Ashton O’ Dwyer, New Orleans, 2005

An M.I.T. physicist, he engineered an East-West deal that reduced nuclear threats and produced one of the greatest peace dividends of all time.

As the Soviet Union disintegrated, Thomas L. Neff came up with an improbable idea. What if Soviet nuclear warheads could light up American cities rather than obliterate them? What if the United States could buy the uranium cores of the deadly arms and turn them into reactor fuel?

Despite vast hurdles and skepticism, Dr. Neff pulled it off, pioneering an East-West deal that gave bankrupt Moscow hard currency, reduced nuclear threats and produced one of the greatest peace dividends of all time. Over two decades, his bright idea turned some 20,000 Russian nuclear arms into electricity, lighting billions of American lightbulbs.