Good evening, everyone. How is everybody doing tonight . [applause] thanks for coming out. Im the host and curator of the weekly reading series. We are here with the great authors and readers like yourself, so i appreciate you all coming together for a fantastic evening. Before we get started, lets turn off our cell phones. If you want to do the social media thing, you are welcome to do so. I want to let you know that we will be signing books after the reading and have copies for sale in the corner. So please, stick around and support this hardworking author behind me. Im going to send out a mailing list. If you are not already on the list please, sign up it is the best way to find out what is happening here and we have lots of great stuff. So please com, circulate that ad the room. Cspan is here filming for booktv. If you are curious why we have a video camera, thats whats going on. And hopefully you can tell your friends to catch the broadcast at another time. Next week, we are off and in fact, we are off doing all of august. So we will see you back for the next reading in september. So, please check your inboxes for emails about that. Now on to tonights main events. Event. I am honored to be hosting dan back here to the author of the important new book about living with Nuclear Arsenal almighty courage resistance and existential peril in the nuclear age. Hes a reporter for the Washington Post, and hes written on a wide variety of topics, news stories, narratives and profiles on local, national and foreign assignments. Hes from buffalo, new york, and he lives in washington, d. C. Tonight, hell be in conversation with helen young, a tv news producer who is currently in production on the documentary nuclear insecurities. Without further ado, please give them a warm welcome. [applause] hell ar how are you in wht motivated you to write this book packs to the the of sexually happenstance. A colleague working on security covered a piece on how the Nuclear Arsenal in the u. S. Was aging. While she was working on this piece, an activist broke into the weapons facility and that story doesnt fit into what she was reporting on but she thought someone should write about it so it made its way to me at the Washington Post. So i wrote on a range of topics. It came to me and it seems like a curious story and it was just going to be a normal article about an exchange of a catholic sister and two of her fellow pacifists that got into the security in the u. S. The facility we store all of our highly enriched uranium for Nuclear Weapons currently in a warhead somewhere. As i started to report on that and educate myself on that topic to tell the story in a responsible way i realized it was a far larger story to tell in the context of that was needed in the normal kind of feature story that would allow. And i think what motivated me initially is how much i didnt know about it. It is a very important place in the United States. Tell us more about what it is. This facility they broke into is called the y12 National Security complex. It sounds like its doing useful things and some could say it is doing useful things. It is the site at which we enrich all of the uranium for the bomb that was dropped on hiroshima. It was created during the Manhattan Project to enrich uranium. That was its First Mission and the mission since then has changed and diversified but its always been in support of the arsenal. We have machines work for Nuclear Weapons, they no longer enrich uranium but they store it and thats whats got the facility that stores at all. Thats the highly enriched uranium facility. Yes. So the facility that they actually were able to reach is a very important one, right . Yes its called the highly enriched uranium material facility. Its just a big storehouse for the type of fuel we use in an atomic bomb, tons of it, hundreds of tons. The exact amount is classified, but a lot of people say it is the greatest stockpile on the planet. Its a pretty important and dangerous building. The three people who are really at the heart of your film, the three activists, you begin your book with this very dramatic scene of them preparing to undertake their action. Lets talk about who these three people are. Sure. The three activists that the book focuses on, Michael Wally and greg, theyre all lifelong christians and activists, peace activist. Sister meagan was 82 at the time she is 86 now and still going strong. She she was born in manhattan, raised in manhattan, she was born during the depression and grew up as the Manhattan Project was getting going at columbia university. She became a catholic sister and sister of the holy child of jesus and she spent 40 years teaching in africa. She was building schools, teaching ideology in nigeria. When she decided to retire from her work in africa, she came back to the u. S. And instead of, she decided to break into one of the most secure facilities on the planet. Her two compatriots who is a vietnam war veteran and has lived in washington for about 20 years now at the catholic worker house in washington and greg is from iowa and he is a long time anti nuclear war activists who have committed actions like this many times before. He creates these intrepid acts of civil resistance which involve the weapons facility. This particular action at y12 was his sixth action. He served multiple years in prison for committing these actions. The three of them came together and decided this was the time and place to do it and they hiked over a wooded ridge in the middle of the night, four years ago this weekend. They got as far as they did and they are the reason we are all sitting here right now. Now when the story broke, obviously theres a tremendous, it was shocking because y12 is where other countries bring their Nuclear Materials for safekeeping so as you detail