At The Brink

Jeffrey Lewis 0:05

You are listening to the Arms Control Wonk podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I'm Jeffrey Lewis, the founding publisher of the Arms Control Wonk blog and a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:22

I'm Aaron Stein, the director of research at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. Aaron, we have guests. We have virtual guests. We are all in a Zoom room. You're in a different background today, actually. You're not outside.

Jeffrey 0:35

Yeah, I am actually at my in-laws house in upstate New York, and this is my father-in-law's office, which is filled with pictures of my wife's brother playing hockey. It's certainly filled with lots of pictures, as I can see. Well, we are joined by Bill Perry and Lisa Perry. Bill Perry, you must know, he is most famous for serving as the 19th Secretary of Defense under President Bill Clinton.

He had a long career as a technology entrepreneur with public service in the Carter and Clinton administrations, and is now the impresario of the William Perry Project at Stanford University, which is producing an incredible new podcast, At the Brink. Aaron, are you listening to it?

Aaron 1:15

I mean, absolutely. It's one of those things I listen to as I walk around with the nine-month-old everybody saw as I was carrying her around because my wife is still stuck on a call and we're in quarantine.

Jeffrey 1:26

And it is hosted by his granddaughter, Lisa Perry, who is the digital communications manager at the Perry Project and makes me feel bad about my own hosting abilities.

Lisa Perry 1:35

It's great. Thank you. I'm glad you enjoy it since I take a ton of inspiration from some of the work that you do, so...

Jeffrey 1:45

Well, I've been narrating another podcast project and I find that I have to like not do that after I listened to one of the episodes because the narration is so good.

Lisa 1:59

The podcast you're talking about is your new podcast on the Iran deal, is that right?

Jeffrey 2:03

Yes, but you already have a podcast episode on the Iran deal.

Lisa 2:07

I do. Well, no, so you say that you're afraid to listen to mine before doing yours. And I must admit, I'm very excited to listen to your series on the Iran deal. And I admit that I am afraid for the exact same reason, which is like, I know I'm going to listen to this and I'm going to get frustrated.

I wish I had gotten that story. But I'm really excited.

Jeffrey 2:30

I'm loving, I really love the Project Sapphire episode. I am not going to go anywhere near that Iran episode until all our stuff is in the can. So my first question is actually for Secretary Perry, which is, how did you find yourself Roped into helping create a podcast.

William Perry 2:51

I have to date back to when I decided that nuclear weapons were a terrible threat to the world and that our nuclear weapons were more of a danger to us than they were an asset to our security. And I said, I need to do something about that. And I quickly discovered how hard it is to do anything about that because most people just don't understand the issue because they don't even think about nuclear weapons anymore.

They think the nuclear dangers went away with the ending of the Cold War. So I set up a project to try to educate the public on this issue. Naively said about that, not understanding just how difficult this is going to be. And in my naive thinking, I thought, I'll write a book about it and explain it to people.

So I wrote a book called My Journey at the Nuclear Break a number of years ago. And to my surprise and astonishment, this didn't do the trick. This didn't really educate the public.

Jeffrey 3:44

First of all, not- This is not your fault, by the way. It's a wonderful book.

William 3:47

Yeah, well, not very many people read it was part of the problem. So given that problem, I formed a little project to try to concentrate on other ways of getting the idea across. And we hit upon writing a book that was more accessible to the public. That book is called The Button. It was jointly with Tom Kalina, who's much better at communicating with a lay person than I am anyway.

So that book I think had a better chance of getting the message across. But even then, even then I didn't think we were succeeding. And particularly, we're not succeeding with young people. So I said, we need a podcast. That's the next thing to try. Got more people who listen to podcasts, and particularly more young people. And then if we're trying to point to young people, why don't we get the young people's point of view in this?

So I asked Lisa if she would organize and narrate the podcast, hoping, hoping against hope, that that would work out all right. And to my surprise, it did. It turned out that she's not only young, she's actually very good at doing podcasts. So that was what got me into this. And that's why Lisa's here with us today, because she's the one, the power behind this podcast.

She's the one that really made it happen. She organized it and she narrated it and edited it.

Jeffrey 5:09

Are you actually doing the editing as well? Because that's a heavy lift.

