[00:00:03] There was a sort of grassroots uprising which then organized around a call by a young woman
[00:00:11] Randy Forsberg for a freeze on the nuclear arms race. It climaxed in June 1982
[00:00:19] in a meeting in Central Park and then a march to the UN of a million people
[00:00:26] and
[00:00:27] among those people
[00:00:29] was me and
[00:00:31] a million other people
[00:00:38] When recording the Black Sea experiment episode, I went to Princeton's program on science and global security to speak with Frank Von Hippel
[00:00:45] This was a real treat for me since I usually record podcasts online
[00:00:49] I had never been to Princeton and I had never actually met Frank
[00:00:54] Frank is a giant in the fields of arms control at least a physicist
[00:00:59] He is a prolific writer. In fact, I joke that every question
[00:01:02] I asked him an email or in person was answered but also included a paper he wrote
[00:01:09] Frank is also active in the Physicist Coalition for Nuclear Threat Reduction, which
[00:01:14] Already has a thousand physicists signed up. You might remember this group from episode 31
[00:01:20] Nuclear Threat Reduction and Current Events with Matthias Gross, Pertichem
[00:01:24] In this episode we're going to move away from
[00:01:28] The Black Sea experiment and on to some of the other work that Frank is passionate about
[00:01:35] I want to start actually a little further back than you probably think which is you're a physicist and
[00:01:47] How does a physicist get involved in
[00:01:51] Nuclear arms reduction. I actually have to even go back to my grandfather
[00:01:57] Wow, okay go as far back as you need to
[00:02:01] My grandfather was James Frank. I'm sorry your grandfather was James from yeah my mother's father
[00:02:07] You know and and he was involved in the Manhattan Project
[00:02:12] atomic physicist and at the University of Chicago and
[00:02:16] He had signed up only on the basis that if the time came to
[00:02:21] For decision to use a nuclear weapon he would be able to give his views on that to the highest
[00:02:28] Authorities so on that basis
[00:02:30] He was allowed to organize a group to write a report on what they thought about the the implications of the nuclear weapons
[00:02:38] Would be and and they focused especially on up the danger of a post-world war two nuclear arms race with the Soviet Union
[00:02:45] and they urged that the
[00:02:48] Bomb not be used on Japan except as a result of consultation
[00:02:54] With the United Nations, which had just been established and this is the famous Frank report. Yeah
[00:03:01] And of course their advice was not he did I
[00:03:06] Didn't know much of this story from my grandfather
[00:03:08] Niels Bohr was a family friend in friend of my grandfather's and would visit us where I grew up outside Boston
[00:03:15] I got the impression that they were
[00:03:19] That this was a pretty significant issue that first I had to become a famous physicist in order to to be listened to
[00:03:27] so I started work on that and then when I was an assistant professor at Stanford in the late 60s and
[00:03:36] Not contributing that much in my view not to the amount of work
[00:03:41] I was doing it was not resulting in that much advances to the field
[00:03:45] the Vietnam War
[00:03:47] Came the students rose up against the Vietnam wars
[00:03:52] Especially the draft and I was pulled in by some students who who organized
[00:03:58] Stanford workshops on social and political issues a group of student initiated workshops
[00:04:04] one of the students was Joel Premack a physicist and
[00:04:08] His his thesis advisor was Sid Drell Sid Drell
[00:04:12] Unbeknownst to me at the time
[00:04:14] Was the chairman of the strategic weapons panel of the president science advisory committee and Joel asked him
[00:04:22] well
[00:04:23] Sure, you guys are giving good advice
[00:04:26] Why is the policy so terrible and Sid said to him? Well, I'm sorry
[00:04:31] It's all classified and so Joel said okay. I'll find out so he set up a
[00:04:38] workshop on
[00:04:40] Science advising to understand what the impact of science advising was
[00:04:46] That workshop ended up going two semesters. He started with Marty Pearl who was a
[00:04:52] Experimental physicist at Stanford and then probably went on sabbatical and asked me to be the advisor for the second semester
[00:05:00] The workshop had a really major impact. It actually was the origin of the congressional science fellowships
[00:05:07] They proposed the congressional science fellowships, which
[00:05:11] Now more than 200 business a year go to work for Congress and for the executive branch as a result of those fellowships
[00:05:19] But they didn't answer the question that Joel was asking about science advising. What's the matter with science advising is and so
[00:05:27] He and I undertook to do some research on that. We spent the summer on that and
[00:05:34] wrote a report which was
[00:05:37] Printed up by Stanford and put in a closet
[00:05:39] but then somebody a reporter from I think the San Francisco examiner came down and
[00:05:45] wanted to do a story on the on these workshops and they gave him a copy of our
[00:05:50] Report and he thought it was sensational and he put it out on the
[00:05:56] Associated Press stories all over the world about the problems
[00:06:00] We had discovered about science advising being misused to legitimize
[00:06:05] policies that the scientists had advised against at that time the
[00:06:10] the science advising process was confidential and so
[00:06:16] Eventually, the reports would come out but long after
[00:06:18] The damage was done doesn't say what did you find was the problem with science advising that that it was confidential
[00:06:25] That it was being used to legitimize
[00:06:28] Policies which the scientists didn't actually not support basically the line was we consulted the greatest scientists and
[00:06:36] We've come to decided to do X and X was necessarily what the scientists had advised
[00:06:43] and and so I even have a copy of the front page of the National Enquirer
[00:06:49] Wait you were on the National Enquirer we were our report was on the front page over a picture of Jackie
[00:06:58] Onassis and Caroline so that should be on your CV, right?
