Dr. Blair is a Senior Fellow in Foreign Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution. His academic research concentrates on the nuclear command and control of U.S. and Russian strategic weapons. He is a former 1st lieutenant in U.S. Strategic Command and served as a Minuteman launch officer.

He is an expert on the security of weapons-usable nuclear material in the former Soviet Union. He served as adviser to the White House Office of Science and Technology in the Clinton administration. He is curerntly Assistant Director of the Science, Technology and Public Policy Program at Harvard University's Center for Science and International Affairs.

He was an officer in Russia's Strategic Rocket Forces for over 30 years and was part of the elite 12th Main Dirctorate whose officers maintain the nuclear command and control system and guard strategic weapons. Retired since 1991, he spends his time investigating problems in the Strategic Rocket Forces. He is concerned by the lack of safeguards in launching missiles and his reports, published in the Russian press, have made him unpopular.

He was the Assistant Secretary of Defense under William Perry in the Clinton administration. He prepared and presented the Nuclear Posture Review in 1993, and was directly involved in Project Sapphire and the removal of nuclear missiles from the Ukraine. He is currently at the Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University.

He recently retired from the Strategic Rocket Forces and is now the Director of the Fourth Central Research Institute in Moscow, which is responsible for strategic nuclear planning and policy. He is a top advisor to the Russian Minister of Defense, General Igor Sergeyev and acts as a liaison to the U.S. military and the Department of Defense.

He recently retired from the U.S. Air Force at the rank of a four-star general. His final assignment was as the top U.S. nuclear commander at Stratcom, the command and control center for U.S. strategic weapons. He was a B-52 pilot and served in Vietnam where he flew comabt missions. He was among the first few high-ranking U.S. officers to tour top-secret nuclear facilities in Russia.

He is a senior analyst at the Hudson Insitute in Washington, where he is an expert on the Russian military. He has recently written a book about problems in the Russian armed forces called The Collapse of the Soviet Military. He spent his military career in the U.S. Army and headed the National Security Agency under President Ronald Reagan.

He is a member of the Russian Parliament and head of its Defense Committee. In 1997, he conducted a survey of Russia's Early Warning System. He is an expert in nuclear non-proliferation issues.

He was a commander of the nuclear submarine fleet in the U.S. Navy and was also the Director of Central Intelligence under President Carter. In 1998, he wrote a book called Caging the Nuclear Genie in which he develops a proposal for nuclear disarmament strategy which he calls "strategic escrow."

Dr. Yablokov is a well-respected expert on nuclear security and a former science advisor to President Boris Yeltsin. He testified before a subcommittee of the House National Security Committee in October 1997 about the existence of small tactical nuclear devices manufactured for the Soviet KGB in the 1970s. He has raised concerns that some of these so-called "suitcase" bombs are missing.