Nukes

Summary

Radiolab Episode Summary: "Nukes"

Release Date: January 24, 2025
Hosts: Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser
Original Air Date: 2017
Re-aired Amidst a New Presidential Inauguration

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I. Introduction to the Episode

In the "Nukes" episode of Radiolab, hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser and narrated by Soren Wheeler, the show delves deep into the intricate and perilous world of nuclear command and control. The episode revisits a compelling story originally produced during President Trump's first term, now re-aired during a significant political transition in the United States. This timing underscores the enduring relevance of the episode's exploration of presidential authority over nuclear weapons.

II. The Story of Harold Herring: A Missile Launch Officer's Conundrum

At the heart of the episode is Harold Herring, an 81-year-old former Air Force missile launch officer. Soren Wheeler introduces Harold as a resilient individual who, despite having both knees replaced, actively competes at national and world-level duathlon competitions (03:06).

Early Life and Military Career: Harold grew up in Browns, Illinois, the eldest of 11 children in a modest family. Inspired by Air Force planes flying overhead during his youth, he pursued a career in the Air Force, ultimately serving in the Air Rescue Service during the Vietnam War. Harold recounts intense rescue missions, such as saving a pilot who ejected into the North Sea at night (04:40).

Transition to Missile Launch Officer: As Harold aged, pilots like him were relegated to desk jobs. Desiring to remain on the front lines, he trained to become a missile launch officer in 1973 during the Cold War. Harold describes the immense responsibility, stating at 05:52, "Each missile launch officer has under his direct control more firepower than all generals in all wars in the history of warfare."

III. Historical Evolution of Nuclear Command and Control

a. Truman Era (16:04): When President Harry S. Truman assumed office after Roosevelt's death in April 1945, he was thrust into the decision to use atomic bombs against Japan. Initially promising to target only military installations, Truman was confronted with the horrifying civilian casualties in Hiroshima and later Nagasaki. This led to a profound realization of the bomb's devastating power.

b. Eisenhower Era (20:05): President Dwight D. Eisenhower, a former general, relaxed Truman's stringent civilian oversight. He authorized more military involvement in nuclear strategy, allowing for greater dissemination of nuclear weapons among military bases while maintaining some civilian controls to prevent unilateral military action.

c. Kennedy Era (21:14): President John F. Kennedy reasserted civilian control over nuclear weapons. He implemented directives ensuring that nuclear arsenals remained under strict presidential authority, introducing physical safeguards like combination locks on overseas nukes to prevent unauthorized use.

d. Nixon Era (24:19): Under President Richard Nixon, concerns about presidential judgment grew amidst the Watergate scandal. Nixon's handling of nuclear authority, including remarks suggesting he could unilaterally decide to launch nukes, heightened fears of potential misuse of this immense power.

IV. The Concentration of Power in the Presidency

The episode critically examines how the President of the United States holds sole authority to order nuclear launches, a system built on the premise of deterrence but fraught with risks. Harold Herring's ethical dilemma centers on the absence of effective checks to prevent a single individual from potentially initiating a nuclear catastrophe.

Notable Quote:

• 10:01 Harold Herring: "There is presently a degree of doubt in my mind as to whether I might someday be called upon to launch nuclear weapons as a result of an invalid, unlawful order."

V. Efforts to Implement Checks and Balances

Recognizing the systemic flaw, legislative efforts have been proposed to introduce Congressional oversight into nuclear launch decisions. Notably, Congressman Ted Lew and Senator Ed Markey authored a bill mandating that the President must seek a declaration of war from Congress before initiating a nuclear first strike (41:42).

Discussion with Experts:

• William Perry, former Secretary of Defense, advocates for reducing reliance on ICBMs, suggesting a move towards more secure and deliberative command structures.
• Dr. Sonia McMullen, a former missile launch officer, highlights the dilemma between humane oversight and maintaining credible deterrence.

Notable Quote:

• 32:16 Latif Nasser: "You have to believe my threat is legit. I have to be credible."

VI. Personal Consequences for Harold Herring

Harold Herring's quest for ethical clarity led to severe repercussions:

• His question about presidential checks was deemed threatening, resulting in his removal from flight status and permanent disqualification from the Human Reliability Program.
• Stripped of his security clearance, Harold found himself forced into early retirement, abandoning his aspirations and military career (26:57).

Notable Quote:

• 34:18 Harold Herring: "I assume that there had to be some sort of check and balance so that one man couldn't just on a whim, order to launch a nuclear weapon."

VII. Contemporary Insights and Emotional Impact

Harold reflects on the systemic issues, emphasizing the urgent need for reform to prevent potential misuse of nuclear authority. His personal journey from a dedicated military officer to a truck driver and addiction counselor underscores the emotional and psychological toll of grappling with such profound ethical concerns.

Notable Quote:

• 45:16 Harold Herring: "The need for that is at least as great now as it's ever been in the history of our republic."

VIII. Conclusion and Ongoing Questions

The episode concludes by reaffirming the systemic nature of the problem—nuclear command authority concentrated solely in the presidency—and the imperative for comprehensive reforms. Harold Herring's story serves as a poignant reminder of the human element within the vast, often impersonal machinery of nuclear governance.

Final Reflections:

• The episode underscores the delicate balance between maintaining credible deterrence and ensuring robust ethical safeguards.
• It calls into question the sustainability and morality of a system where the fate of humanity rests on the decisions of a single individual.

Notable Quote:

• 28:14 Alex Wellerstein: "It's a systemic problem, and it's also a problem with the current person in the office of the President."

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Notable Quotes with Timestamps

• Harold Herring (05:52): "Each missile launch officer has under his direct control more firepower than all generals in all wars in the history of warfare."

• Harold Herring (10:01): "There is presently a degree of doubt in my mind as to whether I might someday be called upon to launch nuclear weapons as a result of an invalid, unlawful order."

• Sonia McMullen (31:33): "But if the other side doesn't believe that you will respond in kind, then it doesn't work."

• Latif Nasser (32:16): "You have to believe my threat is legit. I have to be credible."

• Harold Herring (34:18): "I assumed that there had to be some sort of check and balance so that one man couldn't just on a whim, order to launch a nuclear weapon."

• Harold Herring (45:16): "The need for that is at least as great now as it's ever been in the history of our republic."

• Alex Wellerstein (28:14): "It's a systemic problem, and it's also a problem with the current person in the office of the President."

