Nukes

Radiolab

WNYC Studios

Science, Natural Sciences, History, Society & Culture, Documentary

4.6 • 43.5K Ratings

🗓️ 24 January 2025

⏱️ 53 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In an episode first reported in 2017, we bring you a look up and down the US nuclear chain of command to find out who gets to authorize their use and who can stand in the way of Armageddon. President Richard Nixon once boasted that at any moment he could pick up a telephone and - in 20 minutes - kill 60 million people. Such is the power of the US President over the nation’s nuclear arsenal. But what if you were the military officer on the receiving end of that phone call? Could you refuse the order? In this episode, we profile one Air Force Major who asked that question back in the 1970s and learn how the very act of asking it was so dangerous it derailed his career. We also pick up the question ourselves and pose it to veterans both high and low on the nuclear chain of command. Their responses reveal once and for all whether there are any legal checks and balances between us and a phone call for Armageddon. Special thanks to Elaine Scarry, Sam Kean, Ron Rosenbaum, Lisa Perry, Ryan Furtkamp, Robin Perry, Thom Woodroofe, Doreen de Brum, Jackie Conley, Sean Malloy, Ray Peter, Jack D’Annibale, Ryan Pettigrew at the Nixon Presidential Library and Samuel Rushay at the Truman Presidential Library. EPISODE CREDITS: Reported by - Latiff NasserProduced by - Annie McEwen and Simon Adlerwith help from - Arianne Wack Signup for our newsletter! It comes out every Wednesday. It includes short essays, recommendations, and details about other ways to interact with the show. Sign up (https://radiolab.org/newsletter)! Radiolab is supported by listeners like you. Support Radiolab by becoming a member of The Lab (https://members.radiolab.org/) today. Follow our show on Instagram, Twitter and Facebook @radiolab, and share your thoughts with us by emailing [email protected]. Leadership support for Radiolab’s science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, Science Sandbox, a Simons Foundation Initiative, and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, Soren here, the executive editor of Radio Lab.
0:04.0	Most of you probably already know that we launched a competition to name one of our Earth's quasi-moons,
0:08.0	these little moon-ish but not exactly moon-like bits of rock that hang out around our planet.
0:13.0	And we now have a winner.
0:15.0	We got a bunch of names in, you all voted on them, and we picked one.
0:20.0	Which means that we, well, really most of you,
0:22.9	if you submitted a name or even voted, have named a heavenly body. It's the first time
0:28.9	anything like that has ever happened to me personally. But to see the winner, you can now go
0:32.9	to radio lab.org slash moon, check out the name and sit in that strange dreamy feeling that we all
0:40.3	helped to name a celestial body. Thanks for listening. Thanks for participating. And enjoy the show.
0:51.0	So hey, this is Radio Lab on Storm Wheeler filling in today for Luthev because he has a nasty, nasty cold and lost his voice. And a voice is a key part of making radio. But this week, here in the U.S., we just inaugurated a president, a new but also not so new president. And so we, like maybe many of you, have been thinking about this big and important political moment, transfer powers and whatnot.
1:13.4	So we wanted to re-air an episode today is actually one we made in the first Trump presidency, all about one particular and maybe the most consequential presidential power.
1:23.1	Now, sometimes with these rewinds, we have a little update for you at the end.
1:26.9	But I'm just going to give you that update have a little update for you at the end, but I'm just
1:27.5	going to give you that update now because the update is that despite numerous efforts by numerous
1:32.8	people, the story you are about to hear, and I think this is important to know, is basically
1:37.6	still the deal today.
1:39.8	Anyway, here originally aired in 2017 is our episode called Nukes.
1:45.4	Wait, you're listening.
1:46.9	Okay.
1:48.2	All right.
1:49.4	Okay.
	...

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