[00:07:04] You were on the National Enquirer above
[00:07:07] Jackie now, but we were the headline
[00:07:09] National Enquirer now that is something else. I don't know any other academic that is on the front page
[00:07:17] Has made the National Enquirer
[00:07:19] I'll send you a PDF if you like that'd be fantastic. Yes. I think that'd be great
[00:07:24] We recommended that that science advisors not put up with this
[00:07:28] That if they're they find that their advice is being misused that they go public and we were told that this was
[00:07:36] During the president Nixon's time and we were told that
[00:07:39] That they were admonished the science advisors would admonish not to take our advice or you know to quit if they were
[00:07:46] Inclined to take our advice and in fact Nixon abolished the president's science advisory committee
[00:07:51] So then there were no scientists advising for a while. There were no scientists
[00:07:57] Advising the the president directly right when did that change then because I mean now we have
[00:08:02] Back in an attenuated form maybe even by President Ford. We have
[00:08:08] You know president science advisor. I spent a year and a half in working for the
[00:08:14] President science advisor under Bill Clinton and there is a committee but it's nowhere near what the president science advisory committee was
[00:08:22] You know the clout that they had before Nixon. Yeah
[00:08:27] So anyway, the this response to our report inspired us to write a book
[00:08:32] You are a prolific writer every time I ask you a question you send me three articles
[00:08:38] Right, okay, yeah, I mean which I like I'm just saying I've never met someone who's written so many different
[00:08:45] Articles about so many different things in so many different places. So what's this book that you wrote about?
[00:08:50] Well, it was called advice and dissent
[00:08:53] scientists and scientists in the political arena and it was first case studies of how science advising had been misused
[00:09:02] But then the the second half was that you don't have to be a famous scientist to be listened to we
[00:09:08] rediscovered non-governmental
[00:09:10] organizations which were just coming up in that period and
[00:09:14] Found that they were having a real impact and yet at young scientists straight out of their PhDs like Tom Cochran
[00:09:20] We're actually having an impact because they were going directly to the press
[00:09:23] And so this was different than what you had been brought up to believe that you had to first make your you know
[00:09:29] Name in physics and then you could go on to government
[00:09:33] right, and so this freed me from having to
[00:09:38] struggle to become a famous scientist and so had you always wanted to go into the governmental arena you just thought you had well
[00:09:44] Yeah, I was always interested in policy. It was not very clear exactly
[00:09:48] You know, I was not clear and how I thought I had to wait on to be invited
[00:09:52] But what happened in to complete my transition what what happened is so on the way to writing this book
[00:09:59] We wrote an article in Science
[00:10:01] Magazine called public interest science about the NGOs and at that time Ralph Nader was
[00:10:08] Promoting the idea of public interest law for young lawyers. So we you picked up that that moniker
[00:10:15] I received a call from the National Academy of Sciences
[00:10:19] And and they said we would like to straighten you out. Oh
[00:10:22] Why don't you come and on a fellowship to the National Research Council for a year and see how it really happens
[00:10:30] Oh
[00:10:31] So so come to our side. Yeah, so I went there but I didn't find it very interesting and
[00:10:37] It's all got me involved in something else. This is we're in an
[00:10:41] in activist state because of the Vietnam War as well
[00:10:45] The APS the American Physical Society was considering sponsoring so much thought
[00:10:51] sponsoring summer studies on policy issues
[00:10:54] Hmm, and so on Joel's suggestion I was invited to organize a summer study on summer studies
[00:11:02] Okay, and we looked at different options that summer and in the following summer
[00:11:07] I organized one of the options that we had looked at which is on reactor safety
[00:11:14] Which was a big issue at that time because that was the period when when all the nuclear power plants
[00:11:21] We have today we're being built and each nuclear power plant was inspiring and not in my backyard
[00:11:27] Yeah uprising so it turned out. I mean, this is a long story
[00:11:34] It turned out that the Atomic Energy Commission
[00:11:37] Which was just in in that period actually dismantled into the Department of Energy and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
[00:11:43] But they had been struggling to try to explain to the public that not to worry about reactor safety issues
[00:11:51] And just then they put out a draft their latest attempt which is called the reactor safety study huge thing that
[00:11:59] big including appendices, so we reviewed the draft and
[00:12:05] that turned out to be the summer study and
[00:12:08] The argument that they made was that the probability is very low
[00:12:12] They had been in previous studies that they've been arguing making the argument that the consequences would be very low
[00:12:18] but that hadn't
[00:12:20] worked out right and so they were arguing the probability was very low and
[00:12:25] And then they focused on not cancers, but on
[00:12:30] high dose
[00:12:31] Consequences near the reactor and they compared those with plane crashes and things like that. Was that more successful?
