As we commemorate the eightieth anniversary of the U.S. atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world is the closest it’s been to a dangerous “nuclear precipice” in decades, says Garrett Graff, author of the new book “The Devil Reached Toward the Sky: An Oral History of the Making and Unleashing of the Atomic Bomb.” Graff argues that, over the decades, we have avoided further nuclear conflict “more by luck than by skill.” Graff points out parallels to the present day as well, when German scientists were either fleeing– or ignoring– the rise of the Nazis in Germany, and the brain drain from Germany was the backbone of the Manhattan Project. “You have to draw the line early and you have to enforce the lines hard.”

Gavin Kliger helped oversee mass firings at the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau while holding stock in companies that experts say likely stand to benefit from dismantling that agency — a…