Abstract
Caught on film
Josh Schollmeyer's “Lights, Camera, Armageddon” (May/June 2005 Bulletin) explored amusingly familiar ground. I currently write about environmental issues, but I spent the late 1990s in Hollywood working on science-fiction television series and films, including Deep Impact. I have sympathy for both the critics pointing out the flaws in disaster movies as well as the filmmakers trying to tell compelling tales.
Hollywood conventions make scientifically accurate stories difficult. The need for a hero means that decades-long disasters are compressed into a few days; the dictum that you “show, not tell” makes complex cause-and-effect confusing; and movie audiences expect a relatively happy ending, no matter what.
People don't go to movies to learn physics, biology or ecology; they go to be entertained. Too often Hollywood errs on the side of entertainment, but the opposite can be just as bad. A realistic global warming flick, for example, would have the disaster occurring over several decades or more, with generations of scientists working on mitigation, politicians debating policies, and activists arguing about the solutions in the press.
That's not Hollywood, that's C-SPAN. And we know which one draws a bigger audience.
Jamais Cascio
Senior Contributing Editor
Schollmeyer accurately describes Hollywood's indifference toward truth-telling in “Lights, Camera, Armageddon.” But while Hollywood uses the “based on true events” tag line to sell its product, it never claims to be telling the truth.
Does popular culture affect public perception? Anecdotally, yes. But Schollmeyer never answers this question. He merely recounts how experts and policy wonks become irked when Hollywood plays loose with the facts; he never clarifies how the general populace and policy makers react and how popular culture reshapes the debate over terrorism and nuclear weapons.
Far scarier is the public reaction to the factual inaccuracies put forth by government–a traditionally more reliable and relied upon storyteller–and Hollywood-esque presentation of WMD evidence made by the Bush administration to sell the Iraq War. While Schollmeyer doesn't truly explain the social consequences of when Hollywood fudges the facts, we recently witnessed the public reaction when the government does–we believe them. It's easy to blame Hollywood studios and actors for advancing liberal agendas, but the don't present their “evidence” before the U.N. Security Council, and they don't have the power to send our country to war.
Jason Hutt
Brooklyn, New York
The secret's out
In “A Secrecy Primer” (May/June 2005 Bulletin), David Hafemeister writes: “Can [Howard] Morland and his supporters offer any substantive examples of how [the Progressive H-bomb magazine article] has advanced the debate over nuclear weapons in the 26 years since it has been published?”
The Clock
For nearly 60 years, the Doomsday Clock has been the world's most recognizable symbol of global catastrophe. Since 1947, the Clock has moved forward and back 17 times, reflecting changes in the state of international security. The Bulletin's Board of Directors-in consultation with a prestigious group of sponsors that includes 18 Nobel laureates-is the “keeper” of the Clock, deciding when to move the Clock's hand, and by how much. The Clock now stands at seven minutes to midnight.
It depends on what kind of debat Hafemeister has in mind.
The intended audience for my article, which showed basic H-bomb blueprints, was the national grassroots, anti-nuclear movement that sprang up in response to the Clamshell Alliance's 1976 campaign against nuclear power in Seabrook, New Hampshire. Ralph Nader's Critical Mass organization provided much of the research for the movement, and Nader believed the bomb was unassailable because of secrecy and patriotism. Most activists agreed.
While the Progressive functioned as the Clamshell Alliance's unofficial newsletter, it also featured articles against the bomb by peace activist Sydney Lens, former missile designer Robert Aldridge, and Sam Day, a former Bulletin editor. Day wanted to “make the connection”–the phrase of the day–against both bombs and reactors. I had spent a year promoting this idea on the anti-nuclear lecture circuit when he contacted me.
Everyone I knew in the anti-nuclear movement had read several books on nuclear reactors but knew little about bombs. Demonstrations against the bomb generally ran much smaller than those against nuclear power. Our goal was to recruit activists by making the bomb side of the industry as transparent as the reactor side. Thanks to the 1979 prior restraint lawsuit, which held up publication of the article for six months but attracted much attention, we were given a large stage on which to refute Nader's assumptions. We demonstrated that secrecy was overrated and that unwashed activists could hold their own in the elite national security world and remain free of the treason stigma.
