Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from January 2001

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from January 2001

Predictions.(national security advice)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
January 1, 2001... LONG-TIME READERS OF THE BULLETIN WILL NO DOUBT RECOGNIZE that with this issue the magazine returns to the use of Sabon as its text font. Sabon was and is a real favorite--we would never have dropped it had a digital version been available when...

Letters.
January 1, 2001... A more even-handed Uncle Sam IN "SECRETS THAT MATTER" (NOVEMBER/ December 2000 Bulletin), author David Albright argues that "preventing the spread of information slows down programs aimed at getting [atomic bombs]." This is a laudable...

iViva Godzilla!(G-Fan reprints article about cooperative security and mutants)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... G-Fan magazine, "the journal of giant Japanese monsters," has reprinted Janne Nolan's article "When Three Heads Are Better Than... Three Heads" (July/August 2000 Bulletin). In the article, Nolan describes the 1964 movie Ghidrah, the...

The Tireless Blues.(Great Britain recalls nuclear submarines for maintenance on reactors)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... In "The Rock is a Hard Place" (November/December 2000), Michael Flynn reported that a British nuclear-powered attack sub, the HMS Tireless, has been stranded in Gibraltar since last May, when a leak was discovered in the sub's reactor. Despite...

Watch out below.(couple recalls honeymoon in bomb shelter)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Their shelter was designed to protect them from everything--except phone calls IN 1959, MELVIN AND Maria Mininson redefined the meaning of "honeymoon hideaway" by spending the first two weeks of their marriage in a fallout shelter....

The art of impending doom.(paintings of effects of nuclear war; Art Nuko; web site)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... In 1976, Canadian artist Dr. Art Nuko--an alias--hatched the idea of a world tour of his paintings, each depicting one of the world's cities engulfed in a nuclear detonation. "If we are to avoid using nuclear weapons in the future," says the...

Jumping Jehosabots!(robots that jump)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... THE NEXT STEP FORWARD in robotics is actually a hop. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories have developed several robot prototypes that can jump up to 30 feet in the air, right themselves after landing, and go off to hop again. Using...

Greening the Red Planet.(plans to create greenhouse gases on Mars)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... There seems to be renewed interest in terraforming Mars, even though the idea is "politically incorrect" by definition (the point is, after all, to mess with the environment rather than save it). In any case, the October 21 New Scientist...

The fungus among us.(fungal infections in spacecraft)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Microbial stowaways have troubled space missions from the get-go. At first the concern was health--that astronauts might pick up some super moon-germ that would devastate Earth on their return. Now it turns out our spacecraft are threatened by...

In Brief.(brief news about nuclear policies and research)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... Tweet for tat When Indian Army border forces captured a hawk in Rajasthan in November, they claimed it had been outfitted with cameras, radar, and other eavesdropping devices by Pakistan (Gulf News, November 21, 2000). But Pakistani...

Whose Einstein?(National Atomic Museum uses Albert Einstein's image)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... THE BULLETIN OF THE Atomic Scientists long ago adopted Albert Einstein as its patron saint, secular division. Einstein, a champion of the magazine's cause, helped the Bulletin greatly in its early years, mainly by lending his name to its...

Remember the Maine Yankee.(controversial plan for disposal of nuclear power plant waste)
January 1, 2001... WE'RE STANDING IN A COLD, QUIET CHAMBER IN THE emptying interior of the Maine Yankee Atomic Power Station. An armed guard is frisking Bill Oddell, plant operations director, in the next room. I'm waiting next to a piece of old machinery with...

In verification we trust.(political issues and questions about verification of nuclear arms under Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty)
January 1, 2001... CYNICS SAID IT WAS MONICA'S FAULT. Others pointed to the near-visceral loathing of some Republican senators for anything emerging from the Clinton White House. The academically inclined argued that the ascendancy of unilateralism in Congress...

The Russian-Iranian connection.(Israel alleges that Russia controls Iran's nuclear power plant)
January 1, 2001... BRIG. GEN. AMOS GILAD IS A BRISK, assertive Israeli intelligence officer who made his career following the actions of Middle Eastern dictators such as Saddam Hussein and the late Hafez Assad. Since 1996, as head of the military intelligence...

Israel and India partner up.(India to purchase arms from Israel)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... WHEN THREE INDIAN WARSHIPS SAILED, into Israel's Red Sea port of Eilat last March, it wasn't a signal of increasing tensions, but of friendship and evolving ties between the two countries. The frigate, tanker, and destroyer were on India's...

Get a policy, please.(creation of nuclear weapons policy needed)
January 1, 2001... AN ELECTION YEAR IS THE LAST TIME ONE WOULD EXPECT A RATIONAL CONSENSUS ON POLICY TO emerge from Washington's fiercely partisan cadres of officials, ex-officials, politicians, pundits, and experts. But in the looking glass logic of nuclear...

Watch out for Space Command.
January 1, 2001... PRESIDENT FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT WAS THE PRIME MOVER behind the creation of the United Nations. He told Congress, shortly before his death, that the new organization would "determine the fate of the United States--and of the world.... We shall have...

