The Ultimate Evil: The Fight to Ban Nuclear Weapons

Graeme S. Mount is a professor of history at Laurentian University, the
author of Canada’s Enemies: Spies and Spying in the Peaceable Kingdom,
and the co-author of The Border at Sault Ste. Marie.

Douglas Roche, a former MP who served as Canada’s ambassador for
disarmament to the United Nations from 1984 to 1989, believes that
“[n]uclear weapons are the greatest threat to ... humanity’s
survival.” In this book he makes a forceful case for the elimination
of these weapons.

The five great powers in addition to India, Pakistan, and Israel have
arsenals, Roche notes. “Proliferation will eventually lead to use,
either through accident, terrorism, or political decision.” He reviews
the horrors of nuclear attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki (since then,
nuclear weapons have become more powerful and more numerous); discusses
how babies born near the site of nuclear tests in the Pacific had “no
bones and transparent skin”; reminds us of Chernobyl’s deadly
legacy; points out that there have been close calls (such as the one in
1995 when a nuclear power mistakenly believed that it was in danger of
imminent nuclear attack); and warns that Russia’s “aging nuclear
submarine fleet poses an immense environmental hazard.”

Roche also warns that India and Pakistan came close to nuclear war in
1990 and may do so again; their recent nuclear testing makes this highly
persuasive book timely as well as essential reading.