{"id":73107,"date":"2016-05-09T12:00:24","date_gmt":"2016-05-09T11:00:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=73107"},"modified":"2016-05-08T12:03:35","modified_gmt":"2016-05-08T11:03:35","slug":"may-this-month-in-nuclear-threat-history-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2016\/05\/may-this-month-in-nuclear-threat-history-2\/","title":{"rendered":"May: This Month in Nuclear Threat History"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"napf_logo-150x150<\/a>May 1974<\/strong> \u2013 An attempt at nuclear extortion occurred sometime this month when an individual identified only as \u201cCaptain Midnight\u201d forwarded a letter to the FBI claiming he would detonate an improvised nuclear device in the city of Boston unless he was paid $200,000.\u00a0 In response to the threat, William Chambers, a physicist with the Los Alamos National Laboratory, was tasked to organize a special team composed of scientific personnel from Los Alamos, Livermore, and Sandia national laboratories along with several other experts to determine if the threat was a credible one.\u00a0 After a preliminary investigation, it was determined that the incident was a hoax. The Boston incident led to the creation of the U.S. Nuclear Emergency Search Team (NEST), which was activated in November 1975 to deal with another nuclear terrorism threat in Spokane, Washington.\u00a0 Managed by the U.S. Department of Energy\u2019s Nevada Operations Office, NEST personnel worked in a number of areas including threat weapon design, diagnostics, and health physics and they often participated in exercises as well as actual threat deployments.\u00a0 Today, NEST is just one of many \u201cassets\u201d for emergency response mentioned on the DOE\u2019s NNSA (National Nuclear Security Administration) website.\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 The world has been lucky that there have been relatively few instances of WMD attack such as the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult Tokyo subway nerve gas attack, the 9-11 attack, numerous truck and car bombings that have killed hundreds at a time, and other incidents.\u00a0 Due to catastrophic property damage as well as extensive human health impacts caused by nuclear weapons or the potential harm of other weapons of mass destruction such as \u201cdirty bombs\u201d (conventional explosives jacketed with radiological material) as well as natural disasters such as the 2011 Japanese tsunami and Fukushima nuclear accident, a large and permanently staffed nonpartisan International Crisis Response Force ought to be established.\u00a0 Funded by proportional donations mandated by the U.N. General Assembly, the multinational military division-sized organization would consist of key experts with military, medical, scientific, humanitarian, first-response, and nuclear-chemical-biological WMD development experience and scaled-up NEST capabilities.\u00a0 (Sources:\u00a0 Richard A. Falkenrath, Robert D. Newman, and Bradley A. Thayer.\u00a0 \u201cAmerica\u2019s Achilles Heel: Nuclear, Biological, and Chemical Terrorism and Covert Attack.\u201d\u00a0 Cambridge, MA:\u00a0 The MIT Press, 1998; Jeffrey T. Richelson, ed., The Nuclear Emergency Search Teams, 1974-96.\u00a0 <\/em>\u201cThe Nuclear Vault:\u00a0 Resources from the National Security Archives\u2019 Nuclear Documentation Project.\u201d\u00a0 The National Security Archives, George Washington University, Washington, DC. \u00a0http:\/\/nsarchive.gwu.edu\/nukevault\/ebb267\/<\/a> and \u201cResponding to Emergencies.\u201d\u00a0 NNSA, DOE, http:\/\/nnsa.energy.gov\/aboutus\/ourprograms\/emergencyoperationscounterterrroism\/respondingtoemergencies<\/a> both accessed April 14, 2016.)<\/p>\n

