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see you for the next reading in september so please check your inboxes for an e-mail. i am honored to be hosting you hear the author of the new book living with our nuclear arsenal, courage resistant and existential peril. he's a reporter for the "washington post" and has written on a wide variety of topics. he's from buffalo new york and tonight he will be in conversation with ellen young from the tv news producer on the documentary nuclear obscurity.

without further ado, please give a warm welcome to. hello, helen. >> what motivated you to write this book? >> guest: a colleague of mine was working on a piece about how the nuclear arsenal is aging and while she was working on this piece of, they offend this and she thought someone should write about it. i read on a range of topics and it seems a very curious story.

an article about an 82-year-old catholic sister come of the facility where we store all of our uranium. as i started to report and tell the story in a responsible way there was more context needed. what motivated me initially is how much i didn't know about it. guilt is what fueled me. i knew nothing about the arsenal and i thought maybe a there's

this story that started the -- >> guest: the facilities is an important place in the united states. >> guest co. it's the national security complex. it is the site we enriched uranium 71 years ago that was

the first mission then in support of the arsenal. they no longer enrich uranium but they store it. >> host: that's the highly enriched uranium materials. the facility they were able to reach wa was a.m. and one. >> guest: it is the highly enriched uranium material facility. it's what we use in atomic bombs, tons of it. it's the greatest stockpile of material on the planet is a pretty dangerous building.

>> host: the three people at the heart of the film there is a dramatic theme of preparing to undertake their actions. let's talk about the three peoplwho threepeople are. >> guest: the activists the book focuses on his michael wally. they are lifelong christian activists. she's 86 now and is still stro strong. she became a catholic sister and had years teaching in africa. when she retired.

she decided to stay in one of the best in the planet. when her company traded is at the house in washington and greatest from iowa and he is in a depressed committed to action. this particular action. they decided this was the time and the site to do it.

four years ago this weekend. >> it was shocking because there is another country for safekeeping. you detailed there were four separate congressional hearings that were held and how no one could trespass. it could have been a tremendous amount of interest is how this could have been. there were four hearings held and the then do that a lot of reporting on what went wrong

that night on july 8, 2012 that allowed this to happen. what did go wrong? >> guest: everything that could go wrong did. it's a site that was run by private contractors to. at the custodians othe custodiat are not deployed. there was a culture of complacency. when the activists broke int int was a site.

because of this culture that's the main reason. they were supposed to cover the area. there were several in the area -- >> host: isn't it true they were not working for six months or so? >> no one really thought anything like this would have been. everyone's lost in paperwork and

the rockers he. speak to give us a sense of how serious a security breach it was. what could have happened if they were not pacifists but a group of terrorists. the time they had. they could have stolen highly enriched. if you get the two properly formed types with.

the chances of that happening are very slim but a nun in the facility is. so that's the first scenario people could get into the building and caused this kind of destruction. it was designed to withstand the impact of a jet so whether or not there could be an explosion to get into the building is highly unlikely that i felt one has to think about those nightmare scenarios and a level of less magnitude breaking into the site there could have been a misunderstanding and overreaction and people could have gotten killed.

they cut their wages. the guard force could have shot them dead and so that's another kind of nightmare scenario. >> you get a comprehensive analysis of the whole issue of how many are there in the world right now and in the united gates? they are divided up into the weapons that are deployed and not.

about 92% are the u.s. and russia but as we speak there's about 2,000 nuclear weapons that are deployed which means the they are ready to fly in the upper plains region and also in the submarines controlling the pacific and atlantic. the closest might be in the ocean right now. >> host: what is the system in the u.s. for securing the nuclear weapons?

you noted that the contractors versus the federal government over here. would we be then the department of evil? >> guest: they are the custody of the department of energy. one of the main missions is the nuclear weapon material. as has been the case for many decades, we hire federal contractors to do this kind of work so department of energy run by for-profit corporations and

they cut corners. i would argue if there's anywhere you don't want to be cutting corners think of a system that's in place. >> guestible] >> you also detailed a there are some cases of waste and inefficiency. >> the site in question one of

the reasons they chose that is because for years now it was the uranium processing facility. they knew that it was over budget and running behind schedule. it was one way that they were reinvesting in the arsenal so they said we are going to break into the site which was supposed to be originally 3 million then it became 6 billion. the expense of tens of millions of dollars on the design phase.

