Why Don’t We Take Nuclear Weapons Seriously?

In “Preventing Nuclear War,” an essay published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists , in 1981, the Harvard law professor Roger Fisher imagines a President in the White House, discussing nuclear war. Fisher was involved in the Camp David Accords, served as an adviser to both sides during the Iran hostage crisis , and helped to arrange the 1985 Gorbachev-Reagan summit. Much of his professional life was centered on managing pressured, consequential situations. During the Cold War—and arguably still today—the most consequential situation was the possibility of nuclear war. Fisher, who was a pilot during the Second World War, makes what he describes as a “quite simple” suggestion to reduce the chances of launching a nuclear attack: “Put that needed code number in a little capsule and t