Hansen, Keith A.

PERSONAL:

Male.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies, Stanford University, Encina Hall W., 2nd Fl., Stanford, CA 94305-6045.

CAREER:

Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, consulting professor of international relations; previously worked for approximately thirty-five years in U.S. national security and strategic nuclear arms as a negotiator.

WRITINGS:

The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: An Insider's Perspective, Stanford Law and Politics/Stanford University Press (Stanford, CA), 2006.

(With Thomas Graham, Jr.) Spy Satellites: And Other Intelligence Technologies That Changed History, University of Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Keith A. Hansen serves on the faculty of Stanford University in the Ford Dorsey Program in International Policy Studies, where he is a consulting professor of international relations. Previously, he spent approximately thirty-five years working in deliberations pertaining to national security and negotiations regarding strategic nuclear arms control for the United States. As a part of this duty, he served for eight years on the team responsible for negotiating and subsequently preparing for the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) implemented by the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton. Hansen is the author of The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: An Insider's Perspective, published in 2006, and with Thomas Graham, Jr., Spy Satellites: And Other Intelligence Technologies That Changed History.

Hansen's The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is an important work, not just due to Hansen's insider perspective on the treaty and its negotiations, but also because so little was previously written about the CTBT. The purpose of the treaty was to halt all nuclear explosions, outlawing even detonations that would normally take place during a weapons testing drill or program. The CTBT is considered to be one of the most difficult treaties ever negotiated, and at the time it was certainly one of the most prolonged treaty negotiations on record. However, even though President Clinton was the first world leader to sign the CTBT, the treaty was ultimately put on hold three years later, when the U.S. Senate refused to pass it. Hansen provides an overview of both phases of the treaty: the early days of planning and writing it, and the time period that followed when it was necessary to convince more world leaders to agree to the treaty and what it stood for. Since Hansen participated in the negotiations, his perspective is somewhat limited by necessity. He does, however, include pertinent information that he gleaned from public records whenever possible.

In The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Hansen addresses the nuclear testing issues that sparked the need for the CTBT, including early efforts by U.S. Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy, as they pressed for the development of some type of agreement to end nuclear explosions and their potential repercussions. However, it was ultimately the end of the Cold War and the decision to disband the Soviet Union that led to serious steps being taken to put together the treaty. U.S. President George H.W. Bush, following the lead of the U.S. Congress, signed legislation in 1992 that pressed for both a moratorium on nuclear testing in the United States and insisted that the CTBT be formed and in effect as of 1996. In effect, the Clinton administration pushed to fulfill this stance in 1996.

The treaty itself was complicated to negotiate, as many nations would need to agree on the parameters by which they could measure the potential danger of various nuclear testing activities. Also, without a unifying agreement to cease the explosion of nuclear weapons, the treaty would be deemed worthless. Steve Andreasen, in a review for Arms Control Today, stated that "Hansen's description of the difficulties in achieving agreement on what precisely the treaty would ban—the most crucial issue in the negotiation—is illuminating." Andreasen concluded that "the book is a fascinating read both for the general reader and the specialist. It will be an invaluable resource for anyone who wants to delve further into the lessons learned from one of the most complex multilateral negotiations undertaken in the latter half of the twentieth century."

Spy Satellites is a slim volume that examines the ways in which spy satellites and other spying devices have been vital over the course of the Cold War. It also describes how spy devices ultimately made it possible to have a measure of control over the development and distribution of nuclear weapons. Rick W. Sturdevant, in a review for Air Power History, remarked that "this little book contributes in a big way to helping us understand how [national technical means (NTM)], especially reconnaissance satellites, were every bit as important as nuclear weapon systems in deterring major war between the Soviet Union and the United States."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Air Power History, March 22, 2008, Rick W. Sturdevant, review of Spy Satellites: And Other Intelligence Technologies That Changed History, p. 49.

Arms Control Today, May 1, 2006, Steve Andreasen, "Book Review: Treaty and Tragedy," review of The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty: An Insider's Perspective, p. 41.

International History Review, March 1, 2007, Michael Krepon, review of The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, p. 214.

Political Science Quarterly, March 22, 2007, George H. Quester, review of The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, p. 167.

Reference & Research Book News, August 1, 2006, review of The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

ONLINE

Foreign Affairs Online,http://www.foreignaffairs.org/ (August 20, 2008), Lawrence D. Freedman, review of The Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.

Stanford University Division of International Comparative & Area Studies Web site,http://ica.stanford.edu/ica/ (August 20, 2008), faculty profile.

Stanford University Press Web site,http://www.sup.org/ (August 20, 2008), author profile.

University of Washington Press Web site,http://www.washington.edu/uwpress/ (August 20, 2008), author profile.