STARK NUCLEAR WARNING

California Governor Jerry Brown has just authored a review of one of our recommended titles in the latest issue of The New York Review of Books: the recently published My Journey at the Nuclear Brink by former Secretary of Defense William Perry (SEE Blog Bibliography Post below: Reading the Bomb, June 13, 2016)


                                                 

  

The Nuclear Weapons threat continues to garner headlines and attention. But what is needed is Citizen Involvement. Perry's book gives us the back story, the dangerous scope of the problem and cause for hope.

Gov. Brown accurately describes the former Secretary of Defense, who had worked in the Nuclear Weapons industry from the age of 26, as an "insider", "a keeper of secrets", "a man of unquestioned experience and intelligence." In this BLOG he has been quoted several times. Here is another:

"Even a single detonation...could destroy our way of life." (Italics ours)

Brown notes that: 
"Perry is on an urgent mission to alert us to the dangerous nuclear road we are traveling." Perry was one of the first "insiders" to conclude that there could be and is no defense in a full scale Nuclear War. He's been joined over the years by former Nuclear Weapons stalwarts Kissinger, Shultz, Nunn, Drell, Lugar. (as noted in earlier posts here)
                                           

                                                  

After the Cold War he was very involved in securing the many "loose Nukes" in the former Soviet Republics such as Ukraine and Belarus.

In his review of the book, Brown discusses our "new age of nuclear danger" and that, unfortunately, since publication of the book "the dangers have only intensified" - spurred by the Nuclear Weapons spending spree called euphemistically by its proponents "Modernization".
Brown informs us that includes "the complete update of our nuclear triad, including new (nuclear) cruise missiles, nuclear submarines, ICBMs and bombers."(See previous and up-coming Blog Posts on our "Triad") As Sen. John McCain has stated: "Very, very, very expensive."

Brown writes of Bill Perry: "Few have his wisdom and integrity and expertise and experience. So why isn't anyone paying attention to him?"

The book reveals that Perry's great fear is that "the poised nuclear doom" is out of sight and out of mind. As this Blog has posted before, there are no more spectacularly deadly explosive atmospheric tests of these weapons, no fretting about clouds of poisonous radiation circling the globe, no "civil defense duck and cover drills."


                                                

                                



Perry believes that most of us are in Denial. Deeply afraid of "thinking the unthinkable." Nuclear Weapons Amnesia.

But think of it, remember it, we must. That is a crucial first step on the road to Abolition In Our Time. Perry warns of the "great urgency" here. He is hopeful that the movement for abolition is beginning, but advises that it must grow - quickly! The former Defense Secretary is fearful that "governments are not getting sufficient pressure from their constituents to act." That is where we MUST come in. All of Us!

We have noted here the Central Park Rally for the Nuclear Freeze in the 80's and its eventual effectiveness. We need a like movement Now - before this inane, insane "modernization program" gets off the ground!

Perry, at the end, addresses the "millennial generation". He believes that they have the power to abolish these Armageddon Weapons in their lifetimes.

"I have dedicated my own efforts to increasing the awareness of our younger generation - the millennial generation, now in their teens and twenties. The problem will ultimately need to be solved by today's youth." BUT he adds a dire caveat:

"I BELIEVE THAT TIME IS NOT ON OUR SIDE."

Governor Brown concludes his review by referring to the leaders and citizens of Europe who were "sleepwalking" their way into the catastrophe of World War I. 
"Fortunately, Bill Perry is not sleepwalking and he is telling us to wake up before it is too late. Anyone can begin by reading this book." Indeed!

READ. WRITE. TWEET. POST. USE SOCIAL MEDIA. SIGN PETITIONS - THERE ARE MANY ON LINE. CONTACT YOUR ELECTED OFFICIALS- THEY DO LISTEN. THEY DO RESPOND.

FIND THE  TIME. MAKE THE TIME. Because all of us, our kids, grand kids and all future generations ARE RUNNING OUT OF TIME. ACT NOW!


                                                   

         

The review appears in the latest issue of the New York Review of Books: CLICK HERE 


William Perry's Website CLICK HERE

The Nuclear Abolitionist: The Worst Acts of the Nuclear Age

The Nuclear Abolitionist: The Worst Acts of the Nuclear Age

NEW AGE OF NUKES: THIS IS SCARIER THAN BREXIT!

