GLOBAL JOURNALIST: Nuclear security from terrorism

Stuart Loory, Lee Hills Chair in Free-Press Studies at the Missouri School of Journalism: Today we will talk about nuclear security, mostly about efforts to keep nuclear weapons materials from falling into the hands of terrorists or terrorist governments. That was the subject that brought the largest number of world leaders to the United States since the founding of the United Nations in San Francisco in 1945. Forty-seven heads of state attended the Washington meeting. The result was the adoption of a plan to reduce the amount of existing weapons-grade nuclear material from falling into the hands of terrorist organizations like al-Qaida or the Taliban, but the two-day meeting did nothing to protect material that might be manufactured in the future in India or Pakistan. Nor did it take any steps to convince those two nuclear-weapons powers, and Israel, a third, from joining the 40-year-old nuclear non-proliferation treaty. So was this simply a public relations event to focus on President Barack Obama’s desire to bring nuclear weapons under control or did it have real meaning? This was a huge meeting but it came and it went very quickly. What was the real impact?