The producer of the film “The Forgotten Bomb” stopped in Syracuse Tuesday to share his journey visiting people and places affected by nuclear weapons. Bud Ryan first visited Hiroshima in 1991 where he started to question the use of nuclear weapons. Ryan says seeing the perspectives of people who have lived through atomic bomb explosions inspired his research and film. He says his visit to the museum in Hiroshima was eye opening.
" Its the most important museum on the planet in my opinion. It totally changed my idea of what actually happened during WWII. The more I did research after that, we never had to drop that bomb to win that war."
Ryan says the name of the his film “The Forgotten Bomb” refers to people believing that nuclear weapons went off high alert when the Soviet Union disappeared. However, Ryan says he is bringing light to the fact that this is not true and that we still live in a nuclear world.
"Say Russia launches their weapons by accident, what does the U.S. president do? He is only going to have maybe 5 minutes at absolute most whether to fire back or do the right thing and not start WWIII. It is crazy the time constraints any leader would be under in this situation."
Ryan’s travels and research led him to the conclusion that the steps of the nuclear weapon cycle caused harm to a variety of people including bomb survivors and U.S. veterans. He says President Obama let the anti-nuclear world down after giving a great speech in Prague in 2009.
" He makes this very small anti-nuclear deals with Russians. To get the Republicans to sign off on that deal we refurbished all these nuclear weapons. If you know what that Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty says, is against that treaty. That treaty was signed for every citizen in the United States. and we are breaking that treaty. We are supposed to be getting rid of nuclear weapons, and not refurbishing the ones that we have."
A nuclear security summit with 50 world leaders across the globe will assemble in Washington D.C. from March 31 to April 1. According to a White House Press release The fourth and final summit of the conference series will continue the discussion on the "evolving threat and highlight steps that can be taken taken together to minimize the use of highly-enriched uranium, secure vulnerable materials, counter nuclear smuggling and deter, detect and disrupt attempts at nuclear terrorism."