3. Nuclear Experiments

Environmental Politics and Law (EVST 255)

To illustrate the linkages among national security, secrecy, and environmental quality, Professor Wargo describes the Atomic Energy Commission's nuclear tests in the 1950s. The Atomic Energy Commission collected data on the spread of radionuclides from the nuclear tests, and discovered that the radionuclides were circulating around the world. This process of discovery raised issues regarding ways to manage risks to the population while both continuing the nuclear tests and keeping them secret for national security reasons.

00:00 - Chapter 1. National Security and the Threat to Democratic Participation
05:07 - Chapter 2. A Brief History of Secrecy: 1944 - 1963
22:03 - Chapter 3. The Dose-Response Relationship
29:45 - Chapter 4. Studying Fallout Data
36:52 - Chapter 5. The Narrative Advantage of Secret Holders

Complete course materials are available at the Open Yale Courses website: http://open.yale.edu/courses

This course was recorded in Spring 2010.