Category Archives: Nuclear Weapons

The Manhattan Project: Bioscience and the Atom Bomb

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manhattan-projectThis small book by Jeff Hughes explores how science in the twentieth century changed everything as it spread from universities to the government and to the military. It has good information about the Manhattan Project in “condensed form,” but it spends time and words on the wisdom of “Big Science.”  The Manhattan Project was symbolic of the greatest change of all; “…science’s growth in scale, scope, and cost as it transformed from …small groups or individuals into…”Big Science”—a large-scale enterprise that is carried out by multidisciplinary and multinational groups of researches, cost enormous sums, demanded massive institutions of its own, and often represents a significant fraction of national budgets.” The Project brought together American, British, Canadian, and refugee European scientists to design and build the world’s first atomic bombs. It employed 130,000 people, cost $2 billion, and changed the world forever.

The book gives a brief history of the scientists who began to unlock the mysteries of the atom. Henri Becquerel accidently discovered that uranium had “spontaneous emission” recorded on a photographic plate. Marie Curie suggested the name “radioactivity.” Earnest Rutherford collaborated with Frederick Soddy and many others to work out the theory of radioactive decay by emission of alpha, beta, and gamma. Hans Geiger developed methods for measuring the emissions. Enrico Fermi and co-workers discovered that elements bombarded with neutrons could be turned into isotopes of other elements. Otto Hahn and Fritz Stassman reported they had apparently produced barium by bombarding uranium with neutrons. Lise Meitner and Otto Frisch deducted that “a splitting” had been achieved. Frisch conferred with a biologist who explained that biological cells dividing was called “fission,” and the term stuck. Researchers around the world began replicating the results. Continue reading →

Rocky Flats Benefits Changes

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Rocky Flats retirees recently received a packet of information in an envelope with a warning in bold type, “Must Read Special Announcement: Information About Important changes to your Retiree Benefits.” The letter inside dated June 27, 2014 from Washington River Protection Solutions (WRPS) announces in the first paragraph, “If you and/or your spouse are age 65 or older, we want to let you know about some important changes coming in 2015 for your Rocky Flats retiree healthcare benefits. If you are not yet 65, please understand these changes will not affect you until you or your spouse reach 65.” The letter then “sprinkles saccharine” on what is coming. It says “This new coverage will allow you and your spouse to enroll in retiree healthcare coverage that’s right for each of you.” It also says the changes will allow “…added flexibility and customization.”

The meeting about the changes did not present quite as positive a spin on what is coming.  The contractor from WRPS led with the explanation that the company who won the contract to administer the benefits had to agree that they would analyze the total package and make adjustments if it provided benefits greater than 105% in comparison to sixteen other plans. The Rocky Flats benefits were found to be nearly 200%, or twice as generous as the average of the other plans. The contract therefore forced remedial action, and it was stated this was being done for the taxpayers. It‘s too early to attempt to judge or calculate the impact of the changes, because the costs for the different health care plans will not be available until later. I have no doubt I’ll be paying more for coverage that has higher deductibles. Continue reading →

Grounded

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groundedThe sub-title of this book by Robert M. Farley, “The Case for Abolishing the United States Air Force,” reveals the premise. I requested it from the library because I read that it discusses the founding of the U.S. Air Force (USAF) in 1947. Military planners had decided many more nuclear weapons were needed for Soviet targets at about that time. That led to the construction of the Rocky Flats Nuclear weapons Plant where the plutonium parts were constructed for all those weapons.  I worked at the Plant for many years beginning with the end of my U.S. Army assignment to NORAD in1969. I was therefore interested in what the military planners were thinking in the late 1940s that led to the beginning of construction at Rocky Flats in 1951. I was disappointed. There is no mention in the book that I found to mention anything about the expansion of Soviet military targets that led to the need for more nuclear weapons. All I could find was that the USAF was assigned most of the nuclear arsenal because of their long-range bombers and the Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). I decided to post a review, although I believe the book is flawed, at least for my purposes, by what it does not describe.

The book has several discussions of how the USAF being a separate service creates conflicts in military resource allocation, training, procurement, and strategies that are counterproductive. There is no doubt air power is needed for military missions. However, it is explained the war is an extension of politics and adding the politics of competing military services simply makes the act of engaging in war less than efficient. The author even observes that “…independent air forces make war more likely.” The reasoning is that the independent USAF will argue for policies that “…increase its visibility and access to resources” (which will make the USAF commanders more eager to go to war). The service will vie for political advantage by recommending use of its capabilities, and that certainly could and probably has influenced political policy decisions. Continue reading →

The Samson Option

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samson-optionThis is a fascinating book by Seymour M. Hersh. As suggested by the subtitle, “Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal and American Foreign Policy,” the book is split between describing how Israel developed nuclear weapons and a succession of American Presidents mostly turning a blind eye toward what Israel was doing. Some of the information is astonishing, and I often wondered whether the information was fact or fiction. There seems to have been a significant amount of research in the form of interviews with Israelis and Americans who could have known the secrets that are discussed. My inclination is to present the book as factual, and that is mostly because that would make the book more interesting!

