Highest alert level for US military in South Korea
North Korea: US forces in South put on highest level of alert; allies discuss ‘strategic assets’ , ABC News, 11 Jan 16
Key points:
- Media reports say a US aircraft carrier, B-2 bombers, submarines and F-22 fighters being considered for deployment to South
- Inter-Korean Kaesong industrial park restrictions to increase on Tuesday
- South Korea and Japan used a military hotline for the first time after North’s test
- North’s state media says Kim Jong-un congratulated nuclear scientists
The US and its ally South Korea are in talks to send further strategic assets to the Korean peninsula, a day after a US B-52 bomber flew over the South in response to the test…..
Under the US-South Korea military alliance, there are nearly 30,000 US troops permanently stationed in South Korea, which is also protected by the US “nuclear umbrella”. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-01-11/us-troops-in-south-korea-on-high-alert-after-north-nuclear-test/7081296
Call to stop dangerous trucking of radioactive trash from Canada to South Carolina.
Stop Canada from trucking nuclear waste through area http://www.buffalonews.com/opinion/letters-to-the-editor/letter-stop-canada-from-trucking-nuclear-waste-through-area-20160111 Susan Kims, 10 Jan 16
We’ve recently seen News articles highlighting the need for tighter regulations on shipping thousands of gallons of highly enriched liquid uranium from Canada to South Carolina.
The approved travel route uses the Peace Bridge, south on Niagara Thruway, then west on the mainline Thruway for shipments that started Jan. 1 and run through May 31, 2018. These materials will pass dangerously close, within hundreds of yards, to densely populated residential neighborhoods, with the only barrier being a guardrail or chain-link fence.
Congressman Brian Higgins has recently expressed concern, because terrorist and militant groups are interested in using highly dangerous weapons, especially those utilizing chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear materials. I have an additional concern – the amount of contamination and carnage that could occur if a vehicular accident resulted in a spill. Such a spill in close proximity to dense populations would be devastating.
As a nation, we are concerned that a pipeline transporting oil from Canada to the Gulf of Mexico might produce a spill. Yet we show little concern regarding the possibility of spills of highly hazardous liquid nuclear materials along roadways that abut our neighborhoods. Do we not foresee the possibility of the same impending dangers from transport of nuclear waste on our roads?
Canadian authorities approve nuclear facilities to operate within their borders and should take responsibility for the hazardous waste produced within their borders. Our citizens should not be exposed to possible harm as a result of their decisions.
This should be stopped before tragedy occurs!
Nuclear corporations in America not only sell bombs, they influence government policy
the “privatization of nuclear war”. Corporations not only reap multibillion-dollar profits from the production of nuclear bombs, they also have a direct voice in setting the agenda regarding the use and deployment of nuclear weapons.
No Danger of Nuclear War? The Pentagon’s Plan to Blow up the Planet By Prof Michel Chossudovsky Global Research, January 11, 2016
“………….Nuclear war –which threatens life on planet earth– is not front page news in comparison to the most insignificant issues of public concern, including the local level crime scene or the tabloid gossip reports on Hollywood celebrities.
What we are dealing with is the criminalization of the State, whereby officials in high office are complicit in fostering the pre-emptive use of nuclear weapons. The media has camouflaged the implications of America’s post Cold war nuclear doctrine, which was formulated in a secret meeting at US Strategic Command Headquarters on Hiroshima Day, August 6, 2003.
On August 6, 2003, on Hiroshima Day, commemorating when the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima (August 6 1945), a secret meeting was held behind closed doors at Strategic Command Headquarters at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska.
Senior executives from the nuclear industry and the military industrial complex were in attendance. This mingling of defense contractors, scientists and policy-makers was not intended to commemorate Hiroshima. The meeting was intended to set the stage for the development of a new generation of “smaller”, “safer” and “more usable” nuclear weapons, to be used in the “in-theater nuclear wars” of the 21st Century.
In a cruel irony, the participants to this secret meeting, which excluded members of Congress, arrived on the anniversary of the Hiroshima bombing (August 6) and departed on the anniversary of the attack on Nagasaki (August 9). (Michel Chossudovsky, Towards a World War III Scenario, The Dangers of Nuclear War, Global Research, Montreal, 2012)
The Hiroshima Day 2003 meetings had set the stage for the “privatization of nuclear war”. Corporations not only reap multibillion-dollar profits from the production of nuclear bombs, they also have a direct voice in setting the agenda regarding the use and deployment of nuclear weapons.