[00:12:39] No, partly because of us
[00:12:42] My colleagues focused on the probabilities and they said, you know
[00:12:46] Much more uncertain than have been calculated here. I focused on the consequences and
[00:12:52] and I found and on the cancer consequences in particular and
[00:12:57] They had calculated those all
[00:13:00] In appendix and over what you were look look at and I've found much higher
[00:13:05] consequences than they cancer consequences and they calculated and
[00:13:09] I was trying I tried to figure out why and I realized that they had
[00:13:14] Assumed they had calculated that the radiation dose is only for one day
[00:13:18] They had assumed that people would be evacuated after one day. Mm-hmm, but most of the cancers would occur
[00:13:26] very low probabilities fired on wind
[00:13:30] accumulatively dominant and
[00:13:32] There was no way you could
[00:13:34] evacuate those people and so our
[00:13:37] Report made a splash actually at that time the Nuclear Regulatory Commission was just being
[00:13:45] started in fact, they were responsible for the
[00:13:48] final version of the report and there was no an act of oversight by Congress at that time Morris Udall was the chairman of
[00:13:57] the new Oversight Committee and
[00:13:59] he decided to have a hearing on this and
[00:14:02] As a result he asked the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do a review in the light of the critiques and
[00:14:10] Then I was part of the review the NRC's review committee
[00:14:13] I was initially the minority member the critic but you know, finally one of the other members said
[00:14:20] Can anybody tell me anything that they did right?
[00:14:24] and
[00:14:25] and so the
[00:14:26] Nuclear Regulatory Commission actually issued a statement that certainly the summary was not a
[00:14:31] Did not adequately represent the situate effects
[00:14:34] So and anyway in the meantime a colleague of mine who is making a similar career transition was setting up a
[00:14:42] Center for Energy and Environmental Studies
[00:14:44] At Princeton, who was that Rob Sokolow who actually co-led one of the other studies?
[00:14:50] The energy efficiency study which was a very important study that the APS did that same summer
[00:14:57] Sponsored that same summer Rob invited me to come to Prince so that's
[00:15:02] and then I
[00:15:04] sort of made when impression I
[00:15:07] Was a colleague here who was working on nuclear weapons proliferation
[00:15:12] began working with him and then as a result of the fact that
[00:15:17] India had just exploded of its bomb that spring as a result of an Atomic Energy Commission
[00:15:22] Program to help them with their breeder reactor program and then later on really
[00:15:28] Especially due to the freeze nuclear weapons freeze movement. I
[00:15:32] Transitioned to working on nuclear arms control in the 80s. Yeah, so you did become a famous physicist
[00:15:40] Or infamous, you know
[00:15:43] One or the other yeah, but do you have a report named after you like your grandfather?
[00:15:48] No, no didn't not yet didn't make that not yet
[00:15:51] So how did you become the president of the Federation of American?
[00:15:58] Physicists that was the chairman not the chairman. So how did the elected chairman chairman? Well what happened to the Federation of American Scientists, which was
[00:16:08] established by the young physicists who came out of the Manhattan Project and
[00:16:13] which had a
[00:16:14] major impact early on in
[00:16:17] Defeating the proposal to keep all nuclear research under the military and and led to the establishment of
[00:16:24] Atomic Energy Commission which sort of lost its way later on they then
[00:16:30] You know went back to work the laboratories and the universities and and then later on
[00:16:35] Some of them the most outspoken of them were subject to the McCarthy
[00:16:40] investigations and so on in the
[00:16:43] 1970s they got a new full-time CEO president Jeremy Stone who revived
[00:16:51] revived the FAS and we got to know each other and he decided I should be the chairman of the FAS and
[00:16:59] put me out as I
[00:17:01] think there must have been a competitive election, but
[00:17:05] Sound like a competitive election, but somehow I was elected chairman
[00:17:09] You know at that time the FAS had about 5,000 members so
[00:17:14] So that's how I became the chairman. So I want to switch gears a little bit to something that was perhaps
[00:17:21] Not so successful and it seems like something you've spent a lot of your career on which is the fissile material
[00:17:29] Cutoff treaty. Why have you spent so much time on this? Well, it dates back to the
[00:17:34] freeze movement the nuclear weapons freeze movement of the early 1980s and
[00:17:39] That just to give you a little background. Yes, it is mostly forgotten. I think was an uprising during the
[00:17:48] early Reagan administration
[00:17:50] Against the nuclear arms race of grassroots uprising
[00:17:53] What happened is President Reagan was under the influence of a group called the Committee on the present
[00:18:00] danger
[00:18:01] Right committee of the present on the present danger which was organized
[00:18:06] To warn the country that the Soviet Union was ahead in nuclear arms race and
[00:18:12] That the Soviets thought that they could fight and win a nuclear war
[00:18:16] And and those folks came in with Reagan and he appointed them to high positions and he was on their board
[00:18:24] Reagan was on their board of directors
[00:18:27] especially in the Department of Defense and
[00:18:30] they
[00:18:31] proposed a huge US buildup
[00:18:34] 10,000 new warheads
[00:18:37] for an accurate missiles
[00:18:39] Accurate enough to take out this the Soviet all the Soviet military
[00:18:45] Nuclear targets in a first strike and they talked about fighting and winning a nuclear war
[00:18:50] Sorry, this look on my face is like oh my god. This sounds horrible
[00:18:55] It was horrible. Yeah, and it scared people it scared it scares me in retrospect
[00:19:01] And it wasn't sort of grassroots uprising which then organized around a call
[00:19:07] By a young woman Randy Forsberg who was an MIT
[00:19:12] graduate student for a freeze on the nuclear arms race it climaxed in 19 June 1982
[00:19:19] In a meeting in Central Park and then a march to the UN of a million people
[00:19:26] and
[00:19:27] among those people
[00:19:29] was me and
[00:19:31] million other people
[00:19:34] And I have a picture of that March in my memoir with a banner
[00:19:40] from the group from Vermont
[00:19:42] and the banner says
[00:19:45] 193 out of 197 towns in Vermont had voted
[00:19:51] For the nuclear weapons freeze that was a real grassroots movement
[00:19:55] And that I think actually is the backstory of the story
[00:19:59] I've told you so far because I think that the Soviets thought the US rut was run at least in this area by
[00:20:05] the military industrial complex and here they saw a
[00:20:11] opposition movement which was
[00:20:14] powerful enough so that Reagan
[00:20:16] Abandoned the buildup and first went to Star Wars and then ultimately to arms control
[00:20:22] Anyway, I got excited about and Jeremy Stone got excited about this movement and how can we help it and
[00:20:30] my personal thing well is
[00:20:33] What do I know about you know, I know about physical materials
[00:20:37] And so maybe we can include in the ending the arms race a ban on the production of physical materials and
[00:20:44] I
[00:20:45] worked on that and
[00:20:47] Published an article in Scientific American which was much more impactful. Well, maybe it'll be impactful again after today
[00:20:54] but in those days it was the ultimate forum for arms control proposals and
[00:20:59] Actually, you know one of the questions was how much physical material?
