Nuclear Weapons

(see also Hiroshima & Nagasaki, Anti-Nuclear Movement, Arms Control, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Waste, Militarization of Foreign Policy, Militarization of Space)

Basics

On the Web: Articles

Korea: Forgotten Nuclear Threats. Bruce Comings, Le Monde Diplomatique (12/04).

Japan Reconsidering the Bomb. Karl Schoenberger, San José Mercury (6/16/03). Growing pressure within Japan to "normalize" political stature & acquire nuclear weapons!

Quest for Nukes: Pre-Emptive Strike is the Wrong Answer to Global Security. Mohamed El-Baradei [Director General, International Atomic Energy Agency] (Washington Post), San Jose Mercury (4/29/03).

Mini-Nukes, Maxi-Danger. Editorial, San Jose Mercury (4/24/03)

US ponders resumption of nuke-weapons test. Dan Stober & Jonathan S. Landay, San Jose Mercury News (11/15/02).

War Talk: Summer Games with Nuclear Bombs. Arundhati Roy, Nation (6/4/02). On the India-Pakistan confrontation.

The Disastrous Foreign Policies of the United States, Bill Christison, Counterpunch (5/9/02). Former CIA analyst calls for end to war on terrorism & destruction of nuclear weapons by democratically elected international organization.

Pentagon Fires on Critical Scientist. Brandan Koerner, Village Voice (11/14/01). MIT Prof. debunks weapons systems, is only weakly supported when Pentagon takes steps to silence him.

On the Web: Specialized Sites

Abolition 2000: Working for the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons.

Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

Center for Defense Information.

Global Collaborative on Denuclearization Design.

Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space.

Global Security Newswire.

Institute for Common Sense in the Nuclear Age.

National Security Archive.

Nuclear Age Peace Foundation.

Rachel's Environment & Health News.

Union of Concerned Scientists (Action network; informative bulletins on nuclear issues).

Yorkshire Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (Protests operations at Menwith Hill in North Yorkshire, key to US program for military domination of space).

In the Library: Articles

Alcalay, Glen. "Maelstrom in the Marshall Islands: the social impact of nuclear weapons testing," in C. Lutz (ed.) Micronesia as Strategic Colony: The Impact of US Policy on Micronesian Health & Culture (Cambridge MA: Cultural Survival, 1984).

Allison, Graham. "Tick, tick, tick," Atlantic Monthly (10/04):58-60. Pakistan as nuclear time bomb.

Alperovitz, Gar. "Do nuclear weapons matter? An exchange," NY Review of Books (4/7/89):57-59.

__________. "Marshall, Truman & the decision to drop the bomb," International Security 16,3 (win 91):204-22.

__________. "To drop the atom bomb: after 50 years, moral reassessment of a fateful decision," Christianity & Crisis 52,1 (2/3/92):13-17.

__________ & Kai Bird. "The centrality of the bomb," Foreign Policy 94 (spr 94):3-21.

__________. "Hiroshima: historical cleansing," In These Times (2/20/95):18-21.

__________. "Hiroshima: historians reassess," Foreign Policy 99 (sum 95):15-35.

__________. "Buy the nukes: deterrence is dead, but we can kill the nuclear threat," Nation 1/22/96):11-14.

__________. "Down & out: a nuclear path," Nation (12/30/96):16-20.

Brian, Danielle & Lynn Eisenman, Peter D. H. Stockton. "Who's guarding the store?" Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,1 (1-2/2002):48-55. Flaws in security of weapons facilities.

Dahlman, Ola & Jenifer Mackby, Svein Mykkeltveit, Hein Haak. "Cheaters beware," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,1 (1-2/2002):29-35. Verifying compliance with the nuclear test ban.

DeWitt, Hugh E. "Labs drive the arms race," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 101-106. Nuclear scientists' ambition catalyzing nuclear proliferation.

