True Spies: Debriefs - Valerie Plame on the future of nuclear Non-Proliferation
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because hadn't thought he was Jesus Christ. Born Evil, the Serial Killer and the Savior, an ID true crime event, premieres Monday, September 2nd at 9. Watch on ID or stream on Max. Set your DVR. Hello, True Spies listeners. Welcome back to our new assignment, True Spies Debrief.

Here on The Debrief, we catch up with some of our favorite guests from the True Spies archive for a deeper look at the themes, events, and insights that fascinate them. If you like what you hear, subscribe to Spyscape Plus for more exclusive debriefs at plus.spyscape.com. Valerie Plame was famously outed as a CIA officer in 2003.

If you missed it, you can hear the full story straight from Valerie herself in episode three of True Spies Fair Game. But even though her cover was blown, she's managed to spend many years pursuing her passion, nuclear nonproliferation. True Spies producer Morgan Childs caught up with Valerie earlier this summer to hear about the state of the doomsday clock.

What might happen after the expiry of the New START treaty? And what steps the next US administration could take to ease nuclear tensions with the rest of the world?

Valerie, I'm really happy you're here. Thank you for joining us. The career that you have had over the past 20 years is absolutely not the career that you had in mind for yourself. But nonetheless, you have still managed to pursue work that is very important to you. I wonder if you could tell me why you've made nuclear nonproliferation the centerpiece of your life and of your work.

Thank you for having me. It is a pleasure, as always. My area of expertise at the CIA was nuclear counterproliferation. I was trying to make sure that bad guys, whether they are rogue nation states, terrorists, black marketeers,

that they did not get a nuclear capability. And when I was outed from the CIA in 2003, my whole world fell in and it was a couple years of absolute mayhem. It was a big political scandal.

And when I finally came out the other side of that, or it wasn't such a shambles every single day, I was really lost. What was I going to do now? I mean, it's not like I have a normal resume. And this whole second chapter started when I was approached by one of the producers of The Inconvenient Truth to do a documentary to be the voiceover narrative of

for what became Countdown to Zero. And it was, it came out in 2011. We premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, which is pretty amazing. And it was about the global nuclear threat. And I'm sorry to say that it is relevant today as it was then. In fact, the situation is probably worse. So I believe that there are two existential threats, climate change and the nuclear threat.

So I've just, because that was my background and my understanding, that is the lane I've continued in and I continue to advocate as loudly and vociferously as I can for the dangers that we are heading toward.

And the last time that True Spies listeners heard from you, it was May 2020. And the doomsday clock at the time was 100 seconds to midnight. And so, you know, an awful lot has changed since then. We're now at 90 seconds to midnight. I

I wonder if you could talk a little bit about why these past few years have been particularly frightening to people like you with this focus. Yeah, I can't believe that was 2020. COVID sense of time is completely distorted in my head. In any case, what has happened since then is that relations with Russia, the other globe, really global nuclear power, have deteriorated even further.

Putin has dismantled all the guardrails that were put into place during the Cold War and after. And there's only one now international treaty standing, the International START Treaty, which is due to expire in 2026. And Putin has no intentions of re-upping. And all the others have fallen away. In addition to that, we have the rise of artificial intelligence.

We have the nuclear powers of China coming online. Saudi Arabia is chomping at the bit. I think it's fair to say that the international threat situation in general, but particularly on the nuclear aspect, is worse than it ever has been. Yeah, I'm curious about New START in particular. What can we expect after February 2026 if this doesn't get renewed?

In return for some new treaties, President Obama promised to modernize our nuclear arsenal, but which doesn't, on the face of it, doesn't sound terrible. I mean, who could be against modernization? What a great idea. But it means trillions over a decade will be poured into the U.S. nuclear complex. And

It makes contractors very, very happy and congressmen who have a nuclear related plant in their district. But in terms of global security, I think it is we've taken grave steps backwards. One of the things that's come to mind in preparing to talk to you, I've had the song from the Duck and Cover video in my head, which I

I learned about as a piece of history. My, my, my parents grew up with it. I mean, for the listeners who aren't familiar, it was this film that was used to teach American school kids what to do in the event of a nuclear explosion. And I, I don't think that telling kids to hide under their desks is necessarily a wise thing to do, but I have to, you agree. Yeah. I mean, we're laughing in a very dark way because it's,

Right. I believe that we have just gotten lucky thus far since the dawn. In fact, just the other day was the anniversary of the very first

nuclear explosion in the New Mexican desert, not too far from where I am right now. The Trinity Test, which was beautifully recreated in the Oppenheimer film. But that was, of course, the start of the nuclear age, and it is more dangerous now than ever before. There was a great deal of hope as the film was released. There were a lot of campaigns.

the director Chris Nolan and some of the movie stars spoke out about the nuclear threat. And for those of us in this business, we thought, oh great, this will be a shot in the arm to raising awareness and consciousness

But because we are in a period of time where news is crashing in every day from every direction, it got lost. So it just goes away from the national consciousness. Whoa. Landing an account this big will totally change my landscaping business. It's going to mean hiring more guys and more equipment and new trucks for the new guys to drive the new equipment in. I don't know if I'm ready.

