The nuclear weapons menace has cast a cloud over the world since Aug. 6, 1945. In the ensuing 65 years, world leaders who literally had their fingers on the nuclear button have been acutely aware of the holocaust they could ignite.
Lucky for us, their fingers never even twitched. But how long can that luck hold?
That’s the topic of two books, both of whose authors argue that dismantling all nuclear arsenals is the only realistic assurance of avoiding a catastrophe.
Pulitzer Prize-winner Richard Rhodes, who has written extensively on the topic, traces some scary episodes when things could have gone boom. Using a narrative style and factual detail (too much, at times, for the layperson), he recounts the tense days after the fall of the Soviet Union when it was uncertain what newly independent countries would do with their nuclear power.
Rhodes cites the efforts to contain Saddam Hussein, addresses the threat North Korea poses and discusses the diplomatic pressure put on India and Pakistan to play nice in the nuclear sandbox. These situations and others underscore how sobering the prospect of deploying nuclear weapons has been to generations of presidents, prime ministers and dictators. So sobering that none has even come close.
In the view of Tad Daley, whose approach to the topic is more of a passionate plea to save humanity than a reasoned argument, we’ve been lucky.
In light of 9/11, both raise the specter of ideological terrorists getting their hands on a nuclear device, noting the threat of retaliation is meaningless for terrorists unaffiliated with a country. While they acknowledge building a nuclear bomb would be difficult, they refuse to discount the possibility.
The authors also plot paths to a zero-nuclear-weapons world. Daley believes previous treaties could be a starting point for a new pact that would lead to the eradication of nuclear weapons.
Rhodes believes the community of nations is inching toward a zero-nuclear world, but that it hinges on world leaders viewing nuclear weapons as threats to public safety rather than a gauge of nationalistic military might.
So far, they have lacked the courage to do it.
If one book on dispersing the nuclear cloud is all you’re up for, make it Rhodes.’
The Twilight of the Bombs
Richard Rhodes Knopf, 384 pp., $27.95
Tad Daley Rutgers University Press, 288 pp., $24.95
Reviewed by Josh McMahon
Josh McMahon, now retired, served as The Star-Ledger’s deputy editorial page editor.