Lisa 5:16

I do everything except for the technical audio editing. So we have hired a small team that cuts it all together. But all of the interviews, the writing, the scripting, the narration, the recording, The editing, the re-editing on an editorial level is actually myself and my father. So we really are actually a three generation project here. And that sort of worked out somewhat accidentally.

My father also works for the William J. Perry Project, which is the foundation my grandfather put together after he wrote his book to try and educate the public. And as he was saying, he originally first, he wrote the book and that was sort of the initial project that he took on in this effort. And then it's sort of gone on from there.

And this was six years ago, if I have my timeline right. That the book came out, and that's sort of about the same time that the That he created the foundation. And originally, he brought on my aunt, Robin, to be his, she was an editor by trade. And so she became the editor for the book, and then sort of went on to become the director for the project, sort of organically.

And then from there, my father, who Is his whole career has been as a professor. The first big project that they wanted to undertake was to make an online course since, I don't know if you should speak more on this, granddad, but he had been teaching at Stanford for some time on these issues and wanted to take Some of the things that he had been teaching at Stanford and make it publicly available and bringing it online so that everyone could learn these things that he's been teaching.

And so he brought my father on as someone who can just organize the course, as someone who is a professor and understands how to do these things. And so that was sort of the original how these things started out. The first couple of things we did were these online courses. And then I personally got involved also somewhat organically in that my weekly phone calls with my father.

As he started working on this project, he'd always be telling me what they were doing and what they had going on and how they were trying to reach people. And I sort of became this unofficial advisor saying, well, you guys should try this or you should check out these YouTube videos and see what they're doing. Or maybe this is another thing you can do.

Jeffrey 7:59

So wait, these are just like regular familial phone calls and you're just like hearing what's going on. You're like, no, no, no, no. No, no. You know, it's like, I'm hip to what the young people think. And you're like, no, dad, no, no.

Lisa 8:15

Yeah, kind of. I mean, they were doing some great stuff. It was more of like a brainstorming session, and that went on for about a year and a half when the foundation first started, where we just would always end up getting in these conversations about the work that they were doing, and I would sort of be like, oh, I think you should try these other things, or I really like this, I think you should do more of that.

And then... Eventually, what actually ended up happening was when the book came out, finally, I'm a big user of Reddit, actually, and I had always told my grandfather, I said, when this book comes out, I would really love for you to do an AMA, which for those who are not familiar, stands for Ask Me Anything. It's basically an open forum question session And I thought that that would be really interesting and also a good way to sort of get some attention to the book and the foundation And something that I just wanted to see him do in general.

And then along with that, I was sort of prepping them to do this. I wanted to really actually be effective and help them out with their mission and started getting involved in really working with what they had on their materials online and their website and started beefing these things up. And eventually I said, oh, you know, I think you really need someone I think you need to bring someone on who's dedicated and focused on how you're communicating your message online.

And how you're reaching it out, because you're creating great content, and the information is really important. But if, you know, the internet's a big place, if you're not knowing how to market it, if you're not knowing how to reach the people you're trying to reach, it's just going to sit in the ether somewhere. And it was originally just going to be for a couple months as I sort of revamped their website and got them established on some things.

And Now we are here four and a half years later. We have a podcast and all these other things.

Aaron 10:26

Right. So I'm curious, when you were planning this podcast, as it moved along with such a long career in government, how you ultimately chose the stories that you did to focus on in each episode.

Lisa 10:38

Over the past four and a half years I have gotten to witness my grandfather do lots of talks, and I got to really intimately familiar with his personal stories and the people that he's worked with, and we started from there. Really, we, we were inspired with how, seeing when he would speak with people, how his personal stories were the things that resonated the most with people. In fact, he tells his His false alarm story is one that he tells often.

And seeing how people resonate when you hear and feel the danger from someone's personal experience just seems to connect with people at a much deeper level than if you're just rattling off facts and figures and wonky statistics, as much as that can connect with some people.

Jeffrey 11:34

Secretary Perry, are you, Surprised at which stories connect with people? I mean, I find this intergenerational thing so fascinating because, you know, you have your life and your experience and your career, but you have children and grandchildren who are interested in what you do and care about what you do and, you know, and know what they're talking about.

And so do you find that things land with them in ways that you don't expect or you're surprised that something strikes them or, you know, is it pretty much what you expect?

