Podcasts about Andrei Sakharov

In this episode of Madison's Notes, host Laura Laurent sits down with historian Benjamin Nathans to explore his groundbreaking new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Nathans offers a deep dive into the history of Soviet dissent, tracing the courageous efforts of Soviet citizens who risked everything to challenge the system from within, spanning from Stalin's death to the collapse of communism. By invoking the very laws of the Kremlin, these dissidents exposed the regime's internal contradictions, playing a pivotal role in its eventual downfall. The discussion focuses on key figures in this movement, from well-known Nobel laureates like Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to lesser-known but equally vital contributors. Nathans also touches on the broader implications of their struggles for modern authoritarian societies today. Benjamin Nathans, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a distinguished expert in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Jewish history, and the history of human rights. His previous acclaimed works include Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia. Nathans is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and is recognized for his expertise on Russian and Eastern European history. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

In this episode of Madison's Notes, host Laura Laurent sits down with historian Benjamin Nathans to explore his groundbreaking new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Nathans offers a deep dive into the history of Soviet dissent, tracing the courageous efforts of Soviet citizens who risked everything to challenge the system from within, spanning from Stalin's death to the collapse of communism. By invoking the very laws of the Kremlin, these dissidents exposed the regime's internal contradictions, playing a pivotal role in its eventual downfall. The discussion focuses on key figures in this movement, from well-known Nobel laureates like Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to lesser-known but equally vital contributors. Nathans also touches on the broader implications of their struggles for modern authoritarian societies today. Benjamin Nathans, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a distinguished expert in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Jewish history, and the history of human rights. His previous acclaimed works include Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia. Nathans is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and is recognized for his expertise on Russian and Eastern European history. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

In this episode of Madison's Notes, host Laura Laurent sits down with historian Benjamin Nathans to explore his groundbreaking new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Nathans offers a deep dive into the history of Soviet dissent, tracing the courageous efforts of Soviet citizens who risked everything to challenge the system from within, spanning from Stalin's death to the collapse of communism. By invoking the very laws of the Kremlin, these dissidents exposed the regime's internal contradictions, playing a pivotal role in its eventual downfall. The discussion focuses on key figures in this movement, from well-known Nobel laureates like Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to lesser-known but equally vital contributors. Nathans also touches on the broader implications of their struggles for modern authoritarian societies today. Benjamin Nathans, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a distinguished expert in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Jewish history, and the history of human rights. His previous acclaimed works include Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia. Nathans is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and is recognized for his expertise on Russian and Eastern European history. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

In this episode of Madison's Notes, host Laura Laurent sits down with historian Benjamin Nathans to explore his groundbreaking new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Nathans offers a deep dive into the history of Soviet dissent, tracing the courageous efforts of Soviet citizens who risked everything to challenge the system from within, spanning from Stalin's death to the collapse of communism. By invoking the very laws of the Kremlin, these dissidents exposed the regime's internal contradictions, playing a pivotal role in its eventual downfall. The discussion focuses on key figures in this movement, from well-known Nobel laureates like Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to lesser-known but equally vital contributors. Nathans also touches on the broader implications of their struggles for modern authoritarian societies today. Benjamin Nathans, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a distinguished expert in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Jewish history, and the history of human rights. His previous acclaimed works include Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia. Nathans is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and is recognized for his expertise on Russian and Eastern European history. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented.

In this episode of Madison's Notes, host Laura Laurent sits down with historian Benjamin Nathans to explore his groundbreaking new book, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement. Nathans offers a deep dive into the history of Soviet dissent, tracing the courageous efforts of Soviet citizens who risked everything to challenge the system from within, spanning from Stalin's death to the collapse of communism. By invoking the very laws of the Kremlin, these dissidents exposed the regime's internal contradictions, playing a pivotal role in its eventual downfall. The discussion focuses on key figures in this movement, from well-known Nobel laureates like Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to lesser-known but equally vital contributors. Nathans also touches on the broader implications of their struggles for modern authoritarian societies today. Benjamin Nathans, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania, is a distinguished expert in Imperial Russia, the Soviet Union, Jewish history, and the history of human rights. His previous acclaimed works include Beyond the Pale: The Jewish Encounter With Late Imperial Russia. Nathans is a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books and is recognized for his expertise on Russian and Eastern European history. Madison's Notes is the podcast of Princeton University's James Madison Program in American Ideals and Institutions. Contributions to and/or sponsorship of any speaker does not constitute departmental or institutional endorsement of the specific program, speakers or views presented. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

Felice Gaer, esteemed Director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, was an internationally respected human rights advocate who dedicated more than four decades to championing the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and enforcing international commitments to prevent severe human rights violations globally. On November 9, Felice passed away after a prolonged battle with metastatic breast cancer. In honor of her legacy, we revisit her insightful conversation on People of the Pod, recorded last year during Women's History Month and on International Women's Day. As we remember and celebrate Felice's profound contributions, we share this interview once more. May her memory continue to be a blessing. __ Music credits: Drops of Melting Snow (after Holst, Abroad as I was walking) by Axletree is licensed under a Attribution 4.0 International License. Learn more about Felice Gaer: Felice Gaer, Legendary Human Rights Champion Who Inspired Generations of Global Advocates, Dies at 78 Listen – AJC Podcasts: The Forgotten Exodus: with Hen Mazzig, Einat Admony, and more. People of the Pod:  What the Election Results Mean for Israel and the Jewish People The Jewish Vote in Pennsylvania: What You Need to Know Sinwar Eliminated: What Does This Mean for the 101 Hostages Still Held by Hamas? Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org If you've appreciated this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, and rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. __ Transcript of Conversation with Felice Gaer: Manya Brachear Pashman:   This past weekend, AJC lost a phenomenal colleague. Felice Gaer, the director of American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights, was an internationally renowned human rights expert who, for more than four decades, brought life and practical significance to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and international commitments, to prevent grave human rights abuses around the world.  She died on November 9, following a lengthy battle with metastatic breast cancer. I had the honor of interviewing Felice last year during Women's History Month and on International Women's Day.  We bring you that interview now, as we remember Felice. May her memory be for a blessing.  _ Felice is with us now to discuss today's human rights challenges and the challenges she has faced as a woman in the Human Rights world.  Felice, welcome to People of the Pod.  Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So let's start with the beginning. Can you share with our listeners a little about your upbringing, and how Jewish values shaped what you do today? Felice Gaer:   Well, I had a fairly ordinary upbringing in a suburb of New York City that had a fairly high percentage of Jews living in it–Teaneck, New Jersey. I was shaped by all the usual things in a Jewish home. First of all, the holidays. Secondly, the values, Jewish values, and awareness, a profound awareness of Jewish history, the history of annihilation, expulsion, discrimination, violence. But also the Jewish values of universality, respect for all human life, equality before the law, sense of realism, sense that you can change your life by what you do, and the choices that you make. These are all core Jewish values. And I guess I always have found the three part expression by Rabbi Hillel to sum up the approach I've always taken to human rights and most other things in life. He said, If I'm not for myself, who will be, and if I'm only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? So that's a sense of Jewish particularism, Jewish universalism, and realism, as well. Manya Brachear Pashman:   You went to Wellesley, class of 1968, it's an all-women's college. Was there a strong Jewish presence on campus there at a time? And did that part of your identity even play a role in your college experience?  Felice Gaer :  Well, I left, as I said, a town that had a fairly sizable Jewish population. And I went to Wellesley and I felt like I was in another world. And so even as long ago as 1964-65, that era, I actually reached out to Hillel and participated in very minor activities that took place, usually a Friday night dinner, or something like that. But it really didn't play a role except by making me recognize that I was a member of a very small minority. Manya Brachear Pashman:   Here on this podcast, we've talked a lot about the movement to free Soviet Jewry. As you pursued graduate work at Columbia, and also during your undergrad days at Wellesley, were you involved in that movement at all? Felice Gaer:   Well, I had great interest in Russian studies, and in my years at Wellesley, the Soviet Union movement was at a very nascent stage. And I remember arguments with the Soviet Ambassador coming to the campus and our specialist on Russian history, arguing about whether this concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews was a valid concern.  The professor, who happened to have been Jewish, by the way, argued that Jews in the Soviet Union were treated badly, but so was everybody else in the Soviet Union. And it really wasn't something that one needed to focus on especially. As I left Wellesley and went to Columbia, where I studied political science and was at the Russian Institute, now the Harriman Institute, I found that the treatment of Soviet Jews was different in many ways, and the capacity to do something about it was serious.  We knew people who had relatives, we knew people who wanted to leave. The whole Soviet Union movement was focused around the desire to leave the country–not to change it–that was an explicit decision of Jewish leaders around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself. And so the desire to leave was something you could realize, document the cases, bring the names forward, and engage American officials in a way that the Jewish community had never done before with cases and examples demanding that every place you went, every negotiation that took place, was accompanied by lists of names and cases, whose plight will be brought to the attention of the authorities. And that really mobilized people, including people like me.  I also worked to focus on the agenda of internal change in the Soviet Union. And that meant also looking at other human rights issues. Why and how freedom of religion or belief was suppressed in this militantly atheist state, why and how freedom of expression, freedom of association, and just about every other right, was really severely limited. And what the international standards were at that time. After I left Columbia, that was around the time that the famous manifesto from Andrei Sakharov, the world famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was made public. It was around the time that other kinds of dissident materials were becoming better known about life inside the Soviet Union post-Khrushchev. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So you left Colombia with a master's degree, the Cold War ends, and you take a job at the Ford Foundation that has you traveling all around Eastern Europe, looking to end human rights abuses, assessing the challenges that face that region. I want to ask you about the treatment of women, and what you witnessed about the mistreatment of women in these regions. And does that tend to be a common denominator around the world when you assess human rights abuses? Felice Gaer:   Well, there's no question that the treatment of women is different than the treatment of men. And it's true all over the world. But when I traveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the height of those years, height of the Cold War, and so forth, the issues of women's rights actually weren't one of the top issues on the agenda because the Soviet Union and East European countries appeared to be doing more for women than the Western countries.  They had them in governance. They had them in the parliament. They purported to support equality for women. It took some years for Soviet feminists, dissidents, to find a voice and to begin to point out all the ways in which they were treated in the same condescending, patriarchal style as elsewhere. But in those years, that was not a big issue in the air.  It was unusual for me, a 20-something year old woman from the United States to be traveling around Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, meeting with high officials and others, and on behalf of the Ford Foundation, trying to develop programming that would involve people to people contacts, that would involve developing programs where there was common expertise, like management training, and things of that sort. And I was really an odd, odd duck in that situation, and I felt it. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I mentioned in my introduction, the Beijing World Conference on Women, can you reflect a little on what had a lasting impact there? Felice Gaer:   Well, the Beijing World Conference on Women was the largest, and remains the largest conference that the United Nations has ever organized. There were over 35,000 women there, about 17,000 at the intergovernmental conference. I was on the US delegation there.  The simple statement that women's rights are human rights may seem hackneyed today. But when that was affirmed in the 1995 Beijing Outcome Document, it was a major political and conceptual breakthrough. It was largely focused on getting the UN to accept that the rights of women were actually international human rights and that they weren't something different. They weren't private, or outside the reach of investigators and human rights bodies. It was an inclusive statement, and it was a mind altering statement in the women's rights movement.  It not only reaffirmed that women's rights are human rights, but it went further in addressing the problems facing women in the language of human rights.  The earlier world conferences on women talked about equality, but they didn't identify violations of those rights. They didn't demand accountability of those rights. And they said absolutely nothing about creating mechanisms by which you could monitor, review, and hold people accountable, which is the rights paradigm. Beijing changed all that. It was a violations approach that was quite different from anything that existed before that. Manya Brachear Pashman :  Did anything get forgotten? We talked about what had a lasting impact, but what seems to have been forgotten or have fallen to the wayside? Felice Gaer:   Oh, I think it's just the opposite. I think the things that were in the Beijing conference have become Fuller and addressed in greater detail and are more commonly part of what goes on in the international discourse on women's rights and the status of women in public life. And certainly at the international level that's the case.  I'll give you just one example, the Convention Against Torture. I mean, when I became a member of the committee, the 10 person committee, I was the only woman. The committee really had, in 11 years, it had maybe said, four or five things about the treatment of women. And the way that torture, ill treatment, inhuman, degrading treatment may affect women.  It looked at the world through the eyes of male prisoners in detention. And it didn't look at the world through the eyes of women who suffer private violence, gender based violence, that is that the state looks away from and ignores and therefore sanctions, and to a certain extent endorses.  And it didn't identify the kinds of things that affect women, including women who are imprisoned, and why and where in many parts of the world. What one does in terms of education or dress or behavior may lead you into a situation where you're being abused, either in a prison or outside of prison. These are issues that are now part of the regular review, for example, at the Committee Against Torture, issues of of trafficking, issues of gender based violence, the Sharia law, the hudud punishments of whipping and stoning, are part of the concern of the committee, which they weren't before. Manya Brachear Pashman:   In other words, having that woman's perspective, having your perspective on that committee was really important and really changed and broadened the discussion. Felice Gaer:   Absolutely. When I first joined the committee, the first session I was at, we had a review of China. And so I very politely asked a question about the violence and coercion associated with the population policy in China, as you know, forced abortions and things of that sort. This was a question that had come up before the women's convention, the CEDAW, and I thought it was only appropriate that it also come up in the Committee Against Torture.  In our discussion afterwards, the very stern chairman of the committee, a former constable, said to me, ‘You know, this might be of interest to you, Ms. Gaer, but this has nothing to do with the mandate of this committee.' I explained to him why it did, in some detail. And when I finished pointing out all of those elements–including the fact that the people carried out these practices on the basis of state policy–when I finished, there was a silence.  And the most senior person in the room, who had been involved in these issues for decades, said, ‘I'm quite certain we can accommodate Ms. Gaer's concerns in the conclusions,' and they did.  That's the kind of thing that happens when you look at issues from a different perspective and raise them. Manya Brachear Pashman:   You talked about being an odd duck in your 20s, as a woman traveling around Eastern Europe, trying to address these challenges. I'm curious if that woman in her 20s would have been able to stand up to this committee like that, and give that thorough an explanation? Or did it take some years of experience, of witnessing these issues, perhaps being ignored?  Felice Gaer:  Well, I think as we go through life, you learn new things. And I learned new things along the way. I learned about the universal norms, I learned about how to apply them, how they had been applied, and how they hadn't been applied. And in that process, developed what I would say is a sharper way of looking at these issues.  But the Bosnian conflict in particular, made the issue of gender based violence against women, especially in war, but not only in war, into a mainstream issue, and helped propel these issues, both inside the United Nations and outside, the awareness changed.  I remember asking the International Red Cross representatives in Croatia, just across the border from Bosnia, if they had encountered any victims of gender based violence or rape, and they said, ‘No.' And I said, ‘Did you ask them about these concerns?' And they sort of looked down and looked embarrassed, looked at each other and looked back at me and said, ‘Oh.' There were no words. There were no understandings of looking at the world this way. And that has changed. That has changed dramatically today. I mean, if you look at the situation in Ukraine, the amount of gender based violence that has been documented is horrifying, just horrifying, but it's been documented. Manya Brachear Pashman   So is the world of human rights advocacy male-dominated, female-dominated, is it fairly balanced these days? And has that balance made the difference in what you're talking about? Felice Gaer:   You know, I wrote an article in 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, about why women's rights weren't being addressed. And one of the points I drew attention to was the fact that the heads of almost all the major organizations at the time were all male. And that it wasn't seen as a concern. A lot of that has changed. There's really a real variety of perspectives now that are brought to bear. Manya Brachear Pashman:   So we've talked a lot about the importance of [a] woman's perspective. Does a Jewish perspective matter as well? Felice Gaer:   Oh, on every issue on every issue and, you know, I worked a great deal on freedom of religion and belief, as an issue. That's a core issue of AJC, and it's a fundamental rights issue. And it struck me as surprising that with all the attention to freedom of religion, the concern about antisemitic acts was not being documented by mainstream human rights organizations. And it wasn't being documented by the UN experts on freedom of religion or belief either. I drew this to the attention of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, who was recently ending his term as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief. And he was really very struck by this. And he went, and he did a little bit of research. And he found out that since computerized records had been prepared at the United Nations, that there had been no attention, no attention at all, to cases of alleged antisemitic incidents. And he began a project to record the kinds of problems that existed and to identify what could be done about it. We helped him in the sense that we organized a couple of colloquia, we brought people from all over the world together to talk about the dimensions of the problem and the documentation that they did, and the proposals that they had for addressing it. And he, as you may recall, wrote a brilliant report in 2019, setting out the problems of global antisemitism. And he followed that up in 2022, before leaving his position with what he called an action plan for combating anti semitism, which has concrete specific suggestions for all countries around the world as to what they can do to help combat antisemitism and antisemitic acts, including and to some extent, starting with adopting the working definition on antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but also activities in in the area of education, training, training of law enforcement officials, documentation and public action. It's a real contribution to the international discourse and to understanding that freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone. Manya Brachear Pashman:   And do you believe that Dr. Shaheed's report is being absorbed, comprehended by those that need to hear it that need to understand it? Felice Gaer   I've been delighted to see the way that the European Union has engaged with Dr. Shaheed and his report has developed standards and expectations for all 27 member states, and that other countries and other parts of the world have done the same. So yeah, I do think they're engaging with it. I hope there'll be a lot more because the problem has only grown. Manya Brachear Pashman:   On the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, JBI issued a report that sounded the alarm on the widespread violations committed against Ukrainians, you mentioned the amount of gender based violence Since that has taken place, and the other just catastrophic consequences of this war. Felice, you've been on the front row of Eastern European affairs and human rights advocacy in that region. From your perspective, and I know this is a big question: How did this war happen? Felice Gaer:   I'll just start by saying: it didn't start in 2022. And if you have to look at what happened, the events of 2014, to understand the events of 2022. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, or even during the breakup, there was a period where the 15th constituent Union republics of the Soviet Union developed a greater national awareness, really, and some of them had been independent as some of them hadn't been, but they developed a much greater awareness. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the 15 countries, including Russia, as one of the 15, became independent entities. And aside from having more members in the United Nations and the Council of Europe and places like that, it led to much more robust activity, in terms of respecting human rights and other areas of endeavor in each of those countries.  The situation in Russia, with a head of state who has been there, with one exception, a couple of years, for 20 years, has seen an angry desire to reestablish an empire. That's the only thing you can say really about it.  If they can't dominate by having a pro-Russian group in charge in the country, then there have been invasions, there have been Russian forces, Russia-aligned forces sent to the different countries. So whether it's Georgia, or Moldova, or Ukraine, we've seen this pattern.  And unfortunately, what happened in 2022, is the most egregious and I would say, blatant such example. In 2014, the Russians argued that it was local Russian speaking, little green men who were conducting hostilities in these places, or it was local people who wanted to realign with Russia, who were demanding changes, and so forth. But in the 2022 events, Russia's forces invaded, wearing Russian insignia and making it quite clear that this was a matter of state policy that they were pursuing, and that they weren't going to give up.  And it's led to the tragic developments that we've all seen inside the country, and the horrific violence, the terrible, widespread human rights violations. And in war, we know that human rights violations are usually the worst.  And so the one good spot on the horizon: the degree to which these abuses have been documented, it's unprecedented to have so much documentation so early in a conflict like this, which someday may lead to redress and accountability for those who perpetrated it. But right now, in the middle of these events, it's just a horror. Manya Brachear Pashman:   What other human rights situations do we need to be taking more seriously now? And where has there been significant progress? Felice Gaer:   Well, I'll talk about the problem spots if I may for a minute. Everyone points to North Korea as the situation without parallel, that's what a UN Commission of Inquiry said, without parallel in the world. The situation in Iran? Well, you just need to watch what's happened to the protesters, the women and others who have protested over 500 people in the streets have died because of this. 15,000 people imprisoned, and Iran's prisons are known for ill treatment and torture.  The situation in Afghanistan is atrocious. The activities of the Taliban, which they were known for in the 1990s are being brought back. They are normalizing discrimination, they are engaged in probably the most hardline gender discrimination we've seen anywhere where women can't work outside the home, girls can't be educated, political participation is denied. The constitution has been thrown out. All kinds of things. The latest is women can't go to parks, they can't go to university, and they can't work for NGOs. This continues. It's a major crisis.  Well, there are other countries, from Belarus, to Sudan to Uzbekistan, and China, that we could also talk about at great length, lots of problems in the world, and not enough effort to expose them, address them and try to ameliorate them. Manya Brachear Pashman   So what do we do about that? What can our listeners do about that, when we hear this kind of grim report? Felice Gaer:   Work harder. Pay attention when you hear about rights issues. Support rights organizations. Take up cases. Seek redress. Be concerned about the victims. All these things need to be done. Manya Brachear Pashman:   I don't know how you maintain your composure and your cool, Felice, because you have faced so much in terms of challenges and push back. So thank you so much for all you have done for women, for the Jewish people, and for the world at large. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile--and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton UP, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents--from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was "simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people." An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia--and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile--and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton UP, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents--from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was "simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people." An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia--and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/history

