Today in 1952, Los Alamos theoretical physicist and weapons designer Ted Taylor used a parabolic mirror and a 15-kt nuclear explosion (George) detonated atop a 300-ft tower in Nevada to light a Pall Mall cigarette. Taylor designed the lightweight “Scorpion” device for the test.
Taylor (1925-2004) subsequently recalled that he “carefully extinguished the cigarette and saved it for a while in my desk drawer at Los Alamos. Sometime, probably in a state of excitement about some new kind of bomb, I must have smoked it by mistake.”
Taylor went on to design the highest- and lowest-yield US atomic (fission) bombs: the B18 (500 kt, tested above Enewetak Atoll in Shot King on November 15, 1952), and the W54 (.018-.022 kt, tested at the Nevada Proving Ground in Little Feller II and I on July 7 and 11, 1962).
Taylor spent much of his career obsessively pursuing even smaller atomic bombs: “What is the absolute lower limit to the total weight of a complete fission explosive. What is the smallest amount of plutonium or uranium 235 that can be made to explode?”
“I tried to find out what was the smallest bomb you could produce, and it was a lot smaller than Davy Crockett [the W54 warhead] ... . It was a full implosion bomb that you could hold in one hand that was about six inches in diameter.” Quotes are from George Dyson’s 2002 book.
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Today in 1980, at 2:26am EDT, warning displays at the Strategic Air Command suddenly indicated that a Soviet SLBM attack on the United States was underway, first showing 2 and then, 18 seconds later, 200 inbound missiles. SAC ordered all alert air crews to start their engines.
Launch officers for 1,000 Minuteman ICBMs were also alerted to be ready to receive an Emergency Action Message (a coded launch order). Three minutes later, duty officers at NORAD determined this was a false alarm because early-warning satellites and radars indicated no attack.
Before that happened, however, Gen. William Odom, National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski’s military asst., called him at home, telling him 220 Soviet SLBMs were hurtling toward the United States. Brzezinski told Odom to call back with a confirmation and the likely targets.
OTD 35 yrs ago, the INF Treaty—signed by Reagan and Gorbachev on Dec. 8, 1987—entered into force. Less than three years later, 2,692 US & Soviet nuclear missiles had been verifiably destroyed. INF ended on Aug. 2, 2019, after Trump unilaterally withdrew the United States from it.
For more on the negotiating history of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, including its unprecedented on-site verification system, see this remarkable collection of declassified documents from the @NSArchive: nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/…
In 1990, Soviet/Russian painter and sculptor and painter Zurab Tsereteli presented this bronze sculpture to the United Nations to commemorate the signing of the 1987 INF Treaty. Titled “Good Defeats Evil,” it sits in a garden outside UN headquarters in New York City.
Today in 1962, the US conducted FRIGATE BIRD, the only US nuclear proof test of a live warhead on an operational ballistic missile. In the Pacific, the USS Ethan Allen (SSBN-608) launched a Polaris A1 SLBM toward Christmas Is. (Kiritimati). The W47Y1 warhead’s yield was ~600 kt.
The photo at right was taken through the periscope of the USS Carbonero (SS-337), which was submerged 25 miles from the aim point. The warhead detonated at an altitude of 11,000 feet. The range clock at the upper right indicates 14:33, the local time at the launch point.
This declassified official US government film documents the extensive preparations for, execution, and results of the unprecedented FRIGATE BIRD end-to-end test of an operational nuclear weapon. Incredibly, the entire process took less than two months.
OTD in 1955—in conjunction with the 29-kt Apple-2 nuclear test at the Nevada Proving Ground 65 mi. NW of Las Vegas—the Federal Civil Defense Administration conducted Operation Cue to study the blast’s effects on, among other things, typical American homes.
Pairs of five different kinds of houses (for a total of ten) were built on site, one placed where major damage was expected, the other farther away. The closest were 4,700' and the furthest 10,500' from the 500' Apple-2 shot tower holding the test device. apps.dtic.mil/dtic/tr/fullte…
Operation Cue included an observer program for civil defense officials, business representatives, and journalists, and a first-of-its-kind field exercise where 400 volunteer civil defense workers from across the country conducted simulated rescues, first aid, mass feedings, etc.
Today in 1969, an incensed and intoxicated President Richard Nixon ordered the Joint Chiefs of Staff to attack North Korea with a nuclear weapon after its fighter jets intercepted and shot down a US EC-121 reconnaissance plane over the Sea of Japan, killing all 31 crew members.
In 2010, NPR interviewed US Air Force veteran Bruce Charles, who was on alert that day at Kunsan AB in South Korea and told to prepare to strike his target, a North Korean airstrip. His F-4 Phantom II fighter carried a single 300-kiloton B61 gravity bomb. npr.org/2010/07/06/128…
After waiting for several hours that afternoon, Charles was told to stand down around dusk. Unbeknownst to him, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger had convinced the Joint Chiefs of Staff to hold off until the next morning, when Nixon would be sober. theguardian.com/weekend/story/…
Today in 1966, the shocking docudrama “The War Game” had the first of four invitation-only screenings at the British Film Institute’s National Film Theatre in London for members of the establishment after the BBC banned its broadcast on October 6, 1965. archive.org/details/TheWar…
Although the BBC commissioned the film from Peter Watkins (below), it refused to air it. BBC Director-General Sir Hugh Carleton Greene declared it “too horrifying for the medium of broadcasting,” and claimed it would cause distress to children, the elderly, and the mentally ill.
In fact, government officials were alarmed at the film’s accurate depiction of inadequate government readiness and mass civilian helplessness and suffering. Following limited theater screenings in 1967, “The War Game” won that year’s Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature.