Rowan hosts Andrews' presentation on global threat reduction

September 04, 2007

Part of Hollybush Summit 40th anniversary celebration

Rowan University will continue its series of events commemorating the 40th anniversary of the Hollybush Summit with the presentation "The Global Threat Reduction Initiative: Forty Years After the Glassboro Summit" on Monday, September 17, at 11 a.m. in Tohill Auditorium, Bunce Hall.

Guest speaker U.S. Congressman Robert E. Andrews (1st District, New Jersey) will discuss what measures Congress has recently taken to reduce the possibility of terrorists using nuclear or radiological bombs against the U.S. As a member of the House Armed Services Committee, he helped to increase funding in the National Defense Authorization Act, the Department of Defense's Cooperative Threat Reduction Program and the Department of Energy's Global Threat Reduction Initiative.

This is the first in a series of programs Rowan will present during the 2007-08 academic year to mark the June 1967 summit between U.S. President Lyndon B. Johnson and Soviet Premier Alexei Kosygin in the Hollybush Mansion on the grounds of then-Glassboro State College. The two world leaders met face to face for a historic two-day summit to debate their opposing views on the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War and discuss the perils of the nuclear arms race. While Johnson and Kosygin signed no formal agreement, they did acknowledge that the Hollybush Summit was successful, and the Summit helped start to ease some Cold War tensions.

Rowan, which kicked off the 40th anniversary with two open houses at Hollybush in June that drew about 800 people, plans to hold a series of nearly a dozen events throughout the anniversary year that focuses on issues that faced the world then and face it now, including:

• December 4, 2007

"National Intelligence Estimate: What Went Wrong," with speaker Bob Graham, former U.S. Senator and governor of Florida

• February 19, 2008

"Johnson and Kosygin at the Dawn of Détente," with guest speaker Dr. Sergei Khrushchev, senior fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies and son of the late Nikita Khrushchev, former general secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

• April 11-12, 2008 Symposium on Nuclear Nonproliferation

April 11 panel discussion with moderator Dan Rather, former anchor of CBS Evening News, and panelists William Potter, director of the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies and Sam Nunn and Richard Lugar Professor of Nonproliferation Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, and Joseph Cirincione, senior fellow and director for the Nuclear Policy Center for American Progress. (Other panelists to be confirmed.)

April 12 Symposium (Keynote speakers to be determined.)

"Rowan is the only campus ever to host a summit between the leaders of the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.," said Rowan President Dr. Donald Farish. "It's important to re-examine the conversation that took place 40 years ago and to relate it to today's nuclear arms race and ongoing crisis in the Middle East, both of which, sadly, are more volatile now than they were at the time of the Summit. As a public university, we see informing our students and our community about the critical issues of the day as a moral imperative."

For more information about anniversary activities and a chance to view historic video from the Summit, visit www.rowan.edu/hollybush or call (856) 256-4240.



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