US nuke airmen cheated on proficiency test

[David Guyatt]

What a pleasant thought...

US Air Force suspend 34 airman manning critical nuclear missile launch sites after discovering they cheated on proficiency tests by text






In the wake of the finding at the Malstrom base in Montana, the Air Force has begun re-testing all of those still assigned to the nuclear arsenal

DAVID USBORNE

Thursday 16 January 2014

An embarrassed US Air Force has been forced to act after supervisors uncovered a cheating ring among crew members manning critical launch sites at one of its nuclear missile bases.

The men were allegedly exchanging answers to mandatory monthly proficiency tests by text message.
A total of 34 airmen have been removed from their posts and stripped of their security clearance at the Malstrom Air Force base in Montana, one of three in the US that maintains 450 ready-to-launch nuclear missiles.
The officers implicated, accounting for nearly 20 per cent of the entire missile crew on the base, were either directly involved in the cheating, officials said, or knew it was going on and failed to report it.
The Air Force Chief of Staff, General Mark Welsh, said the ring may have been largest ever uncovered among those looking after America's nuclear missiles. "We do not know of an incident of this scale involving cheating in the missile force," he said.
The discovery is just one more in a series of scandals to have hit US missile operations in recent months and undermined public confidence in them.
The cheating came to light last week as the Air Force was pursuing a probe of 10 airmen, now expanded to 11, accused of recreational drug use. Those identified in the drugs investigation were stationed at a variety of bases across the United States and also at RAF Lakenheath in the UK.
Early last year, 17 airmen assigned to work in the underground capsules where the missiles are monitored and prepared for possible launch were quietly reassigned at Minot Air Force Base in North Dakota after the wing scored a "D" in a general competence assessment.
At the time, the group's commander spoke in an email of "rot" in the ranks and rock-bottom morale. In a separate incident last October, a two-star general who was in command of all of America's nuclear missile capacity was dismissed because of undisclosed "personal behaviour" issues.
"Cheating or tolerating others who cheat runs counter to everything we believe in as a service. People at every level will be held accountable if and where appropriate," General Welsh told reporters at the Pentagon while insisting that the answer-sharing would not have materially affected the security of the missiles.
"This is not about the compromise of nuclear weapons. It's about compromise of the integrity of some of our airmen," he said
The Air Force Secretary, Deborah James, also sought to play down the security aspect of the affair. "This was a failure of integrity on the part of some of our airmen," she said. "It was not a failure of our nuclear mission."
In the wake of the discovery, the US Air Force began re-testing all of those still assigned to the nuclear arsenal. All of those tests, involving 600 crew members across the country, were to have been completed this week.
While during the Cold War the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, ICBM, arsenal was at the heart of America's defensive pose, today there is little reason for the men watching over it to imagine that they will ever participate in an actual launch.
Earlier this month, the US Defence Secretary, Chuck Hagel, paid what was meant to be a morale-boosting visit to the Francis E Warren base in Wyoming, also home to some of the missiles.
"You've… chosen a profession where there's no room for error. In what you do every day, there is no room for error. None," Mr Hagel told the airmen in a pep talk.

[Peter Lemkin]

Hey Joe?! What does this big red button that says 'ARM ONLY UPON AUTHORIZATION FROM COMMAND AUTHORITY' for again?!............::

[Magda Hassan]

Reassuring to know that the future of all life on this planet is in the hands of such high quality ethical and capable people. ::boom::::throwbomb::::pullhairout::::willynilly::::headexplode::

[Peter Lemkin]

Reassuring to know that the future of all life on this planet is in the hands of such high quality ethical and capable people. ::boom::::throwbomb::::pullhairout::::willynilly::::headexplode::

Oh yeah! All of you not so 'lucky' to be American [The Exceptional Peoples] can sleep soundly and rest assured that all is well with the World and the Nukes, etc. - they are in competent hands and the democratic decision makers make only decisions that a benevolent god would make. We surely are exceptional!......::bowtie::

Somewhere in my collection of papers there is a good authoritative review of all the nuke accidents and missing nukes and missing plutonium [!] in USA - WWII to present...not a pretty picture....as many of the weapons or weapon's grade materials are still 'missing'! - and there were many near war-provoking accidents or nuclear explosions.

With such unethical under-trained idiots with their fingers on the buttons, literally, and such unethical ahistoric imperialist war-mongering monsters as their command officers, anything could happen anytime......and eventually will. You think its hot in Oz now....just wait! Radioactive rain feels so nice on the skin....it tickles! You'll laugh yourself to death!

[Peter Lemkin]

This is not the article I was referring to....but a quick find on Wiki - bad enough......and FAR FROM COMPLETE!::fury::

(PARTIAL) List of military nuclear accidents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


This article lists notable military accidents involving nuclear material. Civilian accidents are listed at List of civilian nuclear accidents. For a general discussion of both civilian and military accidents, see nuclear and radiation accidents.
See also: Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents

Contents

[hide]

• 1 Scope of this article
  
• 2 1940s
  
• 3 1950s
  
• 4 1960s
  
• 5 1970s
  
• 6 1980s
  
• 7 1990s
  
• 8 2000s
  
• 9 See also
  
• 10 Notes and references
  
• 11 Bibliography
  
• 12 External links
  

Scope of this article[edit]

In listing military nuclear accidents, the following criteria have been adopted:

1. There must be well-attested and substantial health damage, property damage or contamination.
   
2. The damage must be related directly to radioactive material, not merely (for example) at a nuclear power plant.
   
3. To qualify as "military", the nuclear operation/material must be principally for military purposes.
   
4. To qualify as "accident", the damage should not be intentional, unlike in nuclear warfare.
   

1940s[edit]

• June 23, 1942 Leipzig, Germany (then Nazi Germany) Steam explosion and reactor fire*
  • Shortly after the Leipzig L-IV atomic pile worked on by Werner Heisenberg and Robert Doepel demonstrated Germany's first signs of neutron propagation, the device was checked for a possible heavy water leak. During the inspection, air leaked in, igniting the uranium powder inside. The burning uranium boiled the water jacket, generating enough steam pressure to blow the reactor apart. Burning uranium powder scattered throughout the lab causing a larger fire at the facility.[SUP][1][/SUP][SUP][2][/SUP]
    

A sketch of Louis Slotin's criticality accident used to determine exposure of those in the room at the time.

• August 21, 1945 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA Accidental criticality
  • Harry K. Daghlian, Jr. dropped a tungsten carbide brick onto a plutonium core, inadvertently creating a critical mass at the Los Alamos Omega site. He quickly removed the brick, but was fatally irradiated, dying September 15.[SUP][3][/SUP]
    
  
  
• May 21, 1946 Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA Accidental criticality
  • While demonstrating his technique to visiting scientists at Los Alamos, Canadian physicist Louis Slotin manually assembled a critical mass of plutonium. A momentary slip of a screwdriver caused a prompt critical reaction. Slotin died on May 30 from massive radiation poisoning, with an estimated dose of 1,000 rads (rad), or 10 grays (Gy). Seven observers, who received doses as high as 166 rads, survived, yet three died within a few decades from conditions believed to be radiation-related.[SUP][4][/SUP]
    

In the above incidents, both Daghlian (August 21, 1945 case) and Slotin (May 21, 1946 case), were working with the same bomb core which became known as the "demon core", which was eventually utilized for the Able test detonation on July 1, 1946.

