Command and Control: Eric Schlosser on nuclear weapons and the illusion of safety

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Investigative journalist Eric Schlosser looks at the margins of society and tells stories not often heard in the mainstream. His first book, Fast Food Nation (2001), helped start a revolution in how Americans think about what they eat. Over the years migrant farm workers in California, meat packers in Texas and Colorado, marijuana growers, pornographers and victims of violent crime have all been the focus of his reporting.

And now, in Command and Control, he’s taken on nuclear weapons with an often hair-raising account of accidents, near misses, heroism, and technological breakthroughs. Interweaving the minute-by-minute drama of an accident at a nuclear missile silo in rural Arkansas with an historical narrative that spans more than fifty years, he describes the critical efforts by American scientists, policymakers, and the military to secure nuclear weapons from theft, sabotage or unintentional detonation.

Using recently declassified documents and interviews with men who designed and handled nuclear weapons, Schlosser underlines the fact that the Gordian Knot of human fallibility and increasingly complex technology still present severe risk to humankind.

Mike Shuster is no stranger to the story of nuclear weapons. As an NPR correspondent for over 30 years, he covered Tehran to Moscow, with many points between and a front row seat to some of the most significant events in recent history.  Join these celebrated journalists, Schlosser and Shuster, at the Crawford Family Forum as they deconstruct the illusion of safety around nuclear weapons in today’s world.

GUESTS:

Eric Schlosser: author of The New York Times bestsellers Fast Food Nation and Reefer Madness. His work has appeared in The Atlantic Monthly, Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, Vanity Fair, and The Nation. He was also co-producer and the co-narrator of the award-winning documentary, Food, Inc., directed by Robert Kenner. His latest book is Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety.

Mike Shuster: former NPR correspondent.  For more than 30 years, most recently as the network's diplomatic correspondent, he covered Tehran to Islamabad, Berlin to Moscow, and was eye witness to some of the most significant events in recent history.

PROGRAM:

6:30pm - Doors Open
7:00pm - Program

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VIDEO: 

Down in a remote canyon near Los Alamos National Laboratory lies a facility known as the "Tunnel Vault," once one of the most secret and secure locations in the United States, it's the original post-WWII nuclear stockpile storage area.