Annual Report Archives
The Bulletin continues to publish analysis and commentary that gets the attention of policy communities and the general public. The op ed by George Lewis and Ted Postol about a National Academies report on missile defense was discussed by the Committee on International Security and Arms Control. The article by Peter Stockton of the Project on Government Oversight about the security lapse and break-in at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in September received several thousand unique visits within three days of posting. We continue to see evidence of the impact that the Bulletin is making every day on issues of nuclear security, climate change, energy, and biosecurity.
Growth in the Bulletin’s readership in 2011 points to a powerful hunger for substantive, well-written analysis driven by facts, not ideology. From our Fukushima reports to updates on Iran’s nuclear program, journalists and policymakers are quoting the Bulletin at the White House, and in the U.S. Senate, The New York Times, The Atlantic, The New Yorker, and in communiqués and blogs all over the world. The staff has been publishing the best writing and analysis from our expert community, republishing past content that continues to be all too relevant to the Fukushima disaster, fielding media requests, conducting interviews, and making public appearances to help the public understand the events as they unfold.
Our judgment about the trajectory of nuclear disarmament has been partially affirmed by significant developments in nuclear weapons policy over the past year. In 2010, the Bulletin published and disseminated articles and opinion pieces to help shape deliberations as well as inform the public about the history, context, and meaning of these policy initiatives. Joshua Pollack, Pavel Podvig, Ken Luongo, Deepti Choubey, and others have provided expert analysis, highlighting the positive and sometimes unprecedented steps being taken, as well as pointing to the need for more action. We are told that Pollack’s pieces, in particular, were useful in pushing the administration to renounce the use of nuclear weapons against countries that do not possess them, and in ensuring that no new nuclear weapons will be produced by the United States.
Bulletin readers in more than 70 countries were able to gain a deeper understanding of U.S.-Soviet relations, global nuclear proliferation, and numerous related topics of science and public policy. In September, the Bulletin published a special collection of articles which analyzed the broader context and implications of the Chernobyl accident. Many of these articles and illustrations have been reprinted by newspapers and journals around the world, and this issue is frequently requested for classroom use. In 1986, the Bulletin was also presented an Olive Branch Award for its "outstanding coverage of the nuclear arms issue."