Weapons

As I was writing another article, the one I posted before this, I noted that we have been pretty careless with our nuclear weapons. I had talked about this previously, but I think it deserves more in depth coverage. One of the things that caught my eye was the amount of nukes we have lost in the United States. Before I get into that, I think that it is important to know exactly how many nuclear missiles we are talking about. It is very hard to believe, but according to the US Nuclear Weapons Cost Study The US had built over 67,500 nuclear missiles. In 1966 we had the most nuclear weapons, that was a combination of bombs and missiles and totaled 32,193. If you add the total number of nuclear missiles to the total number of nuclear bombs built by 1970, the US built the staggering number of over 70,000. You have to think that we were nuts. Can you imagine the cost? The US Army had requested that it be allowed to stockpile over 150,000 nuclear warheads in 1956 and again in 1957.

Multiple Nuclear Warhead Missile
Photo Source: DOD

Nuclear weapons were spread out among the different states and in 1999, the five states with the most nuclear warheads were New Mexico with 2450, Georgia with 2000, Washington with 1685, Nevada with 1350 and North Dakota with 1140. I can tell you this, New Jersey had Nukes in all its Nike Hercules sites in the early 1960s, as did any states with these sites and the civilians there had no idea. We even spent over 7 billion dollars trying to perfect nuclear propulsion for aircraft from 1946 to 1961. From 1945 tp 1992 we held 1149 nuclear tests. Don't let anyone kid you, all that radiation from our tests and the Soviet tests had to affect the human race. Now get this, we spent $1,200,000,000 on nuclear testing between October 1992 and October 1995 and didn't even conduct one test. We actually exploded 911 nuclear bombs in Nevada, ouch!

The United States has actually LOST 11 nuclear bombs, at least that is the amount that they admit to losing. Somehow I feel that if they admit to 11, the number has to be higher and it has even been pegged at 25. It is said that the policy of the US government is to neither confirm or deny the presence of nuclear weapons in accidents. Here are the terms that the military uses for nuclear accidents:

Broken Arrow

• The accidental or unauthorized detonation, or possible detonation of a nuclear weapon (other than war risk);

• Non-nuclear detonation or burning of a nuclear weapon;

• Radioactive contamination;

• Seizure, theft, or loss of a nuclear weapon or component (including jettisoning);

• Public hazard, actual or implied.

Bent Spear

• Any nuclear weapon significant incidents other than nuclear weapons accidents or war risk detonations, actual or possible.

Dull Sword

• Any nuclear weapon incident other than significant incidents.

Faded Giant

• Any nuclear reactor or radiological accidents involving equipment used in connection with naval nuclear reactors or other naval nuclear energy devices while such equipment is under the custody of the Navy.

Smallest US Nuclear Weapon, The Davy Crockett
Photo Source: DOD

A nuclear bomb was dropped out of a military aircraft that had to lighten its load or crash. The bomb had six fail safes to protect it from exploding. Five of the fail safes were known to have failed, but thank goodness the six one held. The bomb was dropped into soft ground and disappeared. The military was not able to find it after a couple of weeks. If the bomb ever explodes it will take out Savannah. The Air Force states that the bomb doesn't have the plutonium capsule to trigger a nuclear blast. I wonder how they would like a nuke near the Pentagon. I bet they would move heaven and hell to find it. The Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counterproliferation Agency stated, “ dropping the search and leaving the bomb was "the best course of action." Was the core really missing from the bomb? Who knows?

Sometimes the military is so incompetant that they lose nukes for quite some time and then state that they found them. This was the case in August of 2007. They lost several nuclear bombs for over 36 hours. They actually had no idea what happened to them. It is said that there were 6 nuclear warheads unaccouted for that were mounted on cruise missiles. So where were they? They were being flown all over the country, right over our heads. It is said that the pilots of the planes that were carrying the nukes didn't even know they had them. In some cases the nuke sat on runways inside planes that were not secured. We talk about protecting nukes to the Russians and yet we can't even protect the ones we have correctly. Some people think that this was a sort of test by someone to see if they could alter paperwork to expose nukes. The idea being that if they got away with it this time, next time nukes would be stolen from us. The other story going around in connection with this incident, is that these nukes were supposed to be flown to the middle east, but some high ranking US Air Force officers and intelligence agency people stopped this from happening by revealing their destination and the mission had to be aborted and a cover story created.

It has been estimated that the old Soviet Union had lost about 40 nuclear weapons. It does stand to reason that the percentages of lost nukes would be at least the same for them, if not more. They have never admitted to the loss, but never the less, experts believe the figure is accurate.

In 1957 a cargo transport was carrying two nuclear bombs. It took off from Delaware and was going to Atlantic City, New Jersey. In route it lost power to two of its engines. The pilot decided he had to lighten the plane and dropped his cargo into the water, it was two nuclear bombs. They hit the water and sank to the bottom. They were never found.

In 1959 a US Navy aircraft dropped its nuclear depth charge into Puget Sound, near Whidbey Island, Washington. The weapon was never recovered.

In 1961 A B-52 was carrying two nuclear bombs. It broke apart in midair. One nuke had its parachute deploy and hit the water intact. The other nuke had parachute failure and hit the water so hard it broke apart. Again 5 of the six safetys failed and a nuclear scientist stated, “only a single switch” had “prevented the bomb from detonating and spreading fire and destruction over a wide area.” The uranium core of one of the bombs was never discovered so the Air Force purchased an easement on the area where it believed the bomb landed so that no one could dig for it. I guess some of the pieces hit the land.

1965 a plane fell off of an US aircraft carrier. It had a nuke aboard. It plunged to a depth of over 26000 feet and it was believed that this much pressure could explode the bomb. If the bomb did explode, it was kept secret.

I could cite more US nuclear weapons accidents but you can see already that these things never should have been in planes flying over this country or anywhere else for that matter.

Shipping Container For Russian Suitcase Nuke
Photo Source: GNU Free Documentation License

As far as the Soviet lost nukes go, there have been rumors for years that they have lost quite a few suitcase sized nuclear weapons. It was once reported that the loss amounted to over 100 of these devices. There were other stories that stated that the Soviets had managed to plant them in many of our major cities before the Cold War ended.

We are now in a position where many other countries want nukes. We are telling them no and they look at us knowing that we have large nuclear stockpiles. I am not saying that we should do away with all nukes in this dangerous world, just that the old “Do what I say and not what I do”, doesn't work very well. Many of these countries will also lose nukes over time. They might even have some stolen. I don't know what the answer is, but I do know that we are sowing the seeds of our own destruction. Pandora's box has been opened and we have to figure out how to close it again.