10. Useful adresses
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Tri-denting It Handbook, 3rd Ed (2001)
Part 10
Useful Addresses and Resources
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Contents
10.1 Useful Addresses
10.2 Resources
10.2.1 Useful Facts, Figures and Diagrams
10.2.2 A Sample Letter to Your Favorite Policy Maker
10.2.3 Information about Nuclear Accidents
References and Acknowledgements
Recommended Further Reading
10.1 Useful Addresses
TP Addresses
TP administrative address - contact Trident Ploughshares, 42-46 Bethel St, Norwich,
Norfolk, NR2 1NR, UK.
TP email - info@tridentploughshares.org
TP phone - 0845 45 88 366, From Overseas ++441259 753815
TP fax - 0845 45 88 364
Email discussion list - to be included on it, Email info@tridentploughshares.org
TP 24 Hour Newsline (recorded message) - 0845 45 88 365
TP Website - www.gn.apc.org/tp2000/ or www.tridentploughshares.org
Legal Support
General and Scotland team: Contact Jane on 0845 45 88 367, Fax: 01436 677529, Email info@tridentploughshares.org
England: Contact Andrew on 0845 45 88 368 or Email andrew@andrewgray.uklinux.net
Cornton Vale Prison Support Group - contact Helene on 01259-452458
(Other Court and Prison addresses are listed in Part 7.7.4 and 7.8.2)
Press Team - contact David on mobile 07778267833
Nonviolence workshop bookings - c/o Alison Crane, 36 Yelverton Ave, Weeping Cross, Stafford, ST17 0HE. Tel: 01785 611768, Email: training@tridentploughshares.org
Other Addresses
Faslane Peace Camp - Shandon, Helensburgh, G84 8NT. Phone: 01436 820901,
Email: faslanepeacecamp@hotmail.com
Nukewatch UK - 22 Edmund St, Bradford, BD5 0BH. Contact Di McDonald on 02380 554434, Email: nis@gn.apc.org
National CND - 162 Holloway Road, London, N7 8DQ. Tel: 020 7700 2393, Fax: 020 7700 2357, Email: enquiries@cnduk.org">enquiries@cnduk.org, Website: www.cnduk.org
Scottish CND - 15 Barrland St, Glasgow, G41 1QH. Tel: 0141 423 1222 Fax: 0141 423 1231 Email: scnd@banthebomb.org
Turning The Tide - Friends House, Euston Road, London, NW1 2BJ. Tel: 020 7663 1064, Fax: 020 7663 1049, Email: kiris@quaker.org.uk
World Court Project UK - c/o George Farebrother, 67 Summerheath Rd, Hailsham, Sussex.
01323 844269, Email: geowcpuk@gn.apc.org, Website: www.gn.apc.org/wcp
10.2 Resources
10.2.1 Useful Facts, Figures and Diagrams
Trident costs Britain:
 Between £1bn and £1.5bn a year
£2000 per minute
To work out how much money would be available
to your community if it wasn’t being wasted on
Trident, take the annual spending figure, divide it by
the British population (60m), multiply it by the population in your area, put it on a poster or
leaflet and go and do a street stall. It is a good idea
to illustrate the point by costing the socially
useful projects that could be funded instead.
What the World Wants
Nuclear Overkill in the 1990s
A dot chart similar to the one above was originally produced at the height of the Cold War, when the world’s nuclear arsenals numbered above 65 000 weapons. This chart is a revision of that original, revised to reflect today’s current arsenals, which number approximately 35 000 weapons. The majority of these weapons are divided between the US and Russia.
The dot in the centre of the chart represents all the firepower of World War II - three megatons.
The other dots represent the world’s present nuclear weaponry, equal to 2667 World War IIs.
The dots in the circle at bottom right - nine megatons or three World War IIs - represent the weapons on the Poseidon Submarine. This is enough firepower to destroy more than 200 of the largest cities in Russia, the US, or anywhere else in the globe.
The dots enclosed by the circle at top left - 24 megatons or eight World War IIs - represents the weapons on one Trident submarine, enough firepower to destroy every major city in the Northern hemisphere.