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile--and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton UP, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents--from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was "simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people." An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia--and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/russian-studies

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile--and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton UP, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents--from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was "simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people." An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia--and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today.

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile--and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton UP, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents--from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was "simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people." An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia--and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/eastern-european-studies

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile--and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton UP, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents--from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was "simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people." An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia--and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

A gripping history of the Soviet dissident movement, which hastened the end of the USSR--and still provides a model of opposition in Putin's Russia. Beginning in the 1960s, the Soviet Union was unexpectedly confronted by a dissident movement that captured the world's imagination. Demanding that the Kremlin obey its own laws, an improbable band of Soviet citizens held unauthorized public gatherings, petitioned in support of arrested intellectuals, and circulated banned samizdat texts. Soviet authorities arrested dissidents, subjected them to bogus trials and vicious press campaigns, sentenced them to psychiatric hospitals and labor camps, sent them into exile--and transformed them into martyred heroes. Against all odds, the dissident movement undermined the Soviet system and unexpectedly hastened its collapse. Taking its title from a toast made at dissident gatherings, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause: The Many Lives of the Soviet Dissident Movement (Princeton UP, 2024) is a definitive history of a remarkable group of people who helped change the twentieth century. Benjamin Nathans's vivid narrative tells the dramatic story of the men and women who became dissidents--from Nobel laureates Andrei Sakharov and Alexander Solzhenitsyn to many others who are virtually unknown today. Drawing on diaries, memoirs, personal letters, interviews, and KGB interrogation records, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause reveals how dissidents decided to use Soviet law to contain the power of the Soviet state. This strategy, as one of them put it, was "simple to the point of genius: in an unfree country, they began to conduct themselves like free people." An extraordinary account of the Soviet dissident movement, To the Success of Our Hopeless Cause shows how dissidents spearheaded the struggle to break free of the USSR's totalitarian past, a struggle that continues in Putin's Russia--and that illuminates other struggles between hopelessness and perseverance today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/book-of-the-day

Welcome to Dev Game Club, where this week we continue our series on Beyond Good & Evil. We talk about a number of the game's systems, compare it with Zelda, and engage with the level design and characters. Dev Game Club looks at classic video games and plays through them over several episodes, providing commentary. Sections played: Past the Factory Issues covered: who said that line, characterization and Frenchness, aesthetics, cosmic horror and the Domz, Hub, lacking symmetry to promote alienness, diagetic design in its systems, the first trailer, a world you want to hang out in, quirky aesthetic, the camera and when you get control, night and day between two camera systems, the PC port, the "Zelda bucket," modularity and object-orientedness in Zelda games, clockwork, the photojournalism of it, doing things because the narrative demands it and not systematically, stealth vs combat, giving your companions power-ups, companions in combat, two-heart buddies, lock and key enemies, being able to bolt on mechanics, air hockey, keys that aren't keys through the characters, committing to the characters, The Myth of Zelda, making real statements, forgiving and fail-forward stealth, great camera framing, photojournalism as heroic act, the themes of information control and propaganda, what's with Alpha Section, keys that you can use in the inventory, Ubisoft and politics (Cuba, Myanmar and... Montana), tackling universal themes with story specifics to avoid preachiness. Games, people, and influences mentioned or discussed: The City of Lost Children, Jean-Pierre Jeunet, Zootopia, Star Wars, Rayman, Jean-Luc Godard, Jerry Lewis, Artimage, Starfield, No Man's Sky, Spider-Man 2, Double Fine, Mario 64, Tomb Raider, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Remi Lacoste, Mark Haigh-Hutchinson, Final Fantasy IX, Psychonauts, Tim Schafer, Mortal Kombat, Grim Fandango, Shufflepuck, Anachronox, George Orwell, 1984, The Last Express, Omikron: The Nomad Soul, David Cage, Metal Gear (series), Aleksandr Solzhenitzen, Andrei Sakharov, Final Fantasy VI, Kirk Hamilton, Aaron Evers, Mark Garcia. Note: Mark HH's (Agent HH!) camera book did not debut until 2009 Next time: Past the Slaughterhouse Twitch: brettdouville or timlongojr, instagram:timlongojr, Twitter: @devgameclub Discord DevGameClub@gmail.com

Jelena Bonner takkede i 1975 for modtagelsen af Nobels Fredspris på vegne af hendes mand, den sovjetiske menneskerettighedsforkæmper og atomfysiker Andrei Sakharov. Han var blevet nægtet udrejse af det kommunistiske regime. Adskillige år senere, i 2021, modtog Aleksej Navalnyj EU's store menneskerettighedspris opkaldt efter netop Andre Sakharov. Her modtog Navalnyjs datter den på vegne af sin far; selv han sad indespærret i en fangelejr. Sakharov og Navalnyj er eksempler på russiske dissidenter, som forsøgte at trodse ideologisk ensretning og politisk undertrykkelse. Vi kender konsekvenserne af deres kamp - nedbrudt helbred og tidlig død - men hvilke ligheder og forskelle er der på dissidentkulturen i Sovjetunionen og i det post-kommunistiske Rusland? Hvordan gik folk som Sakharov og Navalnyj til at være nogenlunde systemtro til at udvikle deres systemkritik? Og hvilke vilkår har dissidentkulturen i Rusland? Det er spørgsmålene i denne uges 'Kampen om historien', hvor Adam Holm taler med cand. mag. I Østeuropastudier på Københavns Universitet Katrine Stevnhøj og tidligere korrespondent i Moskva og forfatter Samuel Rachlin. Redaktør: Thomas Vinther Larsen. I redaktionen: Asta Jølver Pedersen og Clara Faust Spies. Musik: Adi Zukanovic.

È il 22 gennaio del 1980 quando Andrei Sakharov è arrestato a Mosca nel corso di una manifestazione contro l'entrata delle truppe sovietiche in Afghanistan. «Credo che l'Unione Sovietica», diceva, «debba porre fine a un'invasione che mina la credibilità del nostro Stato, rivelando con chiarezza il pericolo che una società totalitaria chiusa rappresenta per il mondo intero». È deportato a Gorky, 500 chilometri da Mosca, dove vive, racconta nelle sue memorie, sorvegliato giorno e notte dalla polizia. La sua storia è quella della presa di coscienza dell'arbitrio violento del potere nell'Unione Sovietica: fisico nucleare, padre della prima bomba all'idrogeno sovietica negli anni Cinquanta, nel 1961 si è opposto alla ripresa degli esperimenti «perché potevano compromettere il disarmo e il dialogo per la pace». Ha portato avanti battaglie importanti per difendere le libertà civili come quella di circolazione, informazione e opinione. Nei suoi scritti è intervenuto sulla pace, sul disarmo, sulla tutela dell'ambiente, ha affrontato criticamente il rapporto fra scienza e società, si è pronunciato contro la pena di morte. La storia di Andrei Sakharov è ancora attuale e pericolosa per il regime di Putin: nell'aprile del 2023 il Ministero della giustizia russo ha chiuso in modo definitivo il Museo e Centro pubblico di Mosca a lui intitolato e voluto nel 1996 da sua moglie Elena Bonner.Con Sergei Lukachevski, in esilio in Germania, dal 2008 direttore del Museo e Centro pubblico di Mosca Andrei Sakharov, Maria Candida Ghidini che insegna Letteratura russa all'Università di Parma e Giovanni Savino, ricercatore di Storia della Russia presso l'Università Federico II di Napoli.

Fictional starships notwithstanding, there's not much antimatter in the universe. And for us, that's a good thing. Any time matter and antimatter meet, they cancel each other out in a blaze of energy. Antimatter is identical to normal matter in almost every way. The only difference is electric charge, which is opposite for the two forms of matter. So there could be a whole galaxy made of antimatter out there and our telescopes wouldn't see it any differently from a galaxy of normal matter. Most theories say the Big Bang should have created equal amounts of matter and antimatter. But in the first tiny fraction of a second, something changed that balance. For every billion pairs of matter and antimatter particles, there was one extra particle of matter. One of the first scientists to consider that imbalance was Andrei Sakharov. He'd helped develop the Soviet hydrogen bomb, but turned away from weapons work. In a paper published more than 50 years ago, he outlined conditions that could create the imbalance. Sakharov said that protons must decay, but so slowly that it's almost impossible to detect. Second, he said that the universe must have cooled in a certain way in the moments after the Big Bang. And finally, he said there must be some difference between matter and antimatter. So far, none of those conditions has been confirmed, so the subject of matter versus antimatter remains a busy topic of research.  Script by Damond Benningfield Support McDonald Observatory

Efter andra världskriget pågick ett febrilt arbete med att utveckla kärnvapen i Sovjetunionen. I centrum för vapenutvecklingen stod den unga kärnfysikern Andrei Sakharov som med sin forskning lyckades framställa den nya generationens kärnvapen som finns idag. Men Andrei Sakharov drabbades av tvivel och genomgick en förvandling från sovjettrogen bombmakare till orädd dissident.

