Berkley Bedell Blog

The Solution

The United States must propose to the United Nations a treaty demanding that no nation add nuclear arms to its arsenal, that any nation possessing nuclear arms destroy them, and that the United States and other signers pledge their military support to enforce such a treaty.

 

Although challenged in many places in the world today, the military might and political clout of the United States are stronger than any other nation, perhaps stronger than the other nations put together.  The United States must take the lead.

 

The treaty must reaffirm “that the ultimate objective of the efforts of States in the disarmament process is general and complete disarmament under effective international control” as stated in a document titled “A path to the total elimination of nuclear weapons,” presented to the United Nations General Assembly in 2003.

 

The treaty must cover these points:

 

• Provision for access to all nations’ facilities by international inspectors.

• Provision that all nations act in unison in case any nation is found to be acting contrary to the treaty.

• Establishment of an international military force with the means to eliminate any contrary action.

• An effective date upon ratification by all the world’s countries.

Initial international skepticism at insistence by the U.S. on this step will give way to renewed recognition of its utmost importance to the preservation and evolution of human life.  The strength and persuasive power of the United States will be significant but ultimately the logic behind ridding the world’s people of the means to destroy themselves will prevail.

 

Getting a U.S. proposal to the United Nation, however, will take significant work at home.  We must first get over the hopeless feeling that nothing can be done; the consequences of inaction must spur us on.  We must insist that our elected officials follow the lead of the people, 87 percent of whom are in favor of prohibiting all nuclear explosions.  At every level, persons seeking elective office should be questioned about their nuclear weapons position; each should be required to pledge support for existing disarmament and non-proliferation agreements and for the proposed United Nations ban.

The clock is ticking.  It is time for its strongest nation, in concert with the rest of the world, to take this most important of all steps—move the Doomsday Clock backwards and the evolution of the human species forward!  Berkley Bedell and Jim Frost.

Failed Policies

The inadequate policies of the United States have so far pretty much been based on preventing additional countries from developing or acquiring nuclear weapons, and keeping them out of the hands of terrorists.

 

There are three fundamental fallacies to this policy.  First, other nations have never agreed that it is acceptable for us to have a nuclear arsenal but that they may not.  Second, we cannot be sure that the countries that already have arsenals will not use them against us.  Third, as long as nuclear weapons exist, terrorists will seek to obtain them.

 

Another category of concern that must be considered is the still real possibility of accidental nuclear war brought on by outlaw military personnel, malfunctioning warning or targeting equipment, off-course planes or missiles, mistakenly perceived messages, misinterpreted international incidents, deliberate efforts to spark incidents, and so on. 

 

America was reminded of the potential for a disastrous accident when in August of 2007 a plane took off from North Dakota and flew across the country to Louisiana.  It had been mistakenly loaded with six nuclear bombs without its crew’s knowledge.

 

We must go beyond containment and get on with eradication—Jim Frost

Who's Ahead?

The American people are ahead of their government in recognizing that with more and more nations gaining the capability to join the nuclear club, and more and more nuclear weapons that might fall into the hands of terrorists, the threat is growing. 

 

When asked in a 2004 Knowledge Networks poll what treaties and agreements the U.S. should or should not participate in, 87 percent said we should participate in a treaty that would ban nuclear test explosions worldwide, and according to a 2005 AP poll, 66 percent feel that no country should have nuclear weapons.

 

The board of directors of the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” is also ahead of the U.S. government.  When its members moved their Doomsday Clock ahead in 2002 they cited little progress on disarmament, concern about nuclear weapons security, the tension between India and Pakistan, reports of terrorists seeking weapons of mass destruction, and the increasing potential for armed conflict due to the growing disparity between rich and poor.

 

They said, “Moving the clock’s hands at this time reflects our growing concern that the international community has hit the ‘snooze’ button rather than responding to the alarm.”

 

A good portion of their concern focused on the United States.  They found it particularly disturbing that our government was choosing unilateral action against perceived enemies rather than cooperative international diplomacy to deal with worldwide weapons issues.

 

Our leadership must be ahead of, not behind, the problem—Berkley Bedell.

The Horses Are Loose

In 2009 the already bad nuclear situation is exacerbated by a number of factors.  To wit:

 

• At the end of the Cold War thousands of nuclear weapons experts—people with the skills to build bombs—found themselves out of work.