Just two squares (plus four more dots) - 300 megatons - represents enough firepower to destroy all the large- and medium-sized cities in the world.
The Effect of One Trident Warhead Exploding In Manchester
10.2.2 A Sample Letter to Your Favorite Policy Maker
Dear
While I was encouraged by the sentiments of the need for nuclear disarmament expressed at
the recent Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference, I am however disappointed by the lack
of concrete action taken, in particular that no timescale was agreed for total disarmament.
I believe that the people of Britain have waited long enough for nuclear disarmament to take
place. Many of us share the government’s priority of education and healthcare, and look forward to a
time when the resources now spent on weapons of mass destruction are used in more positive ways.
Opinion polls show that the majority of UK citizens want the government to work harder to
bring about a nuclear weapon free world. A poll taken in 1997 shows that 59% of British people believe
that it would be best for British security if we do not have nuclear weapons. This belief stems from the
fact that, although the NPT has mostly been successful in preventing widespread proliferation of
nuclear weapon technology and production, there have been many failures. The moral and bargaining
position held over non-signatories of the NPT who have now acquired nuclear weapons (India, Pakistan
and Israel) is much weakened by our own possession of them.
The concept of the use of these weapons, which would cause unspeakable suffering, is
utterly abhorrent. This suffering would be borne mainly by innocent civilians rather than by combatants
and would effect neutral states that had nothing to do with the conflict.
In addition to the moral argument against the Trident system, there is a strong legal case.
The International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion found that the threat or use of nuclear weapons
is generally contrary to international humanitarian law, and the Court confirmed unanimously that
their threat or use, like other weapons, must comply with international humanitarian law and be
judged according to their effects. Weapons which could not distinguish between civilian and military
targets, would be unlawful.
The Court could not decide whether threat or use of nuclear weapons by a state would be lawful if
its ’very survival would be at stake’ because it did not have sufficient detailed information before it.
The British Government, after repeated requests, has declined to outline a way in which Trident could
be used in line with international law. But I know that the UK Trident system consists of 100
kiloton warheads. I do not believe that the effects of the use of such a large warhead could ever
be controllable or limited in such a way as to conform with international law. I would therefore ask
that you inform me immediately of when you will uphold the law and disarm these illegal weapons of
mass destruction.
I am also concerned about US plans to break the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty with its National
Missile Defense programme which is strongly opposed by Russia and China. This is a dangerous and
ill-advised move, and I would hope that Britain would take a stand against this development which
is liable to renew a global arms race, and not co-operate with the US Government by allowing our
land and resources to be used for such purposes.
I believe that Britain should cancel the Trident nuclear weapons system programme, with the
first practical steps being:
Declare a ’no first use’ of nuclear weapons policy as promised before the 1997 General Election;
Remove Trident from NATO command;
Immediate removal of Britain’s four Trident submarines from 24 hour patrol;
Immediate removal of the nuclear warheads from their delivery vehicles and their safe,
secure storage ashore prior to dismantling;
Help establish discussions which will address the technical, financial and political steps
which will need to be taken in order to negotiate a Nuclear Weapons Convention.
There is an urgent need for Britain to take the lead in the international nuclear disarmament process.
I ask that you do all that you can to speed our way towards a nuclear weapons free world.
Yours sincerely,
10.2.3 Information about Nuclear Accidents
By Dr Lloyd Dumas
A decade ago, when the Cold War ended, much of
the world heaved a collective sigh of relief.
Fifty years of confrontation between two superpowers armed with arsenals of nuclear
weapons had come to a close - peacefully. Finally, it
seemed, the ticking nuclear time bomb had been defused.
But things are not always what they seem.
Though the Cold War is over, it has left behind
a deadly nuclear legacy that continues to threaten
us. Late last summer, when the Kursk, the newest submarine in the Russian fleet, sank, the
world’s attention was focused on the fate of the 118
Russian sailors aboard. But the sinking was more than
just another tragedy at sea. It sent two more
nuclear reactors, and possibly nuclear warheads as well,
to the nuclear graveyard at the bottom of the sea.
’There is an average of almost one
serious [nuclear] accident every six months for nearly
half a century. In addition to submarines, these accidents have involved fighter planes,
bombers, missiles, military nuclear waste storage
facilities and surface ships.’
There they joined the half-dozen reactors and
almost fifty nuclear warheads already scattered on the
floor of the world’s oceans. It is not at all clear how
much environmental damage this part of the Cold
War legacy is currently doing or will do in the future. It
is equally unclear just how stable all these reactors
and warheads will prove to be as the years go by.
How did they get there? Two US and five Russian nuclear submarines preceded the Kursk to
the ocean’s floor. Just one of those ships, a
Yankee-class Russian submarine that sank because of an
explosion triggered when liquid missile fuel aboard caught
fire, added one reactor and 34 nuclear warheads to
the total. It was carrying 2 nuclear torpedoes and
16 missiles with two warheads each when it went
down 600 miles Northeast of Bermuda in 1986.
In the mid-1990s, Russian scientists told
American experts that the ship had broken apart, and that
the missiles and warheads it scattered around the ocean floor were badly damaged. The Russians
also reportedly said they believed it is ’certain that
the warheads are badly corroded and leaking
plutonium and uranium.’
In the 45 years before the Kursk was even
built, there were at least 89 serious,
publicly-reported nuclear military accidents (listed in the appendix
of my book, Lethal Arrogance).
That is an average of almost one serious
accident every six months for nearly half a century.
In addition to submarines, these accidents have involved fighter planes, bombers, missiles,
military nuclear waste storage facilities and surface
ships. Fifty-nine occurred in US forces, 25 in the
Russian/Soviet military, four in the French and one in
the British armed forces. These include: an A-4E Skywarrior jet loaded with a B43 nuclear
warhead that rolled off the American aircraft
carrier Ticonderoga and sank in 3,000m of ocean 200
miles east of Okinawa in 1965; a Soviet military
aircraft carrying at least one nuclear weapon that
crashed into the Sea of Japan before 1970; and a
1984 accident, also in the Sea of Japan, in which a
Soviet Golf-2 class nuclear submarine was disabled
and set adrift when the missile fuel it was
carrying caught fire.
In 1989, the American military finally disclosed
that the B43 nuclear warhead that fell into the sea
near Okinawa was still at the bottom of the sea, only
100 km from the nearest Japanese island. They also
said they believed the enormous water pressure at
that depth had almost certainly broken the H-bomb
apart, contaminating the ocean floor with highly
toxic plutonium.
Huge inventories of plutonium and enriched
uranium are yet another part of the deadly Cold War
legacy. Plutonium is particularly dangerous. In early
1996, the US Department of Energy (the agency running
the American nuclear weapons program) issued a landmark report, ’Plutonium: the First 50 Years,’
in which it indicated that its stockpile of
plutonium, combined with that of the Department of
Defense, totalled 111,400 kg.
Only 4 to 5 kg of plutonium, a metal which is
heavier than lead, is enough to build a typical
nuclear weapon. Inhaling as little as 1 to 12 mg of
plutonium dust will kill half of the humans exposed within
a year or two; inhaling as little as one microgram
can cause lethal cancer after a long latency period.
Every system for keeping track of inventories includes a category that amounts to a margin
of error. The US plutonium accounts are no
exception. Up to 1978, it was called ’material unaccounted
for’ (MUF); after 1978, it was changed to
’inventory difference’ (ID). The meaning, however, remained
the same: MUF/ID is the difference between what
the record keeping system says is in the inventory
and what a physical count shows is actually there.
The First Fifty Years reported that the MUF/ID
for US plutonium accounts averaged about 2.5
percent. It claimed that improved practices lowered
the MUF/ID to only about 0.8 percent in later
decades. Yet even an MUF/ID of 0.8 percent applied to
the enormous American plutonium inventory would leave some 890 kg in the ’uncontrolled’
fringe, enough to build 180 nuclear weapons - more
than enough to destroy any nation on earth.