It was a tremendous honor & pleasure to interview Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Making of the Atomic BombWe discuss* similarities between AI progress & Manhattan Project (developing a powerful, unprecedented, & potentially apocalyptic technology within an uncertain arms-race situation)* visiting starving former Soviet scientists during fall of Soviet Union* whether Oppenheimer was a spy, & consulting on the Nolan movie* living through WW2 as a child* odds of nuclear war in Ukraine, Taiwan, Pakistan, & North Korea* how the US pulled of such a massive secret wartime scientific & industrial projectWatch on YouTube. Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or any other podcast platform. Read the full transcript here. Follow me on Twitter for updates on future episodes.Timestamps(0:00:00) - Oppenheimer movie(0:06:22) - Was the bomb inevitable?(0:29:10) - Firebombing vs nuclear vs hydrogen bombs(0:49:44) - Stalin & the Soviet program(1:08:24) - Deterrence, disarmament, North Korea, Taiwan(1:33:12) - Oppenheimer as lab director(1:53:40) - AI progress vs Manhattan Project(1:59:50) - Living through WW2(2:16:45) - Secrecy(2:26:34) - Wisdom & warTranscript(0:00:00) - Oppenheimer movieDwarkesh Patel 0:00:51Today I have the great honor of interviewing Richard Rhodes, who is the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, and most recently, the author of Energy, A Human History. I'm really excited about this one. Let's jump in at a current event, which is the fact that there's a new movie about Oppenheimer coming out, which I understand you've been consulted about. What did you think of the trailer? What are your impressions? Richard Rhodes 0:01:22They've really done a good job of things like the Trinity test device, which was the sphere covered with cables of various kinds. I had watched Peaky Blinders, where the actor who's playing Oppenheimer also appeared, and he looked so much like Oppenheimer to start with. Oppenheimer was about six feet tall, he was rail thin, not simply in terms of weight, but in terms of structure. Someone said he could sit in a children's high chair comfortably. But he never weighed more than about 140 pounds and that quality is there in the actor. So who knows? It all depends on how the director decided to tell the story. There are so many aspects of the story that you could never possibly squeeze them into one 2-hour movie. I think that we're waiting for the multi-part series that would really tell a lot more of the story, if not the whole story. But it looks exciting. We'll see. There have been some terrible depictions of Oppenheimer, there've been some terrible depictions of the bomb program. And maybe they'll get this one right. Dwarkesh Patel 0:02:42Yeah, hopefully. It is always great when you get an actor who resembles their role so well. For example, Bryan Cranston who played LBJ, and they have the same physical characteristics of the beady eyes, the big ears. Since we're talking about Oppenheimer, I had one question about him. I understand that there's evidence that's come out that he wasn't directly a communist spy. But is there any possibility that he was leaking information to the Soviets or in some way helping the Soviet program? He was a communist sympathizer, right? Richard Rhodes 0:03:15He had been during the 1930s. But less for the theory than for the practical business of helping Jews escape from Nazi Germany. One of the loves of his life, Jean Tatlock, was also busy working on extracting Jews from Europe during the 30. She was a member of the Communist Party and she, I think, encouraged him to come to meetings. But I don't think there's any possibility whatsoever that he shared information. In fact, he said he read Marx on a train trip between Berkeley and Washington one time and thought it was a bunch of hooey, just ridiculous. He was a very smart man, and he read the book with an eye to its logic, and he didn't think there was much there. He really didn't know anything about human beings and their struggles. He was born into considerable wealth. There were impressionist paintings all over his family apartments in New York City. His father had made a great deal of money cornering the markets on uniform linings for military uniforms during and before the First World War so there was a lot of wealth. I think his income during the war years and before was somewhere around $100,000 a month. And that's a lot of money in the 1930s. So he just lived in his head for most of his early years until he got to Berkeley and discovered that prime students of his were living on cans of god-awful cat food, because they couldn't afford anything else. And once he understood that there was great suffering in the world, he jumped in on it, as he always did when he became interested in something. So all of those things come together. His brother Frank was a member of the party, as was Frank's wife. I think the whole question of Oppenheimer lying to the security people during the Second World War about who approached him and who was trying to get him to sign on to some espionage was primarily an effort to cover up his brother's involvement. Not that his brothers gave away any secrets, I don't think they did. But if the army's security had really understood Frank Oppenheimer's involvement, he probably would have been shipped off to the Aleutians or some other distant place for the duration of the war. And Oppenheimer quite correctly wanted Frank around. He was someone he trusted.(0:06:22) - Was the bomb inevitable?Dwarkesh Patel 0:06:22Let's start talking about The Making of the Bomb. One question I have is — if World War II doesn't happen, is there any possibility that the bomb just never gets developed? Nobody bothers.Richard Rhodes 0:06:34That's really a good question and I've wondered over the years. But the more I look at the sequence of events, the more I think it would have been essentially inevitable, though perhaps not such an accelerated program. The bomb was pushed so hard during the Second World War because we thought the Germans had already started working on one. Nuclear fission had been discovered in Nazi Germany, in Berlin, in 1938, nine months before the beginning of the Second World War in Europe. Technological surveillance was not available during the war. The only way you could find out something was to send in a spy or have a mole or something human. And we didn't have that. So we didn't know where the Germans were, but we knew that the basic physics reaction that could lead to a bomb had been discovered there a year or more before anybody else in the West got started thinking about it. There was that most of all to push the urgency. In your hypothetical there would not have been that urgency. However, as soon as good physicists thought about the reaction that leads to nuclear fission — where a slow room temperature neutron, very little energy, bumps into the nucleus of a uranium-235 atom it would lead to a massive response. Isidore Rabi, one of the great physicists of this era, said it would have been like the moon struck the earth. The reaction was, as physicists say, fiercely exothermic. It puts out a lot more energy than you have to use to get it started. Once they did the numbers on that, and once they figured out how much uranium you would need to have in one place to make a bomb or to make fission get going, and once they were sure that there would be a chain reaction, meaning a couple of neutrons would come out of the reaction from one atom, and those two or three would go on and bump into other Uranium atoms, which would then fission them, and you'd get a geometric exponential. You'd get 1, 2, 4, 8, 16, 32, and off of there. For most of our bombs today the initial fission, in 80 generations, leads to a city-busting explosion. And then they had to figure out how much material they would need, and that's something the Germans never really figured out, fortunately for the rest of us. They were still working on the idea that somehow a reactor would be what you would build. When Niels Bohr, the great Danish physicist, escaped from Denmark in 1943 and came to England and then United States, he brought with him a rough sketch that Werner Heisenberg, the leading scientist in the German program, had handed him in the course of trying to find out what Bohr knew about what America was doing. And he showed it to the guys at Los Alamos and Hans Bethe, one of the great Nobel laureate physicists in the group, said — “Are the Germans trying to throw a reactor down on us?” You can make a reactor blow up, we saw that at Chernobyl, but it's not a nuclear explosion on the scale that we're talking about with the bomb. So when a couple of these emigres Jewish physicists from Nazi Germany were whiling away their time in England after they escaped, because they were still technically enemy aliens and therefore could not be introduced to top secret discussions, one of them asked the other — “How much would we need of pure uranium-235, this rare isotope of uranium that chain reacts? How much would we need to make a bomb?” And they did the numbers and they came up with one pound, which was startling to them. Of course, it is more than that. It's about 125 pounds, but that's just a softball. That's not that much material. And then they did the numbers about what it would cost to build a factory to pull this one rare isotope of uranium out of the natural metal, which has several isotopes mixed together. And they figured it wouldn't cost more than it would cost to build a battleship, which is not that much money for a country at war. Certainly the British had plenty of battleships at that point in time. So they put all this together and they wrote a report which they handed through their superior physicists at Manchester University where they were based, who quickly realized how important this was. The United States lagged behind because we were not yet at war, but the British were. London was being bombed in the blitz. So they saw the urgency, first of all, of eating Germany to the punch, second of all of the possibility of building a bomb. In this report, these two scientists wrote that no physical structure came to their minds which could offer protection against a bomb of such ferocious explosive power. This report was from 1940 long before the Manhattan Project even got started. They said in this report, the only way we could think of to protect you against a bomb would be to have a bomb of similar destructive force that could be threatened for use if the other side attacked you. That's deterrence. That's a concept that was developed even before the war began in the United States. You put all those pieces together and you have a situation where you have to build a bomb because whoever builds the first bomb theoretically could prevent you from building more or prevent another country from building any and could dominate the world. And the notion of Adolf Hitler dominating the world, the Third Reich with nuclear weapons, was horrifying. Put all that together and the answer is every country that had the technological infrastructure to even remotely have the possibility of building everything you'd have to build to get the material for a bomb started work on thinking about it as soon as nuclear fusion was announced to the world. France, the Soviet Union, Great Britain, the United States, even Japan. So I think the bomb would have been developed but maybe not so quickly. Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:10In the book you talk that for some reason the Germans thought that the critical mass was something like 10 tons, they had done some miscalculation.Richard Rhodes 0:14:18A reactor. Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:19You also have some interesting stories in the book about how different countries found out the Americans were working on the bomb. For example, the Russians saw that all the top physicists, chemists, and metallurgists were no longer publishing. They had just gone offline and so they figured that something must be going on. I'm not sure if you're aware that while the subject of the Making of the Atomic Bomb in and of itself is incredibly fascinating, this book has become a cult classic in AI. Are you familiar with this? Richard Rhodes 0:14:52No. Dwarkesh Patel 0:14:53The people who are working on AI right now are huge fans of yours. They're the ones who initially recommended the book to me because the way they see the progress in the field reminded them of this book. Because you start off with these initial scientific hints. With deep learning, for example, here's something that can teach itself any function is similar to Szilárd noticing the nuclear chain reaction. In AI there's these scaling laws that say that if you make the model this much bigger, it gets much better at reasoning, at predicting text, and so on. And then you can extrapolate this curve. And you can see we get two more orders of magnitude, and we get to something that looks like human level intelligence. Anyway, a lot of the people who are working in AI have become huge fans of your book because of this reason. They see a lot of analogies in the next few years. They must be at page 400 in their minds of where the Manhattan Project was.Richard Rhodes 0:15:55We must later on talk about unintended consequences. I find the subject absolutely fascinating. I think my next book might be called Unintended Consequences. Dwarkesh Patel 0:16:10You mentioned that a big reason why many of the scientists wanted to work on the bomb, especially the Jewish emigres, was because they're worried about Hitler getting it first. As you mentioned at some point, 1943, 1944, it was becoming obvious that Hitler, the Nazis were not close to the bomb. And I believe that almost none of the scientists quit after they found out that the Nazis weren't close. So why didn't more of them say — “Oh, I guess we were wrong. The Nazis aren't going to get it. We don't need to be working on it.”?Richard Rhodes 0:16:45There was only one who did that, Joseph Rotblat. In May of 1945 when he heard that Germany had been defeated, he packed up and left. General Groves, the imperious Army Corps of Engineers General who ran the entire Manhattan Project, was really upset. He was afraid he'd spill the beans. So he threatened to have him arrested and put in jail. But Rotblat was quite determined not to stay any longer. He was not interested in building bombs to aggrandize the national power of the United States of America, which is perfectly understandable. But why was no one else? Let me tell it in terms of Victor Weisskopf. He was an Austrian theoretical physicist, who, like the others, escaped when the Nazis took over Germany and then Austria and ended up at Los Alamos. Weisskopf wrote later — “There we were in Los Alamos in the midst of the darkest part of our science.” They were working on a weapon of mass destruction, that's pretty dark. He said “Before it had almost seemed like a spiritual quest.” And it's really interesting how different physics was considered before and after the Second World War. Before the war, one of the physicists in America named Louis Alvarez told me when he got his PhD in physics at Berkeley in 1937 and went to cocktail parties, people would ask, “What's your degree in?” He would tell them “Chemistry.” I said, “Louis, why?” He said, “because I don't really have to explain what physics was.” That's how little known this kind of science was at that time. There were only about 1,000 physicists in the whole world in 1900. By the mid-30s, there were a lot more, of course. There'd been a lot of nuclear physics and other kinds of physics done by them. But it was still arcane. And they didn't feel as if they were doing anything mean or dirty or warlike at all. They were just doing pure science. Then nuclear fission came along. It was publicized worldwide. People who've been born since after the Second World War don't realize that it was not a secret at first. The news was published first in a German chemistry journal, Die Naturwissenschaften, and then in the British journal Nature and then in American journals. And there were headlines in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, the Chicago Tribune, and all over the world. People had been reading about and thinking about how to get energy out of the atomic nucleus for a long time. It was clear there was a lot there. All you had to do was get a piece of radium and see that it glowed in the dark. This chunk of material just sat there, you didn't plug it into a wall. And if you held it in your hand, it would burn you. So where did that energy come from? The physicists realized it all came from the nucleus of the atom, which is a very small part of the whole thing. The nucleus is 1/100,000th the diameter of the whole atom. Someone in England described it as about the size of a fly in a cathedral. All of the energy that's involved in chemical reactions, comes from the electron cloud that's around the nucleus. But  it was clear that the nucleus was the center of powerful forces. But the question was, how do you get them out? The only way that the nucleus had been studied up to 1938 was by bombarding it with protons, which have the same electric charge as the nucleus, positive charge, which means they were repelled by it. So you had to accelerate them to high speeds with various versions of the big machines that we've all become aware of since then. The cyclotron most obviously built in the 30s, but there were others as well. And even then, at best, you could chip a little piece off. You could change an atom one step up or one step down the periodic table. This was the classic transmutation of medieval alchemy sure but it wasn't much, you didn't get much out. So everyone came to think of the nucleus of the atom like a little rock that you really had to hammer hard to get anything to happen with it because it was so small and dense. That's why nuclear fission, with this slow neutron drifting and then the whole thing just goes bang, was so startling to everybody. So startling that when it happened, most of the physicists who would later work on the bomb and others as well, realized that they had missed the reaction that was something they could have staged on a lab bench with the equipment on the shelf. Didn't have to invent anything new. And Louis Alvarez again, this physicist at Berkeley, he said — “I was getting my hair cut. When I read the newspaper, I pulled off the robe and half with my hair cut, ran to my lab, pulled some equipment off the shelf, set it up and there it was.” So he said, “I discovered nuclear fission, but it was two days too late.” And that happened all over. People were just hitting themselves on the head and saying, well, Niels Bohr said, “What fools we've all been.” So this is a good example of how in science, if your model you're working with is wrong it doesn't lead you down the right path. There was only one physicist who really was thinking the right way about the uranium atom and that was Niels Bohr. He wondered, sometime during the 30s, why uranium was the last natural element in the periodic table? What is different about the others that would come later? He visualized the nucleus as a liquid drop. I always like to visualize it as a water-filled balloon. It's wobbly, it's not very stable. The protons in the nucleus are held together by something called the strong force, but they still have the repellent positive electric charge that's trying to push them apart when you get enough of them into a nucleus. It's almost a standoff between the strong force and all the electrical charge. So it is like a wobbly balloon of water. And then you see why a neutron just falling into the nucleus would make it wobble around even more and in one of its configurations, it might take a dumbbell shape. And then you'd have basically two charged atoms just barely connected, trying to push each other apart. And often enough, they went the whole way. When they did that, these two new elements, half the weight of uranium, way down the periodic table, would reconfigure themselves into two separate nuclei. And in doing so, they would release some energy. And that was the energy that came out of the reaction and there was a lot of energy. So Bohr thought about the model in the right way. The chemists who actually discovered nuclear fusion didn't know what they were gonna get. They were just bombarding a solution of uranium nitrate with neutrons thinking, well, maybe we can make a new element, maybe a first man-made element will come out of our work. So when they analyzed the solution after they bombarded it, they found elements halfway down the periodic table. They shouldn't have been there. And they were totally baffled. What is this doing here? Do we contaminate our solution? No. They had been working with a physicist named Lisa Meitner who was a theoretical physicist, an Austrian Jew. She had gotten out of Nazi Germany not long before. But they were still in correspondence with her. So they wrote her a letter. I held that letter in my hand when I visited Berlin and I was in tears. You don't hold history of that scale in your hands very often. And it said in German — “We found this strange reaction in our solution. What are these elements doing there that don't belong there?” And she went for a walk in a little village in Western Sweden with her nephew, Otto Frisch, who was also a nuclear physicist. And they thought about it for a while and they remembered Bohr's model, the wobbly water-filled balloon. And they suddenly saw what could happen. And that's where the news came from, the physics news as opposed to the chemistry news from the guys in Germany that was published in all the Western journals and all the newspapers. And everybody had been talking about, for years, what you could do if you had that kind of energy. A glass of this material would drive the Queen Mary back and forth from New York to London 20 times and so forth, your automobile could run for months. People were thinking about what would be possible if you had that much available energy. And of course, people had thought about reactors. Robert Oppenheimer was a professor at Berkeley and within a week of the news reaching Berkeley, one of his students told me that he had a drawing on the blackboard, a rather bad drawing of both a reactor and a bomb. So again, because the energy was so great, the physics was pretty obvious. Whether it would actually happen depended on some other things like could you make it chain react? But fundamentally, the idea was all there at the very beginning and everybody jumped on it. Dwarkesh Patel 0:27:54The book is actually the best history of World War II I've ever read. It's about the atomic bomb, but it's interspersed with the events that are happening in World War II, which motivate the creation of the bomb or the release of it, why it had to be dropped on Japan given the Japanese response. The first third is about the scientific roots of the physics and it's also the best book I've read about the history of science in the early 20th century and the organization of it. There's some really interesting stuff in there. For example, there was a passage where you talk about how there's a real master apprentice model in early science where if you wanted to learn to do this kind of experimentation, you will go to Amsterdam where the master of it is residing. It's much more individual focused. Richard Rhodes 0:28:58Yeah, the whole European model of graduate study, which is basically the wandering scholar. You could go wherever you wanted to and sign up with whoever was willing to have you sign up. (0:29:10) - Firebombing vs nuclear vs hydrogen bombsDwarkesh Patel 0:29:10But the question I wanted to ask regarding the history you made of World War II in general is — there's one way you can think about the atom bomb which is that it is completely different from any sort of weaponry that has been developed before it. Another way you can think of it is there's a spectrum where on one end you have the thermonuclear bomb, in the middle you have the atom bomb, and on this end you have the firebombing of cities like Hamburg and Dresden and Tokyo. Do you think of these as completely different categories or does it seem like an escalating gradient to you? Richard Rhodes 0:29:47I think until you get to the hydrogen bomb, it's really an escalating gradient. The hydrogen bomb can be made arbitrarily large. The biggest one ever tested was 56 megatons of TNT equivalent. The Soviet tested that. That had a fireball more than five miles in diameter, just the fireball. So that's really an order of magnitude change. But the other one's no and in fact, I think one of the real problems, this has not been much discussed and it should be, when American officials went to Hiroshima and Nagasaki after the war, one of them said later — “I got on a plane in Tokyo. We flew down the long green archipelago of the Japanese home island. When I left Tokyo, it was all gray broken roof tiles from the fire bombing and the other bombings. And then all this greenery. And then when we flew over Hiroshima, it was just gray broken roof tiles again.” So the scale of the bombing with one bomb, in the case of Hiroshima, was not that different from the scale of the fire bombings that had preceded it with tens of thousands of bombs. The difference was it was just one plane. In fact, the people in Hiroshima didn't even bother to go into their bomb shelters because one plane had always just been a weather plane. Coming over to check the weather before the bombers took off. So they didn't see any reason to hide or protect themselves, which was one of the reasons so many people were killed. The guys at Los Alamos had planned on the Japanese being in their bomb shelters. They did everything they could think of to make the bomb as much like ordinary bombing as they could. And for example, it was exploded high enough above ground, roughly 1,800 yards, so that the fireball that would form from this really very small nuclear weapon — by modern standards — 15 kilotons of TNT equivalent, wouldn't touch the ground and stir up dirt and irradiate it and cause massive radioactive fallout. It never did that. They weren't sure there would be any fallout. They thought the plutonium and the bomb over Nagasaki now would just kind of turn into a gas and blow away. That's not exactly what happened. But people don't seem to realize, and it's never been emphasized enough, these first bombs, like all nuclear weapons, were firebombs. Their job was to start mass fires, just exactly like all the six-pound incendiaries that had been destroying every major city in Japan by then. Every major city above 50,000 population had already been burned out. The only reason Hiroshima and Nagasaki were around to be atomic bombed is because they'd been set aside from the target list, because General Groves wanted to know what the damage effects would be. The bomb that was tested in the desert didn't tell you anything. It killed a lot of rabbits, knocked down a lot of cactus, melted some sand, but you couldn't see its effect on buildings and on people. So the bomb was deliberately intended to be as much not like poison gas, for example, because we didn't want the reputation for being like people in the war in Europe during the First World War, where people were killing each other with horrible gasses. We just wanted people to think this was another bombing. So in that sense, it was. Of course, there was radioactivity. And of course, some people were killed by it. But they calculated that the people who would be killed by the irradiation, the neutron radiation from the original fireball, would be close enough to the epicenter of the explosion that they would be killed by the blast or the flash of light, which was 10,000 degrees. The world's worst sunburn. You've seen stories of people walking around with their skin hanging off their arms. I've had sunburns almost that bad, but not over my whole body, obviously, where the skin actually peeled blisters and peels off. That was a sunburn from a 10,000 degree artificial sun. Dwarkesh Patel 0:34:29So that's not the heat, that's just the light? Richard Rhodes 0:34:32Radiant light, radiant heat. 10,000 degrees. But the blast itself only extended out a certain distance, it was fire. And all the nuclear weapons that have ever been designed are basically firebombs. That's important because the military in the United States after the war was not able to figure out how to calculate the effects of this weapon in a reliable way that matched their previous experience. They would only calculate the blast effects of a nuclear weapon when they figured their targets. That's why we had what came to be called overkill. We wanted redundancy, of course, but 60 nuclear weapons on Moscow was way beyond what would be necessary to destroy even that big a city because they were only calculating the blast. But in fact, if you exploded a 300 kiloton nuclear warhead over the Pentagon at 3,000 feet, it would blast all the way out to the capital, which isn't all that far. But if you counted the fire, it would start a mass-fire and then it would reach all the way out to the Beltway and burn everything between the epicenter of the weapon and the Beltway. All organic matter would be totally burned out, leaving nothing but mineral matter, basically. Dwarkesh Patel 0:36:08I want to emphasize two things you said because they really hit me in reading the book and I'm not sure if the audience has fully integrated them. The first is, in the book, the military planners and Groves, they talk about needing to use the bomb sooner rather than later, because they were running out of cities in Japan where there are enough buildings left that it would be worth bombing in the first place, which is insane. An entire country is almost already destroyed from fire bombing alone. And the second thing about the category difference between thermonuclear and atomic bombs. Daniel Ellsberg, the nuclear planner who wrote the Doomsday machine, he talks about, people don't understand that the atom bomb that resulted in the pictures we see of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, that is simply the detonator of a modern nuclear bomb, which is an insane thing to think about. So for example, 10 and 15 kilotons is the Hiroshima Nagasaki and the Tsar Bomba, which was 50 megatons. So more than 1,000 times as much. And that wasn't even as big as they could make it. They kept the uranium tamper off, because they didn't want to destroy all of Siberia. So you could get more than 10,000 times as powerful. Richard Rhodes 0:37:31When Edward Teller, co-inventor of the hydrogen bomb and one of the dark forces in the story, was consulting with our military, just for his own sake, he sat down and calculated, how big could you make a hydrogen bomb? He came up with 1,000 megatons. And then he looked at the effects. 