'Blank Check: The Pentagon's Black Budget' with author Tim Weiner

September 18, 1990 | Tim Weiner, Pulitzer Prize winning Washington correspondent for the Philadelphia Inquirer, discussed his new book, Blank Check: The Pentagon’s Black Budget. The work is a historical review and critique of the nation’s skyrocketing military spending through the Pentagon’s “black” or secret budget. In 1990, this budget reached $10.3 billion; nine years earlier, it was $626 million. Mr. Weiner said the secrecy of the military’s spending “is primarily to avert criticism and evaluation-- and that is profoundly antidemocratic.” He traced the roots and public ignorance of these covert activities back to the Manhattan Project, the World War II crash program to build the atomic bomb. Much of the book’s research is drawn from interviews with Richard Garwin, who was involved with developing the hydrogen bomb in the 1950's and served as a presidential adviser and defense consultant for over four decades.

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