Almighty: Courage, Resistance and Existential Peril in the Nuclear Age

Speaker: Dan Zak, Washington Post Reporter and Author

Date: Friday, December 2, 2016 @ 7:30 p.m.

Place: Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 503 Rock Creek Church Rd. NW,

Washington, DC, 20010.

On a tranquil summer night in July 2012, a trio of peace activists infiltrated the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee. Nicknamed the “Fort Knox of Uranium,” Y-12 was supposedly one of the most secure sites in the world, a bastion of nuclear warhead parts and hundreds of tons of highly enriched uranium—enough to power thousands of nuclear bombs. The three activists—a house painter, a Vietnam War veteran, and an 82-year-old Catholic nun—penetrated the complex’s exterior with alarming ease; their strongest tools were two pairs of bolt cutters and three hammers. Once inside, these pacifists hung protest banners, spray-painted biblical messages against war, and streaked the walls with human blood. Then they waited to be arrested.

In Almighty, Washington Post Reporter Dan Zak uses this event to explore America’s love-hate relationship to the bomb, from the race to achieve atomic power before the Nazis did to the solemn 70th anniversary of Hiroshima. At a time of concern about proliferation in such nations as Iran and North Korea, the U.S. arsenal is plagued by its own security problems. Part historical adventure, part courtroom drama, part moral thriller, Almighty reshapes the accepted narratives surrounding nuclear weapons and shows that our greatest modern-day threat remains a power we discovered long ago. 

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For more info contact the Dorothy Day Catholic Worker: 202-882-9649