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Emotional and Societal Implications

Harold Herring's narrative is not just a personal story but a mirror reflecting societal and governmental challenges in managing unparalleled destructive power. His unwavering commitment to ethical responsibility, even at the cost of his career and personal well-being, highlights the profound moral dimensions intertwined with nuclear command authority.

Final Thought by Harold Herring (46:57): "I just think that common sense, I think the goodness in human beings begs for resolution of this. I just think that the need for that is at least as great now as it's ever been in the history of our republic."

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Closing Remarks

"Radiolab's" "Nukes" episode serves as a critical exploration of nuclear governance, urging listeners to contemplate the mechanisms—or lack thereof—that safeguard humanity from potential annihilation. Through Harold Herring's poignant journey and in-depth historical analysis, the episode calls for introspection and action to ensure that the catastrophic power of nuclear weapons remains under unequivocal and ethical control.

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Note: This summary encapsulates the essence of the "Nukes" episode, omitting advertisements, intros, outros, and non-content segments to focus solely on the substantive discussions and narratives presented.

Transcript

[Soren Wheeler]

Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.

[Thorn]

Hey, Thorn here, the executive editor of Radiolab. Most of you probably already know that we launched a competition to name one of our Earth's quasimoons. These little moon ish, but not exactly moon, like bits of rock that hang out around our planet. And we now have a winner. We got a bunch of names in, you all voted on them and we picked one. Which means that we, well, really most of you, if you submitted a name or even voted, have named a heavenly body. It's the first time anything like that has ever happened to me personally. But to see the winner, you can now go to radiolab.org check out the name and sit in that strange, dreamy feeling that we all helped to name a celestial body. Thanks for listening, thanks for participating and enjoy the show. So, hey, this is Radiolab. I'm Soren Wheeler filling in today for Lotef 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 US 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 important political moment, transfer of powers and whatnot. 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. Now, sometimes with these rewinds, we have a little update for you at the end, but I'm just going to give you that update now because the update is that despite numerous efforts by numerous people, the story you are about to hear, and I think this is important to know, is basically still the deal today. Anyway, here, originally aired in 2017, is our episode called Nukes.

[Soren Wheeler]

Wait, you're listening.

[Latif Nasser]

Okay.

[Soren Wheeler]

All right. Okay.

[Thorn]

All right. You're listening to Radiolab Radio from WNY.

[Pat Walters]

Rewind.

[Harold Herring]

Your name again is Cedric. Cedric. I'm gonna write that down.

[Robert Krulwich]

And they're on the line now, so.

[Harold Herring]

You'Ll be able to talk to them.

[Jad Abumrad]

So, Harold, can you hear me?

[Latif Nasser]

Hello.

[Jad Abumrad]

Hi. Okay, I'm Robert Krylowich.

[Alex Wellerstein]

I'm Jad Abumra, this is Radiolab. And a little while ago, our producer Latif Nasser brought us a story about.

[Harold Herring]

A guy, my Name is Harold Herring. I used the mil initial L for Louis in honor of my father who asked a question.

[Jad Abumrad]

It was a pretty.

[Alex Wellerstein]

Maybe a dangerous question.

[Jad Abumrad]

Maybe a dangerous question. Certainly just the mere asking of it pretty much ruined the man's life.

[Alex Wellerstein]

And he never got an answer.

[Jad Abumrad]

No. But today on Radiolab, we are going to re ask Harold's question.

[Thorn]

And this time we get an answer.

[Jad Abumrad]

And Ludev Nasser takes it from here.

[Soren Wheeler]

Yeah, so our main guy, Harold, he's former military and he's 81 years old.

[Harold Herring]

I'm staying pretty active. I'm competing at the national and world level at duathlon competition.

[Soren Wheeler]

Right off the bat, this is the kind of guy you could tell he just does not give up.

[Harold Herring]

I really am not supposed to be competing because I've had both knees replaced.

[Soren Wheeler]

But anyway, so Harold grew up in this tiny town called Browns, Illinois, from a poor family. He was the eldest of 11 kids. When he was growing up, he would always hear Air Force planes flying overhead. And that's why, from when he was very young, he always wanted to be an Air Force pilot.

[Jad Abumrad]

So why don't you just tell us a little bit about your military background.

[Harold Herring]

Well, generators. Most of my career was with the Air Rescue Service.

[Soren Wheeler]

This was in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War. And if an Air Force pilot went.

[Harold Herring]

Down, got shot down, whatever.

[Soren Wheeler]

Harold and his team would jump into their helicopters.

[Harold Herring]

Two Jolly Green heavy lift helicopters.

[Soren Wheeler]

They'd fly them in hover over the survivors on the ground, lowering the hoist cable, and then a pair of respondents, rescue man would climb down to the forest floor, find the injured soldier and attach the cable to him. Yeah, and while that was happening, Harold had to hold the helicopter steady. He had to hold his hover. Hold your hover.

[Harold Herring]

And a lot of times the enemy would wait until that process started before they opened fire.

[Soren Wheeler]

Let's get the hell out. Okay, talk to me. We're coming out.

[Harold Herring]

I had some wonderful experiences. Probably chief among them was my crew and I. We picked up a pilot that ejected into the North Sea at night in the wintertime.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Harold Herring]

200 miles out to sea. We picked him up and brought him back.

[Soren Wheeler]

So it was a super high risk, high adrenaline kind of job, and I.

[Harold Herring]

Had an outstanding record.

[Soren Wheeler]

And then, well, he got old. How old were you around this time?

[Harold Herring]

About 30. I was old. Pilots my age and with my experience were put into desk jobs. And I wanted to be on the front line if I could.

[Soren Wheeler]

This was 1973, middle of the Cold War. So Harold decided that the way for him to be on the Front lines without actually having to be on the front lines, you know, because he couldn't anymore, was to go into training to become a missileer, a missile launch officer. Those are the people who sit in a underground bunker and just wait to get an order to turn their key and unleash a nuclear attack.

[Harold Herring]

In training, I mean, you just. The information I can remember, just virtually verbatim, is that each missile launch officer has under his direct control more firepower than all generals in all wars in the history of warfare.

[Soren Wheeler]

And so Harold started his training at the Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Nixon was president at the time. And at the time, the prospect of nuclear war felt very real.

[Harold Herring]

A lot of responsibility there, and there's no room for error.

[Soren Wheeler]

And so in Harold's training, we were.

[Harold Herring]

A very small class.

[Soren Wheeler]

He learned all about the technical stuff.

[Harold Herring]

You know, all the mechanical stuff and emergency procedures that were involved, all the.

[Soren Wheeler]

Nitty gritty details of how a missile actually launched.

