As Iran continues to develop its nuclear program and explicitly denounces Israel, Michael Karpin's The Bomb in the Basement provides important context for the ongoing tensions in the Middle East. After Israel won its war of independence in 1948, founding prime minister David Ben-Gurion realized that his country faced the possibility of having to fight Arab nations again in the future. He embraced the idea of developing a nuclear capability and put a young lieutenant, Shimon Peres, in charge of the project. This was the beginning of Israel's quest for nuclear capability, a project that could not have happened without the cooperation of the French. In The Bomb in the Basement, journalist Michael Karpin gives us the most complete account of how Israel became the Middle East's only nuclear power and how its status as an officially unacknowledged nuclear nation affects the politics of that volatile region. Karpin's research includes exclusive interviews that provide new insights into the key figures behind the program (notably a harsh rivalry between Peres and Isser Harel, the first head of Mossad). He explains how different U.S. administrations have dealt with Israel's nuclear status, from Eisenhower's disapproval to Johnson's open support. And he shows how the key to Israel's nuclear capability has been its policy of "nuclear ambiguity." A compelling account of a complicated history, The Bomb in the Basement raises provocative questions about how Israel's nuclear arsenal may affect not only its own future, but the future of the entire Middle East.

In The Fragile Balance of Terror, the foremost experts on nuclear policy and strategy offer insight into an era rife with more nuclear powers. Some of these new powers suffer domestic instability, others are led by pathological personalist dictators, and many are situated in highly unstable regions of the world-a volatile mix of variables. The increasing fragility of deterrence in the twenty-first century is created by a confluence of forces: military technologies that create vulnerable arsenals, a novel information ecosystem that rapidly transmits both information and misinformation, nuclear rivalries that include three or more nuclear powers, and dictatorial decision making that encourages rash choices. The nuclear threats posed by India, Pakistan, Iran, and North Korea are thus fraught with danger. The Fragile Balance of Terror, edited by Vipin Narang and Scott D. Sagan, brings together a diverse collection of rigorous and creative scholars who analyze how the nuclear landscape is changing for the worse. Scholars, pundits, and policymakers who think that the spread of nuclear weapons can create stable forms of nuclear deterrence in the future will be forced to think again. Contributors: Giles David Arceneaux, Mark S. Bell, Christopher Clary, Peter D. Feaver, Jeffrey Lewis, Rose McDermott, Nicholas L. Miller, Vipin Narang, Ankit Panda, Scott D. Sagan, Caitlin Talmadge, Heather Williams, Amy Zegart -- Cornell University Press

The story of the explosion and contamination was and still is suppressed in the Soviet Union and, the author contends, by the CIA and other Western intelligence organizations fearful of public resistance to nuclear power plants. Now, after an intensive study of Soviet scientific articles (written to disguise the fact that they were about the Ural explosion) and after many interviews and reports from friends in the scientific community as well as from witnesses, the author has pieced together the story of what actually happened. He analyzes the extent and consequences of the contamination and draws forbidding conclusions about the possibility of similar disasters in the rest of the world.

This volume tells how an experienced, principled man faltered when confronted by the tremendous challenge posed by the intersection of war, diplomacy, and technology. Malloy examines Stimson's struggle to reconcile his responsibility for 'the most terrible weapon ever known in human history'.

The Great American Gamble examines the past, present, and prospective future of U.S. deterrence theory, strategic forces, nuclear weapons and policy. It provides a detailed explanation of the competing schools of deterrence theory that emerged during the late 1950's and early 1960's. Based on an extensive review of previously classified documents, it demonstrates how and why U.S. Government policies came to adhere to the guidelines established by the theory of deterrence popularly called the "balance of terror." Dr. Payne presents the assumptions, judgments and hopes that led U.S. policy makers in consecutive Republican and Democratic administrations to that choice. Acceptance of a balance of terror as official policy was challenged on occasion during the Cold War under both Democratic and Republican administrations, but it persisted as the lodestar for U.S. strategic policies. Most Americans presumed they were defended, but U.S. Government choices were predicated on the belief, as noted by Henry Kissinger, "that vulnerability contributed to peace, and invulnerability contributed to war." Looking forward, the key question is to what extent the basic tenets of Cold War academic deterrence theory provide useful guidance to contemporary strategic policy given contemporary threats and conditions? The conclusion offered herein is that familiar Cold War guidelines are a manifestly imprudent basis for U.S. policy. Much of what we believed we knew about deterrence during the Cold War now appears to have been more fleeting hope than wisdom.