1,000 megatons would be a fireball 10 miles in diameter. And the atmosphere is only 10 miles deep. He figured that it would just be a waste of energy, because it would all blow out into space. Some of it would go laterally, of course, but most of it would just go out into space. So a bomb more than 100 megatons would just be totally a waste of time. Of course, a 100 megatons bomb is also a total waste, because there's no target on Earth big enough to justify that from a military point of view. Robert Oppenheimer, when he had his security clearance questioned and then lifted when he was being punished for having resisted the development of the hydrogen bomb, was asked by the interrogator at this security hearing — “Well, Dr. Oppenheimer, if you'd had a hydrogen bomb for Hiroshima, wouldn't you have used it?” And Oppenheimer said, “No.” The interrogator asked, “Why is that?” He said because the target was too small. I hope that scene is in the film, I'm sure it will be. So after the war, when our bomb planners and some of our scientists went into Hiroshima and Nagasaki, just about as soon as the surrender was signed, what they were interested in was the scale of destruction, of course. And those two cities didn't look that different from the other cities that had been firebombed with small incendiaries and ordinary high explosives. They went home to Washington, the policy makers, with the thought that — “Oh, these bombs are not so destructive after all.” They had been touted as city busters, basically, and they weren't. They didn't completely burn out cities. They were not certainly more destructive than the firebombing campaign, when everything of more than 50,000 population had already been destroyed. That, in turn, influenced the judgment about what we needed to do vis-a-vis the Soviet Union when the Soviets got the bomb in 1949. There was a general sense that, when you could fight a war with nuclear weapons, deterrence or not, you would need quite a few of them to do it right. And the Air Force, once it realized that it could aggrandize its own share of the federal budget by cornering the market and delivering nuclear weapons, very quickly decided that they would only look at the blast effect and not the fire effect. It's like tying one hand behind your back. Most of it was a fire effect. So that's where they came up with numbers like we need 60 of these to take out Moscow. And what the Air Force figured out by the late 1940s is that the more targets, the more bombs. The more bombs, the more planes. The more planes, the biggest share of the budget. So by the mid 1950s, the Air Force commanded 47% of the federal defense budget. And the other branches of services, which had not gone nuclear by then, woke up and said, we'd better find some use for these weapons in our branches of service. So the Army discovered that it needed nuclear weapons, tactical weapons for field use, fired out of cannons. There was even one that was fired out of a shoulder mounted rifle. There was a satchel charge that two men could carry, weighed about 150 pounds, that could be used to dig a ditch so that Soviet tanks couldn't cross into Germany. And of course the Navy by then had been working hard with General Rickover on building a nuclear submarine that could carry ballistic missiles underwater in total security. No way anybody could trace those submarines once they were quiet enough. And a nuclear reactor is very quiet. It just sits there with neutrons running around, making heat. So the other services jumped in and this famous triad, we must have these three different kinds of nuclear weapons, baloney. We would be perfectly safe if we only had our nuclear submarines. And only one or two of those. One nuclear submarine can take out all of Europe or all of the Soviet Union.Dwarkesh Patel 0:42:50Because it has multiple nukes on it? Richard Rhodes 0:42:53Because they have 16 intercontinental ballistic missiles with MIRV warheads, at least three per missile. Dwarkesh Patel 0:43:02Wow. I had a former guest, Richard Hanania, who has a book about foreign policy where he points out that our model of thinking about why countries do the things they do, especially in foreign affairs, is wrong because we think of them as individual rational actors, when in fact it's these competing factions within the government. And in fact, you see this especially in the case of Japan in World War II, there was a great book of Japan leading up to World War II, where they talk about how a branch of the Japanese military, I forget which, needed more oil to continue their campaign in Manchuria so they forced these other branches to escalate. But it's so interesting that the reason we have so many nukes is that the different branches are competing for funding. Richard Rhodes 0:43:50Douhet, the theorist of air power, had been in the trenches in the First World War. Somebody (John Masefield) called the trenches of the First World War, the long grave already dug, because millions of men were killed and the trenches never moved, a foot this way, a foot that way, all this horror. And Douhet came up with the idea that if you could fly over the battlefield to the homeland of the enemy and destroy his capacity to make war, then the people of that country, he theorized, would rise up in rebellion and throw out their leaders and sue for peace. And this became the dream of all the Air Forces of the world, but particularly ours. Until around 1943, it was called the US Army Air Force. The dream of every officer in the Air Force was to get out from under the Army, not just be something that delivers ground support or air support to the Army as it advances, but a power that could actually win wars. And the missing piece had always been the scale of the weaponry they carried. So when the bomb came along, you can see why Curtis LeMay, who ran the strategic air command during the prime years of that force, was pushing for bigger and bigger bombs. Because if a plane got shot down, but the one behind it had a hydrogen bomb, then it would be just almost as effective as the two planes together. So they wanted big bombs. And they went after Oppenheimer because he thought that was a terrible way to go, that there was really no military use for these huge weapons. Furthermore, the United States had more cities than Russia did, than the Soviet Union did. And we were making ourselves a better target by introducing a weapon that could destroy a whole state. I used to live in Connecticut and I saw a map that showed the air pollution that blew up from New York City to Boston. And I thought, well, now if that was fallout, we'd be dead up here in green, lovely Connecticut. That was the scale that it was going to be with these big new weapons. So on the one hand, you had some of the important leaders in the government thinking that these weapons were not the war-winning weapons that the Air Force wanted them and realized they could be. And on the other hand, you had the Air Force cornering the market on nuclear solutions to battles. All because some guy in a trench in World War I was sufficiently horrified and sufficiently theoretical about what was possible with air power. Remember, they were still flying biplanes. When H.G. Wells wrote his novel, The World Set Free in 1913, predicting an atomic war that would lead to world government, he had Air Forces delivering atomic bombs, but he forgot to update his planes. The guys in the back seat, the bombardiers, were sitting in a biplane, open cockpit. And when the pilots had dropped the bomb, they would reach down and pick up H.G. Wells' idea of an atomic bomb and throw it over the side. Which is kind of what was happening in Washington after the war. And it led us to a terribly misleading and unfortunate perspective on how many weapons we needed, which in turn fermented the arms race with the Soviets and just chased off. In the Soviet Union, they had a practical perspective on factories. Every factory was supposed to produce 120% of its target every year. That was considered good Soviet realism. And they did that with their nuclear war weapons. So by the height of the Cold War, they had 75,000 nuclear weapons, and nobody had heard yet of nuclear winter. So if both sides had set off this string of mass traps that we had in our arsenals, it would have been the end of the human world without question. Dwarkesh Patel 0:48:27It raises an interesting question, if the military planners thought that the conventional nuclear weapon was like the fire bombing, would it have been the case that if there wasn't a thermonuclear weapon, that there actually would have been a nuclear war by now because people wouldn't have been thinking of it as this hard red line? Richard Rhodes 0:48:47I don't think so because we're talking about one bomb versus 400, and one plane versus 400 planes and thousands of bombs. That scale was clear. Deterrence was the more important business. Everyone seemed to understand even the spies that the Soviets had connected up to were wholesaling information back to the Soviet Union. There's this comic moment when Truman is sitting with Joseph Stalin at Potsdam, and he tells Stalin, we have a powerful new weapon. And that's as much as he's ready to say about it. And Stalin licks at him and says, “Good, I hope you put it to good use with the Japanese.” Stalin knows exactly what he's talking about. He's seen the design of the fat man type Nagasaki plutonium bomb. He has held it in his hands because they had spies all over the place. (0:49:44) - Stalin & the Soviet programDwarkesh Patel 0:49:44How much longer would it have taken the Soviets to develop the bomb if they didn't have any spies? Richard Rhodes 0:49:49Probably not any longer. Dwarkesh Patel 0:49:51Really? Richard Rhodes 0:49:51When the Soviet Union collapsed in the winter of ‘92, I ran over there as quickly as I could get over there. In this limbo between forming a new kind of government and some of the countries pulling out and becoming independent and so forth, their nuclear scientists, the ones who'd worked on their bombs were free to talk. And I found that out through Yelena Bonner, Andrei Sakharov's widow, who was connected to people I knew. And she said, yeah, come on over. Her secretary, Sasha, who was a geologist about 35 years old became my guide around the country. We went to various apartments. They were retired guys from the bomb program and were living on, as far as I could tell, sac-and-potatoes and some salt. They had government pensions and the money was worth a salt, all of a sudden. I was buying photographs from them, partly because I needed the photographs and partly because 20 bucks was two months' income at that point. So it was easy for me and it helped them. They had first class physicists in the Soviet Union, they do in Russian today. They told me that by 1947, they had a design for a bomb that they said was half the weight and twice the yield of the Fat Man bomb. The Fat Man bomb was the plutonium implosion, right? And it weighed about 9,000 pounds. They had a much smaller and much more deliverable bomb with a yield of about 44 kilotons. Dwarkesh Patel 0:51:41Why was Soviet physics so good?Richard Rhodes 0:51:49The Russian mind? I don't know. They learned all their technology from the French in the 19th century, which is why there's so many French words in Russian. So they got good teachers, the French are superb technicians, they aren't so good at building things, but they're very good at designing things. There's something about Russia, I don't know if it's the language or the education. They do have good education, they did. But I remember asking them when they were working, I said — On the hydrogen bomb, you didn't have any computers yet. We only had really early primitive computers to do the complicated calculations of the hydrodynamics of that explosion. I said, “What did you do?” They said, “Oh, we just used nuclear. We just used theoretical physics.” Which is what we did at Los Alamos. We had guys come in who really knew their math and they would sit there and work it out by hand. And women with old Marchant calculators running numbers. So basically they were just good scientists and they had this new design. Kurchatov who ran the program took Lavrentiy Beria, who ran the NKVD who was put in charge of the program and said — “Look, we can build you a better bomb. You really wanna waste the time to make that much more uranium and plutonium?” And Beria said, “Comrade, I want the American bomb. Give me the American bomb or you and all your families will be camp dust.” I talked to one of the leading scientists in the group and he said, we valued our lives, we valued our families. So we gave them a copy of the plutonium implosion bomb. Dwarkesh Patel 0:53:37Now that you explain this, when the Soviet Union fell, why didn't North Korea, Iran or another country, send a few people to the fallen Soviet Union to recruit a few of the scientists to start their own program? Or buy off their stockpiles or something. Or did they?Richard Rhodes 0:53:59There was some effort by countries in the Middle East to get all the enriched uranium, which they wouldn't sell them. These were responsible scientists. They told me — we worked on the bomb because you had it and we didn't want there to be a monopoly on the part of any country in the world. So patriotically, even though Stalin was in charge of our country, he was a monster. We felt that it was our responsibility to work on these things, even Sakharov. There was a great rush at the end of the Second World War to get hold of German scientists. And about an equal number were grabbed by the Soviets. All of the leading German scientists, like Heisenberg and Hans and others, went west as fast as they could. They didn't want to be captured by the Soviets. But there were some who were. And they helped them work. People have the idea that Los Alamos was where the bomb happened. And it's true that at Los Alamos, we had the team that designed, developed, and built the first actual weapons. But the truth is, the important material for weapons is the uranium or plutonium. One of the scientists in the Manhattan Project told me years later, you can make a pretty high-level nuclear explosion just by taking two subcritical pieces of uranium, putting one on the floor and dropping the other by hand from a height of about six feet. If that's true, then all this business about secret designs and so forth is hogwash. What you really need for a weapon is the critical mass of highly enriched uranium, 90% of uranium-235. If you've got that, there are lots of different ways to make the bomb. We had two totally different ways that we used. The gun on the one hand for uranium, and then because plutonium was so reactive that if you fired up the barrel of a cannon at 3,000 feet per second, it would still melt down before the two pieces made it up. So for that reason, they had to invent an entirely new technology, which was an amazing piece of work. From the Soviet point of view, and I think this is something people don't know either, but it puts the Russian experience into a better context. All the way back in the 30s, since the beginning of the Soviet Union after the First World War, they had been sending over espionage agents connected up to Americans who were willing to work for them to collect industrial technology. They didn't have it when they began their country. It was very much an agricultural country. And in that regard, people still talk about all those damn spies stealing our secrets, we did the same thing with the British back in colonial days. We didn't know how to make a canal that wouldn't drain out through the soil. The British had a certain kind of clay that they would line their canals with, and there were canals all over England, even in the 18th century, that were impervious to the flow of water. And we brought a British engineer at great expense to teach us how to make the lining for the canals that opened up the Middle West and then the West. So they were doing the same thing. And one of those spies was a guy named Harry Gold, who was working all the time for them. He gave them some of the basic technology of Kodak filmmaking, for example. Harry Gold was the connection between David Greenglass and one of the American spies at Los Alamos and the Soviet Union. So it was not different. The model was — never give us something that someone dreamed of that hasn't been tested and you know works. So it would actually be blueprints for factories, not just a patent. And therefore when Beria after the war said, give us the bomb, he meant give me the American bomb because we know that works. I don't trust you guys. Who knows what you'll do. You're probably too stupid anyway. He was that kind of man. So for all of those reasons, they built the second bomb they tested was twice the yield and half the way to the first bomb. In other words, it was their new design. And so it was ours because the technology was something that we knew during the war, but it was too theoretical still to use. You just had to put the core and have a little air gap between the core and the explosives so that the blast wave would have a chance to accelerate through an open gap. And Alvarez couldn't tell me what it was but he said, you can get a lot more destructive force with a hammer if you hit something with it, rather than if you put the head on the hammer and push. And it took me several years before I figured out what he meant. I finally understood he was talking about what's called levitation.Dwarkesh Patel 0:59:41On the topic that the major difficulty in developing a bomb is either the refinement of uranium into U-235 or its transmutation into plutonium, I was actually talking to a physicist in preparation for this conversation. He explained the same thing that if you get two subcritical masses of uranium together, you wouldn't have the full bomb because it would start to tear itself apart without the tamper, but you would still have more than one megaton.Richard Rhodes 1:00:12It would be a few kilotons. Alvarez's model would be a few kilotons, but that's a lot. Dwarkesh Patel 1:00:20Yeah, sorry I meant kiloton. He claimed that one of the reasons why we talk so much about Los Alamos is that at the time the government didn't want other countries to know that if you refine uranium, you've got it. So they were like, oh, we did all this fancy physics work in Los Alamos that you're not gonna get to, so don't even worry about it. I don't know what you make of that theory. That basically it was sort of a way to convince people that Los Alamos was important. Richard Rhodes 1:00:49I think all the physics had been checked out by a lot of different countries by then. It was pretty clear to everybody what you needed to do to get to a bomb. That there was a fast fusion reaction, not a slow fusion reaction, like a reactor. They'd worked that out. So I don't think that's really the problem. But to this day, no one ever talks about the fact that the real problem isn't the design of the weapon. You could make one with wooden boxes if you wanted to. The problem is getting the material. And that's good because it's damned hard to make that stuff. And it's something you can protect. Dwarkesh Patel 1:01:30We also have gotten very lucky, if lucky is the word you want to use. I think you mentioned this in the book at some point, but the laws of physics could have been such that unrefined uranium ore was enough to build a nuclear weapon, right? In some sense, we got lucky that it takes a nation-state level actor to really refine and produce the raw substance. Richard Rhodes 1:01:56Yeah, I was thinking about that this morning on the way over. And all the uranium in the world would already have destroyed itself. Most people have never heard of the living reactors that developed on their own in a bed of uranium ore in Africa about two billion years ago, right? When there was more U-235 in a mass of uranium ore than there is today, because it decays like all radioactive elements. And the French discovered it when they were mining the ore and found this bed that had a totally different set of nuclear characteristics. They were like, what happened? But there were natural reactors in Gabon once upon a time. And they started up because some water, a moderator to make the neutrons slow down, washed its way down through a bed of much more highly enriched uranium ore than we still have today. Maybe 5-10% instead of 3.5 or 1.5, whatever it is now. And they ran for about 100,000 years and then shut themselves down because they had accumulated enough fusion products that the U-235 had been used up. Interestingly, this material never migrated out of the bed of ore. People today who are anti-nuclear say, well, what are we gonna do about the waste? Where are we gonna put all that waste? It's silly. Dwarkesh Patel 1:03:35Shove it in a hole. Richard Rhodes 1:03:36Yeah, basically. That's exactly what we're planning to do. Holes that are deep enough and in beds of material that will hold them long enough for everything to decay back to the original ore. It's not a big problem except politically because nobody wants it in their backyard.Dwarkesh Patel 1:03:53On the topic of the Soviets, one question I had while reading the book was — we negotiated with Stalin at Yalta and we surrendered a large part of Eastern Europe to him under his sphere of influence. And obviously we saw 50 years of immiseration there as a result. Given the fact that only we had the bomb, would it have been possible that we could have just knocked out the Soviet Union or at least prevented so much of the world from succumbing to communism in the aftermath of World War II? Is that a possibility? Richard Rhodes 1:04:30When we say we had the bomb, we had a few partly assembled handmade bombs. It took almost as long to assemble one as the battery life of the batteries that would drive the original charge that would set off the explosion. It was a big bluff. You know, when they closed Berlin in 1948 and we had to supply Berlin by air with coal and food for a whole winter, we moved some B-29s to England. The B-29 being the bomber that had carried the bombs. They were not outfitted for nuclear weapons. They didn't have the same kind of bomb-based structure. The weapons that were dropped in Japan had a single hook that held the entire bomb. So when the bay opened and the hook was released, the thing dropped. And that's very different from dropping whole rows of small bombs that you've seen in the photographs and the film footage. So it was a big bluff on our part. We took some time after the war inevitably to pull everything together. Here was a brand new technology. Here was a brand new weapon. Who was gonna be in charge of it? The military wanted control, Truman wasn't about to give the military control. He'd been an artillery officer in the First World War. He used to say — “No, damn artillery captain is gonna start World War III when I'm president.” I grew up in the same town he lived in so I know his accent. Independence, Missouri. Used to see him at his front steps taking pictures with tourists while he was still president. He used to step out on the porch and let the tourists take photographs. About a half a block from my Methodist church where I went to church. It was interesting. Interestingly, his wife was considered much more socially acceptable than he was. She was from an old family in independence, Missouri. And he was some farmer from way out in Grandview, Missouri, South of Kansas City. Values. Anyway, at the end of the war, there was a great rush from the Soviet side of what was already a zone. There was a Soviet zone, a French zone, British zone and an American zone. Germany was divided up into those zones to grab what's left of the uranium ore that the Germans had stockpiled. And there was evidence that there was a number of barrels of the stuff in a warehouse somewhere in the middle of all of this. And there's a very funny story about how the Russians ran in and grabbed off one site full of uranium ore, this yellow black stuff in what were basically wine barrels. And we at the same night, just before the wall came down between the zones, were running in from the other side, grabbing some other ore and then taking it back to our side. But there was also a good deal of requisitioning of German scientists. And the ones who had gotten away early came West, but there were others who didn't and ended up helping the Soviets. And they were told, look, you help us build the reactors and the uranium separation systems that we need. And we'll let you go home and back to your family, which they did. Early 50s by then, the German scientists who had helped the Russians went home. And I think our people stayed here and brought their families over, I don't know. (1:08:24) - Deterrence, disarmament, North Korea, TaiwanDwarkesh Patel 1:08:24Was there an opportunity after the end of World War II, before the Soviets developed the bomb, for the US to do something where either it somehow enforced a monopoly on having the bomb, or if that wasn't possible, make some sort of credible gesture that, we're eliminating this knowledge, you guys don't work on this, we're all just gonna step back from this. Richard Rhodes 1:08:50We tried both before the war. General Groves, who had the mistaken impression that there was a limited amount of high-grade uranium ore in the world, put together a company that tried to corner the market on all the available supply. For some reason, he didn't realize that a country the size of the Soviet Union is going to have some uranium ore somewhere. And of course it did, in Kazakhstan, rich uranium ore, enough for all the bombs they wanted to build. But he didn't know that, and I frankly don't know why he didn't know that, but I guess uranium's use before the Second World War was basically as a glazing agent for pottery, that famous yellow pottery and orange pottery that people owned in the 1930s, those colors came from uranium, and they're sufficiently radioactive, even to this day, that if you wave a Geiger counter over them, you get some clicks. In fact, there have been places where they've gone in with masks and suits on, grabbed the Mexican pottery and taken it out in a lead-lined case. People have been so worried about it but that was the only use for uranium, to make a particular kind of glass. So once it became clear that there was another use for uranium, a much more important one, Groves tried to corner the world market, and he thought he had. So that was one effort to limit what the Soviet Union could do. Another was to negotiate some kind of agreement between the parties. That was something that really never got off the ground, because the German Secretary of State was an old Southern politician and he didn't trust the Soviets. He went to the first meeting, in Geneva in ‘45 after the war was over, and strutted around and said, well, I got the bomb in my pocket, so let's sit down and talk here. And the Soviet basically said, screw you. We don't care. We're not worried about your bomb. Go home. So that didn't work. Then there was the effort to get the United Nations to start to develop some program of international control. And the program was proposed originally by a committee put together by our State Department that included Robert Oppenheimer, rightly so, because the other members of the committee were industrialists, engineers, government officials, people with various kinds of expertise around the very complicated problems of technology and the science and, of course, the politics, the diplomacy. In a couple of weeks, Oppenheimer taught them the basics of the nuclear physics involved and what he knew about bomb design, which was everything, actually, since he'd run Los Alamos. He was a scientist during the war. And they came up with a plan. People have scoffed ever since at what came to be called the Acheson-Lilienthal plan named after the State Department people. But it's the only plan I think anyone has ever devised that makes real sense as to how you could have international control without a world government. Every country would be open to inspection by any agency that was set up. And the inspections would not be at the convenience of the country. But whenever the inspectors felt they needed to inspect. So what Oppenheimer called an open world. And if you had that, and then if each country then developed its own nuclear industries, nuclear power, medical uses, whatever, then if one country tried clandestinely to begin to build bombs, you would know about it at the time of the next inspection. And then you could try diplomacy. If that didn't work, you could try conventional war. If that wasn't sufficient, then you could start building your bombs too. And at the end of this sequence, which would be long enough, assuming that there were no bombs existing in the world, and the ore was stored in a warehouse somewhere, six months maybe, maybe a year, it would be time for everyone to scale up to deterrence with weapons rather than deterrence without weapons, with only the knowledge. That to me is the answer to the whole thing. And it might have worked. But there were two big problems. One, no country is going to allow a monopoly on a nuclear weapon, at least no major power. So the Russians were not willing to sign on from the beginning. They just couldn't. How could they? We would not have. Two, Sherman assigned a kind of a loudmouth, a wise old Wall Street guy to present this program to the United Nations. And he sat down with Oppenheimer after he and his people had studied and said, where's your army? Somebody starts working on a bomb over there. You've got to go in and take that out, don't you? He said, what would happen if one country started building a bomb? Oppenheimer said, well, that would be an act of war. Meaning then the other countries could begin to escalate as they needed to to protect themselves against one power, trying to overwhelm the rest. Well, Bernard Baruch was the name of the man. He didn't get it. So when he presented his revised version of the Acheson–Lilienthal Plan, which was called the Baruch Plan to the United Nations, he included his army. And he insisted that the United States would not give up its nuclear monopoly until everyone else had signed on. So of course, who's going to sign on to that deal? Dwarkesh Patel 1:15:24I feel he has a point in the sense that — World War II took five years or more. If we find that the Soviets are starting to develop a bomb, it's not like within the six months or a year or whatever, it would take them to start refining the ore. And to the point we found out that they've been refining ore to when we start a war and engage in it, and doing all the diplomacy. By that point, they might already have the bomb. And so we're behind because we dismantled our weapons. We are only starting to develop our weapons once we've exhausted these other avenues. Richard Rhodes 1:16:00Not to develop. Presumably we would have developed. And everybody would have developed anyway. Another way to think of this is as delayed delivery times. Takes about 30 minutes to get an ICBM from Central Missouri to Moscow. That's the time window for doing anything other than starting a nuclear war. So take the warhead off those missiles and move it down the road 10 miles. So then it takes three hours. You've got to put the warhead back on the missiles. If the other side is willing to do this too. And you both can watch and see. We require openness. A word Bohr introduced to this whole thing. In order to make this happen, you can't have secrets. And of course, as time passed on, we developed elaborate surveillance from space, surveillance from planes, and so forth. It would not have worked in 1946 for sure. The surveillance wasn't there. But that system is in place today. The International Atomic Energy Agency has detected systems in air, in space, underwater. They can detect 50 pounds of dynamite exploded in England from Australia with the systems that we have in place. It's technical rather than human resources. But it's there. So it's theoretically possible today to get started on such a program. Except, of course, now, in like 1950, the world is awash in nuclear weapons. Despite the reductions that have occurred since the end of the Cold War, there's still 30,000-40,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Way too many. Dwarkesh Patel 1:18:01Yeah. That's really interesting. What percentage of warheads do you think are accounted for by this organization? If there's 30,000 warheads, what percentage are accounted for? Richard Rhodes 1:18:12All.Dwarkesh Patel 1:18:12Oh. Really?  North Korea doesn't have secrets? Richard Rhodes 1:18:13They're allowed to inspect anywhere without having to ask the government for permission. Dwarkesh Patel 1:18:18But presumably not North Korea or something, right? Richard Rhodes 1:18:21North Korea is an exception. But we keep pretty good track of North Korea needless to say. Dwarkesh Patel 1:18:27Are you surprised with how successful non-proliferation has been? The number of countries with nuclear weapons has not gone up for decades. Given the fact, as you were talking about earlier, it's simply a matter of refining or transmuting uranium. Is it surprising that there aren't more countries that have it?Richard Rhodes 1:18:42That's really an interesting part. Again, a part of the story that most people have never really heard. In the 50s, before the development and signing of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which was 1968 and it took effect in 1970, a lot of countries that you would never have imagined were working on nuclear weapons. Sweden, Norway, Japan, South Korea. They had the technology. They just didn't have the materials. It was kind of dicey about what you should do. But I interviewed some of the Swedish scientists who worked on their bomb and they said, well, we were just talking about making some tactical