Trim Pentagon fat.(ways to reduce military spending)
January 1, 2001... SO, YOU SURVIVED THE BATTLE OF FLORIDA AND NOW IT'S TIME to make good on your promise to strengthen national defense. But you also have to pay for all the other items you promised--tax cuts, prescription drugs, improvements in education--stuff...

Stay the course on Asia.(US need for concrete policies to maintain stability with Asia)
January 1, 2001... THE U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION OFFERED A CHOICE BETWEEN Tweedledee and Tweedledum, according to Ralph Nader and the people who voted for him. But on East Asian questions the candidates' differences were significant: If George W. Bush is...

End the test ban limbo.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... AS THE FALLOUT FROM THE FLORIDA PRESIDENTIAL VOTE COUNT settles, you, Mr. President, should heed another tally: the number of nuclear test explosions worldwide. At the end of the twentieth century that total stands at 2,050--the United States...

Review, revamp, rethink NMD.(national missile defense)
January 1, 2001... ONE OF THE MAJOR FOREIGN POLICY ISSUES YOU WILL FACE early in your presidency is whether and how to proceed with national missile defense (NMD). Given the technical problems and resulting delays in the current program, the issue for at least...

Stop arming the world.(U.S.- sanctioned weapons trading)
January 1, 2001... ONE OF THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS YOUR NEW ADMINISTRATION can do to promote security, human rights, and peace in this fractious world is to put the brakes on America's arms-sales addiction. In 1999, the last year for which full statistics are...

Play nice with NATO.(defense policy)
January 1, 2001... WHAT SHOULD THE NEW ADMINISTRATION DO ABOUT NATO? Four issues stand out: NATO expansion, NATO-led military operations in the Balkans, future transatlantic burden sharing within the alliance, and missile defense. On all four, you, the next...

Commit to abolition.(ICBM nuclear warheads)
January 1, 2001... DEAR MR. PRESIDENT-ELECT: THE END OF THE COLD WAR HAS brought a great paradox. The risk that a political/military confrontation between Moscow and Washington might escalate into a global thermonuclear Armageddon has virtually vanished. But the...

Meeting with the muj.(Pakistan - Islamic fundamentalist school)
January 1, 2001... LAST JUNE I VISITED JAMIA MANZOOR ul Islamiya, a radical religious school (madrisa) in Lahore, Pakistan. Pakistan is a poor country whose plight has been worsened by a series of corrupt regimes. In many rural areas free government schools are...

A long season of discontent.(Los Alamos National Laboratory)
January 1, 2001... Even as the Cerro Grande fire smoldered and burned, Los Alamos, the birthplace of nuclear weapons, was reeling from a series of traumatic blows. LAST MAY A "CONTROLLED BURN" BY the National Park Service in Bandelier National Monument in...

Where Her Majesty's weapons were.(Britain's nuclear weapons)
January 1, 2001... THE HISTORY OF THE WORLDWIDE deployment of U.S. nuclear weapons, revealed in the Bulletin ("Where They Were," November/December 1999, and "How Much Did Japan Know?" and "Iceland Melts," January/February 2000), generated a great deal of...

Russia's blue water blues.(nuclear Navy deteriorating)
January 1, 2001... ON AUGUST 12, 2000, THE RUSSIAN NUCLEAR SUBMARINE Kursk sank with all hands lost. Since then the incident has been swirled in controversy. Did the Kursk collide with another submarine, as some in the Russian military claim, or was it an...

Trust but Verify: Imagery Analysis in the Cold War.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Trust but Verify: Imagery Analysis in the Cold War By David T. Lindgren Naval Institute Press, 2000 222 pages; $32.95 THE DEVELOPMENT AND OPERATION OF overhead imagery systems--satellites and aircraft--to provide strategic intelligence...

Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon.(Review)
January 1, 2001... Darkness in El Dorado: How Scientists and Journalists Devastated the Amazon By Patrick Tierney Norton, 2000 417 pages; $27.95 IN 1993, THEN-ENERGY SECRETARY Hazel O'Leary acknowledged that during the Cold War federal agencies conducted...

Correction.(September/October 2000 issue: article, "Polyakov's Run")(Correction Notice)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... During the editing process, two errors were introduced into Raymond L. Garthoff's article, "Polyakov's Run" (September/October 2000 Bulletin). The article erroneously stated that in 1978 David Binder identified William Sullivan as the source...

National security on the Web.(online material)
January 1, 2001... FOR RESEARCHERS WORKING IN NATIONAL security, nuclear weapons, and arms control, the Internet is an electronic embarrassment of riches. The Web surpasses all other media as a source for materials from government agencies, academics,...

The silver lining.(Wen Ho Lee scandal)(Brief Article)
January 1, 2001... AT A RECENT DARTMOUTH COLLEGE-SPONSORED panel on the Wen Ho Lee case, I was distressed to discover that many in the audience, which was made up mostly of Asian students, thought Lee--an admitted felon--was merely a target of racial profiling....