Looking Back To The Future

John Lemming, Chairman of the INMM, characterized the theme for this, the 30th annual meeting of the Institute, as \"Where Will Safeguards Be Tomorrow?\" I have selected a variant of that theme—\"Looking Back To The Future\"—as the title of my presentation. To understand the future of safeguards, I found it useful to examine the history of the program. That history, particularly in terms of public and political support for safeguards, reveals peaks and valleys related directly to external stimuli. The past also reveals that program growth has paralleled those same peaks and valleys. To illustrate my point, let me stroll with you briefly through the four distinct eras that have characterized the lifespan of the safeguards program: first, the 1940s wartime bomb development era; second, the 1950s and 1960s Atoms for Peace era; third, the 1970s intervenors1 era; and finally, the 1980s terrorism era.