[Harold Herring]

And then part of the time, we had classroom instruction where he learned about.

[Soren Wheeler]

The chain of command and all the different safeguards and checks, right? So imagine that he gets an order to launch. That order has to be decoded. So he would decode the order, and then his partner would decode the order, and then they would verify it with one another. So one guy would be like, okay, I got the order. Alpha, Bravo 124. And then his partner would say, I confirm. Alpha Bravo 124. And then they launch. So neither of them has the power to launch on his or her own.

[Harold Herring]

And both of you were armed. You carried a sidearm with you.

[Jad Abumrad]

Why?

[Harold Herring]

Well, you know, it's serious business. And if you had someone that was, you know, if they threatened your life.

[Soren Wheeler]

If one of the officers wanted to.

[Harold Herring]

Just go rogue, you had a sidearm, too.

[Jad Abumrad]

Well, if I took my gun and pointed at you and said, turn the key, Harold, what would you say?

[Harold Herring]

I wouldn't do it. I may go down, but I'd be drawing my weapon.

[Jad Abumrad]

And these keys have to be turned simultaneously. So if I shoot, you turn my key, then roll over, get your key, and turn your key. That's too late, right? It has to be a simultaneous.

[Harold Herring]

Yes, yes.

[Soren Wheeler]

So the whole point is the system is designed so that no one person can launch a nuclear attack.

[Harold Herring]

I was very pleased, very satisfied with the checks and balances at the crew.

[Soren Wheeler]

Member level, you know, the bottom where they're turning the keys.

[Harold Herring]

I was not concerned about that at all.

[Soren Wheeler]

But then a few weeks into training.

[Harold Herring]

There was some discussion about Preemptive strike.

[Soren Wheeler]

Real quick. Obviously, if someone launched a nuclear attack against the U.S. we would be able to strike back, you know, in response. But a preemptive strike would be where we, for whatever reason, decided to strike first.

[Harold Herring]

And that raised the hair on the back of my neck a little bit. You know, it's just I thought, we're receiving all of this information about all these elaborate checks and balances within the.

[Soren Wheeler]

System, but they never got any information about how things worked at the presidential level.

[Harold Herring]

There's a complete void or blackout at the level that the order is initiated.

[Jad Abumrad]

When you had this thought, did you say to the other classmates, No, I didn't.

[Harold Herring]

It wasn't my intent to try to create a scene by involving other people, students, whatever.

[Soren Wheeler]

So Harold waits until the end of class, walks up to the front of the room, and asks the instructor a.

[Harold Herring]

Question, a very reasonable question.

[Soren Wheeler]

He's, like, just checking there's a safety net in place if the President is making a crazy decision. Right.

[Harold Herring]

I wanted to find out more about checks and balances at the top level.

[Soren Wheeler]

And the instructor pauses, looks at him, and says, can you put that in writing, please?

[Harold Herring]

Okay.

[Soren Wheeler]

And so he did.

[Harold Herring]

Let me find it first. You do your best to have everything ready to go. No, no, no.

[Soren Wheeler]

Take your time.

[Harold Herring]

Oh, here it is. Okay. There is presently a degree of doubt in my mind as to whether I might someday be called upon to launch nuclear weapons as a result of an invalid, unlawful order.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is part of the letter that Harold wrote explaining his question.

[Harold Herring]

I asked myself, how will I know? Or can I be sure I am participating in a justifiable act?

[Soren Wheeler]

In his letter, he says that if he were ordered to turn his key, he would absolutely do so. But because he had not been told what the checks and balances are for the President, he would be doing so with a consistent consciousness, a conflict of.

[Harold Herring]

Conscience, which I've underlined. I would be required to assign blind faith values to my judgment of one man, the President. Values which could ultimately include health, personality, and political considerations. This just should not be.

[Sonia McMullen]

I'm Pat Walters. I'm the managing editor of Radiolab. Radiolab. I kind of think about it like a big, beautiful team sport. If we think about a Radiolab episode as a sports game, it does feel like we're, like, always underdog. Every time we do wander off into places and ideas and communities of people that we've never been to. Like, literally never been to. In fact, if we've ever been to one before and we get, like, the slightest sense that we've been there before, even if it's happened like 20 years ago. We won't go there because we want to go to the new places, and me and the rest of the team are able to do all of that thanks to you. If you rely on Radiolab and the work that we create, the best way to support us is to become a Lab member. To learn more about the Lab and our exclusive member Perks, go to Radiolab.org join that's Radiolab.org join.

[Pat Walters]

Radiolab is brought to you by BetterHelp Every January you get an entirely new year ahead. 365 blank pages you get to fill with whatever you want. You can add a plot twist, you could add a love interest. Maybe you want a whole new chapter with a family member. However you want to write the story of 2025, BetterHelp is here to help you make the moves you want. And with BetterHelp it is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient. Serving over 5 million people worldW, you can access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credentialed therapists with a wide range of specialties for any plot point in your story and easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost. Write your story for 2025 with Better Help. Visit betterhelp.com Radiolab to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelphe lp.com Radiolab.

[Soren Wheeler]

Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name your price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try [e-mail], progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law, not available in all states. Radiolab is supported by Rocket Money. Managing finances can feel complicated and time consuming, right? But it doesn't have to be. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and aims to help lower your bills so you can help grow your savings. See all of your subscriptions in one place, and for those you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can help you cancel them. Rocket Money's dashboard also gives you a clear view of your expenses across all of your accounts and can help you easily create a personalized budget with custom categories to help keep your spending on track. Whether your goal is to pay off credit card debt, put away money for a house, or just build your savings, Rocket Money makes it easy. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Just go to RocketMoney.comRL today, that's RocketMoney.comRL.

[Jad Abumrad]

So we've got a guy training to be the person who pulls the trigger. And he's sitting there wondering, okay, there's a lot of checks on me, but who's checking the President?

[Alex Wellerstein]

And this struck us as a really kind of serious question because right now we have a president, President Trump, who is clearly interested in nuclear weapons. He talks about it constantly.

[Jad Abumrad]

You got the thing with North Korea.

[Alex Wellerstein]

Yeah. Escalating tensions with North Korea, Korea, Syria, for Christ's sakes. Sort of makes you stop and think, like, okay, if and when these decisions get made, how are they made? Is there someone else in the room?

[Jad Abumrad]

And who. If the President is determined, if he. If he's ready to go, is there somebody there who can turn to the President and say, stop?

[Latif Nasser]

That is a great question.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is historian Alex Wellerstein. He's the one who introduced us to Harold. He wrote an article in the Washington Post about this very topic.