[00:21:03] Does the Soviet Union have how much does the US have well the it was secret in both countries, but it was but in fact
[00:21:11] It was other information that had been published that allowed me to figure out how much
[00:21:16] Material the US produced in the case of the highly enriched uranium is it's how much enrichment work
[00:21:24] Had been done. Yes paper is in Scientific American
[00:21:28] 1985 so the estimates that you have are from
[00:21:31] 1985 I think that's right and then the question was how much had the Soviet Union produced and
[00:21:38] I was not able to do anything on the highly enriched uranium
[00:21:41] But I was able to figure out how much plutonium they had produced from
[00:21:46] Looking at the amount of Krypton 85 in the atmosphere
[00:21:50] Krypton 85 is a I think 11 year half-life
[00:21:54] Isotope that is released when when you reprocess this noble gas for difficult to capture and this is they just released
[00:22:02] into the atmosphere and and then from my estimate of the US
[00:22:06] Reprocessing and the published data on the reprocessing in Europe was able to subtract that amount of Krypton 85 and see how much
[00:22:15] Krypton 85 the
[00:22:16] Soviet Union had
[00:22:19] produced so at that time the Scientific American had
[00:22:23] and still I think has
[00:22:25] editions in other languages including Russian and Capitza was the
[00:22:29] Publisher of the Russian edition, but they didn't publish my article. They didn't publish your article in Russian in Russian
[00:22:35] So I went and asked him what's going on here?
[00:22:38] She says well the sensors won't let us because there's the amount of plutonium that the Soviet Union has produced is secret
[00:22:48] And you want to publish their secret well, I said it's not the secret anymore
[00:22:53] And and so then Velikov went and went to them and said Kovachov says you can publish it
[00:22:59] And so they published they published it but two years later
[00:23:02] So it's a it's a nice graph in in here your calculation of the Krypton and
[00:23:08] How much plutonium then does each country? Well did each country have an 85?
[00:23:14] about a hundred tons each
[00:23:17] So to me that seems like a lot. Yeah, and the and the Soviet Union was still producing we had we had stopped
[00:23:24] So how many warheads is that?
[00:23:26] Well a hundred chances I've estimated that in the
[00:23:29] In a warhead there's there's about three kilograms and I did that by dividing the number of warheads by
[00:23:37] The amount of plutonium, but I was accused of revealing us secrets when I do
[00:23:43] And so that would be enough for about 30,000 which is about what we had at the peak
[00:23:49] One would argue that's enough
[00:23:51] Yeah, and the Soviet Union kept producing and they they have you know
[00:23:55] I forget maybe maybe 50 or 80 more times than we did produce and so they they went up to a higher level
[00:24:03] So the argument of the
[00:24:06] Cut-off treaty is that we just stopped producing
[00:24:10] Yeah, and we did stop producing because at the end of the war we started reducing the number of warheads
[00:24:17] And so there was excess but now we the problem was excess plutonium and
[00:24:22] Now we the problem was excess plutonium and highly enriched uranium
[00:24:27] Which is another story, but well, what do we do with the excess?
[00:24:31] Well in the case of highly enriched uranium tom neff proposed that we should buy
[00:24:37] The soviet excess so it wasn't lying around and have them blended down
[00:24:42] To low enriched uranium to fuel us
[00:24:45] Nuclear power plants and the result was for 20 years half of the us nuclear power was fueled
[00:24:52] by excess soviet
[00:24:55] weapons uranium
[00:24:57] That seems like a success an amazing story. Yeah, I think it's the biggest
[00:25:02] non-governmental initiated
[00:25:04] Saying that I'm aware of that's amazing. Yeah, so with any sort of treaty you need verification
[00:25:12] How would you verify that?
[00:25:15] Each country was not
[00:25:17] producing plutonium
[00:25:20] We finally do have a verification agreement bilateral verification agreement we haven't gotten an international
[00:25:27] agreement, but i'm not sure whether it's a treaty but it's an agreement between the us and
[00:25:33] And I think at that point
[00:25:36] It was probably russia rather than the soviet union to shut down the production reactors
[00:25:41] Okay, and it's actually easy. I mean
[00:25:45] I think it involves the possibility of visits, but it's easy to do this remotely
[00:25:49] by
[00:25:50] Looking at the infrared and seeing that there's no heat being generated
[00:25:54] But that's it you just simply look and make sure there's no heat being generated from a production reactor
[00:25:59] From in then, you know, it's off. That's easy. Yeah, there are three which are underground and there
[00:26:06] but there you could actually cooling water went into the
[00:26:10] River and you could actually see the thermal plume and and in the winter you could see that
[00:26:15] The ice was not there was no ice downstream from the exit
[00:26:20] So could you hide one?