May 1, 1962<\/strong> \u2013 On this date, a nuclear test code-named Beryl<\/em> was conducted in French-occupied Algeria at an underground site inside Ekker Mountain in the Sahara Desert located 100 miles north of Tamanrasset and 1,250 miles south of the Algerian capital, one of 17 such tests conducted by France at this and another site in the Reggane region of the Algerian desert over a period of several years.\u00a0 However, due to improper sealing of the underground shaft, a spectacular mushroom cloud burst through the concrete cap venting highly radioactive dust and gas into the atmosphere.\u00a0 The plume reportedly climbed to 8,500 feet high and radiation was detected hundreds of miles away.\u00a0 Approximately 100 soldiers and officials including two government ministers were irradiated along with an indeterminate number of desert-dwelling Algerians, who later reported seeing the test blast.\u00a0 As recently as 2010, Algerian government scientists detected radiation levels twenty times normal near the test sites.\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 This was just one of 210 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the French government in north Africa and the Pacific region in the period from 1960-96.\u00a0 The resulting short- and long-term radioactive fallout from these tests and the aggregate total of over 2,000 nuclear weapons test explosions conducted by the nine nuclear weapons-states over the last seventy years has negatively impacted large numbers of the global population.\u00a0 (Source:\u00a0 Jack Mendelsohn and David Grahame, editors.\u00a0 \u201cArms Control Chronology.\u201d\u00a0 Washington, DC:\u00a0 Center for Defense Information, Washington, DC. and Lamine Chikhi. \u201cFrench Nuclear Tests in Algeria Leave Toxic Legacy.\u201d\u00a0 Reuters News Service<\/em>.\u00a0 May 4, 2010.\u00a0 http:\/\/in.reuters.com\/article\/idNIndia-46657120100304<\/a> accessed April 14, 2016.)<\/p>\n

May 11, 1979<\/strong> \u2013 Lord Louis Mountbatten, Earl of Burma, an admiral of the British Fleet, and the former Supreme Allied Commander of South Asia Command during the Second World War, gave an address on the occasion of the awarding of the Louise Weiss Foundation Prize to the Stockholm Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) in Strasbourg, France.\u00a0 Lord Mountbatten proclaimed, \u201cThe nuclear arms race has no military purpose.\u00a0 Wars cannot be fought with nuclear weapons.\u00a0 Their existence only adds to our perils\u2026In the event of nuclear war, there will be no chances.\u00a0 There will be no survivors \u2013 all will be obliterated.\u201d\u00a0 Killed by an Irish Republican Army bomb placed on his fishing boat on August 27, 1979, Admiral Mountbatten\u2019s last speech discredited the doctrine of robust nuclear deterrence with these words, \u201cThere are powerful voices around the world who still give credence to the old Roman precept \u2013 if you desire peace, prepare for war.\u00a0 This is absolute nuclear nonsense.\u201d\u00a0 (Source:\u00a0 Gwyn Prins., editor, \u201cThe Nuclear Crisis Reader.\u201d New York:\u00a0 Vintage Books, 1984, pp. 5, 27.)<\/p>\n

May 14, 1948<\/strong> \u2013 The nation-state of Israel was founded on this date and has survived today despite four large-scale wars with neighboring Arab nations in 1948, 1956, 1967, and 1973.\u00a0 Although the September 17, 1978 Camp David Accords finally put an end to conflict between Egypt and Israel, neighboring Muslim nations and nonstate actors have continued to threaten Israel\u2019s existence.\u00a0 The Jewish state, with the support of decades-long U.S. arms sales and extensive military assistance, has continued to conduct military operations in Lebanon, Gaza, and in the region despite widespread international opposition.\u00a0 Despite Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres\u2019 assurance to President Kennedy in 1963 that Israel \u201cwould not introduce nuclear weapons into the region,\u201d the Israelis did indeed develop nuclear weapons as an insurance policy in order to survive a region dominated by adversaries.\u00a0 Their nuclear program apparently began at the Dimona reactor site in the 1950s and 1960s and is rumored to have obtained fissile weapons-grade materials through theft or illicit covert sale of U.S. or allied plutonium and\/or highly enriched uranium.\u00a0 A non-signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), the Israelis have considered long-standing United Nations\u2019 calls for their country to join the NPT and\/or participate in a Middle East nuclear-free-zone as unacceptably \u201cflawed and hypocritical proposals.\u201d\u00a0 The estimate for Israel\u2019s nuclear arsenal today extends from a low of 65-85 warheads cited in a recent Rand Corporation study to President Carter\u2019s estimate of 150-300+ bombs and includes a probably biased figure of 400 warheads as guesstimated by Iranian foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif during the 2014-2015 P5 + 1 Iran nuclear talks.\u00a0 Some analysts fear that Israel may be the most likely nation to break the seventy year prohibition against the use of nuclear weapons.\u00a0 Ron Rosenbaum\u2019s 2011 book \u201cHow the End Begins\u201d points out that since its founding, Israel has endeavored to prevent a second Holocaust using whatever means may be necessary.\u00a0 His dire prediction is that, \u201csooner or later Israel will unleash nuclear weapons (possibly to destroy hypothetical Iranian underground nuclear weapons production or warhead storage facilities) and risk the inauguration of World War III to prevent what they perceive as an impending nuclear strike\u201d on their Jewish state.\u00a0 He continues, \u201cThey will not wait for the world to step in.\u00a0 They may not even wait to be sure their intelligence on the strike that they wish to preempt is rock solid certain.\u00a0 They feel they can\u2019t afford to take that chance.\u201d\u00a0 More chillingly Rosenbaum presents credible evidence that, \u201ceven if Israel has been obliterated, its (German-made) Dolphin-class nuclear missile subs hiding stealthily in the Red Sea, Indian Ocean, and Persian Gulf will carry out genocidal-scale retaliation.\u201d\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 While the Iran nuclear agreement of July 2015 may have stabilized Mideast nuclear instability for the short-term, much more needs to be done diplomatically and politically to ensure that the Mideast is permanently denuclearized including, at the very least, Israel being persuaded or cajoled by its American ally to confirm its arsenal, sign the NPT, and open its facilities to International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspections.\u00a0 This represents yet another reason why Global Zero has a long and arduous pathway to reach fruition.\u00a0 (Sources:\u00a0 Julian Borger. \u201cThe Truth About Israel\u2019s Secret Nuclear Arsenal.\u201d\u00a0 Guardian.com<\/em>, January 15, 2014.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2014\/jan\/15\/truth-israels-secret-nuclear-arsenal<\/a> and Daniel R. DePetris.\u00a0 \u201cWelcome to Israeli Nuclear Weapons 101.\u201d\u00a0 Nationalinterest.org, <\/em>September 20, 2015\u00a0 http:\/\/nationalinterest.org\/feature\/welcome-israeli-nuclear-weapons-101-13882<\/a>\u00a0 both accessed April 14, 2016.)<\/p>\n