Donahue, Bill. “Fear and fallout in Los Alamos,” Mother Jones (5-6/03):68-73

Editors of Monthly Review. "Nuclear chicken," Monthly Review 34,4(9/82):1-11.

Fagen, Richard R. The New Generation of Nuclear Weapons (Washington: IPS, 1981).

Feld, Bernard T. "Forty years of muddling through," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 65-72. Storage of weapons grade plutonium.

Feiveson, Harold A. & Richard H. Ullman, Frank von Hippel. "Reducing U.S. & Soviet nuclear arsenals," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 311-324.

Friedman, John & Eric Nadler. "Nuclear black market," Nation (10/18/99):7 & 24.

Goodman, Ellen. "We didn’t sign up for nuclear war," San Jose Mercury (3/14/02):11B

Hartung, William D. & Michelle Ciarrocca. "Star Wars II: here we go again," Nation (6/19/00):11-20.

Hersh, Seymour. "The deal," New Yorker (3/8/04):32-37. Why is Washington going easy on Pakistan's nuclear black marketers.

Isaacs, John. "Bomb deal a dud, part 2," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,1 (1-2/2002):26-27. Bush-Putin agreement on decommissioning of nuclear warheads applied only to obsolete weapons.

Khatchadourian, Raffi. "Relearning to love the bomb. A move is on to blur the line between conventional and nuclear weapons," Nation (4/1/02):24-27.

Kristensen, Hans M. "Bomb deal a dud, part 1," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,1 (1-2/2002):25-26. Bush-Putin agreement on decommissioning of nuclear warheads applied only to obsolete weapons.

Kristensen, Hans M. "Preemptive posturing," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,5 (9-10/2002):54-59. North Korea’s nuclear program & the US.

Lifton, Robert Jay. "Toward a nuclear-age ethos," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 353-360.

Lortie, Bret. "The big 'what-if'," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,1 (1-2/2002):16-18.

Malcolmson, Robert. art. on "origins & consequences of decision of US military strategists to rely upon a massive nuclear arsenal after WWII" in J. Rule & R. Malcolmson (eds.) Protest & Survival: Essays for E.P. Thompson (NY: New Press, 1993).

Messer, Robert L. "New evidence on Truman's decision," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 43-54.

Milner, Glen. "Subs v. the environment," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,4 (7-8/2002):11-13.

Mohan, Uday & Sanho Tree. "Hiroshima, the American media, & the construction of conventional wisdom," Journal of American-East Asian Relations 4,2 (sum 95):141-61.

National Research Council. "Nuclear Winter Report Excerpts," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 219-223.

Norris, Robert S. & Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin. "History of Nuclear Stockpile," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 235-243.

Postol, Theodore A. "Strategic confusion, with or without nuclear winter," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 211-218.

Rotblat, Joseph. "Leaving the bomb project," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 15-22. Manhattan Project scientist turns dissident.

Schell, Jonathan. "Nuclear madness," Nation (5/29/00):5-7.

Sherwin, Martin J. "How well we meant," in Len Ackland & Steven McGuire (eds.) Assessing the Nuclear Age: Selections from the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (Chicago IL: Education Foundation for Nuclear Science), pp. 3-14. Intentions vs. outcomes at the Manhattan Project.

St. Clair, Jeffrey. "The case of the missing H-bomb," In These Times (8/20/01):14-16. Dropped near mouth of Savannah River after in-flight collision in February, 1958.

__________. "Test anxiety. Talks of resuming nuclear testing may obscure the Pentagon’s more ominous plans," In These Times (10/1/01):18-20.

Sweet, William. "The Bohr letters: no more uncertainty," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists 58,3 (5-6/2002):21-27. Nazis & the origins of nuclear weaponry.

Thompson, Edward P. "Notes on exterminism, the last stage of civilization," New Left Review 121 (5-6/80):3-31.

Tirman, John. "How we ended the Cold War," Nation (11/1/99). Attributes a large role to peace activists' persistend demand for an end to nuclear madness.