1950s[edit]

• A USAF B-36 bomber, AF Ser. No. 44-92075, was flying a simulated combat mission from Eielson Air Force Base, near Fairbanks, Alaska, to Carswell Air Force Base in Fort Worth, Texas, carrying one weapon containing a dummy warhead. The warhead contained uranium instead of plutonium. After six hours of flight, the bomber experienced mechanical problems and was forced to shut down three of its six engines at an altitude of 12,000 feet (3,700 m). Fearing that severe weather and icing would jeopardize a safe emergency landing, the weapon was jettisoned over the Pacific Ocean from a height of 8,000 ft (2,400 m). The weapon's high explosives detonated upon impact. All of the sixteen crew members and one passenger were able to parachute from the plane and twelve were subsequently rescued from Princess Royal Island. The Pentagon's summary report does not mention if the weapon was later recovered.[SUP][5][/SUP]
  
• April 11, 1950 Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA Loss and recovery of nuclear materials
  • Three minutes after departure from Kirtland Air Force Base in Albuquerque a USAF B-29 bomber carrying a nuclear weapon, four spare detonators, and a crew of thirteen crashed into a mountain near Manzano Base. The crash resulted in a fire which the New York Times reported as being visible from 15 miles (24 km). The bomb's casing was completely demolished and its high explosives ignited upon contact with the plane's burning fuel. However, according to the Department of Defense, the four spare detonators and all nuclear components were recovered. A nuclear detonation was not possible because, while on board, the weapon's core was not in the weapon for safety reasons. All thirteen crew members died.[SUP][5][/SUP]
    
  
  
• July 13, 1950 Lebanon, Ohio, USA Non-nuclear detonation of an atomic bomb
  • USAF B-50 aircraft on a training mission from Biggs Air Force Base with a nuclear weapon flew into the ground resulting in a high explosive detonation, but no nuclear explosion.[SUP][6][/SUP]
    
  
  
• November 10, 1950 Rivière-du-Loup, Québec, Canada Non-nuclear detonation of an atomic bomb
  • Returning one of several U.S. Mark 4 nuclear bombs secretly deployed in Canada, a USAF B-50 had engine trouble and jettisoned the weapon at 10,500 feet (3,200 m). The crew set the bomb to self-destruct at 2,500 ft (760 m) and dropped over the St. Lawrence River. The explosion shook area residents and scattered nearly 100 pounds (45 kg) of uranium (U-238) used in the weapon's tamper. The plutonium core ("pit") was not in the bomb at the time.[SUP][7][/SUP]
    

The Castle Bravo fallout pattern.

• March 1, 1954 Bikini Atoll, Republic of the Marshall Islands (then Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands) Nuclear test accident
  • During the Castle Bravo test of the first deployable hydrogen bomb, a miscalculation resulted in the explosion being over twice as large as predicted, with a total explosive force of 15megatons of TNT (63 PJ). Of the total yield, 10 Mt (42 PJ) were from fission of the natural uranium tamper, but those fission reactions were quite dirty, producing a large amount of fallout. Combined with the much larger than expected yield and an unanticipated wind shift radioactive fallout was spread eastward onto the inhabited Rongelap and Rongerik Atolls. These islands were not evacuated before the explosion due to the financial cost involved, but many of the Marshall Islands natives have since suffered from radiation burns and radioactive dusting and also similar fates as the Japanese fishermen and have received little if any compensation from the federal government[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]. A Japanese fishing boat, Daigo Fukuryu Maru/Lucky Dragon, also came into contact with the fallout, which caused many of the crew to take ill with one fatality. The test resulted in an international uproar and reignited Japanese concerns about radiation, especially with regard to the possible contamination of fish. Personal accounts of the Rongelap people can be seen in the documentary Children of Armageddon.
    
  
  
• November 29, 1955 Idaho, USA Partial meltdown
  • Operator error led to a partial core meltdown in the experimental EBR-I breeder reactor, resulting in temporarily elevated radioactivity levels in the reactor building and necessitating significant repair.[SUP][8][/SUP][SUP][9][/SUP]
    
  
  
• March 10, 1956 Over the Mediterranean Sea Nuclear weapons lost
  • A USAF B-47 Stratojet, AF Ser. No. 52-534, on a non-stop mission from MacDill Air Force Base to an overseas base descended into a cloud formation at 14,000 feet over the Mediterranean in preparation for an in-air refuelling and vanished while carrying two nuclear weapon cores. The plane was lost while flying through dense clouds, and the cores and other wreckage were never located.[SUP][10][/SUP][SUP][11][/SUP][SUP][12][/SUP]
    
  
  
• July 27, 1956 Lakenheath in Suffolk, UK Nuclear weapons damaged
  • A USAF B-47 crashed into a storage igloo spreading burning fuel over three Mark 6 nuclear bombs at RAF Lakenheath. A bomb disposal expert stated it was a miracle exposed detonators on one bomb did not fire, which presumably would have released nuclear material into the environment.[SUP][13][/SUP]
    
  
  
• May 22, 1957 Kirtland AFB in New Mexico, USA Non-nuclear detonation of an atomic weapon
  • A B-36 ferrying a nuclear weapon from Biggs AFB to Kirtland AFB dropped a nuclear weapon on approach to Kirtland AFB. The weapon impacted the ground 4.5 miles south of the Kirtland control tower and 0.3 miles west of the Sandia Base reservation. The weapon was completely destroyed by the detonation of its high explosive material, creating a crater 12 feet deep and 25 feet in diameter. Radioactive contamination at the crater lip amounted to 0.5 milliroentgen.[SUP][12][/SUP]
    
  
  
• July 28, 1957 Atlantic Ocean Two weapons jettisoned and not recovered
  • A USAF C-124 aircraft from Dover Air Force Base, Delaware was carrying three nuclear bombs over the Atlantic Ocean when it experienced a loss of power. The crew jettisoned two nuclear bombs to protect their safety, which were never recovered.[SUP][6][/SUP]
    
  
  
• September 11, 1957 Rocky Flats Plant, Golden, Colorado, USA Fire, release of nuclear materials
  • A fire began in a materials handling glove box and spread through the ventilation system into the stack filters at the Rocky Flats weapons mill 27 kilometres (17 mi) from Denver, Colorado. Plutonium and other contaminants were released, but the exact amount of which contaminants is unknown; estimates range from 25 mg to 250 kg.[SUP][14][/SUP][SUP][15][/SUP][SUP][16][/SUP][SUP][17][/SUP]
    