[Latif Nasser]

Am I at the right place?

[Soren Wheeler]

Yeah, you tend to want to be just like a fist's length away. Yeah, yeah, perfect. And he has spent so much time in just archives behind microfilm readers and foiaing documents and doing all kinds of different things to figure out the history of our relationship to this uniquely destructive weapon. And what he found was a kind of tug of war between the military and the president that has gone back more than 70 years. As the nation is plunged into mourning by President Roosevelt's death, Harry S. Truman becomes president the seventh.

[Latif Nasser]

Truman learned he had a bomb the day that Roosevelt died.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is April 1945. At this point, America has been at war with Japan for over three years.

[Latif Nasser]

It was impressed upon Truman that this was not just another weapon, that this was something that could be bigger and better than any other weapon before. But there's no point at which somebody says, hey, Mr. President, should we bomb Japan with this bomb? It's assumed that, of course you're gonna do it. You have the bomb, you have the enemy. And in fact, nobody ever goes to Truman and says, should we do this?

[Jad Abumrad]

Really?

[Latif Nasser]

They go to him and they say, we are doing this. So Truman writes in his journal, we're gonna use the atomic bomb, but we will not use it on a civilian target. We will use it on a purely military target. That's the term, purely military. Purely.

[Soren Wheeler]

Now, we can't get into his head to know exactly what he was thinking, but that is what he wrote in his journal at the time.

[Latif Nasser]

And then he says, we will not be killing women and children.

[Jad Abumrad]

So the first atomic bomb is going to be dropped by a president who thinks that he's dropping it on soldiers only.

[Latif Nasser]

He's somewhat congratulating himself on that. No women and children will be killed in this attack.

[William Perry]

The world will note that the first.

[Robert Krulwich]

Atomic bomb was dropped down.

[Soren Wheeler]

Hero circumstances. A military base. That's part of Truman's announcement. After they dropped the bomb, the day.

[Latif Nasser]

After, they get casualty estimates from the Japanese. And he realizes this is not purely a military base.

[Soren Wheeler]

There is reason to believe that the Japanese city of Hiroshima, approximately the size.

[William Perry]

Of Memphis or Seattle or Rochester, New.

[Soren Wheeler]

York, no longer exists. The total death toll was almost 200,000.

[Latif Nasser]

So there's a real switch that happens between Truman talking about the bomb and also everything he says about the bomb before he hears about the casualties. It's held about the greatest thing ever. And this is the greatest day in history. And he's so proud and so happy. And then he hears about the casualties, and he hears about the women and children, and suddenly it becomes a burden.

[Jad Abumrad]

Now what happens?

[Latif Nasser]

So on August 10th, he gets a message from General Groves.

[William Perry]

Nagasaki, just three days after Hiroshima, that.

[Latif Nasser]

Says, we dropped two bombs. We're gonna have a third one in a week, just FYI. And it's not clear that Truman knew that two bombs were gonna be dropped so soon. So he has just learned that Hiroshima is a city. When he just learns that another city gets destroyed, he is not in control.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Latif Nasser]

And he has immediately written back to them and says, just stop. Knock it off. You are not gonna drop another bomb without express permission of the President of the United States. So the major theme of Truman's approach to nuclear weapons is to keep them out of the hands of the military.

[Soren Wheeler]

Hmm.

[Jad Abumrad]

Why?

[Latif Nasser]

He believes that the military, if you give them a new weapon, they will use it. It's not a crazy idea.

[Soren Wheeler]

So they actually start to design and build these bombs to make sure the military can't launch them on its own.

[Latif Nasser]

The nuclear parts of the bomb have to be in the possession of the civilians.

[Jad Abumrad]

The nuclear parts. So the plutonium.

[Latif Nasser]

The plutonium. The core.

[Soren Wheeler]

Right.

[Latif Nasser]

And the early bombs allow you to do that. The fronts of them actually open up and allow you to stick the core in and close it back up.

[Soren Wheeler]

Oh.

[Jad Abumrad]

So the civilians walk into the room with the explosive part. The soldiers open the lid.

[Latif Nasser]

Yes.

[Jad Abumrad]

The civilians put the explosive part in, close the door. Now you have an active bomb.

[Soren Wheeler]

So it's like putting in a battery or something, Almost like into your Walkman. Why do I have that? Analogy. Am I like an 80 year old?

[Jad Abumrad]

Where does the President put the nuclear pipe?

[Latif Nasser]

They have their own vaults with their own guys with their own guns, and their job is to shoot in anybody who tries to take a core without presidential authorization.

[Jad Abumrad]

Wow.

[Soren Wheeler]

So for the rest of his presidential term, Truman doesn't budge. The nuclear power is his and his alone.

[Latif Nasser]

But the technology starts to make it trickier to do this. If you want a very small atomic bomb, you can't separate the pit out from that. It's just not going to happen. It's physically like glued to the explosives and things like that.

[Soren Wheeler]

So it's 1953, just a few years before Harold entered the military. The commander in chief returns to Fort Benning, Georgia, where he served. President Eisenhower comes to power and he's a former general, right?

[Latif Nasser]

Exactly.

[Soren Wheeler]

And so he's a little bit less concerned about who has control over these nuclear weapons. So he eases up a little bit.

[Latif Nasser]

And he says, in his administration, atomic weapons, small ones, are to be treated as basically any other kind of weapon, a nuclear.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is archival footage from 1960 when President Eisenhower is getting a first look at some of the newest additions to the nuclear arsenal. He pulls out his binoculars to watch helicopters and foot soldiers in the field. At that time, they were getting really creative with their new nuclear weapon. That bazooka like weapon is the Red Eye, a one man operated missile launcher.

[Jad Abumrad]

Does he continue to maintain authority over the bigger bombs?

[Latif Nasser]

He allows them to be transferred to the military, but he says, don't drop them without my permission. But there are some cases in which he says, under really bad circumstances, you can use some of these weapons without my permission.

[Soren Wheeler]

So compared to Truman, he's really shifting that power back to the military.

[Latif Nasser]

Yes, but.

[William Perry]

Good evening, my fellow citizens.

[Latif Nasser]

By the time Kennedy is the President.

[Soren Wheeler]

It is an ironic but accurate fact. 1961, Harold is 24, he's a pilot in the Air Force. That the two strongest powers are the two in the most danger of devastation.

[Latif Nasser]

The Soviet capabilities are greatly increased.

[Soren Wheeler]

So that signal means to stop whatever you are doing and get to the nearest safe place fast.

