Jim Carroll Quotes

The human species really could have faced global thermonuclear war. During seventy years of Cold War we grew used to it.

We still live with this unbelievable threat over our heads of nuclear war. I mean, are we stupid? Do we think that the nuclear threat has gone, that the nuclear destruction of the planet is not imminent? It's a delusion to think it's gone away.

Russia will likely have the atomic bomb by mid-1953.

The risk of just one terrorist with just one nuclear weapon is a risk we simply cannot afford to take.

Although September 11 was horrible, it didn't threaten the survival of the human race, like nuclear weapons do.

As long as some of us choose to rely on nuclear weapons, we continue to risk that these same weapons will become increasingly attractive to others.

When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace.

Where is the indignation about the fact that the US and USSR have thirty thousand pounds of destructive force for every human being in the world?

We still need to be conscious of the fact that Russia has intercontinental ballistic missiles.

Growing up during the Cold War, I remember the seemingly imminent threat of nuclear war. In primary school we were taught to 'duck-and-cover' for protection. But even as children hiding under wooden desks, we recognized the inadequacies of this strategy.

We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R.

It shall be the policy of this nation to regard any nuclear missile launched from Cuba against any nation in the Western Hemisphere as an attack by the Soviet Union on the United States, requiring a full retaliatory response upon the Soviet Union.

We ought to nuke North Korea right about now just to give the world a warning.

The Soviet Union is making missiles like sausages.

There is no secret; and there is no defense. Within some few years Russia and many smaller countries can have their installations ready to make atom bombs by the hundreds, just like America, Atom bombs are the cheapest means of town-destruction …. Russia has numbers of devoted agents in every country--they can easily be smuggled in and hidden, to destroy everything for miles around at the fixed moment. An immense army of security officers and spies will be needed, continually to inspect every box or case in any house.

It is essential that we maintain the capability at all times to inflict an unacceptable level of damage on the Soviet Union, including the destruction of 200 major Soviet cities.

I know there is no present evidence, and I think there is no present likelihood that the Cubans and the Cuban Government and the Soviet Government would in combination attempt to install major offensive capability.

We do not stand equally distant from the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union … American troops are in West Germany in order that free trade unions exist and Soviet troops are in Poland to see to it that free trade unions there do not exist. That is the difference.

The nuclear threat is a direct product of the cult of force that has dominated the world for centuries.

We know only too well that Communist desire for domination will not stop at either ocean. We urge firmness now.

Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, miscalculation or madness.

Nuclear materials are not as safe as nuclear weapons …. The nuclear materials which are received after dismantling nuclear weapons are not as secure.

For decades, we and the Soviets have lived under the threat of mutual assured destruction; if either resorted to the use of nuclear weapons, the other could retaliate and destroy the one who had started it. Is there either logic or morality in believing that if one side threatens to kill tens of millions of our people, our only recourse is to threaten killing tens of millions of theirs?

The aggressor too should know that the preemptive use of nuclear weapons would not insure victory. With modern detection systems and the combat readiness of the Soviet Union's strategic nuclear forces, the United States would not be able to deal a crippling blow to the socialist countries. The aggressor will not be able to evade an all-crushing retaliatory strike

A missile is a missile. It makes no great difference whether you are killed by a missile from the Soviet Union or Cuba.