the apart from taxpayer dollars they say we shouldn't be building these buildings anyway. >> you say the cost was supposed to be 600,000 to a billion dollars in 2005 and then it grew and they found out the ceiling was 13 feet to and it costs something like half a million dollars. >> funny people use that as a way to criticize if you have the contractors running the show

these mistakes will continue to be made a. >> the united states is about to make a huge investment in this arsenal. >> we are long past due for refurbishing the delivery syst system. the terminology is absurd. when we are long past due for refurbishing them for the modernization we are going to continue to possess them that's

what the government is saying. there's an estimate that we will be spending $1 trillion to do that and to refurbish the warheads and that is an absurd amount that if we pledge to get rid of them which we did in the treaty now 45 years ago committing over the next 30 years isn't a good-faith move including those in washington. do we need to be able to deliver weapons by air, sea and mail

from north dakota and montana. can you get rid of something and still meets the objectives? if they do it's because the price tag. >> i was just going to ask we were in the middle of a campaign and we have sent heard much about this investment. >> we revert to whose finger is on the button. that is the preeminent power

essentially under the control of one person so it's funny how we don't have to go into detail about them but we can talk about our week coupled with this person. it will come as no surprise he has been contradictory. he said they are portable and at the same time he said maybe south korea and japan should have their own. in a way he's made a some people talk about the lettering.

the only time i've heard hillary clinton talked about it i can't remember what organization they were from the p60 you think we should be spending a million dollars on this and she was shaking hands moving quickly and said it doesn't make much sense i will have to think about it and she kept going. that's the only time someone has asked her directly on camera about it although the plot from last week said while we maintain this arsenal there is no excess funding for it. as far as why we don't talk about it more -- i know this is a long answer but there's three reasons we don't talk about it in the culture anymore. i was born in 1983. i don't remember the cold war.

when the u.s. was right to die with the soviet union i didn't have that kind of experience growing up so that's one of the reasons. with these weapons can do is immense and abstract. they haven't been used in combat in 71 years were detonated aboveground. the consequence is abstract and hidden at this point and the

third point i ran into and maybe you did with your work it's a highly complicated classified realm and not an easy topic to get information from. there's also a lot of jargon that make them seem like machines. for that reason they are easy to ignore. >> they commissioned a study for why people are not engaged on this issue and one of the points

i was raised is people are paralyzed by it. it's difficult to wrap your head around so i let somebody with a higher pay grade deal with it, not me. they found some video games use nuclear weapons so people be quite done with the positive like using a weapon to zap your enemy is looke has become positn some instances. >> the nuclear weapons were something that was terrible. after a come int in the popular culture there is a narrative.

one other thing that's important i think every generation had enough to deal with one at a time and it's environmental climate change moving point to the contest the point of no return and if you want to throw on top of that we could distinguish instantly rather than gradually into that over in your lj. of the last thinat the last thiy about that is you talk about

people leading the government ae care of it but people in congress have no idea. >> if you say how many nuclear weapons do we have the answer is -- there are people that should know this but don't. they are not quite sure. >> we do know the number has dropped dramatically. we had something like 60 or 70,000. so we have a reduced stockpile. has that cost dropped with the number? >> it has gone up.

the costs to maintain and modernize them has gone up which would concern any normal tax paying citizen so there's a lot of work done to decrease the warheads on the planet. the government is fond of saying that it's reduced by 80%. right now because of this modernization program, we are making them more precise and customizable. even though the number has gone

down the capability is more refined so the work is continuing up the pace even though us and a reduction in the struck by a. >> let's talk about the capability. you gave an interesting example and how much fissile material was used. compare it to today's bombs that dropped on hiroshima killed 160,000 people in one post with. if you use 140 pounds and underwent fission, compare that to today's powerful weapons and how are they? >> they have th

>> they had the total amount of highly enriched uranium so you can destroy it. the most powerful nuclear warhead is 20 times as power. we have weapons that can do that 20 times more over. we decimated the weapons in the pacific that were a thousand times the power. we used to have greater yields

a. >> i want to pick up on the climate issue because so many people today are engaged in a. you make a connection between climate change and nuclear war. >> the example is india and pakistan and they think there's some kind of a warfare and the comments of growing in the arsenal and who have territory. the one i quoted above talks about getting fresh wate freshwe

health of agriculture if there's any case to fight over food and water in that area that could escalate into nuclear exchange and there are climatologists that say if they are exchanged iwere exchangedin india and pakd kill 2 billion people not just because of the destination but the debris and the atmosphere. there's a lot of people trying to make noise now and even though countries affect nuclear weapons it affects us. that's how it could lead to a conventional conflict that could be bad for everyone.