[Latif Nasser]

You get real anxieties and some of these anxieties bubble up in popular. These are kind of out there.

[Soren Wheeler]

So long, Mom. I'm off to drop the bomb, so don't wait up for me. At this point, popular culture is saturated in nuclear fear.

[Harold Herring]

First thing will be a white light.

[Latif Nasser]

That'Ll blind us, then a hot flame that'll burn out.

[Soren Wheeler]

Take it easy. I don't want. People are building bomb shelters. Kids in Classrooms are practicing, hiding under their desks.

[Harold Herring]

At this distance, the heat wave is.

[William Perry]

Sufficient to cause melting of the upturned eye wall.

[Latif Nasser]

You have bombers flying from the United States and on these routes that take them near the Soviet borders. And the problem is you put up a lot of bombers.

[Soren Wheeler]

It's only a matter of time before.

[Latif Nasser]

You'Ll expect one to crash or have a malfunction.

[Soren Wheeler]

A SAC B52 carrying hydrogen munitions.

[Latif Nasser]

And so, indeed, there are a bunch of accidents where bombers crash with hydrogen bombs on board. They crash in Spain and drop hydrogen bombs. One of them gets dropped in Greenland.

[Soren Wheeler]

Near Thule Air Base, Greenland.

[Latif Nasser]

They crash in the United States numerous times. There's one in the south where a bomb basically lands on somebody's house.

[Jad Abumrad]

An atomic bomb.

[Latif Nasser]

Atomic bomb.

[Soren Wheeler]

An atomic bomb landed on someone's house. An atomic bomb breaks loose from a.

[William Perry]

Mounting shackle in a B47 jet over.

[Latif Nasser]

Florence, South Carolina, plummets to Earth. It didn't detonate.

[Soren Wheeler]

Six were injured. The home of Walter Gregg was turned into a shambles. Oh, my God. That would be the most terrifying thing. Imagine you're just brushing your teeth and then, atomic bomb. Atomic bomb.

[Jad Abumrad]

And there's a knock on the door and say, excuse me, we're going to remove this.

[Latif Nasser]

So there's all these accidents.

[Soren Wheeler]

And on top of that, America is keeping a bunch of its bombs in bases all over the world, and they.

[Latif Nasser]

Start to worry that some these bases are not American bases, and there aren't that many Americans on them.

[Soren Wheeler]

So, for instance, some nukes are kept at a base in Turkey.

[Latif Nasser]

Turkey's our friend, right? Not a problem.

[Soren Wheeler]

But there are, like, two American guys guarding these things.

[Latif Nasser]

They have the keys to turn these missiles on. What do you need to do if Turkey wants to become a nuclear power, they need to hit these guys over the head with a hammer and take the keys. Now Turkey's a nuclear power.

[Soren Wheeler]

Whoa.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah. This is more or less what Kennedy says.

[Soren Wheeler]

Yeah. So Kennedy actually has the exact same instinct that Truman did.

[Latif Nasser]

He issues a directive which says, no weapons can be kept overseas unless they have locks on them. And the first versions of these are very crude. They're like, literally, combination locks.

[Jad Abumrad]

Really? Like bike locks?

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah, they're pretty simple. So you're doing this technological enabling of this kind of vast political metaphor that the president is in control of these nuclear weapons at all times.

[Soren Wheeler]

So it's like Truman wanted it close to the chest, and then Eisenhower wanted it out there, and then Kennedy now is pulling it back in.

[Latif Nasser]

Right, Exactly.

[Soren Wheeler]

At the time, this felt safe. Who Better to trust than the President with something so powerful it could end the world. And even after Kennedy, the laws around this solidify. The power stays with the President. Yes, but then you get this guy. People have got to know whether or not their President's a crook. Richard Milhouse Nixon. Well, I'm not a crook. And this feeling of safety and really all trust in the presidency just starts to erode.

[Latif Nasser]

So in the last days of his presidency, there was the Watergate break in. There were all the investigations. Nixon was drinking more than the President perhaps ought to. He was under an intense amount of stress. He did a few things that made people uncomfortable.

[Soren Wheeler]

The most infamous moment like this happened in the summer of 1974.

[Latif Nasser]

Yes.

[Soren Wheeler]

When all the Watergate stuff was really coming to a head.

[Latif Nasser]

He was talking with two congressmen and he was trying to impress upon them what a waste of time this, quote, little burglary was. And to give an example of how minor this was, he explained that his responsibilities were huge. If he wanted to, he could go into the other room, pick up a telephone, and in 20 minutes, 60 million people would be dead.

[Harold Herring]

Whoa.

[Latif Nasser]

He said this, he said this.

[Soren Wheeler]

And that's exactly the kind of situation Harold was thinking about when he asked his question. Like, since I'm the guy with my hand on the key, just kind of curious here. Is there a system for making sure a president doesn't just walk into the other room, pick up the phone and order me to kill 60 million people?

[Harold Herring]

There's presently a degree of doubt in my mind.

[Soren Wheeler]

So he asks this question first out loud, then he does it in writing.

[Harold Herring]

And then I was pulled out of training. I think it was about six days before graduation.

[Soren Wheeler]

That leads to a series of meetings with superior officers where they basically tell.

[Harold Herring]

Him that I need to have more faith in our leaders, you know, not to question them. And I was told that I didn't have a need to know.

[Soren Wheeler]

That leads to a trial where he has this one meeting with this military judge who basically says, here, I have your question in my hand. I will tear it up and we can all forget this ever happened.

[Harold Herring]

But I still wanted the question answered.

[Soren Wheeler]

And then that leads to appeals, and he's writing letters.

[Harold Herring]

I would spend days and nights virtually continuously writing to Congressman, writing and writing to the President. But it really didn't matter at all what I had to say at that point.

[Soren Wheeler]

He's basically like, okay, fine, I don't want to be a launch officer anymore.

[Harold Herring]

I asked to be, you know, reassigned if they weren't going to give the.

[Soren Wheeler]

Information but instead of reassigning him, they.

[Harold Herring]

My promotional Lt. Col. Was withheld. I was removed from flight status so I no longer would get flight pay. I was then permanently disqualified from the Human Reliability Program. And along with that, my top secret security clearance was taken away from me. And once you have a security clearance removed and you're permanently disqualified, there's no hope career. I pursued every avenue available to me to have my military record corrected and to have the findings reversed and to remain in the Air Force. Only after I exhausted all of my appeals was I ordered to be retired.

[Soren Wheeler]

What?