A history of the Atomic Bomb from Marie Curie to Hiroshima. The atom bomb, which killed an estimated 140,000 civilians in Hiroshima and destroyed the countryside for miles around, was one of the defining moments in world history. That mushroom cloud cast a terrifying shadow over the contemporary world and continues to do so today. But how could this have happened? What led to the creation of such a weapon of mass destruction? From the moment scientists contemplated the destructive potential of splitting the atom, the role of science changed. Ethical and moral dilemmas faced all those who realized the implications of their research. Before the Fall-Out charts the chain of events from Marie Curies scientific breakthrough through the many colourful characters such as Einstein, Robert Oppenheimer and Lord Rutherford, whose discoveries contributed to the bomb. The story of the atomic bomb spans 50 years of prolific scientific innovation, turbulent politics, foreign affairs and world-changing history. Through personal stories of exile, indecision and soul-searching, to charges of collaboration, spying and deceit, Diana Preston presents the human side of an unstoppable programme with a lethal outcome.

"Engrossing."--"Wall Street Journal"
A global history of U.S. nuclear espionage from its World War II origins to today's threats from rogue states. For fifty years, the United States has monitored friends and foes who seek to develop the ultimate weapon. Since 1952 the nuclear club has grown to at least eight nations, while others are making serious attempts to join. Each chapter chronologically focuses on the nuclear activities of one or more countries, intermingling what the United States believed was happening with accounts of what actually occurred in each country's laboratories, test sites, and decision-making councils. Jeffrey T. Richelson weaves recently declassified documents into his interviews with the scientists and spies involved in the nuclear espionage. The book reveals new information about U.S. intelligence work on the Soviet/Russian, French, Chinese, Indian, Israeli, and South African nuclear programs; on the attempts to solve the mysterious Vela Incident; and on current efforts to uncover the nuclear secrets of Iran and North Korea. The book also includes spy satellite photographs never before extracted from the national archives.
The updated paperback edition includes analysis of the diplomatic maneuvering and intelligence activities that have taken place over the last year in the continued attempt to halt Iran's quest for nuclear weapons. 46 photographs, 4 maps.

"No one knew what our job was on the ship. Navy Nuclear Weaponsmen were shrouded in secrecy, and entrusted with the most powerful deadly weapons on earth. Our families and countrymen's lives depended on how diligently we performed our duties." -Jim Little

No espionage case in recent decades has been anything like the Wen Ho Lee affair. As Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman describe in "A Convenient Spy, " an astonishingly inept investigation of a crime that may never have occurred ended in a national disgrace. A weapons-code scientist at Los Alamos National Laboratory, Lee was hunted as a spy for China, indicted on fifty-nine counts, and held in detention for nine months as a threat to the entire nation. But after pleading guilty to just one count, he went home -- with an unusual and emotional apology from a federal judge. Prosecutors' claims that Lee had stolen America's "crown jewels" of nuclear security simply evaporated. Yet Lee's motives have never been satisfactorily explained, and his often-repeated excuse that he was just backing up his work files does not stand up to scrutiny.

As Stober and Hoffman report, Lee's lies and his unexplained connections to foreign scientists spanned eighteen years. He was a security nightmare. Tapping at his keyboard, he assembled a private collection of the computer programs used to design America's nuclear weapons, then left them vulnerable to hackers and foreign intelligence services for years. The FBI's belated discovery that he had also put the codes on portable cassette tapes launched a frenzied worldwide search that eventually carried agents to the Los Alamos landfill. And yet today, the tapes have never been found.

In 1995, Lee was just another American, a Taiwanese immigrant striving to support a family he cherished and to make a name for himself in scientific circles. Unknown to him, however, scientists working in the secret world of nuclear-weapons intelligence examined purloined Chinese documents, studied spy reports, and wondered: Had China stolen the secrets of the W88, America's most advanced nuclear weapon? Scientific hunches rapidly evolved into a criminal investigation aimed at Lee. He had been overheard by the FBI while telephoning a spy suspect, and he was warmly embraced by a high-ranking Chinese nuclear-weapons official whom he wasn't supposed to know. The FBI noted that he was "ethnic Chinese." And in this uncertain period after the Cold War, many politicians played up China as a threatening new enemy. Energy Secretary and vice presidential hopeful Bill Richardson was eager to fire Lee and appear decisive in protecting national security.

In this stormy confluence of intelligence and politics, Lee became a convenient spy. But was he guilty?

Dan Stober and Ian Hoffman tell the story of the Wen Ho Lee fiasco dramatically and authoritatively, providing an objective account that no partisan version of the story can match.

