When you are still writing on matters that matter, the last thing you want is to be drawn away collecting 
what you’ve already done. That’s why too many collected works don’t get collected until after somebody dies. The attached volume, which NPEC assembled, consciously violates this rule.
Victor Gilinsky has long supported NPEC. He is 87 but very much alive. A physicist, director of RAND’s science department, a policy planner and safety regulation advisor at the Atomic Energy Commission, and one of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s original and longest-serving commissioners, Victor has been well ahead of Washington’s nuclear “wisdom” for more than a half-century. He still is.
The attached 642-page volume, Peering into Our Nuclear Future: Selected Writings of Victor Gilinsky, spotlights the best bits. The volume’s subject matter — where nuclear energy has taken us and where we should take it — is captured in 70 essays that include insights and introductions by some of Victor’s closest colleagues. All are accessible and concise. The book is broken into five sections: 1. “How Will the Nuclear Weapons Story End?” 2. “Recycling and Enriching Nuclear Explosive Materials,” 3. “Tightening the Nuclear Rules,” 4.“Nuclear Complacency in the Middle East and India,” and 5. “Overseeing Nuclear Power in America.”
It makes for compelling reading. As Jessica Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment notes on the back cover, “Readers will discover more wisdom in this volume than in whole bookshelves.” That is why my staff and I compiled and edited it.
Published November 2021
Published by: Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
Edited by NPEC Executive Director Henry Sokolski – 2021
For a physical Amazon copy of the book click here.
Table of Contents
Foreward
Henry Sokolski
Preface
Victor Gilinsky
Chapter 1: How Will the Nuclear Weapons Story End?
Commentary by Robert Jervis and Randy Rydell
1. “The Evolution of Nuclear Arsenals since 1945”
Victor Gilinsky, remarks before a seminar on Science and International Humanitarian Law, Paris
September 2005
2. “How Will the Nuclear Weapons Story End?”
Victor Gilinsky, remarks before the 10th PIIC Beijing Seminar on International Security, Xiamen
September 24-29, 2006
3. “On Tickling the Dragon’s Tail”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
February 26, 2016
4. “Should We Let It All Go?”
Victor Gilinsky, Should We Let the Bomb Spread? Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
July 2016
5. “What If Nuclear Weapons Are Used?”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
November 16, 2016
6. “Nuclear Risks Are Growing, and There’s Only One Real Solution”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
December 10, 2020
Chapter 2: Recycling and Enriching Nuclear Explosive Materials
Commentary by Bruce Goodwin and Frank von Hippel
1. “Fast Breeder Reactors and the Spread of Plutonium”
Victor Gilinsky, RAND Study RM-5148-PR
March 1967
2. “The Military Significance of Small Uranium Enrichment Facilities Fed with Low-Enrichment Uranium (Redacted)”
Victor Gilinsky and William Hoehn, RAND Study RM-6123-ARPA
December 1969
3. “Nuclear Proliferation and Reprocessing”
Victor Gilinsky in Congressional Hearing before the Subcommittee on International Security and Scientific Affairs
of the Committee on International Relations, House of Representatives, Ninety-Fourth Congress
June 7, 1976
4. “Plutonium, Proliferation and the Price of Reprocessing”
Victor Gilinsky, Foreign Affairs
Winter 1978/79
5. “Nuclear Waste: A New Approach”
Victor Gilinsky, remarks before the Waste Management ‘84 Symposium, Arizona
March 12, 1984
6. “A Fresh Examination of the Proliferation Dangers of Light Water Reactors”
Victor Gilinsky, Marvin Miller, and Harmon Hubbard,
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
October 22, 2004
7. “Minority Opinion: Dissenting Statement of Gilinsky and Macfarlane”
Victor Gilinsky and Allison Macfarlane, Review of DOE’s Nuclear Energy Research and Development Program, National Academies Press
2008
8. “Commercial Plutonium a Bomb Material”
Victor Gilinsky, Bruce Goodwin, and Henry Sokolski, Japan Times
May 31, 2017
9. “Make US-Japanese Nuclear Cooperation Stable Again: End Reprocessing”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
June 27, 2018
10. “Nuclear Power’s Weapons Link: Cause to Limit, Not Boost Exports”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
September 20, 2018
11. “Why Congress Should Say No to Yet Another Fast Reactor Dream”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
June 4, 2019
12. “The Energy Department’s Dangerous Plutonium Dream”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, The American Interest
June 25, 2020
Chapter 3: Tightening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Rules
Commentary by Henry Sokolski
1. “Civilian Nuclear Power and Foreign Policy”
Victor Gilinsky and Bruce L. R. Smith, RAND Study P-3592-1
February 1968.
