Biographies for the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project Steering Committee

The U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project was completed in August 1998 and resulted in the book Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 edited by Stephen I. Schwartz. These project pages should be considered historical.

: Members of the Project Steering Committee are:

Stephen I. Schwartz (Project Director), Guest Scholar, The Brookings Institution

David Albright, President, Institute for Science and International Security Bruce G. Blair, Senior Fellow, The Brookings Institution

Thomas S. Blanton, Executive Director, National Security Archive

William Burr, Senior Analyst, National Security Archive

Steven M. Kosiak, Senior Budget Analyst, Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (formerly the Defense Budget Project)

Arjun Makhijani, President, Institute for Energy and Environmental Research

Robert S. Norris, Senior Staff Analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council

Kevin O’Neill, Deputy Director, Institute for Science and International Security

John E. Pike, Director of the Space Policy Project, Federation of American Scientists

William J. Weida, Professor of Economics, The Colorado College

David Albright, a physicist, is president of the non-governmental Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). He is co-author (with Frans Berkhout, of Sussex University, and William Walker, of the University of St. Andrews) of World Inventory of Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1992 (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and Oxford University Press, 1993) and Plutonium and Highly Enriched Uranium 1996: World Inventories, Capabilities and Policies (Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and Oxford University Press, 1997). Mr. Albright has published numerous articles on nuclear weapons proliferation and on civilian and military and fissile material inventories in Science, Scientific American, Science and Global Security, Arms Control Today, the FAS Public Interest Report, The New York Times, The Washington Post and The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (where he is also a contributing editor). In 1992, he received an Olive Branch Award for a series of articles he wrote with Mark Hibbs on the Iraqi nuclear weapons program for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (“Iraq and the Bomb: Were They Even Close?” [March 1991], “Hyping the Iraqi Bomb” [March 1991], and “Iraq’s Nuclear Hide-and-Seek” [September 1991]). Since 1992, Mr. Albright has cooperated with the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Action Team. In June 1996, he was invited to be the first non-governmental inspector of Iraq’s nuclear program and questioned Iraqi officials about that country’s uranium enrichment program. Also in 1996, Mr. Albright was appointed to the Department of Energy’s (DOE’s) Openness Advisory Panel, which is charged with reviewing the DOE’s efforts to lift the veil of Cold War secrecy surrounding many of its programs. He has testified before Congress on a variety of nuclear weapons production issues, briefed government officials on nonproliferation matters, and spoken before many groups and conferences. Prior to founding ISIS, Mr. Albright was senior staff scientist at the Federation of American Scientists. From 1984 to 1986, he was also on the research staff of Princeton University’s Center for Energy and Environmental Studies. Earlier, he taught physics at George Mason University in Virginia. Mr. Albright holds an M.S. in Physics from Indiana University and an M.S. in Mathematics from Wright State University.

Bruce G. Blair is a senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, a private, nonprofit organization founded in 1916 and devoted to nonpartisan research, education and publication in economics, government, foreign policy and the social sciences generally. He is an expert on the security policies of the United States and the former Soviet Union, defense conversion and nuclear forces command and control systems. Dr. Blair has frequently testified before Congress on this latter subject. He has also extensively studied the Russian military and military-industrial economy. While at Brookings, he has taught defense analysis as a visiting professor at Yale and Princeton Universities. Prior to joining Brookings in 1987, Dr. Blair served in the Department of Defense and was a Project Director at the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment for a classified study of the U.S. strategic command and control system. He received his B.S. in Communications from the University of Illinois in 1970 and then served as a U.S. Air Force officer in the Strategic Air Command (SAC) from 1970-1974, as a Minuteman ICBM launch control officer and as a support officer for SAC’s Airborne Command Post. He earned an M.S. in Management Sciences at Yale University in 1977 and was awarded a Ph.D. in Operations Research by Yale in 1984. Dr. Blair is the author of numerous books, occasional papers and articles on defense issues in such journals as Scientific American. His books include Strategic Command Control(Brookings, 1985), winner of the Edgar S. Furniss Award for its contribution to the study of national security, and The Logic of Accidental Nuclear War (Brookings, 1993). His most recent occasional paper is Global Zero Alert for Nuclear Forces (Brookings, 1995) and his most recent article is “Taking Nuclear Weapons Off Hair-Trigger Alert,” (Scientific American, November 1997).

