Making weapons, talking peace: a physicist's odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva
- New York Basic Books Publishers 1987
- 359 p. : ill.
For more than four decades Herbert F. York has literally lived the nuclear arms race. As a fledgling physicist he worked on the first atomic bomb. Later, as the first Director of Defense Research and Engineering in the Eisenhower administration, he was responsible for all defense-related research, from designing better boots for the infantry to developing lasers, missiles, and multi-megaton hydrogen bombs. During the Carter administration he served as chief negotiator at the Comprehensive Test Ban talks.
Herbert York's odyssey from Hiroshima to Geneva has been a journey from the conviction that military might and national security were synonymous to the understanding that technology alone will never guarantee peace and survival. His candid memoir provides a rare glimpse at arms-race decisions at the highest levels. It is sometimes disturbing. sometimes inspiring, but always uniquely informative on the world's most pressing political problem.