  
  
• 29 September 1957 Kyshtym, Chelyabinsk Oblast, Russia (then USSR) Explosion, release of nuclear materials
  • See Kyshtym disaster. A cooling system failure at the Mayak nuclear processing plant resulted in a major explosion and release of radioactive materials. Hundreds of people died and hundreds of thousands were evacuated.[SUP][18][/SUP]
    
  
  
• October 812, 1957 Sellafield, Cumbria, UK Reactor core fire
  • See Windscale fire. Technicians mistakenly overheated Windscale Pile No. 1 during an annealing process to release Wigner energy from graphite portions of the reactor. Poorly placed temperature sensors indicated the reactor was cooling rather than heating. The excess heat led to the failure of a nuclear cartridge, which in turn allowed uranium and irradiated graphite to react with air. The resulting fire burned for days, damaging a significant portion of the reactor core. About 150 burning fuel cells could not be lifted from the core, but operators succeeded in creating a firebreak by removing nearby fuel cells. An effort to cool the graphite core with water eventually quenched the fire. The reactor had released radioactive gases into the surrounding countryside, primarily in the form of iodine-131 ([SUP]131[/SUP]I). Milk distribution was banned in a 200-square-mile (520 km[SUP]2[/SUP]) area around the reactor for several weeks. A 1987 report by the National Radiological Protection Board predicted the accident would cause as many as 33 long-term cancer deaths, although the Medical Research Council Committee concluded that "it is in the highest degree unlikely that any harm has been done to the health of anybody, whether a worker in the Windscale plant or a member of the general public." The reactor that burned was one of two air-cooled graphite-moderated natural uranium reactors at the site used for production of plutonium.[SUP][19][/SUP][SUP][20][/SUP][SUP][21][/SUP]
    

• October 11, 1957 Homestead Air Force Base, Florida Nuclear bomb burned after B-47 aircraft accident[SUP][22][/SUP]
  • B-47 aircraft crashed during take-off after a wheel exploded; one nuclear bomb burned in the resulting fire.
    
  
  
• January 31, 1958 Morocco Nuclear bomb damaged in crash[SUP][22][/SUP]
  • During a simulated takeoff a wheel casting failure caused the tail of a USAF B-47 carrying an armed nuclear weapon to hit the runway, rupturing a fuel tank and sparking a fire. Some contamination was detected immediately following the accident.[SUP][23][/SUP][SUP][24][/SUP]
    
  
  
• February 5, 1958 Savannah, Georgia, USA Nuclear bomb lost
  • See 1958 Tybee Island mid-air collision. A USAF B-47 bomber jettisoned a Mark 15 Mod 0 nuclear bomb over the Atlantic Ocean after a midair collision with a USAF F-86 Sabre during a simulated combat mission fromHomestead Air Force Base, Florida. The F-86's pilot ejected and parachuted to safety. The USAF claimed the B-47 tried landing at Hunter Air Force Base, Georgia three times before the bomb was jettisoned at 7,200 ft (2,200 m) near Tybee Island, Georgia. The B-47 pilot successfully landed in one attempt only after he first jettisoned the bomb. A 3-square-mile (7.8 km[SUP]2[/SUP]) area near Wassaw Sound was searched for 9 weeks before the search was called off. The bomb was searched for in 2001 and not found. A group of investigators in 2004 claim to have found an underwater object which they think is the bomb.[SUP][25][/SUP]
    
  
  
• March 11, 1958 Mars Bluff, South Carolina, USA Non-nuclear detonation of a nuclear bomb
  • A USAF B-47 bomber flying from Hunter Air Force Base in Savannah, Georgia accidentally released an atomic bomb.[SUP][26][/SUP] A home was destroyed and several people injured but the bomb's plutonium core did not explode.[SUP][27][/SUP]
    
  
  
• June 16, 1958 Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA Accidental criticality
  • A supercritical portion of highly enriched uranyl nitrate was allowed to collect in the drum causing a prompt neutron criticality in the C-1 wing of building 9212 at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory Y-12 complex. It is estimated that the reaction produced 1.3 × 10[SUP]18[/SUP] fissions. Eight employees were in close proximity to the drum during the accident, receiving neutron doses ranging from 30 to 477 rems. No fatalities were reported.[SUP][28][/SUP]
    
  
  
• December 30, 1958 Los Alamos, New Mexico, USA Accidental criticality
  • During chemical purification a critical mass of a plutonium solution was accidentally assembled at Los Alamos National Laboratory. A chemical operator named Cecil Kelley died of acute radiation sickness. The March, 1961 Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine printed a special supplement medically analyzing this accident. Hand-manipulations of critical assemblies were abandoned as a matter of policy in U.S. federal facilities after this accident.[SUP][28][/SUP]
    
  
  
• November 20, 1959 Oak Ridge, Tennessee, USA Explosion
  • A chemical explosion occurred during decontamination of processing machinery in the radiochemical processing plant at Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee . (Report ORNL-2989, Oak Ridge National Laboratory). The accident resulted in the release of about 15 grams (0.53 oz) of [SUP]239[/SUP]Pu.
    

1960s[edit]

• June 7, 1960 New Egypt, New Jersey, USA Nuclear warhead damaged by fire
  • A helium tank exploded and ruptured the fuel tanks of a USAF BOMARC-A surface-to-air missile at McGuire Air Force Base, New Jersey. The fire destroyed the missile, and contaminated the area directly below and adjacent to the missile.[SUP][24][/SUP][SUP][29][/SUP]
    
  
  
• October 13, 1960 Barents Sea, Arctic Ocean Release of nuclear materials
  • A leak developed in the steam generators and in a pipe leading to the compensator reception on the ill-fated K-8 while the Soviet Northern Fleet November-class submarine was on exercise. While the crew rigged an improvised cooling system, radioactive gases leaked into the vessel and three of the crew suffered visible radiation injuries according to radiological experts in Moscow. Some crew members had been exposed to doses of up to 1.82 Sv (180200 rem).[SUP][30][/SUP]
    

SL-1 reactor being removed from the National Reactor Testing Station.

• January 3, 1961 National Reactor Testing Station, Idaho, USA Accidental criticality, steam explosion, 3 fatalities, release of fission products
  • During a maintenance shutdown, the SL-1 experimental nuclear reactor underwent a prompt critical reaction causing core materials to explosively vaporize. Water hammerestimated at 10,000 pounds per square inch (69,000 kPa) struck the top of the reactor vessel propelling the entire reactor vessel upwards over 9 feet (2.7 m) in the air. One operator who had been standing on top of the vessel was killed when a shield plug impaled him and lodged in the ceiling. Two other military personnel were also killed from the trauma of the explosion, one of which had removed the central control rod too far. The plant had to be dismantled and the contamination was buried permanently nearby. Most of the release of radioactive materials was concentrated within the reactor building.
    