Thomas S. Blanton is the executive director of the independent, non-governmental National Security Archive located at the George Washington University in Washington, D.C. Founded in 1985, the Archive has become the most prolific and successful nonprofit user of the Freedom of Information Act, and has built what the Christian Science Monitor called “the largest collection of contemporary declassified national security information outside of the U.S. Government.” Mr. Blanton served as the Archive’s first director of planning and research beginning in 1986, became deputy director in 1989 and executive director in 1992. Previously he worked as a journalist, foundation staffer and congressional aide. His most recent book is White House E-Mail: The Top Secret Computer Messages the Reagan-Bush White House Tried to Destroy(The New Press, 1995), which the New York Times described as “a stream of insights into past American policy, spiced with depictions of White House officials in poses they would never adopt for a formal portrait.” Mr. Blanton also co-authored The Chronology (Warner Books, 1987) on the Iran-Contra affair and served as contributing editor to several other books, including Litigation Under the Federal Open Government Laws (American Civil Liberties Union, 1995). His articles have appeared in the International Herald Tribune, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Atlanta Journal/Constitution, Los Angeles Times and other publications. Trained in history at Harvard University, he won Harvard’s 1979 Newcomen Prize in Material History for his honors thesis, and the American Library Association’s 1996 James Madison Award Citation for “preserving the public’s right to know” for his efforts to defend the expand the Freedom of Information Act.

William Burr is a Senior Analyst at the National Security Archive, where he directs its nuclear weapons documentation project. He has edited a microfiche collection, U.S. Nuclear History: Nuclear Weapons and Politics in the Missile Age, 1955-1968 (Chadwyck-Healey, 1997), which includes more than 1,400 documents on U.S. government decisions and follow-up activity on weapons systems development, force levels and deployments, war plans, command, control, and warning arrangements, among other issues. He is also responsible for a long-term documentation project on “The United States and Nuclear China.” Dr. Burr edited and supervised the Archive’s project, The Berlin Crisis: 1958-1962(Chadwyck-Healey, 1992), a comprehensively indexed collection of more than 3,000 documents. While working on that project, he participated in the Nuclear History Program’s oral history interview series on the Berlin Crisis. He has written articles and reviews for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, International History Review, Diplomatic History (where he serves on the editorial board) and The Cold War International History Project Bulletin. He received his Ph.D. in History from Northern Illinois University and has taught courses on U.S. diplomatic and military history at Catholic University of America, American University and George Mason University.

Steven M. Kosiak is Director of Budget Studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments (formerly the Defense Budget Project), a nonpartisan research organization committed to a coherent national security policy which reflects a realistic assessment of available fiscal resources and national security needs. He has previously served as a senior analyst at the Center for Defense Information, and worked on Capitol Hill and in the Office of the Defense Advisor at the U.S. Mission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). Mr. Kosiak specializes in the analysis of defense spending trends, force structure and weapon system costs and the budgetary consequences of arms reduction measures. He is the author of the Center’s annual defense budget analysis and contributes significantly to other Center reports. His publications include Air Force Plans for the 21st Century: A Budgetary Perspective (Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, 1996), Nonproliferation and Counterproliferation: Investing for a Safer World? (Defense Budget Project, 1995), and The Lifecycle Costs of Nuclear Forces: A Preliminary Assessment (Defense Budget Project, 1994). He is frequently cited in national news stories and has appeared on network television news and radio programs. He has also lectured on defense issues before numerous professional, academic and civic organizations. Mr. Kosiak received a Masters degree in Public Affairs from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University and a Bachelor of Arts, summa cum laude, from the University of Minnesota.

