Since 1981 Lawyers Alliance for World Security has been a nonpartisan organization of professionals concerned with promoting the rule of law and the control and elimination of threats posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction. Averell Harriman became US Ambassador to the Soviet Union under President Franklin Roosevelt. As one of America's great statesmen he was a resolute voice for the control of weapons through law. The Averell Harriman Award is presented to those who strive in that tradition. Previous recipients include the Chemical Manufacturers Association for its support of the Convention banning chemical weapons, and Ambassador Richard Butler for his work promoting the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

I am pleased to be here this evening to honor my good friend and close colleague Senator Alan Cranston for his work in promoting the abolition of nuclear weapons. Today, at the dawn of a new millennium, the international community is moving headlong toward a critical junction. We have reached a crucial decision point where, on the one hand, prudent and responsible action in the short term could help to ensure global security for years to come, while on the other hand, capricious and reckless behavior could have disastrous and irreversible consequences. I and others have noted that we are nearing a fork in the road in terms of international efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons.

The signpost at this fork reads the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), which was described by Madeleine Albright as "the most important multilateral arms control agreement in history."

It is under siege. The Treaty was created 30 years ago and in 1995 I led U.S. government efforts to make the Treaty permanent. An agreement was reached in which the nuclear weapons states promised 182 nations to make systematic progress to reduce nuclear weapons globally with the ultimate goal of eliminating them. This commitment reaffirms the central bargain of the Treaty - non-proliferation in exchange for eventual nuclear disarmament. With last year's rejection by the Senate of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the drive toward unilateral U.S. deployment of a national missile defense against so-called "rogue states", and the nuclear tests by India and Pakistan, the NPT regime is in grave trouble.

Indeed, I believe that we have reached that fork in the road. The time to decide which path to take - the one that leads toward a world marred by as many as fifty to sixty states possessing nuclear weapons with nearly every conflict carrying the potential to go nuclear, or the one protected by a healthy and robust non-proliferation regime - is now, and the stakes are high. To choose the right path means to take steps to honor the commitments that I helped negotiate in 1995; to pursue sincere efforts to provide non-nuclear weapon states with legally binding assurances against the use or threat of use of nuclear weapons, to bring the CTBT into force, and most importantly, to pursue steep reductions in existing nuclear arsenals with the aim of their ultimate elimination.

I can only hope that with the efforts of Alan and others like him, the right path will be clear. All that stands between us and a world moving rapidly toward the eventual elimination of nuclear weapons is the political will of the nuclear powers to push forward with nuclear disarmament efforts, a political will to lead. Thank you.