[Alex Wellerstein]

I don't. Why? Why? I mean, I know that like the whole military thing, you gotta stay in your lane. You don't question your superiors. But why would they? What's just asked a question. Why would they? Why? What's wrong with him asking the question why is it such a threat?

[Soren Wheeler]

Well, I'll tell you right after we take a break.

[Pat Walters]

Radiolab is supported by Intuit TurboTax taxes was dealing with piles of paperwork and frustrating forms and then waiting and wondering and worrying if you were going to get any money back. Now doing your taxes is easily uploading your forms to a turbo tax expert who's matched to your unique tax situation. An expert who's backed by the latest technology which cross checks millions of data points for accuracy. While they work on your taxes, you get real time updates on their progress and you get the most money back guaranteed. All while you go about your day. No stressing, no worrying, no waiting. Now this is taxes intuit TurboTax. Get an expert now on TurboTax.com, only available with TurboTax Live full service real time updates only in iOS mobile app. See guarantee [e-mail] guarantees.

[Soren Wheeler]

Radiolab is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. You chose to hit play on this podcast today. Smart choice. Make another smart choice with Auto Quote Explorer to compare rates from multiple car insurance companies all at once. Try [e-mail] Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Not available in all states or situations. Prices vary based on how you buy. Radiolab is supported by Rocket Money. Managing finances can feel complicated and time consuming, right? But it doesn't have to be. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel your unwanted subscriptions, monitors your spending, and aims to help lower your bills so you can help grow your savings. See all of your subscriptions in one place. And for those you don't want anymore, Rocket Money can help you cancel them. Rocket Money's dashboard also gives you a clear view of your expenses. Across all of your accounts and can help you easily create a personalized budget with customizable categories to help keep your spending on track. Whether your goal is to pay off credit card debt, put away money for a house, or just build your savings, Rocket Money makes it easy. Cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with rocket Money. Just go to rocketmoney.com rl today. That's rocketmoney.com rl here's a way you can support WNYC in our centennial year. Donate your used car. We'll turn your old car into the news and conversation that we've been serving to the community for over 100 years. Many listeners have already donated their cars to WNYC. It's an easy way to support the station and you'll get a tax deduction. Learn [e-mail] Car.

[Alex Wellerstein]

Hey, I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Alex Wellerstein]

This is Radiolab. And so Latif, why was Harold's question such a threat?

[Soren Wheeler]

Well, here's how it was put to me.

[Sonia McMullen]

You know, the other side has to know the only reason, the only way that. Let me rephrase it this way.

[Soren Wheeler]

Sure.

[Sonia McMullen]

The whole premise is deterrence. That has been our founding philosophy since we developed these things.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is Dr. Sonia McMullen and I'm.

[Sonia McMullen]

A former Air Force missileer.

[Soren Wheeler]

She had her hand on the nuclear keys from 1997 to 2001. And by deterrence she means there is only world peace. Where there is power to preserve order among nations, we keep other countries from nuking us. B52s represent a shield by making clear that if they do, the missiles are ready, we'll nuke them right back.

[Sonia McMullen]

But if the other side doesn't believe that you will respond in kind, then it doesn't work.

[Latif Nasser]

You have to believe my threat is legit. I have to be credible.

[Soren Wheeler]

So if you're the guy whose hand is on the when the order comes down to launch, there can't be any doubt that you will do what you are ordered to do.

[Sonia McMullen]

Exactly.

[Latif Nasser]

So the problem with somebody like Harold is that if you start allowing people to at the bottom to start making up their mind, then it's not a credible threat.

[Jad Abumrad]

So do you understand in your own mind why they had to have a committee to sit in judgment on him and review some sort of facts or. I don't know what I'm involved.

[Latif Nasser]

It's hard to know. I haven't seen their side of it. I'm filing to get access to that side. We'll see how that goes.

[Soren Wheeler]

Oh, great. So I found this actually just. We got this this morning, so we actually ended up finding a statement by the commander in chief of Strategic Air Command, General Russ Dougherty. I don't know if you have seen it, Harold, but it's. And to be fair, we thought we should let Harold respond to it. Do you know what I'm talking about?

[Harold Herring]

No. But he was the singsack commander in chief of Strategic Air Command.

[Soren Wheeler]

Right, right, right. And so let me just read to you what he said. Sure. The major's hesitation initiated extensive hearings and administrative procedures. Later, he professed that he really would turn keys and that his hesitation had been misunderstood. I examined the record thoroughly and discovered that for a fact he had repeated several times in the record that he would readily turn keys. Then, in each instance, his affirmative assertion was followed immediately by a personal subjective qualification. Yes, he would turn keys upon receipt of an authentic order from proper authority if he thought the order was legal, if he thought the circumstances necessitated an ICBM launch, if he was convinced that it was a rational, moral necessity, and so on. Every affirmative answer was qualified by a subjective condition.

[Harold Herring]

No, no, no, no. I did not say that anywhere. Nowhere did I say that. Nowhere did I use those words. And I'm sorry, but that's just. That's just false. That doesn't surprise me.

[Soren Wheeler]

According to Harold, he never wanted to doubt an order coming from the President.

[Harold Herring]

I assumed that there had to be some sort of check and balance so that one man couldn't just on a whim, order to launch a nuclear weapon.

[Soren Wheeler]

He just wanted to be told that something like that existed so that he and his fellow launch officers would not have to have a conflict of conscience.

[Harold Herring]

And that we not put anybody in a position where they're just following orders and throwing their conscience to the four winds. I think it's an affront to play the game of you don't have the need to know of someone that's doing one of the most serious grave jobs that there is in the armed forces.

[Soren Wheeler]

And so, since Harold never got an answer to his question, we decided to make it our question.

[Harold Herring]

Where.

[Latif Nasser]

Where do you get somebody who's allowed to question the president? Because by the time you get to the bottom, there's no way that that's possible. So what about the guy above them? Let's say there's an officer who's one more up the tier. Is he gonna question the order? Well, I don't know. He's getting it from the generals who coordinate all of the nuclear attacks. If it got to him, it must be a legitimate order. Right. Maybe those top level major heads of the military branches, maybe they get to. I don't know. And so my question is, where, if anywhere, if the president issues an order, can they. Will they say no?

[Soren Wheeler]

After a lot of digging around, Alex says that he thinks.

[Latif Nasser]

My guess is you're not allowed to question the president more than a couple steps down from the very top. If you're allowed to question the president at all, maybe the secretary of defense can do it.