in the book, there were four separate hearings that were held how could an 82yearold catholic nun trespass on this facility so when the story broke , theres a large amount of interest in getting to the bottom of how this could happen. There were four separate congressional hearings and then you did a lot of great reporting on what went wrong that night at y12 on july 28, 2012 that allowed this to happen. What did what did go wrong . Well everything that could go wrong up to a point went wrong. This is a site that is run by private contractors, the department of energy, this custodian of warheads that are not deployed, and these contractors that run the site there was a complacency at the site, it was a site that was dealing with a thousand false alarms every day caused by fear and foliage and so when these three activists broke in, they were breaking into a site that was so used to the alarm going off that it didnt really matter that they were going off even in the middle of the night. So despite the fact that the alarm going off showed a pathway of intrusion, they were dismissed. That was because of this culture that was used to false alarms. Thats really the main reason. They were also, it came out that the Security Camera that was supposed to cover the area where they were intruding was not working at all and in fact there were multiple cameras around this area that were not working and so this was set up to happen basically. Wasnt it true that the cameras were not working for six months. Yes there was a maintenance backlog for all of these security malfunctions. Cameras wouldnt be fixed for months, obviously there was a false alarm issue that was not being taken care of and so these maintenance issues with language i dont think anyone really thought that anything like this would happen so everything got lost in paperwork and bureaucracy and these activists just happen to capitalize on this site that had gotten very lax in its security posture. Given the defense of how serious the Security Breach was, weve talked to a lot of experts, what could have happened if these were not pacifists but a group of terror. There are some people, some Security Experts who say with the time these activists had outside the building, if they they had wanted to cause mayhem, they could have brought conventional forces with them, blown a hole hole in the wall of this facility, stolen highly enriched uranium, and i have to stress, the chances of this scenario are extremely small, but if you get to properly form tons of uranium you can take a 50pound chunk and drop it from 6 feet on another chunk and cause a nuclear explosion. The chances of that happening are very slim, but you could argue that the chances of an 82yearold non breaking into the most secure facility in the time zone is pretty slim too. People bent on mayhem could get into this building and cause that kind of destruction. This building was designed to withstand the impact of a jet so whether or not a band of terrace could have an explosion that could get into the building is highly unlikely, but for myself i always go back to what was pretty unlikely that these people got as far as they did so i think one has to think about those nightmare scenarios. Even on the last magnitude, breaking into the site could have caused harm to the activist, there couldve been a misunderstanding and overreaction and people couldve gotten killed. They worked their way through fences through a zone of this facility that was a lethal force zone. Thats authorize for the guard force there could have shot him dead and there were signs posted saying if youre in here that could happen. Thats another kind of scenario that could have happened. Lets broaden the subject a little bit and talk about Nuclear Weapons in general. You do give this very comprehensive analysis of the whole issue. How many Nuclear Weapons do we have in the world right now . And how many in the United States . Does everyone have a drink . All told theres about 15000 Nuclear Weapons on the planet right now. Of course they are divided into weapons that are awaiting dismantlement and weapons that are retired and their divided into weapons that are deployed and nondeployed. The total number were added 15000 about 92 of those are owned by the u. S. And russia, but right now as we speak, the u. S. Has about 2000 Nuclear Weapons that are deployed which means they are sitting on the tops of missiles ready to fly, both in the upper plains region of the United States in north dakota and Montana Wyoming nebraska and colorado and in submarines that are patrolling the pacific and the atlantic. Loaded and ready to go. The closest one to new york, guess it would depend where the submarines are in the atlantic right now. Nuclear weapons . Fullscale Nuclear Weapons . No. In connecticut they make and manufacture submarines occasionally, but the closest might be in the ocean right now. What is the system in the u. S. For securing our Nuclear Weapons. You do some really great reporting about the contractors versus the federal government over spears. Talk about that. So when Nuclear Weapons are not on a missile were not on a bomber or not on a submarine, they are the custody of the department of energy which i didnt even know when i began reporting on this. I thought the department of energy dealt with the power grid and renewable energy, but one of their Main Missions is Nuclear Weapons and nuclear material. As has been the case for many decades, this is true of a lot of the government, we hire federal contractors to do this kind of highly specialized work and so there are plenty of sites around the country that technically belong to the doe but are run by forprofit corporations who kind of police themselves and do their own oversight and cut corners because they are forprofit corporations. I