[00:26:22] Well, that's what they had done to to hide them
[00:26:25] You know that I don't know that maybe they thought we
[00:26:29] They wanted to produce plutonium after the next world war or something like that
[00:26:33] And so that they protected these three from deep enough so that they might survive a nuclear
[00:26:39] bomb
[00:26:40] So are we still producing plutonium?
[00:26:43] For weapons, no and and we're actually not producing
[00:26:48] Plutonium for any purpose. That's another story which I what the other story the other story is the
[00:26:55] The first fight I was involved with after I came to Princeton was was ending
[00:27:01] the u.s
[00:27:02] plutonium breeder program
[00:27:04] breeder reactor program which which was a justification for
[00:27:08] For plutonium separation around the world including in india
[00:27:12] So do we have a cutoff?
[00:27:16] Treaty, uh missile cutoff treaty. We have a moratorium. So we have a moratorium. So your work is almost done
[00:27:21] Well moratorium except in a few countries
[00:27:25] Well, not more than well a few countries countries are still producing plutonium for weapons are
[00:27:31] india
[00:27:33] Pakistan well plutonium and highly enriched uranium india pakistan north korea
[00:27:39] israel maybe and
[00:27:41] now china
[00:27:43] and so the
[00:27:45] negotiating forum
[00:27:46] For multinational treaties has been the conference on disarmament in geneva
[00:27:51] Okay, the last treaty they negotiated was the comprehensive test ban treaty in 1996
[00:27:56] Oh, that was a long time ago. Yeah, the pistol material cutoff treaty was next was un general assembly voted that they should
[00:28:05] Negotiate a pistol material cutoff treaty
[00:28:08] But the conference on disarmament operates by on consensus not majority vote
[00:28:15] And russia and china initially
[00:28:18] Objected to that being the priority they wanted to because of star wars they wanted to negotiate
[00:28:25] A treaty on the prevention of an arms race in outer space
[00:28:28] They didn't and the u.s didn't want to want that even well after the reagan administration had abandoned that
[00:28:34] So that held up things for a while
[00:28:37] And then they agreed
[00:28:40] That you know the pistol material cutoff treaty could go forward
[00:28:44] But then pakistan objected
[00:28:46] Pakistan said we're behind india and unless
[00:28:50] part of the treaty is
[00:28:52] to make india's
[00:28:55] Stockpile
[00:28:57] At the same level as ours
[00:28:59] We're not going to do it and then and then I think later china backed up pakistan
[00:29:05] And because china decided as we've seen
[00:29:09] to build up
[00:29:10] beyond
[00:29:11] the level
[00:29:13] at which
[00:29:14] I mean chinese
[00:29:16] Whispered in my ear that they had stopped producing they did stop producing in 1987
[00:29:21] But then now I think they are they decided to restart production as part of to
[00:29:28] Part of the build-up that they're that they're
[00:29:31] It's been launched so this sounds extremely frustrating. Yeah
[00:29:35] No, I visited the ambassadors in geneva a couple times and had dinner with them
[00:29:41] And they were almost in tears of frustration
[00:29:44] basically not being able to do anything
[00:29:46] for
[00:29:48] Now it's it's almost 30 years
[00:29:52] Is that why you got out of government?
[00:29:54] No, no, I was in government for a year and a half
[00:29:57] Princeton gave me leave for two years, but even after a year and a half I figured
[00:30:02] That they had accepted all my ideas that they were going to accept and and rejected all my ideas
[00:30:08] That they weren't going to accept and there was no point in staying on
[00:30:14] Looking back at your career
[00:30:17] What is something that you want to still accomplish?
[00:30:20] What's your one thing that you wish you could you could get done i'm still for the the whole
[00:30:28] The whole thing and uh, what's the whole thing?
[00:30:31] And you've just met zia. Mia. There's this movement
[00:30:35] In the south mostly in the southern hemisphere for a treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons
[00:30:42] zia is the co-chair of their science advisory committee, you know of the about 70 countries that have ratified that treaty and
[00:30:50] And they're having a meeting at the end of no their second meeting at the since the treaty has come into force for those countries
[00:30:58] In at the un at the end of this month right now. That's that's the biggest hope
[00:31:04] That's the biggest source of pressure
[00:31:06] and we'd like to help them and so my my thought is
[00:31:11] You know so far it's only non-weapon states that have signed up, but my thought is that there are
[00:31:16] 32 countries
[00:31:18] Non-weapon states under the u.s nuclear umbrella and we've got to turn them around they're part of the
[00:31:25] support structure for the u.s nuclear
[00:31:28] deterrent and and and currently our the effort is to
[00:31:33] Get them to at least be observers
[00:31:36] At the meeting a few of them actually did were observers at the first meeting
[00:31:41] Germany, netherlands, norway australia
[00:31:44] You just got to get rid of these things. They're you know, I mean the fact that we have
[00:31:49] We're still here
[00:31:51] Having this conversation is a mirror is almost a miracle
[00:31:55] And and you know, we just can't continue to depend on luck this way. Do you think it's realistic?