William 12:02

The first thing that surprised me Was in trying to get a point across to people. I can do it more effectively by telling them a story that illustrates it rather than by giving them an analysis of the problem. Storytelling, in my judgment, turned out to be a very effective way of communicating with people. And then I picked those stories that are most dramatic and that are easy for people to understand.

And so at least I mentioned my so-called false alarm story. That's when I personally experienced a false alarm at 3 o'clock in the morning. And that was highlighted by my picking up the phone at 3 o'clock and the general saying to me, my computer's showing 200 ICBMs on the way from the Soviet Union to the United States.

Now, he quickly went on to say he concluded it was a false alarm. But that first phrase was so dramatic to me that I thought if I told that to other people, They would find it easier to relate to why it was so dramatic and easier to understand why a false alarm might be a problem to the United States.

And it might even actually lead us into an accidental nuclear war. So my basic conclusion from talking many years with many people was that storytelling is a better way of getting points across than analysis. And that I picked from my own career, the most dramatic stories, because if you can tell them in the first person, they're the most effective of all.

Aaron 13:35

Can I jump in there with a follow-on question, building on something you brought up earlier, which is, you know, you mentioned your Some of your early problems when you wrote a book about translating these things for the layman, you know, and I think that that's a struggle we, a lot of us have actually is that taking these topics and I know Jeffrey and I have had it, you know, nonproliferation can be very, very boring, even if it's very exciting for us.

And that the podcast was a way to make it exciting and interesting, you know, When people have talked to you about the podcast, what is it that the layman, just to use that term, says, oh, wow, that one really jumped out at me and you made it real for me, or that that was something that maybe surprised you and that they took an interest in that you thought maybe wasn't so interesting, or things that you repackaged and explained that all of a sudden had more resonance?

William 14:29

I'm waiting for you to answer that one. Sure. And I want to see if the answers are the same. Well, I'm not getting the feedback yet that she's already getting.

Lisa 14:39

Unfortunately, he's been quarantined at home, hasn't get to see as many people except on these Zoom calls. Definitely, people have been really responding to the emotion, I think, is what we hear a lot. So the first episode, we start off with the story of the Hawaii false alarm. And that was with a woman, Cynthia Lazaroff, who experienced it there.

And she's recounting her story. And she gets very emotional at the end of telling that story. She's talking about how she thought that not only was it maybe the end of her life, but maybe the end of, she thought about her children who were living elsewhere and they didn't know whether the attack was maybe going to affect other people.

And, you know, coming to that moment, In your acceptance of this may not just be the end of my life, but like the end of most human life as we know it and just the weight of that. And like, you know, feeling it and coming from someone who's telling it, not just from a theoretical perspective from a from a real.

This was my experience. I had this moment that this was A real thought that I had to grapple with. And I think those are the sorts of things that really connect with people. One of my favorite vignettes that we got to depict was The Nunn-Lugar episode, going into the history of the Nunn-Lugar program, which is the program that my grandfather spearheaded to dismantle the leftover nuclear weapons after the fall of the Soviet Union, which to me is a really interesting story that I think is just not really talked about when you learn about the history of the Soviet Union and things.

You're like, oh yes, there's hundreds. Thousands of nuclear weapons that got left over. What happened to those? But Liz Sherwood, who was a part of the program, talks about this moment when she was visited by these former Ukrainian and Russian officials at her home in California, and they're having dinner outside And she has a new baby with her and they're eating and they're talking and they're just sharing and communing with one another.

And the general asks, oh, can I hold your baby? And she passed her newborn son to the general and general's holding the baby and saying, isn't it strange that we're sitting here right now? We used to target this place with nuclear weapons. And right now I'm holding the next generation in my hands of what wouldn't have ever been possible if that had actually happened.

You know, if we had followed through with all of these things that we have been building up towards, then this beautiful future would never have happened. And those are the sorts of things that I know I personally connect with. And I've been hearing from people, you know, the different moments that they get emotional with. And then that's where it really kind of hits you in that core place of, you know, that This is real and we can't ignore it.

And I think those are the powerful places.

Jeffrey 18:04

Yeah, I really love the decision to start with Hawaii false alarm. You know, in part because I think when, When it was publicized, we all imagined that this was something that happened on the civilian side and that the military must have known there was no alarm. And now stories are starting to filter out that military personnel who saw the alerts on their phones just assumed it was a real alert.

