For Immediate Release: September 24, 2008
Press Contacts: Miles A. Pomper, Editor, Arms Control Today, (202) 463-8270 x108 and Daryl G. Kimball, Executive Director, Arms Control Association, (202) 463-8270 x107
(Washington, D.C.): Arms Control Today, a leading journal on nonproliferation and global security, today released Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama's answers to a dozen questions posed by the monthly magazine's editors on arms control and nonproliferation issues to both major party presidential candidates.
Arms Control Today has published such surveys of the presidential candidates going back three decades. The Obama survey answers are available at http://www.armscontrol.org/2008election and a PDF version is available here.
The questions covered areas from negotiations with Russia to relations with Iran and from appropriate U.S. policy on cluster munitions to the right approach to nuclear-armed neighbors India and Pakistan.
They were submitted to both the John McCain and Obama campaigns in June, with responses originally scheduled for publication in the magazine's September issue, but neither campaign was able to respond in time and the segment was rescheduled for the October issue.
The McCain campaign has previously expressed a willingness to provide answers to the same questions and has been cooperative in dealing with ACT. But the Republican presidential nominee's staff did not provide Arms Control Today with answers to the survey questions in time for the publication of the October issue of Arms Control Today. Arms Control Today will publish Senator McCain's responses to the survey whenever they become available.
In addition to the survey, please turn to the Website of the independent Arms Control Association (ACA), the publisher of Arms Control Today, for several other sources of information on the presidential candidates' views on arms control and nonproliferation issues:
- An ACA panel discussion on "How the Next President Can Strengthen the Nonproliferation System" with representatives for the McCain and Obama campaigns. The discussion, which took place at ACA's annual luncheon in June, featured Stephen E. Biegun, now a foreign policy adviser to Republican Vice Presidential nominee Sarah Palin, who spoke on behalf of the McCain campaign, and John D. Holum, the former director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Clinton, who spoke for the Obama campaign. It is available at http://www.armscontrol.org/events/20080617_Presidential_Debate.
- This month, Arms Control Today also made past presidential questionnaires from as far back as 1976 available online. You can access the full list at http://www.armscontrol.org/historical_armscontrol_surveys.