[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 65 (Monday, April 23, 2007)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E832-E833]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      IN MEMORIAM--PAUL LEVENTHAL

                                 ______
                                 

                         HON. EDWARD J. MARKEY

                            of massachusetts

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, April 23, 2007

  Mr. MARKEY. Madam Speaker, I rise today to commemorate and celebrate 
the life and work of Paul Leventhal.
  Paul was a giant in the debate on how to protect the United States 
and the world from the proliferation of nuclear technology. He 
encouraged us, he challenged us, and he empowered us to not back down 
in our continual struggle to free ourselves from the threat of nuclear 
weapons. And now, as that struggle continues, Paul will be sorely 
missed.
  Paul was a constant and tireless advocate for smart arms control and 
non-proliferation policies. He helped bring into being two of the most 
significant pieces of nuclear legislation of the atomic age, the Energy 
Reorganization Act of 1974 and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 
1978.
  To give you a sense of the significance of these laws, I want to tell 
a very short story about the concept of ``full-scope safeguards,'' of 
which Paul was an early advocate, and which became U.S. law under the 
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act in 1978. ``Full-scope safeguards'' means 
that a country would need to have IAEA safeguards over all its nuclear 
facilities as a requirement for receiving any civilian U.S. nuclear 
commerce. It is a crucial requirement, and it was adopted in 1992 by 
the Nuclear Suppliers Group as not only a U.S. requirement but an 
international one.
  In July 2005, when President Bush announced that he wanted to blow a 
hole in US. non-proliferation laws to allow nuclear trade with India, 
what was stopping him? Paul Leventhal and the ``full-scope safeguards'' 
requirement. Not many people make such an impact on U.S. policy that it 
reverberates through three decades. But Paul did just that.
  I relied on Paul's encyclopedic knowledge for many years, as did my 
staff. He was an irreplaceable resource to me back in the mid-eighties, 
when we were fighting the Clinch River Breeder Reactor, and the Reagan 
Administration's plans to open the door to nuclear cooperation with the 
Peoples' Republic of China. He was also a driving force behind the 
effort Howard Wolpe and I undertook in the early nineties to strengthen 
U.S. nonproliferation law and close export control loopholes. He was 
tireless in his efforts to move the world away from the use of highly 
enriched uranium in research reactors and to promote the alternative of 
low-enriched uranium. On issue after issue, Paul was on the cutting 
edge of nuclear non-proliferation policy, pointing out flaws in 
proposed nuclear cooperation agreements with Japan and Euratom, 
pressing Congress to tighten loopholes in U.S. law, and searching for 
every conceivable procedural or legislative strategy that could be 
employed in the cause.
  While the void left by Paul's passing is large, and we will often 
wish that we had his wise counsel to guide us as we continue the fight, 
I'd like to think that as we do so Paul will be looking down on us and 
encouraging us in our efforts to fight for a world free from nuclear 
fear.
  I honor Paul Leventhal today, and I pray that we will succeed in the 
struggle that he dedicated his life to--the fight to prevent the spread 
of nuclear weapons. My prayers are with his wife, Sharon, and his two 
sons, Ted and Josh; and I would like to thank them for sharing Paul 
with us over the years.
  Madam Speaker, I submit Paul Leventhal's obituaries from New York 
Times and the Washington Post for the Record.

                [From the New York Times, Apr. 12, 2007]

Paul Leventhal, Who Opposed Commercial Use of Nuclear Power, Dies at 69

                           (By Dennis Hevesi)

       Paul Leventhal, who as president of the small but 
     influential Nuclear Control Institute was one of the most 
     vocal opponents of expanding the commercial use of nuclear 
     power, died Tuesday at his home in Chevy Chase, Md. He was 
     69.
       The cause was cancer, his son Ted said.
       Mr. Leventhal founded the Nuclear Control Institute in 
     1981, two years after becoming co-director of the United 
     States Senate's bipartisan investigation of the Three Mile 
     Island accident, the nation's most serious commercial reactor 
     failure.
       Mr. Leventhal opposed commercial nuclear power not only 
     because of the threat of a Chernobyl-like disaster but also 
     because of its potential to ease the making of nuclear 
     weapons. The construction of nuclear reactors in this country 
     ceased for decades, though experts attribute this to cost 
     more than to fears of proliferation. But Mr. Leventhal kept 
     those fears on the front burner for 22 years as his 
     institute's president and since 2002, when his title became 
     founding president.
       He lobbied lawmakers, organized conferences and wrote op-ed 
     articles about proliferation, nuclear terrorism and the use 
     of commercial reactors to make tritium, an ingredient of 
     nuclear bombs, a program that the federal Energy Department 
     is now pursuing.
       He was particularly concerned about Iran, which he believed 
     had a secret weapons program that would justify a harsh 
     reaction, perhaps even military strikes.
       ``If you look at every nation that's recently gone nuclear, 
     they've done it through the civilian nuclear cycle,'' Mr. 
     Leventhal told The New York Times in 2004. Atoms for peace 
     can be a ``shortcut to atoms for war,'' he added. ``It may 
     take the unthinkable happening before the political process 
     can screw up the courage to put an end to this ridiculously 
     dangerous industry.''
       Paul Lincoln Leventhal was born in Manhattan on Feb. 12 in 
     1938, a son of Jack and Helen Shapiro Leventhal. In addition 
     to his son Ted, of Washington, he is survived by his wife of 
     39 years, the former Sharon Tanzer; another son, Josh, of 
     Raleigh, N.C.; a brother, Warren, of Roslyn, N.Y.; and two 
     grandchildren.
       Mr. Leventhal graduated from Franklin & Marshall College in 
     1959 and received a master's from the Columbia School of 
     Journalism in 1960. He was a reporter for The Plain Dealer in 
     Cleveland and later The New York Post and Newsday.
       In 1969, Senator Jacob K. Javits, Republican of New York, 
     hired him as his press secretary. Mr. Leventhal began 
     concentrating on energy issues for Mr. Javits and, in 1979, 
     was named staff director of the Senate's subcommittee on 
     nuclear regulation and a director of the Three Mile Island 
     investigation.

