocky. China conducted a missile test that landed quite close to Taiwan. Washington Post headlines at the time included “China Plans Live-Ammunition Tests,” and “Verbal war heats up over Taiwan.” But by 1996, we had some agreements, though modest, in place.
Since 1997, Dr. Perry has met annually with Chinese officials. He believes the meetings are fruitful, including an agreement between China and Taiwan to begin direct air travel.
Track Two with Iran
Iran has nuclear weapons. Why do we care?
And Iran apparently believes their poisonous propaganda about Israel.
Iranian’s nuclear weapons program began with the Shah, but it was suspended after the Revolution when the program was considered anti-religious.
But the current administration in Iran appears to be heading towards a nuclear weapon under the cover of a civil nuclear program.
In late September Dr. Perry is meeting with the Iranian foreign minister in New York to discuss nuclear disarmament.
Track Two with Russia
In the 1980s, Dr. Perry went to the Soviet Union almost every year. Mikhail Gorbachev promised glasnost or free speech, and Dr. Perry was surprised when it really happened. He was there when the revolution started. During a visit to Tallinn, Estonia, Dr. Perry witnessed the Soviet Union flag being replaced by the Estonian flag.
The current issue between the U.S. and Russia involves the anti-missile system being built by the U.S. in Eastern Europe. Early in September Dr. Perry will be in a Track Two meeting with Russian scientists to see if they can arrive at recommendations to their two governments on how to proceed on this sticky issue.
The Elimination of Nuclear Weapons
Working for the ultimate elimination of nuclear weapons occupies most of Dr. Perry’s professional life now. He is devoting the remainder of his career to advancing this goal, but the final elimination of nuclear weapons must be finished by the next generation. Dr. Perry speaks in his classes of the danger of nuclear weapons. He works with graduate students, counting on their picking up the torch and finishing the job. Dr. Perry makes biweekly trips to Washington, DC, and he makes numerous international trips. He does this because he believes that time is not on our side.
Disarmament leadership has to come from the United States. Dr. Perry supports New START, the international treaty between the US and Russia requiring both sides to reduce the number of nuclear weapons they have deployed. However, the treaty barely passed the U.S. Senate ratification vote, so President Obama has backed off moving forward on a follow-on treaty.
Dr. Perry believes that Iran is more dangerous than North Korea. Both countries used civilian nuclear knowledge to develop nuclear weapons. However, the unintended consequences of Iran’s development of nuclear weapons-- namely, an attack by Israel--would be much farther reaching.
Pakistan presents the most danger relative to having a nuclear bomb. The country has about 100 nuclear weapons and is making more. Meanwhile, Pakistan’s government is under siege: this is part of the danger. Pakistan has lost three wars to India since the two countries separated. If they had a fourth war, Pakistan would still lose but might resort to the use of nuclear weapons. A Track Two meeting between the U.S. and Pakistan at Stanford is now being planned.
Regarding non-state terrorism: an overriding danger is catastrophic terrorism. But terrorists can’t build a nuclear weapon from scratch. On the other hand, if the terrorists could get their hands on fissile material (e.g., plutonium) they could still build a crude bomb, which, though crude, could cause devastation equivalent to the Hiroshima bomb.
Dr. Perry believes that his primary achievement as Secretary of Defense was the dismantlement of 8,000 weapons in the former Soviet Union and the U.S. Stanford University and Harvard University are leading the training of the next generation of diplomats. Michael McFaul of the Hoover Institution is President Obama’s top Russian adviser. Dr. Elizabeth Sherwood-Randall is Obama’s top European advisor. She was an instrumental facilitator of disarmament while she was an assistant to Secretary Perry.
The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) chaired by former Georgia Senator Sam Nunn. NTI has produced a video, “Nuclear Tipping Point,” which is available at http://www.nti.org. Although the video is free, Dr. Perry asks that we play it in front of a gathering of people—that we do something useful with it. The public has unfortunately dismissed the question of nuclear disarmament. NTI hopes to raise public awareness, believing that education about this will lead to disarmament. One concern is “political exceptionalism:” a belief that the rules don't apply to me. We need to recognize that we are part of the planet. Though partisanship was rampant after the 1994 Congressional election, it is as bad now as Dr. Perry has ever seen it. [Note: Several attendees indicated that they would start/join nuclear disarmament groups in their communities.]
Dr. Perry believes that before Desert Storm, Saddam Hussein had a desire for nuclear weapons but did not have one yet. Hussein did have chemical weapons, which don’t compare to nuclear weapons. A nuclear exchange during the Cold War would have been the end of civilization. Dr. Perry says that we were close to that in the Cuban Missile Crisis. Today's biggest danger is nuclear terrorists. They could change our life as we know it. Between 20,000 and 30,000 weapons still exist in the world. Dr. Perry does not expect that they will all be dismantled in his lifetime.
With respect to Afghanistan, we went there to defeat Al Qaeda, and that is taking much longer than expected. The draw-down of the U.S. military is possible, but it is still a couple of years away.
Additional Dangers
The danger in disarmament is that the bad guy could get ahold of fissionable material (e.g., plutonium).
There is a danger of cyber war. Cyber war is like a nuclear terrorist threat in that most people don't understand it. The Defense Department is aware of the dangers of cyber attacks and is working to counter. They believe that an effective defense requires a capable offense.
Congratulations to the Class of ’59: Dr. Perry says we're the best informed group he's ever spoken to :-)
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