John Mecklin

John Mecklin is the editor-in-chief of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. Previously, he was editor-in-chief of Miller-McCune (subsequently renamed Pacific Standard), an award-winning national magazine that focused on research-based solutions to major policy problems. Over the preceding 15 years, he was also: the editor of High Country News, a nationally acclaimed magazine that reports on the American West; the consulting executive editor for the launch of Key West, a regional magazine start-up directed by renowned magazine guru Roger Black; and the top editor for award-winning newsweeklies in San Francisco and Phoenix. In an earlier incarnation, he was an investigative reporter at the Houston Post and covered the Persian Gulf War from Saudi Arabia and Iraq. Beyond the publications he has edited and opined in, his writing has appeared in Foreign Policy, the Columbia Journalism Review, and the Reuters news service. Writers working at his direction have won many major journalism contests, including the George Polk Award, the Investigative Reporters and Editors certificate, and the Sidney Hillman Award for reporting on social justice issues. Mecklin holds a master in public administration degree from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.


Recent work

Commentary: Can Congress stop a president waging nuclear war?

Concern about President Trump’s authority to launch an unwarranted first-strike nuclear attack is one thing; circumscribing that authority is quite another. Read it at Reuters

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Disarm and Modernize

In terms of warhead numbers, the nuclear arms race may
 be over. But massive weapons upgrades now underway challenge the entire disarmament regime. Read it in Foreign Policy magazine.

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Commentary: The North Korean nuclear ‘crisis’ is an illusion

The major media can help audiences understand that the North Korean “crisis” is really a standoff, and that a puppet show full of bluster is a rather pathetic substitute for professional diplomacy. Read it at Reuters.

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Commentary: What the candidates didn’t say about nukes

The final segment of a Hillary Clinton-Donald Trump presidential debate, vaguely titled “Securing America,” focused in significant part on the nuclear threat. The discussion was substantive but insufficient. Read it at Reuters.

Articles by John Mecklin