VICE NEWS REPORT, June 2016 (available "On Demand")
                                           


                                                

In a NUCLEAR MISSILE SILO in NEBRASKA with a VICE NEWS Reporter:

Two Air Force Officers, a young man and a young woman, share a cake to celebrate her 100th "Launch Alert!" No candles burning on the cake, one would presume for safety reasons, given the recent spate of documented, publicized, negligent and widespread safety violations in these nuclear missile silos.

Her face beaming she assures us with a smile:
"If the President wants to actually launch, we are ready to go!"
She may have as well been anticipating Mr. Obama's invitation to take her to the prom - instead of inviting her to participate in the murder of millions. JUST TURN YOUR KEY

In fairness, the two "missileers" are performing their duty. They have been vetted, trained and psychologically tested. Selected for their willingness to turn those keys ON COMMAND AND WITHOUT QUESTION. (For an account of an officer who did ask "the Forbidden Question" concerning a Launch Command, see Ron Rosenbaum's book How The End Begins ( BLOG POST: Reading the Bomb below)

SILO. Normally the word might make us think of grain, abundance, the nourishment of life. But nothing about these SILOS is normal. Here, the word conjures up Doomsday Scenarios which are duly "practiced" in every "launch alert."

Their Command Capsule contains 10 of the 450 ICBMs in the land-based part of our Nuclear Triad which the Vice reporter accurately states is: "Powerful enough to end the world as we know it."
And that does not take into account the ICBMs of Russia and China.
Russian ICBMs are ready to launch in minutes - in silos, on mobile launchers and from railway cars. China's smaller ICBM arsenal is ready to launch from complexes of tunnels called by the Chinese military "The Underground Great Wall of China". (VICE Report)

Worse, our "Prague President"  has ordered up New Nuclear Missiles - over 400 in all - to replace the lethal killers currently aging in their silos.
The President guarantees that as long as we have these Nuclear Weapons THEY will be kept "safe, secure, effective." That same deceptive mantra stated in a NYTS Letter to the Editor on June 23, 2016, by an official of the "National Security Administration" "ensuring that America's remaining arsenal is safe, secure, and effective." DEADLY IRONY.

For as long as THE WEAPONS exist, WE can be NEITHER SAFE NOR SECURE. Nuclear annihilation remains just a Turn of the Key or a Key stroke away.

Many military experts and consultants think that this "leg" of the Triad should be abolished. Even Sen. John McCain (R-Arizona) recently commented: "Do we really need the entire Triad?" 
"Very, very, very expensive." That is, the ICBMs, the Submarine Launched Nuclear Missiles and the fleet of Nuclear Bomb toting Strategic Bombers.
Each leg of our Triad could, by itself, annihilate any enemy nation many times over, destroying the world in the process.

NUCLEAR TRIAD our UNHOLY TRINITY

Next Post: The Submarine and Bomber components of The Triad.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION IN OUR TIME - BEFORE OUR TIME IS UP

PALOMARES, SPAIN NUCLEAR INCIDENT 50 YEARS AGO

"In Sick Airmen, Echo of '66 Nuclear Crash: Hydrogen Bomb's Aftermath" (NYTS Headline)

                                                

If you have read our recent Posts and today's New York Times front page investigative report, Nuclear Weapons are in the news again. Nuclear Weapons incidents tend to ricochet through time and space. This "accident" in Palomares left behind a trail of radioactive bread crumbs through fifty years from Spain to the U.S. in the form of declassified documents and destroyed lives. Front page fifty years ago, 1966, front page again today, 2016. 

These Nuclear Weapons incidents never really vanish down history's black hole despite the efforts of the "authorities", at the time, later and now, to make them do so. 

Four H-Bombs dropping from a plane after a midair collision over Palomares. Seven of the eleven crew members on the two planes perished in crash. The NYTS report mentions a similar incident over Greenland two years later. See Blog Post Below: Reading the Bomb mentioning Command and Control by Eric Schlosser now also an Academy Award nominated documentary available on DVD for an extensive, readable/watchable scary account of the "near-nuclear miss" accidents and incidents over the years which may leave you reeling after each incident, thinking, "That can't be right!"

