U.S. to Reveal Size of Nuclear Stockpile

The Obama administration is likely to reveal a closely guarded secret -- the size of the U.S. nuclear stockpile -- perhaps as early as Monday, when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton addresses the opening session of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty Review Conference.  Despite opposition to the move by some within the administration, arms-control activists and officials in the Energy and State departments have argued that making the numbers public would prove how much progress the U.S. government has made in shrinking its Cold War arsenal. Jeffrey Lewis, director of the Nuclear Strategy and Nonproliferation Initiative at the New America Foundation, said releasing the U.S. numbers would be "a major step forward in transparency...The United States has not gotten enough credit for the reductions it has made," he said. "That's even true of the Bush administration. . . . It makes it easier for us to make the case we are in fact reducing the number of nuclear weapons."

(photo: Paul Shambroom)