               [From the Washington Post, Apr. 14, 2007]

             Paul Leventhal; Led Nuclear Control Institute

                      (By Yvonne Shinhoster Lamb)

       Paul Leventhal, 69, founder of the Nuclear Control 
     Institute in Washington and an expert in nuclear 
     proliferation issues, died April 10 at his home in Chevy 
     Chase. He had melanoma, a form of skin cancer.
       Mr. Leventhal, a former newspaperman and congressional 
     aide, launched his advocacy institute with a full-page ad in 
     the New York Times on June 21, 1981, posing the question: 
     ``Will Tomorrow's Terrorist Have an Atom Bomb?''
       Since serving in the early 1970s as an aide on a Senate 
     subcommittee chaired by Sen. Abraham Ribicoff (D-Conn.), Mr. 
     Leventhal remained adamant about the dangers of nuclear 
     terrorism and global commerce in plutonium--a key element 
     used in nuclear weapons--and worked to prevent the spread of 
     nuclear weapons to nations or groups.
       On the subcommittee, Mr. Leventhal worked on a Nixon 
     administration bill to reorganize the Atomic Energy 
     Commission. He described work on the legislation as a 
     ``baptism in fire'' that changed his life.
       Mr. Leventhal, who worked in the Senate from 1972 to 1981, 
     was responsible for the investigations and legislation that 
     resulted in

[[Page E833]]

     passage of two landmark nuclear laws--the Energy 
     Reorganization Act of 1974, which split the Atomic Energy 
     Commission into separate regulatory and promotional nuclear 
     agencies, and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Act of 1978, 
     which established stricter controls on U.S. nuclear trade.
       The non-proliferation act's requirement that countries 
     accept international inspections on all their nuclear 
     activities--``full-scope safeguards''--as a condition for 
     receiving U.S. nuclear assistance eventually was adopted as 
     an international norm by the multinational Nuclear Suppliers 
     Group.
       Mr. Leventhal recognized the growth and threat of nuclear 
     and bomb-grade materials, said lawyer Richard Wegman, who 
     served as chief counsel for Ribicoffs committee with Mr. 
     Leventhal and later as counsel for the Nuclear Control 
     Institute.
       ``Paul was a truly remarkable individual, exceptionally 
     dedicated to an exceptionally difficult cause,'' Wegman said. 
     ``He was one of the first to work for full-scope safeguards. 
     . . . He insisted on incorporating that concept in 
     legislation.''
       In 1979, Mr. Leventhal served as co-director of the 
     bipartisan Senate investigation of the Three Mile Island 
     nuclear accident, and he prepared the ``lessons-learned'' 
     legislation enacted in 1980 to require preventive measures 
     and emergency planning.
       He said that work left him ``acutely aware of that 
     ineffable combination of human fallibility and mechanical 
     failure that makes nuclear plants vulnerable to accidents, 
     and also sabotage.''
       He lamented a few years ago that the flow of nuclear 
     technology and materials from industrial countries to 
     developing regions was continuing.
       ``As a result, there is now more plutonium in civilian 
     hands than in all of the nuclear weapons in the world. And 
     some of it has already been turned into bombs, as in India, 
     Pakistan and North Korea, while others have used or are now 
     using civilian nuclear programs as a cover for weapons 
     programs,'' he said in a speech in 2001, adding that Iran and 
     Iraq raised immediate concerns.
       Mr. Leventhal, born in Manhattan, graduated magna cum laude 
     with a degree in history from Franklin & Marshall College in 
     Pennsylvania in 1959 and received a master's degree from the 
     Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism in 1960. He 
     spent 10 years as an investigative and political reporter at 
     the Cleveland Plain Dealer, the New York Post and Newsday, 
     until deciding that he wanted to ``get inside of government 
     and try to make it work.''
       In 1969, he came to Washington as a press secretary to Sen. 
     Jacob K. Javits (R-N.Y.), served in 1970 as campaign press 
     secretary to Sen. Charles Goodell (R-N.Y.) and two years 
     later was a congressional correspondent for the National 
     Journal.
       From 1972 to 1976, he concentrated on nuclear weapons 
     proliferation as a research fellow at Harvard University's 
     Program for Science and International Affairs and as a 
     visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution. From 1979 to 
     1981, he was staff director of the Senate Nuclear Regulation 
     Subcommittee, chaired by Sen. Gary Hart (D-Colo.).
       After starting the Nuclear Control Institute, Mr. Leventhal 
     served as its president for 22 years, lectured in a number of 
     countries, organized conferences and wrote op-ed articles and 
     books on nuclear terrorism, averting a Latin American nuclear 
     arms race, nuclear power and the spread of nuclear weapons.
       For the past several years, he directed the institute as a 
     Web-based program that maintains a word-searchable electronic 
     archive at www.nci.org: and a collection of institute and 
     Senate papers spanning more than 30 years at the National 
     Security Archive.
       Survivors include his wife, Sharon Tanzer Leventhal of 
     Chevy Chase; two sons, Theodore Leventhal of Washington and 
     Joshua Leventhal of Raleigh, N.C.; a brother; and two 
     grandsons.

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