And so there's this kind of, at least for me, that was just an inspired way to start. I wonder, and this is really a question for both of you, you know, how do you, do you pick the, do you make these editorial decisions as a team? You know, you know, Lisa, are you the, are you, are you the dictator?

What, how, how, like, how do you go about picking the stories? Because I think they've been so well chosen.

Lisa 18:58

Well, thank you. I'm glad that you've enjoyed them. It was mostly, I organized the ideas together and then I kind of brought it to the table and we discussed them and sort of talked about what we might tap into. I would say that for this season, and we do have some hopes to maybe do a second season, And I have a bunch of ideas for that.

But for this season, what we really wanted to do is we said, you know, if we can only do one season, what are the stories and what are the subjects we think are most important to cover? And that was sort of our guiding light with the decisions we made. Particularly, we really leaned in on the connections that my grandfather has, the people that he's worked with, the experts that we've worked with with the project, who we knew could speak to these issues really well, and the stories that we were already, you know, very familiar with.

And so it definitely does lean heavy more into U.S. government background things for that reason, but I don't think that it's any weaker for that. I think it's stronger because we have this unique access to a lot of these behind the scenes things. And then from there, yeah, we really just sort of, okay, what are the most compelling and interesting stories that we can find around those things?

And some of the episodes are a little more story heavy and some of them are a little bit more policy heavy because there are certain things like the Iran deal episode. We really felt it was critical to do an episode on the Iran deal because it is so important. That one was maybe a little harder to find the story narrative there.

And so then you're sort of weaving things together and it becomes more of lots of vignettes. And just connecting people with the process than it is like one big story. You mentioned the Project Sapphire episode. That's I think so far one of my favorites that we've gotten to do because it is such a This fascinating, you know, strong narrative.

And actually, as I was interviewing Andy Weber for the podcast, he tells me at the end of the interview saying, you know, we've actually been optioned for a movie for this story. That the movie producers had reached out to him about making a movie about it. Obviously, whether that ever happens is questionable, but it made total sense to me.

Like, oh, yes, I could certainly see a movie get made out of this story. They obviously would have to punch it up and throw in some romance in there, I'm sure.

Jeffrey 21:52

Yeah, I think Andy's going to be replaced by George Clooney or somebody.

Aaron 21:56

I hate to break it to him. You don't know that for sure, Jeffrey. Well, I have to ask, Secretary Perry, what's been your favorite episode to do? I think, Lisa, maybe it's the Project Sapphire episode, but I'm curious to hear which yours is.

William 22:12

Well, I like Project Sapphire. I like The False Alarm Story. In fact, I would take the answer to the question of the various stories that I tell. I think The False Alarm Story is the most gripping because it's so easy for people to relate to it, getting a phone call in the middle of the night. And it's so easy to imagine How that call was going to run to the president.

He gets woken up. He gets awoken in the middle of the night. He has five minutes to decide. Now, that's a dramatic story, but it's a true story. We were two minutes away from, less than two minutes away from the National Security Advisor calling the president before we knew it was a false alarm. And had he done that, the president would have had five minutes to decide.

People can imagine getting a call in the middle of the night. They can imagine the incongruity of having to make a decision that momentous. Five minutes after being woken up at 3 o'clock in the morning. No opportunity to get contacts, no opportunity to talk with significant advisors. We just have to decide. And the fact that we have that system, that policy, is just crazy.

And this story illustrates just how crazy it is. So that's my favorite story.

Lisa 23:32

Well, so you were also pretty excited when we brought you the first cut of the Nunn-Lugar episode. I remember we had finished it before our official launch date because we were doing several in a row. And he said, okay, so we're publishing it this week, right? So no, no, no, we have our launch dates in three weeks.

I was like, well, no, I think it's good. We should just put it out now.

Jeffrey 23:57

I know that feeling. We have a couple of episodes in the can and we're just, you want them. They're like, you know, you want them to go out in the world and you want that reaction. Sometimes you have to wait. It's so hard. So hard. So, So you said you're thinking about a second season. What are our chances of that?

And you just want to keep those ideas to yourself? I guess the question I wanted to ask, are there stories you didn't get to tell?

Lisa 24:32

Yes, yes, there are stories. So I'll give your listeners a little sneak preview in terms of what we have left coming for this season. So we have the Iran deal episode, most recent, and then up next we'll have North Korea, in which yours truly will also be featured on And then we will have, episode eight will be a story about Hiroshima and that will be quite a unique and intense episode.