"In order to curb nuclear-weapons proliferation, it is of fundamental importance to identify the underlying rationale for certain states to seek a nuclear-weapons option, as well as to understand why the vast majority of states, possessing the necessary technology, do not develop nuclear weapons. The international community still has much to learn in this regard and "Nuclear Logics" is a valuable and timely contribution to this discussion."--Dr. Hans Blix, chairman of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission

"Professor Solingen has illuminated an important and often neglected aspect of nuclear motivations, namely the domestic conditions that underlie a country's decision to acquire nuclear weapons. Her well-researched and powerful argument asserts that nuclear-weapons programs are more likely to emerge from states that are hostile to economic openness and, conversely, that they are less likely where states are more willing to integrate with the global political economy."--Mitchell B. Reiss, College of William and Mary

"Solingen not only provides a cogent account of the divergent nuclear trajectories of East Asia and the Middle East, but develops a powerful general explanation resting on whether the state's ruling coalition is inward looking or is geared to integrating with the rest of the world. Both in its challenge to standard views and in its strong positive arguments, this is a study of great value."--Robert Jervis, Columbia University

"Etel Solingen's "Nuclear Logics" provides the depth and insight needed to understand today's urgent dilemmas of nuclear proliferation. She convincingly shows that opening up shuttered states to expanded international economic ties canundermine the political constituencies that favor nuclear weapons programs."--Jack Snyder, Columbia University

""Nuclear Logics" is a first-class piece of work. It deals with a prominent issue, and its central approach--doing a focused, detailed comparison of two regions that started out much the same but have differed in their subsequent histories on proliferation--generates a wealth of interesting and instructive insights."--John Mueller, Ohio State University

"What is most impressive and significant about Solingen's scholarship is its breadth. Her prose is clear and often elegant. I believe her book, which truly is pioneering in both the international-relations and nonproliferation fields, is accessible to both scholars and university students. I am sure it will become required reading in many graduate courses."--William C. Potter, Monterey Institute of International Studies

The End of Victory recounts the costs of failure in nuclear war through the work of the most secret deliberative body of the National Security Council, the Net Evaluation Subcommittee (NESC). From 1953 onward, US leaders wanted to know as precisely as possible what would happen if they failed in a nuclear war—how many Americans would die and how much of the country would remain. The NESC told Presidents Dwight Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy what would be the result of the worst failure of American strategy—a maximum-effort surprise Soviet nuclear assault on the United States. Edward Kaplan details how NESC studies provided key information for presidential decisions on the objectives of a war with the USSR and on the size and shape of the US military. The subcommittee delivered its annual reports in a decade marked by crises in Berlin, Quemoy and Matsu, Laos, and Cuba, among others. During these critical moments and day-to-day containment of the USSR, the NESC's reports offered the best estimates of the butcher's bill of conflict and of how to reduce the cost in American lives. Taken with the intelligence community's assessment of the probability of a surprise attack, the NESC's work framed the risks of US strategy in the chilliest years of the Cold War. The End of Victory reveals how all policy decisions run risks—and ones involving military force run grave ones—though they can rarely be known with precision.

In an era defined by the threat of nuclear annihilation, Western nations attempted to prepare civilian populations for atomic attack through staged drills, evacuations, and field exercises. In Stages of Emergency the distinguished performance historian Tracy C. Davis investigates the fundamentally theatrical nature of these Cold War civil defense exercises. Asking what it meant for civilians to be rehearsing nuclear war, she provides a comparative study of the civil defense maneuvers conducted by three NATO allies-the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom-during the 1950s and 1960s. Delving deep into the three countries' archives, she analyzes public exercises involving private citizens-Boy Scouts serving as mock casualties, housewives arranging home protection, clergy training to be shelter managers-as well as covert exercises undertaken by civil servants.Stages of Emergency covers public education campaigns and school programs-such as the ubiquitous "duck and cover" drills-meant to heighten awareness of the dangers of a possible attack, the occupancy tests in which people stayed sequestered for up to two weeks to simulate post-attack living conditions as well as the effects of confinement on interpersonal dynamics, and the British first-aid training in which participants acted out psychological and physical trauma requiring immediate treatment. Davis also brings to light unpublicized government exercises aimed at anticipating the global effects of nuclear war. Her comparative analysis shows how the differing priorities, contingencies, and social policies of the three countries influenced their rehearsals of nuclear catastrophe. When the Cold War ended, so did these exercises, but, as Davis points out in her perceptive afterword, they have been revived-with strikingly similar recommendations-in response to twenty-first-century fears of terrorists, dirty bombs, and rogue states.