All the safeguards of the Cold War era, which categorized the nuclear bomb as “a weapon of last resort”, have been scrapped. “Offensive” military actions using nuclear warheads are now described as acts of “self-defense”. During the Cold War, the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD) prevailed, namely that the use of nuclear weapons against the Soviet Union would result in “the destruction of both the attacker and the defender”.
In the post Cold war era, US nuclear doctrine was redefined. There is no sanity in what is euphemistically called US foreign policy. At no point since the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 1945, has humanity been closer to the unthinkable…
Stay informed, spread the word far and wide. To reverse the tide of war, the broader public must be informed. Post on Facebook/Twitter.
Confront the war criminals in high office.
What we really need is real “Regime Change in America”. http://www.globalresearch.ca/there-is-no-danger-of-nuclear-war-or-is-there/5500276
Massive gas blowout in Los Angeles now releasing radioactive material
TV: Radioactive material reportedly now being released from massive gas blowout in LA — Byproduct of Uranium — Expert: “A lot” has been detected in area… Very dangerous… May be coming up from ground into people’s homes — Official: Levels can cause “significant long-term health effects” (VIDEO) http://enenews.com/tv-reports-radioactive-material-being-released-massive-gas-blowout-la-byproduct-uranium-expert-lot-being-measured-area-very-dangerous-be-coming-ground-peoples-living-rooms-bedrooms-nurseries?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ENENews+%28Energy+News%29
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Jan 8, 2016: Their animals are dying… their fish are dying in their fish bowls, their dogs are dying, their cats are getting sick. And their children are getting sick — they’re suffering nose bleeds, they’re suffering terrible debilitating migraine headaches, asthma attacks, respiratory infections, eye infections, ear infections, stomach ailments… The health impact — it’s not just methane coming out of that hole… This is global crisis, more importantly this is a local crisis. Because not only do you have methane — you have benzene, toluene, xylene, which are carcinogenic. You have hydrogen sulfide, sulfur dioxide — which are neurotoxic, which can injure your brain, affect memory, injure your kidneys, your liver, your other bodily organs. There’s also a lot of radon gas being measured in the area. People believe — we don’t know if this is true — the gas that is leaking at 2 miles deep is now coming out and pushing that radon up into people’s living rooms, their bedrooms, their nurseries.
Lawyers and Settlements, Jan 7, 2016: The leak has caused a continuous flow of gases and fluids. Methane alone is leaking 100,000 pounds per hour, according to Los Angeles city attorney Mike Feuer. Along with that greenhouse gas is methyl mercaptans (odorants added to gas to aid in leak detection) and aromatic hydrocarbons. More concernedly, health officials have identified benzene and radon, both known carcinogens.
CBS LA, Dec 11, 2015: Dr. Cyrus Rangan, the Director of Toxicology and Assessment for the county, came to CBS2/KCAL9 to answer questions…. It’s been reported that radon is being released… “This is a theoretical possibility,” Dr. Rangan said, “and when you’re addressing a problem that might be several hundred or even several thousand feet deep, you might generate what are called preferential pathways for something like radon, beneath the Earth’s surface, to make its way up to the surface. So primarily our concern about radon is from the worker’s exposure, for the people actually doing the repair job. If we find radon there, we can address the situation. And if radon does exist in the work site then we may need to have to look at the residential community and monitor for it.”
Lawyers and Settlements, Dec 12, 2015: There is the issue of radon, a naturally occurringbyproduct of uranium… as SoCalGas and its partners bore into the ground in an attempt to stem a leak that is unleashing a constant cloud of gas into the atmosphere, radon has crept into the conversation.
Robert Kennedy Jr, Dec 17, 2015: Public officials and the gas industry have a tricky and deceptive way of saying things. Methane itself is not dangerous… methane is an indicator that other gases are involved, including radon and benzene, both carcinogenic and very dangerous… gas can escape through any perforation in the earth and on the way up to the surface, it can encounter the aquifers underground, where it will leave behind chemicals, including benzene and radon.
Erin Brockovich, Dec 22, 2015: [B]enzene and radon [are] the carcinogens that are commonly found in natural gas.