She's one of the world's most effective champions of women's rights, human rights, and democratic values. For Women's History Month, we speak with Felice Gaer, director of American Jewish Committee's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of Human Rights. Gaer, who fights for religious freedom, the rights of women, and against antisemitism, highlights the importance of women's voices in an often-male dominated field. She has been appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, serving five terms (three as chair and two as vice chair), and was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture.  *The views and opinions expressed by guests do not necessarily reflect the views or position of AJC. _____ Episode Lineup:  (0:40) Felice Gaer _____ Show Notes:   Read: JBI Appeal on the One-Year Anniversary of the Russian Invasion of Ukraine   Listen: 10 Trailblazing Jewish Women on AJC's People of the Pod Dr. Ahmed Shaheed on first UN human rights report wholly dedicated to antisemitism    Follow People of the Pod on your favorite podcast app, and learn more at AJC.org/PeopleofthePod   You can reach us at: peopleofthepod@ajc.org   If you've enjoyed this episode, please be sure to tell your friends, tag us on social media with #PeopleofthePod, and hop onto Apple Podcasts to rate us and write a review, to help more listeners find us. _____   Transcript of Interview with Felice Gaer   Manya Brachear Pashman:   Felice Gaer has served as the director of AJC's Jacob Blaustein Institute for the Advancement of human rights, affectionately known here as JBI since 1993. During that time, she has specifically focused on the rights of religious freedom, the rights of women, the prohibition of torture and the struggle against antisemitism globally. She has been appointed a public member of at least nine US delegations to United Nations Human Rights negotiations, including the Vienna World Conference on human rights in 1993. And the Beijing World Conference on Women in 1995. She was the first American elected to serve on the UN's Committee Against Torture. In fact, she served five terms, and she was appointed to the US Commission on International Religious Freedom, where she served as chair and advised the President and Congress on US human rights policy.    And even though she's not a lawyer or a court justice, on March 30, she receives the Honorary Member award of the American Society of International Law, the preeminent international society in this field, as we mark International Women's Day this week and women's history this month, Felice is with us now to discuss today's human rights challenges and the challenges she has faced as a woman in the Human Rights world.    Felice, welcome to People of the Pod.    Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So let's start with the beginning. Can you share with our listeners a little about your upbringing, and how Jewish values shaped what you do today?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I had a fairly ordinary upbringing in a suburb of New York City that had a fairly high percentage of Jews living in it–Teaneck, New Jersey. I was shaped by all the usual things in a Jewish home. First of all, the holidays. Secondly, the values, Jewish values, and awareness, a profound awareness of Jewish history, the history of annihilation, expulsion, discrimination, violence. But also the Jewish values of universality, respect for all human life, equality before the law, sense of realism, sense that you can change your life by what you do, and the choices that you make. These are all core Jewish values. And I guess I always have found the three part expression by Rabbi Hillel to sum up the approach I've always taken to human rights and most other things in life. He said, If I'm not for myself, who will be, and if I'm only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when? So that's a sense of Jewish particularism, Jewish universalism, and realism, as well.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   You went to Wellesley, class of 1968, it's an all-women's college. Was there a strong Jewish presence on campus there at a time? And did that part of your identity even play a role in your college experience?    Felice Gaer :  Well, I left, as I said, a town that had a fairly sizable Jewish population. And I went to Wellesley and I felt like I was in another world. And so even as long ago as 1964-65, that era, I actually reached out to Hillel and participated in very minor activities that took place, usually a Friday night dinner, or something like that. But it really didn't play a role except by making me recognize that I was a member of a very small minority.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   Here on this podcast, we've talked a lot about the movement to free Soviet Jewry. As you pursued graduate work at Columbia, and also during your undergrad days at Wellesley, were you involved in that movement at all?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I had great interest in Russian studies, and in my years at Wellesley, the Soviet Union movement was at a very nascent stage. And I remember arguments with the Soviet Ambassador coming to the campus and our specialist on Russian history, arguing about whether this concern about the treatment of Soviet Jews was a valid concern.  The professor, who happened to have been Jewish, by the way, argued that Jews in the Soviet Union were treated badly, but so was everybody else in the Soviet Union. And it really wasn't something that one needed to focus on especially. As I left Wellesley and went to Columbia, where I studied political science and was at the Russian Institute, now the Harriman Institute, I found that the treatment of Soviet Jews was different in many ways, and the capacity to do something about it was serious.  We knew people who had relatives, we knew people who wanted to leave. The whole Soviet Union movement was focused around the desire to leave the country–not to change it–that was an explicit decision of Jewish leaders around the world, and in the Soviet Union itself. And so the desire to leave was something you could realize, document the cases, bring the names forward, and engage American officials in a way that the Jewish community had never done before with cases and examples demanding that every place you went, every negotiation that took place, was accompanied by lists of names and cases, whose plight will be brought to the attention of the authorities. And that really mobilized people, including people like me.  I also worked to focus on the agenda of internal change in the Soviet Union. And that meant also looking at other human rights issues. Why and how freedom of religion or belief was suppressed in this militantly atheist state, why and how freedom of expression, freedom of association, and just about every other right, was really severely limited. And what the international standards were at that time. After I left Columbia, that was around the time that the famous manifesto from Andrei Sakharov, the world famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, was made public. It was around the time that other kinds of dissident materials were becoming better known about life inside the Soviet Union post-Khrushchev.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So you left Colombia with a master's degree, the Cold War ends, and you take a job at the Ford Foundation that has you traveling all around Eastern Europe, looking to end human rights abuses, assessing the challenges that face that region. I want to ask you about the treatment of women, and what you witnessed about the mistreatment of women in these regions. And does that tend to be a common denominator around the world when you assess human rights abuses?   Felice Gaer:   Well, there's no question that the treatment of women is different than the treatment of men. And it's true all over the world. But when I traveled in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union in the height of those years, height of the Cold War, and so forth, the issues of women's rights actually weren't one of the top issues on the agenda because the Soviet Union and East European countries appeared to be doing more for women than the Western countries.  They had them in governance. They had them in the parliament. They purported to support equality for women. It took some years for Soviet feminists, dissidents, to find a voice and to begin to point out all the ways in which they were treated in the same condescending, patriarchal style as elsewhere. But in those years, that was not a big issue in the air.  It was unusual for me, a 20-something year old woman from the United States to be traveling around Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, meeting with high officials and others, and on behalf of the Ford Foundation, trying to develop programming that would involve people to people contacts, that would involve developing programs where there was common expertise, like management training, and things of that sort. And I was really an odd, odd duck in that situation, and I felt it.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   I mentioned in my introduction, the Beijing World Conference on Women, can you reflect a little on what had a lasting impact there?   Felice Gaer:   Well, the Beijing World Conference on Women was the largest, and remains the largest conference that the United Nations has ever organized. There were over 35,000 women there, about 17,000 at the intergovernmental conference. I was on the US delegation there.  The simple statement that women's rights are human rights may seem hackneyed today. But when that was affirmed in the 1995 Beijing Outcome Document, it was a major political and conceptual breakthrough. It was largely focused on getting the UN to accept that the rights of women were actually international human rights and that they weren't something different. They weren't private, or outside the reach of investigators and human rights bodies. It was an inclusive statement, and it was a mind altering statement in the women's rights movement.  It not only reaffirmed that women's rights are human rights, but it went further in addressing the problems facing women in the language of human rights.  The earlier world conferences on women talked about equality, but they didn't identify violations of those rights. They didn't demand accountability of those rights. And they said absolutely nothing about creating mechanisms by which you could monitor, review, and hold people accountable, which is the rights paradigm. Beijing changed all that. It was a violations approach that was quite different from anything that existed before that.   Manya Brachear Pashman :  Did anything get forgotten? We talked about what had a lasting impact, but what seems to have been forgotten or have fallen to the wayside?   Felice Gaer:   Oh, I think it's just the opposite. I think the things that were in the Beijing conference have become Fuller and addressed in greater detail and are more commonly part of what goes on in the international discourse on women's rights and the status of women in public life. And certainly at the international level that's the case.  I'll give you just one example, the Convention Against Torture. I mean, when I became a member of the committee, the 10 person committee, I was the only woman. The committee really had, in 11 years, it had maybe said, four or five things about the treatment of women. And the way that torture, ill treatment, inhuman, degrading treatment may affect women.  It looked at the world through the eyes of male prisoners in detention. And it didn't look at the world through the eyes of women who suffer private violence, gender based violence, that is that the state looks away from and ignores and therefore sanctions, and to a certain extent endorses.  And it didn't identify the kinds of things that affect women, including women who are imprisoned, and why and where in many parts of the world. What one does in terms of education or dress or behavior may lead you into a situation where you're being abused, either in a prison or outside of prison. These are issues that are now part of the regular review, for example, at the Committee Against Torture, issues of of trafficking, issues of gender based violence, the Sharia law, the hudud punishments of whipping and stoning, are part of the concern of the committee, which they weren't before.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   In other words, having that woman's perspective, having your perspective on that committee was really important and really changed and broadened the discussion.   Felice Gaer:   Absolutely. When I first joined the committee, the first session I was at, we had a review of China. And so I very politely asked a question about the violence and coercion associated with the population policy in China, as you know, forced abortions and things of that sort. This was a question that had come up before the women's convention, the CEDAW, and I thought it was only appropriate that it also come up in the Committee Against Torture.  In our discussion afterwards, the very stern chairman of the committee, a former constable, said to me, ‘You know, this might be of interest to you, Ms. Gaer, but this has nothing to do with the mandate of this committee.' I explained to him why it did, in some detail. And when I finished pointing out all of those elements–including the fact that the people carried out these practices on the basis of state policy–when I finished, there was a silence.  And the most senior person in the room, who had been involved in these issues for decades, said, ‘I'm quite certain we can accommodate Ms. Gaer's concerns in the conclusions,' and they did.  That's the kind of thing that happens when you look at issues from a different perspective and raise them.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   You talked about being an odd duck in your 20s, as a woman traveling around Eastern Europe, trying to address these challenges. I'm curious if that woman in her 20s would have been able to stand up to this committee like that, and give that thorough an explanation? Or did it take some years of experience, of witnessing these issues, perhaps being ignored?    Felice Gaer:  Well, I think as we go through life, you learn new things. And I learned new things along the way. I learned about the universal norms, I learned about how to apply them, how they had been applied, and how they hadn't been applied. And in that process, developed what I would say is a sharper way of looking at these issues.  But the Bosnian conflict in particular, made the issue of gender based violence against women, especially in war, but not only in war, into a mainstream issue, and helped propel these issues, both inside the United Nations and outside, the awareness changed.  I remember asking the International Red Cross representatives in Croatia, just across the border from Bosnia, if they had encountered any victims of gender based violence or rape, and they said, ‘No.' And I said, ‘Did you ask them about these concerns?' And they sort of looked down and looked embarrassed, looked at each other and looked back at me and said, ‘Oh.' There were no words. There were no understandings of looking at the world this way. And that has changed. That has changed dramatically today. I mean, if you look at the situation in Ukraine, the amount of gender based violence that has been documented is horrifying, just horrifying, but it's been documented.   Manya Brachear Pashman   So is the world of human rights advocacy male-dominated, female-dominated, is it fairly balanced these days? And has that balance made the difference in what you're talking about?   Felice Gaer:   You know, I wrote an article in 1988, the 40th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, about why women's rights weren't being addressed. And one of the points I drew attention to was the fact that the heads of almost all the major organizations at the time were all male. And that it wasn't seen as a concern. A lot of that has changed. There's really a real variety of perspectives now that are brought to bear.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   So we've talked a lot about the importance of [a] woman's perspective. Does a Jewish perspective matter as well?   Felice Gaer:   Oh, on every issue on every issue and, you know, I worked a great deal on freedom of religion and belief, as an issue. That's a core issue of AJC, and it's a fundamental rights issue. And it struck me as surprising that with all the attention to freedom of religion, the concern about antisemitic acts was not being documented by mainstream human rights organizations. And it wasn't being documented by the UN experts on freedom of religion or belief either. I drew this to the attention of Dr. Ahmed Shaheed, who was recently ending his term as Special Rapporteur on Freedom of religion or belief. And he was really very struck by this. And he went, and he did a little bit of research. And he found out that since computerized records had been prepared at the United Nations, that there had been no attention, no attention at all, to cases of alleged antisemitic incidents. And he began a project to record the kinds of problems that existed and to identify what could be done about it. We helped him in the sense that we organized a couple of colloquia, we brought people from all over the world together to talk about the dimensions of the problem and the documentation that they did, and the proposals that they had for addressing it. And he, as you may recall, wrote a brilliant report in 2019, setting out the problems of global antisemitism. And he followed that up in 2022, before leaving his position with what he called an action plan for combating antisemitism, which has concrete specific suggestions for all countries around the world as to what they can do to help combat antisemitism and antisemitic acts, including and to some extent, starting with adopting the working definition on antisemitism of the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, but also activities in in the area of education, training, training of law enforcement officials, documentation and public action. It's a real contribution to the international discourse and to understanding that freedom of religion or belief belongs to everyone.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   And do you believe that Dr. Shaheed's report is being absorbed, comprehended by those that need to hear it that need to understand it?   Felice Gaer   I've been delighted to see the way that the European Union has engaged with Dr. Shaheed and his report has developed standards and expectations for all 27 member states, and that other countries and other parts of the world have done the same. So yeah, I do think they're engaging with it. I hope there'll be a lot more because the problem has only grown.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   On the one year anniversary of the Russian invasion of Ukraine, JBI issued a report that sounded the alarm on the widespread violations committed against Ukrainians, you mentioned the amount of gender based violence Since that has taken place, and the other just catastrophic consequences of this war. Felice, you've been on the front row of Eastern European affairs and human rights advocacy in that region. From your perspective, and I know this is a big question: How did this war happen?   Felice Gaer:   I'll just start by saying: it didn't start in 2022. And if you have to look at what happened, the events of 2014, to understand the events of 2022. Following the breakup of the Soviet Union, or even during the breakup, there was a period where the 15th constituent Union republics of the Soviet Union developed a greater national awareness, really, and some of them had been independent as some of them hadn't been, but they developed a much greater awareness. When the Soviet Union collapsed, the 15 countries, including Russia, as one of the 15, became independent entities. And aside from having more members in the United Nations and the Council of Europe and places like that, it led to much more robust activity, in terms of respecting human rights and other areas of endeavor in each of those countries.  The situation in Russia, with a head of state who has been there, with one exception, a couple of years, for 20 years, has seen an angry desire to reestablish an empire. That's the only thing you can say really about it.  If they can't dominate by having a pro-Russian group in charge in the country, then there have been invasions, there have been Russian forces, Russia-aligned forces sent to the different countries. So whether it's Georgia, or Moldova, or Ukraine, we've seen this pattern.  And unfortunately, what happened in 2022, is the most egregious and I would say, blatant such example. In 2014, the Russians argued that it was local Russian speaking, little green men who were conducting hostilities in these places, or it was local people who wanted to realign with Russia, who were demanding changes, and so forth. But in the 2022 events, Russia's forces invaded, wearing Russian insignia and making it quite clear that this was a matter of state policy that they were pursuing, and that they weren't going to give up.  And it's led to the tragic developments that we've all seen inside the country, and the horrific violence, the terrible, widespread human rights violations. And in war, we know that human rights violations are usually the worst.  And so the one good spot on the horizon: the degree to which these abuses have been documented, it's unprecedented to have so much documentation so early in a conflict like this, which someday may lead to redress and accountability for those who perpetrated it. But right now, in the middle of these events, it's just a horror.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   What other human rights situations do we need to be taking more seriously now? And where has there been significant progress?   Felice Gaer:   Well, I'll talk about the problem spots if I may for a minute. Everyone points to North Korea as the situation without parallel, that's what a UN Commission of Inquiry said, without parallel in the world. The situation in Iran? Well, you just need to watch what's happened to the protesters, the women and others who have protested over 500 people in the streets have died because of this. 15,000 people imprisoned, and Iran's prisons are known for ill treatment and torture.  The situation in Afghanistan is atrocious. The activities of the Taliban, which they were known for in the 1990s are being brought back. They are normalizing discrimination, they are engaged in probably the most hardline gender discrimination we've seen anywhere where women can't work outside the home, girls can't be educated, political participation is denied. The constitution has been thrown out. All kinds of things. The latest is women can't go to parks, they can't go to university, and they can't work for NGOs. This continues. It's a major crisis.  Well, there are other countries, from Belarus, to Sudan to Uzbekistan, and China, that we could also talk about at great length, lots of problems in the world, and not enough effort to expose them, address them and try to ameliorate them.   Manya Brachear Pashman   So what do we do about that? What can our listeners do about that, when we hear this kind of grim report?   Felice Gaer:   Work harder. Pay attention when you hear about rights issues. Support rights organizations. Take up cases. Seek redress. Be concerned about the victims. All these things need to be done.   Manya Brachear Pashman:   I don't know how you maintain your composure and your cool, Felice, because you have faced so much in terms of challenges and push back. So thank you so much for all you have done for women, for the Jewish people, and for the world at large. Thank you, thank you, thank you.   Felice Gaer:   Thank you, Manya.

