NARRATOR: May 1998. India and Pakistan detonate nuclear devices.

The explosions in South Asia threaten to shatter the nuclear stability of the post-Cold War era.

The pall of nuclear annihilation looms over the dawn of the 21st Century, a century in which unstable nations, terrorists or crime syndicates might get their finger on the nuclear trigger.

Is nuclear war inevitable?

ADMIRAL EUGENE CARROLL (USN Ret.): Hello. I'm Admiral Carroll for "America's Defense Monitor."

With the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, the threat of nuclear war seemed to fade from public attention. Then nuclear tests by India and Pakistan called us back to reality and reminded everyone that there are still about 37,000 nuclear weapons in the world.

In truth, the danger of a nuclear war may now be greater than ever. Today's program will look carefully at the new situation and examine actions that could lead the way to a world in which the risk of a nuclear war disappears entirely.

NARRATOR: In August 1945, the United States dropped the atom bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and raised the stakes of international diplomacy to apocalyptic levels.

President HARRY TRUMAN:

"It is an awful responsibility which has come to us. We thank God that it has come to us instead of to our enemies, and we pray that he may guide us to use it in his ways and for his purposes."

NARRATOR: Four years later, the USSR exploded its own atom bomb. The nuclear arms race was on. The US put bombs on aircraft, on missiles, in artillery shells, in aircraft carriers and in submarines, in torpedoes and in anti-aircraft weapons. The Soviet Union matched every move. All told, the United States spent nearly $6 trillion on its nuclear arms program. At the height of the arms race, the United States and Soviet Union confronted each other with 50,000 nuclear weapons.

The United States and the Soviet Union finally began to take serious steps to reduce the number of nuclear weapons in 1991. That year Presidents Bush and Gorbachev signed the START I treaty, aimed at reducing the number of nuclear weapons. At the time, the US had 21,000 nuclear weapons, many on hair-trigger alert. Today, we have almost cut that number in half. But the nuclear nightmare is far from over. There are still 37,000 nuclear weapons in the world today, containing an explosive power roughly equal to 700,000 Hiroshima bombs.

Jonathan Schell, a former editor of The New Yorker and the author of The Gift of Time: The Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now.

JONATHAN SCHELL: When you cut the arsenals down, let's say from their present 8000 down to 5000 or to 3,500 mandated under the START II agreement, well, that's very good, I'm all for it. You've reduced the overkill. But as I often say, it's the first time you're killed that counts.

NARRATOR: Today, 95 percent of the nuclear warheads, bombs and explosive devices are concentrated in the United States and Russia. The rest are divided between the United Kingdom, France, China, India and Pakistan. Israel is an undeclared possessor of nuclear weapons, bringing the count of nuclear weapons states to eight.

Another four nations are suspected of developing nuclear weapons: Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea.

Eight nations have ended their nuclear weapons programs since 1989. Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine voluntarily gave up the nuclear weapons which were left behind after the disintegration of the Soviet Union. In 1991, Brazil and Argentina gave up their race for nuclear weapons.

NEWS ANNOUNCER: "In 1979, foreign intelligence reports claimed South Africa, in cooperation with Israel..."

NARRATOR: Meanwhile, South Africa dismantled the six nuclear weapons it had admitted to building before signing the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1991.

F.W. de KLERK, President of South Africa (1991): "The nuclear deterrent has become not only superfluous, but in fact an obstacle to the development of South Africa's international relations."

NARRATOR: Yet, India and Pakistan have shaken the world's faith in the idea that international treaties could control the spread of nuclear weapons. The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace declared in their report, Tracking Nuclear Proliferation, that by exploding nuclear weapons, India and Pakistan "could spawn a geographically continuous nuclear proliferation chain from Delhi to Baghdad."

Retired Admiral Stansfield Turner was director of the Central Intelligence Agency under President Carter. He is a highly respected foreign and military policy analyst.