Los Angeles Daily News, Dec 2, 2015: [R]adon gas, which may potentially be released during repair operations, is also a concern [L.A. County Department of Public Health Interim Director Cynthia Harding] said.
Los Angeles Times, Dec 2, 2015: Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich said a new report by county public health officials had concluded that since the gas leak has continued for so long, emissions levels could produce “significant long-term health effects, including cancer.” Antonovich said the report had identified benzene as the “chemical of greatest concern,” because it is known to cause cancer. It also cited concerns about radon, another known carcinogen.
KPCC, Dec 9, 2015: Public Health Director Cynthia Harding told members of the Board of Supervisors in a Dec. 1 letter [that radon] could also be released as the leak is repaired.
Los Angeles Times, Dec 20, 2015: Health officials are also concerned that the company’s attempt to fix the leak by drilling into the ground to construct a relief well could release radon, a radioactive, naturally occurring and odorless gas that is found in geologic formations and causes lung cancer.
USA’s show of force: bomber flies over South Korea
US bomber flies over South Korea amid standoff over North Korea nuclear tests, Guardian,10 Jan 16
B-52 bomber a show of force in Cold War-style impasse following Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test A powerful US B-52 bomber flew over South Korea on Sunday, in a clear show of force from the United States as a Cold War-style standoff deepened between its ally Seoul and North Korea following Pyongyang’s fourth nuclear test.The Observer view on North Korea’s nuclear bomb test. China and America must put aside their differences to counter Kim Jong-un’s menace
The B-52 flight follows a victory tour by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un to celebrate the country’s widely disputed claim of a hydrogen bomb test. Kim is seeking to rally pride in an explosion viewed with outrage by much of the world to boost his domestic political goals.
There was no immediate reaction from North Korea’s state media to the B-52 fly-over, which also happened after North Korea’s third nuclear test in 2013.
Kim’s first public comments about last week’s test came in a visit to the country’s military headquarters, where he called the explosion “a self-defensive step” meant to protect the region “from the danger of nuclear war caused by the US-led imperialists,” according to a dispatch on Sunday from the state-run Korean Central News Agency.
“It is the legitimate right of a sovereign state and a fair action that nobody can criticise,” Kim was reported as saying during his tour of the People’s Armed Forces Ministry.
The tone of Kim’s comments, which sought to glorify him and justify the test, is typical of state media propaganda. But they also provide insight into North Korea’s long-running argument that it is the presence of tens of thousands of U.S. troops in South Korea and Japan, and a “hostile” U.S. policy that seeks to topple the government in Pyongyang, that make North Korea’s pursuit of nuclear weapons absolutely necessary……http://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/10/us-bomber-flies-over-south-korea-amid-standoff-over-north-korea-nuclear-tests
USA’s use of threat of nuclear war – Danial Ellsberg
US FREQUENTLY USES THREAT OF NUCLEAR WAR, WARNS WHISTLEBLOWER DANIEL ELLSBERG MINNEAPOLIS , Shadow Proof, KIT OCONNELL—, 2 Jan 16 MintPress News is proud to host “Lied to Death,” a 13-part audio conversation between famed whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and social justice activist Arn Menconi.
Menconi wrote that these interviews are a “mixture of historical, political science and Dan’s sixty-year scholarly analysis as a former nuclear planner for Rand Corporation.”
For more information on the interview and Daniel Ellsberg, see the introduction to this series.
Chapter 1: Ellsberg on the the origins of empire and the nuclear danger to humanity
In the first full chapter of “Lied to Death,” Ellsberg discusses the origins of American empire, telling Menconi that empire building goes all the way back to Sargon, the ruler of ancient Mesopotamia and history’s first emperor.
However, unlike the emperors of old, the U.S. government publicly espouses democracy while simultaneously carrying out many of the same forms of repression and manipulation that historic rulers used to gain global power, he says.
For Ellsberg, that’s where the CIA and similar forces become essential. While he believes that covert actions may be necessary for any nation to protect itself during times of war, Ellsberg tells Menconi that only an empire needs covert agencies during times of peace because those agencies help maintain the image of freedom and transparency.
“The United States is not a government with a covert operations agency named the CIA, it’s a government which has a covert foreign policy,” Ellsberg explains.
