Speaker 1: Nuclear explosions are caused by weapons such as h bombs
Speaker 1: or atom bombs. They are like ordinary explosions, only many
Speaker 1: times more powerful. They cause great heat and blast. They
Speaker 1: also make a cloud of deadly dust which falls slowly
Speaker 1: to the ground. This is what is called fall out.
Speaker 1: In my mind, real visceral fear of nuclear war just
Speaker 1: seems so twentieth century. Yes, I am showing my privilege,
Speaker 1: but I think of old black and white videos of
Speaker 1: duck and cover drills, of children hiding under their desks
Speaker 1: in their school classrooms with their heads down, of mushroom clouds,
Speaker 1: and guys with nasally accents warning me about the threat
Speaker 1: of communism. You are the target of those who would
Speaker 1: travel the liberties of free men. You are in the
Speaker 1: cross hairs of the bomb site. An enemy is centering
Speaker 1: on you. You are a citizen of the pre world,
Speaker 1: a citizen of the United States of America and the
Speaker 1: sanctity of US democracy. I think of the Cold War
Speaker 1: and a time when segregation was the norm and people
Speaker 1: were free from the soul sucking grasp of social media.
Speaker 1: But I know that's a skewed perspective. It's not just
Speaker 1: a problem of the past. It could still happen within
Speaker 1: our lifetime, not saying that in an alarmist way, just
Speaker 1: in a realistic way. That's a scary proposition, and it
Speaker 1: always has been. But the violence of war is justified
Speaker 1: by those who wage it, the messages the path towards
Speaker 1: justice or peace will be littered with casualties, and that
Speaker 1: nuclear destruction may be the price you have to pay
Speaker 1: to reach that end. Many people support the use of
Speaker 1: nuclear weapons if they believe will save lives of people
Speaker 1: in their own nation or in their favored group. And
Speaker 1: even when the threat of nuclear war looms, the issue
Speaker 1: is not top of mind for many people, and they
Speaker 1: don't take action to try to prevent it, sometimes because
Speaker 1: it's not clear whether their action would even make a difference.
Speaker 1: But some people have rejected the encouragement of nuclear warfare
Speaker 1: compelled to political action in order to protect human rights.
Speaker 1: I'm eas Jeff Coote and This Is Unpopular a podcast
Speaker 1: about people in history who didn't let the threat of
Speaker 1: persecution keep them from speaking truth to power. Andre Dmitrivich
Speaker 1: Saharov was born into a family of relatively well off
Speaker 1: intelligentsia in Moscow in ninety one, the year before the
Speaker 1: Soviet Union was established in Stalin became General Secretary of
Speaker 1: the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. His father was
Speaker 1: a physicist who wrote tech books and taught at the
Speaker 1: Linen Pedagogical Institute, and his mother took care of the family.
Speaker 1: Andre was educated at home by his father and private tutors,
Speaker 1: perhaps due to his parents distrust of schooling and standards
Speaker 1: of Soviet education, until he was about thirteen when he
Speaker 1: started going to school. But Andre continued learning outside of school,
Speaker 1: developing an interest in science fiction and science books, photography,
Speaker 1: and physics. In nineteen thirty eight, he enrolled in the
Speaker 1: physics program at Moscow State University. Three years later, Germany
Speaker 1: invaded the Soviet Union. At this point, physics students began
Speaker 1: contributing to the war effort. Andre extinguished bombs, repaired radio
Speaker 1: equipment for the army, and invented a magnetic device for
Speaker 1: finding strapnel and injured horses. While other physics students were
Speaker 1: accepted into the Air Force Academy, Andre did not pass
Speaker 1: his medical exam. Instead of going into military service, he
Speaker 1: was moved with the remaining university students and faculty to
Speaker 1: Ashkhabad in Central Asia, where he finished his studies. He
Speaker 1: graduated with honors in nineteen forty two. Andre turned down
Speaker 1: an opportunity to go to graduate school and study theoretical physics,
Speaker 1: opting to work at a cartridge factory in Olyanovsk, a
Speaker 1: city on the Volga River. Soon he was transferred to
Speaker 1: the Central Laboratory's metallurgical department, where he met his first
Speaker 1: wife and created a method for testing the armor piercing
Speaker 1: steel corps of fourteen point five millimeter bullets for anti
Speaker 1: tank guns. But in nineteen forty five, the same year
Speaker 1: the world's first atomic bombs were dropped over Japan, Andre
Speaker 1: decided to return to physics and began graduate work at
Speaker 1: the p n Elevative Institute of Physics of the Soviet
Speaker 1: Academy of Science. There he worked under Russian physicist Igor
Speaker 1: tam who went on to see the nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 1: Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with his colleagues for discovering
Speaker 1: Charon cough radiation. He produced scientific papers and gave lectures
Speaker 1: on nuclear physics and electricity, and he earned his candidate
Speaker 1: of Doctor of Science degree similar to a doctorate, for
Speaker 1: his research into cosmic right theory in nineteen forty seven,
Speaker 1: Andre had turned down invitations to work on the Soviet
Speaker 1: atomic bomb project twice, choosing to continue working with Tam,
Speaker 1: but as fate would have it, he would soon began
Speaker 1: working on bombs anyway. In nineteen forty eight, he and
Speaker 1: Tam co authored the paper the Outlined a principle for
Speaker 1: the magnetic isolation of high temperature plasma, the last the
Speaker 1: mainstream science world heard from them for two decades. As
Speaker 1: the Cold War geared up and the Soviet Union prepared
Speaker 1: to go up against you as nuclear power, Tam and
Speaker 1: his team, including Saharof, were pegged to help research the
Speaker 1: feasibility of a thermoew clear bomb. The hydrogen bomb or
Speaker 1: H bomb, nicknamed the super bomb, was the next step
Speaker 1: in the evolution of nuclear weapons. Saharrof helped develop the
Speaker 1: first Soviet thermonuclear bomb. Realizing the so called Trouba design
Speaker 1: that the Soviets were initially working off of for the
Speaker 1: H bomb was problematic, he proposed a new design on
Speaker 1: as sloka, or a layer cake as it's been translated.
Speaker 1: In this design, alternating layers of deuterium and uranium will
Speaker 1: be placed between the fisile core of an atomic bomb
Speaker 1: and the surrounding chemical high explosive. Another of Tamp's students,
Speaker 1: Vatali Ginsburg, built on this design. Sahhar Off was also
Speaker 1: instrumental in the conceptualization of the Tacomac reactor, a device
Speaker 1: that can produce controlled thermonuclear fusion power. In nineteen fifty
Speaker 1: the H bomb team was transferred to what was known
Speaker 1: as the Installation, a research and develop upment center in
Speaker 1: a secret Soviet city. On August twelfth, nineteen fifty three,
Speaker 1: a layer cake model hydrogen bomb was detonated. Saharof was
Speaker 1: honored with full membership in the Soviet Academy of Sciences
Speaker 1: with the first of three Hero of Socialist Labor medals
Speaker 1: he received and with a Stalin Prize, a huge salary,
Speaker 1: and a country house. And he went on to do
Speaker 1: more work on the H bomb, making major contributions to
Speaker 1: the design used in the Soviet H bomb tested in
Speaker 1: nineteen fifty five. Throughout all this time he was improving
Speaker 1: the AGE bomb. He was convinced that his work would
Speaker 1: help defend the Soviet Union and prevent a nuclear war.
Speaker 1: He maintained a perspective of socialist idolism and thought this
Speaker 1: was a path toward peace. He felt it was essential work.
Speaker 1: I couldn't ignore how horrible and inhuman our work was.
Speaker 1: But the war that had death ended was also inhuman.
Speaker 1: I wasn't a soldier in that war, but I felt
Speaker 1: like one in the scientific and technological war. He said
Speaker 1: that it was psychological that the work made it seem
Speaker 1: like all the sacrifices they had made in devastation they
Speaker 1: had suffered through the Second World War was not for nought.
Speaker 1: But in the late nineteen fifties, the potential consequences of
Speaker 1: atmospheric nuclear testing began to weigh on his conscience, leading
Speaker 1: to a complete one eight in his beliefs about nuclear weapons.
Speaker 1: We'll be right back after this quick break. The ethics
Speaker 1: of the work Andre saw her Off and everybody else
Speaker 1: working on nuclear bombs was doing is sticky stuff. The
Speaker 1: morality of building and constantly refining a weapon specifically made
Speaker 1: to kill hundreds of thousands of people in service of
Speaker 1: political goals is questionable, regardless of a person's intent. I mean,
Speaker 1: the topic of the ethics of war as a whole
Speaker 1: is a can of worms that you probably don't want
Speaker 1: to open at a dinner table. Saharab's thermonuclear research does
Speaker 1: have more practical applications and peaceful uses. But I think
Speaker 1: it's fair to say that Sav's work, despite the brainwashing
Speaker 1: influence of Soviet propaganda and Saharav's noble intentions, was not
Speaker 1: the most honorable and decent work. At the bottom line,
Speaker 1: he would be implicated in thousands of potential deaths in
Speaker 1: all the other health and environmental effects nuclear weapons have.
Speaker 1: It's hard to change our minds on the big issues
Speaker 1: and things we feel strongly about, let alone change other
Speaker 1: people's minds. Climate change, for instance, is pulling people in
Speaker 1: different directions right now. Some say the world is changing
Speaker 1: as it always has, while others believe we're living in
Speaker 1: the anthroposcene, a new epoch where humans are causing a
Speaker 1: major change on the climate and environment. Pew Research Center
Speaker 1: survey showed that in most of the twenty six countries surveyed,
Speaker 1: majorities saw climate change as a major threat to the nation.
Speaker 1: At the same time, many people in those countries saw
Speaker 1: climate change as a minor threat or no threat at all.
Speaker 1: And in the US, there is a wide gap between
Speaker 1: Democrats and Republicans on the issue, with Republicans being way
Speaker 1: less likely to say climate change is a major threat.
Speaker 1: All that's to say that opinion can be split on
Speaker 1: an issue even when a scientific consensus has been reached,
Speaker 1: in this case, that human activities have caused climate change,
Speaker 1: Especially when the issue goes beyond disagreement over facts and
Speaker 1: into the territory of politics and emotions. Still, people's opinions
Speaker 1: do shift, as a study out of Yale and George
Speaker 1: Mason University showed people change their minds about global warming
Speaker 1: for a number of self reported reasons, but mainly because
Speaker 1: they experienced the impacts of it, because they took it
Speaker 1: more seriously, and because they became more informed on the issue.
Speaker 1: Everybody thinks they're right, Everybody has an opinion. No one
Speaker 1: reads anymore. Everyone's divided. The Internet is making us stupid.
Speaker 1: No one thinks for themselves. Tribalism, YadA, YadA, YadA. I
Speaker 1: can be that grumpy get off my lawn person if
Speaker 1: I want. The fact is we're capable of switching our
Speaker 1: tunes and reaching new conclusions on issues over our lifetime.
Speaker 1: And when it comes to challenging other people to think
Speaker 1: differently and opposing accepted values and systems, it is possible
Speaker 1: to get people to evaluate their beliefs and potentially change them,
Speaker 1: even when it's about super controversial issues like warfare and
Speaker 1: weapons of mass destruction. Garian American physicist Edward Teller, dubbed
Speaker 1: the father of the hydrogen bomb, claimed that the US
Speaker 1: had developed a so called clean bomb with a negligible
Speaker 1: amount of radioactivity. He claimed that the dangers of radioactive
Speaker 1: fallout from such bombs was equivalent to being an ounce
Speaker 1: overweight or smoking one cigarette every two months. Most of
Speaker 1: the physicists at the installation agreed that radioactive fallout was
Speaker 1: not an issue that anyone needed to really worry about.
Speaker 1: In nineteen fifty seven, Igor Kurchatov asked Andre to write
Speaker 1: an article denouncing the clean bomb without talking about regular
Speaker 1: thermal nuclear weapons. But Andre went beyond the political and
Speaker 1: propagandistic aims of the assignment in his nineteen fifty eight
Speaker 1: journal article. Based on his calculations made using available biological data,
Speaker 1: a megatent blast from a clean h bomb would create
Speaker 1: enough radioactive carbon to kill six thousand, six hundred people
Speaker 1: over eight thousand years. That assessment was pretty similar to Tellers,
Speaker 1: but framed differently. Rather than minimize the effect on human lives,
Speaker 1: Sahrov's numbers emphasized that people were actually going to die
Speaker 1: because of the fallout, not just have days chopped off
Speaker 1: for their lifespan. The more testing of h bombs, the
Speaker 1: more people would die, and people should not take lightly
Speaker 1: their responsibility in this harm. What moral and political conclusions
Speaker 1: must be made from these numbers, he wrote. Stopping tests,
Speaker 1: he said, would save thousands of lives and reduce international tensions.
Speaker 1: The Soviet government had called for a temporary moratorium on
Speaker 1: nuclear tests, and that moratorium lasted for about two and
Speaker 1: a half years, But in nineteen sixty one, when Soviet
Speaker 1: leader Nikita Krushchev revoked the moratorium, saw Harov objected. He
Speaker 1: argued that starting testing again would not do much for
Speaker 1: them technically, but he had next to no Soviet support. Still,
Speaker 1: saw Harov obey orders from Kruschev to start preparations for testing.
Speaker 1: He headed the development of the fifty megatime so called
Speaker 1: star bomb, tested in October of nineteen sixty one, It
Speaker 1: was the most powerful bomb ever exploded on Earth. Saaf
Speaker 1: began to feel a personal and professional responsibility for preventing
Speaker 1: the harms of fallout. He believes that, in his words,
Speaker 1: atmospheric nuclear testing was a crime against humanity and no
Speaker 1: different than pouring deadly germs into a city water reservoir.
Speaker 1: He tried unsuccessfully to prevent the testing of two bombs
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty two, but his efforts to stop atmospheric
Speaker 1: nuclear testing did pay off. Saw her Off, with the
Speaker 1: help of his colleague Victor Adomski, proposed the idea of
Speaker 1: a partial band. In nineteen sixty three, the US, Great Britain,
Speaker 1: and the Soviet Union signed the Limited Test Band Treaty,
Speaker 1: which banned the testing of nuclear weapons in outer space,
Speaker 1: the atmosphere, and underwater, but let tests continue underground. Sahrov
Speaker 1: stayed at the installation, which he said would allow him
Speaker 1: to continue his work in banning testing, but he began
Speaker 1: focusing on fundamental science again, publishing papers on cosmology. He
Speaker 1: supported people who faced political discrimination and persecution, and he
Speaker 1: continued to write about nuclear disarmament, intellectual freedom, and the
Speaker 1: need to establish civil liberties in the Soviet Union. When
Speaker 1: anti ballistic missile defense became a key issue in US
Speaker 1: Soviet relations, saw Harof advised Soviet leaders to accept an
Speaker 1: American proposal for a moratorium on the defenses. He feared
Speaker 1: the technology. When an insight in arms rates and undermine
Speaker 1: the stability that mutually assured destruction brought. He asked to
Speaker 1: publish his argument in the Soviet press, but leadership denied
Speaker 1: that request, so in nineteen sixty eight he self published
Speaker 1: an essay called Reflections on Progress. He full coexistence in
Speaker 1: intellectual freedom, circulating it in an underground typewritten format. The
Speaker 1: essays spread to other countries. In the essay, Saharof called
Speaker 1: for disarmament and warned people of the threats humanity faced.
Speaker 1: Those included thermo nuclear extinction, ecological catastrophe, famine and uncontrolled
Speaker 1: population explosion, alienation and dogmatic distortion of our conception of reality.
Speaker 1: As Saharof put it, he denounced stalinism and criticized repression
Speaker 1: in the Soviet Union. He promoted the conversions of communists
Speaker 1: and capitalist systems in a form of democratic socialism, as
Speaker 1: well as cordial relations between the US and Soviet Union,
Speaker 1: and he emphasized the importance of freedom of opinion. Intellectual
Speaker 1: freedom is essential to human society. Freedom to obtain and
Speaker 1: distribute information, freedom for open minded and unfearing debate, and
Speaker 1: freedom from pressure, officialdom and prejudices. Such a trinity of
Speaker 1: freedom of thought is the only guarantee against an infection
Speaker 1: of people by mass myths, which, in the hands of
Speaker 1: treacherous hypocrites and demagogues, can be transformed into bloody dictatorship.
Speaker 1: Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility
Speaker 1: of a scientific, democratic approach to politics, economy, and culture.
Speaker 1: But freedom of thought is under a triple threat in
Speaker 1: modern society from the deliberate opium of mass culture, from cowardly,
Speaker 1: egotistic and philistine ideologies, and from the ossified dogmatism of
Speaker 1: a bureaucratic oligarchy and its favorite weapon, ideological censorship. Therefore,
Speaker 1: freedom of thought requires the defense of all thinking and
Speaker 1: honest people. Let's take a quick break. The essay got
Speaker 1: lots of attention in the Soviet Union and abroad. After
Speaker 1: its publication, Sahrov was banned from all military related research.