2. “Nonproliferation Treaty Safeguards and the Spread of Nuclear Technology”
Victor Gilinsky and William Hoehn, RAND Study R-501
May 1970
3. “Restraining the Spread of Nuclear Weapons: A Walk on the Supply Side”
Victor Gilinsky, paper delivered to the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, Washington, D.C.
December 1, 1983
4. “Korea: How Long Do We Live With Blackmail?”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, The Washington Post
March 27, 1997
5. “Neglected Steps: The Agreed Framework’s Nonproliferation and Nuclear Safety Provisions”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, report presented before an American Enterprise Institute – NPEC Sponsored Conference: Korea Policy Challenges for the New Administration, Washington, D.C.
March 13, 2001
6. “Locking Down the NPT”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
June 17, 2009
7. “Sometimes Major Violations of Nuclear Security Get Ignored”
Victor Gilinsky, Nuclear Weapons Materials Gone Missing: What Does History Teach? Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
May 14, 2013
8. “The Iran Interim Agreement: An International Precedent for Nuclear Rules”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
December 6, 2013
9. “Serious Rules for Nuclear Power without Proliferation”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, The Nonproliferation Review, Volume 21, Issue 1.
February 2014
10. “Putting the Nonproliferation Back in the NPT”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
April 6, 2017
11. “Exporting Power Reactors: No Way to Fight Proliferation”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
November 16, 2017
12. “The Nonproliferation Gold Standard: The New Normal?”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Arms Control Association
October 2019
13. “Taking Erdogan’s Critique of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty Seriously”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
November 14, 2019
14. “Small Military Nuclear Reactors: In Need of Global Safeguards”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
June 3, 2020
15. “Trump’s New Foreign Investment Agency: Itching to Build on Nuclear Quicksand”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
July 17, 2020
Chapter 4: Nuclear Complacency in the Middle East and India
Commentary by Sasha Polakow-Suransky, John Fialka, and Leonard Weiss
1. “U.S.-Indian Nuclear Relations”
Victor Gilinsky, remarks before the India Council, Washington, D.C.
February 5, 1980
2. “Why Keep Helping India Make the Bomb?”
Victor Gilinsky, The Wall Street Journal
July 5, 1983
3. “India Cheated”
Victor Gilinsky and Paul Leventhal, The Washington Post
June 15, 1998
4. “Israel’s Bomb”
Victor Gilinsky, The New York Review of Books
May 13, 2004
5. “Revisiting the NUMEC Affair”
Victor Gilinsky and Roger Mattson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
March 1, 2010
6. “Casting a Blind Eye: Kissinger and Nixon Finesse Israel’s Bomb”
Victor Gilinsky, The Next Arms Race, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
July 2012
7. “Let’s Be Honest About Israel’s Nukes”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, The New York Times
September 18, 2013
8. “Did Israel Steal Bomb-Grade Uranium from the United States?”
Victor Gilinsky and Roger Mattson, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
April 17, 2014
9. “Israel’s Sea-Based Nukes Pose Risks”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
February 8, 2016
10. “Is America’s Silence on Israel’s Nuclear Ambiguity about to End?”
Victor Gilinsky, Haaretz
Written September 14, 2016, Updated April 10, 2018
11. “The Real German Submarine Scandal”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
January 4, 2017
12. “No to a Permissive US-Saudi Nuclear Deal”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
February 22, 2018
13. “Facing Reality in the US-Saudi Nuclear Agreement: South Korea”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
April 10, 2018
14. “If Yes to Saudi Arabia, No to Whom?”
