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The Cost and Legacy of the Atomic Age

• Financial cost• Environmental cost• Bomb victims?• Secrecy/Vigilance?• Was it all worth it?

Stained class window in memorial chapel, SAC headquarters

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How Much Did the Atomic Age Cost?• Money

– US went all out to build nuclear weapons. Idea was that this was purchasing peace on the cheap.

• “I solemnly say to you that the cost of a single atom bomb will become less than the cost of a single tank…I propose that we make our best and cheapest weapon – the atomic weapon – the real backbone of our peace power.” (Sen. Brien McMahon, 1951 speech)

– By 2002, the cost of America’s atomic arsenal?• $5,000,000,000,000 (more than cost of World War II)

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Did You Get Your Money’s Worth?

• Cost of nuclear testing in 1985 (16 tests) = $825 million• Cost of testing in 1995 (0) tests = $410 million• Number of nuclear warheads requested by the Army in 1956

and 1957 = 151,000• Total number of U.S.-built warheads = 70,000• Number of nuclear bombers built = 4,000• Number of nuclear missiles built since 1951 = 67,500• Total land occupied by DoD and DoE weapons installations =

15,564 square miles• Total land area of New Jersey, Massachusetts, and the District

of Columbia = 15,357 square miles• Number of tests conducted in Nevada = 935• Number of tests in the Pacific = 826• Volume in cubic meters of radioactive waste resulting from

weapons activities: 104,000,000

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• Fissile material produced: 104 tons of plutonium and 994 tons of highly-enriched uranium. Number of Pacific Islands still contaminated = 826

• Number of dismantled plutonium "pits" stored in Amarillo, Texas: 12,067 (as of May 6, 1999)

• Number of Pacific islands completely vaporized = 1• Number of ‘Broken Arrows’ i.e. US nuclear bombs lost in

accidents and never recovered = 11• Cost of the nuclear-powered aircraft program = $7 billion• Number of hangars built for nuclear airplanes = 1• Number of nuclear airplanes built = 0• Currency stored in Culpepper, VA to be used after a nuclear

war = more than $2 trillion• Number of secret facilities built for presidential use after

WW3 = 75

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Victims of Testing• Total number of nuclear tests done since

1945?– 2046

• Who were the victims?– Residents of Hiroshima and Nagasaki– Workers in uranium mines and nuclear production

facilities– Armed forces exposed to tests on purpose– People downwind from tests– Human experiment subjects– World citizens harmed by fallout and terrorized by

having weapons aimed at them

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• A soldier uses a broom to remove radioactive dust following test blast in Nevada

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• Conclusion of 1998 report from Brookings Institute? – More U.S. citizens were harmed by the weapons

supposed to protect them than were the people against whom the weapons were actually targeted.

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Environmental Damage

• The US nuclear infrastructure was huge…Contamination and environmental damage at these sites within the U.S. and abroad is expensive, dangerous, and long term project– About $500 billion est.

• Storing high-level nuclear waste is a problem still without a solution.

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People

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Secrecy and Vigilance

• Nuclear weapons information is “born secret”

• Minimum number of pages still classified by Energy Department = 280 million pages

• Cost of personnel security clearance system more than $2 billion.

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View of “Looking Glass,” SAC’s airborne command post in flight 24 hours a day from 1961-1990.

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Was it all worth it?

• Did nuclear weapons keep the peace during the Cold War?– Why is this an important question?– Differing viewpoints

• John Lewis Gaddis

• Deborah Welch Larson

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• George W. Bush:– “Today’s Russia is not our enemy.” (May 1, 2001)

• Number of warheads (tactical and strategic) in US stockpile– 10,729 total; about 7,000 ready for use.– Number targeted at Russia?

• About 2600• Worldwide – about 20,000

The Recent Situation

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Evidence? The current SIOP

• SIOP = Single Integrated Operational Plan….the American plan for general nuclear war.

• Current SIOP still requires hundreds of weapons alert and trained on Russian targets at all times.

• 100’s of more targets ID’ed in N. Korea, Iran, China• More info – Visit website of the Natural Resources

Defense Council (www.nrdc.org)

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Final Thoughts

• George W. Bush; March 13, 2002– “I view our nuclear arsenal as a deterrent, as

a way to say to people that would harm America, don’t do it. That’s a deterrent, that there’s a consequence. And the President must have all options available to make that deterrent have meaning.”

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• The Devil speaking in Don Juan in Hell, Act III of Man and Superman by George Bernard Shaw, 1902.

– “I have examined Man's wonderful inventions…In the arts of death he outdoes Nature herself…there is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons.”

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A sign of hope…?

Workers at Pantex Plant near Amarillo, Texas, disassembling a B61 gravity bomb by separating it into its major subcomponents.The bomb's warhead is in the section directly behind the nose.

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One Example – Broken Arrows

• Eighty days after if fell into the ocean following the January 1966 collision between a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber and refueling tanker over Spain, this B28RI nuclear bomb was recovered from 2,850 feet of water.

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• As a result of the accident, tons of radioactive soil was excavated, packed in 55-gallon drums, and sent to the United States for disposal. Here, the barrels are being loaded and prepared for shipment.

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• Hans Bethe– “If we fight a war and win it with H-

bombs, what history will remember is not the ideals we were fighting for but the methods we used to accomplish them.”

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