Be the Change, by Michelle Nunn: on Homeland Security

Sam Nunn: 1970s: Trained terrorists could gain control of our nukes

I visited with US generals who explained that all of our tactical nuclear weapons were secure. Everything was wonderful. After one of those briefings, as I was leaving an area where tactical nuclear weapons were stored, I shook hands with a sergeant and felt a piece of folded paper pressed into my hand. The sergeant had written, "Sen. Nunn, please meet me at the barracks around 6 tonight."

He and his fellow sergeants related a horror story: a story of a demoralized military; a story of drug & alcohol abuse; a story of US soldiers guarding nuclear weapons while they were stoned.

When I returned to Washington, I related how the soldiers guarding our tactical nuclear missiles felt that it would take no more than a group of 6 to 8 well-trained terrorists to gain control over one of our tactical nuclear compounds in the middle of western Europe.

Sam Nunn: Nunn-Lugar: funded Russia to destroy 6,670 nuclear warheads

At the beginning, the Nunn-Lugar proposal was greeted with opposition from most of our colleagues. However, we convinced Congress that this expenditure (to assist our former enemy) was essential for our own security.

Since 1991, the US, Russia, and the former Soviet Union working together have deactivated or destroyed 6,670 nuclear warheads as well as hundreds of missiles, launchers, bombers, submarines, and test tunnels, without a shot being fired in anger.