In 1978, only a few hundred people demonstrated against the bomb in New York. Four years later, hundreds of thousands attended a repeat of the same demonstration. Mass demonstrations were precisely the kind of nuclear weapons debate we were trying to foster.
There has also been a steady output of publications. For example, see the March 2005 Cardozo Law Review, the Nuclear Weapons Databook series, and thousands of pages on nuclear weapons posted at, or linked through, www.fas.org. Chuck Hansen's monumental The Swords of Armageddon grew directly from his involvement in the Progressive case.
It was not the kind of narrowly constrained, insider debate that Hafemeister saw during his Washington career. It was lively and informative, and it captured the attention of the nation and the world. The arms race ended a few years later.
Howard Morland
Arlington, Virginia
Morland implies that the Progressive H-bomb article increased anti-nuclear war demonstration levels exponentially in four short years, greatly exaggerating his article's impact.
It is useful–but not vital–to know the weapon's schematics. We don't need to know what's under a Hummer's hood to understand it's adding to the country's gasoline woes. I believe increased citizen involvement was a response to President Ronald Reagan's nuclear weapons buildup and to the demise of arms control negotiations in the early 1980s. The Nuclear Freeze movement illustrated the absurdity of 70,000 U.S. and Soviet warheads; Physicians for Social Responsibility graphically displayed the effect of a 1-megaton explosion on a city; and the American Physical Society showed that the “Star Wars” Strategic Defense Initiative was a dream.
These events heightened citizen concerns in the 1980s. However, I agree that too much secrecy quells honest debate. The potential threat of Soviet attacks on the U.S. triad were exaggerated, and the dangers of launch-on-warning were understated. These issues were more important to the debate than an H-bomb sketch.
UPDATES
The Bulletin uncensored
After interviewing U.S.-bound migrants, Bulletin contributor Michael Flynn realized that the U.S. Forward Operating Location in Manta, Ecuador, was doing more than just assisting with the war on drugs.
Last spring, Flynn spent 10 days in Ecuador investigating local claims that U.S. activity out of Manta included immigration interdiction. His article, “Ecuador: What's the Deal at Manta?” (January/February 2005), was recently selected by Project Censored–a media watchdog organization that gives annual awards for “the news that didn't make the news”–as one of the top 25 “censored” stories of the past year. The group praised Flynn's article for providing “vital information about the U.S. Manta military base and the role Ecuador now plays (or, perhaps, is compelled to play) in furthering U.S. strategies throughout South America.”
When pork flies
A $500 billion defense budget can't buy everything, as John Isaacs detailed in “An Indefensible Budget” (May/June 2005). One item that the Defense Department originally deemed excessive: the C-130J cargo aircraft. But thanks to the wailing of Georgia's congressional delegation–the Peach State has a significant financial stake in the C-130J–and the heavy penalties for terminating the aircraft's contract, the plane is back in the budget. “The C-130J proves that pork flies,” the Project on Government Oversight's Danielle Brian told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution (May 12).
More bucks for the bang
In “A History of Bombing Ourselves” (May/June 2005 Bulletin) Jonas Siegel writes that the Energy Department spent more than $7 billion on nuclear testing from 1981 to 1992. While correct, this partial figure vastly understates the full costs of the testing program.
From 1956 (a decade after the start of the testing program but the first year costs were segregated by activity) through 1992 (when the last underground test occurred), Energy and its predecessors spent nearly $27 billion on nuclear testing. The Defense Department spent an additional $34 billion on this activity during roughly the same period. That adds up to more than $60 billion (in constant 2005 dollars), a more comprehensive and significantly larger amount than the one quoted in the article.