would argue that if theres anywhere you dont want to be cutting corners its protecting this type of material, but this is a system thats in place. Most of the sites are run by these companies. Either the management and operation of the sites themselves or the security force, the manpower force for physicals security. Right, and you also detailed, because of the way this system is set up with the private contractors in the federal managers there are some glaring cases of waste and inefficiency, case in point the new facility thats going up at y12. Tell us about that. So this site in question that these activists broke into, one of the reasons they chose the site was because of the construction project that has been underway for years now and its called the uranium processing facility and they knew the site was planned, they knew it was over budget and running behind schedule and that constructing this facility was, in a sense, one way the u. S. Was reinvesting in its Nuclear Arsenal which they object too. They said theyre gonna break into the site to call attention to the project which was supposed to be 3 Million Dollars originally and then it became 6 billion now people say it might cost 20 billion. Its been quite the slowmotion catastrophe. Theyve spent tens of millions of dollars on the design phase of the facility before they realized that they designed a facility with ceilings that were too short for the machinery that had to go in there. Theres really been no big penalty for the contractors in charge of this. Its construction project that has run amok. Apart from being a waste of taxpayer dollars, these activists who broke into the facility say we should not be building these buildings anyway because we dont need stateoftheart facilities for weapons we should be getting rid of. Right, i think you you say in the book that originally the cost of the uranium processing facility was supposed to be 600000 1 billion in 2005 and then it grew to 19 billion then they found out that the ceiling was 13 feet too low and that design defect cost Something Like a half Million Dollars. I think more than that. Yes, plenty of people have used that as a way to criticize this contractor system, but if you have forprofit contractors running the show without proper oversight, these kinds of problems are going to be made. Speaking about money, the United States is about to make a Huge Investment in its Nuclear Arsenal. Tell us about that. So we are long past due for refurbishing both our warheads, the bombs themselves and the Delivery System which, theres a lot of terminology in the field that is kind of absurd and i find myself using it, the Delivery System is the thing that brings him to where theyre going. The missiles, the aircraft, that kind of thing. Again were long past due for refurbishing them. The last time we had a wholesale recapitalization and modernization was in the 80s, and so if for going to continue to possess them they have to work and be safe and secure. Of course thats what the government is saying. Theres an estimate that says if were going to be spending 1 trillion over the next 30 years to do that, to make new submarines and new bombers a new missiles and to refurbish these warheads and a lot of people think that is an absurd amount, that if we have pledged to get rid of them, which we did when we signed the non proliferation treaty 45 years ago, committing to spend a trillion dollars is not the goodfaith move so there are plenty of people including ex officials in washington who say this is an absurd amount and theres a better way to do this and do we need to be able to deliver weapons by sea, by air, by land or can we go to just submarines or submarines and bombers. Why do we need 450 missile silos, can we get rid of some of this and still meet our security objective . So i dont think Nuclear Weapons did a lot of press these days but if it does its because of the price tag. The money is what can get through to people who are not otherwise paying attention. I was going to ask you, we just got through the primary season and we are in the midst of a president ial campaign and yet we havent heard very much about this, at least from the candidates about this trillion dollar potential investment. Why do you think that is . I think its for a couple of reasons. I should first note that during a president ial campaign, we revert to whose fingers on the button. As a society, as a culture, we kind of recognize subconsciously that that is the preeminent power that we are electing someone to possess, ultimately. These Nuclear Weapons that we have are essentially under the control of one person, the commanderinchief, who is the person who can be the sole authorizer of the use of these weapons. Its funny how we might not be talking in detail about them but when we talk about certain candidates we talk about are we comfortable with this person having a finger on the button. Of course there is no button. The symbolism is there. I think thats constructive. As far as these two candidates currently, trump has said and it will come to no surprise that hes been contradictory about this, he has said Nuclear Weapons are deplorable and i would be the last to use them, but at the same time he has said maybe south korea and japan should have their own which flies in the face of many decades of nonproliferation ideology so, in a way way he has kind of made some people talk im Start Talking about it because of these inflammatory letters. The only time ive heard Hillary Clinton talk about the money and the modernization is someone, i cant remember what organization they were from but they found her saying do you think we should be spending 1 trillion on this and she was shaking hands and moving quickly and she said that doesnt make much sense and ill have to think about it and kept