 

• Hundreds of tons of weapons grade uranium as well as thousands of bombs remain stored in poorly protected buildings around the world.

 

• The pace at which Russia is dismantling its nuclear arsenal is too slow for the job to be completed anytime soon.

 

• Terrorists such as those on 9/11 have access to places in the world where a bomb could be loaded on a plane capable of reaching the World Trade Center or Pentagon.

 

• North Korea suffers under a totalitarian regime that continues to waffle about its nuclear intentions.  It tested a bomb in October of 2006 and might possess up to 10 more.

 

• Iran has refused to end its program to enrich uranium, potentially to weapons grade.

 

• The unstable leaders of both Iran and Korea point to the pre-emptive U.S. invasion of Iraq as proof of their position that nuclear weapons are needed to defend themselves.

 

• Israel refuses to confirm or deny having a nuclear arsenal but aerial photography has revealed bunkers, launchers and launch sites for up to 200 missiles.  The country’s continual armed conflicts with its neighbors could escalate to nuclear warfare if its survival is threatened.

 

• The possibility of a clash between the United States and the People’s Republic of China over Taiwan remains.

 

• Neither India nor Pakistan is a member of the NPT of 1968.  They are historical enemies that developed their nuclear capabilities in response to each other.

 

• The United States has continued to research and develop new and even more deadly military paraphernalia, including a costly and controversial missile defense system about which only one thing has been proven—it causes fear and a hostile reaction from Russia.

 

These are facts with which we must deal.  As the old saying goes, the horses are out of the barn—Berkley Bedell.

By Golly, We Tried

If anything dealing with annihilation of the earth can be labeled boring, the timeline of the efforts to control the nuclear monster might be.  But let us look at it.

 

1957—The United Nations International Atomic Energy Agency was established to encourage peaceful development of atomic power. 

 

1963—The Partial Test Ban Treaty among 130 countries, including the Soviet Union and the United States was adopted; it restricted all further nuclear testing to underground. 

 

1964-67—Treaties were adopted prohibiting nuclear weapons in African, Latin American and Caribbean countries.

 

1968—The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) went into effect with 138 participating nations, all of whom agreed that nations that did not possess nuclear weapons as of 1967 would not obtain them and those that did, including the United States, would divest themselves of these weapons; India, Pakistan and North Korea did not sign. 

 

1972—The United States and Soviet Union agreed to limit defensive anti-ballistic missile systems; President Richard Nixon and General Secretary of the Communist Party Leonoid Brezhnev signed the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ATBM). 

 

1972-79—The first of two Strategic Arms Limitations Talks (SALT I) froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers of the Soviet Union and the United States and SALT II cut short the making of nuclear weapons and reduced the numbers held by the two superpowers.  Although Brezhnev and President Jimmy Carter signed SALT II and both countries honored its terms, the U.S. Senate did not ratify it.  Accusing the Soviets of violating the pact, the Reagan administration withdrew in 1986.

 

1988—The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty between the Soviet Union and United States eliminated ground-launched mid-range nuclear missiles.

 

1991-93—START I, the first Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, specified that the Soviet Union and the United States could deploy no more that 6000 warheads on 1,600 missiles and bombers.  START II banned the use of multiple warheads on a single ballistic missile. 

 

1991—The board of directors of the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” set the Doomsday Clock at 17 minutes before midnight, its longest time to date. 

 

1996—The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), banning all nuclear explosions, was opened for signature.  It has since been signed and ratified by 138 countries; the United States is not one of them.  India, another country that did not sign the CTBT, soon tested three nuclear bombs.

 

2000-02—The original nuclear states (China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and United States) renewed the pledge of the NPT Treaty of 1968 to pursue “an unequivocal undertaking...to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals...” but in 2002, the U.S. withdrew from 1972’s ATBM and the Soviets withdrew from SALT II. 

 

2002—Recognizing little progress on disarmament, the “Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists” board set the Doomsday Clock to seven minutes, the third time the clock was moved forward since the end of the Cold War.

 

2002—The Treaty of Strategic Offensive Reductions, also known as the Moscow Treaty, took effect.  It limits Soviet and U.S. nuclear arsenals but includes no verification provisions or benchmarks. 

 

2006—Countries of the former Soviet Union—Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan—established the Central Asian Nuclear Free Zone and agreed not to manufacture, acquire, test or possess nuclear weapons.

