page_title: William Perry
section_title: Work to eliminate nuclear weapons
hierarchical_section_title: William Perry / Later career / Work to eliminate nuclear weapons
caption_attribution_description: STOCKHOLM 2014-04-10 Opening Photo: Mikael Sjöberg
context_page_description: William James Perry is an American mathematician, engineer, businessman, and civil servant who was the United States Secretary of Defense from February 3, 1994, to January 23, 1997, under President Bill Clinton. He also served as Deputy Secretary of Defense and Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering.
  Perry is the Michael and Barbara Berberian Professor at Stanford University, with a joint appointment at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and the School of Engineering. He is also a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He serves as director of the Preventive Defense Project. He is an expert in U.S. foreign policy, national security and arms control. In 2013 he founded the William J. Perry Project, a non-profit effort to educate the public on the current dangers of nuclear weapons.
  Perry also has extensive business experience and serves on the boards of several high-tech companies. He is a member of the National Academy of Engineering and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
context_section_description: Perry is a founding board member of the Nuclear Threat Initiative, a nonprofit, nonpartisan organisation working to reduce the threat of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons. He currently has an emeritus status on the board. Perry is an Advisory Board member for the Partnership for a Secure America, a not-for-profit organization dedicated to recreating the bipartisan center in American national security and foreign policy. Perry is currently chair of the Board of Sponsors for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and frequently speaks at Bulletin events. He is Member of the Supervisory Council of the International Luxembourg Forum on Preventing Nuclear Catastrophe. Perry is also  a member of the Board of Directors of the Center for a New American Security, a Washington, DC- based think tank that specializes in U.S. national security issues. Perry is also on the Advisory Board of the Truman National Security Project, a progressive leadership institute that trains the next generation of foreign policy and national security leaders.
  In March, 2006, he was appointed to the Iraq Study Group, a group formed to give advice on the U.S. government's Iraq policy.
  In 2007, Secretary Perry joined three other eminent statesmen, former Secretaries of State George P. Shultz and Henry Kissinger, and former Senator Sam Nunn in calling for the United States to take the lead in reducing and eliminating nuclear weapons. Their op-ed, "A World Free of Nuclear Weapons", published in the Wall Street Journal, reverberated throughout the world, and is one of the key factors that has convinced political leaders and experts internationally that the conditions are in place to achieve that goal. The four men published four subsequent op-eds in the Wall Street Journal, most recently March 5, 2013: "Next Steps in Reducing Nuclear Risks: The Pace of Non-Proliferation Work Today Doesn't Match the Urgency of the Threat". They subsequently created the Nuclear Security Project to galvanize global action to reduce urgent nuclear dangers and build support for their vision and the steps to achieve them. The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), a non-partisan, non-profit organization co-chaired by Sam Nunn, serves as coordinator of the NSP, in conjunction with Stanford University's Hoover Institution. In 2010 the four produced the documentary Nuclear Tipping Point. The film is introduced by General Colin Powell, narrated by Michael Douglas and includes interviews with California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev.
  In 2011, Perry joined a team of former government officials from various countries, formed under the auspices of the Governor of Hiroshima Prefecture Hidehiko Yuzaki to prepare a plan for the total abolition of nuclear weapons. This project is titled Hiroshima for Global Peace.
  In 2013, Perry founded the William J. Perry Project to seek to promote greater public awareness about nuclear weapons and engage more people in acting to mitigate the growing threat they pose to humanity. The Project is a nonprofit venture supported with funds raised from private individuals and is sponsored by the Nuclear Threat Initiative in Washington, DC.
  In 2015, Perry published a memoir, My Journey at the Nuclear Brink, (Stanford Univ. Press), with a foreword by George P. Shultz. The memoir describes coming of age at the dawn of the nuclear age, and his later roles in managing the nuclear threat. He warned that: "Today, the danger of some sort of a nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger.” 
  On September 30, 2016, the New York Times published a Perry opinion editorial advocating, " ... the United States can safely phase out its land-based intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) force ... ".
