The phone didn’t ring on 7 October for Mohamed ElBaradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency. Instead, he found out with the rest of the world from a television announcement that he and the IAEA would equally share the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize.
Knowing the press was camped outside of ElBaradei’s office in Vienna, Austria, the chair of the prize committee, Ole Danboly Mjopes, skipped the customary telephone call because he didn’t want the news to get out prematurely. At 11:00am, Mjopes said in front of the cameras: “At a time when disarmament efforts appear deadlocked, when there is a danger that nuclear arms will spread both to states and to terrorist groups, and when nuclear power again appears to be playing an increasingly significant role, the IAEA’s work is of incalculable importance.”
The news stunned ElBaradei, who said in a press conference that he had sat...
