Transcript from CNN's The Situation Room Aired on April 6, 2010
The nuclear question has been on the presidential table for decades. President Obama's move away from nuclear development and deterrent is viewed as a departure from his predecessors.
Let's discuss with our senior political analyst, David Gergen -- how much of a departure, when all is said and done, David, is this?
DAVID GERGEN, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: Well, "Ahmad dinner jacket" -- I'm still musing over that one, Wolf. I haven't heard that before.
Wolf, the president's policy that's behind his efforts are really more of an evolution than a sharp departure from the past. As you well know, for a long time, we were essentially concerned about a massive confrontation with the Soviet Union. But several years ago, leading thinkers and heavyweights in American foreign policy began to say that's not -- no longer our chief threat. Our chief threat is a rogue nation or a terrorist group getting its hands on nuclear weapons.
And so people like Henry Kissinger and George Shultz and the Democratic heavyweights like Sam Nunn and Bill Perry joined together and have been pushing the idea of not only stronger safeguards against these rogue weapons, but also toward a nuclear-free world.
And Barack Obama signed up for that a year ago, gave a speech in Prague calling for a world free of nuclear weapons.
And what he's trying to do now is a series of steps and -- and conferences to push in that direction. And he's -- he is -- it's a bold vision that he's pursuing cautiously, so that he says, on one hand, that we will no longer wait -- we'll take off the table the idea of using nuclear weapons against anybody that attacks us with chemical, biological or massive conventional warfare. But, by the way, we're going to have this carve out for nations like Iran and North Korea. We're not going to build any new nuclear weapons, but, by the way, we're going to have a large investment in upgrading our conventional -- our current weapons. So it's a cautious step that's going to attract some attack from left and right. But I think it's sufficiently down the middle that he's going to have pretty widespread support among -- within the foreign policy establishment.
BLITZER: Within the foreign policy establishment here and, certainly, I think, among a lot of the Western European allies...
GERGEN: Yes.
BLITZER: -- at the same time, when he goes to Prague in the coming days. We're going to go to Prague in the next hour. Our Ed Henry is already there to set the scene.
David, thanks very much.
GERGEN: Thank you.
BLITZER: David Gergen, our senior political analyst.