In the Library: Non-Fiction Books

Adams, Ruth & Susan Cullen. The Final Epidemic: Physicians & Scientists on Nuclear War (Chicago, 1981).

Aldridge, Robert C. The Counterforce Syndrome: A Guide to US Nuclear Weapons & Strategic Doctrine (Washington: IPS, 1981).

Alperovitz, Gar. Atomic Diplomacy: Hiroshima & Potsdam (rev ed.; NY: Penguin, 1985).

__________ with Sanho Tree. The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb & the Architecture of an American Myth (NY: Knopf, 1995).

Aubrey, Crispin (ed.) Nukespeak: The Media & the Bomb (London, 1982).

Barnaby, Frank. How to Build a Nuclear Bomb, & Other Weapons of Mass Destruction (London: Granta, 2003).

Beres, Louis R. Apocalypse: Nuclear Catastrophe in World Politics (Chicago, 1980).

Bird, Kai & Lawrence Lifschulz (eds.) Hiroshima's Shadow: Writings on the Denial of History & the Smithsonian Controversy (Stony Creek CT, 1998).

__________ & Martin J. Sherwin. American Prometheus: The Triumph & Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (NY: Knopf, 2005).

Boulton, David. Voices from the Crowd Against the H-Bomb (Philadelphia, 1964).

Butler, Richard. Fatal Choice: Nuclear Weapons and the Illusion of Missile Defense (Boulder: Westview, 2001).

Caldicott, Helen. Nuclear Madness: What You Can Do (Brookline MA, 1978; rev. ed. NY, 1994).

__________. Missile Envy: The Arms Race & Nuclear War (NY, 1986).

__________. A Desperate Passion: An Autobiography (NY, 1996).

Chisholm, Anne. Faces of Hiroshima: A Report (London: Jonathan Cape, 1985).

Cioc, Mark. Pax Atomica: The Nuclear Defense Debate in West Germany during the Adenauer Era (NY: Columbia, 1988).

Clarfield, Gereard H. Nuclear America: Military & Civilian Nuclear Power in the US, 1940-1980 (NY, 1984).

Cole, Paul M. & William J. Taylor Jr. (eds.) The Nuclear Freeze Debate: Area Control Issues for the 1980s (Boulder, 1983).

Cousins, Norman. In Place of Folly (NY, 1961).

Daggett, Stephen. The New Generation of Nuclear Weapons (Washington: IPS, 1981).

De Groot, Gerard J. The Bomb: A Life (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 2005).

Dower, John W. & John Junkerman (eds.) The Hiroshima Murals: The Art of Iri Maruki & Goshi Maruki (Tokyo: Kodansha, 1985).

Ehrlich, Ann H. & John W. Birks (eds.) Hidden Dangers: Environmental Consequences of Preparing for War (San Francisco: Sierra Club, 1990). Vital information on the production & transport of nuclear weapons in the US, & the waste the industry generates.

Ehrlich, Paul et al. The Cold & the Dark: The World After Nuclear War (NY: Norton, 1984).

Epstein, William & Lucy Webster (eds.) We Can Avert a Nuclear War (Cambridge MA, 1983).

Fischer, Dietrich. Preventing War in the Nuclear Age (Totowa NJ, 1984).

Fishbine, Glenn. Children of Usher: Growing Up in Los Alamos (Columbus OH: GOM, 2004). Children's games & attitudes among those who grew up thinking the unthinkable about global annihilation.

Ford, Daniel F. Beyond the Freeze: The Road to Nuclear Sanity (Boston, 1982).

Fuller, John G. The Day We Bombed Utah: America’s Most Lethal Secret (NY, 1984).

Gallagher, Carole. American Ground Zero [pollution at Nevada nuclear test site].

Galtung, Johan. There Are Alternatives! Four Roads to Peace & Security (Chester Springs PA, 1984).

