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Jan 20 • 15 tweets • 4 min read
According to the @BulletinAtomic’s analysis of global events, the world remains at 100 Seconds to Midnight, the same setting as when the symbolic “Doomsday Clock” was last reset in 2020 and still the closest it has ever been to “doomsday.” #DoomsdayClock thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/
Why? Watch the livestream event or read the statements of the members of the Bulletin’s Science and Security Board:

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Stephen Schwartz Profile picture
Jan 21
OTD in 1968, a B-52 carrying 4 B28 H-bombs on airborne alert over the BMEWS radar at Thule, Greenland, caught fire and crashed onto the ice at ~560mph. The conventional high explosives in all four bombs exploded, scattering 6kg of plutonium; 35,000 gal. of jet fuel burned debris. ImageImageImage
Thule Monitor was a special airborne alert mission to confirm that the BMEWS radar—which was (and is) critical to detecting an ICBM/bomber attack over the North Pole—was unscathed if communication lines went down, or destroyed, signaling the (presumptive) start of a nuclear war. Image
The fire aboard the B-52G was caused by human and mechanical error. A crewmember stuffed four foam rubber cushions beneath a seat on top of a heating vent. When the heat was turned up hours later, a heater malfunction ignited them, filling the cabin with flames and thick smoke.
Read 9 tweets
Stephen Schwartz Profile picture
Jan 20
Today in 1953, as part of President Dwight D. Eisenhower’s inaugural parade, a demonstration model of the massive M65 280-millimeter atomic cannon rumbled down Pennsylvania Avenue and in front of the White House. It was tested four months later at the Nevada Proving Ground.
Four years to the day later, Eisenhower’s 1957 inaugural parade featured the Air Force’s Matador and Snark cruise missiles as well as the Army’s Corporal short-range ballistic missile, all of which were armed with nuclear warheads (although not for the parade).
President John F. Kennedy’s 1961 inaugural parade included four nuclear missiles, all operated by the Army: the Pershing I intermediate-range ballistic missile, the Lacrosse short-range missile, the Nike Hercules air defense missile, and the Nike Zeus antiballistic missile.
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Schwartz Profile picture
Jan 19
Warmonger Mike Pompeo calls on the United States launch a “Strategic Defense Initiative for our time,” which should—among other things—develop and deploy directed-energy weapons: “New nuclear weapons could be more focused in their conveyance of energy and in their possible uses.”
Pompeo also ridiculously asserts that the mere announcement of the creation of the original SDI by Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983, made all 2,346 ICBMs and SLBMs then deployed by the Soviet Union “essentially useless” and was a key reason it suddenly collapsed eight years later. Image
SDI didn’t end the Cold War. While “the [USSR] expressed serious concerns about US missile defense programs, SDI was not a decisive factor in advancing arms control negotiations. … The [USSR] quickly identified ways to avoid a technological arms race ….” scienceandglobalsecurity.org/archive/sgs25p… Image
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Schwartz Profile picture
Jan 19
In which Sen. Fischer misleadingly transforms an estimate into a near certainty: “… China is expanding its arsenal, but at a scale and speed that may be without precedent in world history: The Pentagon believes China plans to more than quadruple its nuclear stockpile by 2030….”
Last year, STRATCOM commander Adm. Charles Richard wrote and testified China could double its nuclear stockpile by decade’s end. At House and Senate armed services committee hearings, it was Republicans like Sen. Fischer who pushed him to say China intended to go even further.
By alarmingly claiming China’s nuclear expansion “may be without precedent in world history,” @SenatorFischer—who has never met a US nuclear weapon she didn't like, especially an ICBM—betrays her vast ignorance of her own country’s nuclear history.
Read 5 tweets
Stephen Schwartz Profile picture
Jan 17
This morning in 1966 over Palomares, Spain, a B-52G bomber on airborne alert collided with a KC-135 tanker during a routine high-altitude refueling operation, killing all 4 tanker crew members and 3 of the B-52’s crew, and causing 4 1.45-Megaton B28 H-bombs to fall to earth.
Conventional high explosives in two of the three bombs that hit land detonated on impact, contaminating local tomato fields with plutonium. US troops dug up 1,400 tons of radioactive soil and vegetation, which was buried in an AEC dump in South Carolina. But we didn't get it all.
Decades later, many USAF veterans involved in that cleanup effort are suffering and dying from a variety of ailments they link to being ordered to clean up the radioactive debris in Palomares without any protection. They seek recognition and medical care. nytimes.com/video/us/10000…
Read 11 tweets
Stephen Schwartz Profile picture
Jan 16
Seventy years ago today, President Truman secretly approved the congressional Joint Committee on Atomic Energy’s so-called 50-150 expansion program, directing the Atomic Energy Commission to arbitrarily increase production of plutonium by 50% and highly enriched uranium by 150%.
Thus a decade later, the US nuclear stockpile soared from 841 bombs to 25,540 bombs/warheads. The JCAE—with the Joint Chiefs of Staff’s approval—urged an expansion in May 1951. AEC objected to an open-ended plan, arguing for specific military requirements. JCAE and DOD won out.
Although the 50-150 program was highly-classified information, JCAE chairman Senator Brien McMahon (D-Connecticut) infuriated the Atomic Energy Commission and President Truman by leaking word of it to the press immediately after meeting with Truman about it on January 17.
Read 5 tweets

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