And we have not even considered the inventories
of plutonium held by Russia, where there is reason
to believe that records of nuclear materials are far
less accurate. At least as recently as 1996, Russia still
did not have accurate records of the quantity, distribution and status of nuclear materials at
many of the 1500-2000 specific nuclear areas
throughout the former Soviet Union.
Being in the ’uncontrolled fringe’ does not mean
that the plutonium is lying around unprotected in
some school yard or parking lot. It means that that
much plutonium could have been taken from the
stockpile without the record keeping system ever showing
that it had disappeared.
The MUF/ID problem also exists for inventories
of other nuclear materials, chemical explosives, conventional arms and for that matter,
nuclear weapons. We know that police in Western
Europe have recorded hundreds of arrests in schemes to
sell nuclear materials on the black market that
have apparently been stolen from facilities in the
former Soviet Union.
General Alexander Lebed, former security advisor
to Boris Yeltsin, claimed in 1997 that more than
100 ’suitcase’ nuclear bombs were missing from
the Russian arsenal.
Less than perfect control of these inventories
could encourage proliferation to other countries.
Equally frightening is the possibility that terrorists
or criminals might someday get their hands on
either nuclear weapons themselves or the nuclear
materials critical to building them.
The knowledge required to design workable
nuclear weapons has been in the public domain for a
long time. More than 25 years ago, two American undergraduate college students designed
workable weapons independently of each other in a matter
of months, using only publicly available information.
The key issue is access to the required nuclear materials. According to contemporary reports, the
Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult, which released sarin
nerve gas in the Tokyo subways in 1995, was also
suspected by Japanese police of having tried to acquire
uranium to be used in building nuclear weapons.
About the same time, it was reported that 17 scientists at Los Alamos nuclear weapons
laboratory in the US had been given the assignment of trying
to build terrorist-type nuclear weapons using technology no more sophisticated than that found
at typical consumer electronics stores and nuclear
fuel of the type that might be acquired on the
black market. They successfully built more than a
dozen ’homemade’ nuclear bombs. The legacy of the
Cold War also includes a huge amount of nuclear
waste, the by-product of nuclear weapons production.
In Russia, the Kola Peninsula has become a
junkyard for a hundred Soviet era nuclear-powered submarines, rusting away with their nuclear
reactors still on board. 50,000 nuclear fuel assemblies
from those reactors sit in storage tanks, some of which
are undoubtedly leaking, and in open air bins on
military bases and shipyards. It may take decades
to transport them for reprocessing or safer, more permanent storage.
More than 20 percent of the US population now
lives within 50 miles of a military-related nuclear
waste storage site. Millions of gallons of liquid
nuclear waste are stored in tanks above or just below
ground. There have been many problems. At one site,
in Hanford, Washington, more than 900,000 gallons
of radioactive waste leaked from 68 storage tanks
and another 1.3 billion cubic meters of liquid
radioactive waste and other contaminated fluids
were deliberately pumped into the ground.
The government had claimed that there was no reason to worry, because none of the waste
would reach groundwater for at least 10,000 years. Yet
by November 1997, it was already there.
The fact is, no one yet knows how to safely
dispose of or store all the nuclear waste we have
generated, some of which must be isolated from the
biosphere for more than 10 thousand years.
That is longer than all of recorded human
history. Considering all that has changed - politically,
socially and technologically - from a time thousands
of years before the pyramids of Egypt to the space
and computer age, it is difficult to imagine that we
could even keep track of, let alone precisely control,
so much dangerous material for so long.
Another part of the legacy, Cold War
institutions, ways of operating and ways of thinking are still
very much with us. Today, a decade after the Cold
War, thousands of American nuclear weapons, and presumably Russian nuclear weapons as
well, continue to be operated on quick response alert.
While it is true that many US and Russian
missiles are now targeted at the open sea, it is also true
that they can be retargeted within minutes. This is a
very dangerous situation. It is not difficult to invent
a scenario in which the failure to de-alert these weapons could lead the world into an
accidental nuclear holocaust. But it is also not necessary.
