Introducing "A Most Terrible Weapon"

War on the Rocks

News, Politics

4.6 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 30 October 2020

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

A Most Terrible Weapon is a podcast about the dawn of the nuclear age, hosted by Usha Sahay and produced by War on the Rocks, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In each episode, Usha takes listeners on a journey into the early years of the Cold War, telling stories about the dilemmas nuclear weapons posed for American and Soviet leaders, and introducing a fascinating cast of characters who were all trying to prevent Armageddon in different ways. Along the way, Usha interviews scholars and other nuclear experts to help make sense of the many atomic mysteries that have yet to be solved.

How do you plan for the most destructive war the world has never seen before? After the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, American leaders had to figure out how - or whether - nuclear weapons would be used in the wars of the future. In the pilot episode of A Most Terrible Weapon, Usha looks at the very first nuclear war plans, the debates inside the Truman administration about whether the bomb could ever be used again, and a terrifying new development - the arrival of the hydrogen bomb.

Featuring: Dr. Lynn Eden, Dr. Marc Trachtenberg, Dr. Alex Wellerstein

Transcript

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0:00.0	You are listening to the War on the Rocks podcast on Strategy, Defense and Foreign Affairs.
0:15.4	My name is Ryan Evans, I'm the CEO of War in the Rocks.
0:17.8	Actually, this is not exactly a War in the Rocks episode.
0:20.8	It's a new War in the rocks podcast hosted by my longtime friend and colleague
0:24.4	Lucia Sahai, the former managing editor of War in the Rocks, and it's about
0:28.4	the nuclear era. It's about what human beings and leaders and decision makers do when they are suddenly presented with the ability to destroy human civilization as we know it.
0:39.0	This is a podcast unlike any other that we've run at War on the Rocks.
0:42.0	I would love for you to listen to it.
0:43.7	We're running the first episode on this feed, the second episode on this feed, and I hope you
0:47.8	subscribe to the feed itself.
0:49.1	It is called a most terrible weapon.
0:51.5	So search for it in your podcast app of choice.
0:59.4	August 7th, 1945. It was the day after the United States dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan.
1:07.0	The second bomb wouldn't hit Nagasaki for another two days.
1:11.0	But for many in the U.S, it was already long past time to figure out how to
1:15.8	harness the incredible power of this new weapon that they believed had just
1:19.4	ended a horrific World War. That day, a senior American military commander looking ahead to the wars of the future,
1:26.6	wrote that the U.S. military needed to start planning on short notice to deliver atom bombs. Just a few weeks later, with Americans still celebrating the
1:35.7	Japanese surrender and the end of World War II, top military officials approved a new
1:40.3	policy. The US would launch a nuclear attack against the Soviet Union if necessary.
1:45.9	To many, nuclear weapons were just bigger, more powerful versions of the bombs that had helped
1:50.7	us win the war. But not everyone saw it that way. For some,
	...

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