For more details on this topic, see SL-1.

• January 24, 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash Physical destruction of a nuclear bomb, loss of nuclear materials
  • A USAF B-52 bomber caught fire and exploded in midair due to a major leak in a wing fuel cell 12 miles (19 km) north of Seymour Johnson Air Force Base, North Carolina. Five crewmen parachuted to safety, but three diedtwo in the aircraft and one on landing. The incident released the bomber's two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs. Three of the four arming devices on one of the bombs activated, causing it to carry out many of the steps needed to arm itself, such as the charging of the firing capacitors and, critically, the deployment of a 100-foot (30 m) diameter retardation parachute. The parachute allowed the bomb to hit the ground with little damage. The fourth arming device the pilot's safe/arm switch was not activated preventing detonation. The second bomb plunged into a muddy field at around 700 mph (300 m/s) and disintegrated. Its tail was discovered about 20 feet (6 m) down and much of the bomb recovered, including the tritium bottle and the plutonium. However, excavation was abandoned due to uncontrollable ground water flooding. Most of thethermonuclear stage, containing uranium, was left in situ. It is estimated to lie around 55 feet (17 m) below ground. The Air Force purchased the land and fenced it off to prevent its disturbance, and it is tested regularly for contamination, although none has so far been found.[SUP][31][/SUP]
    

• March 14, 1961 1961 Yuba City B-52 crash
  • USAF B-52 bomber experienced a decompression event that required it to fly below 10,000 feet. Resulting increased fuel consumption led to fuel exhaustion; the aircraft crashed with two nuclear bombs, which did not trigger a nuclear explosion.
    

• July 4, 1961 coast of Norway Near meltdown
  • The Soviet Hotel-class submarine K-19 suffered a failure in its cooling system. Reactor core temperatures reached 800 °C (1,500 °F), nearly enough to melt the fuel rods, although the crew was able to regain temperature control by using emergency procedures. The incident contaminated parts of the ship, some of the onboard ballistic missiles and the crew, resulting in several fatalities. The movie K-19: The Widowmaker, starring Harrison Ford and Liam Neeson, offers a controversially fictionalized story of these events.
    

• May 1, 1962 Sahara desert, French Algeria Accidental venting of underground nuclear test
  • The second French underground nuclear test, codenamed Béryl, took place in a shaft under mount Taourirt, near In Ecker, 150 km (100 mi) north of Tamanrasset, Algerian Sahara. Due to improper sealing of the shaft, a spectacular flame burst through the concrete cap and radioactive gases and dust were vented into the atmosphere. The plume climbed up to 2600 m (8500 ft) high and radiation was detected hundreds of km away. About a hundred soldiers and officials, including two ministers, were irradiated. The number of contaminated Algerians is unknown.
    

• April 10, 1963 Loss of nuclear reactor
  • Submarine USS Thresher sinks about 190 nmi (220 mi; 350 km) east of Cape Cod, Massachusetts due to improper welds allowing in seawater which forced a shutdown of the reactor. Poor design of its emergency ballast system prevented the ship from surfacing and the disabled ship ultimately descended to crush depth and imploded.
    

• January 13, 1964 Salisbury, Pennsylvania and Frostburg, Maryland, USA Accidental loss and recovery of thermonuclear bombs
  • A USAF B-52 on airborne alert duty encountered a severe winter storm and extreme turbulence, ultimately disintegrating in mid-air over South Central Pennsylvania.[SUP][32][/SUP] Only the two pilots survived. One crew member failed to bail out and the rest succumbed to injuries or exposure to the harsh winter weather. A search for the missing weapons was initiated, and recovery was effected from portions of the wreckage at a farm northwest of Frostburg, MD.
    

• April 21, 1964 Indian Ocean Launch failure of a RTG powered satellite
  • A U.S. Transit-5BN-3 nuclear-powered navigational satellite failed to reach orbital velocity and began falling back down at 150,000 feet (46 km) above the Indian Ocean.[SUP][33][/SUP] The satellite's SNAP-9a generator contained 17 kCi (630 TBq)[SUP][34][/SUP] of [SUP]238[/SUP]Pu (2.1 pounds), which at least partially burned upon reentry.[SUP][35][/SUP][SUP][36][/SUP][SUP][37][/SUP][SUP][38][/SUP] Increased levels of [SUP]238[/SUP]Pu were first documented in the stratosphere four months later. Indeed NASA (in the 1995 Cassini FEIS)[SUP][34][/SUP] indicated that the SNAP-9a plutonium release was nearly double the 9000Ci added by all the atmospheric weapons tests to that date.[SUP][39][/SUP][SUP][40][/SUP] The United States Atomic Energy Commission reported a resulting threefold increase in global [SUP]238[/SUP]Pu fallout.[SUP][41][/SUP][SUP][42][/SUP] All subsequent Transit satellites were fitted with solar panels; RTG's were designed to remain contained during re-entry.
    

• 8 December 1964 Bunker Hill Air Force Base, USA Fire, radioactive contamination
  • USAF B-58 aircraft carrying a nuclear weapon caught fire while taxiing. Nuclear weapon burned, causing contamination of the crash area.[SUP][6][/SUP]
    

• January 1965 Livermore, California, USA Release of nuclear materials
  • An accident at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory released 300 kCi (11 PBq) of tritium gas. Subsequent study found this release was not likely to produce adverse health effects in the surrounding communities.[SUP][43][/SUP]
    

• 11 October 1965 Rocky Flats Plant, Golden, Colorado, USA Fire, exposure of workers
  • A fire at Rocky Flats exposed a crew of 25 to up to 17 times the legal limit for radiation.
    

• December 5, 1965 coast of Japan Loss of a nuclear bomb
  • A U.S. Navy A-4E Skyhawk aircraft with one B43 nuclear bomb on board fell off the aircraft carrier Ticonderoga into 16,200 feet (4,900 m) of water while the ship was underway from Vietnam to Yokosuka, Japan. The plane, pilot and weapon were never recovered. There is dispute over exactly where the incident took placethe U.S. Defense Department originally stated it took place 500 miles (800 km) off the coast of Japan, but Navydocuments later show it happened about 80 miles (130 km) from the Ryukyu Islands and 200 miles (320 km) from Okinawa.[SUP][44][/SUP]
    