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You believe that the U.S. still has a role to play in reducing tensions internationally. And I wonder if you could speak a bit about what you think, what steps the U.S. could take. Oh, no question. Russia and the United States have the majority of nuclear weapons in the world, approximately 12,500, and kind of sort of evenly split between Russia and the United States. And I absolutely believe that the United States has a leadership role to take

I believe that there is some low hanging fruit, so to speak, that the United States could do immediately that would reduce the tension. And that would be called retracting what we call sole authority. What that is, it's not a law, but it's protocol that the United States president is the only person who has the power to release a nuclear weapon.

And that's just insane. I don't care who the president is. This is nonpartisan. There's different initiatives in process to figure out how we could do this. And this is not to say that if we were responding in a defensive way that we need to, of course, respond very quickly.

But in terms of being offensive, that needs, in a democratic society, I deeply believe that it takes more than one person's voice to make that truly awesome decision. And what about the potential commitment to only act defensively?

Absolutely. That's another area that we could say. We could declare to the world, we are never going to use a nuclear weapon offensively. We will only use it in defense. And just that statement, I think, would help calm some of the tensions. Again, as I noted earlier, China has tested hypersonic missiles to deliver nuclear weapons. We have the rise, both scary and thrilling, of A.I.,

We have increasing tensions around the world. More countries want to get in on the Nuclear Act. So that, it might be symbolic, but I think it would be helpful as we seek to at least just turn down the tensions.

And do you think that that would stand in the way of, you know, because the U S provides protection under this umbrella agreement, right? For all the countries that don't have nuclear weapons within their own arsenal. Correct. Does that send a signal to them that you feel might create some fear and security from their perspective? Well, I,

Again, if it's used in a defensive posture, it shouldn't have that feeling of, oh no, what's going to happen now? We're just pledging not to use it offensively because the consequences are so dire. People really don't appreciate the consequences of...

a nuclear explosion. It is not like it's a really big bomb. Wow, it's really... No, no, no, no, no. It is, first of all, completely breaks the taboo. A nuclear weapon last exploded over Japan in wartime. One has never been used since then. And because we are so darn lucky, one has not exploded through miscalculation or accident. That said, the consequences environmentally

and just in terms of our society would be profound.

I think martial law would be declared. It has the potential of destroying life as we know it on this planet. And that's a big statement. But just as we are staring climate change, rapid climate change, and pretending like it's not happening, I think the vast majority of people in the world are ignorant of what a nuclear explosion could do as well.

Yeah, I'm glad you mentioned climate change, because I think the way that we talk about these as separate threats is perhaps a bit misleading. Of course, one problem profoundly exacerbates the other, right? Indeed. And they are both existential to life as we know it on this little blue marble planet.

under that nuclear issue field, it is there. And to pretend otherwise and just to continue to pour money in it at the expense of other things that societies ostensibly want to do, which is educate their people, which is to put more money into renewables, all those resources are redirected into nuclear weapons.

to the tune in the United States of trillions of dollars over the next decade. That's all money that could be spent on so many other things that I think would make our lives better. You know, I think people are probably much more accustomed to hearing somebody like an atomic scientist talking about this issue, but I presume that with your background, you have some kind of intimate knowledge about how these weapons could be used around the world.

And I wonder from your perspective, if you ever wish that more people in your position, like former spies, were speaking up about this. I wish everyone would become more familiar and understand and research it and ask their elected officials, well, where do you stand on the buildup of our nuclear arsenal? You don't, I'm not a nuclear scientist. I don't know. I was a liberal arts major. You don't have to understand how a nuclear weapon is built.

put together to understand the consequences and that we are on the precipice. During the 80s, under Reagan at the height of the Cold War, as we know, he and Gorbachev came tantalizingly close to perhaps even abolishing all nuclear weapons. At Reykjavik, the Reykjavik summit, I believe that was 1986,

And there were huge protests, a million people in Central Park, New York, saying no more nuclear weapons. You know, there was a moment when people were really engaged.

And with the fall of the Soviet Union, it essentially, I feel like in the popular consciousness, it just that whole issue went away. Oh, we don't have to think about that anymore. When in fact, during the 90s, this threat was continuing to grow. There is the proliferation of weapons. Terrorists were hoping to get their hands on it.

And then, of course, 9/11 made profound changes in our society. But the nuclear issue, people didn't really pay attention to it, only in the intelligence community of, gee, is Al-Qaeda trying to get their hands on a nuclear weapon?

But with Russia's invasion of Ukraine and Putin's loose words, but they should be taken seriously, it'd be a fool not to pay attention, hinting that he would use a nuclear weapon over the war in Ukraine. People started waking up a little bit, go, oh, wait, what? We still have this issue. And here we are. So...

