Checks and Balances, Nukes – A Radiolab Podcast

The best way to tease you to listen to this podcast is their tease:

“President Richard Nixon once boasted that at any moment he could pick up a telephone and – in 20 minutes – kill 60 million people.  Such is the power of the US President over the nation’s nuclear arsenal.  But what if you were the military officer on the receiving end of that phone call? Could you refuse the order?

This episode, we profile one Air Force Major who asked that question back in the 1970s and learn how the very act of asking it was so dangerous it derailed his career.”

The officer profiled in this story was going through the Air Force training to be a Continue reading “Checks and Balances, Nukes – A Radiolab Podcast”