ADMIRAL STANSFIELD TURNER: Today though the problem has changed and the India/Pakistan tests are an indicator that the world is moving towards the proliferation of these weapons to other countries.

NARRATOR: International experts fear that India and Pakistan's tests may trigger a chain reaction of nuclear weapons development.

ADM. TURNER: We have an urgent problem now in the post-Cold War world if there's proliferation: Once it starts, it cascades. If the Iraqis did get a nuclear weapon -- and they were close in 1991 when we went into their country by force -- the Iranians have to have one. If they both have one, the Saudi Arabians are going to want one, and on it goes.

NARRATOR: The risk that nuclear weapons will soon be held by many nations is particularly grave, given the economic and political turmoil of the former Soviet Union. The employees of Russian nuclear facilities have gone without pay for months. Experts fear the worst: The world's largest stockpile of nuclear weapons could turn into a radioactive garage sale.

Senator ALAN CRANSTON: Nobody knows where some of them are and, presumably, they're available for sale to the highest bidder.

NARRATOR: In light of Russia's chaotic situation, many political leaders argue that the possibility of nuclear war is far from gone. Alan Cranston, retired senator and current chair of the Gorbachev USA Foundation:

Sen. CRANSTON: We have no new world order, we have world chaos. And it is now more likely that there could be an unauthorized accidental use of nuclear weapons out of Russia because of the economic and political uncertainties there. And it is known that terrorists, leaders of rogue states, like Iraq, and even criminal drug syndicates are now seeking nuclear weapons.

MAN-in-the-Street: I'm more worried now than I think I was ten years ago and I think the world is more unstable.

NARRATOR: Paradoxically, the collapse of the Soviet Union has increased the danger of nuclear weapons spreading to other countries. But, it also presents the world with an unprecedented opportunity to reduce dramatically the chances of nuclear confrontation.

JONATHAN SCHELL (at conference): "The obstacles that the very existence of a closed totalitarian society pose to nuclear disarmament, which requires openness and trust, have melted away..."

JONATHAN SCHELL (interview): But the paradox is that because the fear has dropped, people are not looking at the question as much as they might and we're letting the opportunity pass without seizing it. My hope is that people could act out of a sense of hope and possibility.

NARRATOR: For perhaps the first time since Nagasaki, military leaders, ambassadors, scholars and philosophers share enough common ground to gather and reflect on the possibility of eliminating nuclear weapons altogether. In July of this year, such a group convened in Washington, D.C. The message sent by the conference was as emphatic as it was clear.

ADMIRAL NOEL GAYLER (at conference): "And this model back here, which says we can do without nuclear weapons I think is entirely accurate. But we have to find some way to do that, some concrete way, and I think there is such a concrete way."

NARRATOR: Admiral Noel Gayler, who as commander-in-chief of the Pacific was responsible for the execution of US war plans for half the planet, explains why today's nuclear weapons are as useless as they are destructive.

ADM. GAYLER: I think we have no sensible military use of nuclear weapons. But even more, because there is nothing that we can do with nuclear weapons which protects us against the use by somebody else.

UNIDENTIFIED: If we ever get to the point where we have to use a nuclear weapon, then I think you're talking about a worldwide annihilation. Because if we use them, any country we use them against is going to retaliate. And that's what's scary now, is that you don't know whether or not they're going to retaliate and sometimes you're almost tempted to act first just because you're afraid they're going to act. That's why we need to tone down.

NARRATOR: Though presidents have often threatened to resort to nuclear weapons, not once in the 52 years since the end of World War II were they deemed military useful. Not even in Vietnam could thousands of US nuclear warheads prevent a humiliating defeat. Jonathan Schell explains why.

SCHELL: I think if you look at them with clearer eyes and remember what they physically actually are and what a nuclear weapon can do to a city -- when you recall that, let's say, a 20-megaton bomb with its four to five-mile wide fireball, its area of devastation of some several hundred square miles, and a lethal radiation of seven or 8000 square miles -- when you remember these elementary facts, which I think we tend very much to forget, then you see these are not a solution to any problem whatsoever.

