Abstract
It must have been Voodoo
A photo illustrating “Nixing Nukes in Vietnam” (page 55 of the May/June 2003 issue) shows only a shadow of an aircraft, not the actual plane, and the plane is misidentified. It is an RF-101C Voodoo reconnaissance aircraft (which took the picture), not an F-4 Phantom as stated in the caption.
Oakton, Virginia
Weapons of mass definition
Philip Morrison and Kosta Tsipis make a good point about important distinctions among nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in terms of lethality and uses (“Rightful Names,” May/June 2003). But their claim that the term “weapons of mass destruction” or “WMD” was traditionally reserved for nuclear weapons is incorrect. It was initially used to refer to biological weapons, and was then formally defined in 1948 by the United Nations as referring to nuclear, biological, and chemical weapons.
The term first appeared in a communiqué signed by President Harry Truman, British Prime Minister Clement Attlee, and Canadian Prime Minister MacKenzie King on November 15, 1945, recommending that an international commission be set up to make proposals for eliminating atomic weapons and weapons adaptable to mass destruction. The declaration was drafted by Vannevar Bush, who led much of the American scientific effort in World War II and who was then director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development.
Bush claimed in his memoirs that he had coined the phrase, and that it was intended to refer to biological weapons. Bush wrote that he and his British counterpart, Sir John Anderson, “both thought that, while we were attempting to bring reason to bear on one terrible weapon, we might as well include another that could be equally terrible, and might indeed have become so if the atomic bomb had not taken center stage.”
The first resolution of the U.N. General Assembly on January 1, 1946, established a U.N. Atomic Energy Commission to make specific proposals for the “elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons and of all other major weapons adaptable to mass destruction.”
In August 1948, the U.N. Commission for Conventional Armaments concluded that weapons of mass destruction “should be defined to include atomic explosive weapons, radioactive material weapons, lethal chemical and biological weapons, and any weapons developed in the future which have characteristics comparable in destructive effect to those of the atomic bomb or other weapons mentioned.”
Morrison and Tsipis hold, perhaps correctly, that biological and chemical weapons should not be viewed as weapons of mass destruction in the same category as nuclear weapons, but the international community has defined them that way for 55 years. The term has not been “recently expanded.”
Stanford, California
Time for change
Who would ever go to war without planning for the aftermath?
The lack of planning is more evidence of the Bush administration's serious and troubling incompetence, both at home and abroad. Our foreign policy is dictated by unelected officials and advisers in the Cabinet and the Pentagon whose first loyalties are not to the United States and are not in the interest of the American people.
Gen. Tommy Franks should be demoted for conducting a war without adequate supply lines and backup troops in place, which demonstrated a disregard for the safety of his troops and the people of Iraq.
U.S. congressional leaders should take charge by requesting that U.N. peacekeepers be deployed immediately and by returning U.S. forces home to their proper role, defending American borders.
Newport Beach, California
Two good points
In the last two paragraphs of his excellent article (“Nuclear Targeting: The First 60 Years,” May/June 2003), Arjun Makhijani highlights two critical points that seem to have been discarded in this scientific age.
He writes that “bereft of moral and political vision or consideration for future generations, [the scientific approach] can lead to chaos, violence, and in the case of nuclear weapons, annihilation.”
He adds: “States wielding weapons of terror are not the answer to the problem of terror. Only a global movement for democracy that draws inspiration from leaders like Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. can overcome the violent and environmentally destructive underpinnings of the nuclear age.”
Any reference to these basic truths has been completely lacking during the past several years in U.S. policy discussions and reports on adventures like the recent Iraq war and other planned or threatened military actions.
As one who spent the last three months of 1945 as a member of the U.S. Marine Corps' occupation of Nagasaki, I am well aware of the ramifications of the kinds of war now contemplated by our country's revised nuclear strategy.
Unfortunately, the May/June issue contains an error on page 5. The “Update” states that until recently, line-crossing protesters at Fort Ben-ning's School of the Americas (SOA, now known as the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation) received “only slaps on the wrist.” This is inaccurate.
My niece, Sister Megan Rice, has spent a full year in prison for her peaceful protests at Fort Benning. In 1997, 601 protesters entered Fort Benning in a mock funeral procession and were arrested for trespassing. Among them was my niece; she and 24 of her fellow marchers were labeled “repeat offenders,” sentenced to six months in federal prison, and ordered to pay a $3,000 fine. In 1999, 65 protesters were arrested during a protest at the school; 10 were charged with criminal trespass. My niece, then 70 years old, received six months in prison and a $5,000 fine.
These are hardly “slaps on the wrist.”
Cambridge, New York
Scary days remembered
Thanks for the excellent photos and story by Peter Amacher about the fallout shelter days and civil defense drills of the Cold War (“You're on Your Own–Again,” May/June 2003).
Back in the mid-1980s, I taught a short unit in my science classes each October about the Cuban missile crisis. We enjoyed discussions of the chaos and confusion of those scary days and the “duck and cover” drills, and I added some highlights from both Energy Department–Nuclear Test Site and Atomic Cafe videos.
Glad to see the story of those events and needs again being brought to the attention of another generation through your magazine.
CHMA Aerospace, Richton Park, Illinois
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Update
In the March/April 2002 Bulletin, Alexander Glaser reported on the security dangers of continuing to use highly enriched uranium (HEU) as fuel in research reactors around the globe, and that a research reactor in Munich was planning on doing just that (“Weapons Uranium: Bavaria Bucks Ban”). HEU, which is easier to handle than plutonium and can be used in simple, gun-type nuclear devices, could be an attractive target for “low-tech proliferators,” Glaser wrote.
Converting research reactors to low-enriched uranium (LEU) is one way to make the nuclear fuel cycle safer, and under the U.S. Reduced Enrichment for Research and Test Reactors program, about half of all operational research reactors had converted to LEU. All plans for future research reactors were based on LEU designs–except for the reactor plan at Munich's Technical University, which called for HEU.
“If the German government grants the last partial license allowing the Forschungsreaktor München-II (FRM-II) research reactor to begin operating, international efforts to end the civilian use of HEU will suffer a serious setback,” Glaser wrote.
On May 2, the reactor got its license. Its first criticality is set for August. Jürgen Trittin, Germany's environmental minister, said that FRM-II “had ignored the politics of disarmament for many years.”
As part of a compromise agreement, the reactor, which will use fuel enriched to 93 percent uranium 235 to begin with, will convert to uranium enriched to under 50 percent 235 by 2010. As Glaser noted in his report, however, uranium enriched to 50 percent 235 is still weapon-usable.