Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from March 1998

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from March 1998

Dropping the ball. (controversy over Pres Clinton's proposed initiative for the de-alerting of nuclear weapons)(Brief Article)(Editorial)
March 1, 1998... Bill Clinton's January 27 State of the Union Speech was vigorously presented and stuffed with good ideas. But it was also notable for what was left out. Shortly after the holidays, word began to leak that the White House was likely to include...

Act now, Mr. President. (Pres Clinton should speed up nuclear arms reduction efforts with Russia)(Column)
March 1, 1998... The current sclerotic process of nuclear arms reductions needs a bypass. What is needed now is another round of fast, informal, reciprocal reduction initiatives like those initiated by President George Bush and Soviet President Mikhail...

Is making sense too much to ask? (increasingly incomprehensible language and jargon used by scientists)
March 1, 1998... What could be going on here? The editors of some scientific journals are seriously considering the possibility of not publishing an article if its first paragraph is not understandable. Others suggest that if an author is not required to...

Your tax dollars at work. (US peacekeeping and military assistance to Muslims and Croats in Bosnia-Herzegovina)
March 1, 1998... A few years ago it wasn't easy to drive the seven miles from Sarajevo to Hadzici. On the way out of town, frontline trenches cut across Sniper's Alley and every other east-west roadway. There were minefields and checkpoints to be negotiated, and...

Will O'Leary legacy last? (US Dept. of Energy Sec Hazel O'Leary's campaign to declassify the government agency's information)
March 1, 1998... Bureaucracies are allergic to change. As President Kennedy once put it, "Government departments are like icebergs." Breaking this pattern, the Energy Department has launched a fundamental and long overdue over-haul of its culture and operating...

Aiming at ABM. (conservatives in US Senate plan to defeat the ABM Treaty and promote deployment of a national missile defense)
March 1, 1998... This year's sleeper issue in the senate is a right-wing plan to scuttle the ABM Treaty and move on to the "deployment" of a national missile defense. The scheme, if carried out, could also slam the door on further negotiations to reduce the...

The case for strategic escrow: traditional arms control cannot produce the rapid reductions needed to fight proliferation.
March 1, 1998... The United States needs a new approach to controlling the spread of nuclear weapons. Something I call "strategic escrow" could be a start. During the Cold War, the United States worried about the Soviet Union's immense nuclear arsenal...

Terror in Chiapas. (Zapatistas rebel uprising in Mexico; includes a related article on the law recognizing the rebels)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1998... On Monday, December 22, I was traveling in Chiapas, a mountainous state in southern Mexico that borders Guatemala. My excursion that morning ended in San Andres Larrainzar, some 20 miles northwest of San Cristobal de las Casas. The...

Dangerous directions. (nuclear disarmament between the US and Russia)(includes a related article on the nuclear strategic forces of the US)
March 1, 1998... Even in the through-the-looking-glass world of nuclear deterrence, the current situation is bizarre: Although the United States and Russia are friends, and are both cutting back the numbers of strategic weapons, the United States is more able...

Inventing threats. (US defense planning)
March 1, 1998... With real enemies not menacing enough, defense planners have learned to let their imaginations run riot. It was a remarkable admission for a chairman of the joint Chiefs: "I'm running out of demons. I'm down to Kim Il Sung and Castro." ...

The Domenici challenge. (nuclear policy of Republican Senator Pete Domenici)
March 1, 1998... Republican Pete Domenici, the senior senator from New Mexico--the home of Los Alamos and Sandia national laboratories--is attempting to breathe new life into the nuclear debate. In a keynote speech to the American Nuclear Society last November...

Mixed message. (nuclear energy policy of Senator Pete Domenici)
March 1, 1998... I am enormously pleased that Pete Domenici, the senior senator from New Mexico, is discussing critical issues of nuclear policy, both in respect to civilian energy and nuclear weapons. I consider it extremely unfortunate that nuclear issues...

A pox on MOX. (Senator Pete Domenici's nuclear energy policy)
March 1, 1998... Senator Domenici is confused. That is perhaps the kindest explanation of his current lapse into nuclear evangelism. He equates antiplutonium with anti-nuclear and concludes that Americas energy salvation can be attained only through a rebirth...

Nuclear power, yes: nuclear power is the most environmentally benign source of electricity.
March 1, 1998... Senator Domenici says that "we aren't wisely using nuclear technologies. The current anxiety-laden, fragmented state of nuclear policy debate in the country has created this situation. Irrational fears of perceived risks of nuclear...

All to the sea. (Senator Pete Domenici's plans to eradicate land-based nuclear weapons)
March 1, 1998... WHAT CAUGHT OUR ATTENTION most in the far-ranging proposals in Senator Domenici's tour d'horizon nucliaire is his proposal to eliminate land-based nuclear ballistic missiles. The proposal is timely, more than a little bold, and it points...

Terrorism's new breed. (use of chemical and biological weapons)(includes a related article with introductory information on chemical and biological weapons)
March 1, 1998... Are today's terrorists more likely to use chemical or biological weapons? It could be any American city: New York, Philadelphia, Denver, Washington, D.C. A sunny spring day is suddenly punctured by the blare of sirens' as police and...

Getting Yucca Mountain right. (nuclear waste repository)
March 1, 1998... The most commonly held image of the geologic disposal of nuclear waste is surely that of a deep underground labyrinth of tunnels for the emplacement of waste containers. Plans for the geologic repository proposed for the Yucca Mountain site in...

Battleground Berlin: CIA vs. KGB in the Cold War.
March 1, 1998... By David E. Murphy, Sergei A. Kondrashev, and George Bailey Yale University Press, 1997 530 pages; $30.00 As the authors of this book point out, their work is the first in post-Cold War history to be produced as a joint venture by former CIA...

Spoils of War: The Human Cost of America's Arms Trade.
March 1, 1998... By John Tirman The Free Press, 1997 310 pages; $25.00 The Nixon Doctrine--the Vietnam-inspired decision to sell arms to countries who appeared willing to be U.S. surrogates, rather than risk any more U.S. soldiers in quagmires such as that in...

The Rape of Nanking: The Forgotten Holocaust of World War II.
March 1, 1998... By Iris Chang Basic Books, 1997 304 pages; $25.00 This is a terrible book, terrible to read and terrible to look upon. Although the photographs are grainy and sometimes fuzzy, their subject matter is unmistakable if only because the barbarities...

Prompt and Utter Destruction: President Truman and the Use of Atomic Bombs Against Japan.
March 1, 1998... By J. Samuel Walker University of North Carolina, 1997 152 pages; $14.95 Tourists entering the National Air and Space Museum's Enola Gay exhibit in Washington are greeted by an unusually blunt narrative recounting the 1994 firestorm that...

Russian strategic nuclear forces, end of 1997. (overview of intercontinental ballistic missiles, nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines, and bombers)
March 1, 1998... Intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). There have been modest changes in the composition of Russia's ICBM force over the past year. Strategic warheads once deployed in other republics of the former Soviet Union have been withdrawn and...

Crossed t's, dotted i's. (White House nuclear policy expert Robert G. Bell's hollow reassurance that Presidential Decision Directive 60 merely codifies existing nuclear weapons policy)(Column)
March 1, 1998... Robert G. Bell, The White House Staffer for nuclear policy, has mounted an effective campaign to put a respectable spin on the top secret guidance on nuclear weapons embodied in Presidential Decision Directive 60, signed in November. On one...