{"id":68588,"date":"2016-01-11T12:00:03","date_gmt":"2016-01-11T12:00:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=68588"},"modified":"2016-01-05T15:06:47","modified_gmt":"2016-01-05T15:06:47","slug":"this-month-in-nuclear-threat-history","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/01\/this-month-in-nuclear-threat-history\/","title":{"rendered":"This Month in Nuclear Threat History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Able-Archer-83-Nuclear-Armageddon<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

January 4, 2007<\/strong> \u2013 In an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal<\/em>, one of five similarly themed pieces written by these four distinguished leaders, titled \u201cA World Free of Nuclear Weapons,\u201d two Republicans \u2013 former Secretary of State (1973-77) Henry A. Kissinger and George P. Schultz (who also served as Secretary of State from 1982-89) joined two Democrats \u2013 former Secretary of Defense (1994-97) William J. Perry and retired U.S. Senator Sam Nunn (who served as Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee before stepping down in 1997) \u2013 in promoting a growing political consensus that the \u201cworld is now on the precipice of a new and dangerous nuclear era.\u201d\u00a0 The authors wrote that, \u201c\u2026long-standing notions of nuclear deterrence are obsolete.\u201d\u00a0 They also called for removing U.S. and Russian nuclear missiles from their hair-trigger alert status.\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Unfortunately, even this powerful bipartisan message did not result in concrete steps taken toward substantial nuclear reductions by presidents Bush and Obama and the Congress.\u00a0 Follow-on START and Moscow treaty reductions that were implemented seem insignificant especially after recent actions by the Nuclear Club members to modernize and expand their nuclear arsenals.\u00a0 For example, the Obama Administration recently committed to spending a trillion dollars over the next 30 years to expand U.S. nuclear capabilities.\u00a0\u00a0 Unfortunately, a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty and other arms control and reduction scenarios seem less likely since the Crimea-Ukraine crisis of 2014-2015.\u00a0 With about a year left in office, President Barack Obama could act unilaterally to help reverse this state of affairs by announcing that the U.S. will de-alert one squadron of land-based ICBMs while challenging Russia to do the same or better.\u00a0 Largely symbolic, such a move, standing down a small portion of our nuclear forces for just 72 hours, could help trigger further reductions and rejuvenate public interest in the global zero imperative. (Source:\u00a0 \u201cA World Free of Nuclear Weapons.\u201d\u00a0 Wall Street Journal<\/em>, January 4, 2007, http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/SB116787515251566636<\/a>\u00a0accessed December 15, 2015.)<\/p>\n

January 9, 1987<\/strong> \u2013 Dean Rusk (1909-1994), a former Secretary of State (1961-69) under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson who received many awards during his career including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, spoke out against nuclear weapons with a statement that, \u201cNuclear war not only eliminates all the answers, but eliminates all the questions.\u201d\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Rusk\u2019s antinuclear comments were not unusual as a plethora of celebrities (Martin Sheen, Stacy Keach), government leaders (George Kennan), whistleblowers (Daniel Ellsberg), scientists (Margaret Mead, Albert Einstein), military leaders (Lord Mountbatten, Air Force General George Lee Butler), and countless others spoke publicly about the dangers of nuclear conflict during the Cold War (1945-1991). \u00a0However, with the risk of nuclear war perceived (incorrectly) as dramatically reduced since the Cold War ended, it seemed that less mainstream voices were continuing to speak out.\u00a0 In fact, it is much more likely that corporate media has tuned out a growing chorus of proponents of nuclear weapons reduction.\u00a0\u00a0 Meanwhile, some long-time advocates of global zero continue to make their voices heard.\u00a0 For example, U.K. Labour Party opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, a decades-long advocate of antinuclear causes, has publicly reiterated recently that if he was elected prime minister, there would be no possibility of him ever pushing the nuclear button.\u00a0 (Sources:\u00a0 Mainstream and alternative media sources including CNN, PBS, RT.com, and Pacifica Radio\u2019s \u201cDemocracy Now.\u201d)<\/p>\n

