Robert Standish Norris

Background

Robert Standish Norris was born on July 21, 1943, in Beloit, Wisconsin, United States. He is the son of Robert S. and Betty Norris.

Education

Robert Norris began his studies at Syracuse University where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1965. He continued his education at New York University and obtained a Master of Arts degree in 1971 and a Doctor of Philosophy degree in 1976.

Career

Robert Norris began his teaching career after receiving his doctor's degree in 1977 as an adjunct assistant professor. He taught at New York University, Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, Miami University's European campus in Luxembourg, and American University in Washington, D.C., till 1980. The next year, he joined the Center for Defense Information as a research analyst where he worked till 1984. Norris was a senior research associate with the Natural Resources Defense Council in Washington, D.C., from 1984 till his retirement in 2011. His principal areas of expertise include writing and research on all aspects of the nuclear weapons programs of the United States, Soviet Union/Russia, Britain, France, and China, as well as India, Pakistan, and Israel. While at the Natural Resources Defense Council, he was also director of the Nuclear Weapons Databook Project.

Norris is actively engaged in writing and editing books on nuclear weapons. His first work was editing Natural Resources Defense Council's Nuclear Weapons Databook series consisting of U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities (1984), U.S. Nuclear Warhead Production (1987), U.S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles (1987), Soviet Nuclear Weapons (1989), and British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons (1994).

Most recent books include Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin (1995) and Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940 (1998), with other authors. Atomic Audit tracks costs through 1996. The book notes that for more than fifty years, the government failed to ensure that the money spent on the nuclear weapons programs was allocated efficiently. The authors also make clear the risks that the United States runs by continuing to believe that its security is enhanced by deploying more nuclear weapons. In the final chapter of Atomic Audit recommendations are made. Among them is a suggestion that the president should take a more active role in nuclear policy and that he should prepare and submit an annual report with his yearly budget that would provide costs of the government's nuclear-weapons programs. Congress is urged to take a larger role in developing a strategic plan of how weapons would be used, as well as overseeing the costs of the programs.

He co-authored or contributed to the chapter on nuclear weapons in the 1985 - 2000 editions of the SIPRI Yearbook. He wrote articles for Arms Control Today and Security Dialogue and authored a column for the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. He co-authored the online/DVD article on "Nuclear Weapons" of the Encyclopedia Britannica.

Robert wrote a biography of General Leslie R. Groves, the head of the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb during World War II. The book is called Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project's Indispensable Man (2002).

Achievements

• Robert Norris is known as an outstanding educator and a research associate of the Natural Resources Defense Council specializing in nuclear weapons. He was honored with the James C. Healey Award from New York University in 1976 for his research.
  
  His book, Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project’s Indispensable Man (2002), was favorably reviewed in the New York Times, Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Assembly, United States Naval Institute Proceedings, and The Journal of Military History, among other publications, and won the Distinguished Writing Award for Best Biography of 2002 from the Army Historical Foundation. His other books received a very high response from readers and reviewers in different publications, including the Journal of Peace Research, Choice, Orbis, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Foreign Affairs, American Reference Books Annual, Issues in Science and Technology, Library Journal, and many others.

Works

More photos

• book

  • Nuclear Weapons Databook: British, French, and Chinese Nuclear Weapons

    (Containing a wealth of information gleaned from archival ...)

    1994
  • Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of U.S. Nuclear Weapons Since 1940

    (Since 1945, the United States has manufactured and deploy...)

    1998
  • Making the Russian Bomb: From Stalin to Yeltsin

    (The Natural Resources Defense Council once again provides...)

    1995
  • Racing for the Bomb: General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project's Indispensable Man

    (In the fall of 1942, when given the job of managing the b...)

    2002
  • Nuclear Weapons Databook: U.S. Nuclear Forces and Capabilities 1984
  • Nuclear Weapons Databook: U.S. Nuclear Warhead Production 1987
  • Nuclear Weapons Databook: U.S. Nuclear Warhead Facility Profiles 1987
  • Nuclear Weapons Databook: Soviet Nuclear Weapons 1989

Membership

Robert Norris is a member of the Cosmos Club.

• senior fellow for nuclear policy

  Federation of American Scientists , United States

  July, 2011 - present

Connections

Robert Norris married a woman named Andrea in 1970. The couple divorced in 1977. On June 20, 1980, he married Myriam Zigrand.

Father:

Robert S. Norris

Mother:

Betty Hilberg Norris

Wife:

Myriam Zigrand