[00:32:02] The u.s is very attached
[00:32:05] to its nuclear
[00:32:07] deterrence
[00:32:09] It's it's inexplicable, you know and and and because we right now the u.s is
[00:32:16] conventionally
[00:32:18] dominant
[00:32:19] During the cold war the soviet union had twice as many tanks on the other side of the
[00:32:25] inter-german border as we did and so we
[00:32:28] Had to we did depend on
[00:32:31] The fact that we turn into a nuclear war we have seven thousand
[00:32:35] warheads in germany
[00:32:37] west germany we're down to
[00:32:39] 20 now, so because those warheads
[00:32:43] Became obsolete because of precision guided munitions like the javelin and so on we can destroy a tank without destroying the town's
[00:32:50] kilometers or so away
[00:32:53] I've seen two administrations the obama administration and the biden administration
[00:32:57] Try for no first use
[00:32:59] And be opposed
[00:33:02] By the pentagon right and then the pentagon speaking through its counterparts
[00:33:07] In these allied countries, you know saying, you know that this is your security
[00:33:11] That's the state you got to put pressure on on the on the u.s
[00:33:15] So the idea is to put pressure on the allied countries to get them to revert to get them explain to them that this is
[00:33:23] You know even ukraine can hold off russia
[00:33:27] You know, there's no need for nuclear weapons. We should be de-emphasizing nuclear weapons
[00:33:32] We should have a no first starting with a no first use policy
[00:33:36] Which de facto I think the biden administration has
[00:33:39] In fact, they'd even try for no second use
[00:33:42] If so if russia what's the nuclear weapons? What's
[00:33:46] What's the idea behind no first use and I haven't heard of no second use so tell our listeners. No first use is saying
[00:33:55] We will not use nuclear weapons first and the u.s. Already has a policy. We will not use nuclear weapons first
[00:34:01] On a new non-nuclear weapon. Okay. Okay. So the exception is really
[00:34:08] Russia and china, okay
[00:34:10] and obama and then biden both wanted to
[00:34:15] accomplish that
[00:34:16] and no second use is
[00:34:19] If russia used a couple of tactical nuclear weapons in ukraine
[00:34:24] I think the the impulse of the biden administration would be to
[00:34:29] To a massive conventional response, you know, just wipe out the russian military in ukraine
[00:34:37] Instead of going to instead of going instead of responding with nuclear and then have the
[00:34:42] Russians respond to that with nuclear and just going up the world
[00:34:49] I mean this started out as a kind of happy, uh, you know conversation down memory lane and now it's getting very dark
[00:34:57] Well, it is a dark time right now
[00:34:59] It is in fact right now, you know, I retired from teaching but i've actually come back
[00:35:05] This semester i'm i'm co
[00:35:07] Advising junior task force policy task force on avoiding nuclear war with china and russia
[00:35:15] That seems very important
[00:35:19] So you
[00:35:21] You were around as a young researcher. I read in your memoirs that they were you were a young researcher during the cold war
[00:35:27] And now i'm an old researcher
[00:35:30] Now you're a seasoned researcher
[00:35:33] How do you compare?
[00:35:35] Kind of during the depths of the cold war and the feelings and the
[00:35:42] the rhetoric
[00:35:43] around nuclear
[00:35:45] issues between the depths of the cold war now
[00:35:49] Well, it's it's not as bad but it's getting worse. I mean and and I think the notion
[00:35:54] well, I mean of course putin has made it worse by threatening to use nuclear weapons if he doesn't get his way
[00:36:01] or if the nato get interferes with
[00:36:04] Beyond a certain unknown threshold with him getting his way in ukraine and
[00:36:10] Now we have a chinese build-up and a
[00:36:14] confrontation with china over taiwan which
[00:36:18] Maybe even more dangerous
[00:36:20] We don't have a two-body problem anymore, right?
[00:36:23] Right
[00:36:24] Sorry taking it back to physics
[00:36:27] so that surprises me because
[00:36:29] I mean your your response because I think it's very very bleak right now and you're saying that it's not as bleak as during the cold war
[00:36:38] Well, you know during the cold war we almost
[00:36:41] Went nuclear, you know, we really got closer to going nuclear than we are now
[00:36:47] You know there was you know, famously the korean missile crash
[00:36:51] But there was also actually a crash that that occurred
[00:36:55] The same month that I went to
[00:36:57] Moscow the first time this is the abel archer
[00:37:02] Story, I don't know whether you're familiar with that. I am
[00:37:05] surprisingly not
[00:37:08] This was in november early november annually nato as a as a nuclear exercise
[00:37:14] and this one
[00:37:16] Was in a time of this was in the early reagan administration andropoff
[00:37:20] Was the general secretary he'd been the head of the kgb
[00:37:25] In the soviet union, you know the early reagan administration really got them paranoid
[00:37:31] they were looking for
[00:37:33] signs
[00:37:34] You know of us preparations for a first strike including whether the blood banks were
[00:37:40] things built up
[00:37:43] Over here in preparation for a war so the kgb was looking to see if we were stocking up blood. Yeah
[00:37:51] That's and any other signs that you know all sorts of signs and so here was this nato exercise and it went beyond
[00:37:59] previous exercises including flying
[00:38:02] troops from the u.s
[00:38:04] To to europe and it ended all the way up to a command exercise on
[00:38:10] using nuclear weapons
[00:38:12] On eastern europe and the soviets thought this was for real
[00:38:18] And they began to load up nuclear warheads on their fighter bombers to preempt
[00:38:24] our
[00:38:26] Preempt our first strike
[00:38:30] And we detected this
[00:38:32] and our intelligence people detected this and and
[00:38:36] detected their thing and the question is how we would respond to you and and we had an intelligence
[00:38:43] Guy who said I would advise not responding
[00:38:47] And then the exercise ended
[00:38:50] and
[00:38:51] It was over the crisis was over
[00:38:55] But when I when I went to moscow there were there were headlines about u.s
[00:39:01] preparations for a nuclear attack in pravda and so on
[00:39:05] And you know when we went down to georgia you mentioned you went to georgia
[00:39:10] For in this first meeting
[00:39:12] john holdren and I who john was the
[00:39:15] vice chair
[00:39:16] Of the federation of american scientists and he later he became a science advisor and I we went on a hike up a local hill
[00:39:23] hill and and
[00:39:25] And somebody detected
[00:39:27] That we were speaking english and that we were americans and said why do you want to attack us?
