Henry Sokolski
US nuclear nonproliferation specialist; executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center since its founding in 1994; Pentagon Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy 1989–1993
| Henry Sokolski
| |
|---|---|
| Image |  Henry Sokolski |
| Occupation | Executive director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center; professor emeritus, Institute of World Politics |
| Known for | Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense (1989–1993); member of the Deutch Commission (1999) and the Commission on the Prevention of WMD Proliferation and Terrorism (2008–2010) |
| Education | B.A. Pomona College (1972); M.A. University of Chicago (1980) |
| Website | npolicy.org profile |
Henry D. Sokolski is an American specialist in nuclear weapons proliferation. He is executive director of the Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (NPEC), a Washington-area non-profit organisation founded in 1994, and was from 1989 to 1993 the Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense.[1] Earlier he worked in the Pentagon's Office of Net Assessment and on Capitol Hill for Senators Gordon Humphrey and Dan Quayle. He served on two congressional commissions on weapons of mass destruction, was a resident fellow at the National Institute for Public Policy, the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institution, and has taught at several universities, most recently at the Institute of World Politics, where he is professor emeritus.[1][2]
Career
Capitol Hill and the Pentagon, 1982–1993
According to NPEC's biography, Sokolski was special assistant on nuclear energy matters to Senator Gordon Humphrey, chairman of the Senate's Tennessee Valley Authority subcommittee, in 1982–1983, and senior military legislative aide to Senator Dan Quayle, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, from 1984 to 1988.[1] He then worked in the Secretary of Defense's Office of Net Assessment on proliferation issues and, from 1989 to 1993, was Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy in the Office of the Secretary of Defense; the Secretary of Defense's Medal for Outstanding Public Service followed.[1] A 2015 biography submitted to the House Foreign Affairs Committee says the medal was presented by Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney; the biography on the website of United Against Nuclear Iran (UANI) says he held the post under Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Paul Wolfowitz.[3][4] The Institute of World Politics lists him as chairman of the Defense Department's Proliferation Countermeasures Working Group.[2]
Commissions and advisory roles
NPEC's biography lists a consultancy on nuclear proliferation to the Intelligence Community's National Intelligence Council; membership of the Central Intelligence Agency's Senior Advisory Panel in 1995–1996; a congressional appointment to the Deutch Proliferation Commission, which reported in July 1999; and membership of the Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism, which operated until 2010.[1] The 2015 biography says Congress appointed him to the latter commission in 2008 for a two-year term.[3]
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center
NPEC describes itself as a "501 (c)3 nonpartisan, nonprofit, educational organization founded in 1994 to promote a better understanding of strategic weapons proliferation issues", which "educates policymakers, journalists, and university professors about proliferation threats and possible new policies and measures to meet them".[1] Sokolski is listed as chairman and officer on the Center's Form 990 returns for 2021–2024, working 40 hours a week; the returns list Peter Bradford, Torrey Froscher, Eldon Greenberg and Xue Bianca Zhang as the other directors (Froscher and Zhang each serving as treasurer in some years), and the 2024 return also lists Caitlyn Collett as a full-time officer.[5][6] The Center's address is PO Box 17678, Arlington, Virginia 22216.[1] Its website carries a "Nuclear Weapons Atlas" and lists books, papers and monographs; Sokolski says on it that he has edited 35 books besides those he wrote.[1]
Teaching and affiliations