May 17, 2014<\/strong> \u2013 A serious U.S. Air Force nuclear accident characterized by the code phrase \u201cBent Spear\u201d occurred on this date at the Juliet-07 Minuteman III ICBM silo nine miles west of Peetz, Colorado by three airmen of the 320th<\/sup> Missile Squadron of the 90th<\/sup> Missile Wing based at F.E. Warren Air Force Base, Cheyenne, Wyoming.\u00a0 While troubleshooting the nuclear-tipped missile, the three airmen, who it was later determined failed to follow technical safety protocols, inadvertently caused $1.8 million in damages to the intercontinental ballistic missile.\u00a0 But more disturbing was the fact that this incident (and possibly others) was purposely omitted from a three month-long safety review of U.S. nuclear forces completed on June 2, 2015 by an independent Accident Investigations Board due to Air Force secrecy restrictions.\u00a0 Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project at the Federation of American Scientists noted that when this fact was inadvertently revealed to the public in January 2016 that, \u201cBy keeping the details of the accident secret and providing only vague responses (to subsequent Freedom of Information Act requests by news media and organizations like FAS), the Air Force behaves as if it has something to hide and this undermines public confidence in the safety of the ICBM mission.\u201d\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Cold War secrecy and non-transparency on nuclear weapons accidents, Bent Spears, Broken Arrows, and other incidents continue not only for alleged reasons of \u201cprotecting national security\u201d but to prevent public scrutiny on tremendously expensive, globally destabilizing, dangerous, and completely unnecessary and unusable nuclear arsenals by the U.S. and other members of the Nuclear Club. (Source: Robert Burns.\u00a0 \u201cAir Force Withheld Nuclear Mishap From Pentagon Review Team.\u201d Bigstory.org<\/em>. January 23, 2016.\u00a0 http:\/\/bigstory.ap.org\/article\/e9367f645d894bd1b743cccb79592478\/report-says-errors-air<\/a>\u2026 accessed April 14, 2016.)<\/p>\n

