Can We End the Cold War? Should We?

by Robert S. McNamara, former Secretary of Defense and former President of the World Bank

Listen to this presentation (mp3)

Mr. McNamara, one of the architects of the strategic policy that created the sea, land, and air nuclear triad in the 1960s, asks us to imagine a world no longer dominated by the threat of a face-off between East and West (US and USSR) and urges us to act on such a vision.

This May 15, 1989 presentation was made in the context of Mikhail Gorbachev’s initiatives to free the Eastern bloc nations and diminish the rivalry between the USSR and the US (for which Gorbachev was later awarded the Nobel Peace Prize). This presentation was held six months before Gorbachev’s reforms enabled the fall of the Berlin Wall.

Presented by the Center for Psychological Studies in the Nuclear Age (founded by Harvard professor of psychiatry John E. Mack, M.D.) at the Sanders Theatre, Harvard University, Cambridge MA, May 15, 1989.

Introduced by John E. Mack, M.D.

This audio recording includes Mr. McNamara’s presentation and Q&A.