no2nuclearweapons.org

By Martha Goodings

This October marks the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Missile Crisis, a time when the leaders of the two superpowers, U.S. President Kennedy and Soviet Premier Khrushchev, brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. In the words of Soviet General Anatoly Gribkov, “nuclear catastrophe was hanging by a thread….and we weren’t counting days or hours, but minutes.”

Civilization’s closest call with nuclear Armageddon makes for gripping history. But it also provides us with some powerful lessons that are still relevant today.

Lesson 1: Restraint in a crisis shows wisdom, not weakness. When it was first confirmed that bases for nuclear missiles were in Cuba, President Kennedy was advised to attack immediately. Instead, he decided to wait, and ordered a naval blockade of Cuba to prevent nuclear weapons from reaching the island. However, unbeknownst to the Americans at the time, 100 fully operational tactical nuclear weapons had already been brought to Cuba and successfully hidden. If Kennedy had agreed with his advisors and attacked rather than shown restraint – the crisis would have probably turned into a nuclear war on day one.

Premier Khrushchev also exercised restraint, preventing his key ships from escalating the Cuban Missile Crisis with an order not to breech the blockade.

But the greatest example of restraint only came to worldwide attention in 2002. On Oct. 27, 1962, the Americans dropped explosives on a nearby Russian submarine to force it to surface so they could identify it. The crew of the submarine, which had a 15-kiloton nuclear torpedo on board, thought nuclear war had started. They prepared to follow Russian protocol to fire the torpedo– a decision on which three senior officers had to agree. The captain agreed, the political officer agreed, and it was up to Vassili Arkhipov, the fleet commander, to give the final go-ahead. He refused, saying they should wait, surface, and see if a nuclear war had in fact started. If it had, he would agree to release the weapon; if not, he would not. His restraint is credited with preventing the start of World War Three.

Lesson 2: We need to think deeply about the unconscionable negative effects of a nuclear war: Take a moment to imagine how it would have been if the Crisis had not been resolved peacefully. Eighty to 100 million Americans, and an equal number of Soviet citizens, killed. In addition, there would have been worldwide collateral damage. A major international study done in 1986 found that the fires from even a “small” nuclear war, (i.e. 50 to 100 bombs), would generate enough smoke to block out sunlight and affect temperature. A drop of three to five degrees at the start of the growing season would have wiped out the North American and Soviet grain harvests. Further millions would have starved because of famine. The effect on non-combatant countries with low food and energy supplies would be devastating. Many survivors would have had children and grandchildren suffering serious birth defects. Some certainly would have been as deformed as the “jellyfish babies”, (babies born without bones and transparent skin) born on the Marshall Islands following nuclear testing there in the 1950’s. Are there any circumstances in which a nuclear attack would make sense?

Lesson 3: We cannot count on our leaders to be rational in a crisis. Because nuclear weapons were not used in the Crisis, we like to think they will never be used. No leader, we hope, would ever provoke a nuclear war, knowing his country would be destroyed in retaliation. But both leaders in the Crisis came perilously close to doing just that. And the third leader involved, Cuban leader Fidel Castro, admitted in 1992 that he was so enraged by the threats from the United States that he asked the Soviets to attack with a pre-emptive strike. He did this, he claimed, knowing that the inevitable retaliation would have obliterated Cuba and all who lived there.

Lesson 4: Negotiation, not military superiority, saved us. The Cuban Missile Crisis ended, as we know, with a negotiated settlement. Kennedy agreed not to invade Cuba, and Khrushchev agreed to remove the missiles from Cuba. This looked like a clear win for Kennedy. We now know Kennedy also agreed to the part of the bargain Khrushchev wanted – removing the obsolete Jupiter missiles from Turkey – but only on the condition that this part of the deal remained secret. It seems that Kennedy had the courage to offer a genuine compromise, but not the courage to explain it.

In fact, he made sure that an article in the Saturday Evening Post removed any suggestion that he had even considered trading Cuban for Turkish missiles, blaming that “appeasing” idea all on Adlai Stevenson, the American ambassador to the United Nations. So the secret deal stayed secret, leaving the Russians humiliated, and the Americans captive to the dangerous myth that military superiority tied to non-negotiable demands won the day.

Editorial
New York Times
Published: June 10, 2012

Did House Republicans somehow miss the end of the cold war? At a time when, for the sake of both security and fiscal responsibility, the country should be reducing its nuclear arsenal, the House has approved a defense authorization bill for 2013 that threatens to freeze the number of weapons at current levels and, over time, waste billions of dollars on unnecessary purchases and programs.

Thankfully, the bill isn’t likely to become law. But it is worth taking a closer look, both for what it says about Republicans’ misplaced strategic priorities — and about how far President Obama has already gone to appease them.

The United States and Russia each have more than 1,500 nuclear weapons deployed and many thousands more as backup or awaiting dismantlement. Gen. James Cartwright, the retired vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and a former commander of nuclear forces, recently said that deterrence could be guaranteed with 900 warheads, with only half deployed at any time.