The United States and the international community must do more to prevent terrorists from buying, stealing, or building nuclear weapons. Pakistans highly enriched uranium (HEU) is vulnerable to both external and insider theft by Islamic terrorists and Taliban sympathizers; Russias massive HEU supplies are susceptible to insider theft; a large portion of civilian nuclear material around the world remains in weapons-usable form; and Russias shorter-range tactical nuclear weapons are highly attractive to terrorists because of their smaller size and ease of transport. To address these vulnerabilities, the United States should pursue unilateral initiatives such as a clear declaration of retaliation against regimes aiding nuclear terrorists, multilateral initiatives that include increasing funding to the woefully underfunded International Atomic Energy Agency, and bilateral initiatives and dialogue, particularly with Pakistan and Russia. Implementing these practical steps could significantly reduce the risk of a catastrophic nuclear attack by terrorist groups.

While deterrence was pursued through the threat of causing grievious hurt, vying with annihilation, diplomacy sought to construct a framework where the powerful sought to retain their advantage while pressing for reducing that of the adversary or completley dnying it to others.

Iran is aggressively seeking nuclear technology that could be used for making weapons -and its quest has set off alarms throughout the world. This widespread concern stems in part from Iran's uncertain intentions and recent history. Will it remain a revolutionary power determined to subvert its Sunni Arab neighbors, destroy Israel, and spread theocratic government to other lands? Or would an Iran with nuclear weapons merely defend its territory from foreign aggression and live in peace with its neighbors? Are the country's leaders and society willing to negotiate limits on nuclear capability and normalize relations with the West, or will they resist accommodation? Iran's Nuclear Ambitions provides a rare, balanced look into the motivations, perceptions, and domestic politics swirling around Iran. Shahram Chubin, an Iranian-born security expert, details the recent history of Iran's nuclear program and diplomacy. He argues that the central problem is not nuclear technology, but rather Iran's behavior as a revolutionary state, with ambitions that collide with the interests of its neighbors and the West. Topics include: The view from Tehran Iran's nuclear energy rationale Domestic politics, and decisionmaking Sources of concern, including the nature of Iran's regime Its nuclear infrastructure, Missile development, and terrorism Iran's negotiating strategy The international response Iran and regional security, including the U.S. as a threat and rival Iran's regional ambitions, and Israel Policy options

Bombs are as old as hatred itself. But it was the twentieth century--one hundred years of incredible scientific progress and terrible war--that brought forth the Big One, the Bomb, humanity's most powerful and destructive invention. In "The Bomb: A Life," Gerard DeGroot tells the story of this once unimaginable weapon that--at least since 8: 16 a.m. on August 6, 1945--has haunted our dreams and threatened our existence.

The Bomb has killed hundreds of thousands outright, condemned many more to lingering deaths, and made vast tracts of land unfit for life. For decades it dominated the psyches of millions, becoming a touchstone of popular culture, celebrated or decried in mass political movements, films, songs, and books. DeGroot traces the life of the Bomb from its birth in turn-of-the-century physics labs of Europe to a childhood in the New Mexico desert of the 1940s, from adolescence and early adulthood in Nagasaki and Bikini, Australia and Kazakhstan to maturity in test sites and missile silos around the globe. His book portrays the Bomb's short but significant existence in all its scope, providing us with a portrait of the times and the people--from Oppenheimer to Sakharov, Stalin to Reagan--whose legacy still shapes our world.

For thirty days I was close by him at historic events -- in the places where writers never are.

Before Britain could help the United States in the war against Saddam Hussein, Tony Blair faced a battle against his own voters, his own party, and his own allies in Europe. These were among the most tense and tumultuous weeks the world had seen since the fall of the Berlin Wall.

In thirty days, Blair took on his opponents and won.

Through it all, Peter Stothard had unprecedented access to Blair -- from Ten Downing Street and the House of Commons through the war summits in the Azores, Brussels, Belfast, and at Camp David. Stothard brings us inside the corridors of power during this extraordinary time, offering a vivid, up-close view of an enormously popular leader facing the challenge of his life.

We continue to face a choice with respect to nuclear weapons -- either to move safely toward their elimination or to remain their victim. A forty-year effort to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons is breaking down, and the likely acquisition of these weapons by terrorist groups is growing. In Fatal Choice, Richard Butler, a well-known and respected voice on the subject of nuclear weapons, argues that we are poised on the verge of a second and much more threatening nuclear arms race than the one experienced throughout the Cold War. This threat is clearly reflected in nuclear weapons development by India, Pakistan, Iraq, and North Korea. The revival by the Bush administration of missile defense will not deal with the problem but worsen it. Butler outlines the steps that can be taken to give effect to the right choice on nuclear weapons.

