A quartet from the Cold War calls on Obama

President Barack Obama speaks with former Secretary of Defense William Perry, former Sen. Sam Nunn, and former secretaries of state George Schultz and Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office/Abaca Press-MCT)

Former Georgia senator Sam Nunn and three other former combatants from the Cold War met with Barack Obama this afternoon to undergird the president’s bipartisan call for eventual world-wide nuclear disarmament.

See the background here. But this was the Boston Globe take:

“I don’t think anybody would accuse these four gentlemen of being dreamers. They’re hard-headed, tough defenders of American interests and American security. But what they have come together to help galvanize is a recognition that we do not want a world of continued nuclear proliferation, and that in order for us to meet the security challenges of the future, America has to take leadership in this area,” Obama said.

“This is particularly true at a time when countries like North Korea and Iran are in the process of developing nuclear weapons capacity, at a time when we see a country like Pakistan with a large nuclear arsenal on the other side of a long-running conflict in the subcontinent with India, at a time when terrorist organizations like al Qaeda are trying to seek fissile material.”

Joining Nunn were former Secretary of State George Shultz, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and former Defense Secretary William Perry. Two Democrats, two Republicans.

Not surprisingly, the Republican Shultz spoke for the group, addressing Obama’s embrace of their idea as his own:

“We think that’s just the way to proceed, that there is an interaction between the vision, which you need, which requires you to think of the steps and know where you’re going, and the steps which need to be taken to show that the vision has a reality to it, and we’re getting there,” Shultz said after the meeting.

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