May 22, 1957<\/strong> \u2013 The crew of a U.S. Air Force B-36 bomber ferrying a nuclear weapon, a Mark 17 ten megaton hydrogen bomb weighing 42,000 pounds, from Biggs Air Force Base to Kirtland Air Force Base near Albuquerque, New Mexico, experienced a serious Broken Arrow accident on this date.\u00a0 As the aircraft dropped to 1,700 feet altitude and lined up to approach the landing strip, a crew member tasked to manually remove the locking pin designed to prevent the in-flight release of the bomb (a standard operating procedure at the time) was jostled suddenly by unexpected air turbulence causing him to accidentally depress a lever releasing the H-bomb.\u00a0 The nuclear weapon struck the ground 4.5 miles south of Kirtland control tower and a third of a mile west of the Sandia Base reservation and about sixty miles southeast of Los Alamos.\u00a0 The weapon was completely destroyed by the detonation of its high explosive charges creating a crater 25 feet in diameter and 12 feet deep.\u00a0 While no one was injured in the incident, an extensive clean-up of radioactively contaminated material in and around the crater ensued.\u00a0 The incident was not publicly revealed until the Air Force complied with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request and provided information on the nuclear accident almost thirty years later in 1986.\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 Many of the hundreds if not thousands of nuclear accidents involving all nine nuclear weapon states still remain partially or completely classified and hidden from public scrutiny.\u00a0 These near-nuclear catastrophes provide an additional justification for reducing dramatically and eventually eliminating global nuclear weapons arsenals.\u00a0 (Sources:\u00a0 \u201cAccident Revealed After 29 Years:\u00a0 H-Bomb Fell Near Albuquerque in 1957.\u201d\u00a0 Los Angeles Times. <\/em>August 27, 1986.\u00a0 http:\/\/articles.latimes.com\/1986-08-27news\/mn-14421_1_hydrogen-bomb<\/a> and Les Adler.\u00a0 \u201cA Hydrogen Bomb Was Accidentally Dropped From A Plane Just South of Kirtland AFB in 1957.\u201d\u00a0 Albuquerque Tribune<\/em>. January 20, 1994.\u00a0 http:\/\/www.hkhinc.com\/newmexico\/albuquerque\/doomsday\/<\/a> both accessed April 14, 2016.)<\/p>\n

May 26-27, 2016<\/strong> \u2013 Meeting in Tokyo, the Group of Seven (G-7) economic summit of world leaders, including U.S. President Barack Obama, will address their usual \u201csteady as she goes\u201d western-dominated economic and political agenda amidst public concerns that all nine nuclear weapons states plan on increasing funding for the research, design, development, production, and deployment of new nuclear weapons and their accompanying production infrastructure including new or expanded nuclear arsenal laboratories at a time when these trillions of dollars could have instead gone to addressing global warming, educating large numbers of young people, improving crumbling infrastructure of roads, bridges, and urban residences, and other critical global needs.\u00a0 Comments:\u00a0 The peoples of the world would be better served if not only this forum but other international fora such as the U.N. Security Council approved a major denuclearization of the planet including easily verified substantial reductions and eventually an elimination of not only deployed but inactive and stored tactical and strategic nuclear weapons as well as all fissile materials (with a small internationally verified exception for radioactive medical isotopes).\u00a0 At the very least, the U.S. president should comply with a symbolically important request from a Japanese A-bomb survivor, Kiko Oguro, an eight-year old victim of the August 6, 1945 U.S. atomic attack on Hiroshima, who recently noted that, \u201cPresident Obama should come here (to Hiroshima) and see for himself.\u00a0 He and other leaders would realize that nuclear weapons are not about making allies and enemies, but about joining hands and fighting this evil together.\u00a0 We don\u2019t want to tell the world leaders what to think, or make them apologize. They should just view it as an opportunity to lead the world in the right direction, because only they have the power to do that.\u201d\u00a0 (Source:\u00a0 Justin McCurry.\u00a0 \u201cHiroshima Survivor Urges Obama to Visit Site of World\u2019s First Atomic Bombing.\u201d\u00a0 The Guardian<\/em>.\u00a0 March 23, 2016.)<\/p>\n

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

May 1, 1962 \u2013 A nuclear test code-named Beryl was conducted in French-occupied Algeria. However, due to improper sealing of the underground shaft, a spectacular mushroom cloud burst through the concrete cap venting highly radioactive dust and gas into the atmosphere. The plume climbed to 8,500 feet high and radiation was detected hundreds of miles away. This was just one of 210 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the French government in north Africa and the Pacific region in the period from 1960-96.<\/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-73107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-history"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73107","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=73107"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/73107\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=73107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=73107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=73107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}