A Family Tradition: Working To Keep The World Safe From Nuclear Disaster

No matter how much the world has changed since the Cold War, as other threats like terrorism and global warming have come to dominate our fears, nuclear dangers are still with us. But every day, there are ordinary people collaborating in extraordinary ways to keep the rest of us safe from them. For some, it's a family tradition.

Matthew Bunn is a nuclear policy expert and professor at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he also serves as co-principal investigator for the Project on Managing the Atom. His father George Bunn, who died in 2013 at the age of 87, was also a leader in the effort to control the spread of nuclear weapons. A lawyer and diplomat, he helped create the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President John F. Kennedy and played a key role in drafting and negotiating the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty that was signed in 1968 and went into effect in 1970.

Matthew Bunn spoke with us about about his father, their careers, and the fight to keep the world safe from nuclear disaster. You can hear George Bunn recall the development and enactment of the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons here, and also find many of his papers at this memorial site.

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