Linton Brooks

mbassador Linton Brooks has viewed nuclear weapons from virtually every possible vantage point. Before retiring from the U.S. Navy, he captained the nuclear-powered attack submarine USS Whale, and he then went on to serve as director of arms control for the National Security Council. During the first Bush administration, Brooks held a number of jobs, including the position of chief strategic arms reductions negotiator (for which he earned the title of ambassador).

Speaking of his experience with nuclear-powered subs, Brooks, 65, told the Senate Armed Services Committee at his nomination hearing in March, "I've learned that their immense power demands immense care." He was confirmed in May 2003.

The National Nuclear Security Administration was created in March 2000 as a semiautonomous agency within the Energy Department. Its primary homeland-security mission is to reduce the global threat from weapons of mass destruction and to promote nonproliferation. It also maintains the nation's nuclear weapons stockpile.

To help prevent weapons of mass destruction and the materials to create them from entering the United States, NNSA operates the Second Line of Defense program-some 250 monitors at ports in Russia that can detect even small amounts of radioactive material leaving the country. Such monitors are also being installed in other foreign ports. NNSA also trains Coast Guard boarding parties, Customs officials, FBI agents, and inspectors from other federal agencies in detecting radioactive and biological materials.

Brooks has extensive experience working on NNSA's cooperative threat-reduction programs, says Jay Davis, director of the ANSER Institute for Homeland Security.

Brooks's background as an ambassador has given him expertise in bringing together disparate parties, according to those who have worked with him. A native of Boston, Brooks is well respected on Capitol Hill and by Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham.

He graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics from Duke University in North Carolina, and a master's in government and politics from the University of Maryland. He is a distinguished graduate of the U.S. Navy War College in Newport, R.I.