Arjun Makhijani is president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research (IEER), an independent nonprofit organization located in Takoma Park, Maryland, which produces technical studies on a wide range of environmental issues to provide advocacy groups and policymakers with sound scientific information and to promote the understanding and democratization of science. Dr. Makhijani is frequently cited in national news stories and has appeared on numerous network television news and radio programs. His articles have appeared in, among others, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, The New York Times and The Washington Post. He is the author and co-author of numerous reports and books on topics such as radioactive waste storage and disposal, nuclear testing, disposition of fissile materials, energy efficiency and ozone depletion, including High-Level Dollars, Low-Level Sense (The Apex Press, 1992), Fissile Materials in a Glass, Darkly (IEER Press, 1995), The Nuclear Safety Smokescreen: Warhead Safety and Reliability and the Science Based Stockpile Stewardship Program (IEER, 1996), and Containing the Cold War Mess: Restructuring the Environmental Management of the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex (IEER, 1997). He is also the principal editor of Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects (MIT Press, 1995). Dr. Makhijani has served as a consultant to numerous organizations, including the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment, Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory and the Tennessee Valley Authority. He has testified before Congress and is a consultant to the Radiation Advisory Board Committee of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Science Advisory Board. Dr. Makhijani studied engineering at the University of Bombay and Washington State University and earned a Ph.D. in engineering at the University of California at Berkeley, specializing in nuclear fusion.

Robert S. Norris is senior staff analyst with the Natural Resources Defense Council and Director of the Nuclear Weapons Databook Project. NRDC is a nonprofit membership organization dedicated to the protection of natural resources and the human environment. Dr. Norris’ principal areas of expertise include writing and research in the areas of nuclear weapons research and production, arms control and disarmament and nuclear weapons testing. He is co-editor of NRDC’s Nuclear Weapons Databook series and is a co-author of U.S. Nuclear Warhead Production, vol. II (Ballinger, 1987); U.S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles, vol. III (Ballinger, 1987); Soviet Nuclear Weapons, vol. IV (Harper and Row, 1989); British, French and Chinese Nuclear Weapons, vol. V (Westview Press, 1994); and Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (Westview Press, 1995). Dr. Norris co-authored the chapter on nuclear weapons production in the 1985-1992 editions of the SIPRI Yearbook and is an author of six recent NRDC Working Papers. His writings have appeared in Arms Control Today and, since May 1987, he has prepared the “Nuclear Notebook” column for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Dr. Norris also co-authored the article on nuclear weapons in the 1990 printing of The New Encyclopedia Britannica (15th edition, Vol. 29, pp. 575-580). He was a senior research analyst for the Center for Defense Information before joining NRDC in 1984. Dr. Norris received his Ph.D. in Political Science from New York University and has taught at New York University, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Miami University, Luxembourg and American University.

Kevin O’Neill is deputy director of the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS). Since his arrival at ISIS in 1994, Mr. O’Neill has been deeply involved in all aspects of the institute’s work. His research has focused principally on the proliferation risk posed by the collapse of the former Soviet Union, efforts to secure fissile material stockpiles in Russia and the former Soviet republics, and the threat of nuclear terrorism. He also works on issues related to nuclear testing and the control of fissile materials stockpiles in the United States and has contributed to ISIS’s efforts to promote regional nuclear safeguards in the Middle East and to uncover the strategies that proliferant states have utilized in the pursuit of nuclear weapons. Prior to joining ISIS, he was a research intern at several arms control organizations, including the Congressional Arms Control and Foreign Policy Caucus, the Arms Control Association and the Center for Defense Information. Mr. O’Neill has authored or co-authored several articles on nuclear proliferation and nuclear testing for The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Defense News, and The Washington Times. He is also the author of the May 1996 ISIS Report, “Securing Former Soviet Nuclear Assets.” Mr. O’Neill holds a B.A. in Political Science from the University of Connecticut at Storrs and a Masters of Public Administration from the American University in Washington, D.C.

John E. Pike directs the Space Policy Project at the Federation of American Scientists, a non-governmental organization founded in 1945 as the Federation of Atomic Scientists (by scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project) and currently comprising 4,000 natural and social scientists and engineers. Mr. Pike coordinates research, analysis and advocacy on military and civilian space policy and other national security issues, and has pioneered the use of the internet for public policy communication. A former political consultant and science writer, Mr. Pike is the author of more than 200 studies and articles on space and national security. His most recent article is “The Ballistic Missile Defense Debate,” (Current History, April 1997). He is a Fellow of the Interplanetary Society, and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. In 1991, Mr. Pike received the Public Service Award of the Federation of American Scientists, and in 1994 he was named one of the 25 “Rising Stars Who Will Lead us into the Next Space Age” by the National Space Society’s Ad Astra magazine. He is frequently called upon by print and broadcast media for commentary, and by congressional committees for testimony on space and national security issues. Mr. Pike earned a B.A. in Technology and Public Policy from Vanderbilt University.

