March 22, 2000
Former U.S. Senator Alan Cranston, a longtime Los Altos-area resident, was honored March 14 for his contribution to the cause of nuclear arms elimination.
“An Evening Honoring Senator Alan Cranston,” a fund-raiser for the Global Security Institute and Lawyers Alliance for World Security, drew local Democratic leaders and more than a few celebrities, including Dr. Jane Goodall, comedian Robin Williams and actor Michael Douglas
“An Evening Honoring Senator Alan Cranston,” a fund-raiser for the Global Security Institute and Lawyers Alliance for World Security, drew local Democratic leaders and more than a few celebrities, including Dr. Jane Goodall, comedian Robin Williams and actor Michael Douglas.
Accolades for Cranston and his receipt of the W. Averell Harriman Award from the Lawyers Alliance came in written form from President Clinton, Goodall, Gov. Gray Davis and senators Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein.
Even after leaving the Senate in 1993, Cranston pushed for nuclear arms reductions, launching an effort at the 1995 State of the World Forum to abolish nuclear weapons worldwide through educating U.S. citizens and world leaders.. Joining in the fight was former Soviet Union president Mikhail Gorbachev. Cranston is currently president of the new Global Security Institute, which continues the work of abolishing nuclear weapons while advocating new models of governance to strengthen the United Nations.
Despite all the talk of arms reduction and the end of the Cold War, Cranston told the gathering, “We have more nukes than we have targets.”
Cranston’s institute is overseeing the production of “Sleepwalking to Armageddon,” a documentary on nuclear dangers being made by CBS “Sixty Minutes” producer George Crile and Russian TV associate Artyom Borovic.
Cranston said production is about halfway through and the program could be ready for viewers as early as this fall.
“The nuclear threat has not gone away,” wrote Goodall, the renowned ethologist, in her March 2 letter to Cranston. “More and more countries around the globe have acquired nuclear technology. Nuclear weapons are tested, with great damage to the environment, with great risk to human and animal life.” She told Cranston, “No one has done more than you have” to promote arms elimination.
“I think it’s uncivilized for civilization to depend upon terror for its security,” Cranston said in a 1998 interview. “That undermines the nature of the civilization.”
The event, held at the Westin St. Francis Hotel in San Francisco, was not without a few light moments, thanks to Goodall, who did a monkey imitation in a video greeting, and Williams, who remarked: “If Jane Goodall made that noise at the Dulles (International Airport in Washington, D.C.), nobody would notice.”
Also attending from Los Altos were former Los Altos Mayor Jim Thurber and wife Emily, both members of the event’s dinner committee, and from Los Altos Hills, Cranston’s sister, Eleanor Cameron.
Cranston called the event “a great success,” toward getting his message out. “We are getting more and more people concerned about the perils we face,” he said.
He noted poll after poll shows 85 percent of people around the world would feel safer in a world with no nuclear weapons, but people and governments haven’t made getting rid of them a higher priority.
“We’ve had over 1,000 accidents (involving weapons) so far, and we’re still ‘launch on warning’ – firing before the other guy gets to us.”
The program for the event, which sold out its 260 dinner seats, featured Cranston with his grandchild and a wish that summed up his anti-nuclear efforts: “I want my grandchild and all children to live in a world free of the nuclear threat.”