Byron Dorgan: “this is a piece from a hinge on the massive door that covered missile silo No. 110, in Pervomaysk, Ukraine. This comes…”

“this is a piece from a hinge on the massive door that covered missile silo No. 110, in Pervomaysk, Ukraine. This comes from a silo that housed an SS-19, which had half a dozen warheads aimed at the United States of America. Each of those warheads had a yield of 550 kilotons each, 20 times the power of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima. I want to show my colleagues a chart that describes something that I think is quite remarkable. This is that missile site, which housed missile No. 110. On June 5 of this year, this photo shows the Ukrainian Defense Minister Shmarov on the left and his U.S. counterpart, Secretary Perry, watering sunflowers planted in the ground where there use to be a Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile. In other words, it is where there previously existed a missile with nuclear warheads aimed at America, and there now are sunflowers growing. The silo is gone, the missile is gone, and there are sunflowers. How did this happen? Was this a magic act? Was Harry Houdini involved? No. This happened through a great deal of diligent, hard work. Some of it was here in the Senate, which approved the arms control agreements that were negotiated between the United States and the Soviet Union. Substantial credit, in my judgment, should go to Senators Lugar and Nunn, who worked to create the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, which funds the dismantling of nuclear weapons in the former Soviet states.”