NARRATOR: The fact is, America cannot use nuclear arms to defend itself against any sort of attack.

ADM. GAYLER: And the peculiar nature of nuclear weapons is such that only a very few can do all the destruction that anybody needs to do to destroy us, so that the possession on our part of thousands of nuclear weapons doesn't give us any security.

NARRATOR: In the near future, terrorists groups -- not Russia, not China -- will be the greatest nuclear threat to America. Can a vast nuclear arsenal really protect America is a terrorist group develops even a single bomb? Nuclear bombs pose the only significant danger to the United States, which is protected by the most powerful conventional military force in the world.

ADM. GAYLER: We have the dominant Navy to protect the seas. We have an Air Force which is unmatched, both Air Force and Navy. And we have battle-tested ground forces, Army and Marines. Nobody can come against us except with nuclear weapons.

NARRATOR: Ambassador Paul Warnke is a highly regarded international statesman.

Ambassador PAUL WARNKE: We're by far the safest country in the world. We have giant oceans on both sides. We have friendly neighbors. The only real risk we have is nuclear proliferation, and that's what we have to face up to.

NARRATOR: If nuclear weapons are eliminated, the only real threat to America would disappear.

ADM. GAYLER: Until we abolish nuclear weapons, we are at risk and we can't do anything about it. So that abolishing them is the only way in which we can attain security.

NARRATOR: During the Cold War, the number one justification for nuclear arms was as a force so dangerous that world war amounted to global suicide. The knowledge that nuclear war would result in mutual annihilation was believed to deter war through a balance of terror.

Sen. CRANSTON The trouble with deterrence and nuclear weapons is that while it works and weapons are not used out of fear, well, that may not be civilized, but at least it has a sound practical effect. But the trouble is it will not work forever. Not only is it ethically highly debatable and dubious, but sooner or later, deterrence will fail for one reason or another. And when it fails, you have total catastrophe.

NARRATOR: As other countries acquire nuclear weapons, countries locked in bitter disputes like India and Pakistan, the likelihood that deterrence will fail increases alarmingly.

ADM. TURNER: That could mean that while it wouldn't be a holocaust, it might be a small number of nuclear weapons, but the probability of their being used could be greater than it was during the Cold War.

NARRATOR: The argument that weapons of unparalleled destructiveness can exist forever without being used becomes less credible every day. The value of deterrence is further eroded by the moral questions it raises.

SCHELL: Nuclear deterrence is a strategy that is based on terror. It's based on the threat of killing hundreds of millions of human beings. Technically and soberly speaking, deterrence is a policy of genocide because it relies, in the last resort, in retaliation -- not perhaps as a first strike, but in retaliation on the capacity to, in essence, wipe out the society of the other side. Now that is a technical definition of what genocide is. So, I don't think that is consistent with American ideals.

NARRATOR: A succession of US presidents has relied on the threat of nuclear strikes to carry out US policy. During the Korean War, General MacArthur urged the use of nuclear weapons. From the Cuban Missile Crisis, to Vietnam, to the Gulf War, the United States has flexed its nuclear might. America last employed nuclear terror when President Clinton threatened North Korea with annihilation.

President BILL CLINTON: "It is pointless for them to try to develop nuclear weapons because if they ever used them, it would be the end of their country."

NARRATOR: Contradictions such as these have forced admirals and senators to question seriously the value of nuclear arms to America.

Sen. CRANSTON Well, I think it's uncivilized for civilization to depend upon terror for its security. That undermines the nature of the civilization. It cannot be considered moral or ethical.

NARRATOR: The immoral nature of nuclear arms was codified in 1997 when the International Court of Justice ruled that on the basis of humanitarian law, the threat or use of nuclear arms violated international law.

DAVID KRIEGER (at conference): And you can't use weapons that fail to discriminate under international law between combatants and civilians.