The NYTS report and the exposure of these near Armageddon incidents reveal the secrecy, misconduct and deceit of the authorities involved in the incidents and in their cover-ups.
First, they offer the assurance that "Everything is all right." Then the cover-up kicks into high gear. Then, the "PR" apparatus. In the Palomares incident the local people and our own troops were victims of the subterfuge. (See Chernobyl incident for similar official nonsense in the then Soviet Union)
                                                      


                                                   

Two of the four bombs exploded but did not detonate. If they had, we would be commemorating the 50th anniversary of something horrifically different. But explode they did - leaving craters as big as a house. Today, the scattering of that much dangerous plutonium would be referred to as a "dirty bomb" requiring evacuation of the area. But that did not happen. Instead, the local populace and our military veterans, who were charged with the "clean up", were placed directly in harm's way. The NYTS report indicates that today there are still fenced off areas in and around Palomares. Today, there are still surviving U.S. veterans awaiting recognition and the awarding of claims by our government.

As one of our veterans stated: "They told us everything was safe. We trusted them. The whole thing is a lie. Why would they lie?" It was only in 2015 that our government agreed to a "clean up" of the contaminated area. But to date - there is neither a timetable nor a plan in place.

For letters to the editor on this SEE: NYTS JUNE 27,2016:

One more reason to Get Angry! Wake Up! Post! Tweet! Comment! Contact your elected officials! Vote!

Every minute that Nuclear Weapons are still with us is a minute awaiting an "accident", "incident", "miscalculation" or deliberate, intentional use.

ABOLITION IN OUR TIME!

READING THE BOMB

"By threatening extinction, this ultimate antipersonnel device is in essence an antibaby device...the babies who will never be born, those that are queueing up in spectral relays until the end of time." Einstein's Monsters

Recommended Select Annotated Bibliography

                                     

                                  

ALPEROVITZ, GAR. (1995) (The Decision to Use the Atomic Bomb (Exhaustive, excellent account with the author attempting to end the debate once and for all)

AMIS, MARTIN. (1987) Einstein's Monsters (Blend of esssay and fiction by the award winning British author. Amis would divide human history into Before and After the Bomb)






                                                 

BIRD, KAI and MARTIN SHERWIN. (2006) American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (The personal, political life of the leader of the Manhattan Project)

                                               

                                                 

                

BROWN, ANTHONY CAVE, Ed. (1978) Operation World War III: The American Plan for World War III Against Russia in 1957 (The plan ordered up by President Truman in 1949 with the assumption that Nuclear War would break out between the superpowers by 1957. A once "top secret" document. *If any reader knows of a similar Soviet plan from the Cold War that has been published in book form - please advise in "Comments" section and it will be included here)

                                                   

CIRINCIONE, JOSEPH. (2007) Bomb Scare: The History & Future of Nuclear Weapons (By an expert, featured television commentator, on Nuclear Weapons and their dangerous proliferation)

___________________. (2013) Nuclear Nightmares: Securing the World Before It Is Too Late (The emphasis here - Time is Up!)

                                                 

DeGROOT, GERARD J. (2004) The Bomb: A Life ("I wanted to present the entire life of the Bomb in one volume in order to provide a sense of its size and a feeling for its ubiquity." He's more than done that here. "Reveals everything you ever wanted to know about Nuclear Weapons, including things you were too terrified to ask." - USA TODAY)





                                                 

DOBBS, MICHAEL. (2008) One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Krushchev, and Castro on the Brink of Nuclear War (The 1962 Missile Crisis)




                                                    

FETTER-VORM, JONATHAN. (2012) Trinity: A Graphic History of the First Atomic Bomb (The history "lite" in illustrated form, yet striking and informative)




                                                 

GOLSTEIN, DONALD M. (1995) Rain of Ruin: A Photographic History of Hiroshima and Nagasaki




                                                      

HERSEY, JOHN. (1946) Hiroshima (The Classic Account first published in The New Yorker. Widely considered to have altered Americans' perceptions of the Atomic Bombings) *See Blog Post below - Beneath the Bombs of August



                                                 

HAM, PAUL. (2014) Hiroshima and Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath (Major account packed with facts and leavened by the author's humanity) *See Blog Post below - Russia/USSR Factor in US Atomic Bombing




                                                   

                                                 

HASEGAWA, TSUYOSHI. (2005) Racing the Enemy (The author who researched the records and the evidence in Russian, Japanese and American archives and is fluent in all three languages, cites the declaration of war by the USSR as causing Japan to capitulate. Tokyo was not ready to capitulate before Hiroshima nor was it ready to surrender after Nagasaki. "Hasegawa has changed my mind. The Japanese decision to surrender was not driven by the two bombings." - Richard Rhodes)
















                                                      

KAPLAN, FRED. (1983) The Wizards of Armageddon (Reveals the secret world of nuclear strategists, an alarmingly small circle)
                                                   