The story begins with a description of how the U.S. shared high resolution images from a spy satellite called the “KH-11.” It seems a bit odd that the Israelis supposedly promised not to use the images for military purposes but used them to develop targets in the Soviet Union. They also used them to target and destroy the Iraqi nuclear reactor at Osirak twelve miles north of Baghdad in early June 1981. The bombing raid was accomplished with F-16s that had been purchased from the U.S. “for defensive purposes only.” The bombing brought about worldwide protest and was the first Middle East crises for the Reagan administration. President Reagan asked his national security advisor, Richard Allen why the Israelis had bombed the facility and was told “Well. Boys will be boys.” The real answer was that Menachem Begin had said that it was necessary to prevent Iraq from developing a nuclear weapon. He said Iraq having nuclear weapons would result in “another Holocaust.” He then added, “Never again! Never again!” Nine hundred Jewish defenders had committed suicide at Masada in 73 A.D. while Samson had killed himself and his captors by pushing apart the temple pillars where he was chained. “For Israel’s nuclear advocates, the Samson Option became another way of saying ‘Never again!’” Continue reading →

Rocky Flats Then and Now—Contamination

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I was unable to attend the final day of the event held at the Arvada Center June6-8, but a person who did attend provided the following commentary:

I’m a former Rocky Flats employee, employed there at the time of FBI/EPA raid.  I attended most of the activities for “Rocky Flats Then and Now: 25 Years After the Raid.”  The event that I found the most consistently factual among all panel participants and the most currently useful was the Sunday, June 8th panel discussion “What Do We Know today about Contamination from Rocky Flats?”  The panel was moderated by Len Ackland, author of Making a Real Killing: Rocky Flats and the Nuclear West, and included panel members David Abelson, Exec. Dir.,  Rocky Flats Stewardship Council; Niels Schonbeck, Chemistry Prof., Univ. of CO Denver and Regis Univ. and a former member of the Rocky Flats Environmental Monitoring Council; Carl Spreng, Rocky Flats Legacy Management Agreement Coordinator for the Colorado Dept. of Health and Environment; and Scott Surovchak, DOE Office of Legacy Management.

Some key points that I got out of the panel included:  1) RF site plutonium soil and surface water cleanup standards are some of, if not the, most stringent in the nation, over 10 times more stringent even than those recommended by long-time RF activist LeRoy Moore; 2) site institutional controls include prohibition against excavations and unauthorized access; 3) limited remaining buried facility contamination is primarily non-dispersible, not easily mobilized, fixed contamination on concrete or inside pipes; 4) cleanup involved extensive opportunities for stakeholder input and well-considered standards development; 5) extensive environmental monitoring has been done and will continue to assure protection of the RF site and nearby neighborhoods; 6) extensive flooding that occurred at the site within this past year provided a good test and confirmation that contaminant levels remained below the established limits; 7) reports and monitoring data are available to the public. Continue reading →

Rocky Flats Then and Now—A Surprising Revelation

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The event held at the Arvada Center June 6-8, 2014 was interesting, and I commend the organizers and participants. I have posted earlier commentaries about the event, and I am considering perhaps one more. One panel discussion was titled “The Raid in Retrospect—Keynote Panel.” The Moderator was Patty Limerick and the panel consisted of Jon Lipsky (FBI leader of the raid), Former Governor Roy Romer, and former Congressman David Skaggs.

David Skaggs was the first panelist to speak who described how he had won a close Congressional race and was told by Tim Wirth, “Now Rocky Flats is yours.” Mr. Skaggs added that he was unaware of the raid until after it began and was made public.

Former Colorado Governor Romer was next, who began by describing how the Governor of Idaho refused three railroad cars of waste from Rocky Flats (an important occurrence). He toured the Plant and issued an order that limited the amount of waste allowed to be stored there.

The mostly mundane nature of what was being discussed was broken with Governor Romer saying that he was going to discuss something for the first time in public. He described how he had been informed that a night-time surveillance flyover of Building 771 at Rocky Flats had identified heat coming from the stack, which was interpreted to indicate that wastes were being illegally incinerated. He said he was very concerned and went to the Plant to look at the incinerator. (What follows approximates his comments.) “The incinerator was about the size of a refrigerator. I asked how many people had to be in the loop to run this ‘furnace.’ I was told it takes 30 people, and I didn’t think the ‘furnace’ had burned. Years later the FBI said the film was faulty and didn’t show the ‘furnace’ was burning.” Continue reading →