National Citizens’ Coalition Calls On President Obama to Take Immediate Steps Toward a Nuclear Weapons-Free World
Deliver Petition Endorsed by More Than 70,000; Former Reagan Arms Control Advisor Issues Statement on Nuclear Threat

For Immediate Release: March 11, 2009

Contacts: Reva Patwardhan, Peace Action West (510) 830-3600 ext. 112, rpatwardhan [at] peaceactionwest [dot] org
David Krieger, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation (805) 450-4083

(Washington, D.C.): Today, on behalf of more than 100 nongovernmental organizations and tens of thousands of individuals, representatives of the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World and the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation submitted a list of more than 70,000 signatures on a petition to the Obama administration calling on the President “to make a world free of nuclear weapons an urgent priority and to assure U.S. leadership to realize this goal.”

"Both the US and Russia have a moral responsibility to declare the development and possession of nuclear weapons to be crimes against our civilization. Our joint effort should form a worldwide consensus on a series of steps necessary to remove the nuclear threat to our civilization and to the lives of our children and grandchildren. It is time for the President of the United States to take the lead and call for a special session of the General Assembly of the United Nations for the purpose of ending the nuclear weapons threat to all humanity," said Ambassador Max Kampelman, a former arms control advisor to President Ronald Reagan.

The call for action toward a nuclear weapons-free world was also endorsed by over 100 national, state, and local organizations. The petition urges President Obama to pursue a series of concrete, immediate steps that would help fulfill the United States’ nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty commitment to achieve nuclear disarmament. These steps – many of which were Obama campaign promises -- include:

• Standing down all nuclear weapons from high-alert status;
• Committing not to use nuclear weapons first under any circumstance;
• Committing not to develop new types of nuclear weapons, such as the so-called Reliable Replacement Warhead;
• Working with the Senate to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty;
• Negotiating a global, verifiable Fissile Material Cutoff Treaty;
• Beginning multilateral nuclear arms reduction negotiations before the end of his first term; and
• Reallocating resources used to maintain and build nuclear forces for peaceful purposes.

The petition was launched last year by the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World, a national coalition of more than 100 nongovernmental organizations, and the California-based Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. The full text of the petition is available from www.wagingpeace.org/appeal.

“Our petition underscores the overwhelming support of the American people for faster, more concrete action to move toward fewer, not newer nuclear weapons. Americans want to reduce Cold-war era weapons stockpiles and eliminate the nuclear weapons threat,” said Cara Bautista, coordinator for the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World.

"Americans understand that by clinging to thousands of these weapons, the nuclear-armed nations of the world send the wrong message and make us all less secure,” she said.

According to a Harris Interactive national public opinion survey conducted last August, 68 percent of U.S. adults believe possession of nuclear weapons by the United States, Russia, the United Kingdom, France, China, Israel, India, Pakistan and North Korea encourages countries without nuclear weapons to develop them. For further details on the survey, see http://nuclearweaponsfree.presstools.org/node/32428.

“As the U.S. and Russian negotiators get ready to negotiate a new treaty that could achieve further reductions in the two countries’ still-bloated and extremely dangerous Cold War nuclear arsenals, we urge President Obama to reiterate that the goal of eliminating nuclear weapons worldwide is the central element of U.S. nuclear policy,” said David Krieger, President of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Last week, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov met and pledged that they would negotiate a follow-on agreement to the 1991 Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which is due to expire in December.

“Two decades after the end of the Cold War, there is no plausible reason for U.S. and Russian leaders to maintain thousands of strategic nuclear weapons with large numbers on high alert. Besides the United States and Russia, no state possesses more than 300 nuclear warheads. China currently only has about 20 nuclear-armed missiles capable of striking the continental United States,” noted Daryl G. Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association and an advisor to the Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World.

"Dramatically deeper U.S.-Russian nuclear reductions and U.S. ratification of the test ban treaty would strengthen U.S. leadership efforts to bolster global efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons," Kimball noted.

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The Campaign for a Nuclear Weapons Free World is a consortium of more than 100 organizations promoting practical steps today to free the world from nuclear weapons tomorrow. For more information, visit www.nuclearweaponsfree.org. The Nuclear Age Peace Foundation is dedicated to the abolition of nuclear weapons, the strengthening of international law, and the empowerment of peace leaders. For more information, visit www.wagingpeace.org.