Greg Mello, executive director, the Los Alamos Study Group

The import of this speech is minimal in most respects. In key respects, the administration means very nearly the opposite of what it seems to say today. In April the Obama administration unveiled a massive program of nuclear modernization, which was nowhere mentioned today. This program will cost literally hundreds of billions of dollars over three decades. 

When the president says he will “work to build support in the United States to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty,” he really means a larger wave of spending by the crony contractors who run the nuclear weapons complex.

We urge everyone to look into the president's actions—and the lack thereof—not his words. The words and actions are far from aligned. It is up to all of us to ensure that President Obama's nuclear legacy will not lie in nuclear modernization and the perfection of propaganda that aims to guide us to the opposite conclusion.