Stephen Wolfram answers questions from his viewers about the history science and technology as part of an unscripted livestream series, also available on YouTube here: https://wolfr.am/youtube-sw-qa Questions include: What is the history of bugs and debugging? - ​Did you ever meet Andrei Sakharov? What do you think of his Cosmology? - How did you meet Nassim Nicholas Taleb, and why do you think he was able to take very computational approach to finance instead of reasoning by analogy? - ​How does Log4Shell compare to other historically-significant web vulnerabilities? Does the internet tend to course correct after large vulnerabilities?

Photo:  Soviet dissidents in the upper row: Naum Meiman, Sofiya Kallistratova, Petro Grigorenko, his wife Zinaida Grigorenko, Tatyana Velikanova's mother, priest Father Sergei Zheludkov and Andrei Sakharov; in the lower row: Genrikh Altunyan and Alexander Podrabinek. Photo taken on 16 October 1977 #StateThinking: Russia crushes dissent. @MaryKissel Former Senior Adviser to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. Executive VP Stephens Inc. https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/14/anti-war-protester-in-studio-disrupts-live-russian-state-tv-news.html https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russian-tv-editor-denounces-state-lies-live-on-air-vb6pqjm99?utm_source=Sailthru&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Red%20Box%2015%20March%2022&utm_term=audience_RED_BOX

Photo:   'We want the Olympics to be a pure sporting event -- not an opportunity for the Western news media to lionize dissidents and to play politics' —while the dissident being hauled off by the heavies is the brilliant and ethical Andrei Sakharov. . CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor CBS Audio Network @Batchelorshow #Ukraine: Dissent in Russia. Katrina vanden Heuvel @TheNation https://www.thenation.com/article/world/antiwar-protesters-genius/

Clay book, book on wheels, a book inspired by Andrei Sakharov, and more!

durée : 00:03:07 - Géopolitique - par : Pierre  Haski  - La Cour suprême russe a ordonné l'interdiction de l'association « Mémorial », fondée il y a plus de 30 ans par l'ancien dissident soviétique Andrei Sakharov, un coup de plus porté à la société civile russe.

durée : 00:03:07 - Géopolitique - par : Pierre  Haski  - La Cour suprême russe a ordonné l'interdiction de l'association « Mémorial », fondée il y a plus de 30 ans par l'ancien dissident soviétique Andrei Sakharov, un coup de plus porté à la société civile russe.

Aleksei Navalny won't be in Strasbourg this week to pick up a European human rights prize named after Andrei Sakharov, because he's in prison in Russia. Ben Noble, an associate professor of Russian politics at University College London and co-author of the book Navalny: Putin's Nemesis, Russia's Future? joins host Steve Gutterman to discuss the opposition leader and his fate.

Rav Mike Feuer talks about Russian Jewish refuseniks, why they were denied exit visas to immigrate to Israel, and how the Communist regime eventually let them go. Learn about US President Richard Nixon's détente with the Soviets, championed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and opposed by Henry "Scoop" Jackson, co-author of the Jackson-Vanik amendment of 1974 and his assistant Richard Perle. Others discussed regarding the issue of Russian Jews include Shaul Avigur, founder of Israel's Liaison Bureau (Lishkat Hakesher), also known as Nativ, Jacob Birnbaum of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, Moshe Decter of Jewish Minorities Research, and Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov and his influence on the most well known refusenik, Natan Sharansky.

Photo:   "Academician Andrei Sakharov being interviewed at a conference of the U.S.S.R. Academy of Sciences." This photo was taken very shortly before the magnificent Andrei Sakharov's death.  А. Д. Сахаров @Batchelorshow 4/7 : "Mother Treason," a story from the collection, "Gordon Liddy Is My Muse," by John Calvin Batchelor.  Read by John Batchelor. https://www.amazon.com/Gordon-Liddy-Muse-Calvin-Batchelor/dp/0671690787 Permissions 1 March 1989 Source | RIA Novosti archive, image #25981, http://visualrian.ru/ru/site/gallery/#25981Digital / Цифра Author | Vladimir Fedorenko / Владимир Федоренко (Reusing this file) | Commons:RIA Novosti РИАНОВОСТИ RIANOVOSTI This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license. |  Attribution: RIA Novosti archive, image #25981 / Vladimir Fedorenko / CC-BY-SA 3.0

talks about Russian Jewish refuseniks, why they were denied exit visas to immigrate to Israel, and how the Communist regime eventually let them go. Learn about US President Richard Nixon's détente with the Soviets, championed by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and opposed by Henry "Scoop" Jackson, co-author of the Jackson-Vanik amendment of 1974 and his assistant Richard Perle. Others discussed regarding the issue of Russian Jews include Shaul Avigur, founder of Israel's Liaison Bureau (Lishkat Hakesher), also known as Nativ, Jacob Birnbaum of the Student Struggle for Soviet Jewry, Moshe Decter of Jewish Minorities Research, and Russian dissident Andrei Sakharov and his influence on the most well known refusenik, Natan Sharansky.

This week our guest on the podcast is the well-known human rights activist, Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev. Lev Ponomarev is the head of the civil society project ‘For Human Rights', chair of the Defence of Prisoners' Rights Foundation and also of the Hotline organisation, and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. In May this year Lev Ponomarev spoke at the International Conference ‘Anxiety and Hope. The 21st Century' held in honour of the 100th anniversary of the birth of Andrei Sakharov. His speech, ‘We are not observers, we are participants' can be heard on the website of the Sakharov Museum. In this podcast we discuss some of the main points made by Lev Ponomarev in that speech.The questions we discuss in the podcast include: Contemporary Russia and the Soviet past - where is the country heading? - What does it mean for the country if people from the security services are in power? - Dissidents and the political opposition face severe repressive measures: who are in the main the victims of the security services? – Recent legislation – The law on ‘foreign agents' - Are ‘universal values' alien to Russia? - Putin and Patrushev – ‘We are not observers, we are participants' - What possibilities are there to work for human rights, free elections and the release of political prisoners in Russia today? – ‘We are many': how many in fact? - How to participate in elections when candidates are banned? – The idea of a Civic Congress - Russia's future and the future of human rights.This podcast is in Russian. You can also listen to the podcast on our website or on SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “It is not politicians who are in power, it is the siloviki. In line with their worldview, they see only one solution to a problem. The use of force. Putting people in jail. Possibly even killing them. Generally speaking, any opponent of the authorities might be killed.” Our interlocutor, Lev Ponomarev, is so disliked by the Lubyanka and the Kremlin that the authorities and his organisations have labelled him a foreign agent, and even he himself was one of the first to receive the newly invented title of ‘an individual foreign agent,' which is, without a doubt, complete nonsense. Lev Ponomarev is a kind and fair man, and even Viktor Shenderovich once said that, say, when Putin goes to jail, ‘Lev Aleksandrovich Ponomarev, the human rights defender, he will defend Putin'. Our interlocutor, recalling this remark, said: "I don't know whether I would defend him or not, but the situation is a very serious one.” Simon Cosgrove adds: A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

The legacy of Andrei Sakharov and the state of Russian science today High levels of ocean noise a possible threat to whales and dolphins Race to map Ashmore Reef as aquatic worlds change fast with warming waters New ideas challenge traditional views about plant conservation and restoration Large scale art works take visitors on a journey of ecological awareness Asteroid sample lands in South Australian desert

The legacy of Andrei Sakharov and the state of Russian science today High levels of ocean noise a possible threat to whales and dolphins Race to map Ashmore Reef as aquatic worlds change fast with warming waters New ideas challenge traditional views about plant conservation and restoration Large scale art works take visitors on a journey of ecological awareness Asteroid sample lands in South Australian desert

A Soviet nuclear physicist and Nobel laureate, Andrei Sakharov fought for disarmament, world peace, and human rights. To what extent is his legacy relevant for today's Russia and the world? What is the state of those values now, at a time when autocracies are on the rise and new international conflicts are developing?   The Kennan Institute's Maxim Trudolyubov discusses Sakharov's legacy in light of his recent centennial with Cecile Vaissie, a professor of Russian and Soviet studies at the University of Rennes 2, and Arkady Ostrovsky, Russia, and Eastern Europe editor for The Economist.

What would Russia look like today if some of the late Nobel laureate Andrei Sakharov’s ideas had been realized? Also, legislation barring people with ties to Aleksei Navalny and his organizations from running in elections is set to advance in the State Duma this week. RFE/RL senior correspondent Robert Coalson joins host Steve Gutterman to discuss.

Today we're celebrating the birthday of Andrei Sakharov, a Soviet nuclear physicist who became an activist for peace and human rights! Andrei was one of the primary developers of the hydrogen bomb for the USSR, but eventually came to be one of the leading dissidents and an activist for disarmament and peace between nations. Happy birthday, Andrei!If YOU want a birthday shoutout, email us with your name, and a little bit of information about you, at TheNameDayProject@gmail.com

Interview with Dr. Robert Horvath, a specialist in Russian politics, who will give a talk about Andrei Sakharov in Melbourne's Russian House. This podcast is available in Russian only. - В эту пятницу в Мельбурне пройдет лекция о наследии академика Андрея Сахарова. Лекцию проведет доктор наук Роберт Хорват, который много лет занимается исследованиями российской политики. Мы записали небольшое интервью с г-ном Хорватом.

This week our guest is Boris Lvovich Altshuler. Boris Altshuler is a physicist and human rights activist, a senior researcher at the theoretical physics department of the Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, chair of the NGO Right of the Child and a member of the Moscow Helsinki Group. The issues we discuss in the podcast include: participation in the Soviet-era human rights movement; acquaintance with Andrei Sakharov; the NGO Right of the Child; the state of human rights and civil society in Russia; celebrating the 100th anniversary of Andrei Sakharov's birth; and the future of human rights in Russia. This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen to the podcast on our website Rights in Russia as well as SoundCloud, Spotify and iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: Just before we started recording the podcast with Boris Lvovich Altshuler, I told him that my very early childhood was spent in Arzamas-16, where my parents worked until the early 1960s. It was there that Boris Altshuler also spent his school years. Boris Altshuler, in our conversation, just as my parents once did, called the place ‘The Object.' It was at ‘the Object' that B.L. Altshuler's father, the physicist Lev Vladimirovich Altshuler, worked and was friends with Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov. He inherited this friendship after he met Andrei D. Sakharov in 1968. This collaboration – in the fields of physics and human rights – lasted more than 20 years. In general, all the stories Boris Lvovich told last Sunday were interesting and fascinating. It was like reading a good novel: the plot grabs you from the first lines: “My dissidence began in an anonymous way. In 1968 I wrote a text with a friend of mine called The Leningrad Programme. We made 10 copies and then destroyed the typewriter.” Or again, as the physicist Boris Altshuler tells us: “In 1982-1987, I worked as a street cleaner. And then – perestroika! – I was hired as a researcher at the Theoretical Physics Department of the P. N. Lebedev Physical Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the head of the housing district where I had worked gave me a reference, stressing that I was “a good street cleaner.” Listen to our conversation with Boris L. Altshuler.Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn't seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here.

In the final episode of the series, Usha takes a closer look at the people behind the nuclear arms race. At the 1955 Geneva Summit, the superpowers tried to manage the dangers of the Cold War through face-to-face diplomacy, dealing with each other as people rather than as faceless nuclear arsenals. Yet Khrushchev's frosty reception of Eisenhower's Open Skies proposal showed just how far the two sides still had to go. Usha interviews several experts who stress that, decades later, empathy and respect are still critical -- and, right now, conspicuously absent -- elements of U.S.-Russia nuclear diplomacy. Meanwhile, in the secretive atomic communities built for plutonium production, the human toll of nuclear competition was becoming painfully clear. From Eisenhower and Khrushchev to factory workers in the atomic cities to morally conflicted scientists like Andrei Sakharov, every human being with a role in the nuclear Cold War had to wrestle with the physical and emotional costs, the moral dilemmas, and the irresolvable contradictions of this most terrible weapon.   Guests: Alexandra Bell, Dr. Anya Fink, Dr. Kate Brown, Dr. Olga Oliker

Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov was once the country’s leading scientist. In 1980, he was arrested and exiled to the city of Gorky, where he and his wife spent 6 years in isolation.

