One of the more interesting moments of last night's 60 Minutes broadcast of their interview with Barack Obama was the point where he indicated that he was open to ideas from anyone, whether it be FDR or Ronald Reagan, as long as the ideas workto solve a current problem.

My first thought was that this was a calculated political move, designed to appeal to conservatives who are still skeptical about an Obama presidency. But on at least one issue -- the need to eliminate nuclear weapons -- Reagan's legacy fits perfectly with Obama's current position.

While Ronald Reagan is often remembered as the guy who came into office guns blazing, joking that "the bombing will start in five minutes" and denouncing the Soviet Union as an "evil empire," by his second term he was a confirmed nuclear abolitionist, as Leon V. Sigal makes clear in his indispensable book, Hang Separately: Cooperative Security Between the United States and Russia, 1985 to 1994

There are a number of reasons that Reagan became a "nuclear radical," as Sigal puts it. First, he had a visceral reaction against the notion of ever having to use these terrible weapons. Second, he saw the only hope of defending against them to be by eliminating them altogether. In this context, his pet project, a Star Wars missile defense system, was meant -- in Reagan's mind at least, if not in those of his hard-line advisors --as a fall back in case the U.S. or the Soviet Union reneged on an agreement to get rid of their nuclear arsenal, not a solution in and of itself. Third, he was influenced by the vigorous worldwide movement against nuclear weapons, from the European Nuclear Disarmament movement (END) to the nuclear freeze campaign in the United States. And fourth, he had a willing partner in Mikhail Gorbachev, another strong believer in getting ride of nuclear weapons before they get rid of us.

The ultimate proof of Reagan's intentions came at Reykjavik, where he nearly came to an agreement with Mikhail Gorbachev to create a "path to zero" for nuclear weapons, only to be pulled back by his own advisors. But even without Reykjavik, Reagan and Gorbachev worked together to eliminate all intermediate range nuclear missiles from Europe and to enact the deepest cuts in long-range nuclear weapons since the outset of the nuclear age. Latter day neo-conservatives who are mindlessly advocating a new Star Wars program have failed to embrace the underlying anti-nuclear stance that is Reagan's true legacy.

In some respects, it is Obama, with his campaign commitment to work towards a world without nuclear weapons, who is the true heir to Reagan on nuclear weapons policy. This is one issue that Reagan got right. Now we need some practical steps to reach the goal of a world free of nuclear weapons. In doing so, let's hope that some of the Republicans who continue to see Ronald Reagan as their hero -- including John McCain -- come forward to support the initiatives needed to achieve Reagan's vision of a world without nuclear weapons. A good start would be Republican support for ratification of the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, followed by advocacy for deep reductions in U.S. and Russian arsenals and a negotiated end to the Iranian and North Korean nuclear programs.