[00:39:32] I mean it was really
[00:39:34] Dark up which seemed to be relatively unconcerned, but the the population it was real
[00:39:41] concern under in the in the population
[00:39:44] And actually on the eve
[00:39:47] While we were flying to moscow the day after movie was shown on
[00:39:55] And then they showed it on the russian tv
[00:39:58] and they asked me to to be on russian national tv what I thought of
[00:40:03] the messages
[00:40:05] was
[00:40:06] The messages don't start a nuclear war
[00:40:10] And this was
[00:40:12] Not long after the soviet shot down the korean airliner
[00:40:16] So it was it was really a peak
[00:40:19] So things can get worse
[00:40:21] Yeah
[00:40:22] What do you think the role of I guess scientist is?
[00:40:26] My answer to this is that often
[00:40:29] I mean that that in fact
[00:40:32] good
[00:40:33] Political ideas don't require the business, but then often
[00:40:38] People say ideally in an ideal world that would be a good idea, but there are technical problems
[00:40:44] And so one of our tasks is to you know like teller did with the test band, you know preventing a test band for
[00:40:53] 30 years
[00:40:54] With with his evasion scenarios. So those as those people physicists can think about those
[00:41:02] Objections and deal with them. The other thing is that sometimes
[00:41:06] Sometimes and i've seen more in other areas than an arms control is a third way
[00:41:12] to deal with the issue
[00:41:14] And I first first came on this in the nuclear reactor safety issue
[00:41:20] Where the anti-nuclear groups were saying
[00:41:24] Nuclear powers too dangerous
[00:41:26] The nuclear utilities were saying well it's that or freeze in the dark
[00:41:30] And
[00:41:32] Some colleagues including rob sacala who I mentioned and bob williams
[00:41:37] Said well, you know, there's a third way which is energy efficiency
[00:41:42] And so the predictions that were being made in those times
[00:41:46] For the amount of electricity consumption in these in this country are several fold over actually
[00:41:53] the level
[00:41:54] Of electricity consumption we have
[00:41:57] That has made the energy problem much
[00:42:00] Easier to to deal with as a result of energy efficiency things like leds before 1970
[00:42:06] Electricity consumption was growing
[00:42:10] Twice as fast as the as the economy and the utilities were projecting that that would continue
[00:42:16] Well, it didn't continue and and in fact this was a part of a involvement I had with the breeder program during the
[00:42:23] Carter administration
[00:42:24] I was part of a
[00:42:26] Then it's the second issue after the reactor safety that I got involved in we argued that the breeders reactors were
[00:42:34] Shouldn't be a plutonium basically glen seaborg who was the
[00:42:40] head of the atomic energy commission during for for a decade
[00:42:45] Was promoting what he called a plutonium economy. The world was going to run on
[00:42:50] Plutonium was going to be the fuel of the future
[00:42:53] You know we weren't going to need fossil fuels anymore that was that was his solution
[00:42:58] But the first product of that was the indian nuclear with the the nuclearization of the south asia india and then
[00:43:04] Pakistan responding with its own
[00:43:06] program
[00:43:07] and so we said
[00:43:10] you shouldn't do a plutonium program and you don't need to do it because
[00:43:15] These projections
[00:43:16] That are being made for nuclear power are just crazy. They'll never be realized
[00:43:21] You know they were projecting for for around now
[00:43:25] U.s. Would have about 2 000 nuclear power plants
[00:43:29] We plateaued at 100
[00:43:31] Yeah, and that's
[00:43:32] 20 percent
[00:43:34] Of u.s. Electricity if you multiply by 20 they were projecting from nuclear power alone
[00:43:41] Four times more electricity production in the u.s. Than we make from all sources
[00:43:46] So that was projection was made I was on this review panel that the carter administration set up
[00:43:52] that projection was made by the
[00:43:55] it was actually an intermediate between atomic energy commission and the
[00:43:59] Department of energy there was the energy research and development administration
[00:44:03] Okay briefly and and so carter had them do a panel
[00:44:07] to review the breeder program
[00:44:10] And bob williams an energy efficiency expert and I
[00:44:14] Were on that panel along with tom cochran tom actually brought us in tom comes up a lot because some
[00:44:21] With the nrdc the lawyer from the nrdc was on the
[00:44:25] Council for environmental quality. I think he may have
[00:44:28] Done that they came in and they with a projection like the one i've described
[00:44:34] And I said, where'd you get that?
[00:44:36] And I said would we'd rather not say
[00:44:40] Ha ha ha ha
[00:44:43] And
[00:44:44] So but then the utilities there were some nuclear utility presidents on the panel
[00:44:49] They said well, we have a similar projection. Well, yeah, they wanted to be high we can tell you how we got it
[00:44:56] and they sent me a book
[00:44:58] and the book had been done by a
[00:45:00] consulting firm with a proprietary
[00:45:04] econometric projection
[00:45:06] With a thousand parameters and and so I said well, you know, this must be based to history
[00:45:12] So what what did it what is in the history?
