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Stephen Schwartz

@atomicanalyst.bsky.social

15K followers 1.1K following 10K posts

Editor/Co-author, “Atomic Audit: The Costs and Consequences of US Nuclear Weapons Since 1940” • Nonresident Senior Fellow, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists • Nuclear weapons expert (history, policy, costs, accidents) and tracker of the nuclear “Football.”

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · Jun 20

In the March 1981 issue of the @bulletinatomic.bsky.social, conflict resolution expert and Harvard Law School professor Roger Fisher described his “quite simple” idea to force US presidents to viscerally confront the lethal consequences of ordering a nuclear attack. books.google.com/books/about/...

An excerpt from Roger Fisher’s March 1981 article in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, titled “Preventing Nuclear War”:

“My suggestion was quite simple: Put that needed code number in a little capsule, and then implant that capsule right next to the heart of a volunteer. The volunteer would carry a big, heavy butcher knife as he accompanied the president. If ever the president wanted to fire nuclear weapons, the only way he could do so would be for him, first, with his own hands, to kill one human being. The president says, ‘George, I’m sorry, but tens of millions must die.’ He has to look someone in the eye and realize what death is—what an innocent death is. Blood on the White House carpet. It’s reality brought home.

When I suggested this to friends in the Pentagon, they said, ‘My God, that’s terrible. Having to kill someone would distort the president’s judgment. He might never push the button.’”

White House Military Office Coast Guard aide Lt. Commander Woody Lee carrying the President Emergency Satchel (aka the “Football”) while walking next to President Ronald Reagan (who had recently undergone surgery on his left hand), near the White House, January 10, 1989.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 20h

That is one helluva take.

Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 20h

👍

Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 20h

What do the captions say?

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 20h

The White House Military Office Army aide is on “Football” duty for Trump’s latest trip to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center. The ~45-pound satchel accompanies Trump 24/7, enabling him alone to authorize the use of any of our ~1,770 deployed nuclear weapons—up to 900 on alert—at any time.

Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 21h

The camera doesn’t lie.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 21h

This short archival color film captures the Hiroshima bombing re-enactment (the “bomb run” begins at 1:48). H/t @conelrad6401240.bsky.social. www.criticalpast.com/video/656750...

Screenshot of the linked Critical Past webpage featuring the two-and-a-half minute color footage of the October 10, 1976, Confederate Air Force air show.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 21h

Here is some pre- and post-apology coverage of the ill-advised Hiroshima bombing re-enactment, which was viewed by an estimated 40,000 paying spectators:

Copy of a headline in the October 11, 1976, edition of the Big Spring (Texas) Herald, “40,000 watch holocaust re-enactment."

Copy of an October 15, 1976, United Press International newspaper article headlined “U.S. sorry for fake Hiroshima.”

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 21h

Unsurprisingly, the re-enactment outraged the government and people of Japan. On October 14, the US Embassy in Tokyo formally apologized (in a Washington Post article, unnamed sources described embassy officials as “appalled.”). Read all about it in this 2010 blog by @conelrad6401240.bsky.social.

TOO SOON? THE HIROSHIMA REENACTMENT INCIDENT

Until the day he died , Paul W. Tibbets was adamant that he never had any regrets or even second thoughts about his role in ushering in the...

conelrad.blogspot.com

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 21h

Today in 1976, Gen. Paul Tibbets (USAF, ret.) re-enacted the bombing of Hiroshima he led on August 6, 1945, at an air show sponsored by the private Confederate Air Force in Harlingen, Texas. As Tibbets flew a B-29 overhead, conventional explosives were detonated on the ground to simulate the bomb.

Screenshot from an archival color film showing a B-29 bomber in flight at the airshow in Harlingen, Texas.

Screenshot from an archival color film showing the simulated explosion of an atomic bomb at the airshow.

Screenshot from an archival color film showing a mushroom cloud rising from the ground following the simulated explosion of an atomic bomb at the airshow.

A black and white, undated (circa October 11, 1976) Associated Press wirephoto of the simulated atomic explosion at the air show:

"Mushroom Cloud

A mushroom-shaped cloud rises above Rebel Field at Harlingen, Tex., home of the Confederate Air Force, during a re-enactment of the atomic bomb being dropped on Hiroshima, Japan, in World War II. The re-enactment of the first A-bomb use in war came over the weekend during an air show."

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Today in 1967, the Outer Space Treaty entered into force. Now boasting 112 states parties (it started with just 62), the treaty guarantees the peaceful exploration of space for all, bans militarization of the Moon, and outlaws nuclear and other WMDs in orbit, on celestial bodies, and in outer space.

A black and white photograph showing representatives of the Soviet Union (Ambassador to the United States Anatoly F. Dobrynin), United Kingdom (Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Permanent Representative of the United Kingdom to the United Nations Sir Patrick Dean), and the United States sitting at a table in the White House to sign the Outer Space Treaty on January 27, 1967. President Lyndon Johnson, seated at the right end of the table, looks on as Secretary of State Dean Rusk signs the treaty.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Today in 1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty—shown being signed by President John F. Kennedy on October 7 after US Senate ratification—entered into force, ending 18 years of unconstrained atmospheric nuclear testing by the United States (215 tests), the Soviet Union (219), and the United Kingdom (21).