[Soren Wheeler]

And when we Talked to Sonia McMullen, our missile here, she also thought that the secretary of defense could probably provide a check.

[Sonia McMullen]

The secretary of defense is the. Is the first person to say, hey, let's think about this. Let's think about this in detail.

[Robert Krulwich]

All right, we're ready.

[Jad Abumrad]

Okay.

[Robert Krulwich]

This is Bill Perry, formerly Secretary of Defense, 19th Secretary of Defense of the United States.

[Soren Wheeler]

So we decided to ask an actual secretary of defense, William Perry, served under President Clinton from 1994 to 1997.

[Robert Krulwich]

Yeah.

[Jad Abumrad]

Let's just pretend for a moment that the president issues you an order that you disagree with because you don't think the president is of right mind or sober or whatever. What authority do you have as secretary of defense, if any?

[Robert Krulwich]

Well, the system is set up so that only the president has the authority to order a nuclear war. Nobody has the right to countermand that decision. He might choose to call the secretary of defense or the secretary of state or the chairman of the joint chiefs of Staff to get his adviser's counsel. But even if he does that, he may or may not accept that counsel.

[Jad Abumrad]

If you, as secretary of defense, say to the president, he says, let's go, and you say, let's not.

[Robert Krulwich]

First of all, if he calls me.

[Jad Abumrad]

Yeah.

[Robert Krulwich]

And then if I say that, Mr. President, that would be a very serious mistake. Don't do that. He might or might not accept my advice.

[Jad Abumrad]

Are you necessary to launch? No, no. Suppose everybody in the room thought that it was a bad idea. Would he still be able to do it?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes. He has the call directly to the strategic Air Command to do the launching, and they will respond to his orders. They don't call the Secretary of defense or the chairman and say, should I do this? They do it.

[Latif Nasser]

Yeah. So. So in our training, we were conditioned almost like a Pavlovian talk.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is Dr. Bruce Blair. He was a missile launch officer at the exact time that Harold was training to become one. And ever since then, he basically spent the whole rest of his career studying nuclear command and control.

[Latif Nasser]

I wrote studies so classified that the Pentagon demanded that I not be allowed to read them anymore.

[Soren Wheeler]

And we asked him, like. Like, why does it work like this? Why would we give one person that much power?

[Latif Nasser]

It's always been set up that way.

[Jad Abumrad]

Why would that be?

[Latif Nasser]

Why it came out of the Cold war in the 1960s, I don't know.

[Soren Wheeler]

By the 1960s, the US and the Soviet Union were building ICBMs, which are these nuclear missiles that could go from a silo in one country to a target in the other in the matter of minutes. So if the Soviets ever launch their missiles at us, if we're under a.

[Latif Nasser]

Missile attack, there's very little time to assess the attack, to brief the President.

[Soren Wheeler]

On his options, because the assumption was that the Soviets would target our missiles.

[Robert Krulwich]

Our ICBMs, and they would be the first to go. And so therefore, the President has to decide whether to launch our ICBMs before the other missiles land.

[Latif Nasser]

For any incoming missiles could destroy the command and control system. And that forces the President to make a decision on how to respond immediately. Because missiles are flying in at four miles per second.

[Robert Krulwich]

He has about six or seven minutes to make that decision.

[Soren Wheeler]

Ooh, six minutes.

[Latif Nasser]

The decision process just is too short.

[Soren Wheeler]

For any kind of thoughtful or serious deliberation.

[Latif Nasser]

And the pressure is intense. And there, I think you would find that different presidents would respond differently. And their character, their temperament, are they thinking people or are they intuitive people who respond instinctively? And so, you know, you would see a lot of variation in the way presidents react to a nuclear emergency.

[Harold Herring]

The President of the United states now for 50 years, is followed at all.

[Latif Nasser]

Times, 24 hours a day by a.

[Harold Herring]

Military aide carrying a football.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is then Vice President Dick Cheney, also a former Secretary of Defense, talking on Fox News Sunday. Back in 2008.

[Harold Herring]

He could launch the kind of devastating attack the world's never seen. He doesn't have to check with anybody.

[Latif Nasser]

He doesn't have to call the Congress.

[Harold Herring]

He doesn't have to check with the courts. He has that authority because of the nature of the world we live in. It bothers me immensely that the only area that there is not a check and balance is the one that can literally result in the end of the world. That seems strange to me.

[Jad Abumrad]

Have you thought about this at all and wondered whether there's a better way to do this?

[Robert Krulwich]

Yes, I have.

[Jad Abumrad]

What would you suggest?

[Robert Krulwich]

I have specifically proposed and continue to propose unsuccessfully.

[Jad Abumrad]

Again, former Secretary of Defense William Perry.

[Robert Krulwich]

We phased out our ICBMs, and to the extent we have to have a nuclear deterrence. We limited the submarines and airplanes because they don't have to launch in five minutes or six minutes or seven minutes.

[Soren Wheeler]

And when it comes to preemptive strikes.

[Robert Krulwich]

He says, we have before the Congress now a bill making a modification which says unless. Unless the United States has been verifiably attacked, then the President has, before he launches his nuclear weapons, has to go to Congress for permission.

[Latif Nasser]

So our bill is very simple.

[Soren Wheeler]

This is Congressman Ted Lew, and he and Senator Ed Markey are the guys who authored the bill.

[Latif Nasser]

It basically says before the President can launch a nuclear first strike, the President must first get a declaration of war from Congress.

[Soren Wheeler]

I believe that you introduced this bill before the election, is that right? Absolutely.

[Latif Nasser]

Senator Markey and I believe we need a structural fix. We believe, actually Hillary Clinton was gonna be president, so this bill would have applied to her. And that's because the fate of humanity.

[Soren Wheeler]

In our world should not rest on one person. And. Wait, so are you seeing this just as you sizing this up? Is this a systemic problem, or is this a problem with one person who just happens to have the office right now?

[Latif Nasser]

It's absolutely a systemic problem, and it's.

[Soren Wheeler]

Also a problem with the current person in the office of the President. But you could see future presidents, right, that could be elected with judgment or.

[Latif Nasser]

Temperament issues, or maybe they simply go.

[Soren Wheeler]

To advanced age and get Alzheimer's.

[Latif Nasser]

Right. Or some other sort of issue. That's why we can't have a system where there's so little checks and balances.

[Soren Wheeler]

Do you know about this bill or have you heard?

[Sonia McMullen]

No, actually, I don't. And that's interesting. That is a very interesting bill that. Let me say it this way.

[Soren Wheeler]

Yeah.