No dia 9 de outubro de 1975, Andrei Dmitrievich Sakharov, recebe o Prêmio Nobel da Paz. Eminente físico nuclear soviético e socialista, ele foi ativista em favor dos direitos humanos e das liberdades.★ Support this podcast ★

This week, our guest is Sergei Markovich Lukashevsky. Human rights activist Sergei Markovich is director of the Sakharov Centre in Moscow, a post he took up in 2008. By education a historian, Sergei Markovich has worked for both of Russia's most famous human rights organizations, Memorial and the Moscow Helsinki Group, and, before moving to work at the Sakharov Centre, together with Tatiana Lokshina he founded and worked at Demos, a Moscow-based human rights organization that specialised in monitoring and reporting on human rights in Russia. The issues discussed in the podcast include: the development of the human rights movement in post-Soviet Russia and its current state, the law on foreign agents, the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and, of course, the work of the Sakarov Centre, its plans for the future, the importance of Andrei Sakharov in Russia today and the upcoming centenary of his birth.This podcast is in the Russian language. You can also listen on our website or at SoundCloud, Spotify or iTunes. The music, from Stravinsky's Elegy for Solo Viola, is performed for us by Karolina Herrera.Sergei Nikitin writes on Facebook: “If you walk along the Zemlyannoi Val towards the Yauza river from Kursk metro station, on the even-numbered side you will see House No. 48B, where Sakharov lived, and on the odd-numbered side you will see a path that will take you past the Transfixed Pegasus and a piece of the Berlin Wall to the Rusty Angel and the Sakharov Centre. Last week, Simon Cosgrove and I talked to Sergei Lukashevsky, the director of this unique centre. Sergei Lukashevsky is someone with extensive experience working for human rights organisations (Memorial Human Rights Centre, Moscow Helsinki Group, Demos, the Sakharov Centre) and he considers the promotion of human rights values his main task. In my opinion, he is doing a great job: the Sakharov Centre has become a public and educational platform where numerous important and useful events, exhibitions, debates and seminars are held. Sometimes events at the Centre irritate characters who are rather excitable and unusual. The Centre's employees are ready for anything and do an excellent job. Next year the world will be celebrating the centenary of Sakharov's birth, and of course the Centre, which was established in 1996 on the initiative of the Andrei Sakharov Foundation, will be hosting many interesting events. We talked to Sergei about all this but I have the feeling he only had time to touch on the tip of the iceberg that goes by the name of the Sakharov Centre.” Simon Cosgrove adds: If you want to listen to this podcast on the podcasts.com website and it doesn't seem to play, please download by clicking on the three dots to the right. A summary of some of the week's events in Russia relevant to human rights can be found on our website here

Mark Brayne studied in Moscow 71-72, travelling the country with fellow UK students and spending silly amounts of time in the bathhouses with salted fish and very poor quality beer. He returned in 1974-75 as Reuters trainee journalist where he became very close to Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb and Soviet-era dissident.East Berlin was his first solo posting for Reuters, where he and his wife Jutta both sang in the East Berlin Cathedral choir for four years, including two as BBC Berlin, with the honorary status of Lieut Col.If you are enjoying the podcast please leave a written review in Apple podcasts or share us on social media. By telling your friends you can really help the podcast grow.If you can spare it I’m asking listeners to contribute $3 USD per month to help keep us on the air (larger amounts are welcome too) plus you can get a sought after CWC coaster as a monthly financial supporter of the podcast and you bask in the warm glow of knowing you helping preserve Cold War history.Just go to https://coldwarconversations.com/donate/Many thanks to our latest Patreons!Back to today’s episode, part 1 of three episodes with Mark and I’m sure you will find his story as equally interesting as I did... We welcome Mark to our Cold War conversation…There’s further information on this episode in our show notes, which can also be found as a link in your podcast app. https://coldwarconversations.com/episode123/If you like what you are hearing, please leave reviews in Apple podcasts and share us on social media.If you can’t wait for next week’s episode do visit our Facebook discussion group where guests and listeners continue the Cold War Conversation. Just search Cold War Conversations in Facebook.Thank you very much for listening. It is really appreciated.Support the show (https://www.patreon.com/coldwarpod)

In 2014, Saudi Arabian blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for insulting Islam by promoting secular values on his blog Free Saudi Liberals.  Raif Badawi’s fate would have been familiar to Soviet refusenik and human rights activist Natan Sharansky, and many other dissidents in the Soviet Bloc, who also faced long prison sentences and inhuman treatment during the Cold War. Both theocratic and communist states proclaim to be in possession of the “truth.” Consequently, they punish those who engage in religious or ideological heresy, leaving little room for the idea of human rights.  So, it is no surprise that in 1948, Saudi Arabia and six European Communist states were among the eight countries that did not vote in favor of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Both communist and Islamic states developed cautious strategies to engage with the growing human rights system in order to seek legitimacy without undermining their grip on power. One key strategy was to pull the teeth from the protection of free expression by including simultaneous obligations to prohibit the broadly defined concept of “incitement to hatred.” But ultimately the very human rights language which the communist states had sought to contain ended up eroding the communist stranglehold on power.  But the repressive legacy of Communism had a long half-life, even after the ideology itself was dumped on the ash heap of history at the end of the Cold War. The countries in the Organization of Islamic Cooperation — the OIC — sought to exploit the very loopholes that the communist states had introduced for their own purposes. Instead of protecting an atheistic and materialistic ideology, they advanced an interpretation of human rights where restrictions on free speech protected theistic and metaphysical Islamic doctrines from criticism and satire. And while a concerted global effort by democracies successfully beat back the OIC offensive at the UN, this conflict is still ongoing. In fact, the democracies and human rights system of Western Europe have internalized and expanded limitations on free speech, which they once deemed dangerous. This raises the question of just how robust the future of free speech — and the culture on which it depends — really is.       In this episode we will explore: How the Communist East and the Capitalist West clashed over the limits of free speech when drafting the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights at the UN; How Eleanor Roosevelt became a dogged and eloquent defender of principled free speech protections and warned against Soviet attempts to abuse hate speech restrictions to punish all dissent; How the American position at the UN clashed with domestic laws targeting communists under the Second Red Scare and McCarthyism; How the Soviet Bloc used laws against “incitement” to punish hundreds of dissidents and human rights activists behind the Iron Curtain; How the Helsinki Final Act provided dissidents with a tool to hold their governments morally accountable for human rights violations; How Western states and human rights NGOs gave dissidents like Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov a voice and increased the pressure on the Soviet Bloc; How the Helsinki Final Act contributed to the fall of Communism; How, after the end of the Cold War, the OIC launched a campaign to prohibit “defamation of religions” at the UN; How the OIC campaign managed to secure majorities at the UN and conflate blasphemy and hate speech; How the OIC campaign was defeated by the Obama administration and the application of the Supreme Court decision in Brandenburg v. Ohio; and How case law from the European Court of Human Rights undermines efforts to prevent future abuse of human rights to limit freedom of expression. Why have kings, emperors, and governments killed and imprisoned people to shut them up? And why have countless people risked death and imprisonment to express their beliefs? Jacob Mchangama guides you through the history of free speech from the trial of Socrates to the Great Firewall. You can subscribe and listen to Clear and Present Danger on Apple Podcasts, Google Play, YouTube, TuneIn, and Stitcher, or download episodes directly from SoundCloud. Stay up to date with Clear and Present Danger on the show’s Facebook and Twitter pages. Email us feedback at freespeechhistory@gmail.com.

Ready for a party in your ears from those wacky Nerds again? This week we are celebrating, scratching our chins in suspicion, and looking at upcoming events that we can use to make money. But first, grab a cup of Earl Grey, hot, get a comfy seat and get ready because we have a party. It’s here, that marvellous time of year when we find out who has won a noble prize! It’s awesome, kind of like a Nerds holiday celebrating knowledge and learning, yay! For those wondering Buck is bouncing around the office with excitement. Speaking of which, his topic this week is the Nobel prize winners in Chemistry, and it is for the Lithium Ion battery. A long time coming we know, but still, it is definitely worthy. Buck is still reading the lists and articles about this, and the Professor is enjoying this to.Next up we have DJ telling us about the latest with him doing little, erm, um, oh, sorry. Apparently it is about the new Dolittle movie, not him being lazy. Now there are some interesting points in this section so make sure you listen carefully. We won’t give away all the details here, no, listen in and see what is happening. We can tell you there is a name change, and no, it isn’t DJ being rebranded to some funny name such as Purveyance Slave Droid. Mainly because he still hasn’t learned how to make the perfect cup of Earl Grey.Next we hear how someone has had an epically lucky coincidence when naming their crowd funding campaign. We are told it is completely unintentional though. Although Buck thinks that this is the next generation of Citizen Con, sorry, Star Con, no, what is it, star rippoff? Oh you know what we mean. Anyway, this bloke was trying to raise capital for a game he was developing and listen in to hear the rest of this fantastic story.As usual we have the shout outs, with special mention to Christina Koch and Jessica Meir, the first all female spacewalk crew. Then we have the usual remembrances, birthdays and special events. We are going to be appearing at Supanova Brisbane so stop by and say hello, we will be happy to see you, also we have a special announcement this next week. Until then, take care of yourselves, look out for each other and stay hydrated.EPISODE NOTES:Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2019 winners - https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/science-technology/chemistry-nobel-for-development-of-lithium-ion-batteries-67159Dolittle movie update - https://deadline.com/video/universal-dolittle-robert-downey-jr-trailer/Day of Dragons confusion - https://twitter.com/icotom/status/1182291839027761152?s=20Games currently playingDJ– MK 11 - https://www.playstation.com/en-us/games/mortal-kombat-11-ps4/Rating – 4/5Buck– World of Warships - https://worldofwarships.com/Rating – 4.5/5Professor– Creeper World 3 - https://store.steampowered.com/app/280220/Creeper_World_3_Arc_Eternal/Rating – 9/10Other topics discussedKryten (Red Dwarf character)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/KrytenJohn Goodenough (Oldest Nobel Prize winner at the age of 97)- https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-09/nobel-prize-in-chemistry-for-lithium-ion-battery-development/11588298More facts about the Lithium-ion battery- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium-ion_battery1970s energy crisis (Major industrial countries of the world, particularly the United States, Canada, Western Europe, Australia, and New Zealand, faced substantial petroleum shortages, real and perceived, as well as elevated prices.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1970s_energy_crisisElectroBOOM (Iranian Canadian comedian, electrical engineer and YouTube personality.)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwIvUbOhcKERoast Rabbit (from the Warner Brothers show : Wackiki Wabbit)- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6feJ7k36BPkEnergizer lithium ion batteries- https://www.energizer.com/batteries/energizer-ultimate-lithium-batteriesMemory effect (also known as battery effect, lazy battery effect, or battery memory, is an effect observed in nickel-cadmium and nickel–metal hydride rechargeable batteries that causes them to hold less charge.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_effectNickel Cadmium batteries (type of rechargeable battery using nickel oxide hydroxide and metallic cadmium as electrodes.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nickel–cadmium_batteryHow to prolong lithium batteries- https://batteryuniversity.com/learn/article/how_to_prolong_lithium_based_batteriesBaghdad battery (also known as Parthian Battery is a set of three artefacts which were found together: a ceramic pot, a tube of copper, and a rod of iron.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baghdad_BatteryOxford Electric Bell (also known as Clarendon Dry Pile is an experimental electric bell that was set up in 1840 and which has run nearly continuously ever since. It was one of the first pieces purchased for a collection of apparatus by clergyman and physicist Robert Walker)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_Electric_BellBetter battery management- https://hackaday.com/2019/10/07/better-battery-management-through-chemistry/Sonic the Hedgehog movie redesign- https://www.gamespot.com/articles/sonic-the-hedgehog-redesign-delays-movie-to-2020/1100-6467149/Day of Dragons (Kickstarter project by Beawesome Games)- https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/beawesomegames/day-of-dragonsDay of Dragons (Magic the Gathering card)- https://gatherer.wizards.com/pages/card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=438615100% science-based dragon MMO- https://www.reddit.com/r/OutOfTheLoop/comments/1ks6iu/100_science_based_dragon_mmo/- https://www.reddit.com/r/AfterTheLoop/comments/aerhih/what_happened_with_the_science_based_dragon_mmo/Time of Dragons (2016 MMO dragons’ game)- https://store.steampowered.com/app/353130/Time_of_Dragons/Dragonheart (1996 British-American fantasyaction-adventure film)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/DragonheartDragon Rider (original title: Drachenreiter is a 1997 German children's novel)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragon_Rider_(novel)Smaug (The Hobbit character)- https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/SmaugThe Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (action role-playing video game developed by Bethesda Game Studios and published by Bethesda Softworks.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_V:_SkyrimAre we making new tags for duplicate game names harder to use- https://gaming.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11584/are-we-making-new-tags-for-duplicate-game-names-harder-to-useName Collision (the nomenclature problem that occurs in computer programs when the same variable name is used for different things in two separate areas that are joined, merged, or otherwise go from occupying separate namespaces to sharing one.)- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Name_collisionHow to name things: the hardest problem in programming- https://www.slideshare.net/pirhilton/how-to-name-things-the-hardest-problem-in-programmingDay of Dragons raise $500k on Kickstarter- https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattpaprocki/2019/10/14/day-of-dragons-raises-500k/#69be3d4730c5Two hard things- https://martinfowler.com/bliki/TwoHardThings.htmlTerminator joins Mortal Kombat 11- https://www.businessinsider.in/entertainment/news/arnold-schwarzeneggers-terminator-has-joined-the-cast-of-mortal-kombat-11-and-its-just-as-wild-as-youd-imagine/articleshow/71587956.cmsCastology (TNC Podcast)- https://thatsnotcanon.com/castologypodcastShoutouts3 Oct 2019 - Boyan Slat’s floating boom in capturing plastics along with microplastics finally works after some setback in its initial stage - https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/03/ocean-cleanup-device-successfully-collects-plastic-for-first-time8 Oct 1582 - Between Oct. 4 and Oct. 15, 1582, because the 10 intervening days have simply been declared out of existence by the pope. (This offer may not apply outside Italy, Spain and Portugal.) All this happened because the Earth year is about 11 minutes short of the 365¼ days set by Julius Caesar. It's really 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes, 46 seconds. If the drift kept up, Easter would eventually have been observed in the summer, and Christmas in the spring. - https://www.wired.com/2010/10/1008gregorian-calendar-skips-days/14 Oct 2019 - Nobel Prize winners announced in the fields of Physiology or Medicine, Physics, Literature, Economic Sciences and Peace - https://time.com/5694094/nobel-prize-winners-2019/16 Oct 2019 - Astronauts Christina Koch and Jessica Meir from expedition 61 will venture to the far side of the station on the Port 6 truss structure. The duo will set their suits to battery power on Friday at 7:50 a.m. when the spacewalk officially starts and exit the Quest airlock. NASA TV begins its live coverage beginning at 6:30 a.m. Once there, the spacewalkers will take about five-and-a-half hours to replace the failed power regulator with a spare BCDU. - https://blogs.nasa.gov/spacestation/2019/10/16/koch-meir-spacewalk-moves-to-friday-as-crew-adjusts-schedule/?fbclid=IwAR2ZuRsNHtKz9ec5c5ZoddN7ecV8juLAgi_lzKzkZubtDjdpDTbgWYL2doISpecial mention: 17 Oct 2019 - The leading solar car competing in the World Solar Challenge has burst into flames, forcing the team out of the race for the first time in 20 years. The solar car — from the Vattenfall Solar Team — caught alight on the Stuart Highway, just south of Port Augusta this morning, just 263 kilometres from the Adelaide finish line. - https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-10-17/solar-challenge-leading-vehicle-bursts-into-flames/11611112?sf221644014=1&fbclid=IwAR3qWK_7BtjmI0QrWAn8e1BR5-QUN-jXhpNjBD-lopYDeEjBwVrkdVSSQeMRemembrances11 Oct 2019 - Alexei Leonov, Soviet Russian cosmonaut,Air Force major general, writer, and artist. On 18 March 1965, he became the first human to conduct a spacewalk, exiting the capsule during the Voskhod 2 mission for 12 minutes and 9 seconds. He was connected to the craft by a 4.8-metre (16 ft) tether. At the end of the spacewalk, Leonov's spacesuit had inflated in the vacuum of space to the point where he could not re-enter the airlock. He opened a valve to allow some of the suit's pressure to bleed off and was barely able to get back inside the capsule. Leonov had spent eighteen months undergoing weightlessness training for the mission. In July 1975, Leonov commanded the Soyuz capsule in the Soyuz–Apollo mission, which docked in space for two days with an American Apollo capsule. Leonov was an accomplished artist whose published books include albums of his artistic works and works he did in collaboration with his friend Andrei Sokolov. Leonov took coloured pencils and paper into space, where he sketched the Earth and drew portraits of the Apollo astronauts who flew with him during the 1975 Apollo–Soyuz Test Project. Arthur C. Clarke wrote in his notes to 2010: Odyssey Two that, after a 1968 screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, Leonov pointed out to him that the alignment of the Moon, Earth, and Sun shown in the opening is essentially the same as that in Leonov's 1967 painting Near the Moon, although the painting's diagonal framing of the scene was not replicated in the film. Clarke kept an autographed sketch of this painting—which Leonov made after the screening—hanging on his office wall. Clarke dedicated 2010: Odyssey Two to Leonov and Soviet physicist Andrei Sakharov; and the fictional spaceship in the book is named Cosmonaut Alexei Leonov. He was the last living member of the five cosmonauts in the Voskhod programme. He died from a long illness at the age of 85 in Moscow. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexei_Leonov11 Oct 2019 - Robert Forster , American actor, known for his roles as John Cassellis in Haskell Wexler's Medium Cool, Lebanese terrorist Abdul Rafai in The Delta Force, and Max Cherry in Quentin Tarantino's Jackie Brown, for which he was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor. Forster's varied filmography further includes titles such as Me, Myself & Irene, Mulholland Drive, The Descendants, Olympus Has Fallen, London Has Fallen, and What They Had. He also had prominent roles in television series such as Banyon, Heroes, and Twin Peaks (2017). He won the Saturn Award for Best Guest Starring Role on Television for his performance as Ed Galbraith also referred to as the Disappearer in the Breaking Bad episode "Granite State", reprising his role in the series' sequel film El Camino: A Breaking Bad Movie, which premiered the day of his death. He died from brain cancer at the age of 78 in Los Angeles, California - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Forster14 Oct 1984 – Sir Martin Ryle, Englishradio astronomer who developed revolutionary radio telescope systems and used them for accurate location and imaging of weak radio sources. In 1946 Ryle and Derek Vonberg were the first people to publish interferometric astronomical measurements at radio wavelengths. With improved equipment, Ryle observed the most distant known galaxies in the universe at that time. He was the first Professor of Radio Astronomy at the University of Cambridge, and founding director of the Mullard Radio Astronomy Observatory. He was Astronomer Royal from 1972 to 1982. Ryle and Antony Hewish shared the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1974, the first Nobel prize awarded in recognition of astronomical research.[6] In the 1970s, Ryle turned the greater part of his attention from astronomy to social and political issues which he considered to be more urgent. He died from a long illness at the age of 66 in Cambridge. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_RyleFamous Birthdays14 Oct 1801 - Joseph Plateau, Belgian physicist and mathematician. He was one of the first people to demonstrate the illusion of a moving image. To do this, he used counterrotating disks with repeating drawn images in small increments of motion on one and regularly spaced slits in the other. He called this device of 1832 the phenakistiscope. The projection of stroboscopic photographs, creating the illusion of motion, eventually led to the development of cinema. Plateau also studied the phenomena of capillary action and surface tension. The mathematical problem of existence of a minimal surface with a given boundary is named after him. He conducted extensive studies of soap films and formulated Plateau's laws which describe the structures formed by such films in foams. He was born in Brussels - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Plateau14 Oct 1927 – Sir Roger Moore, English actor best known for playing British secret agent James Bond in seven feature films from 1973 to 1985, beginning with Live and Let Die. His most notable television role was playing the main character, Simon Templar, in the British television series The Saint from 1962 to 1969. He also had roles in some American television shows and films in the late 1950s and early 1960s, including replacing James Garner and portraying Beau Maverick in the Maverick series in 1960 to 61. Moore starred with Tony Curtis in The Persuaders television series in 1971 to 1972, and had roles in several theatrical films in the 1970s and 1980s. Moore was appointed a UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador in 1991 and was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II in 2003 for services to charity. In 2007, he received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his work in television and film. In 2008, the French government appointed him a Commander of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. He was born in Stockwell, London - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roger_Moore14 Oct 1946 - Katy Manning, English-Australian actress best known for her part as the companion Jo Grant in the BBC science fiction television series Doctor Who. She has also made many theatre appearances, and is now an Australian citizen. In 2009, Manning moved back to the UK to pursue new acting work and currently lives in London. While she played the part of Jo Grant alongside Jon Pertwee's incarnation of the Doctor, Manning struck up an immediate rapport with her co-stars Pertwee, Nicholas Courtney (The Brigadier), John Levene (Sergeant Benton), Richard Franklin (Captain Mike Yates) and Roger Delgado (the Master). Fans of Doctor Who often refer to these characters as the UNIT family — UNIT, the United Nations Intelligence Taskforce, being the fictional United Nations organisation that the Doctor worked for. Manning is the only surviving Doctor Who companion from Jon Pertwee's era. She was born in Guildford, Surrey - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Katy_ManningEvents of Interest14 Oct 1884 - George Eastman patents paper-strip photographic film. Eastman's invention revolutionized photography by using coated paper and rollers, rather than heavy glass dry plates, to reproduce images. Eastman began looking for ways to "make the camera as convenient as the pencil," after amassing the heavy, complicated, and expensive equipment he needed to keep a picture record of his vacation. This invention allowed him to mass produce a small hand-held box camera filled with rolls of film with 100 exposures. Millions of Americans recorded the first snap shots of their everyday lives using the Kodak camera, which was introduced in 1888.- https://www.uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/kodak-film-patent-issued-october-14-1884- https://patents.google.com/patent/US306594A/en14 Oct 1892 - Arthur Conan Doyle publishes "The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes" collection of 12 stories originally published serially in "The Strand Magazine". The stories are collected in the same sequence, which is not supported by any fictional chronology. The only characters common to all twelve are Holmes and Dr. Watson and all are related in first-person narrative from Watson's point of view. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Adventures_of_Sherlock_Holmes14 Oct 1926 - Winnie the Pooh was published, written by A. A. Milne and illustrated by E. H. Shepard. The book focuses on the adventures of a teddy bear called Winnie-the-Pooh and his friends Piglet, a small toy pig; Eeyore, a toy donkey; Owl, a live owl; and Rabbit, a live rabbit. The characters of Kanga, a toy kangaroo, and her son Roo are introduced later in the book, in the chapter entitled "In Which Kanga and Baby Roo Come to the Forest and Piglet has a Bath". The bouncy toy-tiger character of Tigger is not introduced until the sequel, The House at Pooh Corner. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winnie-the-Pooh_(book)14 Oct 1947 - Chuck Yeager becomes the first person to exceed the speed of sound, Yeager flew the X-1 rocket over Rogers Dry Lake in Southern California. The X-1 was lifted to an altitude of 25,000 feet by a B-29 aircraft and then released through the bomb bay, rocketing to 40,000 feet and exceeding 662 miles per hour (the sound barrier at that altitude). The rocket plane nicknamed “Glamorous Glennis” (after Yeager's wife), was designed with thin, unswept wings and a streamlined fuselage modeled after a .50-caliber bullet. Because of the secrecy of the project, Bell and Yeager’s achievement was not announced until June 1948. - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/yeager-breaks-sound-barrierIntroArtist – Goblins from MarsSong Title – Super Mario - Overworld Theme (GFM Trap Remix)Song Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-GNMe6kF0j0&index=4&list=PLHmTsVREU3Ar1AJWkimkl6Pux3R5PB-QJFollow us onFacebook - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamatedSpotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrSiTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rssGeneral EnquiriesEmail - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.com

