PD Smith

The gifts that destroy

27 September 2008 | Doomsday Men, RS Thomas, WMD | Post a comment

The Times has reviewed the paperback edition of Doomsday Men, which has just been published this week. Ross Leckie begins with a quote from the poet R.S. Thomas who wrote of “statesmen and scientists, their hands full of the gifts that destroy”. I don't know the poem - perhaps someone could enlighten me...

Leckie concludes: "Smith does a fine job of diligent research and summary and then stern admonition: '... the doomsday men are still at work developing new ones. And as the memories of Ypres and Hiroshima fade, the temptation to use those weapons may grow.'" The report in today's Times that Russia intends to modernise its nuclear defences within eight years and create a “system of air and space defence”, shows that the threat from nuclear weapons has not gone away.

Read the review here.

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