Madam Secretary: Nuclear War and National TV

Alexander Maggio, writer/producer and political advisor for the CBS TV hit political drama series “Madam Secretary,” will show the episode “Night Watch,” a dramatization of a false alarm nuclear attack on the US, and will talk about the use of TV as a vehicle to raise awareness of political and social issues.

Elaine Scarry, professor of English and American Literature and Language at Harvard University and author of Thermonuclear Monarchy: Choosing Between Democracy and Doom, and member of Massachusetts Peace Action’s Nuclear Disarmament Working Group, will speak on the real world politics behind the issues raised in “Night Watch”.

“Night Watch” depicts a nuclear crisis which almost results in nuclear war, and subsequent US-Russian diplomacy resulting in an arms control treaty.   The danger of accidental nuclear war from the U.S. and Russia’s thousands of nuclear weapons, which are on hair trigger alert and can be launched by a single individual, the U.S. President, is real and has almost happened several times.