• January 17, 1966 Palomares incident Accidental destruction, loss and recovery of nuclear bombs
  • A USAF B-52 carrying four hydrogen bombs collided with a USAF KC-135 jet tanker during over-ocean in-flight refueling. Four of the B-52's seven crew members parachuted to safety while the remaining three were killed along with all four of the KC-135's crew. The conventional explosives in two of the bombs detonated upon impact with the ground, dispersing plutonium over nearby farms. A third bomb landed intact near Palomares while the fourth fell 12 miles (19 km) off the coast into the Mediterranean sea. The US Navy conducted a three-month search involving 12,000 men and successfully recovered the fourth bomb. The U.S. Navy employed the use of the deep-diving research submarine DSV Alvin to aid in the recovery efforts. During the ensuing cleanup, 1,500 tonnes (1,700 short tons) of radioactive soil and tomato plants were shipped to a nuclear dump in Aiken, South Carolina. The U.S. settled claims by 522 Palomares residents for $600,000. The town also received a $200,000 desalinization plant. The motion picture Men of Honor (2000), starring Cuba Gooding, Jr., as USN Diver Carl Brashear, and Robert De Niro as USN Diver Billy Sunday, contained an account of the fourth bomb's recovery.[SUP][45][/SUP]
    

• January 21, 1968 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash, Greenland Loss and partial recovery of nuclear bombs
  • A fire broke out in the navigator's compartment of a USAF B-52 near Thule Air Base, Greenland. The bomber crashed 7 miles (11 km) from the air base, rupturing its nuclear payload of four hydrogen bombs. The recovery and decontamination effort was complicated by Greenland's harsh weather. Contaminated ice and debris were buried in the United States. Bomb fragments were recycled by Pantex, in Amarillo, Texas. The incident caused outrage and protests in Denmark, as Greenland is a Danish possession and Denmark forbade nuclear weapons on its territory.
    

• May 22, 1968 740 km (400 nmi) southwest of the Azores Loss of nuclear reactor and two W34 nuclear warheads
  • The USS Scorpion (SSN-589) sank while en route from Rota, Spain, to Naval Base Norfolk. The cause of sinking remains unknown; all 99 officers and men on board were killed. The wreckage of the ship, its S5W reactor, and its two Mark 45 torpedoes with W34 nuclear warheads, remain on the sea floor in more than 3,000 m (9,800 ft) of water.
    

• May 24, 1968 location unknown Loss of cooling, radioactive contamination, nuclear fuel damaged
  • During sea trials the Soviet nuclear submarine K-27 (Project 645) suffered severe problems with its reactor cooling systems. After spending some time at reduced power, reactor output inexplicably dropped and sensors detected an increase of gamma radiation in the reactor compartment to 150 rad/h. The safety buffer tank released radioactive gases further contaminating the submarine. The crew shut the reactor down and subsequent investigation found that approximately 20% of the fuel assemblies were damaged. The entire submarine was scuttled in the Kara Sea in 1981.
    

• August 27, 1968 Severodvinsk, Russia (then USSR) Reactor power excursion, contamination
  • While in the naval yards at Severodvinsk for repairs Soviet Yankee-class nuclear submarine K-140 suffered an uncontrolled increase of the reactor's power output. One of the reactors activated automatically when workers raised control rods to a higher position and power increased to 18 times normal, while pressure and temperature levels in the reactor increased to four times normal. The accident also increased radiation levels aboard the vessel. The problem was traced to the incorrect installation of control rod electrical cables.
    

• May 11, 1969 Rocky Flats Plant, Golden, Colorado, USA Plutonium fire, contamination
  • An accident in which 5 kilograms of plutonium burnt inside a glovebox at Rocky Flats. Cleanup took two years and was the costliest industrial accident ever to occur in the United States at that time.[SUP][46][/SUP][SUP][47][/SUP][SUP][48][/SUP]
    

1970s[edit]

• April 12, 1970 Bay of Biscay Loss of a nuclear submarine
  • The Soviet November-class attack submarine K-8 sank during salvage with 52 sailors onboard after suffering fires in two compartments simultaneously. Both reactors were shut down. The crew attempted to hook a tow line to an Eastern Bloc merchant vessel, but ultimately failed.[SUP][49][/SUP]
    

Baneberry's radioactive plume rises from a shock fissure. Contaminants were carried in three different directions by the wind.

• December 18, 1970 Nevada Test Site Accidental venting of nuclear explosion
  • In Area 8 on Yucca Flat, the 10 kiloton "Baneberry" weapons test of Operation Emery detonated as planned at the bottom of a sealed vertical shaft 900 feet below the Earth's surface but the device's energy cracked the soil in unexpected ways, causing a fissure near ground zero and the failure of the shaft stemming and cap.[SUP][50][/SUP] A plume of hot gases and radioactive dust was released three and a half minutes after ignition,[SUP][51][/SUP] and continuing for many hours, raining fallout on workers within NTS. Six percent of the explosion's radioactive products were vented. The plume released 6.7 MCi of radioactive material, including 80 kCi of Iodine-131 and a high ratio of noble gases.[SUP][52][/SUP] After dropping a portion of its load in the area, the hot cloud's lighter particles were carried to three altitudes and conveyed by winter storms and the jet stream to be deposited heavily as radionuclide-laden snow in Lassen and Sierra counties in northeast California, and to lesser degrees in northern Nevada, southern Idaho and some eastern sections of Oregon and Washington states.[SUP][53][/SUP] The three diverging jet stream layers conducted radionuclides across the US to Canada, the Gulf of Mexico and the Atlantic Ocean. Some 86 workers at the site were exposed to radioactivity, but according to the Department of Energy none received a dose exceeding site guidelines and, similarly, radiation drifting offsite was not considered to pose a hazard by the DOE.[SUP][54][/SUP] In March 2009, TIME magazineidentified the Baneberry Test as one of the world's worst nuclear disasters.[SUP][55][/SUP]
    
  
  
• December 12, 1971 New London, Connecticut, USA Spill of irradiated water
  • During the transfer of radioactive coolant water from the submarine USS Dace to the submarine tender USS Fulton 500 US gallons (1,900 l; 420 imp gal) were spilled into the Thames River (USA).
    
  
  
• December 1972 Pawling, New York, USA Contamination
  • A major fire and two explosions contaminated the plant and grounds of a plutonium fabrication facility resulting in a permanent shutdown.
    

• 1975 location unknown Contamination
  • Radioactive resin contaminates the American Sturgeon-class submarine USS Guardfish after wind unexpectedly blows the powder back towards the ship. The resin is used to remove dissolved radioactive minerals and particles from the primary coolant loops of submarines. This type of accident was fairly common; however, U.S. Navy nuclear vessels no longer discharge resin at sea.
    

