"San Francisco Chronicle" quotes Stanford Center on International Conflict and Negotiation Co-Director and professor Allen Weiner

"Deterrence ... as a matter of practice, was successful," said Allen Weiner, a professor at Stanford's Institute for International Studies and a State Department attorney from 1990 to 2001. "It was even successful more ambitiously -- not only was the development of nuclear arsenals on both sides sufficient to deter a nuclear attack by the adversary, but (it) was essentially successful in deterring conventional attacks."