Nuclear Threat Initiative

The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) is a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization founded in 2001 by Ted Turner and Sam Nunn in the United States, which exists to strengthen global security by reducing the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, and also to reduce the risk that they will actually be used.

NTI is an operational organization, actively engaged in developing, shaping and implementing projects. In addition to building global awareness, NTI engages in model programs to inspire private and governmental efforts toward threat reduction.

In 2002 the NTI provided the $5 million of private money needed to add to the $3 million from the US government to safely move 48 kg of highly enriched uranium (enough for two nuclear weapons) from the defunct Vinča nuclear reactor near Belgrade to a facility in the Russian Federation to be blended down for use as a conventional nuclear fuel.

As part of its focus to secure nuclear materials worldwide, NTI helped create the World Institute for Nuclear Security (WINS), established in Vienna in 2008. Today, the organization has more than 250 members from almost 50 countries. The Economist wrote, “WINS is a place where, for the first time, those with the practical responsibility for looking after nuclear materials—governments, power plant operators, laboratories, universities—can meet to swap ideas and develop best practices.”

UN Security Council Resolution 1887 supported the WINS mission, calling for states to “share best practices with a view to improved safety standards and nuclear security practices and raise standards of nuclear security to reduce the risk of nuclear terrorism.”

The Nuclear Threat Initiative serves as the Secretariat for the Nuclear Security Project, in cooperation with the Hoover Institution. Former Secretary of State George P. Shultz, former Secretary of Defense William J. Perry, former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger and former Senator Sam Nunn have joined together to form the Nuclear Security Project—an effort to galvanize global action to reduce urgent nuclear dangers and build support for reducing reliance on nuclear weapons, ultimately ending them as a threat to the world.

The organization produced the 2005 film, Last Best Chance, which aired on HBO, as well as the 2010 documentary film Nuclear Tipping Point.

NTI's leadership
NTI is a place of common ground where people with different ideological views are working together to close the gap between the global threats from nuclear, biological and chemical weapons and the global response.

Co-chaired by philanthropist Ted Turner and former U.S. Senator Sam Nunn, NTI is governed by an expert and influential Board of Directors with members from the United States, Japan, India, Pakistan, China, Jordan, Sweden, France and the United Kingdom. Board members include:
 * Joan Rohlfing, President and Chief Operating Officer
 * Charles B. Curtis, President Emeritus
 * Dr. Alexei Arbatov, Head, Center for International Security at Institute of World Economy and International Relations, Russian Academy of Sciences
 * Pete Domenici, Senior Fellow, Bipartisan Policy Center
 * Susan Eisenhower, President of The Eisenhower Group
 * Ambassador Rolf Ekeus, Chairman of the Board, Stockholm International Peace Research Institute
 * Eugene Habiger General USAF (Ret.), former Commander in Chief of the U.S. Strategic Command
 * HRH Prince El Hassan bin Talal of Jordan
 * Pierre Lellouche, Member of the French National Assembly
 * U.S. Senator Richard G. Lugar R-Indiana
 * Dr. Jessica Mathews, President of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
 * Judge Hisashi Owada, International Court of Justice
 * Dr. William Perry, former U.S. Secretary of Defense
 * Dr. Nafis Sadik, Special Advisor to the UN Secretary-General
 * Professor Amartya Sen, Lamont University Professor and Professor of Economics and Philosophy, Harvard University
 * Rt. Hon. Shirley Williams, House of Lords, UK
 * Professor Fujia Yang, Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences

Advisors to the Board of Directors include leading figures in science, business and international security. Advisors to the Board include:
 * Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway Inc.
 * Dr. David A. Hamburg, President Emeritus of Carnegie Corporation of New York
 * Siegfried S. Hecker, Director Emeritus of the Los Alamos National Laboratory
 * Frederick Iseman, Chairman and Managing Partner of Caxton-Iseman Capital Inc.
 * George F. Russell Jr., Co-Chairman of the EastWest Institute and founder of the Frank Russell Company

NTI's staff includes experts in international affairs, nonproliferation, security and military issues, public health, medicine and communications, who have operational experience in their areas of specialty.