While famous for leaking the Pentagon Papers in 1971, the researcher and activist has revealed that he had another stash of secret papers—about American nuclear war planning—that he felt a duty to publicize. He never did release them, but is committed in his last days to work against nuclear war.
Air Force training films, with their bloodless procedural guidance for launching armageddon, provide a surreal insight into the Cold War that put Kubrick's absurdism to shame (yes, HNN will feature Dr. Strangelove-related content at any opportunity).
Facebook isn't exactly like they hypothetical "Doomsday Machine" theorized by Cold War nuclear deterrence experts. But its vast scope and capacity to distribute misinformation faster than in can be detected and corrected mean that lessons from the philosophy of nuclear annihilation are apt for understandign the danger of the social media giants.
The National History Center, The Woodrow Wilson Center and Politics & Prose Books prouldy host Martin Sherwin on Gambling with Armageddon: Nuclear Roulette from Hiroshima to the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1945-1962. Friday, October 2, 6:00 PM.
That question might seem overwrought but, in fact, the U.S. government and others are increasing the role that nuclear weapons play in their “national security” policies.
Far from being a “non crisis” or a “war scare that wasn’t,” the 1983 US-Soviet confrontation is a profound representation of the “hair trigger” mindset toward which the nuclear arms race can push humanity.
A Twitter discussion reveals that even in 1948 at the time of the Berlin airlift the United States did not have a formal policy designating the President as the decider.
As more nations seek the bomb, and as the United States and Russia expand their nuclear arsenals, veterans of the Cold War say the public is too complacent about the risk of nuclear catastrophe.
