Dr. Helen Caldicott argues passionately that America's continuing military arms buildup—particularly the willingness of Bush neo-conservatives to use tactical nuclear weapons in the wake of 9/11—far from securing peace, is actually destabilizing global relations to the brink of Armageddon. The world's leading spokesperson for the antinuclear movement, Dr. Caldicott is the founder of the Nobel Prize winning Physicians for Social Responsibility, and herself a nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize. Both the Smithsonian Institution and Ladies Home Journal named her one of the most Influential Women of the Twentieth Century. Her latest book, The New Nuclear Danger, has been hailed by esteemed broadcaster Walter Cronkite as, "A timely warning, at a critical moment in world history, of the horrible consequences of nuclear warfare." From OPEN EXCHANGE MAGAZINE, July-September 2002:

Bart Brodsky: With the cold war over between Russia and the U.S., most people believe that the threat of nuclear annihilation is over. Why do you think that we may have underestimated the dangers?

Helen Caldicott, MD: Because nothing's changed. The weapons are still there, as they were in the 80s. And America's still got a policy to strike first to win a nuclear war against Russia, even though they're "best friends." And although that sounds alarmingly stupid, it's the Pentagon's posture, policy, and technology. The early warning system is so fragile that anything could set it off. The Russian early warning system works only eight hours a day, because its satellites are rusting and not working. And the Russians are very paranoid and very anxious, especially as they know that this country's ready to go. And so, if there was a nuclear war in India and Pakistan, for instance, or in the Middle East, that could trigger the early warning system satellites of Russia and/or America. Each side has 2,500 hydrogen bombs on hair-trigger alert. And every single town and city in America with 10,000 people or more is targeted with at least one bomb. Such an event would create a nuclear winter, with the U.S. covered with a cloud so thick that it would block out the sun for a year, and that would be the end.

BB: India and Pakistan are at the brink of war as we speak, and they may be fighting before this interview sees print. Yet both sides say that a nuclear exchange would be madness and that they're not going to take it that far.

Dr. Caldicott: Well, they say that, and on the other hand they say, yes, that it might be necessary. And India's got a much larger army than Pakistan, yet Pakistan has its nuclear weapons in its back pocket and said that it would use them if it was losing. The leaders and the people in the military in those countries don't understand the significance of nuclear weapons. They see them as just bigger bombs.

BB: Yes. Most of us know of the dangers of "nuclear winter." What are the health risks of using the smaller, tactical nuclear arms such as the charmingly named "bunker busters" proposed for use against bin Laden types?

Dr. Caldicott: That's about half the size of the Hiroshima bomb, which killed 120,000 people, many of whom were vaporized, and many of whom were dreadfully burned. So, I suppose you could divide it by two, 60,000 people. But who knows, because bunker busters bury deep into the ground and cause a huge nuclear explosion with much blast and heat and radiation. It's called activation by neutrons—millions of tons of earth and dust—so you have a much greater radioactive fallout that's shot out into the air than you would if a bomb is exploded in the air above a city.

BB: What are the specific health consequences, both locally and worldwide, to this kind of "limited" weapon?

Dr. Caldicott: You could blow up a city with one of those. If [the U.S. targeted] Sadam Hussain, for instance, most of Baghdad would go, as did Hiroshima. And then people would die of vaporization, and they would die of horrendous burns. People would be turned into missiles, traveling at 100 miles an hour. The blast and the heat would cause ruptured lungs, ruptured membranes, ruptured eyeballs—

BB: My gosh! In terms of cancers—

Dr. Caldicott: Depending on where fallout landed, you would get acute radiation sickness, within days develop alopecia with your hair dropping out, bleeding, severe nausea, diarrhea, severe headaches, and you die within days of acute radiation sickness. Now, if you're not exposed to as high a level as that, but you inhale or ingest radioactive isotopes from the fallout and they concentrate in the food chain by orders of magnitude, the food would be radioactive for hundreds if not thousands of years. People start developing leukemia five to ten years later, in very large numbers. And then solid cancers of breast, bowel, lung, many organs, thyroid, will appear 15 years later, and from there on for the rest of time according to how long the isotopes survive.

BB: You're literally describing a nightmare. On February 27, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moved "The Doomsday Clock" two minutes forward, to "seven minutes to midnight." Where would you put the hands of the clock?