Ellsberg argues that the CIA allows the U.S. to enact this covert foreign policy, which is not meant to ensure the independence of other nations, but to “buy their dependence.” When something goes wrong, the agency protects the White House from accountability. Even when the government’s cover story for its actions is revealed to be false by the media or a whistleblower, he says “there are other cover stories and cover stories within cover stories” — all of which misdirect attention. “The president is not held accountable … and he will not be held [accountable] before history.”
Apart from the pretense of democracy, Ellsberg argues that the United States is “unremarkable” as an empire, except for a few key points, most notably its ability to use the threat of nuclear weapons.
“The danger of all-out war leading to the extinction of the human species is significant right now and always has been larger than people thought,” he tells Menconi.
He does not believe that government officials actively seek out nuclear war, understanding that it would be devastating for humanity. But Ellsberg claims the U.S. has used the threat of nuclear conflict far more frequently than the public realizes, and that government leaders consider the potential for actual nuclear war to be an “acceptable risk” in return for the power the threat confers over other nations.
The U.S. and a handful of its allies, including the United Kingdom and France, also act as nuclear kingmakers, choosing which countries will be allowed to have nuclear weapons and which will not. Unfortunately, this behavior has brought us closer to human extinction by promoting a global buildup of nuclear weapons which could be deployed at any time. Specifically, Ellsberg says U.S. foreign policy is directly responsible for the buildup of Russian nuclear weapons during the Cold War…….
I wish I could say that our government has improved its treatment of whistleblowers in the 40 years since the Pentagon Papers. Instead we’re seeing an unprecedented campaign to crack down on public servants who reveal information that Congress and American citizens have a need to know.
Nuclear weapons now more likely to be used, with Pentagon’s new B61-12 bomb
it also poses the contrary reality of an increased probability that nuclear weapons will actually be launched.
This concept of greater usability entirely forgoes the core assumption of deterrence theory, which asserts that credible nuclear deterrents are always present but never utilized.
The Pentagon’s New Nuclear Gravity Bomb, Global Risk Insights by Ian Armstrong , January 8, 2016 Despite its advertisement as a low-yield, lower-risk alternative to existing missile models, the recently tested B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb presents several risks that may in fact elevate the threat of nuclear use and encourage proliferation.
Late last year, the United States successfully completed testing of the newest addition to its nuclear arsenal — the B61-12 nuclear gravity bomb. Part of a $355 billion effort to modernize its increasingly outdated nuclear capability, the U.S. has developed the B61-12 to the tune of over $10.4 billion as the most adaptable, precise nuclear gravity missile on the planet.
Successful testing of the missile has now created a clear pathway for production engineering to begin in 2016, and with that, the United States is now poised to acquire 480 bombs total by the 2020-2024 period.
Washington argues that the development of an enhanced B61 gravity bomb is an important facet of the broader nuclear modernization efforts required to protect itself and its Western allies from threats like Russia and Iran. Other countries, especially non-nuclear states, underscore the hypocrisy of a nuclear modernization effort given President Obama’s stated commitment towards disarmament and nonproliferation…….
Lower Nuclear Yield, Higher Nuclear Probability
Yet, in contradictory fashion, the same unique technical qualities that make the B61-12 a more accurate, secure, and effective U.S. nuclear deterrent also conjure implied risks with the potential to negate any positive impacts.
By significantly increasing accuracy and eroding the barriers to use previously presented by unintended casualties, the B61-12 does indeed increase the deterrent capability of the United States — but it also poses the contrary reality of an increased probability that nuclear weapons will actually be launched.
This concept of greater usability entirely forgoes the core assumption of deterrence theory, which asserts that credible nuclear deterrents are always present but never utilized. In short, B61-12s will broaden the range of circumstances that U.S. military strategists might reasonably consider employing nuclear weapons, a move which in turn would naturally create an immediate possibility of escalation towards full-fledged nuclear war.
In addition, the sheer expense and symbolism of creating a highly modernized, highly precise nuclear weapon like the B61-12 challenges the notions of nonproliferation and disarmament.
Washington’s pursuit of the B61-12 simultaneously legitimizes Russian vertical proliferation while potentially intimidating Beijing into accelerated arsenal growth. It also assures unofficial nuclear powers like Pakistan, India, and Israel that acquisition of low-yield nuclear weapons is an acceptable alternative to procuring high-yield strategic missiles……….http://globalriskinsights.com/2016/01/the-pentagons-new-nuclear-gravity-bomb/
Injecting dogs with plutonium – to prove what?