We have two survivors who are speaking on that episode and that's going to be quite a deep dive there. And then our final episode will be sort of an activism disarmament episode, sort of looking a broad overview of all the different things happening on what people are doing to push back. So that's the nine episodes of season one.

But a second season, what I would really love to do in the stories that we haven't been able to tell would really be a lot more stories that are a little bit of a step back from the sort of higher levels of government and more on the smaller stories of the people who've been affected by these weapons and Imposed upon by these weapons.

Particularly, I would really love to tell the story of the Marshall Islands and the downwinders and the effects that nuclear testing has had on individuals. There's so many stories out there that are, you know, I think really important to talk about and even uranium mining and the impact on indigenous people in New Mexico and Colorado. And that would really be a big priority for me.

There's a number of other just interesting kind of like smaller unique stories about New Corpans around the world. I'd love to dive into India, Pakistan. That was something that we just didn't quite have the bandwidth to do this season. And Interestingly, one episode that I would really love to do, we actually have contacts with John Hersey's grandson and Truman's grandson and the grandson of one of the pilots of the Enola Gay.

We have all contacted all of them. And I would love to do a sort of retrospective of, like, The next generation who has had these direct connections with nuclear weapons through our family connections and just a sort of a sit down conversation of where are we at with grappling with what our family has had involved in these weapons and how are we maybe taking charge and trying to change the narrative and take ownership of what the generations after us will have to deal with.

Jeffrey 27:35

Yeah, I think that's really interesting. I think Leo Szilard's granddaughter now also has a podcast. Oh, yeah? Yeah, and it's inspired by the fact that I think there's this sort of picture of him posing with a mushroom cloud, which she saw in, like, her grandfather's house. And she never, you know, she had no idea what he did.

And it was kind of a revelation to her. So I think... Some of those intergenerational questions I find endlessly fascinating. Let me really put the pitch in for the impact of uranium mining on Native American tribes. I have a colleague at MISS, the Middlebury Institute, and she's writing her thesis Asking this question of how is it that we have spent so much attention, I think rightfully so, on victims of nuclear testing.

And for some reason, the impact of uranium mining on Native American tribes has almost fallen off our radar. So I think those are some inspired ideas.

Lisa 28:36

Yeah. Yeah, and then I think there's stories that really deserve to be told. So we leaned into the stories that we did this season because the issues are important and the connections that we have right there. So we knew we could tell these stories well. We knew that they would be able To explain these sort of big concept issues that we connected to each story, which is sort of our goal is, you know, take a big concept nuclear issue and attach it to a personal story, just sort of explain or exemplify why these things are important or why you should care about them.

But these other stories are so important and critical too, and they deserve that attention. And it's just gonna be a matter of, you know, as it is with most things, finding the funding for a second season, and we're very helpful for that and crossing our fingers.

William 29:30

Another story which hasn't really been told, and it might not be available, we might not be able to find the people who can tell it, is the story of the testing of the so-called monster bomb. This is the bomb which the Soviets detonated just before the test ban took place. And it was 50 megatons. It was, what, 3,000 times the destructive power of the Hiroshima bomb, a huge bomb.

And the problem they had was finding a way of testing it. It was a huge bomb, first of all, and they had to take their biggest bomber and adapt it, modify it so they could put this airplane bomb on it. So they solved that problem. And the next problem was, how could the pilot get far enough away from the bomb detonation so that he and his airplane went destroyed by this bomb?

And so they dropped with a parachute. And then went off, I think, about 10,000 feet. It had a chance to get maybe, I don't know, 50 miles or so away. Even so, the pressure wave when it hit the airplane almost brought his airplane down. He managed to get it under control, managed to land it. The airplane was badly damaged, but he was still able to land it.

But it's just a way of illustrating the enormous power of these bombs. In this case, you can't even find a way to test it without endangering people's lives. So it's hard to comprehend the destructive power of a nuclear bomb. But if you take the extreme case, this 50 megaton bomb, and this relates a simple story. If you could only find, because the pilot is probably long dead, Talk to his grandson, for example, who would be nice to do.

So we have some research to do to find if we can make a story out of that. That's a story that's been in the back of my mind that wants telling.