I just want to be able to use my background, my expertise, my experience to continue to try to educate on this threat, what they can do,

and to be aware of it and to hold their elected officials to account. Yeah, so tell me, I understand you have a couple of projects in the works. Tell me what you're doing that might raise some awareness about this issue. Well, I previously served on the board of the Plowshares Fund, which is a great nonprofit umbrella organization that seeks out other nonprofits that are working on this issue. I think they're a great organization.

But to be honest, that whole field of nuclear counterproliferation is in a bit of a crisis right now. Huge funding sources have dried up.

They've been redirected to other areas. And we're sort of peddling pell-mell into this next era of a new arms race. There's no question about that. So I continue to do what I can. I'm working on that issue of sole authority. I would love to get, as soon as possible, no matter who the next president is,

to renounce that sole authority protocol that we have, pull back from first use of nuclear weapons. And then also I think the ICBM sites that we have, the nuclear sites, particularly in the center of the United States, we have what's called a nuclear triad. That is how nuclear weapons are delivered.

by land from these missiles, by air from airplanes, and from the sea from nuclear armed submarines.

The ICBM sites are just big old targets. You know, Russia knows exactly where they are and they would be probably the first targets that would be taken out in a nuclear exchange. We pour vast amount of financial resources, our treasure, into these obsolete, really outdated and outmoded modalities of our nuclear arsenal. We don't need a triad.

And what about the true spies listener who comes here for a bit of entertainment and has just been depressed for the past? Seriously speaking, I mean, where might somebody go if this is not something they have paid attention to and now have learned a bit from you about where might they turn? What would you suggest that people go to kind of continue to open their minds? Well, as I mentioned, the documentary Countdown to Zero, if you want, I won't call it light or fair, but it's more Hollywood would be the opportunity.

movie. I thought that was really well done. And those scientists, those early nuclear scientists, I feel that so many of them did it out of a sense of the elegance, as they called it, of this incredibly hard problem.

And once they had done it and achieved it, they realized, oh my God, what have we wrought? Right? What have we done? And in fact, that was a basis of the Atomic Bulletin and what we now call the Doomsday Clock. Many of those Manhattan Project scientists banded together in the aftermath of our bombing of Japan to form the Atomic Bulletin, which is a whole organization. It's a newsletter, but they do great work.

around this issue. So you can find them online and support them. And find out where your congressperson is. Where are they on this? Do they even know? Do they have any idea how much money is spent on our nuclear arsenal? Just ask the question.

And I understand people who are interested in espionage might be interested in this conference you have coming up, right? Yes, I've run it three times, twice in Santa Fe. It's called Spies, Lies and Nukes. And I invite my former colleagues, highly respected and decorated former CIA officers here.

And we're talking about everything from what's going on in Russia and Ukraine to China, AI, disguises. I'm so proud of this. And as I mentioned, we've done three running of Spies, Lies and Nukes, two in Santa Fe, one in Tucson. And we have in the planning stages ready to be announced a really fascinating event next year in person.

And I am so excited about it. So I hope your listeners will check out SpiesLiesNukes.com in coming weeks and you can see all the details there.

I think you're an incredibly resilient person, and I think that's evident to anybody who knows the first three lines of your resume. But hearing about this work and the energy that you have poured into it, I feel that's doubly true. But I have to wonder, do you have some glimmer of optimism here? What kind of keeps you...

Keeps you going despite the threat of apocalypse. I am by nature an optimistic person. You have to be. This is not the time to despair.

There are so many really good things happening and I'm lucky enough to meet people every day, particularly young people when I speak to them that are engaged and care. And I'm like, well, maybe we're not as in much trouble as we think we are. It's you, you cannot despair. You just, that would be the worst possible thing.

Be engaged. And personally for me now, I have, like everyone else, I've had to fight against that. And it feels that it's so out of our control, which leads to helplessness.

So how do you counteract that? Well, whether you do it on a small scale and just research this stuff on your own or you give money to an organization that you believe in or you volunteer for a congressperson whose values you share, stuff envelopes, whatever it is, make phone calls.

at least you feel like you have a little bit of agency to do something. I mean, otherwise we're all just stay in bed and that would be that. And that's not the way you cannot proceed that way. You can allow yourself maybe a day in bed, but then you have to get up and do something. Otherwise, don't complain.

Valerie, thank you. Somehow I've ended up in a better mood despite the grimness of this conversation. It's a pleasure to get to talk to you again. It was my pleasure, my honor. Thank you so much. Thank you for tuning in for The Debrief. We're so happy to have you along for the ride.

If you liked what you heard in this chat between Valerie Plame and True Spies producer Morgan Childs, more debriefs are available exclusively to Spyscape Plus subscribers. You'll also be able to access other premium series like The Resume-Off Files, our ambitious retelling of Joseph Conrad's Under Western Eyes.

And for true crime fans, there's The Great James Bond Car Robbery, the story of the hunt for James Bond's most notorious set of wheels. Subscribers also get new episodes of True Spies early and ad-free. Subscribe to Spyscape Plus at plus.spyscape.com.