Summary
The journey of an American 'cold warrior' from nuclear deterrence to nuclear disarmament. Former US Secretary of Defence William J Perry has spent his entire seven-decade career on the nuclear brink. A brilliant mathematician, he became involved in the development of weapons-related technology in the aftermath of World War II. As an analyst working at the heart of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he thought each day could be "my last day on earth." He was undersecretary for defence under President Carter in the 1970s, and secretary for defence under President Clinton in the 1990s. He arranged the dismantling of thousands of nuclear weapons in former Soviet republics after the collapse of the USSR, used strategic diplomacy with nuclear nations to prevent escalation, and argued - unsuccessfully - against the NATO expansion that Russia continues to find so threatening.
Now Secretary Perry is worried. Very worried. President Trump and President Putin are both ramping up their bellicose rhetoric. Mr Perry sees an increasing risk of nuclear conflagration in South Asia and the Korean peninsula, and in the face of an on-going terrorism threat, he is concerned unsecured nuclear materials could fall into the wrong hands.
"Today, the danger of some sort of nuclear catastrophe is greater than it was during the Cold War and most people are blissfully unaware of this danger," he argues.
What can be done? In a challenging interview with Edward Stourton, Secretary Perry reflects on the nuclear nightmare, and lays out his formula for nuclear security in our changing world.
Producer: Linda Pressly
(Image: Dr William Perry gives a lecture at Stanford University about the history of nuclear weapons. Credit: Light at 11b).
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | I'm Hugh Leppinson, the editor of Analysis. |
| 0:02.5 | A little while ago I read a fascinating piece by Jerry Brown, the governor of California, |
| 0:07.2 | and it was about the story of a man who's been at the center of America's nuclear arms industry |
| 0:11.9 | for astonishingly nearly seven decades and a man who has a |
| 0:16.2 | stark message for us now. He's the former US Secretary of Defense William Perry. |
| 0:21.7 | Over to Edward Sturtin to explain. |
| 0:27.0 | It was November 1979, the height of the Cold War. |
| 0:33.0 | I got just a call in the middle of the night from the Watch Officer at the North American Air Defense |
| 0:36.8 | Command and the first thing he told me was that his computers were showing 200 Soviet |
| 0:42.4 | ICBs on the way from the Soviet Union to the computers were the |
| 0:42.6 | showing 200 Soviet ICBMs on the way from the Soviet Union to the United States. |
| 0:45.8 | ICBMs or intercontinental ballistic missiles were the biggest beasts in the |
| 0:50.8 | nuclear arsenal. |
| 0:51.8 | William Perry was a senior official at the Pentagon at the time. |
| 0:56.0 | He is, as you'll gather from our interview, the most measured of men, but... |
| 1:01.0 | For one heart-stopping moment I thought we were about to see the end of civilization |
| 1:09.8 | The watch officer a general had a steady nerve. |
| 1:13.0 | He quickly went on to say that he had already concluded. |
| 1:16.0 | It was a false alarm that took us several days to figure out what had happened, |
| 1:21.0 | which was at a change of shift, the new computer |
| 1:24.8 | operating coming in put in a training tape instead of the |
| 1:28.7 | operating tape in the computer. |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.