The highly acclaimed "Weapons for Victory" originally appeared in 1995, the fiftieth anniversary of the end of World War II. Now, in this paperback edition, Robert James Maddox provides a new introduction about the ongoing controversy related to the decision to bomb Hiroshima.

The North Korean nuclear program is headed in a dangerous direction. Yet the United States and its allies have not set forth a coherent or unified strategy to stop it. This Task Force, sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations, evaluates the challenges facing the United States in and around the Korean peninsula and assess American options for meeting them. The situation on the peninsula has deteriorated rapidly since October 2002, when North Korea admitted having a secret highly enriched uranium program that put it on course to produce fissile material for nuclear weapons. North Korea has since withdrawn from the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, asserted it possess nuclear weapons, and declared that it is reprocessing its spent nuclear fuel. Having initially emphasized the need for a negotiated solution, North Korea's recent rhetoric has stressed the deterrent value of nuclear weapons. Co-chaired by Morton I. Abramowitz and James T. Laney, and directed by Council Senior Fellow Eric Heginbotham, the Task Force makes specific recommendations to help guide U.S. foreign policy: 1) articulate a strategy around which U.S. regional partners can rally; 2) as part of that strategy, engage in a serious negotiating effort with North Korea and test its intentions by proposing an interim agreement; 3) secure the commitment of U.S. allies to take tougher action should talks fail, 4) restore the health of the U.S.-ROK alliance; 5) persuade China to take greater responsibility for resolving the crisis; and 6) appoint a full-time high-level coordinator for Korea.

This is measured in terms of "half-life"--the time required for one-half of the original substance to decay--which ranges from days to thousands of years for the bomb-produced radionuclides of principal interest. (See "Nuclear Half-Life" note.) Another factor which is critical in determining the hazard of radionuclides is the chemistry of the atoms. This determines whether they will be taken up by the body through respiration or the food cycle.

The definitive account of the precipitous and politically charged revival of national missile defense--now updated to address post-9/11 developments Even as America faces a world of difficult-to-detect, low-tech, unconventional threats, the Bush administration has put its faith in a missile defense system or "shield" to keep us all safe. There are only two problems: this may not be the sort of threat we should be focusing on and this system may not work anyway. The recent alarming news about North Korea's nuclear and missile programs has strengthened the administration's support for this extremely expensive and still unproven defense. Bradley Graham, the longtime Pentagon correspondent of The Washington Post, tells the long, strange story of how missile defense, once considered a relic of the Cold War, was revived during the 1990s to address an emerging Third World missile threat, particularly from North Korea, Iraq, and other "rogue states." Over the past half century, no proposed weapons system has drawn more argument or dollars than national missile defense, and Graham explores the origins of the enduring debate, the costs to the nation of having failed to resolve it, and the wisdom of continuing to pursue what we used to call "Star Wars."

'Everything about this story is astounding' Bryan Appleyard, Sunday Times "Trinity" was the codename for the test explosion of the atomic bomb in New Mexico on 16 July 1945. Trinity is now also the extraordinary story of the bomb's metaphorical father, Rudolf Peierls; his intellectual son, the atomic spy, Klaus Fuchs, and the ghosts of the security services in Britain, the USA and USSR. Against the background of pre-war Nazi Germany, the Second World War and the following Cold War, the book traces how Peierls brought Fuchs into his family and his laboratory, only to be betrayed. It describes in unprecedented detail how Fuchs became a spy, his motivations and the information he passed to his Soviet contacts, both in the UK and after he went with Peierls to join the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos in 1944. Frank Close is himself a distinguished nuclear physicist: uniquely, the book explains the science as well as the spying. Fuchs returned to Britain in August 1946 still undetected and became central to the UK's independent effort to develop nuclear weapons. Close describes the febrile atmosphere at Harwell, the nuclear physics laboratory near Oxford, where many of the key players were quartered, and the charged relationships which developed there. He uncovers fresh evidence about the role of the crucial VENONA signals decryptions, and shows how, despite mistakes made by both MI5 and the FBI, the net gradually closed around Fuchs, building an intolerable pressure which finally cracked him. The Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear device in August 1949, far earlier than the US or UK expected. In 1951, the US Congressional Committee on Atomic Espionage concluded, 'Fuchs alone has influenced the safety of more people and accomplished greater damage than any other spy not only in the history of the United States, but in the history of nations'. This book is the most comprehensive account yet published of these events, and of the tragic figure at their centre.