A color photograph of President John F. Kennedy sitting at a desk in the White House and signing a copy of the Limited Test Ban Treaty, as a group of senators stands behind him. Vice President Lyndon Johnson stands at the far right in the dark suit, hands clasped.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Earlier this year, a British video game company released “Atomfall,” a survival action game that uses the disaster as the inspiration and setting for “an alternative sci-fi inspired timeline where the area surrounding the plant has become a quarantine zone.”

Atomfall: How a forgotten nuclear disaster inspired a video game

A new video game has brought the 1957 disaster in Cumbria back into the spotlight.

www.bbc.com

Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

For more on the catastrophic Windscale accident, see this 2007 BBC documentary.

Windscale Britains Biggest Nuclear Disaster

YouTube video by Kathy Reed

m.youtube.com

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Linked below is the official inquiry into the Windscale accident, submitted to the UK Atomic Energy Authority on October 26, 1957, by Director of the Atomic Weapons Research Establishment William Penny, et al, but not made public until January 1988. iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1...

The first page of official inquiry into the Windscale accident, “Report on the accident at Windscale No. 1 Pile on 10 October 1947," also known as the Penney Report after Sir William Penney, who chaired the investigative committee. The report was submitted to the UK Atomic Energy Authority on October 26, 1957, but was only released to the public in January 1988.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Tom Tuohy was 39 when he oversaw the successful extinguishing of the fire in Windscale Pile No. 1. He served as general manager there from 1958-64, and died in Australia on March 12, 2008, at age 90. In 1981, operator British Nuclear Fuels Ltd. renamed the site Sellafield in a public relations ploy.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Because of the localized heavy (but still unreported) levels of iodine-131 deposition on grass consumed by cows, the government ordered all milk produced within nearly 200 square miles of Windscale to be collected, diluted, and dumped into the Irish Sea for almost a month.

Atomic Milk (1957)

YouTube video by British Pathé

m.youtube.com

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

This was kept secret for years by the UK government. On the International Nuclear Event Scale adopted by the IAEA in 1990, the 1957 Windscale fire ranks at 5 out of possible severity level of 7 (Chernobyl in 1986 and Fukushima in 2011 are both classified as Level 7 accidents).

A vertically sectioned pyramid, with different colors denoting the various IAEA severity levels of a nuclear accident, with 0 at the bottom and 7 at the top.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Chimney filters captured much but not all of the radioactivity released by the fire. There are no precise measurements, but an estimated 20,000 curies of iodine-131, 12,000 curies of xenon-133, 594 curies of cesium-137, and a small but significant amount of polonium-210 escaped into the air.

A hand-drawn figure from a report on the accident showing the the contours of radioiodine contamination found in milk downwind from Windscale on October 13, 1957.

Another hand-drawn figure from a report showing the concentration of radioiodine in the air (in micro-microcurie-days per cubic meter) at numerous locations across the Great Britain and Europe after the Windscale accident.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

The water was left on for another day until the fire was completely out. Neither Windscale reactor ever operated again. Decontamination and decommissioning efforts began in the 1980s but aren’t scheduled to be completed until 2120 at an estimated cost of at least £121,000,000,000.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Out of options, Reactor Manager Tom Tuohy ordered everyone except himself and the fire chief to evacuate the building. They shut off the cooling fans and other sources of ventilation to starve the fire of oxygen. Tuohy watched from atop the reactor as the flames died down.

A black and white professional portrait of Tom Tuohy.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

Pumping water onto burning uranium was extremely dangerous because the uranium would oxidize, liberating hydrogen from the water molecules which could then mix with the air inside the reactor and trigger a catastrophic explosion. Fortunately, this did not happen. But the fire continued to burn.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

By October 11, 11 tons of uranium (6% of the core) were burning, temperatures rose up to 2,400° Fahrenheit, and the structural integrity of the reactor itself was at grave risk. With no other alternatives, about a dozen fire hoses were directly connected to the fuel channels above the fire.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

By this time, the fire had been burning undetected for nearly two days. Efforts to blow it out with the cooling fans only increased its intensity, and attempts to manually eject the fuel into the cooling pond were unsuccessful. Pumping in liquid carbon dioxide to extinguish it also failed.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

A foreman arriving for his shift spotted smoke coming from the reactor chimney. This, combined with rising temperature readings, led operators to suspect the core was on fire. A direct inspection of several fuel channels revealed the uranium fuel inside was glowing red hot.

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Stephen Schwartz @atomicanalyst.bsky.social · 23h

That morning, after two Wigner releases, operators noticed that contrary to expectations the reactor core’s temperature was rising, not falling, with one thermocouple indicating a temperature of 750° Fahrenheit. In response, they turned the cooling fans to high, literally fanning the unseen flames.

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