Ghamari-Tabrizi, Sharon. The Worlds of Herman Kahn: The Intuitive Science of Thermonuclear War (Cambridge MA: Harvard, 2005).

Graham, Bradley. Hit to Kill: The New Battle over Shielding America from Missile Attack (Washington, 2001). Detailed history of "missile defense" idea, on which US has spent $100 billion since War II. Striving for "neutrality," avoids reference to defense contractors’ contributions, lobbying or pork barrel.

Greenberg, Daniel S. Science, Money, & Politics: Political Triumph & Ethical Erosion (Chicago: U. Chicago, 2003).

Grossman, Karl. The Wrong Stuff: The Space Program's Nuclear Threat to Our Planet (Monroe ME, 1997).

__________. Weapons in Space (NY, 2001).

Gusterson, Hugh. Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War (Berkeley, 1996). University of California's Lawrence Livermore Labs in California.

Hachiya, Michihiko. Hiroshima Diary: The Journal of a Japanese Physician, 8/6-9/30, 1945 (Chapel Hill: U. North Carolina, 1995).

Hamilton, Michael P. To Avoid Catastrophe: A Study in Future Nuclear Weapons Policy (Grand Rapids MI, 1977).

Holloway, David. Stalin & the Bomb: The Soviet Union & Atomic Energy, 1939-1956 (New Haven, 1994).

Jack, Homer A. Disarm – Or Die: The Second UN Special Session on Disarmament (NY, 1983).

Jervis, Robert. The Illogic of American Nuclear Strategy (Ithaca: Cornell U, 1984).

Jungk, Robert. Children of the Ashes: The People of Hiroshima [1959] (NY: Harcourt, Brace, 1961).

Kaplan, Fred. Dubious Specter: A Skeptical Look at the Soviet Nuclear Threat (Washington: IPS, 1981).

Kennan, George F. The Nuclear Delusion: Soviet-American Relations in the Atomic Age (NY: Pantheon, 1984).

Kofsky, Frank. Harry S. Truman & the War Scare of 1948: A Successful Campaign to Deceive the Nation (NY: St. Martin's, 1993).

Lens, Sidney. The Day before Doomsday: An Anatomy of the Nuclear Arms Race (NY: Doubleday, 1977).

__________. The Bomb (NY: Lodestar, 1982).

Lieberman, Joseph I. The Scorpion & the Tarantula: The Struggle to Control Atomic Weapons, 1945-1949 (Boston, 1970).

Linenthal, Edward T. & Tom Engelhardt (eds.) History Wars: The Enola Gay & Other Battles for the American Past (NY: Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 1996).

Loeb, Paul Rogat. Nuclear Culture: Living & Working in the World's Largest Atomic Complex [1982] (Philadelphia: New Society, 1986). Weapons & energy research at Pacific Northwest Laboratory.

Maddox, R.J. Weapons for Victory: The Hiroshima Decision Fifty Years Later (Columbia: U. Missouri, 1995).

Murphy, Dervla. Nuclear Stakes, Race to the Finish (New Haven CT: Ticknor & Fields, 1982).

Muste, A.J. Gandhi & the H-Bomb: How Nonviolence Can Take the Place of War (NY: Fellowship, 1950).

Newman, Robert P. Truman & the Hiroshima Cult (East Lansing: Michigan State, 1995).

Pauling, Linus. No More War! (NY, 1983).

Rhodes, Richard. The Making of the Atomic Bomb (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1988).

__________. Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb (NY: Simon & Schuster, 1995).

Rose, Paul Lawrence. Heisenberg & the Nazi Atomic Bomb Project, 1939-1945: A Study in German Culture (Berkeley: U. California, 1998).

Shapiro, Jerome F. Atomic Bomb Cinema (NY: Routledge, 2001).

Speiser, Stuart M. How to End the Nuclear Nightmare (NY, 1984).

Takaki, Ronald T. Hiroshima: Why America Dropped the Atomic Bomb (Boston: Little, Brown, 1995).