NARRATOR: David Krieger is the president of the Nuclear Age Peace Foundation and a leading expert on nuclear issues.

KRIEGER: And if nuclear weapons fits that category of a weapon that cannot discriminate, then that weapon cannot be used in warfare by the laws of international humanitarian law.

NARRATOR: Nuclear weapons belong in this category of indiscriminate killers. Their use assures the death of thousands of innocent people. There are countries whose armies is may be necessary to fight, but should entire populations of non-combatants pay for the crimes of a leader like Saddam Hussein?

The moral and legal obligation to rid the planet of nuclear arms cannot be ignored. This is forcefully expressed by General Colin Powell, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the Gulf War.

GENERAL COLIN POWELL (speech): "And today, I can declare my hope and declare it from the bottom of my hear that we will eventually see the time when that number of nuclear weapons is down to zero and the world is a much better place." (Applause.)

NARRATOR: The ideal of a nuclear-free world is one to which all countries must strive.

Ambassador PAUL WARNKE: I'd say that the answer to the question of whether we can learn to live without nuclear weapons is a resounding "yes." But I think we have to recognize that the learning process is going to be a long one and that we're going to find an awful lot of slow learners.

NARRATOR: The need for prompt action to reduce the immediate dangers that these questions pose for humanity was demonstrated when President Clinton recently reaffirmed the right to make first use of nuclear weapons -- even against a non-nuclear state. Abandoning this threatening policy of first use would be an important step to strengthen the confidence of other nations in America's peaceful intentions. Confidence in America's unwillingness to use nuclear weapons is critical if other countries are to forego nuclear programs of their own.

Furthermore, the announcement of a no first-use policy by President Clinton could be made immediately with no loss of American security. Another important step would be to drastically reduce the number of warheads in the US nuclear arsenal.

ADM. TURNER: There's a residual feeling that you do have to have numbers of these weapons to be safe, and that's just not true. It's been grossly exaggerated.

NARRATOR: The world cannot afford to wait for Russia and America to ratify treaties that do not produce significant reductions of nuclear arms.

ADM. TURNER: The American public does not understand that if this current treaty called START II is, in fact, enacted by the Duma and by the Senate, it will leave the United States with 10,000 nuclear warheads ten years from now. That's totally unacceptable.

NARRATOR: Along with discarding the dangerous policy of first strike and diminishing the size of its nuclear arsenal, the United States could reduce the high degree of readiness of those nuclear weapons that are operational.

JONATHAN SCHELL: In this horizontal scheme, you first de-alert the weapons in one form or another. You take them off the hair-trigger alert, so it would take some hours or days to put them back on alert. You get an immediate gain in safety.

NARRATOR: Thousands of nuclear weapons that the US now has on hair-trigger alert could not then be launched with the flip of a switch.

Ambassador WARNKE: The thing is to reduce the risk that nuclear weapons will be used. Their actual physical existence is not as threatening as the fact that they are in a threatening posture. So, if you take them off that operational status, then you can consider is there some way we can get rid of all of them.

NARRATOR: According to some, a further step -- that of separating the weapons from their delivery systems and putting them in storage -- would buy even more time in which to avoid an accidental nuclear confrontation.

ADM. TURNER: Tomorrow morning, either Mr. Clinton or Mr. Yeltsin would take a thousand nuclear warheads, move them from their missiles, maybe a couple of hundreds miles away, and put them in storage, and let the other side put observers there to count what went in and if anything came out. We don't need a treaty.

NARRATOR: Experts claim that another critical step in preventing further proliferation is for the United States to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

Ambassador WARNKE: Failure by the United States to ratify the treaty would enable India, in particular, to contend that the nuclear powers are determined to preserve their discriminatory position and that India, therefore, has every justification to go ahead with further tests in order to develop a modern and effective arsenal of nuclear weapons.

NARRATOR: Unfortunately, key members of the US Senate have shown no willingness to consent to the ratification of the Test Ban Treaty.