                                                 
                                                   

LETTOW, PAUL. (2005) Ronald Reagan and His Quest to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (Reagan's surprising, strong commitment to Abolition, The Reykjavik Summit)




                                                    

LOWN, BERNARD, MD. (2008) Prescription For Survival (A founder of the Physicians' Movement for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize)



                                                    

                                                      

McNAMARA, ROBERT. (1986) Blundering Into Disaster (On the ever increasing risk of Nuclear War, by the former Sec. of Defense)



                                               

PERRY, WILLIAM J. (2015) My Journey at the Nuclear Brink (From our former Sec. of Defense and one of the Wall St Journal "Op Ed" four, with George Shultz, Sam Nunn, Henry Kissinger who have written of the dangers of Nuclear Weapons today. The book is dedicated by the author to: "our children, grandchildren and great-grandchild who have given me the best of all reasons to continue my work to ensure that Nuclear Weapons are never used again.")



                                                

RHODES, RICHARD. (1986) The Making of the Atomic Bomb
__________________. (1995) Dark Sun
__________________. (2007) Arsenals of Folly
(The Essential trilogy on the A-Bomb, the H-Bomb and the dangerous folly of our continued contemplation of their use)
RHODES, RICHARD. (2010) The Twilight of the Bombs: Recent Challenges, New Dangers, and the Prospects for a World Without  Nuclear Weapons (The author's urgent last word on the subject and his hopes for Abolition)




                                                    

ROSENBAUM, RON. (2011) How the End Begins: The Road to a Nuclear World War III (Chilling, realistic scenarios of The End - unless we do something about the danger soon)




                                                 

SAGAN, CARL. (1990) A Path Where No Man Thought: Nuclear Winter (From the author and TV host of Cosmos.Groundbreaking scientific study and analysis of the catastrophic effects of even a "limited" Nuclear War - "Nearly all Americans will die."




                                                     

SCHEER, ROBERT. (1982) With Enough Shovels (Presents the absolute lunacy of "Civil Defense" plans in the event of a Nuclear War in the early years of the Reagan administration, later abandoned in favor of abolition summitry and Reykjavik)




                                                 

SCARRY, ELAINE. (2014) Thermonuclear Monarchy (Using, for example, President Nixon's statement at a White House party that he had the power to kill 70 million people in 25 minutes, the author decries that power now vested, unconstitutionally she argues, in the hands of the President of the United States)





                                                   

SCHELL, JONATHAN. (2000) The Fate of the Earth and The Abolition
___________________  (2007) The Seventh Decade: The New Shape of the Nuclear Danger
(Cogent, Passionate, Eloquent. By the late, great author writing to and for all of us. First appeared in The New Yorker, 1982, 1984, respectively)





                               
                                                      

                                             

SCHLOSSER, ERIC. (2013) Command And Control (From the Damascus, Arkansas, Titan II "accident" of 1980 and back and forth in time through our many near Nuclear Weapons Armageddons when nuclear bombs fell from the sky, crashed in planes, and were lost" at sea, among many outrageously dangerous mishaps. Not to mention the numerous "false alarms" and near launches of these weapons. Command And Control is really about the frightening lack of same with our Nuclear Arsenal. A NYTS Bestseller. Now an Academy Award nominated documentary available on DVD)

                                                
SHULTZ, GEORGE. (2015) The War That Must Never Be Fought (Pres. Reagan's Sec. of State and his call for the honoring of the NPT Treaty (Nuclear Non-Proliferation) signed over 40 years ago by the then Nuclear Weapons nations - which calls for a Grand Bargain between the Nuclear Weapons haves and have-nots - Disarmament by the former in exchange for non-proliferation by the latter. The have-nots have kept their part of the bargain but are growing impatient - thus the Marshall Islands Lawsuit against the Nuclear Weapons States.



                                                   

TAUBMAN, PHILIP. (2012) The Partnership: Five Cold Warriors and Their Quest to Ban the Bomb (The "Gang of Five" of Henry Kissinger, Sam Nunn, William Perry, George Shultz and Sidney Drell, who decided to go public with their call to dismantle the very Nuclear Weapons System that they helped to construct)




                                                  

                                                    

WILLS, GARY. (2011) Bomb Power (How the sheer destructive power of the Bomb has adversely shaped the Office of the Presidency)




                                                

WILSON, WARD. (2013) Five Myths About Nuclear Weapons (Demolishes the main myths that would have us believe that Nuclear Weapons are worth the risk)




                                                     

WITTNER, LAWRENCE S. (1997) Resisting the Bomb: A History of the World Nuclear Disarmament Movement (Traces the development of the grassroots international movement for the Abolition of Nuclear Weapons)

All of the above volumes can be purchased from the usual suspects: B&N, Amazon, ABE Books, assorted "market place" booksellers on line, or can be found at your local library.

