Lloyd Mallan

Mallan (right) and Maj. Gen. Robert Burns, USAF, Commander APGC (left), discuss Firebee intercept flights with Maj. Robert T. Goetz, USAF 1958 Lloyd Mallan (1914-1973) was a 20th-century American science writer. His works were controversial in that they often went against scientific consensus at the time.

Early life Mallan was born in Pittsburgh, PA in 1914. He attended Carnegie Tech as a night student.

Career Mallan joined the Communist party in 1932 and went to Spain from 1937 to 1938 to fight with the Loyalists against the Fascists in the Spanish Civil War. He was a member of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade, a group of American volunteers fighting against the fascists. This view later debunked as better photos of the lunar far side became available. The book Peace is a Three-edged Sword, published in 1964, that claims that an accidental nuclear war, such as that depicted in the then-popular movie Dr. Strangelove, is impossible. The conclusion was based on Mallan's interviews of multiple US scientists and military personnel. The book It Is Safe to Smoke, published in 1967, that purports to find that charcoal filters in cigarettes makes them safe to smoke.