30
YEARS OF NUCLEAR HISTORY ARE PRESERVED
IN COLLECTION OF NUCLEAR CONTROL INSTITUTE'S PAPERS
AT THE NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE
Washington, D.C. - A collection
of 293 boxes of papers spanning more than 30 years of nuclear history
has been established by the Nuclear Control Institute at the National
Security Archive, NCI and NSA announced today.
The collection includes the papers of the Nuclear Control
Institute from its founding in 1981 to the present, as well as the
papers of NCI's founding president, Paul Leventhal, relating to his
nuclear investigative and legislative work in the U.S. Senate in the
1970s.
The NCI papers cover the Institute's engagement in the
leading nuclear non-proliferation issues of the past 2½ decades,
beginning with Israel's bombing of Iraq's still-unfinished Osirak
reactor that coincided with NCI's founding in 1981 through present-day
U.S. efforts to uncover evidence of Iraqi programs to develop nuclear
weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. The collection includes
correspondence, analyses, investigative reports, legal briefs, testimony
and other items that document NCI's ground-breaking efforts to prevent
nuclear terrorism, to eliminate commerce in plutonium and bomb-grade
uranium, to strengthen enforcement of international safeguards and
other non-proliferation obligations, and to dispose of excess U.S.
and Russian warhead plutonium by disposing of it as waste rather than
introducing it as fuel in commercial nuclear power plants.
Leventhal's Senate papers begin with the Senate Government
Operations Committee's investigation, hearings and draft legislation
leading to enactment of the Energy Reorganization Act of 1974, which
abolished the Atomic Energy Commission and replaced it with independent
regulatory and promotional agencies---the present-day Nuclear Regulatory
Commission and Department of Energy. The Senate papers also cover
the committee's investigation of U.S. exports of plutonium, bomb-grade
uranium and "sensitive nuclear technology" that led to enactment
of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978. These papers also include
the Senate's special investigation of the Three Mile Island nuclear
accident, which Leventhal co-directed in 1979, and enactment of "lessons-learned"
legislation in 1980.
"The National Security Archive is fortunate to
acquire such a rich historical record of the past three decades of
efforts to stop the further spread of nuclear weapons and prevent
nuclear terrorism," said Thomas Blanton, director of the National
Security Archive. "These papers will be of immense value to journalists,
members of the public and future historians who want insights into
early efforts to curb nuclear dangers."
Leventhal, who will continue to manage NCI as a website-based
program and to remain engaged in proliferation issues, said: "The
Institute's papers will help to maintain a marketplace of ideas that
is so essential to ensuring that the non-proliferation community is
both relevant and effective in addressing the fast-paced nuclear developments
confronting the world today." He noted that in addition to donating
its papers to the National Security Archive, NCI is scanning and key-wording
its core documents going back to 1981 that pre-date its website, so
that they will also be word searchable on the NCI website.
A summary
of the highlights of the NCI Collection is attached to
this press release. The complete
subject catalogue of boxes will be available on the websites
of the Nuclear Control Institute (www.nci.org)
and the National Security Archive (www.nsarchive.org), as well as
a word searchable on the ALADIN, the shared online digital library
catalog of the Washington Research Library Consortium (WRLC). Access
to the boxed collection is only through a National Security Archive
staff member. Please consult the Guide
for Researchers at www.nsarchive.org for information on how to
research the Archive's unpublished document collections.
Click
here for the finding aid to the NCI Collection