[00:45:15] then I realized that the history was
[00:45:19] That the price of electricity had been going down
[00:45:23] During this 50 years before 1970 and bob williams explained that it was economies of scale. It was scaling up the power plants
[00:45:32] And so I looked what are they projecting for the future price of electricity?
[00:45:36] And they were projecting it's continuing to go down. And so I went into the next meeting of this
[00:45:42] Panel and I asked the utility presidents
[00:45:46] Are you projecting the price of electricity to go down? He said oh no, he says nuclear power is expensive
[00:45:58] So guess what your model projects
[00:46:02] So so that's and and that's the way it worked out
[00:46:06] Yeah
[00:46:07] The price of electricity plateaued and and then in fact electricity consumption hasn't because of things like leds
[00:46:14] Hasn't even been growing as fast as the economy
[00:46:19] What you haven't mentioned in what I find fascinating someone who's coming at policy from
[00:46:24] You know the scientific side and kind of being out outside of it is
[00:46:27] Is as just a person observing I didn't realize how much
[00:46:33] the role of the scientist played
[00:46:36] in just
[00:46:37] our everyday science, so
[00:46:40] You made a difference in policy because you had a kind of scientific friendship
[00:46:46] with
[00:46:47] People yeah, yeah, that was right. That's exactly right
[00:46:50] It was it was the collaborators that i've had and it really made the difference and I didn't realize how much that
[00:46:57] mattered in
[00:46:59] In these policy issues and that that that internationalization of science is so important
[00:47:06] And in fact, that's why we set up the international panel on fissile materials
[00:47:11] Based on that that insight that you know, we
[00:47:15] This collaboration with the soviet scientists
[00:47:18] So is there something we haven't
[00:47:20] Discussed that you'd like to just mention the internet since I mentioned the internet
[00:47:24] Yeah, please that was sort of the follow-on to the
[00:47:28] To try to achieve a fissile material cutoff treaty to end production of
[00:47:33] plutonium and highly enriched uranium
[00:47:36] For any purpose not just for weapons
[00:47:38] And well, you know, we have these more moratoriums. We still have a japanese
[00:47:44] civilian plutonium program and a french civilian plutonium program
[00:47:48] But that's about it
[00:47:50] Is there a lesson to be learned from?
[00:47:53] The fissile cutoff treaty
[00:47:56] well
[00:47:57] I mean the the treaty
[00:47:59] Which doesn't exist which doesn't exist and so
[00:48:03] Most countries have stopped producing because they have more than enough. You know, what is the lesson?
[00:48:11] You know arms control my lesson actually is is that
[00:48:16] Things happen when the public is interested and i've sort of talked about in the arms control area three uprisings
[00:48:23] You know one was the uprising that led to the atmospheric test band treaty
[00:48:28] Uprising against radio to follow
[00:48:30] the second was
[00:48:32] the abm treaty
[00:48:34] happened not because of the physicists
[00:48:37] But because of a misstep by the army
[00:48:40] The first generation of anti-missile missiles
[00:48:44] Were nuclear armed had nuclear warheads because they didn't have this hit to kill
[00:48:49] Technology that we have today
[00:48:51] Still doesn't work but for other reasons for because of decoys and things like that
[00:48:57] including the biggest
[00:48:58] nuclear
[00:49:00] Weapon that it was ever tested underground was there was a five megaton warhead on the long-range
[00:49:07] Extra, which one was which test was that?
[00:49:09] That was the amchic could test they could they tested it under
[00:49:13] The illusion islands and then there was that was actually one of our studies in our book of advice and descent
[00:49:20] With the the scientists were warning that that might cause a tsunami
[00:49:24] Anyway, so the army
[00:49:26] Decided, you know, we want to defend the cities
[00:49:30] Let's put these missiles in the suburbs and that caused a nimby
[00:49:34] I think that's a reasonable nimby
[00:49:39] And that caused a nimby uprising
[00:49:42] and
[00:49:43] Congress noticed and they said well these scientists have been arguing against
[00:49:47] The submissive defense, maybe we should maybe we should learn more about what they're saying. Uh-huh and that led the congressional pressure
[00:49:56] especially in the senate
[00:49:58] And and especially from the senate final relations committee, which is sort of a been a nothing for many years
[00:50:04] But was powerful in those days under
[00:50:07] William fulbright
[00:50:09] They hit hearings on this and the senate
[00:50:13] actually
[00:50:14] Each year the margin
[00:50:17] Senate votes to pass the
[00:50:20] appropriations
[00:50:22] For the ballistic missile defense fell to and to in the nixon administration
[00:50:27] it was 50 50 with vice president agnew breaking the
[00:50:32] The tie and nixon knew that next year he would lose
[00:50:37] And that's why he decided to negotiate the abm treaty. So was it was the uprising?
[00:50:43] And then the third uprising with the nuclear weapons freeze movement
[00:50:47] So we need an uprising to get congressional attention
[00:50:54] Thank you for listening and a special thanks to frank for his hospitality at princeton and the stanley center for peace and security
[00:51:01] For partial sponsorship of this episode you can find more information on the podcast website my nuclear life.com
[00:51:08] Until next time i'm shelly lesher and this has been my nuclear life