EPISODE 138: “THINKING AGAIN ABOUT THE UNTHINKABLE” WITH DR. PETER VINCENT PRY
My frequent guest and friend, Dr Peter Vincent Pry died last week. Peter’s clarion calls concerning America’s strategic vulnerabilities such as EMP (electromagnetic pulse), our neglect of our nuclear war arsenal and many other strategic threats to our nation will be sorely missed. The Bill Walton Show team knew him as a great person and a great American.
Here also is a tribute to Peter written by James Woolsey, Former Director, Central Intelligence.
“Peter Pry, my longtime friend, was matched in his humanity by his extraordinary technical competence. Peter was a senior official at the CIA and those of us there who knew him well, knew that we had in hand a national treasure able to deal with the most dangerous threats to our country.
Many of those who calculate how to secure the nation parse their interests into a limited number of individual dangers. Peter did not- he understood well that there are risks created by a whole series of vulnerabilities such as electro magnetic pulse (EMP) and that we must deal now and for the foreseeable future with a substantial number of them.
I will miss him. Our country will miss him.
Robert James Woolsey
Former Director Central Intelligence”
Peter recorded several shows with me on The Bill Walton Show, but Episode 138 was one that stands out as one of the best.
Bill Walton
Host, The Bill Walton Show
This show comes at time that this episode’s guest, Dr. Peter Vincent Pry, calls our “hinge of fate.”
Our topic is his riveting paper “Surprise Attack: ICBMs and the Real Nuclear Threat” where he lays bare the world’s current and future nuclear warfare realities.
It’s an issue that many simply do not want to think about.
As Peter puts it, “when it comes to nuclear weapons, U.S. and Western strategic culture mostly thinks and acts in a state of denial and unreality. Nuclear weapons of mass destruction are antithetical to our ethos.”
But as Leon Trotsky warned, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
By contrast, totalitarian states – China, Russia and North Korea – love, celebrate, and parade nuclear missiles as symbols of their omnipotence and their potential “final solution” to the vexing existence of free peoples, like the United States.
The U.S. “Triad” comprises decades old bombers, ICBMs and missile submarines, requiring years to modernize, while Russia, China, and North Korea have mostly new systems and are developing new delivery vehicles that have no counterparts in the U.S. deterrent, including ASBMs, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, autonomous submarines like Russia’s Poseidon, and hypersonic strategic warheads.
They believe they could win a nuclear war.
The “unthinkable” is becoming increasingly “thinkable” and someday soon may become irresistible to them.
Yet space-based strategic defenses can turn the technological tide, if the U.S. awakens and acts— before it is too late.
Dr. Peter Vincent Pry has vast experience in national security, where he’s served as Executive Director of the EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, Director of the United States Nuclear Strategy Forum, Chief advisor to the Vice Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee and the Vice Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, and to the Chairman of the Terrorism Panel. Dr. Pry was an Intelligence Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency responsible for analyzing Soviet and Russian nuclear strategy.
Give this a 50 minute listen to learn what’s at stake for America.