• October 1975 Apra Harbor, Guam Spill of irradiated water
  • While disabled, the submarine tender USS Proteus discharged radioactive coolant water. A Geiger counter at two of the harbor's public beaches showed 100 millirems/hour, fifty times the allowable dose.[SUP][citation needed][/SUP]
    

• August 1976 Benton County, Washington, USA Explosion, contamination of worker
  • An explosion at the Hanford site Plutonium Finishing Plant blew out a quarter-inch-thick lead glass window. Harold McCluskey, a worker, was showered with nitric acid and radioactive glass. He inhaled the largest dose of[SUP]241[/SUP]Am ever recorded, about 500 times the U.S. government occupational standards. The worker was placed in isolation for five months and given an experimental drug to flush the isotope from his body. By 1977, his body's radiation count had fallen by about 80 percent. He died of natural causes in 1987 at age 75.[SUP][56][/SUP]
    

• 1977 coast of Kamchatka Loss and recovery of a nuclear warhead
  • The Soviet submarine K-171 accidentally released a nuclear warhead. The warhead was recovered after a search involving dozens of ships and aircraft.[SUP][57][/SUP]
    

• January 24, 1978 Northwest Territories, Canada Spill of nuclear fuel
  • Cosmos 954, a Soviet Radar Ocean Reconnaissance Satellite with an onboard nuclear reactor, failed to separate from its booster and broke up on reentry over Canada. The fuel was spread over a wide area and some radioactive pieces were recovered. The Soviet Union eventually paid the Canadian Government $3 million CAD for expenses relating to the crash.
    

• May 22, 1978 near Puget Sound, Washington, USA Spill of irradiated water
  • A valve was mistakenly opened aboard the submarine USS Puffer releasing up to 500 US gallons (1,900 l; 420 imp gal) of radioactive water.
    

1980s[edit]

• September 18, 1980 At about 6:30 p.m., an airman conducting maintenance on a USAF Titan-II missile at Little Rock Air Force Base's Launch Complex 374-7 in Southside (Van Buren County), just north of Damascus, Arkansas, dropped a socket from a socket wrench, which fell about 80 feet (24 m) before hitting and piercing the skin on the rocket's first-stage fuel tank, causing it to leak. The area was evacuated. At about 3:00 a.m., on September 19, 1980, the hypergolic fuel exploded. The W53 warhead landed about 100 feet (30 m) from the launch complex's entry gate; its safety features operated correctly and prevented any loss of radioactive material. An Air Force airman was killed and the launch complex was destroyed.[SUP][58][/SUP]
  
• August 8, 1982 While on duty in the Barents Sea, there was a release of liquid metal coolant from the reactor of the Soviet Project 705 Alfa-class submarine K-123. The accident was caused by a leak in the steam generator. Approximately two tons of metal alloy leaked into the reactor compartment, irreparably damaging the reactor such that it had to be replaced. It took nine years to repair the submarine.
  
• January 3, 1983 The Soviet nuclear-powered spy satellite Kosmos 1402 burns up over the South Atlantic.
  
• August 10, 1985 About 35 miles (56 km) from Vladivostok in Chazhma Bay, Soviet submarine K-431, a Soviet [url=http://en.w

[Peter Lemkin]

Exclusive: Journalist uses Freedom of Information Act to disclose 1961 accident in which one switch averted catastrophe

• 
  
• • Ed Pilkington
    
  • The Guardian, Friday 20 September 2013
    

The bomb that nearly exploded over North Carolina was 260 times more powerful than the device which devasted Hiroshima in 1945. Photo: Three Lions/Getty Images

A secret document, published in declassified form for the first time by the Guardian today, reveals that the US Air Force came dramatically close to detonating an atom bomb over North Carolina that would have been 260 times more powerful than the device that devastated Hiroshima.
The document, obtained by the investigative journalist Eric Schlosser under the Freedom of Information Act, gives the first conclusive evidence that the US was narrowly spared a disaster of monumental proportions when two Mark 39 hydrogen bombs were accidentally dropped over Goldsboro, North Carolina on 23 January 1961. The bombs fell to earth after a B-52 bomber broke up in mid-air, and one of the devices behaved precisely as a nuclear weapon was designed to behave in warfare: its parachute opened, its trigger mechanisms engaged, and only one low-voltage switch prevented untold carnage.
Each bomb carried a payload of 4 megatons the equivalent of 4 million tons of TNT explosive. Had the device detonated, lethal fallout could have been deposited over Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia and as far north as New York city putting millions of lives at risk.
Though there has been persistent speculation about how narrow the Goldsboro escape was, the US government has repeatedly publicly denied that its nuclear arsenal has ever put Americans' lives in jeopardy through safety flaws. But in the newly-published document, a senior engineer in the Sandia national laboratories responsible for the mechanical safety of nuclear weapons concludes that "one simple, dynamo-technology, low voltage switch stood between the United Statesand a major catastrophe".
Writing eight years after the accident, Parker F Jones found that the bombs that dropped over North Carolina, just three days after John F Kennedy made his inaugural address as president, were inadequate in their safety controls and that the final switch that prevented disaster could easily have been shorted by an electrical jolt, leading to a nuclear burst. "It would have been bad news in spades," he wrote.
Jones dryly entitled his secret report "Goldsboro Revisited or: How I learned to Mistrust the H-Bomb" a quip on Stanley Kubrick's 1964 satirical film about nuclear holocaust, Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.
Slim Pickens in a scene from Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. Photograph: The Ronald Grant ArchiveThe accident happened when a B-52 bomber got into trouble, having embarked from Seymour Johnson Air Force base in Goldsboro for a routine flight along the East Coast. As it went into a tailspin, the hydrogen bombs it was carrying became separated. One fell into a field near Faro, North Carolina, its parachute draped in the branches of a tree; the other plummeted into a meadow off Big Daddy's Road.
Jones found that of the four safety mechanisms in the Faro bomb, designed to prevent unintended detonation, three failed to operate properly. When the bomb hit the ground, a firing signal was sent to the nuclear core of the device, and it was only that final, highly vulnerable switch that averted calamity. "The MK 39 Mod 2 bomb did not possess adequate safety for the airborne alert role in the B-52," Jones concludes.
The document was uncovered by Schlosser as part of his research into his new book on the nuclear arms race, Command and Control. Using freedom of information, he discovered that at least 700 "significant" accidents and incidents involving 1,250 nuclear weapons were recorded between 1950 and 1968 alone.
"The US government has consistently tried to withhold information from the American people in order to prevent questions being asked about our nuclear weapons policy," he said. "We were told there was no possibility of these weapons accidentally detonating, yet here's one that very nearly did."

[Peter Lemkin]

US nuclear forces, 2014

Hans M. KristensenRobert S. Norris

[URL="http://thebulletin.org/bio/hans-m-kristensen"]

[/URL]







HANS M. KRISTENSEN

ROBERT S. NORRIS












The United States has an estimated 4,650 nuclear warheads available for delivery by more than 800 ballistic missiles and aircraft. Approximately 2,700 retired but still intact warheads await dismantlement, for a total inventory of roughly 7,400 warheads. The stockpile includes an estimated 2,130 operational warheads, about 1,150 on submarine-launched ballistic missiles and 470 on intercontinental ballistic missiles. Roughly 300 strategic warheads are located at bomber bases in the United States, and nearly 200 nonstrategic warheads are deployed in Europe. Another 2,530 warheads are in storage. To comply with New START, the United States is expected to eliminate land-based missile silos, reduce the number of launch tubes on its missile submarines, and limit its inventory of nuclear-capable bombers in coming years. Coinciding with a revised nuclear weapons strategy, the Obama administration is also planning an upgrade of all nuclear weapons systems. The three-decade-long plan would cost more than $200 billion in the first decade alone.