Nuclear radiation, Kierkegaard, and the philosophy of denial, The Ecologist, Chris Busby 8th January 2016 “……….Injecting dogs with plutonium – to prove what?
Some years ago I was up against one of these hormesis geezers, a certain Dr Otto Raabe, in a court case in America. He was the expert for the defence. Raabe was in charge of the Beagle dog studies in New Mexico.
They injected these poor creatures with Plutonium, Radium or Strontium-90 and watched them develop bone cancer and leukemia. The doses were enormous, the number of dogs was small (cost). The whole place was contaminated with Plutonium, the particles hanging in the air like fairy dust. The burial site for the dogs is so radioactive it is fenced off as a US superfund site for decontamination.
Raabe’s thing was that he had mathematically converted beagle dogs into humans: you should just see his amazing three dimensional graphs (these guys love all that stuff). Well you can probably find them somewhere on the internet.
The best thing was that in one of his papers he discussed how difficult it was to do these beagle studies. He wrote that 12 (yes 12) of his control dogs (no injections of Plutonium) had unfortunately died of lung cancer and had to be removed from the analysis. What!!?
I checked out the rates of lung cancer in dogs (you can find everything on the web) and that was the end of Raabe. Low dose, you see. Fairy dust………..http://www.theecologist.org/essays/2986384/nuclear_radiation_kierkegaard_and_the_philosophy_of_denial.html
The West creating conditions to inflame Middle East and lead to wider war
Slouching Toward Global Disaster, Reader Supported News By Richard Falk, CounterPunch 01 January 16
here are many disturbing signs that the West is creating conditions in the Middle East and Asia that could produce a wider war, most likely a new Cold War, containing, as well, menacing risks of World War III. The reckless confrontation with Russia along its borders, reinforced by provocative weapons deployments in several NATO countries and the promotion of governing regimes hostile to Russia in such countries as Ukraine and Georgia seems to exhibit Cold War nostalgia, and is certainly not the way to preserve peace.
Add to this the increasingly belligerent approach recently taken by the United States naval officers and defense officials to China with respect to island disputes and navigational rights in the South China Seas. Such posturing has all the ingredients needed for intensifying international conflict, giving a militarist signature to Obama’s ‘pivot to Asia.’
These developments are happening during the supposedly conflict averse Obama presidency. Looking ahead to new leadership, even the most optimistic scenario that brings Hillary Clinton to the White House is sure to make these pre-war drum beats even louder.
From a more detached perspective it is fair to observe that Obama seems rather peace-oriented only because American political leaders and the Beltway/media mainstream have become so accustomed to relying on military solutions whether successful or not, whether dangerous and wasteful or not, that is, only by comparison with more hawkish alternatives.
The current paranoid political atmosphere in the United States is a further relevant concern, calling for police state governmental authority at home, increased weapons budgets, and the continuing militarization of policing and law enforcement.
Such moves encourage an even more militaristic approach to foreign challenges that seem aimed at American and Israeli interests by ISIS, Iran, and China. Where this kind of war-mongering will lead is unknowable, but what is frighteningly clear is that this dangerous geopolitical bravado is likely to become even more strident as the 2016 campaign unfolds to choose the next American president.
Already Donald Trump, the clear Republican frontrunner, has seemed to commit the United States to a struggle against all of Islam by his foolish effort to insist that every Muslim is a terrorist suspect Islam as a potential terrorist who should be so treated. Even Samuel Huntington were he still alive might not welcome such an advocate of ‘the clash of civilizations’!
Historical Deep Roots………http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/34377-slouching-toward-global-disaster
Large shipment of plutonium to travel from Japan to South Carolina
Japan to send huge cache of plutonium to South Carolina under nuclear deal: report RAW STORY AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE 05 JAN 2016 Japan will send a huge cache of plutonium — enough to produce 50 nuclear bombs — to the United States as part of a deal to return the material that was used for research, reports and officials said Tuesday.
The plutonium stockpile, provided by the US, Britain and France decades ago, has caused some disquiet given that Japan has said it has the ability to produce a nuclear weapon even if it chooses not to.
The shipment, which comes ahead of a nuclear security summit in Washington in March, is meant to underscore both countries’ commitment to nuclear non-proliferation and is part of a deal they made in 2014.
It will be one of Japan’s most significant overseas movements of plutonium since it transported one tonne from France in 1993 to be used in nuclear reactor experiments.