Jeffrey 31:37

I think that's fantastic. You know, Russia, just within the last, I think, what, two weeks, released a 40-minute high-resolution film That they made, which I- I have not seen it, have you? Oh yeah, I downloaded it and then I watched it on the plane as I was flying from California to New York. And it's incredible because it details all of the things you've just said, the degree to which they had to have a special rail car just to move it and the manner in which they actually put the bomb underneath the aircraft, which was hanging externally.

Which when you see this aircraft flying with this just enormous device hanging from it, it looks, I mean, it is the epitome of unsafe. I mean, I think if you look at that, you immediately realize that this entire enterprise is deeply dubious.

William 32:35

If you take something to the extreme, in this case, the biggest bomb ever built and detonated, and I think going to the extreme illustrates the points, an important point. In this case, there's no better way, I think, To dramatize the destructive power of nuclear weapons, and to talk about the stories about how this bomb, and the difficulty of even finding a way to test this bomb, it was so destructive.

Aaron 33:01

You know, before we wrap up here, I was hoping, Lisa, you can tell our listeners, if they are not aware of where they can find this podcast, Where they can go find this podcast. I assume it's on every place that we can find podcasts, but I want to make sure that you plug it in case there's things I'm not thinking about.

Jeffrey 33:20

And don't forget to tell them to smash that subscribe button. Smash the subscribe button.

Lisa 33:25

Smash that subscribe button. Give it a thumbs up and a like. Yes, you can find it anywhere that you listen to your podcast. It's on Google and Spotify and Apple. It's called At The Brink. But you can also find it on our website, atthebrink.org. And also if you go on our website, we've got a lot of great photos from a lot of the stories that we've recounted, a lot of like personal photos from my grandfather's collection, photos from our interviewees.

And lots of resources for if you're interested in the subject and you wanna learn more, all of those links are there. The podcast really is intended to be educational and a stepping stone for those who aren't already engaged on these issues or feel like they're not knowledgeable enough to talk about them. This is sort of supposed to be your primer of like introducing people to these issues.

And in fact, I have often told people, Who are already in the nuke wonk space. I said, this is the podcast you share with all your friends when you're at the cocktail party. And they say, well, so what do you work on? Nuclear weapons. OK, well, what does that mean? I said, well, listen to this podcast, because it's hard to break down all of the different issues.

You listen to this podcast, this will give you a sense of what the issues are, what are the big things out there, and what we can actually do to impact change and lower the dangers of nuclear disaster.

Jeffrey 34:53

And I'm just going to go ahead and jump in and say also both books, the new book, The Button with Tom Kalina, but also My Journey at the Nuclear Brink are definitely worth reading. I mean, I've read My Journey at the Nuclear Brink twice. My copy is marked up. It's incredible. My copy of The Button is sitting in California while I'm here.

So it's waiting to be marked up. But I just really think pretty much Everything that you've done, Secretary Perry, since you left office has just been really incredible. And I think it's a testament to you that you have been able to create this project that has given us so much amazing content. If only to make me feel bad that your granddaughter is a better narrator than I am.

William 35:47

Let me just add one other story, which I haven't related before. Which is when I was first offered the job, first as Deputy Secretary of Defense and later as Secretary of Defense, each case I turned the job down for a variety of personal reasons. And what brought me around to accepting them in both cases was Senator Nunn explaining to me that the only way he believed we could really get the Nunn-Lugar program implemented And get these 8,000 nuclear weapons dismantled that we wanted to dismantle.

What if I would take those jobs? That was the final persuasive factor in my mind of taking a job, which I really did not want to take and my wife did not want to take. And as a result of taking it, we did succeed. We did dismantle those 8,000 weapons. We got rid of all of the nuclear weapons that were sort of floating around in Kazakhstan and Belarus and Ukraine.

And I thought, When I left office at the end of my term, I thought the nuclear, we were all well on our way to dismantling the nuclear legacy of the Cold War. And I thought that for three or four years before I realized that was not gonna happen, that instead that four year period was just sort of a very special period where all of our energy, the whole energies of the Defense Department Were directed to dismantling nuclear weapons.

That was my primary mission when I was in the Defense Department, dismantling nuclear weapons. Can you imagine a person, not a Secretary of Defense, making that his primary mission? And can you imagine a person saying, I would not become the Secretary of Defense except for the possibility for doing that mission? But that is a true story with no embellishment as I've just related it.