NPEC's biography lists teaching posts at the University of Chicago, Rosary College, Georgetown University, Loyola University, the University of Utah and the Institute of World Politics, and says he is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and the International Institute for Strategic Studies and sits on the editorial board of The Nonproliferation Review.[1] The Institute of World Politics lists him as professor emeritus and as senior fellow for nuclear security studies at the University of California San Diego's School of Global Policy and Strategy.[2] NPEC's biography also says that the National Journal named him in 2004 among ten people whose ideas would shape the policy debate on the future of nuclear weapons, and that Congressional Quarterly called him in 2018 one of Washington's key "influencers".[1] UANI publishes a biography of Sokolski on its leadership pages.[4]
Views and testimony
US–Saudi nuclear cooperation, 2018
On 21 March 2018 Sokolski testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa on the implications of a US–Saudi nuclear cooperation agreement. He told the subcommittee that a failure to require Saudi Arabia to forswear uranium enrichment and reprocessing "risks pouring kerosene on the embers of nuclear proliferation already present in the Middle East", citing Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman's statement on 60 Minutes that "If Iran developed a nuclear bomb, we will follow suit as soon as possible". He urged Congress to be wary of any agreement that omitted the ban in the 2009 US–UAE agreement, which he called the "Gold Standard", and supported legislation that would require a majority vote in both houses before a nuclear cooperation agreement with a non-nuclear-weapon state lacking those conditions could take effect.[7]
Books
| Year | Title | Publisher or note | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2001 | Best of Intentions: America's Campaign Against Strategic Weapons Proliferation | Praeger | [8] |
| 2004 | Getting MAD: Nuclear Mutual Assured Destruction, Its Origins and Practice (editor) | Strategic Studies Institute | [8] |
| 2012 | The Next Arms Race (editor) | Strategic Studies Institute | [8] |
| 2016 | Underestimated: Our Not So Peaceful Nuclear Future | Strategic Studies Institute; second edition 2019 | [8][1] |
| 2024 | China, Russia, and the Coming Cool War | Listed on NPEC's website | [1] |
Nonproliferation Policy Education Center: finances
The Center's fiscal year is the calendar year. The IRS data summarised by ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer, with 2024 read from the Form 990 e-file XML, give the following totals.[9][6]
| Year | Total revenue | Contributions and grants | Total expenses | Total assets at year end | Total liabilities at year end | Compensation of current officers and directors |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2011 | 1,393,577 | 1,393,577 | 552,285 | 860,017 | 18,725 | 249,984 |
| 2012 | 569,255 | 569,013 | 672,446 | 751,416 | 13,315 | 252,341 |
| 2013 | 1,554,166 | 1,538,736 | 938,295 | 1,713,380 | 342,333 | 616,102 |
| 2014 | 80,019 | 70,302 | 857,726 | 949,772 | 356,353 | 335,584 |
| 2015 | 1,649,290 | 1,635,500 | 821,718 | 1,736,834 | 343,086 | 306,457 |
| 2016 | 219,277 | 215,646 | 859,094 | 1,271,951 | 504,202 | 386,696 |
| 2017 | 868,918 | 830,019 | 815,203 | 2,328,914 | 1,507,450 | 333,667 |
| 2018 | 938,685 | 922,074 | 926,043 | 1,593,333 | 759,227 | 358,274 |
| 2019 | 1,040,308 | 898,005 | 843,283 | 2,550,209 | 1,519,078 | 243,589 |
| 2020 | 876,487 | 920,164 | 931,841 | 1,947,950 | 972,173 | 250,897 |
| 2021 | 1,395,536 | 1,394,243 | 911,429 | 2,408,960 | 949,076 | 236,298 |
| 2022 | 585,434 | 649,044 | 869,914 | 2,036,524 | 861,120 | 283,456 |
| 2023 | 736,550 | 736,550 | 743,586 | 1,853,962 | 710,592 | 301,734 |
| 2024 | 680,047 | 680,047 | 736,207 | 1,905,175 | 814,898 | 368,157 |
Total revenue includes investment gains and losses. The returns for 2022, 2023 and 2024 report "government grants" of $649,044, $736,550 and $680,047, equal in each year to the whole of the contributions and grants line; the return for 2021 reports $71,490. The returns do not name the government source.[5][10][11][6]
Sokolski's pay
| Year | Reportable compensation from the organisation | Other compensation | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 236,298 | 51,236 | [5] |
| 2022 | 283,456 | 22,431 | [10] |
| 2023 | 301,734 | 13,013 | [11] |
| 2024 | 313,181 | 79,927 | [6] |
Sarah Scaife Foundation grants
The Sarah Scaife Foundation's Form 990-PF returns list grants to the Center in the following amounts, by the foundation's calendar tax year.[12][13][14][15]
| Tax year | Purpose stated | Amount | Source |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2020 | General operating and program support | 132,500 | [12] |
