Ken Silverstein - The Radioactive Boy Scout: The Frightening True Story Of A Whiz Kid And His Homemade Nuclear Reactor

Pros: Doesn't overplay issues of the day; tells the story. Lets readers make up their minds.
Cons: frightening.

Before the horrors of 9/11, I had read an article in Reader's Digest that frightened me. It told the true story of a young man named David Hahn who had started working on a nuclear energy badge for Boy Scouts. In doing so, he discovered a fascination ...

Pros: compelling eye-opener
Cons: Boy Scout founder's policy on masturbation is relevant?

On June 26, 1995, men from the Environmental Protection Agency tore apart a small backyard potting shed in suburban Detroit. Wielding chainsaws and outfitted in "ventilated moon suits," they provided no explanation to nervous neighbors "beyond vague and empty-sounding assurances." Remnants of the shed, including dust and debris vacuumed off the lawn, were stowed in several "jet-black steel drums" marked radioactive. So begins Ken Silverstein's The Radioactive Boy Scout, the true story of David Hahn, a 16-year-old budding scientist who constructed a model nuclear reactor while pursuing a merit badge in atomic energy. The book details how Hahn (a.k.a. "Glow Boy") scrounged various radioactive elements: e.g., thorium from gas-lantern mantels, radium from antique clock dials, and how he managed to make this radioactive material "more radioactive" in a frightening story that could serve as a primer for terrorists. Silverstein, a reporter for the Los Angeles Times, goes a little far afield with an historical and tangential account of the Boy Scouts (a group with "a decidedly right-wing character," according to the author), but he's got a nose for news. It's a hot story.