Beginning in 1979, Bundy returned to academia as a professor of history at New York University. He was professor emeritus from 1989 until his death. During this period, he helped found the group known as the "Gang of Four," whose other members were Kennan, Robert McNamara and Gerard Smith; together they spoke and wrote about American nuclear policies. They published an influential 1983 "Foreign Affairs" article that proposed ending the US policy of "first use of nuclear weapons to stop a Soviet invasion of Europe". He also wrote "Danger and Survival: Choices About the Bomb in the First Fifty Years" (1988). Their work has been credited with contributing to the SALT II treaty a decade later.