Risk of accidental nuke attack spurs action

By Fred Gaboury

This article was reprinted from the May 2, 1998 issue of the People's Weekly World. For subscription information see below. All rights reserved - may be used with PWW credits.

NEW YORK - Warnings of the danger of accidental nuclear attack were heard on two fronts last week - on the floor of the United States Senate and in press conferences organized in seven cities by Physicians for Social Responsibility (PSR).

During Senate debate on the eastward expansion of NATO, Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan warned that including Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland in the treaty could lead the United States to "stumble into the catastrophe of nuclear war with Russia. We're right back to where we were in the 1950s," New York's senior senator said.

"We are holding press conferences in the cities that common sense tells us would be the targets of a nuclear launch from a Russian submarine," Dr. Victor W. Sidel, co-president of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW), said at New York City Hall.

The press conferences were called to release a report in the current edition of the New England Journal of Medicine titled "Accidental Nuclear War - A Post Cold War Assessment." The report cites evidence of the growing danger of an accidental nuclear attack and concludes with a call for the total elimination of nuclear weapons.

Sidel told reporters the "increased possibility" of accidental nuclear attack makes the U.S. "more vulnerable today than at any time in the fifty years since nuclear weapons were first used. The continued existence of nuclear weapons anywhere in the world does not make any nation safe and threatens the lives of our children and the very existence of cities like New York."

Sidel added that an accidental launch of nuclear weapons from a single Russian submarine would kill nearly seven million people in firestorms, and millions more would be exposed to lethal radiation, according to a MIT computer model.

Sidel was joined by retired Rear Admiral Vincent Farrell, New York City Public Advocate Mark Green and Jonathan Schell, author of "The Gift of Time: the Case for Abolishing Nuclear Weapons Now," all of whom called for a treaty between the United States and Russia to =9e-alert" the thousands of nuclear weapons each has aimed at the other.

Green, who is seeking the Democratic nomination to oppose Sen. Alphonse D'Amato (R-N.Y.), said accidents at Chernobyl and Three Mile Island prove that "complex nuclear equipment is not immune to the risks of human error and technological failure."

Farrell, who at one time was responsible for loading nuclear weapons on Navy planes, said, "The need for de- alerting nuclear weapons could never be greater than it is now because of the apparent deterioration of Russia's nuclear military forces."

Farrell pointed to the near-disaster of January 25, 1995 when the Russian "nuclear suitcase" - the briefcase carried by the U.S. president and his Russian counterpart containing the codes authorizing a nuclear strike - was opened for the only time in history.

"A rocket to place a satellite in orbit was to be launched from the territory of Norway and their government notified appropriate Russian authorities. Somehow the message got lost in the chain of command and Russian monitoring devices interpreted the rocket as a missile headed for Russia," Farrell explained. "There was, after all, a nuclear-armed U.S. submarine in the area."

Farrell said the Russian nuclear forces were ordered to launch a retaliatory strike, "leaving but 15 minutes to further verify the situation before the missiles would be launched. The launch order was countered barely four minutes before the deadline."

The report cites numerous nuclear weapons accidents - code- named "broken arrows" - including at least five instances of U.S. missiles flying over or crashing in or near the territories of other nations.

"From 1975-1990, 66,000 U.S. military personnel assigned to the operation of nuclear forces were removed from their positions, 41 percent because of alcohol and other drug abuse and 20 percent because of psychiatric problems," the report states.

Farrell told the World of loading nuclear weapons on Navy planes aboard carriers while at sea. "They'd wake us up at two in the morning. We'd go on deck where canvas curtains surrounded the planes and armed Marine guards stood watch while we loaded the bombs on the planes. Then the planes would take off, flying in the direction of previously- chosen cities in the Soviet Union."

Schell called the de-alerting of Russian and U.S. missiles and warheads "the logical first step toward eliminating them entirely."

PSR says that a nuclear attack would present the nation with a public health crisis of unimaginable proportions and that, as with all other medical problems, prevention is more effective than cure.

"As physicians, we have applied that lesson to the threat of nuclear disaster. Since there is no cure, we have to prevent it," Wendy Perron, executive director of the New York City Chapter of PSR, told the World.

PSR says there are specific steps that the U.S. can take immediately since they only require the authority of a presidential directive, including placing MX, Minuteman and Trident missiles on "low alert."

IPPNW was awarded the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize for "spreading authoritative information and creating an awareness of the catastrophic consequences of atomic warfare."

In a brief interview before the press conference, Sidel told the World the only way to make certain that a nuclear attack, be it deliberate or accidental, never occurs is through elimination of all nuclear weapons and international control of all fissionable materials.

A growing number of organizations and leading personalities have joined with PSR in "Abolition 2000," an international campaign calling for an agreement committing all countries to the permanent elimination of nuclear weapons within a specified time.

Sidel also pointed to the 1995 ruling of the World Court that the abolition of nuclear weapons is a binding obligation to the U.S. and Russia as well as all other countries signatory to the Nuclear Arms Nonproliferation Treaty.