Andrew and Leslie Cockburn. One Point Safe. 1997.

Probably the most upsetting nonfiction I've read since Biohazard.

The Cockburns investigate the fate of the former Soviet Union's massive stockpile of nuclear weapons & materials—namely that they are falling into the hands of enemies of the U.S. The book describes how a handful of dedicated researchers managed to engage (& lose) the attention of the Clinton Administration. But, it turns out, beyond the slow process of the U.S. buying up or buying security systems for Russian stockpiles, and permanently closing Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House (which Clinton did within a month of learning that the Russians never even compiled an inventory of their weapons of mass destruction, much less a means of preventing their theft), there isn't much that can be done to keep dedicated fanatics from building a nuclear bomb and bringing it to America. The problem of defending against nuclear terrorism is so difficult, and the consequences of fucking up so unthinkable, that the problem becomes impossible to address, much less to formulate policy around.

During the Cold War, I never thought the problem was the Russians, I thought the problem was nuclear weapons. So to me the Cold War never really ended, and, as we stupidly slide further from nonproliferation, gets worse.

This book strikes me as well-researched, well-written, and poorly edited, as I stumbled over a great many typos and often felt that the writers were leading me in circles. The enigmatic ending, which reminded me of the end of the 1980s film Flash Gordon, would have been more appropriate for a book of fiction.