 

Wow!  In spite of 50 years of trying the nuclear menace lives.  Given that all efforts have failed to eliminate the threat, the question, how can we solve the problem, begs another, where do we start.

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, as the abstract to its publication, A Prescription for U.S. Nuclear Weapons Policy, suggests that, “as president, Barack Obama could fundamentally alter U.S. nuclear weapons policy, but only if he devotes the necessary political capital to the effort and rethinks timeworn assumptions.” 

The steps might be relatively small, such as following Leon V. Sigal’s suggestion in the Bulletin that a “new political, economic and strategic relationships” be forged with North Korea by the Obama administration in exchange for, among other things, Pyongyang’s moving to eliminate its nuclear and missile programs.  But they must be taken.

There is hope that with new, more enlightened leadership, the U.S. can overcome its stumbles and be part of the solution.  The “nice tries” of the past are not good enough; they must be replaced with single-minded purpose to rid the world of its monster—Jim Frost.

Cooler Heads Have Not Prevailed

The world’s nuclear age was about to begin more than 60 years ago when Winston Churchill (succeeded by Clement Attlee), Joseph Stalin and Harry Truman met to decide the future of a defeated Germany and discuss the end of World War II in the Pacific.  When the allied leaders received no answer from Japan to their unconditional surrender ultimatum it was bombs away.

 

As the bomb exploded on Hiroshima, Enola Gay tail gunner, George Carlson, described the scene as “bubbling molasses” and a “peep into hell.”  Robert L. Lewis, co-pilot of one of the other planes above the doomed city later wrote, “My God, what have we done?” 

 

Wise counsel against nuclear weapons immediately followed.  Nobel Prize winner James Franck, who was part of J. Robert Oppenheimer’s Manhattan Project to build the bomb, sent a document urging restraint to the council charged with giving advice to Truman on nuclear policy, including use of the new weapon.  But Franck and a group of fellow researchers at the University of Chicago’s Metallurgical Laboratory acknowledged sadly:

 

                  It may be difficult to persuade the world that a nation which is

                  capable of secretly preparing and suddenly releasing a weapon    

                  as indiscriminate as the rocket bomb and a million times more

                  destructive, is to be trusted in its proclaimed desire of having       

                  such weapons abolished by international agreement.

 

Regret at use of the bomb was expressed by Albert Einstein, Leo Szilárd and even Oppenheimer, “the father of the atomic bomb,” who lamented its power to kill and refused Truman’s later request to help develop the hydrogen bomb. 

 

Presidents Dwight D. Eisenhower and John F. Kennedy railed against nuclear weapons.  In 1953 Eisenhower delivered his “Atoms for Peace” speech to the United Nations General Assembly and pledged that the U.S. was determined to help solve the fearful atomic dilemma.  Kennedy said, “The world is not meant to be a prison in which man awaits his execution.”

 

Rajiv Gandhi, appealed to the U.N. in 1988:

 

                  Nuclear war will not mean the death of a hundred million people.

                  Or even a thousand million.  It will mean the extinction of four

                  thousand million; the end of life as we know it on our planet

                  Earth.  We come to the United Nations to seek your support.  We

                  seek your support to put a stop to this madness.

 

In 2005, Mohammed El Baradei, director of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said that all weapons must be wiped out, “As long as some countries place strategic reliance on nuclear weapons as a deterrent, other countries will emulate them.  We cannot delude ourselves into thinking otherwise.”

 

Recently former presidential cabinet secretaries, Henry Kissinger, William Perry and George Schultz, along with Sam Nunn (former U.S. senator and now co-chairman of the National Threat Initiative) said in a Wall Street Journal article:

 

                  U.S. leadership will be required to take the world to the next stage—

                  to a solid consensus for reversing reliance on nuclear weapons

                  globally as a vital contribution to preventing their proliferation into

                  potentially dangerous hands, and ultimately ending them as a threat

                  to the world.

 

But incredibly we still have them.  The issue cannot be pushed to a back burner; it must be brought forward—Berkley Bedell.

The Insanity

In 1945 there were six nuclear weapons in the world, all of them in the United States.  By 1949 the Iron Curtain had dropped on Europe and behind it the Soviet Union first detonated a nuclear device.  The U.S. responded by building a hydrogen bomb that was 800 times more powerful than Little Boy.  Within a short time the Soviets also had a hydrogen bomb and the nuclear arms race was on. 

