SAN FRANCISCO: On Thursday May 18th, Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr., Special Representative of the President for Arms Control, Non-Proliferation and Disarmament from 1994-1997 and the President of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security (LAWS) will be at the World Affairs Council at 11:00 am to discuss the ongoing debate on U.S. deployment of a national missile defense system. The briefing is part of a bi-coastal U.S. release of a White Paper on National Missile Defense published by Lawyers Alliance for World Security.

Ambassador Graham will be joined by Bay Area experts: Senator Alan Cranston, President of the Global Security Institute; Dr. Wolfgang Panofsky, Director Emeritus of the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; and Naila Bolus, Executive Director of The Ploughshares Fund.

Bay area political, science, technology, and foreign correspondents are encouraged to attend.

Prompted by the U.S. Senate's rejection of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in October and by the pending decision by the Clinton Administration on whether or not to a deploy national missile defense system, the LAWS has undertaken a series of White Papers on key national security issues related to arms control, non-proliferation, and disarmament. The White Paper on National Missile Defense, the first of these White Papers, presents the principal technological, strategic and political arguments against NMD deployment.

"The proposed deployment of a national ballistic missile defense (NMD), the impeding destruction of the ABM Treaty, the potential for alienating Russia and China from the arms control process and the alarmed reaction of our NATO allies loom as fundamental, near-term challenges to U.S. security," says Ambassador Graham.

The White Paper is authored by Joseph Cirincione of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Steve Fetter of the University of Maryland, George Lewis of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jack Mendelsohn of the Lawyers Alliance for World Security, and John Steinbruner of the University of Maryland.

Other White Papers are planned for the CTBT, the role of nuclear weapons and deterrence in the 21st century and the importance of multilateral arms control efforts to U.S. national security.

Please join Ambassador Thomas Graham, Jr. at the World Affairs Council, 312 Sutter Street, San Francisco, CA . The roundtable will begin at 11:00 am and should last for one hour.

RSVP to Zack Allen of the Global Security Institute at 415 561 6686 or on the day of the event by cell phone at 415 254 5306.

For additional information on the White Paper on National Missile Defense
contact Damien LaVera, Director for Publications and Domestic Programs
Lawyers Alliance for World Security Tel: (202) 745-2450; Fax: (202) 667-0444; or email: dlavera@lawscns.org.