Dr. Caldicott: Two to midnight.

BB: You see the threat as imminent.

Dr. Caldicott: Yes.

BB: Your new book, The New Nuclear Danger: George W. Bush's Military-Industrial Complex, has a very provocative title. The first two bookstores I went to didn't have it in their computer database. Is there something in here that George Bush doesn't want us to read?

Dr. Caldicott: Oh, yeah. The whole book! Did you ask them to get it in for you? You'll have to insist! It's in Barnes and Noble, Daltons, and Amazon.

BB: I know it's at Cody's, where you've already spoken. Are you finding any resistance to your message?

Dr. Caldicott: No, I haven't. In fact, I've found the people extremely enthusiastic and buying it by the hoards. Especially when I speak, people rush to get it!

BB: Can you give us a brief summary of how arms dealers such as Lockheed Martin have been able to profit, and how you see they are manipulating this global crisis?

Dr. Caldicott: Thirty-two people in [Bush's] administration come from Lockheed Martin. Numerous others come from the Heritage Foundation, which is just really an advertising arm of Lockheed Martin, which pushes for Star Wars, for nuclear weapons, for nuclear superiority, for domination of space, for the militarization of space. The Heritage Foundation is ubiquitous in the media. Every time we turn on the TV, there's a spokesperson for them. They orchestrate the legislation in Congress. They have provided all the policy for the Bush administration, as they did for Reagan.

BB: Since 9/11, Bush has declared a state of never-ending war—

Dr. Caldicott: That's right.

BB: —and a compliant Congress has never even issued a formal declaration.

Dr. Caldicott: Oh, it's unbelievable!

BB: And yet, Bush's popularity remains high. How do you account for this?

Dr. Caldicott: I don't believe it. I think the polls are inaccurate. I have spoken now to hundreds of thousands of people in this country, via the media and face to face in big halls, and I haven't found one person who's dissented from what I've said. Not one! And people scream from the back of the hall, "How do we get rid of Bush?" I think there's a deep and profound subliminal concern that people have, and it's increasing now. It's so easy to mobilize a country using patriotism, you know. Hitler did it.

BB: Can you talk briefly about the toll that our military buildup is taking on social programs, environmental cleanup, and medical care?

Dr. Caldicott: There's a pie chart in my book showing [the U.S. government's] discretionary budget. More than half of it is going to killing. Half a trillion dollars a year, almost. If you spent a thousand dollars a minute since Jesus was born, you'd just now get to a trillion. Lockheed Martin, Boeing, TRW, and Raytheon are robber barons. They're stealing the people's money and in so doing could blow up the world very easily.

BB: As bad as things are, I heard you say recently that you believe in five years we could have genuine arms control.

Dr. Caldicott: No, no. Not arms control. Abolition. End the nuclear age. Close all the reactors down.

BB: Complete abolition! You are an incredible optimist for somebody who is such an alarmist.

Dr. Caldicott: I'm NOT an alarmist! I'm a realist. I'm a doctor. Doctors are not alarmists. You prognosticate the worst case possibility and work to prevent it. That's what you must do in medicine. I'm not an alarmist.

BB: I didn't mean to imply that the danger isn't real. I see you as sounding an alarm but also saying that the situation can turn around. How is this going to happen?

Dr. Caldicott: I'm setting up The Nuclear Policy Research Institute in the Bay Area, associated with a major college. I haven't got the funding yet, but I plan to place excellent spokespeople on Jim Lehrer, Ted Koppel, and all the rest, and take on the Heritage Foundation and the [Bush] administration full frontal.

BB: How can we all get involved?

Dr. Caldicott: Give me money! I just can't go around collecting little bits here and there. I can't spend my time raising money and not doing the work. It's too urgent. We need a million dollars a year for five years.

BB: We'll put the word out to all of our readers.

Dr. Caldicott: Thank you.

BB: Is there anything you'd like to add?

Dr. Caldicott: I think you've covered everything. I'd just like to encourage everybody to read the book, because knowledge is ammunition. Jefferson said that an informed democracy will behave in a responsible fashion.

To contact Dr. Helen Caldicott directly, log on to www.nuclearpolicy.org.