Atomic Veterans: Training for the Final War

At the start of the 21st century, several groups began efforts aiming not just to control nuclear weapons but to eliminate them altogether. The so-called Gang of Four, William Perry, George Shultz, Sam Nunn and Henry Kissinger, wrote numerous powerful op-eds, urging us to work towards a world without nuclear weapons. Bruce Blair turned from academics to founding Global Zero, dedicated to the same goal. And a coalition of activist groups formed the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, ICAN. In 2017, the United Nations adopted the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, and ICAN was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

Against the backdrop of heightened Cold War anxieties, the 1980s bore witness to a remarkable phenomenon: the Nuclear Freeze protest movement. From bustling city streets to rural communities, voices united in defiance against the specter of nuclear proliferation. This groundswell of grassroots activism would pressure policymakers and trigger unprecedented advances in arms control, ultimately reshaping the trajectory of the Cold War.

From 1946 through 1958, the US detonated 67 nuclear weapons in the Marshall Islands, with an explosive force equal to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs every day for 10 years. The Marshallese are still dealing with the consequences to this day. Lingering radiation has caused numerous health problems and wiped out much of the traditional lifestyle of fishing and farming, leading to a dependence on unhealthy imported food and an epidemic of obesity and diabetes. Many Marshallese emigrated to America, where maintaining traditional culture was even more difficult. The health challenges from their lifestyle changes led to American Marshallese being tragically vulnerable to the Covid epidemic.

During the era of atmospheric nuclear testing, hundreds of thousands of American servicemen were made to participate in nuclear tests to prepare for fighting an atomic war. Thousands more were exposed to deadly radiation while cleaning up after nuclear tests in the Marshall Islands. These men were prevented from talking about their experiences for decades after, even to their doctor.

In this episode, we look at the long-term impact of nuclear testing on the American citizens it was supposed to protect, and the efforts of victims to fight for recognition and compensation.

In the race to develop the atomic bomb, Oppenheimer's Trinity test inadvertently exposed thousands of unsuspecting American citizens to toxic radioactive fallout. This test marked the beginning of a decade-long, top-secret campaign of above-ground nuclear testing in the United States. Delve into the firsthand accounts of Downwinders, the earliest casualties of the atomic age. (Part 1 of 2)

With the Trinity Test, J. Robert Oppenheimer ushered in the atomic age, and a decade-long campaign of U.S. atmospheric nuclear testing. In Season 2 of AT THE BRINK, discover the hidden history and the human fallout of the development of the atomic bomb, as told by those who lived through it. Launching July 25th.

When the Cold War ended in 1992, there was great hope for the newly formed Russian Federation. But following a series of major economic problems, and missteps by the West, an obscure ex-KGB agent named Vladimir Putin began to turn the nation in a different direction. In this episode, former US Ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, and former US Secretary of Defense, William Perry talk about their insider experiences with the Russian government through the 1990s and the 2000s, and try to make sense of how US-Russian relations have deteriorated to today’s dangerous hostility.

In the 90s, Ukraine made the decision to dismantle the thousands of former Soviet nuclear weapons left on its territory. Nearly 3 decades later, Russia has invaded Ukraine using their own nuclear arsenal to bully other nations from interceding. In this special episode of AT THE BRINK, we explore whether Ukrainian denuclearization was a fateful mistake, and if a nuclear Ukraine could have prevented the Russian invasion.

In this episode, we hear the wrenching stories of two survivors of the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima. These two women, known as “Hibakusha” or “explosion affected persons”, both suffered injury and radiation sickness, but unlike the more than 200,000 who died in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, survived to bear witness to the horrors of nuclear weapons. One, Setsuko Thurlow, culminated a life-long effort at nuclear awareness and activism, when she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in 2017 for ICAN, along with ICAN leader Beatrice Fihn. We’ll learn more about why the bombs were used, and why they were so uniquely devastating.