What if a nuclear weapon exploded in Times Square?

• Author: Kristof, Nicholas D.
• Position: Brief Article - Column

If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon--a midget even smaller than the one that destroyed Hiroshima--exploded in Times Square on a weekday, some 500,000 people would be killed. Could this happen? Unfortunately, it could--and many experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely. The danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it. "We're racing toward unprecedented catastrophe," warns William Perry, the former Secretary of Defense. "This is preventable, but we're not...