Hope College will feature the address “Nuclear Proliferation: New Worries” by Jack Segal, the former National Security Council director for nonproliferation, on Monday, Feb. 20, at 1 p.m. in Winants Auditorium of Graves Hall through the Great Decisions Global Discussion Series of the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan.
The public is invited. Admission is free.
The council’s Great Decisions Global Discussion Series highlights the most critical global topics facing Americans for the year as chosen by the Foreign Policy Association in New York City. The council brings experts to West Michigan to discuss the topics, with presentations at Hope in the afternoon and at Aquinas College in the evening.
Segal is a retired senior foreign service officer who has worked on nuclear issues throughout a 35-year career. He was State Department representative to the Strategic Arms Reduction Talks (START) under President Reagan, during which he authored the landmark “Agreement on Nuclear Risk Reduction” reached with the USSR in 1987. He went on to an assignment in Moscow, where he worked with Russian counterparts to implement nuclear and chemical weapons agreements, then he and his wife Karen opened the first U.S. Consulate General in central Russia. From that vantage point he supervised the monitoring of the Intermediate-range Nuclear Forces (INF) agreement and continued his work on a chemical weapons destruction agreement.
Returning to Washington, Segal became chief of staff to the State Department’s Under Secretary for Arms Control and International Security where he managed a staff that was dealing with major challenges from Iran, North Korea and Pakistan. He then went to President Clinton’s National Security Council as director for Russia, Ukraine and Eurasia, then to a second posting as NSC director for non-proliferation where he again dealt with the issues that still remain major challenges today.
He and Karen “retired” to Traverse City where they co-chair the World Affairs Councils of America chapter for northern Michigan.
Hope is an educational partner of the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan (worldmichigan.org), which is dedicated to educating people in western Michigan about other countries and cultures of the world, as well as providing a forum for discussion of critical foreign policy issues. In existence since 1949, the World Affairs Council of Western Michigan is a non-partisan, non-advocacy educational non-profit organization. With 60 member companies and almost 3,000 members, it is considered one of the best councils in the national network of 100 World Affairs Councils.
The council’s Great Decisions Global Discussion Series will feature a total of eight addresses on Mondays between February 6 and April 3, with additional topics including nuclear proliferation, and the complexity of U.S.-Saudi and U.S.-China relations. Six of the events will take place at Hope, and all eight will take place at Aquinas College. There is a $10 admission charge for the events at Aquinas.
More information about the presentations at Hope is available online. More information and about the Great Decisions Global Discussion Series as a whole is available online.
Graves Hall is located at 263 College Ave., between 10th and 12th streets. The Aquinas College Performing Arts Center is located at 1703 Robinson Rd. SE in Grand Rapids.