Nuclear Armament

Author Don DeLillo on his new novel "Underworld." (Scribner) This 827-page work weaves in and out of the latter half of this century, incorporating modern icons such as Frank Sinatra, Lenny Bruce, and J. Edgar Hoover. The novel's first scene visits the Giant-Dodgers pennant game of October 3rd, 1951 -- also the date of the first nuclear test in the Soviet Union.

The Australian-born activist helped found and was the first president of the Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR) and the Women's Action for Nuclear Disarmament (WAND). Her new autobiography "A Desperate Passion" is about her life, activism, and the effect of notoriety on her personal life. In 1985 PSR's umbrella affiliate, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, received the Nobel Peace Prize.

Stewart Udall served three terms in Congress, and as Secretary of the Interior under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson. He is the author of a new book, "The Myths of August", (Pantheon) which chronicles his struggle as one of the first lawyers to represent thousands of Americans who were injured or killed by the testing of atomic weapons. Udall spent years investigating and litigating cases filed by Southwestern families who had been harmed by atmospheric testing of atomic bombs, and by families of Navajo men who developed lung cancer after mining Uranium for the Government.

Selig Harrison spent four years as Washington Post Bureau chief in Japan, and is now Senior Associate at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. He argues that the nuclear threat posed by North Korea is overstated -- that they are using the "nuclear card to get diplomatic recognition and economic help." Negotiations offer a chance for nuclear disarmament and dismantling throughout the area.

Syndicated columnist and writer for Time magazine, Charles Krauthammer. He favors an economic blockade of North Korea to force its government to stop any development of nuclear weapons. Of President Clinton's policy on North Korea Krauthammer. has said, "To allow North Korea to flout the nonproliferation treaty and become bomb supplier to every outlaw state on the planet would be Clinton's most humiliating and most dangerous foreign policy retreat yet." (Wash Post 3/25/94).

Former special assistant for National Security Affairs under Presidents Kennedy and Johnson, McGeorge Bundy. He's co-authored a new book with Admiral William Crowe, "Reducing Nuclear Danger," XXXX. Terry will talk with Bundy about the threat that still exists of nuclear disaster from such countries as Iraq and North Korea.

Head of the National Security Archive Tom Blanton helped research "The Cuban Missile Crisis, 1962," scheduled for release today, thirty years after the incident. In the book, newly released documents and top-secret files reveal how close the U.S. came to a nuclear entanglement. In 1987, the National Security Archive filed suit against the U.S. government for failing to produce the documents they requested. Since then, there has been more compliance with the archive, especially since the Russian government has agreed to allow the U.S. to release the Kennedy-Krushchev letters.

Williams is a a writer and naturalist-in-residence at the Utah Museum of Natural History. Born a Utah Mormon, Williams has written several books about the environment and the West, such as "Coyote's Canyon" and "Earthly Messengers." Her most recent book, "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place," concerns her mother's unsuccessful battle with cancer and the flooding of the Bear River Migratory Bird Refuge by the rising Great Salt Lake waters.

Professor William Potter. He's the Director of the Center for Russian and Soviet Studies at the Monterey Institute. He'll discuss the fate of the Soviet nuclear arsenal, and the growing fear that the Soviets will sell their nuclear technology to other countries.

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh. In his new book, "The Samson Option," Hersh contends that Israel has had a secret nuclear arms program for years, had those arms aimed at the Soviet Union for years, and was ready to fire those weapons at Arab capitals during the recent Gulf war. Hersh's previous book, "The Target Is Destroyed," looked at what really happened when Korean Airlines flight 007 was shot down near Japan.

Journalist Milton Viorst of the New Yorker reports on the Middle East. In April, he was in Bagdad to observe the state of Iraq several months after the end of the conflict.

Photographer Jan Staller. His photographs capture the well-traveled outskirts of cities. His subjects are viaducts, tunnels, piers, and subway entrances - the places we pass on the way to somewhere else. He's just published a new collection of such photographs taken around New York over the past ten years, "Frontier New York" published by Hudson Hills Press. In the book's introduction Paul Goldberger writes, "To look at New York through Staller's photographs is to feel that the familiar city has become somehow mystical, ephemeral, almost haunted."

Schell rose to prominence for his 1982 book Fate of the Earth, about nuclear disarmament. A former staffer at the New Yorker, he has a new book called Observing the Nixon Years, about the precarious position the United States was in during the Vietnam War.

Journalist Fred Kaplan's latest book is "The Wizards of Armageddon," which looks at the politics of nuclear warfare and weapons. He joins the show to discuss Defense policy and the budget and the issue of nuclear war in contemporary politics. (Interview by Dave Davies)

Paul Zimmerman is the screenwriter of the upcoming film "The King of Comedy," directed by Martin Scorsese and starring Robert DeNiro and Jerry Lee Lewis. Zimmerman was previously the movies editor for Newsweek and has written several books. ZImmerman is based in Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and has become active in the Bucks Alliance for Nuclear Disarmament (B.A.N.D.). The group has invited Helen Caldicott of Physicians for Social Responsibility to speak at a local event.

Hans Bethe won the 1967 Nobel Prize for Physics for determining the nuclear processes that power the sun and stars. Bethe was also involved in the creation of the atom and hydrogen bombs at the Los Alamos project during World War II. Bethe is now an activist for a nuclear freeze, and co-authored a New York Times op-ed on the topic. He joins the show to discuss the development and future of nuclear arms.