NH #781: Nuclear Hotseat 15th Anniversary SPECIAL! Caldicott, Jaczko, Starr, Graff, Church Rock, Rainbow Warrior, More!

Back to where it all began – Three Mile Island

This Week’s 15th ANNIVERSARY SPECIAL
A Look Back at a Decade-and-a-Half of Nuclear Hotseat!

Nuclear Hotseat started as a conference call (I didn’t know how to do a podcast) on June 14, 2011, only three months after the Fukushima nuclear disaster began. In the 15 years/780 episodes since, the show has covered a complete range of nuclear issues “from a different perspective,” the information geared towards people who know nothing and want to know something about nuclear, and those who already know something who’d like to know just a little bit more.

In this retrospective, hear snippets from just a few from a range of interviews:

• Dr. Helen Caldicott on how she almost got Pres. Ronald Reagan to get rid of nukes completely. (He didn’t want to give up Star Wars.)

Dr. Helen Caldicott (r) being interviewed by Nuclear Hotseat’s Libbe HaLevy

• Gregory Jaczko, former Chair of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, on how he first learned about Fukushima, how he got his information, and what actions he took as a result.

Greg Jacsko, former Chair, U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission

• Melissa Parke, Executive Director of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN), in Nagasaki for the 80th anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings, on why “deterrence” is a false concept and will not make us safe.

ICAN’s Melissa Parke

• Garrett Graff, author of RAVEN ROCK: The Story of the US Government’s Secret Plan to Save Itself While the Rest of Us Die, on U.S. plans to save the mucky-mucks and ditch the rest of us.
• Linda Pentz Gunter with her Nuclear Hotseat Hot Story anniversary offering.

Former uranium miner Larry J. King (center behind yellow banner) at the site of the 1979 Church Rock uranium tailings pond spill, telling the story.

• Former Dine uranium miner Larry J. King on his experience witnessing the July 16, 1979 Church Rock uranium tailings pond spill on Navajo Nation in New Mexico.

• New Zealand’s Kevin Hester, who witnessed the immediate aftermath of the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior bombing that killed photographer Fernando Pereira.
• Spotlight on Monthly contributors:
  • Alistair Burnett of ICAN with the ICAN UPDATE, focusing on the latest on the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW)
  • Jack Cohen-Joppa of Nuclear Resister with stories from our shared history of non-violent direct action for a nuclear-free future to help inspire our activism today.
  • John LaForge with the NukeWatch Report, which was cut short when he “walked the walk” to protest U.S. nukes on Germany’s Buchel Air Base and ended up in German jail.

And much more information on films, books, in memorium for those we have lost – all of it covered on 780 previous episodes.

Libbe’s Play ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE Receives Special Script Award from the Int’l Uranium Film Festival!

Libbe HaLevy’s play, ATOMIC BILL AND THE PAYMENT DUE, received a Special Script Award from the 2026 International Uranium film Festival. IUFF Executive Director Marcia Gomes de Oliviera on awarding the 2026 Special Script Award: 


“A future piece of great importance. This is a story that needs to be seen.”
– Marcia Gomes de Oliviera
For full story on the Award, CLICK HERE.