[David Guyatt]

This is not the article I was referring to....but a quick find on Wiki - bad enough......and FAR FROM COMPLETE!::fury::

(PARTIAL) List of military nuclear accidents

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia


This article lists notable military accidents involving nuclear material. Civilian accidents are listed at List of civilian nuclear accidents. For a general discussion of both civilian and military accidents, see nuclear and radiation accidents.
See also: Lists of nuclear disasters and radioactive incidents

Contents

Snip...

Whoops, Apocalypse!

[Tracy Riddle]

Almost Everything in "Dr. Strangelove" Was True

Posted by Eric Schlosser


http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/ne...-real.html

This month marks the fiftieth anniversary of Stanley Kubrick's black comedy about nuclear weapons, "Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb." Released on January 29, 1964, the film caused a good deal of controversy. Its plot suggested that a mentally deranged American general could order a nuclear attack on the Soviet Union, without consulting the President. One reviewer described the film as "dangerous … an evil thing about an evil thing." Another compared it to Soviet propaganda. Although "Strangelove" was clearly a farce, with the comedian Peter Sellers playing three roles, it was criticized for being implausible. An expert at the Institute for Strategic Studies called the events in the film "impossible on a dozen counts." A former Deputy Secretary of Defense dismissed the idea that someone could authorize the use of a nuclear weapon without the President's approval: "Nothing, in fact, could be further from the truth." (See a compendium of clips from the film.) When "Fail-Safe"a Hollywood thriller with a similar plot, directed by Sidney Lumetopened, later that year, it was criticized in much the same way. "The incidents in Fail-Safe' are deliberate lies!" General Curtis LeMay, the Air Force chief of staff, said. "Nothing like that could happen." The first casualty of every war is the truthand the Cold War was no exception to that dictum. Half a century after Kubrick's mad general, Jack D. Ripper, launched a nuclear strike on the Soviets to defend the purity of "our precious bodily fluids" from Communist subversion, we now know that American officers did indeed have the ability to start a Third World War on their own. And despite the introduction of rigorous safeguards in the years since then, the risk of an accidental or unauthorized nuclear detonation hasn't been completely eliminated.