BE INFORMED. POST YOUR POSITION. TALK ABOUT IT. TWEET ABOUT IT. COMMENT HERE.

THE GREATEST IS GONE

"I read the news today, oh boy." If you are of an age to know those words from John Lennon's "A Day in the Life", you are of an age to have had Muhammad Ali as an iconic part of your life. Most of us "read the news" this morning after hoping he would last one more round through the night. Larger than Life. Mourned in death. Farewell and Rest In Peace

Highly Recommended:
WHEN WE WERE KINGS, Academy Award winning documentary on "The Rumble in the Jungle" George Foreman fight. Appearances by Norman Mailer and George Plimpton. On DVD



THE FIGHT, Norman Mailer, (1975) the author's book on the Ali upset of Foreman. Hard to find a better match than Mailer's words with Ali's skills in the ring and larger than life image.

KING OF THE HILL, Norman Mailer,1971, but printed again as the first essay in Mailer's EXISTENTIAL ERRANDS, 1972. The author, this time, on the titanic first Ali-Frazier fight at Madison Square Garden: 

KING OF THE WORLD, (1998) David Remnick, easily the best book I've read on the Champ by the New Yorker editor/writer.

"..the punch he (Ali) let go in the fifteenth came in like a wrecking ball from outer space." (Mailer on Ali's miraculous, fight-winning round 15 Knock Out against Oscar Bonavena to set up the Ali-Frazier Fight)

Note to Readers: Returning to regular blog posts next week. Thank you.

CLICKING DELETE: NUCLEAR WEAPONS AND THE END OF OUR WORLD

At Hiroshima the President laments the "technology" that led to the atomic bombings and that has brought us to the Nuclear Precipice:
"The scientific revolution that led to the splitting of an atom requires moral revolution as well." He mentions a "future that we can choose" and "the start of our own moral awakening."

Sorry, Mr President that is NOT the solution to the problem.We cannot change who we are as human beings. We cannot change our nature nor do we have the time for such a "revolution". Nuclear Weapons Must Go and they must go NOW. 

"The indefinite combination of human fallibility and Nuclear Weapons carries a high risk of potential catastrophe."-Robert McNamara, former Sec of Defense

We carry these catastrophic weapons with us like sidearms with unlocked triggers. Warheads on hair trigger alert. They are with us when we sleep, when we awake, when we head out for the day with the belief that our homes, our families and our world will be there when we return. On those two awful August days in 1945 the people of those cities did the same. We know what happened. It will happen again to all of us next time and to all of the unborn generations IF we continue in our cozy complacency.

"It's amazing that we're all still here."-Dr. Helen Caldicott, anti- nuclear weapons advocate

While we may agree with Martin Luther King that the "moral arc of the universe is long", we must realize that in this case it will not be long enough.We cannot keep kicking the Nuclear Weapons can down that dead end road. Everyday that we do so is a "hold your breath and hope for the best day."
President Obama's words are empty. Devoid as they are of any specific measures to end these holocaust creating Nuclear Weapons in our time. In fact, he is proposing just the opposite - an inane, insane "modernization" program for these killer weapons.

Winston Churchill once spoke of "the long lamentable catalog of human crime." Knowing our history of endless warfare, genocide and Holocaust who can honestly believe that these horrific weapons will never be used. 
That a world leader somewhere, sometime, will not Click on the final DELETE button. Yes, that fast! Everything over and ended with a keyboard click. Whether by design or by accident or miscalculation - will not matter.

"The world was not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution." President John F. Kennedy

Nuclear weapons are sui generis. There has never been anything like them.
"Weapons like this have never existed before in history and they cannot be allowed to exist. If we do not get rid of them, sooner or later they will be used." Mikhail Gorbachev, former Premier of USSR and Nobel Peace Prize recipient, interview August 2015

From Pope Francis, speech at the United Nations, Sept 2015:
"The urgent need for a world free of Nuclear Weapons with the goal of a complete prohibition of these weapons."

Be informed. Read. Think. Watch. Post. Tweet. Share. Comment.

NUCLEAR WEAPONS ABOLITION IN OUR TIME