On the recordDecember 2, 2010
it is my privilege to rise to join with my colleagues from New Hampshire and Pennsylvania and Colorado in support of the New START treaty, the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty. I bring a bit of a personal perspective, a bit of affection for this issue, for this reason: When I was in graduate school, I was studying to take on issues of world economic development, issues of international poverty. I had worked in Latin America. I had worked in India. I traveled through Central America. I spent some time in west Africa. I thought global poverty was a very important issue that could be worth investing my career in. But as I came out of graduate school, I had an opportunity to switch tracks and work on nuclear issues as a Presidential fellow for Caspar Weinberger in the Reagan administration. This was a complete change of direction and one I didn't anticipate. But I went through that door and worked on strategic issues because the greatest threat to our planet was the successful management of nuclear weapons, strategic nuclear weapons, an enormous threat that needed to be smartly managed.
