President’s Letter – September 2026
Dear NAPF Community,
I’m writing this message on a plane from London to Newark, on my way home from Vienna, where I spent a couple of days at a workshop organized by The Simons Foundation Canada, with academic partners at Simon Fraser University and the University of British Columbia, as well as the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs. Following insightful and thought-provoking discussions in a room of two dozen academics, activists, policy experts, and diplomats, I’m reflecting on both the challenges ahead and the inspiration I was able to draw from these conversations.
Like so much else these days, my time of reflection is clouded by the constant refrain of bad news, which now includes the start of the UN General Assembly in New York, where the US President, Donald Trump, once again, threatened to “drive [Iran] into hell with no chance of survival and no hope of future greatness.” This brazen, brutal, and illegal threat is not only an affront to our morality, humanity, and international law, it is also a demonstration of the inescapably undemocratic nature of nuclear weapons. As Prof. Elaine Scarry explains in her brilliant book, The Thermonuclear Monarchy, the idea that one person can decide on the fate of millions, even billions of people, in a split moment, in and of itself shatters all of our perceptions that we live in a democracy.
In Vienna, we discussed a number of topics through the lens of disarmament education, including the role of AI. Just before that particular session started, I checked out The Nation, where I had sent an op-ed a few days earlier, to find that my article, entitled In the Age of AI, Nuclear Weapons Abolition Is a Renewed Imperative, had just been posted on their website. AI has been in the news and on our minds, especially in the past few weeks, and I hope you’ll read my article (see below) on why this is an especially good moment to recommit to getting rid of nuclear weapons.
A lot has happened over the past few weeks at NAPF, and I hope that you will check out some of our activities, from our 32nd Annual Sadako Peace Day, a beautiful and memorable event, to the International Meeting on Victim Assistance and Environmental Remediation at the UN, with an Appeal to Pope Leo XIV (initiated by Professor Peter Kuznick), and writing and interviews in between. Next week, we look forward to honoring Katrina vanden Heuvel and Annie Jacobsen, our Women Waging Peace Award recipients for 2026, in Santa Barbara. The role that these women have played in countering the war narrative and promoting peace through their writing and public appearances is an endless source of inspiration to us all.
Please know that none of this work would be possible without your support, for which we are always utterly grateful!
With love and appreciation,
Ivana N. Hughes
President, Nuclear Age Peace Foundation
Highlights
We were proud to serve as Civil Society Coordinator for the First International Meeting on Victim Assistance and Environmental Remediation at the United Nations on September 1st!
Marking 81 years since the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, NAPF hosted its 32nd Annual Sadako Peace Day on August 6, 2026, in the Sadako Peace Garden at La Casa de Maria in Santa Barbara.
The event was dedicated to the memory of Dr. Jimmy Hara.
Writings and Interviews
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