January 10, 1984<\/strong> \u2013 In one of the many known incidences of near accidental nuclear war, U.S. Air Force officers hurriedly parked an armored vehicle atop a Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) silo at Warren Air Force Base near Cheyenne, Wyoming when a computer malfunction resulted in one of the nuclear-tipped missiles being readied for launch.\u00a0\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Although U.S. and Russian politicians and strategic military leaders maintain that such incidents are increasingly unlikely with today\u2019s more sophisticated fail safes and software protections, most observers however remained concerned that serious and growing cyber threats still pose an appreciable risk of triggering an accidental or unintentional nuclear war.\u00a0 This state of affairs represents probably the most powerful rationale for eliminating all global nuclear weapons.\u00a0 (Source:\u00a0 Eric Schlosser.\u00a0 \u201cCommand and Control:\u00a0 Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Incident, and the Illusion of Safety.\u201d\u00a0 New York:\u00a0 Penguin Press, 2013.)<\/p>\n

January 17, 1966<\/strong> \u2013 Several hours after leaving its air base near Goldsboro, North Carolina, a U.S. B-52 strategic bomber carrying four Mark-28 hydrogen bombs collided in mid-air with a KC-135 tanker aircraft near Palomares, on the southern coast of Spain. \u00a0The bomber crashed causing the high explosives jacketing at least one of the thermonuclear warheads to detonate spreading highly radioactive plutonium over a very large area.\u00a0 A long and expensive search and clean-up operation by U.S. military and civilian authorities was undertaken.\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Hundreds of nuclear incidents including Broken Arrow accidents have occurred over the decades despite some innovative safety measures pushed on the Pentagon by U.S nuclear weapons laboratories and nongovernmental experts.\u00a0 Nevertheless, the resulting leakage of nuclear toxins, due to accidents (many still underreported or even completely undisclosed for \u201cnational security\u201d reasons) by members of the Nuclear Club have threatened the health and safety of large numbers of world citizenry.\u00a0 (Source:\u00a0 Tony Long.\u00a0 \u201cJanuary 17, 1966:\u00a0 H-Bombs Rain Down on a Spanish Fishing Village.\u201d\u00a0 Wired.com, <\/em>January 17, 2012.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.wired.com\/2012\/jan-17-1966-h-bombs-rain-down\/<\/a> accessed December 15, 2015.)<\/p>\n

January 22, 2015<\/strong> \u2013 The prestigious Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists<\/em>, an independent, nonpartisan organization established by Manhattan Project scientists in 1945, moved the hands of its Doomsday Clock, founded in 1947, from its 2012 level of Five Minutes to Midnight to the frightening time of Three Minutes to Midnight.\u00a0 The Bulletin\u2019s<\/em> press release explained the change with these words, \u201cUnchecked climate change, global nuclear weapons modernizations, and outsized nuclear weapons arsenals pose extraordinary and undeniable threats to the continued existence of humanity and world leaders have failed to act with the speed or on the scale required to protect citizens from potential catastrophe.\u201d\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Despite a vast proliferation of major and alternative (including social) media sources of information on the nuclear threat over the last few decades, most Americans are either unaware or unconcerned about a threat they believe virtually ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the termination of the Cold War in 1991.\u00a0 In reality, seventy-plus years after Hiroshima, the nuclear risks to global civilization and the human species are as frighteningly dangerous as ever.\u00a0 The time for action is now.\u00a0 Drastic reductions and a time-urgent elimination of all nuclear weapons and nuclear power is a firm, unalterable requirement for human survival. (Source:\u00a0 http:\/\/thebulletin.org\/clock\/2015<\/a> accessed December 15, 2015.<\/p>\n