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/sakharov-wins-peace-prizeSupport the show on Patreon

How a single mother in Kyiv experienced the end of the USSR and survived the harsh economic realities of life in post-communist Ukraine in the early 1990s. Part of our mini-series The Final Curtain. Iryna Tkachenko is a music conservatory graduate and journalist who became a single mother just a couple of years before the demise of the Soviet Union and the political and economic turbulence that followed the fall of the Iron Curtain. Her wage as a radio journalist wasn't really enough to survive, but after the complete collapse of the Ukrainian economy,  you were considered lucky to have a job at all. She bought clothes at second-hand shops and travelled to Moscow to buy things that you couldn't get in the mostly empty stores of Kyiv. She took on extra jobs and did whatever she could to survive but never lost her positive outlook on life. How did Iryna end up selling toy cars on the streets of Kyiv? How did she and her friends react to the putsch of August 1991? How did she cope with the early days of capitalism? Find out in this episode of The Final Curtain. Like our show? Sign up for our newsletter! Time stamps [01:10] An unusual single mom [06:00] How Iryna became a businesswoman... for one day only [07:50] The August Coup & the uncertainty it brought on [11:17] Why didn't she go to work abroad? [14:15] And what was she doing instead?  [19:10] Credits Further reading Photos of Everyday Life in Ukraine in the 1990s // on Slate.com Wearing Adibas & Fuma: Memories from Growing up in the 1990s  // on Culture.pl Anne Applebaum Recalls Poland's Food Revolution // on Culture.pl Coup of August 1991 // on Wikipedia.org Andrei Sakharov // on Wikipedia.org Credits Written & produced by Wojciech Oleksiak & Żenia Klimakin Edited by Adam Zulawski Scoring & sound design by Wojciech Oleksiak Hosted by Nitzan Reisner & Adam Zulawski

Andrei Sakharov was a nuclear physicist whose secret work was instrumental in the secret development of Soviet thermonuclear weapons. Initially committed to the necessity of his contributions to the design, construction, and testing of hydrogen bombs, Sakharov began to feel the pressure of personal and professional responsibility. The testing and deployment of nuclear weapons was a moral and biological issue that Sakharov could no longer condone. And he became a dissident. He said in an essay, “Freedom of thought is the only guarantee of the feasibility of a scientific democratic approach to politics, economy, and culture.” Sakharov’s activism extended beyond disarmament, though. He campaigned for peace and human rights, and he was exiled for his dissent. If Sakharov’s story carries any weight, major turns in thought and action are not impossible, even though they may take a while. Follow Unpopular on social media!  Twitter: @_unpopularshow  Instagram: @unpopularshow  Facebook: @ThisIsUnpopular  Send your thoughts and comments to unpopular@iheartmedia.com.  Learn more about your ad-choices at https://news.iheart.com/podcast-advertisers

Nils Muiznieks grew up in the US the child of Latvian emigres; his parents spent seven years in displaced persons camps as teenagers after World War II and made their way to California. Nils majored in politics at Princeton and got his Ph.D. in political science at Berkeley. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Nils decided to make his life in Latvia. A scholar, government official, and human rights expert, Nils won a European-wide election and became the Commissioner for Human Rights at the Council of Europe in Strasbourg. In this episode we learn about Nils' amazing story and the human rights challenges he tackled during his six-year term. Featuring Indiana Professor Emma Gilligan and Brandeis Professor Dave Powelstock. Discussed this week - Czeslaw Milosz, The Captive Mind; Timothy Snyder, On Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century; Anatoly Adamishin and Richard Schifter, Human Rights, Perestroika, and the End of the Cold War; Andrei Sakharov, Alarm and Hope; “Human Rights in Europe: From Crisis to Renewal?” Strasbourg: Council of Europe Publishing, 2018; Special Issue (Fall 2009), Open Society News, Eastern Europe: Where Do Open Societies Stand 20 Years Later? https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/sites/default/files/opensocietynews_11052009.pdf See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

So those crazy blokes are back and bringing you some news, some fun and something to laugh at. This week we take a look at how cities affect influenza (the flu for those envisioning some major plague outbreak). With research discussing how the size, lay out and other variables affect the severity. Strangely enough it appears being a Nerd who likes to spend time inside on a computer etcetera helps to protect you from the flu. We hear the latest on the saga of Star Citizen, and yep, Buck still thinks it might be a Ponzi scheme. But he is getting old and cranky so who knows, maybe he just needs to get more fibre in his diet. We hear about the talent line up used in voice actors for Squadron 42 and that they apparently do have some playable content, not just artwork. The Professor and Buck get excited about Dr Who, although the Professor decides he is sold that the lady dr. is in fact a lady. Well, you listen to it and you will be just as confused as I was, but guarantee you will laugh. The DJ tries to tell us about the latest news from Attack on Titan, which is apparently on hiatus at the moment, although he couldn’t tell us why, but he dropped out for a bit, but heads up, the word is that it will continue. In Games the Professor has been playing with Zombies in an anime looking world, and it is very cool for as it is an RTS. This is a game that is definitely recommended as a fun way to spend some time. After all, everyone loves to kill Zombies right? Buck is still running around Skyrim and tackling the Gecko infestation, we might lose him if we aren’t careful, that game is way too much fun. The DJ has been playing Path of Exile again and loves the game but is scared of the massive skill tree. EPISODE NOTES: Influenza and how it can be affected by cities - https://www.sciencenews.org/article/city-size-and-structure-may-influence-influenza-epidemicsStar Citizen news including Squadron 42 trailer from Citizencon- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VppjX4to9s4&feature=youtu.beDr Who series 11 premiere - https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006q2x0Attack on Titan on hiatushttps://comicbook.com/anime/2018/10/08/attack-on-titan-anime-season-3-hiatus-break/Games currently playingProfessor – They Are Billions - http://www.numantiangames.com/theyarebillions/Buck - The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls_V:_SkyrimDJ - Path of Exile - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Path_of_ExileShoutoutsNo shout outs this weekOther topics discussed The cost of the flu on the American economy- https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/30/the-flu-costs-the-us-economy-10-point-4-billion.htmlSquadron 42 voice cast- https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5194726/Quotes from Dr Who - https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Cybermen#Common_PhrasesFamous birthdays9 Oct 1823 - Mary Ann Shadd Cary, American-Canadian publisher and anti-slavery campaigner, 1st African American newspaper publisher ('Provincial Freeman'), born in Wilmington, Delaware - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Ann_Shadd9 Oct 1852 - [Hermann] Emil Fischer, German chemist, discovered Fischer esterification (Nobel Prize 1902), born in Euskirchen, Rhine Province - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emil_Fischer9 Oct 1940 - John Lennon, English singer, songwriter, and peace activist who co-founded the Beatles - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon9 Oct 1952 - Sharon Osborne, English television host, media personality, television talent competition judge, author, music manager, modern impresario, businesswoman, and promoter, and the wife of heavy metal singer-songwriter Ozzy Osbourne. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharon_Osbourne9 Oct 1966 - David Cameron, is a British politician who served as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom from 2010 to 2016 and Leader of the Conservative Party from 2005 to 2016. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Witney from 2001 to 2016. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_CameronEvents of interest9 Oct 1547 - Miguel de Cervantes, author of Don Quixote is baptized - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/miguel-de-cervantes-is-baptized9 Oct 1806 - Benjamin Banneker, African American astronomer, mathematician and surveyor of Washington D.C., dies at 74 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benjamin_Banneker9 Oct 1936 - Hoover dam begins transmitting electricity to Los Angeles - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/hoover-dam-begins-transmitting-electricity-to-los-angeles9 Oct 1941 - US President Franklin D. Roosevelt approves an atomic program - beginning of the Manhattan project - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manhattan_Project9 Oct 1967 - Che Guevara’s execution - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/che-guevara-is-executed9 Oct 1974 - Oskar Schindler’s death - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/oskar-schindler-dies9 Oct 1975 - Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov wins Nobel Peace Prize - https://www.nytimes.com/1975/10/10/archives/sakharov-named-winner-of-75-nobel-peace-prize-physicist-incurred.html10 Oct 1881 - Darwin’s work on mould and worms in published - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/darwin-publishes-work-on-mold-and-worms10 Oct 1991 - First instance of going postal - https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/a-former-postal-worker-commits-mass-murderIntroArtist – DoctorOctorocSong Title – Doctor Who Intro 16-Bit SNES styleSong Link - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDuORTbSRXM Follow us on Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/NerdsAmalgamated/ Email - Nerds.Amalgamated@gmail.com Twitter - https://twitter.com/NAmalgamated Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/6Nux69rftdBeeEXwD8GXrS iTunes - https://itunes.apple.com/au/podcast/top-shelf-nerds/id1347661094 RSS - http://www.thatsnotcanonproductions.com/topshelfnerdspodcast?format=rss

Andrei Sakharov, the Russian physicist who gave the Soviets the Atomic Bomb, said this once: “I’ve always thought that the most powerful weapon in the world was the bomb and that’s why I gave it to my people, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the most powerful weapon in the world is not the bomb, but it’s the truth”. The apostle Paul said in Galatians 4:16, “Have I, therefore, become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” Has truth fallen in the streets? Are we no longer valiant for the truth?

Andrei Sakharov, the Russian physicist who gave the Soviets the Atomic Bomb, said this once: “I’ve always thought that the most powerful weapon in the world was the bomb and that’s why I gave it to my people, but I’ve come to the conclusion that the most powerful weapon in the world is not the bomb, but it’s the truth”. The apostle Paul said in Galatians 4:16, “Have I, therefore, become your enemy because I tell you the truth?” Has truth fallen in the streets? Are we no longer valiant for the truth?

Grace Kennan Warnecke’s memoir, Daughter of the Cold War, is about a life lived on the edge of history. Daughter of George F. Kennan, one of the most influential diplomats of the 20th Century, as well as wife of the scion of a newspaper dynasty and mother of the youngest owner of a major league baseball team, she eventually found her way out from under the shadows of others to forge a dynamic career of her own. Born in Latvia, Warnecke lived in seven countries and spoke five languages before the age of twelve. As a child, she witnessed Hitler’s march into Prague, attended a Soviet school during World War II, and sailed the seas with her father. In a multi-faceted career, she worked as a professional photographer, television producer, and book editor and critic. Eventually, like her father, she became a Russian specialist, but of a very different kind. She accompanied Ted Kennedy and his family to Russia, escorted Joan Baez to Moscow to meet with dissident Andrei Sakharov, and hosted Josef Stalin’s daughter on the family farm after Svetlana defected to the United States. While running her own consulting company in Russia, she witnessed the breakup of the Soviet Union, and later became director of a women’s economic empowerment project in a newly independent Ukraine. Daughter of the Cold War is a tale of these adventures and much more. It is a compelling memoir of Warnecke’s path through life – a whirlwind journey of survival, risk, and self-discovery through a kaleidoscope of countries, historic events, and fascinating people. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Attorney Martin Garbus’ client list is a who’s who of the world’s foremost artists, politicians, corporations, scientists, and political dissidents. In a career spanning a half century, he’s represented actors Sean Connery and Al Pacino, authors Tom Brokaw and Nancy Reagan, and even Nobel Prize winners Vaclav Havel and Andrei Sakharov. Although Garbus holds a diverse practice, he is perhaps most famous—and in some circles, infamous—for his work in First Amendment law. In today’s episode of “So to Speak,” we dive deep into some of Martin Garbus’ most interesting—and sometimes scary—career moments. His smuggling a list of political prisoners out of the Soviet Union, his involvement with Daniel Ellsberg in releasing the Pentagon Papers, and his defense of the mercurial comedian Lenny Bruce are just some of the stories we will touch upon. This is the inaugural episode in a series that will profile the careers of some of the world’s most prominent free speech advocates. www.sotospeakpodcast.com Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/freespeechtalk Like us on Facebook: facebook.com/sotospeakpodcast  Email us: sotospeak@thefire.org Call in a question: 215-315-0100

  Felice Gaer has served on the UN Committee Against torture since 1999, making her the longest serving American elected to a UN Human Rights body. Though there is little power vested in the independent experts who staff treaty organizations, Gaer has been able to move the needle on human rights cases worldwide through creatively deploying the little power she has. This was an lesson she first learned while investigating the disappearance of the soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov in the early 1980s.    Felice has had a very long career in human rights, and we trace the origins of her commitment to human rights from an early age, and more recently to her work on the Committee Against Torture. We kick off our conversation with about a 15 minute conversation about the UN's evolving posture on women's rights and LGBT rights. Gaer tells an interesting story about how an early bureaucratic decision about the structure of the UN's Economic and Social council enabled the integration of women's rights into the broader UN human rights agenda.

ANDREI SAKHAROV raccontato da Marcello Flores

Freedomizer Radio Call in and join us - 347.324.3704 Join our live chat and listen at  http://www.freedomizerradio.com The Global Perspective "Devastating4U" is your host - Tonight's Special Guest will be Stan Deyo, who has held Above Top Secret Security Clearance and worked undercover for the FBI. He was part of an exclusive "black project", specializing in the development of "flying saucer technology".  He is currently working on advanced propulsion and "free" energy research which took him to Australia in '71 to work on these systems as part of a global project under the direction of such men as Dr. Edward Teller and Dr Andrei Sakharov, and Stan is working on a Tesla-based energy system and several propulsion projects, is giving radio interviews, is an active partner in Deyo Enterprises LLC and is the CEO of HALO Orbital Technologies LLC. http://standeyo.com/

In December 1986 the Soviet dissident Andrei Sakharov was allowed to return to Moscow. He had spent seven years in internal exile. His release had been ordered by the reforming Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev. Photo: AFP/Getty Images

The nuclear physicist and human rights activist Andrei Sakharov had spent seven years in internal exile in the Soviet city of Gorky. His return marked a change in attitude towards dissidents under the rule of Mikhail Gorbachev.

Saturday, December 23, 2006.  There were two great homecomings twenty years ago today.  The experimental aircraft Voyager completed a non-stop, non-refueled flight around the world; and Andrei Sakharov was allowed to return home to Moscow after seven years of internal exile.Today's episode music is "Splat the Rat," by Father Rock.  Theme music composed and performed by Marc Rose.