14 Jan. '89 - Isaac Asimov on Nuclear Weapons

Transcript:
Question: Will nuclear disarmament in the absence of a carrot remove the stick that's kept us at peace for 40 years?
IA: Well, I'm hoping that we'll have enough brains to reduce the nuclear weapon load, if only to avoid giving anyone the temptation of it, and I feel very good about this business about tridium. We have spent years and years and years worrying about the nuclear stations that are attempting to produce energy for peaceful uses and we haven't even thought that there were also nuclear plants which were manufacturing nuclear weapons. We didn't dare think about that because that was national security. Now we know that they're even more dangerous than the others, we're not going to replace them in a hurry, we're not going to replace them cheaply. It's going to take us years, and billions of dollars and we're always going to be worried about their safety, and I'm hoping that people are going to get tired of having to worry about nuclear weapons that are dangerous to everybody and the salvation of nobody and they'll give it up simply because it's too dangerous to have them around, not for the enemy, but for ourselves. But there you're fighting something difficult because there's always people who would have their revenge even though the heavens fall, there are people who are willing to see all of humanity destroyed if only they can see the enemy go down the drain five minutes sooner. That's called insanity by the way.
From a talk given by Isaac Asimov to the American Humanist Association as President of the Humanist Institute. Taken from another video available online, I had to re-sync the audio and video. Hopefully the original owner doesn't mind my use of the clip, as I am the writer of the transcript for the video posted at the original website and upon which the subtitles on it are based.