[Sonia McMullen]

On one hand, I agree because, again, I always like to have checks and balances. On the other hand, I. I also think that it says to a potential adversary, now there's doubt.

[Jad Abumrad]

So there are two sort of values here. One is your humane interest in making sure that the end of the world, if it comes to that, is happening for good reasons and a just reason as best you can define it, and the ongoing hope that by making this, our system, credible, that we will never have an end of the world. So my question to you is, like, how do you weigh those together?

[Sonia McMullen]

Yeah. Well, that's a dilemma. Yeah, you know, that's a dilemma.

[Soren Wheeler]

So after the military forced Harold to retire, he became a truck driver.

[Harold Herring]

And once I got that job, I made up my mind that I was going to devote my time to making a living for my family. And to that company. And I wasn't going to be off dealing with this subject anymore.

[Soren Wheeler]

And eventually he started doing addiction counseling at the Salvation army, mostly with homeless people. What's your sort of emotional state around all this right now? Like, how often is this something you still think about? How do you feel right now?

[Harold Herring]

Well, I'm just. I just. I think that common sense, I think the goodness in human beings begs for resolution of this. I just think that the need for that is at least as great now as it's ever been in the history of our republic. And I might add, on a personal level, that I had. I mean, I was really committed to the military, to the Air Force, volunteered several times, you know, to do my duty with respect to the Vietnam War. And I just felt that I had asked a very reasonable question that deserved an answer. And it was not for me alone. It was for all of us.

[Alex Wellerstein]

I keep thinking about those six minutes.

[Jad Abumrad]

Not a long time.

[Alex Wellerstein]

Big props to reporter Latif Nasser. This story was Produced by Annie McEwan with production help from Simon Adler.

[Jad Abumrad]

And a big thank you to historian and reporter Ron Rosenbaum, whose research we relied on in some part for this story.

[Alex Wellerstein]

And to our special consulting researcher, Alex Wellstein, who is by day a nuclear historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology in New Jersey.

[Jad Abumrad]

And to the U.S. air Force, to Captain Chris Mezzanard and to Carla Pampy and to Lieutenant Esther Willette and to Lieutenant Veronica Perez.

[Alex Wellerstein]

Also, thanks to Elaine Scarry, Ryan Pettigrew at the Nixon Presidential Library, Ryan Firkamp, Robin Berry and Lisa Berry, Tom Woodruff, Doreen DeBroom and Ray Peter Soren.

[Thorn]

Here again, just with a quick note, since we first aired this episode, Bruce Blair, the missile launch officer who wrote those classified studies, has actually passed away. And also we should mention the passing of Tony DeBroom, who, if you are a patient or maybe just meditative listener, you'll hear from in a little bit.

[Alex Wellerstein]

I'm Jad Abumrad.

[Jad Abumrad]

I'm Robert Krulwich.

[Alex Wellerstein]

Thanks for listening.

[Pat Walters]

Hey, I'm Lemon and I'm from Richmond, Indiana. And here are the staff credits. Radiolab was created by Jad Abumrad and is edited by Soren Wheeler. Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser are our co hosts. Hosts Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Simon Adler, Jeremy Bloom, Becca Bressler, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nyan Sambandan, Matt Kielty, Rebecca Lacks, Annie McEwen, Alex Neeson, Sara Khari, Sarah Sandback, Anissa Vitza, Arianne Wack, Pat Walters, and Molly Webster. Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, and Natalie Middleton.

[William Perry]

I'd be happy to share whatever I may remember. Remember this took place early in the morning of March 1, 1954. So it's been a while.

[Alex Wellerstein]

So a couple weeks back, the writer Sam Keane put us in touch with this guy.

[William Perry]

But it was quite traumatic and hard to forget.

[Jad Abumrad]

How old were you on that day in 1954?

[William Perry]

I was nine years old.

[Jad Abumrad]

Nine years old. Okay, good. All right.

[Alex Wellerstein]

His name is Tony DeBroom. He is an ambassador for the Marshall Islands in the North Pacific. And he tells this story about a particular moment that happened when he was nine on a day very early in the morning.

[William Perry]

At that moment, in that early morning hours, I was out fishing with my grandfather. It was customary village that we lived in to. To go net fishing, pro net fishing, for scats.

[Alex Wellerstein]

Tony says he and his grandpa were out on the beach before the sun had risen, and they waded through the water, tossing their net, pulling it back, tossing it out, pulling it back. And after they'd done that for a.

[William Perry]

While, the sun was beginning to rise from the east, and I was carrying the basket, he was throwing the net when the flash went off. We were temporarily blinded by the flash. It was as if someone had walked up to you with a flash camera and took a shot right inches from your eyes. I cannot with any certainty tell you how many seconds passed, but we felt the shock. It was like the real heavy burst of wind going through the land.

[Alex Wellerstein]

He says he turned away from the light and back towards the shore.

[William Perry]

You can see the vegetation move. It's indescribable. I thought it was the end of the world.

[Alex Wellerstein]

What Tony didn't know is that 300 miles away, the US had just tested a bomb they called Castle Bravo. It was a hydrogen bomb about a thousand times as strong as the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima.

[William Perry]

And then the rumble and the roar and the thunder of the sound of the explosion, because it was not one big explosion that goes just boom and that's it. The chain reaction caused it to roll like thunder.

[Alex Wellerstein]

And then, he says, the sky erupted.

[William Perry]

Everything turned red. The sky turned red. The ocean was red, the sand was red. My grandfather was red, and the fish we caught were red. The whole atmosphere, the whole hemisphere, the effect was like you're standing under a glass bowl and somebody poured blood over we. We were terrified.

[Alex Wellerstein]

That explosion and the many others like it would poison the Marshall Islands, poison its people. But in that moment, Tony says he and his grandpa just stood there listening to the explosions and staring at the blood red sky.

[William Perry]

It seemed to have lasted for what, what seemed like hours. I am now 72 years old and every time I speak about this my my skin still crawls and I still get goosebumps.

[Soren Wheeler]

Hi, my name is Tresa. I'm calling from Colchester in Essex, uk. Leadership support for Radiolab science programming is provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation Science Sandbox Samanth Foundation Initiative and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. NYC now delivers the most up to date local news from WNYC and Gothamist every morning, midday and evening with three updates a day. Listeners get breaking news, top headlines and in depth coverage from across New York City by sponsoring programming like NYC now, you'll reach our community of dedicated listeners with premium messaging and an uncluttered audio experience. Visit sponsorship.wnyc.org to get in touch and find out more.