Victor Gilinsky and Henry Sokolski, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
January 4, 2019
15. “When America Caught a Nuclear Violator Red-Handed—But Stayed Silent”
Victor Gilinsky, Foreign Policy
September 22, 2019
16. “Toward an Honest Middle East Nonproliferation Policy”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
September 25, 2020
Chapter 5: Overseeing Nuclear Power in America
Commentary by Edwin Lyman, Peter Bradford, and Brian Jenkins
1. “Heard About the Near-Accident at the Ohio Nuclear Plant? I’m Not Surprised”
Victor Gilinsky, The Washington Post
April 28, 2002
2. “A Call to Resist the Nuclear Revival”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
January 27, 2009
3. “Behind the Scenes of Three Mile Island”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
March 23, 2009
4. “Preventing the Next Nuclear Meltdown”
Victor Gilinsky, Foreign Affairs
March 21, 2011
5. “Yucca Mountain Redux”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
November 5, 2014
6. “Limited Appearance Statement of Dr. Victor Gilinsky”
Victor Gilinsky, remarks before the Atomic Safety and Licensing Board, Diablo Canyon, California
July 7, 2015
7. “When 10,000 Square Miles of Contamination Is an Acceptable Risk: The NRC’s Faulty Concept”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
January 29, 2017
8. “A Containment Failure: How American Nuclear Regulators Undercut Power Plant Safety from the Beginning”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
May 4, 2018
9. “The US Government Insurance Scheme for Nuclear Power Plant Accidents No Longer Makes Sense”
Victor Gilinsky, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
February 26, 2020
Foreward
Henry D. Sokolski
I first contacted Victor Gilinsky in the late 1970s when I was working on my master’s thesis and he was a founding member of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. I had a question on the Atoms for Peace Program and when I wrote him, I didn’t expect an answer. To my astonishment, though, he replied. That was 45 years ago. Now, Victor advises my nonprofit. We coauthor nearly everything and talk every other day by phone.
Keeping up with him is challenging. He has an endless inventory of edifying and amusing stories that involve historical figures as well as his neighbors, acquaintances, and boyhood buddies. He is a copious reader of articles, studies, reports, and books. He listens to right-wing radio commentators, as well as Democracy Now!, and Russian-sponsored RTV. He lifts weights, practices yoga, and is an ardent tango dancer. He once took motorcycle lessons. Thankfully, he dropped that.
For me, however, his greatest gift is his ability to cut to the nut of almost any debate. Over the years, he has taught me to be attentive to those at odds with what I am most comfortable with. He also has boosted my morale with sound advice. “Unless someone is going to drive you around in a big black car and shower you with money,” he once counseled, “it’s best to stick to your flight plan.” That advice is what he, more often than not, takes himself.
Certainly, in these pages, you can see the signature of someone who is not just mostly right or bright, but free, i.e., someone who remains consistent until persuaded by a truly stronger argument to change their mind. This puts Victor in the very best of company. Those who actually know him are drawn to him. Yet, he runs no popularity contest and is relatively quiet … unless provoked.
I remember traveling with him to Vienna once and us getting turned around in the airport. A guard would not let us proceed to our plane as we had stepped an inch over what the guard insisted was the unmarked “no-return” line. She demanded that we take an extremely long route to the gate, which would have made us miss our plane, and started yelling “schnell, schnell.” My jaw ran slack; Victor’s did not. In a calm but firm tone, he instructed the attendant to “call the police.” She was not ready for that and, after several short exchanges, was forced to call her supervisor. He, in turn, assessed the situation, frowned, and brusquely walked us through the checkpoint we previously had been barred from transiting.
That scene, in a variety of small and large ways, is played out in much of what this volume contains. In it, are some of Victor’s more important pieces, ones he had a hand in selecting, organized into sections each of which is headed with one or more expert commentaries. He and I coauthored a good number of the volume’s pieces. All bear his stamp. There are many articles Victor and I chose to leave out but, as he is still at work, there’s more to come.
November 2021
To read the full volume click here.