Stephen I. Schwartz is a guest scholar with the Foreign Policy Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, where he directs the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project. Prior to joining Brookings in May 1994, Mr. Schwartz was the Washington Representative for the Military Production Network (now the Alliance for Nuclear Accountability), a national alliance of more than 40 organizations addressing nuclear weapons production and environmental issues at the Department of Energy’s (DOE) nuclear weapons complex. From 1988 until early 1992, he was Legislative Director for Nuclear Campaigns with Greenpeace USA, focusing on the DOE’s nuclear weapons and naval nuclear propulsion programs. Mr. Schwartz has also served as Associate Director of the Santa Monica, California-based Council on Nuclear Affairs (1987-88) and as Senior Research Assistant for the Adlai E. Stevenson Program on Nuclear Policy at the University of California at Santa Cruz (1985-87). He has testified before Congress on various nuclear weapons production issues and has also spoken before university students, Department of Energy employees and military personnel. His articles and letters to the editor have appeared in the Atlanta Journal/Constitution, The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, the Los Angeles Times, The New York Times, the San Jose Mercury News, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Postand The Washington Times. Mr. Schwartz’s monographs include A Nuclear Weapons Primer: A Supplement to the UCSC Nuclear Information Handbook (Adlai E. Stevenson Program on Nuclear Policy, 1986), The ABM Treaty: Problems in Compliance (Adlai E. Stevenson Program on Nuclear Policy, 1987) and Rhetoric vs. Reality: Admiral James D. Watkins at the Helm?The Department of Energy, 1989-1992 and Beyond (Military Production Network, 1992). Mr. Schwartz earned a B.A. in Sociology (summa cum laude and college honors) from the University of California at Santa Cruz.

William J. Weida is a professor of economics at The Colorado College in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and project director with the New York-based Global Resource Action Center for the Environment. Dr. Weida has taught at The Colorado College since 1985, serving as co-chair of the Economics and Business Department from August 1985 through May 1990, and as chair from June 1990 through June 1993. From March 1982 through July 1985, he worked at the Pentagon in the Economic Policy and Analysis Division under the Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, first as Assistant Director (1982-84) and then as Director (1984-85). While at the Pentagon, Dr. Weida formulated Department of Defense policy on international economic and energy issues, including security assistance, burdensharing, sanctions and economic warfare trade restrictions, energy and defense trade. During 1983, he also served on a Blue Ribbon Commission on Security and Economic Assistance. Dr. Weida served as an officer and pilot in the U.S. Air Force from June 1965, through January 1971. He taught at the U.S. Air Force Academy from 1970-72 and again from 1975-1982, when he also managed over 40 research projects. From June 1981 through March 1982, he served as Professor and Acting Head of the Academy’s Department of Economics, responsible for curricula, pedagogy, budget and administration of faculty. He also taught courses in macro- and micro economics, statistics and econometrics. His research and articles have appeared in International Journal of Social Economics and The Journal of Technology Transfer. His books include Paying for Weapons: The Politics and Economics of Offsets and Countertrade (Frost and Sullivan, 1986); The Political Economy of National Defense (with Dr. Frank L. Gertcher, Westview Press, 1986); Beyond Deterrence: The Political Economy of Nuclear Weapons (with Dr. Frank L. Gertcher, Westview Press, 1990); and Regaining Security: A Guide to the Costs of Disposing of Plutonium and Highly-Enriched Uranium (Avebury Press, 1997). Dr. Weida holds a B.S. in Engineering from the U.S. Air Force Academy, an M.B.A. in Management Theory from the University of California at Los Angeles and a D.B.A. in Econometrics and Operations Research from the University of Colorado.