| 2022 | General operating support | 225,000 | [13] |
| 2023 | General operating support | 200,000 | [14] |
| 2024 | General operating support | 200,000 | [15] |
Positions held
| Years | Position | Source |
|---|---|---|
| 1982–1983 | Special assistant on nuclear energy matters to Senator Gordon Humphrey | [1] |
| 1984–1988 | Senior military legislative aide to Senator Dan Quayle | [1] |
| Before 1989 | Office of Net Assessment, Office of the Secretary of Defense | [1] |
| 1989–1993 | Deputy for Nonproliferation Policy, Office of the Secretary of Defense | [1][2] |
| 1994–present | Executive director, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center (listed as chairman on the Form 990) | [1][6] |
| 1995–1996 | Member, Central Intelligence Agency Senior Advisory Panel | [1] |
| 1999 | Member, Deutch Proliferation Commission | [1] |
| 2008–2010 | Member, Commission on the Prevention of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferation and Terrorism | [1][3] |
| Not dated | Resident fellow at the National Institute for Public Policy, the Heritage Foundation and the Hoover Institution | [1] |
| Current | Professor emeritus, Institute of World Politics; senior fellow for nuclear security studies, UC San Diego School of Global Policy and Strategy | [2] |
See also
External links
Notes
- ↑ 1.00 1.01 1.02 1.03 1.04 1.05 1.06 1.07 1.08 1.09 1.10 1.11 1.12 1.13 1.14 1.15 1.16 1.17 1.18 1.19 1.20 Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Henry D. Sokolski, Executive Director, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 The Institute of World Politics, Henry D. Sokolski, faculty profile, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Henry Sokolski: biography, submitted to the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing of 8 December 2015, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 United Against Nuclear Iran, Henry Sokolski, leadership pages, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 5.0 5.1 5.2 Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Form 990 for 2021 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202243189349312804, EIN 80-0493164), IRS TEOS archive 2022_TEOS_XML_02A, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Form 990 for 2024 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202523169349305507, EIN 80-0493164), IRS TEOS archive 2025_TEOS_XML_11C, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ Henry Sokolski, Keeping the Middle East from Becoming a Nuclear Wild, Wild West, testimony to the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the Middle East and North Africa, 21 March 2018, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Henry D. Sokolski: biography, submitted to the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee hearing of 21 March 2018, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ ProPublica, Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Nonprofit Explorer (EIN 80-0493164), accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 10.0 10.1 Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Form 990 for 2022 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202343189349310854, EIN 80-0493164), IRS TEOS archive 2023_TEOS_XML_11A, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Nonproliferation Policy Education Center, Form 990 for 2023 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202413189349303076, EIN 80-0493164), IRS TEOS archive 2024_TEOS_XML_11A, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 12.0 12.1 Sarah Scaife Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2020 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202113169349103251, EIN 25-1113452), IRS TEOS archive 2021_TEOS_XML_01A, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 13.0 13.1 Sarah Scaife Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2022 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202323189349101532, EIN 25-1113452), IRS TEOS archive 2023_TEOS_XML_11A, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 14.0 14.1 Sarah Scaife Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2023 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202403209349104590, EIN 25-1113452), IRS TEOS archive 2024_TEOS_XML_11A, accessed 11 November 2026.
- ↑ 15.0 15.1 Sarah Scaife Foundation, Form 990-PF for 2024 (IRS e-file XML, object ID 202523189349102237, EIN 25-1113452), IRS TEOS archive 2025_TEOS_XML_11C, accessed 11 November 2026.