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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

10 Jul

Today in 1985, French secret agents—in an elaborate intelligence operation codenamed Satanique—bombed and sank the Greenpeace flagship Rainbow Warrior in Auckland, New Zealand, as it prepared to return to Mururoa Atoll to protest French underground nuclear testing there.

France denied responsibility for the attack, which killed 35-year-old freelance photographer Fernando Pereira, and most of its agents (at least nine were involved) escaped. But New Zealand police detained two suspects, posing as Swiss honeymooners, and unraveled the plot.

After France's culpability was proven, Defence Minister Charles Hernu resigned and Admiral Pierre Lacoste, Director of the Direction Générale de la Sécurité Extérieure, was fired. In 2005, it was confirmed President François Mitterand had personally approved Opération Satanique.

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

3 Jul

Today in 1970, France conducted “Licorne,” its fourth H-bomb test—and 36th test overall—at Mururoa Atoll in the South Pacific. Six hours after the 914-kt explosion, Defense Minister Michel Debrè swam in the lagoon as a publicity stunt to show it was not dangerously radioactive.

Debrè remained politically active until he was 80 and died at his home in Montlouis-sur-Loire, 150 miles south of Paris, on August 2, 1996, at age 84. The cause of death was not reported, but he was apparently ill for some time.

The test device, which was designed to arm French submarine-launched ballistic missiles, was attached to a tethered balloon 1,600 feet above the atoll. Here’s a video of the explosion:

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

1 Jul

Seventy-five years ago today (9:00am local time), the United States conducted its first post-war atomic test—Shot Able of Operation Crossroads. A B-29 bomber dropped a Fat Man-type 23-kiloton bomb over an array of 95 ships moored in Bikini Atoll lagoon.

To prepare for Operation Crossroads (originally planned as three tests), in March 1946, the US forced 167 native islanders living on Bikini Atoll to relocate to Rongerik Atoll 128 miles to the east. To make room for the ships, it used 90 tons of dynamite to destroy coral heads.

Due to a bombsight miscalibration, the bomber missed its intended aim point—the brightly-painted battleship USS Nevada (number 32 on the map)—by 2,130 feet, and the bomb instead exploded close to the attack transport USS Gilliam (number 5 on the map).

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

7 Jun

OTD 40 years ago, Israel's Air Force conducted Operation Opera, using 8 F-16A’s (supported by 6 F-15A’s) to destroy Iraq’s unfinished, French-built Osirak nuclear research reactor 11 miles SE of Baghdad. The airstrike also killed 10 Iraqi soldiers and 1 French civilian engineer.

Intended to delay if not destroy Saddam Hussein’s nuclear ambitions, the attack instead strengthened his desire, leading him—after the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war—to pursue a more ambitious, covert nuclear weapons program that was only fully revealed after the first Gulf War in 1991.

@NSArchive

Newly declassified information published today for the first time by @NSArchive reveals that France took secret “preventive measures” unbeknownst to Iraq to ensure Iraq could never use its research reactor to produce fissile fuel for nuclear weapons. nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/…

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

7 Jun

Today in 1960, a BOMARC A surface-to-air missile on alert at McGuire AFB, New Jersey, caught fire. The high-intensity blaze melted the 10-kiloton W40 warhead and caused significant plutonium contamination of the surrounding soil that was not properly cleaned up until 2004.

Officials at McGuire AFB (about ~16 mi. S-SE of Trenton) initially thought the fire was a "one-point" detonation—that one lens of conv. high explosives surrounding the plutonium pit had exploded, triggering a chain reaction. (The first version of the W40 was not one-point-safe.)

@NSArchive

To read declassified US Air Force documents obtained by @NSArchive detailing the cause, immediate environmental impact, and health consequences to base personnel of this significant Broken Arrow nuclear accident, see nsarchive2.gwu.edu//nukevault/ebb… and nsarchive2.gwu.edu//nukevault/ebb….

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Stephen Schwartz

@AtomicAnalyst

6 Jun

Today in 1989, more than 70 armed FBI and EPA agents raided the Department of Energy's Rocky Flats Plant 21 miles northwest of Denver, Colorado, in "Operation Desert Glow" to investigate illegal incineration of plutonium-contaminated wastes and other environmental crimes.

The unprecedented raid halted production of new plutonium pits, ultimately ending the manufacture of new US nuclear warheads. In 1992, contractor Rockwell International pled guilty and paid a $18.5 million fine, the largest levied for an an environmental crime to that date.

That amount, however, was less than what Rockwell had received in bonuses from DOE to operate the plant. Why the Department of Justice agreed to the plea agreement—when a special grand jury was prepared to indict 3 DOE and 5 Rockwell officials—remains a mystery to this day.

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