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In a 35-year career in the U.S. Navy, Carroll rose to rear admiral -- and became known for his strong stance on global nuclear disarmament. In 1996, 16 years after he retired from the Navy, he joined 61 other generals and admirals from 17 countries in a public call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. Carroll once said that during the Cold War, "I frequently stood nuclear alert watch on aircraft carriers. For a period of time my assigned target was an industrial complex and transportation hub in a major city in Eastern Europe.... My bomb alone would have resulted in the death of an estimated 600,000 human beings. Multiply that by 40 or 50 times and you can understand what two carriers alone would have done." That realization convinced him that humanity must step away from nuclear weapons, as they are "worthless for any rational military purpose," since "fought with nuclear weapons, the war destroys whatever the objective might have been." Adm. Carroll died Feb. 19 at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC, after suffering a heart attack. From This is True for 16 February 2003 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Bernard Lown List Price: $35.00 Amazon Price: $23.10 Editorial Review: In Prescription for Survival, physician Bernard Lown tells the extraordinary story of how a group of Soviet and American doctors came together to stop nuclear proliferation and ended up winning the Nobel Peace Prize and influencing the course of history. In 1981, Lown and a Soviet colleague, Evgeni Chazov, launched a USA-USSR medical antinuclear movement: International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW). Over the next four years Lown and Chazov recruited more than 150,000 doctors worldwide, met with numerous world leaders, and, after a surprising amount of adventure, intrigue and conflict, in 1985 accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of IPPNW. More than a memoir, this book sheds new light on what really drove and still drives the nuclear arms race, the critical importance of citizen involvement in social change efforts, and what Lown terms the ongoing epidemic of militarism, which a glance to recent headlines shows is still very much with us.  By: Jonathan Schell List Price: $16.00 Amazon Price: $10.88 Editorial Review: From the bestselling author of The Fate of the Earth, a provocative look at the urgent threat posed by America?s new nuclear policies When the cold war ended, many Americans believed the nuclear dilemma had ended with it. Instead, the bomb has moved to the dead center of foreign policy and even domestic scandal. From missing WMDs to the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, nuclear matters are back on the front page. In this provocative book, Jonathan Schell argues that a revolution in nuclear affairs has occurred under the watch of the Bush administration, including a historic embrace of a first-strike policy to combat proliferation. The administration has also encouraged a nuclear renaissance at home, with the development of new generations of such weaponry. Far from curbing nuclear buildup, Schell contends, our radical policy has provoked proliferation in Iran, North Korea, and elsewhere; exacerbated global trafficking in nuclear weapons; and taken the world into an era of unchecked nuclear terror. Incisive and passionately argued, The Seventh Decade offers essential insight into what may prove the most volatile decade of the nuclear age.  By: Michael Karpin List Price: $15.00 Amazon Price: $11.25 Editorial Review: 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.  By: Richard Smoke Amazon Price: $64.38 Editorial Review: This definitive survey examines the impact of nuclear weaponry on national security issues. Written by an experienced author and founder of the Peace and Common Security Institute in Berkeley, California, this text describes how current nuclear dilemmas have developed out of past choices and events. The final chapter of this chronologically organized text covers events that took place from 1985-1991, making the material relevant to the post-Cold War era.  By: Douglas FrantzCatherine Collins List Price: $14.99 Amazon Price: $10.19 Editorial Review: The world has entered a second nuclear age. For the first time since the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear annihilation is on the rise. Should such an assault occur, there is a strong likelihood that the trail of devastation will lead back to Abdul Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani father of the Islamic bomb and the mastermind behind a vast clandestine enterprise that has sold nuclear secrets to Iran, North Korea, and Libya. Khan's loose-knit organization was and still may be a nuclear Wal-Mart, selling weapons blueprints, parts, and the expertise to assemble the works into a do-it-yourself bomb kit. Amazingly, American authorities could have halted his operation, but they chose instead to watch and wait. Khan proved that the international safeguards the world relied on no longer worked. Journalists Douglas Frantz and Catherine Collins tell this alarming tale of international intrigue through the eyes of the European and American officials who suspected Khan, tracked him, and ultimately shut him down, but only after the nuclear genie was long out of the bottle. |
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