That shipment triggered an outcry at the time from countries citing environmental and security concerns.
A Japanese official confirmed the amount of plutonium to be sent to the US and said that preparations for the shipment are under way. “But we can’t comment on further details, including the departure date and route, for security reasons,” the official in the nuclear technology section at the education ministry told AFP Tuesday.
The material has been stored at the Nuclear Science Research Institute northeast of Tokyo, he added…….https://www.rawstory.com/2016/01/japan-to-send-huge-cache-of-plutonium-to-south-carolina-under-nuclear-deal-report/
Timeline of major incidents at Los Alamos National Laboratory
2013: A waste container at the lab is packaged with a volatile mix of nitrate salts and organic kitty litter and is shipped to WIPP.
Feb. 14, 2014: The container ruptures in the underground WIPP facility, leaking radiation. Several workers are exposed, although levels are not considered a health hazard. WIPP is closed indefinitely.
March-December 2014: Federal investigators issue scathing reports finding multiple problems with how waste is handled at the lab. One report finds workers who tried to alert supervisors to problems with waste containers were ignored.
Chronology of major incidents marking Los Alamos National Laboratory’s management history, Local News, Santa Fe, New Mexico , 4 Jan 16 The New Mexican
Jan. 1, 1943: A secret national laboratory is set up in Los Alamos to design a nuclear bomb during World War II. The University of California is named the official lab manager and is paid $5 million for a one-year contract. The U.S. Department of Energy oversees the lab’s operations. J. Robert Oppenheimer is the lab’s director.
1945: An atomic bomb is tested at the Trinity Site in Southern New Mexico on July 16, ushering in the nuclear age………
1988: A new federal law gives the Department of Energy more leverage over lab contractors. The University of California at Los Alamos National Laboratory is exempted from the law. Continue reading
Nuclear sub accident costs $1m, commander loses job
Down periscope: Nuclear sub accident costs $1m, commander loses job Rt.com 5 Jan, 2016 A US Navy commander has lost his job following an accident that damaged a 18,000-ton nuclear guided-missile submarine. The banged-up sub will cost taxpayers at least $1 million to repair, the Navy said.
Captain Dave Adams was relieved of his command of the USS Georgia on Monday, and was reassigned to another post with Submarine Group 10 of Naval Submarine Base Kings Bay in Georgia.
On November 25, 2015, Adams was commanding one of the two alternating crews that operate the USS Georgia when the 560-foot submarine crashed into a channel buoy on its way back to base in Kings Bay……https://www.rt.com/usa/328018-navy-submarine-crash-georgia/
Secret radiation experiments carried out on people
Some of the classified government experiments included:
* Exposing more than 100 Alaskan villagers to radioactive iodine during the 1960s.
* Feeding 49 retarded and institutionalised teenagers radioactive iron and calcium in their cereal during the years 1946-1954.
* Exposing about 800 pregnant women in the late 1940s to radioactive iron to determine the effect on the fetus.
* Injecting 7 newborns (six were Black) with radioactive iodine.
* Exposing the testicles of more than 100 prisoners to cancer-causing doses of radiation. This experimentation continued into the early 1970s.
* Exposing almost 200 cancer patients to high levels of radiation from cesium and cobalt. The AEC finally stopped this experiment in 1974.
* Administering radioactive material to psychiatric patients in San Francisco and to prisoners in San Quentin.
* Administering massive doses of full body radiation to cancer patients hospitalised at the General Hospital in Cincinnati, Baylor College in Houston, Memorial Sloan-Kettering in New York City, and the US Naval Hospital in Bethesda, during the 1950s and 1960s. The experiment provided data to the military concerning how a nuclear attack might affect its troops.
* Exposing 29 patients, some with rheumatoid arthritis, to total body irradiation (100-300 rad dose) to obtain data for the military. This was conducted at the University of California Hospital in San Francisco.
—In preparing America for nuclear attack during the Cold War years following World War II, thousands of US citizens became the innocent victims of over 4,000 secret and classified radiation experiments conducted by the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) and other government agencies, such as the Department of Defense, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, the Public Health Service (now the CDC), the National Institutes of Health, the Veterans Administration (VA), the CIA, and NASA.