If the United States fails to keep pushing for even deeper cuts — or raises any doubts about its current commitments — it will have an even harder time rallying global pressure to contain the nuclear ambitions of Iran, North Korea and others. Remember George W. Bush’s contempt for treaties?

At $642 billion, the House Pentagon authorization is $4 billion above President Obama’s request and $8 billion above the 2011 Budget Control Act agreement that the Republicans demanded and are now trying to overturn. More than $1 billion of that increase is nuclear-related. Here are some of the worst parts of the bill:

¶The 2010 New Start pact commits Washington and Moscow to cut their deployed strategic weapons from 2,200 to 1,550 by 2018. One provision in the bill would halt reductions if the president, or any successor, failed to meet Mr. Obama’s promise to spend $88 billion to upgrade the nuclear labs and $125 billion over 10 years to replace aging bombers, submarines and land-based missiles. Mr. Obama made those overly generous commitments to win ratification of New Start. Most outrageously, the bill says the country can’t keep reducing weapons if the defense cuts in the Budget Control Act are not overturned.

¶The bill would bar reduction, consolidation or withdrawal of tactical weapons in Europe — we can’t imagine a more unnecessary weapon — unless several onerous conditions are met. It mandates a report on possibly reintroducing tactical nuclear weapons in South Korea.

¶It contains $160 million to build a new plutonium plant in New Mexico to make new cores for weapons. The Energy Department has said its needs can be met for now with existing facilities. The projected cost has ballooned to nearly $6 billion. It adds nearly $500 million next year to develop a ballistic missile submarine that the administration wants to delay and we believe is unnecessary.

The White House has threatened to veto the authorization unless the worst provisions are deleted. The Senate bill has only made it through committee, but it has some troubling aspects, including keeping the plutonium plant project alive.

General Cartwright is only the latest heavyweight to endorse significant nuclear reductions. Former Ambassador Thomas Pickering and former Senator Chuck Hagel joined him in a report by Global Zero, a policy group urging major changes, including the 900 target. Separately, Henry Kissinger, James Baker, George Shultz and Sam Nunn have endorsed the eventual goal of a world without nuclear weapons. So has President Obama.

The president needs to leverage that support to argue the case for much deeper cuts and push back against members of Congress who — incredibly — still haven’t gotten beyond their cold war obsessions.

PRESTON PEEDEN
KNOXVILLE, Tenn. — Reuters
from Globe and Mail
Published Friday, Aug. 03 2012, 8:34 PM EDT
Last updated Friday, Aug. 03 2012, 10:49 PM EDT

A U.S. magistrate judge on Friday ordered the release pending trial of an 82-year-old nun and another anti-nuclear activist charged with breaching security fences at one of the most sensitive U.S. nuclear facilities, in Oak Ridge, Tennessee, where weapons-grade uranium is kept.

The security failure was an embarrassment for the National Nuclear Security Administration, or NNSA, the Energy Department branch that operates U.S. nuclear weapons plants, and for the international security firm G4S, which owns WSI Oak Ridge, the contractor responsible for protecting the facility.

G4S was also at the center of a dispute over security at the London Olympic Games.

Officials said the facility was shut down on Wednesday at least until next week after peace activists Megan Rice, 82, Michael Walli, 63, and Greg Boertje-Obed, 57, cut through perimeter fences to reach the outer wall of a building where highly enriched uranium, a key nuclear bomb component, is stored.

The activists painted slogans and threw what they said was human blood on the wall of the facility, one of numerous buildings in the facility known by the code name Y-12 that it was given during World War Two, officials said.

At a hearing in Knoxville, Tennessee on Friday, assistant U.S. Attorney Melissa Kirby argued that all three should remain in custody. “This is a crime of violence,” Ms. Kirby said.

But U.S. Magistrate Judge C. Clifford Shirley ruled the threat of violence was low and decided to release Ms. Rice, who according to her attorney has a thyroid and heart condition and has not been receiving her medication. The judge also released Mr. Walli. Both were given travel and other restrictions, and will stay at a private residence in Knoxville while court proceedings continue, according to defence attorneys.

Mr. Boertje-Obed waived his right to a defence attorney and will remain in detention.

All three defendants appeared in grey, striped prison clothes with orange plastic shoes, handcuffs, and leg manacles. Ms. Rice appeared frail and was suffering from hypothermia, according to her attorney, Francis Lloyd, Jr., who draped his coat over her. Court was recessed to allow time to find a space heater and a blanket for Ms. Rice.

While moving between the perimeter fences, the activists triggered sensors that alerted security personnel. But officials conceded the intruders were still able to reach the building’s walls before security personnel got to them.

Officials said that the storage building itself, which was built after the Sept. 11, 2001, al Qaeda attacks on New York and Washington, was designed with modern security features and that its contents were not compromised.

ICAN Video, 2007