January 28, 1982<\/strong> \u2013 During the height of the Cold War, at a Congressional hearing on defense expenditures held in the Joint Economic Committee on Capitol Hill on this date, Admiral Hyman Rickover (1900-1986), the founder of the U.S. nuclear navy who was involved in the design and production of the first nuclear-powered submarine engines, the launching of the first U.S. Navy nuclear submarine \u2013 the U.S.S. Nautilus<\/em> in 1955, and the development of the first large-scale civilian power reactor in Shippingport, Pennsylvania in 1957, surprised the audience with strong antinuclear testimony.\u00a0 Admiral Rickover stated that, \u201cUntil about two billion years ago, it was impossible to have any life on Earth\u2026there was so much radiation\u2026Now when we use nuclear weapons or nuclear power, we are creating something which nature has been eliminating\u2026it\u2019s important that we get control of this horrible force and try to eliminate it.\u201d\u00a0 After a shocked silence in the hearing room, Rickover added, \u201cThen you might ask me, why do I have nuclear-powered ships?\u00a0 I\u2019m not proud of the part I played in it\u2026That\u2019s why I\u2019m such a great proponent of stopping this whole nonsense of war.\u00a0 I think from a long-range standpoint \u2013 I\u2019m talking about humanity \u2013 The most important thing we could do is\u2026first outlaw nuclear weapons to start with, then we outlaw nuclear reactors, too.\u201d\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Admiral Rickover was just one of many U.S. and international military leaders during the seventy year nuclear arms race who have spoken out against nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.\u00a0 As concerns about global warming grow stronger daily, those environmentalists who see nuclear power as one solution to the climate crisis should revisit Rickover\u2019s comments at this hearing:\u00a0 \u201cI believe that nuclear power for commercial purposes shows itself to be more economical, but that\u2019s a fake line of reasoning because we do not take into account the potential damage the release of radiation may do to future generations.\u201d\u00a0 (Source:\u00a0 Robert Del Tredici.\u00a0 \u201cAt Work in the Fields of the Bomb.\u201d\u00a0 New York:\u00a0 Harper & Row Publishers, 1987, pp. 164-165.)<\/p>\n

January 31, 1950<\/strong> \u2013 President Harry Truman agreed with calls by atomic scientists like Edward Teller and particularly military leaders serving on the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff that a super bomb (H-bomb) was \u201cnecessary to have within the arsenal of the U.S.\u00a0 Such a weapon would improve our defense in its broadest sense, as a potential offensive weapon, a possible deterrent to war, but (also) a potentially retaliatory weapon as well as a defense against enemy forces.\u201d\u00a0 Accordingly, on this date, President Truman \u201cdirected the Atomic Energy Commission to continue its work on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super bombs.\u201d \u00a0However, privately, the President later told his assistant press secretary Eben Ayers that, \u201cWe had to do it, but no wants to use it.\u201d\u00a0 Almost three years later on November 1, 1952, the U.S. detonated its first thermonuclear device, a 10 megaton bomb code-named \u201cMike\u201d at Eniwetok Atoll in the Marshall Islands.\u00a0 The Soviets followed on August 12, 1953 with a 400-kiloton device exploded at the Semipalatinsk site in Kazakhstan.\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Those were just two of the over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted above or below ground during the last seventy years by members of the Nuclear Club.\u00a0\u00a0 The resulting short- and long-term radioactive fallout from these tests have negatively impacted generations of people, worldwide.\u00a0\u00a0 And, with the advent of thermonuclear weapons, thousands of times as powerful as the Hiroshima atomic bomb, the possibility of the destruction of human civilization and the human species itself became a real possibility. (Sources:\u00a0 Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahme, editors.\u00a0 \u201cArms Control Chronology.\u201d\u00a0 Washington, DC:\u00a0 Center for Defense Information, 2002, pp. 5-6 and Richard Rhodes.\u00a0 \u201cArsenals of Folly:\u00a0 The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race.\u201d\u00a0 New York:\u00a0 Alfred A. Knopf, 2007, pp. 76-77.)<\/p>\n

Go to Original \u2013 wagingpeace.org<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

January 9, 1987 \u2013 Dean Rusk (1909-1994), a former Secretary of State (1961-69) under presidents John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson who received many awards during his career including the Presidential Medal of Freedom, spoke out against nuclear weapons with a statement that, \u201cNuclear war not only eliminates all the answers, but eliminates all the questions.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[148],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68588","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68588","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68588"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68588\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68588"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68588"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68588"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}