BOOK REVIEW: ‘The Atomic Bazaar’ Tracks Spread of Nuclear Weapons to Third World Countries, Examines A.Q. Khan, Father of Pakistan’s ‘Muslim Bomb’
By David M. KinchenHuntington News Network Book Critic
William Langewiesche was the best reason to read The Atlantic Monthly for many years. Now he’s taken his virtuoso reporting and writing ability to Vanity Fair, where he is that publication's international correspondent.
His latest book, “The Atomic Bazaar: The Rise of the Nuclear Poor” (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 192 pages, $22.00) is based on articles Langewiesche wrote for The Atlantic Monthly and is simply the best book for a general reader who wants to get a handle on nuclear proliferation. With the case of Iran’s attempts to build a nuclear arsenal on the front burner, this is truly a timely subject.
For a short book (lamentably and for reasons I can’t fathom lacking an index), Langewiesche covers a lot of ground, starting way back in August 1945, when the U.S. dropped the only two atomic bombs ever used on people – a demonstration of terror, is how Langewiesche characterizes it – on Hiroshima (Aug. 6) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9). More than 220,000 people died in the attacks which resulted in Japan’s surrender a few days later.
Langewiesche describes how nuclear devices work in terms even a cave man…er, an English major (me) can understand. His elegant, forceful prose combines with a grasp of the technical details that makes his books – this is his sixth – a delight to read. He’s been called the foremost practitioner of the forensic school of journalism – an apt characterization in my view.
The book is divided into four parts, with the first part –“The Vanguard of the Poor” -- describing the 1945 events and painstakingly preparing us for the second part, “Nukes Without Nations,” wherein Langewiesche visits the former Soviet Union and the closed cities where the bombs were made.
They’re the equivalent of Los Alamos, NM, Hanford, WA, Oakridge, TN and other locales in the U.S. that were part of the “Manhattan Project” (formally the Manhattan Engineering District) the entity that resulted in the development of the two bombs – “Fat Man” and “Little Boy” -- that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Langewiesche interviews a Russian nuclear scientist who makes a case for Russia supplying Iran with the means to produce power from nuclear reactors, including highly enriched uranium (HEU) which figures prominently in “The Atomic Bazaar.” In Nukes Without Nations,” Langewiesche posits various means of smuggling nuclear technology out of Ektarinberg, in the southern Urals, two time zones east of Moscow, one of the cities in the “closed cities” region. Just as arms merchants like the fictional Yuri Orlov -- played by Nicolas Cage in the excellent film “The Lord of War” travel to Russia and Ukraine to obtain arms -- so does Langewiesche travel the route of a potential nuclear terrorist.
Actually, it wouldn’t be necessary to smuggle the science of nuclear physics out of Russia – or anywhere else. The science has been available for decades. What is needed is the HEU and the hardware to produce more fissionable material, which leads us to Part 3: “The Wrath of Khan,” an extended profile of Pakistani scientist Abdul Qadeer Khan, the driving force behind Pakistan’s successful attempt to build a “Muslim” nuclear bomb to counteract India’s “Hindu Bomb.”
Born in Bhopal, India in 1936, A.Q. Khan left for Pakistan in 1952 and obtained his education in Karachi, Pakistan, and at universities in Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium, becoming a Ph D metallurgist. While in the Netherlands, Khan worked for a specialty metals company and purloined their trade secrets to help produce a nuclear bomb for Pakistan beginning in the mid-1970s when Khan, his Dutch wife and their two children suddenly left for Pakistan. Once a hero of his nation, Khan has been confined to his house for a couple of years now, presumably for getting caught attempting to sell his nation’s nuclear knowledge to North Korea and other nations.
The fourth and final section of the book, "The Point of No Return," profiles a technical journalist who covers his beat – nuclear news – like a traditional newspaper beat reporter. Mark Hibbs is based in Bonn, Germany (the novel “A Small Town in Germany” comes to mind) and works for a division of McGraw-Hill called Platts. Langewiesche clearly likes and admires this 50ish journalist, who has the ordinary looks of a traditional spy (not the glamour of a James Bond), Langewiesche says.
Hibbs has sources that other journalists would kill for and his reports in very expensive subscription publications such as Nucleonics Week are widely read throughout the world. Hibbs has been working for Platts for a couple of decades, earns a modest salary, Langewiesche notes, and is virtually unemployable outside his specialized area. This doesn’t make any sense to me, or maybe it does – given the cutbacks, buyouts and layoffs plaguing the journalism business these days. My dream team of reporters would include Langewiesche, of course, Hibbs, James Fallows of The Atlantic Monthly and Christopher Hitchens, among other superstars of the journalism trade.
Pick up a copy of “The Atomic Bazaar” and fasten your seat belt for a whirlwind tour of nuclear proliferation, which Langewiesche says is inevitable.
Publisher’s web site: www.fsgbooks.com