Stephen I. Schwartz
Editor and coauthor of Atomic Audit
Wilmette, Illinois
Ruth Adams remembered
Thank you for printing Mike Moore's appreciation for Ruth Adams (May/June 2005 Bulletin). Ruth was an extraordinary role model for generations of men and women committed to social change.
Many of us were intimidated by Ruth when we first met her, especially during her time as a funder at the MacArthur Foundation. It was a perfectly natural response–she was a commanding woman who asked direct and penetrating questions about the purposes for particular projects and how we intended to carry them out. At the same time, she took risks on people and programs that few other foundations were willing to support. Her logic was clear–following conventional wisdom wasn't likely to produce the fundamental change our society needed.
Some of my fondest memories of Ruth are connected to Pugwash Conferences. From time to time, I was fortunate enough to be her swimming partner. For most people, swimming is a solitary pursuit. Yet Ruth gathered people around her for chats before, after, and occasionally even during her swims. While many of us wanted to hear about Pugwash's history and her interactions with the original nuclear scientists, she generally preferred to talk about the future. She had a remarkable ability to balance realism about the current state of affairs with a perpetual optimism about the prospects for change. That's an important legacy. Even so, I think Ruth would say the best way to remember her is for those of us she mentored to do the same for future generations of scholars and activists.
Ruth Salzman Adams.
Natalie J. Goldring
Vice Chair, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Arlington, Virginia
Ruth cared about people. As a former editor of the Bulletin, I'm just one of the many people whose life she touched in a significant way. She inspired me to focus on the dangers of nuclear war and later encouraged me to take the Bulletin post.
Ruth possessed a Western ruggedness and an international sensibility. She knew that people could overcome challenges, and she liked being a character–epitomized by the little pipe she puffed. Her stories about the Bulletin's early days were delightful. Eugene Rabinowitch, the magazine's cofounder and a Russian émigré, was the subject of many of these stories. I fondly recall Ruth's account of Rabinowitch becoming so excited at a Pugwash meeting that he began speaking Russian to the American scientists and English to the Soviet scientists.
Put it in writing
The Bulletin wants to hear from you. Letters should not exceed 300 words and may be edited for clarity and length. Be sure to include your mailing address and phone number.
Send your comments to:
I appreciated Ruth's advice and her awareness that she had to let go of the magazine–even when I did things that she wouldn't have. After I left the Bulletin, we didn't keep in direct contact. But memories are strong. I will always remember her as a significant force in confronting the most important, immediate issue of our time: the need to abolish nuclear weapons.
Len Ackland
Boulder, Colorado
At the memorial service for Ruth Adams in La Jolla, California, which overlooked the stretch of the Pacific Ocean where Ruth used to walk her dogs, I was reminded of the 52nd Pugwash Conference held nearly three years earlier at the University of California, San Diego. At the same venue as her memorial service, Ruth helped organize a social occasion for members of the Pugwash Council and the International Student/Young Pugwash members attending the conference.
This gathering epitomized Ruth's passionate conviction for bringing together the next generation of scientists and policy analysts with their more “senior” Pugwash colleagues. She steadfastly believed that this melding of young and old ensured the continued vitality and relevance of the Pugwash community.
A year later at the 53rd Pugwash Conference, Ruth stood on the porch at Thinker's Lodge in Pugwash, Nova Scotia, and reminisced, along with Joseph Rotblat, about her 46-year involvement with Pugwash that began at that very same lodge.
Ruth's bedrock commitment to peace and justice, delight in engaging younger people in lively debates, and her sparkling vitality–so apparent at those two conferences–contributed immeasurably to Pugwash's success. Ruth will be sorely missed, but those qualities will stay with us forever.
Jeffrey Boutwell
Executive Director, U.S. Pugwash
Washington, D.C.
Corrections
In “A Secrecy Primer” (May/June 2005 Bulletin), a “fast neutron chain reaction” was mistakenly referred to as a “fast neutrino chain reaction.”
In the same issue, “Lights, Camera, Armageddon” misidentified Laura Holgate's previous government affiliation. She worked for the Defense Department, not State.