Taylor, R.K.S. The Protest Makers: The British Nuclear Disarmament Movement of 1958-1965, Twenty Years On (NY, 1980).

Thompson, E.P. (ed.) Protest & Survive (NY, 1981).

__________. Zero Option (London, 1982).

Totten, Sam & Martha Totten (eds.) Facing the Danger: Interviews with 20 Anti-Nuclear Activists (Trumansburg NY, 1984).

Uhl, Michael & Tod Ensign. GI Guinea Pigs: How the Pentagon Exposed Our Troops to Dangers More Deadly than War: Agent Orange & Atomic Radiation (NY: Playboy, 1980).

Walker, J. Samuel & Mazuzan, George T. Controlling the Atom: The Beginnings of Nuclear Regulation, 1946-1962 (Berkeley: U. California, 1985).

__________. Containing the Atom: Nuclear Regulation in a Changing Environment (Berkeley: U. California, 1992).

__________. Prompt & Utter Destruction. Truman & the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan (Chapel Hill, 1997).

Waskow, Arthur. America in Hiding (NY: Ballantine, 1962). On the proliferation of nuclear bomb shelters.

Wasserman, Harvey & Norman Solomon, with Robert Alvarez & Eleanor Walters. Killing Our Own: The Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation (NY, 1982).

Webster, Donovan. Aftermath: The Remnants of War (NY: Pantheon, 1996).

Weinberg, Steven. Glory & Terror: The Growing Nuclear Danger (NY: NY Review, 2006).

Weston, Burns H. (ed.) Toward Nuclear Disarmament & Global Security: A Search for Alternatives (Boulder, 1984).

Williams, Terry Tempest. Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family & Place (NY: Random House, 1991).

In the Library: Fiction

Bock, Dennis. The Ash Garden: A Novel (NY: Knopf, 2001).

Buck, Pearl. Command the Morning: A Novel (NY: John Day, 1959).

Butler, Robert Olen. Countrymen of Bones (NY: Horizon, 1983).

Cohen, Robert. The Organ Builder (NY: Harper & Row, 1988).

Kanon, Joseph. Los Alamos: A Novel (NY: Broadway, 1997).

McMahon, Thomas A. Principles of American Nuclear Chemistry: A Novel (Boston: Little, Brown, 1970).

Millar, Peter. Stealing Thunder (London: Bloomsbury, 1999).

Silman, Roberta. Beginning the World Again (NY: Viking, 1990).

Smith, Martin Cruz. Stallion Gate (NY: Random House, 1984).

Thackara, James. America's Children [1984] (Woodstock NY: Overlook, 2001).

Wiggins, Marianne. Evidence of Things Unseen: A Novel (NY: Simon & Schuster, 2003).

In the Library: For Young Readers

In the Library: Poetry

In the Library: Drama

In the Library: Photography

CD & Audio

Film & Video

"Atomic Stampede" [1993], dir. Ken Verdoia, 60m. Uranium rush of 40s-60s on Colorado Plateau, & its devastating consequences for miners' health.

"Hellfire: a Journey from Hiroshima" [1986], dir. John Junkerman, 58m. From First Run Icarus.

"The Last Empire" [1986], dir. Margaret Lazarus & Renner Wunderlich, 30m. From Cambridge Documentary Films.

"Notes on Nuclear War" [1983], by National Film Board of Canada, 60m. From Films Inc. Evolution from Hiroshima to present.

"Nukes in Space: The Nuclearization & Weaponization of the Heavens: an Eco-Expose with Karl Grossman " (1995), dir. Steve Jambec, 52m. From EnviroVideo.

"Paul Jacobs & the Nuclear Gang" [1979], dir. Jack Willis, Saul Landau & Penny Bernstein, 60m. From Cinema Guild.

"Silkwood" [1983], dir. Mike Nichols, ?m. In video stores. Oklahoma nuclear plant worker grows militant in response to endangerment of workers' health by radiation, & dies in mysterious circumstances.