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I'm Christopher Leiden, this is open source.

We Americans, ever deeper into the fight for Ukraine,

are gambling with Armageddon in the title of Martin Sherwin's history

of the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1963.

But we're in a different world of weapons and warriors,

and we're a different people looking on.

Perhaps less aware of nuclear weapons than we were in the 1960s.

When there were fewer of them, we may be generally less worried

than when everybody you knew had seen Dr. Strangelove,

the nightmare comedy two or three times.

The question this radio hour is,

do we worry enough these days?

You and I, about the risks built into nuclear weapons?

Or maybe do the politicians and the generals in Washington

worry as much as we do?

About the Doomsday machine, as Strangelove called it,

with the design feature that the attack was beyond recall

as soon as it was launched.

...