Millions of people were exposed to radioactive fallout from the continental testing of more than 200 atmospheric and underground nuclear weapons, and from the hundreds of secret releases of radiation into the environment. Over 200,000 “atomic vets” who worked closely with nuclear detonations at the Nevada test site during the 1950s and 1960s were especially vulnerable to radiation fallout.
Also affected were the thousands of so-called “downwinders”, who lived in nearby small towns in Nevada, Utah, Colorado and New Mexico. These downwinders (along with the animal populations) suffered the worst cumulative radioactive effects of fallout, along with a contaminated environment teeming with radioactive food and farm products. The plight of these poor country people exposed to government-induced radiation sickness has been recorded in Carole Gallagher’s remarkable photo-essay American Ground Zero: The Secret Nuclear War (The Free Press, 1993).
In reviewing declassified AEC records (now the Department of Energy) from the 1950s, Gallagher was shocked to discover one document that described the people downwind of the Nevada Test Site as “a low use segment of the population.” Her shock at such callous bigotry caused her to eventually move West to research, investigate and document those who lived closest to the Test Site, as well as workers at the site, and soldiers repeatedly exposed to nuclear bombs during the military tests.
Disinformation and Nuclear Fallout
In the nuclear arms race, government doctors and scientists brainwashed the public into believing low dose radiation was not harmful. Some officials even tried to convince people that “a little radiation is good for you.” Totally ignored was the knowledge that the radiation from nuclear fallout could lead to an increased risk of cancer, heart disease, neurological disorders, immune system disease, reproductive abnormalities, sterility, birth defects, and genetic mutations which could be passed on from generation to generation. The full extent of this radiation damage to the American public during the Cold War years will never be known. Continue reading
Cold war fears of Nuclear Armageddon ( that risk remains now)
Memories of Whistling Past Nuclear Armageddon, NYT By FRANCIS X. CLINESJAN. 2, 2016 No one called it terrorism back then, but the angst of day-to-day existence during the Cold War was chillingly recalled with the release last month of the government’s top-secret nuclear target list for 1959. “Population” was the obscenely brief title of target category No. 275 — population, as in the citizens of major cities who war planners estimated would necessarily die by the millions……..
“Duck and cover” jokes and tight-lipped laughter became the real civil defense in the Cold War. It felt smarter to seek survival in satire like Stanley Kubrick’s “Dr. Strangelove.” Or in Mort Sahl’s stand-up skewering of Dr. Wernher von Braun, the captured German rocket scientist, who metamorphosed into an American space-age hero. Mr. von Braun said in his best-selling autobiography that “I aim at the stars.” “But,” Mr. Sahl amended, “sometimes hit London,”……..
the notion of nuclear Armageddon reappeared with the discovery by the New York State Assembly during a routine session that the state, in 1963, had actually constructed a bomb shelter with 4½-foot-thick walls and drawn up a list of 700 or so people who would be privileged to survive in it.
The long-forgotten shelter was a quiet, pet project of Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, who was also one of the era’s chief promoters of bunkers. Immediately, questions arose among the lawmakers: Why didn’t I know about this until now? More urgently: How do I get on the list?…….http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/opinion/sunday/memories-of-whistling-past-nuclear-armageddon.html?_r=0
Documents reveal sloppy unsafe radiation management at San Onofre Nuclear Station
“My general impression from what I have seen in that report is San Onofre was very very sloppy, very very careless in handling radioactive material,” he told NBC 7 Investigates. “You basically had hundreds of pieces of contaminated equipment.”
The radiation levels around the concrete cubicle were so elevated “the inspector did not perform a survey inside,” according to the document
Documents Detail How Nuclear Material Was Handled at San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station, 7 San Diego
Expert tells NBC 7 Investigates handling of nuclear material was “sloppy”
By JW August and Lynn Walsh Documents newly obtained by NBC 7 Investigates during secret talks about the condition of the land where the San Onofre Nuclear Generating Station (SONGS) sits detail how nuclear material was handled at the plant since the 1980s.
The documents were released to individuals involved with the secret negotiations about the current condition and future handling of the 25-acre property. According to a source familiar with the negotiations, the secret meetings have been going on for about 20 months and involve all the players with a stake in the prime coastal property.
Those players include the U.S. Navy, which owns the property; the U.S. Marines, whose base surrounds the property; and Southern California Edison (SCE) and San Diego Gas and Electric (SDG&E), both of which hold the lease to the property. Continue reading
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