Aaron 37:42

What did you do yesterday, Jeffrey? No, it's a humbling story.

Jeffrey 37:47

I didn't achieve anything remotely close to something like that. I think I made myself a sandwich and wrote an article no one's going to read.

Aaron 37:55

I was woken up at three o'clock in the morning last night. It took me about 30 seconds to realize that it was my daughter crying. So, you know, these stories, they're very well done because it makes you think about yourself. And so it really is You know, it really is a testament to the work that you're doing.

You know, the Hawaii episode in particular, the closest thing that we've gotten here in Philadelphia is like a tornado warning, like blasted to your phone. And we don't really get tornadoes in Philadelphia. But, you know, every once in a while you do. And the last one that came, I happened to be in Iraq of all places. And I get woken up to text messages from my wife saying we have to go shelter in the basement and feeling helpless.

I can only imagine if the alert was incoming missiles. So I really do implore people to go read the podcast because you humanize it and you bring it home in a way that it makes it very relatable. And I think, you know, as somebody who does a podcast, and Jeffrey, I don't know how long we've been doing this.

I can't remember. I think it's been six years or something.

Jeffrey 38:58

Six years. Yeah. You would think it would get better at some point. Yeah.

Aaron 39:03

Well, yeah, the ultimate compliment is putting it together because we know what it takes and we have a lot of screw ups.

William 39:14

Those play out here. Jeff, I don't know whether David or Lisa told you, but your podcast was an inspiration to us and a model to us when we started ours.

Lisa 39:24

Oh, certainly.

William 39:25

You set the standard for the way to do these kind of podcasts.

Lisa 39:28

We were listening to a lot of the episodes when we were sort of putting together the initial plan. Okay, what else is people doing? What... What standard do we need to hold ourselves to? And I can only hope that our podcast does anywhere near the level of precision and knowledge and accuracy that you bring to your podcast.

Jeffrey 39:54

I think we're happy to be the obscure indie band to your rock stardom. Just remember to wear our T-shirt when you're on TV.

Aaron 40:05

Otherwise, no one will know who we are. Right. And, you know, I do want to, when we take a step, I know that if there's ways that we can help, the Arms Control Wonk community can help with that second season. You know, I know funding is always important. Do plug it now.

Lisa 40:26

Just share it with as many people as you can. Get it out there. Maybe if you're feeling like you want to just like play it on repeat in the background so we get a lot of plays.

William 40:38

And I can tell people, you have a lot of people listening to this.

Lisa 40:41

We really need a second season. And any type of just getting the message out there, getting people to know what it is, that's what we're looking to do. The more people you tell about sharing on your social media, that's the whole goal. And I will say that I'm endlessly grateful. I know that I'm very lucky, not just to have What I consider, you know, the best granddad out there, but just the opportunities that that what he has done in his life, which is all of these amazing things has allowed me to do this amazing thing and have the privilege of creating a podcast purely Not for monetary gain, but purely for education, purely to get the message out there, to reach people about something that is so incredibly important.

And not a lot of people have the chance to create a pure artistic creation like that. And hopefully people will resonate with it.

Aaron 41:44

Well, I'm going to take us out here with our own plug. Do the same thing for the Arms Control Wong podcast. You can listen to two podcasts.

Jeffrey 41:51

You can listen to two podcasts.

Aaron 41:55

And Jeffrey's, it's not a spinoff. Jeffrey's independent project, which I know took a lot of work, and I'm actually very excited to listen to it. Make sure to subscribe to that, Jeffrey. What's it called? What's it called again? I forgot.

Jeffrey 42:08

Aaron, it's called The Deal. It'll be a five-part narrative podcast about the history of the Iran nuclear deal.

Aaron 42:19

You can find it on iTunes. You can follow all of these things on iTunes, Spotify. And if you want to support the show, because we need the support as well, head on over to patreon.com slash ACW podcast. And if you make a donation, $3 if you're a student, $5 if you're a normal person, you can join our Slack channel where lots of fun things happen.

So with that, Jeffrey, I just want to thank our guests. Anything you want to take us out with? No, I just want to say thank you all for joining us. Thank you.

William 42:47

Jeffrey and Aaron, thank you both. It's been very interesting and stimulating discussion.

Jeffrey 42:53

And thank you for listening.