The command and control of nuclear weapons has long been plagued by an "always/never" dilemma. The administrative and technological systems that are necessary to insure that nuclear weapons are always available for use in wartime may be quite different from those necessary to guarantee that such weapons can never be used, without proper authorization, in peacetime. During the nineteen-fifties and sixties, the "always" in American war planning was given far greater precedence than the "never." Through two terms in office, beginning in 1953, President Dwight D. Eisenhower struggled with this dilemma. He wanted to retain Presidential control of nuclear weapons while defending America and its allies from attack. But, in a crisis, those two goals might prove contradictory, raising all sorts of difficult questions. What if Soviet bombers were en route to the United States but the President somehow couldn't be reached? What if Soviet tanks were rolling into West Germany but a communications breakdown prevented NATO officers from contacting the White House? What if the President were killed during a surprise attack on Washington, D.C., along with the rest of the nation's civilian leadership? Who would order a nuclear retaliation then?
With great reluctance, Eisenhower agreed to let American officers use their nuclear weapons, in an emergency, if there were no time or no means to contact the President. Air Force pilots were allowed to fire their nuclear anti-aircraft rockets to shoot down Soviet bombers heading toward the United States. And about half a dozen high-level American commanders were allowed to use far more powerful nuclear weapons, without contacting the White House first, when their forces were under attack and "the urgency of time and circumstances clearly does not permit a specific decision by the President, or other person empowered to act in his stead." Eisenhower worried that providing that sort of authorization in advance could make it possible for someone to do "something foolish down the chain of command" and start an all-out nuclear war. But the alternativeallowing an attack on the United States to go unanswered or NATO forces to be overrunseemed a lot worse. Aware that his decision might create public unease about who really controlled America's nuclear arsenal, Eisenhower insisted that his delegation of Presidential authority be kept secret. At a meeting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff, he confessed to being "very fearful of having written papers on this matter."
President John F. Kennedy was surprised to learn, just a few weeks after taking office, about this secret delegation of power. "A subordinate commander faced with a substantial military action," Kennedy was told in a top-secret memo, "could start the thermonuclear holocaust on his own initiative if he could not reach you." Kennedy and his national-security advisers were shocked not only by the wide latitude given to American officers but also by the loose custody of the roughly three thousand American nuclear weapons stored in Europe. Few of the weapons had locks on them. Anyone who got hold of them could detonate them. And there was little to prevent NATO officers from Turkey, Holland, Italy, Great Britain, and Germany from using them without the approval of the United States.
In December, 1960, fifteen members of Congress serving on the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy had toured NATO bases to investigate how American nuclear weapons were being deployed. They found that the weaponssome of them about a hundred times more powerful than the bomb that destroyed Hiroshimawere routinely guarded, transported, and handled by foreign military personnel. American control of the weapons was practically nonexistent. Harold Agnew, a Los Alamos physicist who accompanied the group, was especially concerned to see German pilots sitting in German planes that were decorated with Iron Crossesand carrying American atomic bombs. Agnew, in his own words, "nearly wet his pants" when he realized that a lone American sentry with a rifle was all that prevented someone from taking off in one of those planes and bombing the Soviet Union.
* * * The Kennedy Administration soon decided to put locking devices inside NATO's nuclear weapons. The coded electromechanical switches, known as "permissive action links" (PALs), would be placed on the arming lines. The weapons would be inoperable without the proper codeand that code would be shared with NATO allies only when the White House was prepared to fight the Soviets. The American military didn't like the idea of these coded switches, fearing that mechanical devices installed to improve weapon safety would diminish weapon reliability. A top-secret State Department memo summarized the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in 1961: "all is well with the atomic stockpile program and there is no need for any changes."
After a crash program to develop the new control technology, during the mid-nineteen-sixties, permissive action links were finally placed inside most of the nuclear weapons deployed by NATO forces. But Kennedy's directive applied only to the NATO arsenal. For years, the Air Force and the Navy blocked attempts to add coded switches to the weapons solely in their custody. During a national emergency, they argued, the consequences of not receiving the proper code from the White House might be disastrous. And locked weapons might play into the hands of Communist saboteurs. "The very existence of the lock capability," a top Air Force general claimed, "would create a fail-disable potential for knowledgeable agents to dud' the entire Minuteman [missile] force." The Joint Chiefs thought that strict military discipline was the best safeguard against an unauthorized nuclear strike. A two-man rule was instituted to make it more difficult for someone to use a nuclear weapon without permission. And a new screening program, the Human Reliability Program, was created to stop people with emotional, psychological, and substance-abuse problems from gaining access to nuclear weapons.
Despite public assurances that everything was fully under control, in the winter of 1964, while "Dr. Strangelove" was playing in theatres and being condemned as Soviet propaganda, there was nothing to prevent an American bomber crew or missile launch crew from using their weapons against the Soviets. Kubrick had researched the subject for years, consulted experts, and worked closely with a former R.A.F. pilot, Peter George, on the screenplay of the film. George's novel about the risk of accidental nuclear war, "Red Alert," was the source for most of "Strangelove" 's plot. Unbeknownst to both Kubrick and George, a top official at the Department of Defense had already sent a copy of "Red Alert" to every member of the Pentagon's Scientific Advisory Committee for Ballistic Missiles. At the Pentagon, the book was taken seriously as a cautionary tale about what might go wrong. Even Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara privately worried that an accident, a mistake, or a rogue American officer could start a nuclear war.
Coded switches to prevent the unauthorized use of nuclear weapons were finally added to the control systems of American missiles and bombers in the early nineteen-seventies. The Air Force was not pleased, and considered the new security measures to be an insult, a lack of confidence in its personnel. Although the Air Force now denies this claim, according to more than one source I contacted, the code necessary to launch a missile was set to be the same at every Minuteman site: 00000000.
* * * The early permissive action links were rudimentary. Placed in NATO weapons during the nineteen-sixties and known as Category A PALs, the switches relied on a split four-digit code, with ten thousand possible combinations. If the United States went to war, two people would be necessary to unlock a nuclear weapon, each of them provided with half the code. Category A PALs were useful mainly to delay unauthorized use, to buy time after a weapon had been taken or to thwart an individual psychotic hoping to cause a large explosion. A skilled technician could open a stolen weapon and unlock it within a few hours. Today's Category D PALs, installed in the Air Force's hydrogen bombs, are more sophisticated. They require a six-digit code, with a million possible combinations, and have a limited-try feature that disables a weapon when the wrong code is repeatedly entered.
The Air Force's land-based Minuteman III missiles and the Navy's submarine-based Trident II missiles now require an eight-digit codewhich is no longer 00000000in order to be launched. The Minuteman crews receive the code via underground cables or an aboveground radio antenna. Sending the launch code to submarines deep underwater presents a greater challenge. Trident submarines contain two safes. One holds the keys necessary to launch a missile; the other holds the combination to the safe with the keys; and the combination to the safe holding the combination must be transmitted to the sub by very-low-frequency or extremely-low-frequency radio. In a pinch, if Washington, D.C., has been destroyed and the launch code doesn't arrive, the sub's crew can open the safes with a blowtorch.
The security measures now used to control America's nuclear weapons are a vast improvement over those of 1964. But, like all human endeavors, they are inherently flawed. The Department of Defense's Personnel Reliability Program is supposed to keep people with serious emotional or psychological issues away from nuclear weaponsand yet two of the nation's top nuclear commanders were recently removed from their posts. Neither appears to be the sort of calm, stable person you want with a finger on the button. In fact, their misbehavior seems straight out of "Strangelove."
Vice Admiral Tim Giardina, the second-highest-ranking officer at the U.S. Strategic Commandthe organization responsible for all of America's nuclear forces-was investigated last summer for allegedly using counterfeit gambling chips at the Horseshoe Casino in Council Bluffs, Iowa. According to the Iowa Division of Criminal Investigation, "a significant monetary amount" of counterfeit chips was involved. Giardina was relieved of his command on October 3, 2013. A few days later, Major General Michael Carey, the Air Force commander in charge of America's intercontinental ballistic missiles, was fired for conduct "unbecoming an officer and a gentleman." According to a report by the Inspector General of the Air Force, Carey had consumed too much alcohol during an official trip to Russia, behaved rudely toward Russian officers, spent time with "suspect" young foreign women in Moscow, loudly discussed sensitive information in a public hotel lounge there, and drunkenly pleaded to get onstage and sing with a Beatles cover band at La Cantina, a Mexican restaurant near Red Square. Despite his requests, the band wouldn't let Carey onstage to sing or to play the guitar.
While drinking beer in the executive lounge at Moscow's Marriott Aurora during that visit, General Carey made an admission with serious public-policy implications. He off-handedly told a delegation of U.S. national-security officials that his missile-launch officers have the "worst morale in the Air Force." Recent events suggest that may be true. In the spring of 2013, nineteen launch officers at Minot Air Force base in North Dakota were decertified for violating safety rules and poor discipline. In August, 2013, the entire missile wing at Malmstrom Air Force base in Montana failed its safety inspection. Last week, the Air Force revealed that thirty-four launch officers at Malmstrom had been decertified for cheating on proficiency examsand that at least three launch officers are being investigated for illegal drug use. The findings of a report by the RAND Corporation, leaked to the A.P., were equally disturbing. The study found that the rates of spousal abuse and court martials among Air Force personnel with nuclear responsibilities are much higher than those among people with other jobs in the Air Force. "We don't care if things go properly," a launch officer told RAND. "We just don't want to get in trouble."
The most unlikely and absurd plot element in "Strangelove" is the existence of a Soviet "Doomsday Machine." The device would trigger itself, automatically, if the Soviet Union were attacked with nuclear weapons. It was meant to be the ultimate deterrent, a threat to destroy the world in order to prevent an American nuclear strike. But the failure of the Soviets to tell the United States about the contraption defeats its purpose and, at the end of the film, inadvertently causes a nuclear Armageddon. "The whole point of the Doomsday Machine is lost," Dr. Strangelove, the President's science adviser, explains to the Soviet Ambassador, "if you keep it a secret!"
A decade after the release of "Strangelove," the Soviet Union began work on the Perimeter system-a network of sensors and computers that could allow junior military officials to launch missiles without oversight from the Soviet leadership. Perhaps nobody at the Kremlin had seen the film. Completed in 1985, the system was known as the Dead Hand. Once it was activated, Perimeter would order the launch of long-range missiles at the United States if it detected nuclear detonations on Soviet soil and Soviet leaders couldn't be reached. Like the Doomsday Machine in "Strangelove," Perimeter was kept secret from the United States; its existence was not revealed until years after the Cold War ended.
In retrospect, Kubrick's black comedy provided a far more accurate description of the dangers inherent in nuclear command-and-control systems than the ones that the American people got from the White House, the Pentagon, and the mainstream media.
"This is absolute madness, Ambassador," President Merkin Muffley says in the film, after being told about the Soviets' automated retaliatory system. "Why should you build such a thing?" Fifty years later, that question remains unanswered, and "Strangelove" seems all the more brilliant, bleak, and terrifyingly on the mark.
You can read Eric Schlosser's guide to the long-secret documents that help explain the risks America took with its nuclear arsenal, and watch and read his deconstruction of clips from "Dr. Strangelove" and from a little-seen film about permissive action links.

Eric Schlosser is the author of "Command and Control."