The Radical Paradox of Martin Luther King’s Devotion to Nonviolence
A conversation with King biographer Taylor Branch about the civil rights leader’s true legacy.
Richard Clarke on Who Was Behind the Stuxnet Attack
Clarke, who served three presidents as counterterrorism czar, believes that the United States was probably behind the cyberattack on Iran—and the U.S. is now vulnerable to having it turned back against it:
“‘I think it’s pretty clear that the United States government did the Stuxnet attack,’ he said calmly.
“This is a fairly astonishing statement from someone in his position.
“‘Alone or with Israel?’ I asked.
“‘I think there was some minor Israeli role in it. Israel might have provided a test bed, for example. But I think that the U.S. government did the attack and I think that the attack proved what I was saying in the book [which came out before the attack was known], which is that you can cause real devices—real hardware in the world, in real space, not cyberspace—to blow up.'”
The Trial of the Suicide Doctor
(1991) Did Dr. Jack Kevorkian do the right thing when he helped an Alzheimer’s patient end her own life with his homemade “Mercy Machine”? As the issue of medically assisted suicide hits the headlines again, he vows to continue his crusade for “planned death” for the terminally ill. But is he Socrates or Mengele? The author investigates the career of a medical heretic.
The Unsung Hero of the Nuclear Age
I went ahead and dedicated my new book to Maj. Harold Hering because Maj. Hering sacrificed his military career to ask a Forbidden Question about launching nuclear missiles. A question that exposed the comforting illusions of the so called fail-safe system designed to prevent “unauthorized” nuclear missile launches. How can any missile crewman know that an order to twist his launch key in its slot and send a thermonuclear missile rocketing out of its silo—a nuke capable of killing millions of civilians—is lawful, legitimate, and comes from a sane president?