  Perry is cited by the website of Los Angeles Congressman Ted Lieu for supporting legislation proposed by Lieu and U.S. Senator Ed Markey, Democrat from Massachusetts, that would limit President Trump and future presidents' authority to launch a nuclear first strike a
caption: Perry at a conference in Stockholm in 2014
exif: {"Image ImageWidth": "4928", "Image ImageLength": "3280", "Image BitsPerSample": "[8, 8, 8]", "Image PhotometricInterpretation": "2", "Image ImageDescription": "STOCKHOLM 2014-04-10 Opening, \"Achieving the entry into force of the CTBT: Strategy and Action\". Executive Secretary Lassina Zerbo and Hans Blix in Stockholm, Sweden.\nPhoto: Mikael Sj\u00f6berg", "Image Make": "NIKON CORPORATION", "Image Model": "NIKON D4", "Image Orientation": "Horizontal (normal)", "Image SamplesPerPixel": "3", "Image XResolution": "200", "Image YResolution": "200", "Image ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Image Software": "Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh)", "Image DateTime": "2014:04:10 12:00:00", "Image Artist": "MIKAEL SJ\u00d6BERG", "Image WhitePoint": "[313/1000, 329/1000]", "Image PrimaryChromaticities": "[16/25, 33/100, 21/100, 71/100, 3/20, 3/50]", "Image YCbCrCoefficients": "[299/1000, 587/1000, 57/500]", "Image YCbCrPositioning": "Co-sited", "Image ExifOffset": "664", "GPS GPSVersionID": "[2, 3, 0, 0]", "Image GPSInfo": "1392", "Thumbnail Compression": "JPEG (old-style)", "Thumbnail XResolution": "200", "Thumbnail YResolution": "200", "Thumbnail ResolutionUnit": "Pixels/Inch", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormat": "1506", "Thumbnail JPEGInterchangeFormatLength": "3464", "EXIF ExposureTime": "1/160", "EXIF FNumber": "14/5", "EXIF ExposureProgram": "Manual", "EXIF ISOSpeedRatings": "2500", "EXIF SensitivityType": "Recommended Exposure Index", "EXIF ExifVersion": "0230", "EXIF DateTimeOriginal": "2014:04:10 10:03:08", "EXIF DateTimeDigitized": "2014:04:10 10:03:08", "EXIF ComponentsConfiguration": "YCbCr", "EXIF CompressedBitsPerPixel": "4", "EXIF ShutterSpeedValue": "915241/125000", "EXIF ApertureValue": "1485427/500000", "EXIF ExposureBiasValue": "0", "EXIF MaxApertureValue": "3", "EXIF MeteringMode": "Pattern", "EXIF LightSource": "Unknown", "EXIF Flash": "Flash did not fire", "EXIF FocalLength": "175", "EXIF SubSecTime": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeOriginal": "00", "EXIF SubSecTimeDigitized": "00", "EXIF FlashPixVersion": "0100", "EXIF ColorSpace": "Uncalibrated", "EXIF ExifImageWidth": "2464", "EXIF ExifImageLength": "1640", "Interoperability InteroperabilityIndex": "R03", "Interoperability InteroperabilityVersion": "[48, 49, 48, 48]", "EXIF InteroperabilityOffset": "1360", "EXIF SensingMethod": "One-chip color area", "EXIF FileSource": "Digital Camera", "EXIF SceneType": "Directly Photographed", "EXIF CVAPattern": "[0, 2, 0, 2, 0, 1, 1, 2]", "EXIF CustomRendered": "Normal", "EXIF ExposureMode": "Manual Exposure", "EXIF WhiteBalance": "Manual", "EXIF DigitalZoomRatio": "1", "EXIF FocalLengthIn35mmFilm": "175", "EXIF SceneCaptureType": "Standard", "EXIF GainControl": "High gain up", "EXIF Contrast": "Normal", "EXIF Saturation": "Normal", "EXIF Sharpness": "Normal", "EXIF SubjectDistanceRange": "0", "EXIF Gamma": "11/5"}