 

Fear, technology and an out-of-control arms race upped the count of worldwide weapons to 65,057 by 1986.  The nuclear club then included the United States, Soviet Union, France, Great Britain and China.

 

The number of bombs was reduced in 2008 but is still ridiculous.  The Union of Concerned Scientists estimates that Russia has 5,200 deployed weapons plus another 8,800 in storage; the United States has 4,100 plus at least 1,300; France has 290; Great Britain 150 plus 50; and China 170 plus 70.  Israel, Pakistan, India and North Korea tag along with 195, and it seems as if Iran is poised to join the club.

 

In 1947 a group of former bomb-building Manhattan Project physicists established the Doomsday Clock—midnight represented catastrophic nuclear destruction.  Originally set at seven minutes, it was reset to two minutes before midnight in 1953 when both the Soviet Union and the United States tested thermonuclear devices.  It continues to tick today on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Web site where it reads five minutes to midnight.

 

During the Cold War, from 1945 to 1991, nuclear weapons were seen as being essential to maintaining international security, or at least the security of the two superpowers.  They were justified as a means of deterrence, the insane linchpin of a defense policy called mutually assured destruction—both countries would ultimately be destroyed therefore they would not be used.

 

We still live with this macabre policy vis-à-vis Russia and in addition must more and more be concerned about rogue governments, terrorists and clumsy or deranged persons—Jim Frost.

We Start Here

Time was when the strongest person with the biggest club could rule.  Then came spears, bows and arrows, and eventually guns.  Guns were the great equalizer.  Brute strength no longer ruled; with a gun a small person could do just as much damage as a giant.

 

Over the years, nations with the largest armies have been able to inflict their will on their smaller and weaker neighbors.  War was accepted and even glorified and the number of men under arms was the principal measure of military strength.

 

Then came nuclear bombs.  Nuclear bombs and the systems to deliver them have given nations the ability to destroy each other.  Just as guns were the leveler between individuals, nuclear weapons are the leveler among nations.

 

“The Nation” magazine on Feb. 9, 2009, included an excellent article by Jonathan Schell wherein he described the five crises facing Barack Obama.  About one, the spread of nuclear arms, he said, it is “less on the public mind, perhaps because it is so old it is taken for granted.”

 

The president focused renewed attention on the issue during his recent European trip.  In Prague, Czech Republic, he called for a nuclear free world but conceded that, “This goal will not be reached quickly—perhaps not in my lifetime.”

 

We should move more quickly.  We must not forget the horror already caused by nuclear weapons.  And we must no longer overlook the possible consequences of taking the existence of these weapons for granted.

 

This blog will outline what we believe are the world’s most serious problems.  But we will start with the one that if not eliminated might well make all the others irrelevant— Berkley Bedell.

The Horror

On Aug. 6, 1945, the day the atom bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, Dr. Takashi Nagai was at work as usual.  Several days later he was able to find his way home to search for his wife.

 

                  I found her at once.  A black lump in the remains of the kitchen.

                  Just her pelvis and other bones, scorched by the fire.  She was still

                  warm.  I picked up my wife and put her in the bucket and I carried

                  her to the cemetery.

 

In Hiroshima 80,000 persons were killed instantly and in Nagasaki three days later another 35,000; 100,000 more had died by the end of 1945.  In 1999 total reported deaths from the bombs and their aftereffects were 237,000 for Hiroshima and 135,000 for Nagasaki.

 

The bombs were used despite the reservations and fears of many persons involved in the decision to build them.  Debate about their use goes on but about the massive power of these devices to kill there can be no debate.  And the bombs dropped on the people of Japan were relatively small. 

 

Little Boy was the thoughtlessly ironic name given the Hiroshima bomb.  Its biggest brother is Russia’s Tsar Bomba, the largest nuclear bomb ever built.  Little Boy was equivalent to 15,000 tons of TNT; Tsar Bomba 50,000,000 tons.  In other words 3,333 times more than the first bomb dropped on Japan.

 

The old Soviet Union and now Russian Federation is not alone in pursuing ridiculously massive firepower.  Each of the 14 nuclear-powered and nuclear-armed Ohio class submarines deployed today by the United States carries 24 Trident missiles.  On these submarines alone there is enough destructive power to wipe out 336 major cities almost anywhere in the world. 

 

The potential of these weapons to end all life, to say nothing of their cost and the way they distort international relations, is universally recognized.  For the people of the world, it is time to demand their elimination—Jim Frost.