Ambassador WARNKE: Our adherence to that Test Ban Treaty is an indispensable element in a stable non-proliferation regime. The recent nuclear tests conducted by India and Pakistan underscore the importance of our formal adherence to the Test Ban Treaty.

NARRATOR: By failing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, the United States sets a powerful example that actually encourages the spread of nuclear weapons.

Sen. CRANSTON Most of all, the United States should take the lead because the United States is the nation that created the nuclear bomb, it's the only nation ever to use nuclear bombs, and it's now the only superpower. If we don't lead, it's unlikely that others will be able to lead. And it's up to the people of our country to persuade the president that they want this matter attended to.

NARRATOR: International condemnation of nuclear weapons is vital if humanity is to avoid a 21st Century in which nuclear arms have become dangerously conventional. However, unless the United States de-legitimizes nuclear weapons, an international consensus condemning these weapons of unparalleled destruction is impossible.

Ambassador WARNKE: If what we can is to establish a sort of contempt for nuclear weapons, that they aren't symbols of greatness, they're the residue of a past situation.

NARRATOR: President Clinton has signed an order reaffirming the importance of nuclear weapons in US policy. President Directive Number 60, in addition to reserving the right to make first use of nuclear weapons against all countries, declared that they will remain the cornerstone of US security indefinitely.

When this presidential order was leaked, the world suspicions that America would continue to rely on its nuclear weapons program as a source of national power and control was confirmed. America's clinging to nuclear weapons only increases the likelihood that other countries will want them. The chances of a nuclear conflict, perhaps involving the United States, will also increase.

ADM. TURNER: What the American public does not understand today is that are 37,000 nuclear warheads out there in the world somewhere this afternoon. And that's just unacceptable in terms of our long-term security.

NARRATOR: During the Cold War, the fear of a nuclear holocaust was seen as a necessary evil that was needed to prevent the Soviet Union from attacking us with nuclear weapons.

Walter Pincus is a journalist with The Washington Post and has covered nuclear issues for decades.

WALTER PINCUS: Nuclear weapons were built out of fear. That's what kept they going. That's what made them much too large, but to a great extent, the public as a whole saw them as a very important step in winning the Cold War.

NARRATOR: The agony of those who survived the holocausts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki has been ignored. Their suffering has failed to enter the public consciousness. In failing to condemn nuclear weapons and radically reduce their numbers, the United States Government legitimizes nuclear arms and their use. Must a nuclear disaster occur before the public wakes up to the shortsightedness of our policies?

WOMAN-in-the-Street: I worry about nuclear weapons because I have grandchildren. I do not think they can be controlled by anyone, and that makes me worry.

ADM. TURNER: I would suggest that any use of even one nuclear weapon will change the whole complexion of world relations. If we go to bed at night not knowing which city might be incinerated tomorrow, it's a different kind of a life.

NARRATOR: With the nuclear explosions in India and Pakistan clearly in mind, the members of the Washington conference focussed on four early steps to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict:

...First, the United States should ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.

...Second, the United States must adopt a policy of no first use.

...Third, America can and should for its own safety make drastic cuts in its nuclear arsenal.

...And finally, the potential for an accidental nuclear confrontation can be greatly diminished by taking our weapons off alert status.

A good start can be made by taking these steps toward a nuclear-free world.

ADMIRAL EUGENE CARROLL: You have heard from a distinguished panel of experts from many fields who all agree that the United States, in fact the whole world will be better off without nuclear weapons. They have proposed practical, achievable steps to get started toward the goal of zero weapons and these steps will reduce the risk that new weapons can be developed, that they will be used first, and that they will be used accidentally or through human error. Finally, the number of weapons will be progressively lowered from thousands to hundreds.

Of course, a nuclear-free world may be years in the future, but actions which make the world a safer place now while we work toward that day are wise and we should act while we still have the gift of time to prevent a nuclear holocaust.

Until the next time, for "America's Defense Monitor", I'm Admiral Eugene Carroll.