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Article

Making Weapons, Talking Peace

APR 01, 1988
A nuclear physicist and adviser to four Presidents, the author reflects on the development of nuclear weapons, the creation of a new lab to rival Los Alamos and the negotiation of the elusive comprehensive test ban treaty.
Herbert F. York

My earliest memories of public affairs include the election of Herbert Hoover, the Great Depression, the election of Franklin Roosevelt, the rise of Adolf Hitler, the Japanese invasion of China, and the Italian invasion of Ethiopia—all of which took place while I was still in grade school. They continue with the Spanish civil war, which occurred when I was in high school. The European branch of World War II started in the same month that I entered college at the University of Rochester.

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More about the authors

Herbert F. York, University of California, San Diego.

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This Content Appeared In
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Volume 41, Number 4

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