Speaker 1: He turned to theoretical physics and human rights work. In
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy, he and other Soviet dissidents formed the Moscow
Speaker 1: Human Rights Committee. He wrote text criticizing the Soviet government
Speaker 1: that earned him international recognition. After his wife died, he
Speaker 1: remarried to a doctor named Yelena Bonner, who was also
Speaker 1: an activist Saharav spoke out on many different issues of
Speaker 1: human rights, from the exile of the Tatar people of
Speaker 1: the Crimea to the government's use of punitive psychiatry. As
Speaker 1: he became known more for his activism, the Soviet Union
Speaker 1: and the press expressed their discontent with Saharov and his actions.
Speaker 1: Members of the Soviet Academy of Sciences signed open letters
Speaker 1: that denounced him, newspapers published letters attacking him. Still, in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy Sarev won the Nobel Peace Prize for his
Speaker 1: human rights activism in opposition to the abuse of power.
Speaker 1: The Soviet Union refused to give him permission to travel
Speaker 1: to Norway to get the prize, so his wife got
Speaker 1: it for him. When Saharav publicly opposed the nineteen seventy
Speaker 1: nine Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and called for a boycott
Speaker 1: of the Olympics in Moscow, the Soviet Union responded by
Speaker 1: stripping him of his honors and exiling him in Gorky,
Speaker 1: a city on the Volga River, and cutting off his
Speaker 1: contact with friends and colleagues. He remained there for seven years,
Speaker 1: subject to surveillance and harassment by the KGB or Soviet
Speaker 1: secret police. Bonnard was also banished to Gorky for her
Speaker 1: anti Soviet activities. During his time in exile, Sahara wrote
Speaker 1: memoirs and appeals for persecuted human rights activists. He also
Speaker 1: wrote essays that were published in the Western press and
Speaker 1: went on hunger star in protest of the Soviet government's actions.
Speaker 1: In December of nineteen eighty six, with a new policy
Speaker 1: of Paris Stroika or moderate political and economic restructuring, Soviet
Speaker 1: leader Mikhail Gorbachev let Bonner and Saharof return to Moscow.
Speaker 1: Sahara began traveling abroad and meeting with politicians. In nineteen
Speaker 1: eighty nine, he was elected a member of the First
Speaker 1: Congress of People's Deputies representing the Academy of Sciences, and
Speaker 1: his honors were restored. Saharaf continued to advocate for human
Speaker 1: rights in Soviet reform until he died of a heart
Speaker 1: attack on December fourteenth, nineteen eighty nine, in Moscow. Andre
Speaker 1: Saharov's story is far from a tale of lifelong commitment
Speaker 1: to human rights, fearless resistance, and perfect human decency. It's
Speaker 1: not quite the tale of the apathetic, cruel grinch growing
Speaker 1: his heart to three times its original size, either, but
Speaker 1: his story does have a reversal worthy of any well
Speaker 1: written by a graphical drama. Sahrov had a hand in
Speaker 1: the production and testing of weapons that would do harm
Speaker 1: to and kill a lot of people. He continued to
Speaker 1: work in the military industrial complex even as his advocacy
Speaker 1: for peace, human rights, and disarmament grew. His willingness to
Speaker 1: think and reevaluate the work he was doing and its consequences,
Speaker 1: led to him using the power and the privilege he
Speaker 1: had to fight for human rights and speak out against
Speaker 1: Soviet ideology and actions. Sahrov's dissidents took time to develop,
Speaker 1: but the outcome was a person who promoted peace and
Speaker 1: progress and inspired political change. What Sav's evolution can show
Speaker 1: us is that drastic changes in thought and action are
Speaker 1: not impossible. Education, critical thinking, and awareness of actionable solutions
Speaker 1: can spark a consciousness that empowers people to question values
Speaker 1: and systems that may be right for cha. Ange our
Speaker 1: producer is Andrew Howard, Holly Fry and Christopher Hasciotis are
Speaker 1: our executive producers, and you can subscribe to the show
Speaker 1: on Apple Podcasts, the I Heart Radio app, or wherever
Speaker 1: you get your podcast and if you are so inclined,
Speaker 1: You can send us an email at Unpopular at I
Speaker 1: heart media dot com. We'll be back next week with
Speaker 1: another episode of Unpopular