Ms. Eisenhower has written on the subject of nuclear energy, convened working groups on it through the Eisenhower Strategy Form and has visited many sites that are part of the larger nuclear question. In 2004 she visited: Yucca Mountain, the Federal Spent Fuel Repository in Nevada, which is now no longer being funded; a major uranium enterprise in Ust-Kamenogorsk, Kazakhstan, where highly enriched uranium is blended down; and several nuclear facilities in France including La Hague, the French reprocessing facility. She has also visited a number of Russian nuclear reactors. Her work for the Baker-Cutler Commission also took her to Russia’s premier nuclear weapons facility, the Zababakhin Center in Snezhinsk (formally Chelyabinsk-70), a sensitive Russian defense site where nuclear weapons are designed and fissile materials are secured.

An experienced public speaker to expert audiences as well as general audiences, Ms. Eisenhower has addressed the issue of security and nuclear energy at many prestigious gatherings. These include keynote addresses at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California; Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico (The Distinguished Truman Lecture); and the National Academy of Sciences in Washington DC. She also gave the 2008 Rose Lecture at MIT and spoke during the General Assembly of the International Atomic Energy Agency in 2007. She has penned articles about the future of nuclear energy for such publications as the IAEA Bulletin and the National Academy of Science’s Issues in Science and Technology.

Susan Eisenhower served for three terms on the National Academy of Sciences standing committee on International Security and Arms Control. She is a founding Director of the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI) co-chaired by former Senator Sam Nunn and Ted Turner.

Click here to return to Susan Eisenhower’s main biography page..

In November, Churchill Archives Centre in Cambridge, UK hosted a conference on “The Cold War and its Legacy”. The conference began with opening statements from Susan Eisenhower and the Deputy Russian Foreign Minister, His Excellency Grigoriy Karasin.

Click here to read more about this event and the work of the Churchill Archives Center.

On September 26, 2009, Susan Eisenhower and the son of Nikita Khrushchev gave a talk at at the 50th anniversary of Khrushchev and Dwight Eisenhower’s meeting in Gettysburg.

The Eisenhower Institute at Gettysburg College presented a weekend to commemorate the visit and examine the future of U.S. and Russia relations.

Ms. Eisenhower’s conversation with Sergei Khrushchev was moderated by Daun van Ee, co-editor of the Eisenhower Papers.

Click here to view the video from this event at C-SPAN.

Please click here to view a video clip of the “Overtime” segment, in which the panel answered a variety of questions from the internet audience. On the panel with Ms. Eisenhower are war veteran and political candidate Anthony Woods; writer John Heilemann; and writer Matt Taibbi.

On June 22, 2009, Susan Eisenhower moderated a roundtable discussion entitled “Pressing That Re-set Button: Shared Interests, Competing Values, and U.S.-Russian Relations.” The Century Foundation presented this event at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.

As the Obama administration redirects U.S. policy on many fronts, the President’s declaration of a fresh start for relations between the United States and Russia has significant implications for the management of many critical issues. The roundtable assessed the direction of policy under the new administration in the week ahead of President Obama’s visit to Moscow, and it explored the challenges and opportunities the two countries face on issues of mutual and global concern.

Panelists:
* Jack F. Matlock, Jr., former George F. Kennan Professor, Institute for Advanced Study and former U.S. ambassador to the USSR; co-chair, Century Foundation Working Group on U.S. Policy toward Russia
* Thomas Graham, Senior Director, Kissinger Associates and former Senior Director for Russia, National Security Council; author of Century Foundation report Resurgent Russia and U.S. Purposes
* Sarah E. Mendelson, Director, Human Rights and Security Initiative and Senior Fellow, Russia and Eurasia Program, Center for Strategic and International Studies; author of Century Foundation report U.S.-Russian Relations and the Democracy Deficit

Click here for more video from this event.

On May 13, 2009, Susan Eisenhower delivered remarks and hosted a panel at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce’s Institute for 21st Century Energy as part of “A Dialogue on Energy Security with America’s Business Leaders.”

Ms. Eisenhower was joined by three regional business leaders for the panel discussion: Robert “Bobby” Wegener, Secretary of Energy, State of Oklahoma; Laurence Weatherly, Ph.D., Chairman, University of Kansas Energy Council; and Bray Cary, President and Chief Executive Officer, West Virginia Media.

Click here to view a video from this event.

In May, Susan Eisenhower moderated a panel at the first Civilian-Military Safe Havens Conference in Pocantico Hills, New York. The conference was organized by The Eisenhower Project and The Open Society Institute in collaboration with members of the Department of Social Sciences, United States Military Academy at West Point.

General John J. Sheehan and Dan Rather joined Ms. Eisenhower for the panel, entitled “From Birth of a Nation to YouTube: The Media-Military Relationship Through Time.” A summary of their discussion:

From the earliest joint ventures between the American military and media to the more strained years of Vietnam up to the recent collaborations of the Iraq War, the military-media relationship has been an ever-changing one. Against this historical backdrop, this panel will explore challenging questions about the pros and cons of contemporary war coverage — from the benefits of transparency to the challenging ethical implications of embedding and the inevitable reality that military personnel who appear as experts on television and radio must strike a balance between providing independent expertise and adhering to official talking points. What better avenues for collaboration may be established between officers and their media counterparts in order to give voice to professional military expertise and concerns on aspects of on public policy while maintaining a high regard for the vital security, hierarchy, and safety of military operations.

Photo by Joe Posner/The Eisenhower Project
www.whywefight.com

In May 2009 Susan Eisenhower was honored with this award. Colonel Hentz noted that Eisenhower is “best known for her work in the field of energy and as an expert on nonproliferation programs in Russia. It is hard to imagine two more central challenges informing America’s foreign relations.”

Photo by Kevin Remington

Susan Eisenhower and I were interviewed outdoors today atop a building overlooking the Capitol by Sky News on the subject of Obama’s trip to the London G-20 Summit, the EU Summit and the NATO Summit — followed by a significant trip to Turkey.

Eisenhower, granddaughter of the late President, is an expert on Russia and Europe and helped animate the “Republicans for Obama” movement.

Her comments today on Sky were important as she stated that she saw the “restart” in US-Russian relations as something crafted by Obama and Medvedev — not Vladimir Putin. She said that there may be a power struggle underway in Moscow between the President and Prime Minister — and that the President seemed to have the upper hand in the recent warming of relations with the West, but things remain fragile and tentative.

She warned that Obama had to be careful not to close down foreign policy options and not box himself into a position. She generally agreed with my views on North Korea, suggesting that the President and Ambassador to the United Nations Susan Rice need a more complex, nuanced response to the missile launch than the binary one they seemed to be embracing.

She applauded Obama’s ability to get Europeans, Turks, and others from around the world to suspend their anger at the US for triggering a global financial crisis and to talk about broader challenges that need attention and to improve in their eyes America’s standing.

Eisenhower really should be asked to serve as an Obama administration ambassador to a leading nation. These are my views — not hers — but she really has tremendous insights into statecraft and our nation’s foreign policy challenges in a way that would enhance the chances of success for the Obama administration in world affairs.

I’m not sure she’d take a position as a diplomat at a top tier country — but Obama’s team should ask, and I hope she’d accept.

During a visit to Kansas University Thursday, Susan Eisenhower said that the United States needs to upgrade its electrical infrastructure to take advantage of renewable energy forms….

Eisenhower said the nation needs to focus more on a strategic, larger scale model of thinking, rather than its current tactical, short-term approach to some energy problems.

“We have to be thinking in the logic of 20 years, not in the logic of tomorrow or the next day,” she said.

Click here for full coverage from LJWorld.com.