Countdown To Zero Page #7

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their demands.

Every other big

city is gonna wonder

-whether they might be a target.

- Pulic panic,

the people fleeing major cities

You could forget about the rules

of search and seizure.

You are gonna have to be searching everywhere

You could forget about civil

liberties when people realize

a whole city

was just destroyed.

Take the Bill of

Rights,you put it on a shelf

and you might

never see it again.

People would be demanding

draconian measures

to make sure that another

city didnt go up.

Some people laughed. / i

Few people cried. / i

Most people were

silent. / i

I remembered the line

from the Hindu Scripture,

the Bhagavad Gita.

Vishnu ...

trying to persuade the prince

he should do his duty

and to impress him,

takes on his multiarmed form

and says:

"Now I am become Death,

the destroyer of worlds. "

Every man,

woman and child / i

lives under a nuclear sword

of Damocles, / i

hanging by the slenderest of threads, / i

capable of being cut

at any moment / i

by accident, or

miscalculation or by madness. / i

. The weapons of war must be abolished / i

before they abolish us. / i

The Cuban Missile Crisis

endanger the very existence

of our nation.

Wecame that close to nuclear war.

Neither the Soviet

nor we, the US

intended to put our nation at risk.

And the next time we may not be so lucky

They kill by the millions.

They kill in numbers that the human imaginations

simply cannot comprehend.

I asked:
"Well we have nuclear weapons

to prevent their use. "

we now know that we

live in a world in which,

if we possession,

if any one possesses,

they will be used.

I dont see any good that a nuclear weapon

could be a threat to the world.

In my opinion,

you can forget them.

I think they should

be destroyed.

I think we are

better off without them.

Theres a 183 countries in the world

that do not have nuclear weapons.

Many of these countries could

have nuclear weapons.

They have chosen not to have them.

We have decided to take al

When I became

President

I was then informed that we have

completed six devices

more or less comparable to the

bombs which were actually used at Hiroshima.

I indicated that i would like us

to stop this program

and to become part of the mainstream world again

The only way to eliminate the

threat of nuclear terrorism

is to eliminate all nuclear weapons

in all countries.

We have got to ensure that

never once the terrorists suceed

in detonating a nuclear weapon.

You think about nuclear security

its all about the material

The simple physical fact is that

if you dont have fissile material ...

either highly enriched uranium or

plutonium for example ...

you cannot have

a nuclear weapon.

The focus is all about material.

Stop making new material.

Secure the material where you

know it is around the world

And make sure that you detect

the illicit transfer of material.

And then start getting rid of the material that you have

Today in the world we have about

So that's enough material for

around the order of 50 to100 thousand weapons

to really

create a truely

international system

for these facilities.

International Fuel banks

or International reprocessing centers...

that would be a mauch safer world

We havnt lost an ounce

of gold from Fort Knox.

We shouldnt lose

an ounce of plutonium

or highly enriched uranium.

During the Cold War,

I believed in the value

of nuclear weapons

to detter an attack.

of the Berlin Wall,

there is no excuse any longer

for keeping nuclear weapons

on launch ready laert

We can remove all of the

warheads on our missiles ,

share our safe guards technology

and establish a joint warning center

to ensure Nuclear war

cannot happen by mistake.

When I came into government

in the early '1980s,

the idea that within about10 years,

both sides would have agreed

to have 50% reduction in

their Nuclear weapons

would have sounded absurd.

But we achieved it.

That means a reduction of

more than 5,000 nuclear warheads a piece

We have gone almost 20 years now

without really any demonstrative steps

to nuclear reductions

This has to be a step by step process

That's how we did it

with chemical weapons.

These weapons are now taboo.

The Soviet Union imploded

when I was Sec of State

and we actually got an enforceable treaty

where we goot Belarus,

Kazakhstan and Ukraine

to give up their

nuclear weapons.

All countries in the

world have to sign

a legally

binding,

intrusively verifiable agreement

to rid the world

of nuclear weapons.

The choice we face is

eliminate nuclear weapons

or live in a world with

We can do this

There has to be a

carefully orchestrated process of reductions

The United States and Russia,

with 96% of the worlds nuclear weapons

have to lead the way

We start in a world where

there are 23,000 nuclear weapons.

The very first step is to cut

those arsenals dramatically

in the United States

and Russia.

Once you get down to low hundreds in the world

then you have built up the confidence and the mechanisms

to ensure that you can

verify this process

so that we can

get rid of the last one

- None.

- Should be zero.

I say zero.

- Never

- We'd rather not have them. I think

- None.

- Zero.

No nuclear weapons.

Zero.

- Zero.

- Zero.

No country

should have them.

The ultimate number is none.

Ideally will be zero

- Zero nuclear weapons.

- Zero. Zero.

We have taken important steps forward / i

to increase

nuclear security/ i

and to stop the spread

of nuclear weapons. / i

This starts with the reduction / i

of our own

nuclear arsenals. / i

This legally binding treaty

will be completed this year. / i

The arms control agreements we negotiated

between the United States

and the Soviet Union ...

You think these were

independent initiatives

taken by governments,

but the fact is that

public opinion

had a big role to play in the process

- President Kennedy,

After he passed the limited test ban treaty

and whenever he mentioned

it on the stump afterwards he

got thunderous applause.

And he quote:

"If I had known that it

was so popular,

"I would have done

it a long time ago. "

The elimination of

nuclear weapons

has not yet been agreed to by

political leaders of the world.

It's a revolutionary idea,

but they can be eliminated.

We have to change

our way of thinking.

And if we cant change

our way of thinking,

we wont survive.

Its that simple

I have changed my way of thinking

and millions and millions of other people

are changing their thinking

And, frankly, if you have never

changed your mind about something,

I .. pinch yourself

You maybe dead.

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