>> that would essentially create a mini ice age. >> it's the concept of declaring winter. there's 15,000 you have billions of people at risk. >> throughout the book there is a secrecy and a portion on the manhattan project. the level of secrecy was inten intense. i thought they were actually making ice cream every time.

it'what's interesting to me in e book is that it continues. >> it's always been a secretive realm classifying information. it was the secrecy that launched itself she was in the building of the physicists in the project and recalled working on something she remembers thinking that doesn't make sense.

so if that motivated her by u.s. has been more open and transparent and the nations of of the world and there are annoying about the policies of using them or not using them. getting information is like a pulling teeth. ticket information it was 2013 or 14 and it took two years to get a response. there's a hundred pages and every single one was blacked o

out. the fact there's still information withheld. the it's still a place where part of jury selection is figuring out. i was there for the jury selection. my father and uncle worked the there.

it was 2013 so it's very much a. you can't have intelligent citizens. the action they took that night. it's kind of an intrepid strain that began as others have a nuclear weapon was breaking into the facility. in 1980 there've been many done.

the idea is they've ar were tryg to flush the word of god. we will start chipping away. at the side they were chipping away at the foundation of the building because the words of isaiah. and i wind up with the first

step of transferring to the place that doesn't manufacture and maintain bombs. [inaudible] >> in my film i have two actions i look at. in the 2009 there was an estimated 1300 warheads and all over the age of 16 they were able to get where the weapons were stored.

there's a chain reaction that causes a. in 2009 said she's a trial. defendant visited a couple minutes later. the activists in the trial in tacoma and blocks the dates right to raise the same defense and in both cases they were shut down. the action is one part of it and then the actual trial.

i think i can say on behalf of to get these issues in a court of law, essentially it's threatening to use 80s so some they try to bring into court like the justification that they had to act because they were committing an international war crimes. if you believe they are the ones complaining that the law by doing these things.

we are crafted after the fall of the third reich if your country is doing something illegal you should stand up. but they do durinthat's what tht phase. interestingly enough there is a captain who is now retired but was in the navy for years, using the weapon does violate international humanitarian law because weapons cannot be contained or discriminate between combatants and noncombatants. they destroy.

they try to raise the differences in both cases and i'm not how. it's interesting that a there's slightly less but you don't. the lack of being able to control the. you could have the two countries that change the. he made the speech in prague in 2009 where he pursued a world

without nuclear weapons and. how do you assess progress on the issue? on the nuclear weapons in the soviet union and nonproliferation, when he got to the senate he was interested. he traveled with other senators to. the first speech abroad was

2009. they have to endorse this plan which the control and ratified so that was a compromise he ma made. aware of what the nuclear weapons can duty presided over the decision to reconnect to that. at the same time not to have another nation of the world join the club and give credit to we

can talk about until the cows come home preventing iran from the nuclear weapons which was the case before hand. so there are people who think that's a great idea. it also helps to talk about securing the material. so he's done a lot to keep the world somewhat focused on this and at the same time, a lot of people say. i think you talk to most people and they would say that it's made mix of a lawsuit that's

under way. first let's talk about the island. >> weeded them in the marshall islands whicisland which is an nation. we develop our big nuclear testing their and it was all over the there was the equivalent of setting off 1.6 every day for 12 years.

they were seen thousands of miles away. fallout from these explosions it's kind of powerful. anyway we did that for 12 years of imagine it's not very good for the people that have bee hae living there. it's not just for compensation because we paid compensation and said we are sorry for what we did, here's some money. we are unique in the world because we felt it would it's

like. that gives us the view for the nonproliferation treaty signed in exchange for not -- the states will get theirs. they said enough is enough but also every nuclear arms nation and i think it is an undertow story.

i was floored by the testing revisiting. in addition to that it made sense. just like they were alleging they thought the same thing, the nations are not in good faith we will sue them. it's between these three activists. >> the nuclear nonproliferation treaty is the one they tend to give up in every five years it

has reviewed and last year was the conference you covered. you write in the book it's a carnival with diplomats and wants colliding in the general assembly building the first time in five years. every five years everyone gets together to review the progress on it. this was in may of last year. they are traine trying to move s forward and agitate. one of the goals is to come up

with an action item so that was kind of the goal and you can make this on the allegations there. there is one country that objects and then you have to wait for another official. this past may it kind of fell apart. at the end of the u.s. and canada -- >> it was a cliffhanger, right?

>> we will go somewhere else after this and i'm happy to take your questions but there were some who wanted to put language in the document saying we need to establish a zone of in the middle east. there is no clear. so this is the next step in to countries like egypt we want to start the process in that regi region. the problem with that is israel has nuclear weapons and although they haven't offended that they

have about 80 so they are the only nation in the middle east and they are a strong ally with israel. it was other middle eastern nations wanting this language in their. they all had to be a on the case and it all fell apart to be so y needed to create years.

activists and officials disclosed the chancthis wasthe e steps forward. it was very deceiving to watch. >> the humanitarian pledge when is that? >> it's saying no country should have nuclear weapons that we need them right now for our security. we will never get rid of them. this is written down in the official white house policy. i'm paraphrasing but a but thiss

been would maintain the arsenals that there's of the same movemee waited long enough. we are going to organize a convention and to get together and say these are not to be possessed. athe u.s. will send it to convention. that is the goal of the moment it doesn't matter if the u.s. is

here. we just hope you will catch up. [applause] [inaudible] if you were to ask every political leader in the world but given the fact that -- you

gave a good answer s slithers tt conundrum and how much that bill can do. i don't know the answer to that.