On January 25 in 1995, Russian warning radars detected the launch of a rocket from the
Norwegian Sea. About the size of US submarine-
launched Trident missile, it seemed to be streaking
toward Moscow: time to impact, only about fifteen minutes.
The radar crew transmitted the warning to a
control centre south of Moscow, which relayed it up
the chain of command to President Yeltsin. Alarms sounded on military bases all over Russia
to prepare to attack. Only a few minutes before
the response deadline, senior military officers
finally decided that the rocket was headed far out to
sea. It was not a threat to the Russian homeland.
Where did this missile come from? It actually was
an American rocket - a scientific probe designed
to study the aurora borealis, launched from the Norwegian island of Andoya. Norway had notified
the Russian embassy in advance of the launch, but somehow the message never reached
Russian military commanders.
In January 1987, the Indian Army was preparing
to carry out a major military exercise near the
bordering Pakistani province of Sind. Because there was a
great deal of secessionist sentiment in Sind, the
Pakistanis mistakenly concluded that India was preparing
to attack, and moved their military forces to the
border. Seeing this, the Indian military sent reinforcements.
Soon these two nations, which had fought three
wars with each other since 1947, had one million
troops on the border, waiting for war to begin.
Fortunately, intensive diplomatic efforts managed to clear
the confusion, and the crisis ended.
India and Pakistan had come very close to having
a major war by accident.
Today, they have made little progress resolving
the tensions that brought them so close to
accidental disaster. Today, both are armed with nuclear weapons.
We must find a way to free ourselves from the
deadly legacy of the Cold War. We cannot simply
assume that all of the nuclear weapons and nuclear
reactors littering the world’s oceans will remain
stable indefinitely and do us no harm.
Careful studies must be done of the feasibility
and desirability of alternative methods of
retrieval, treatment or permanent entombment in place.
Since this is a global problem, the results of
these studies should be made public and subjected to
open international criticism and debate. And when
a decision has been made as to the best approach, whichever nations can most effectively implement
it should be mobilised in a concerted, cooperative
and timely effort.
We must assure that worldwide inventories of plutonium and enriched uranium are reduced to
a form not easily converted into nuclear weaponry, carefully stored, monitored and guarded. Far
more attention must be paid to the development of improved technology for the treatment and
safest possible storage of nuclear waste. At
present, funding levels for this kind of research are
paltry compared to the magnitude of the problem
nuclear waste poses to our present and future wellbeing.
Without any further delay, all nuclear nations
should de-alert their nuclear arsenals. It is hard to
imagine by what logic that was not done years ago. But
we must go much farther. It is time, not just to
reduce arsenals of nuclear weapons.
It is time to build a movement strong enough to
rid the earth of them. In the mid-1990s, George
Lee Butler, the general in charge of all US
strategic nuclear weapons from 1991-1994, and
General Charles Horner, head of North American
Aerospace Defense publicly declared their belief that
nuclear weapons can and should be abolished.
In 1996, more than 50 other retired generals
and admirals from the US, Russia, Britain, France
and China signed a statement at the UN endorsing
that idea. The Cold War ended long ago. It is time that
we do everything possible to permanently bury its remains. To do anything less is to court disaster on
a global scale.
Lloyd Dumas is author of Lethal Arrogance:
Human Fallibility and Dangerous Technologies (New York:
St Martin’s Press, 1999). From 1994-1996, he was consultant on conversion to Los Alamos
National Laboratories. Currently he is Professor of
Political Economy at the University of Texas at Dallas.
Trident Submarine Runs Aground In Clyde
The Trident nuclear submarine, HMS Victorious, hit
a sandbank in the Clyde Estuary at the end of November. Apparently the submarine was
travelling on the surface in poor weather conditions at
the time. It crashed into Skelmorlie Bank and hit
sand and mud. The vessel then returned to Faslane and
is now back at sea again. The MoD has just
admitted that the accident took place and that there was
minor damage to the casing of the hull.
This happened within two weeks of a similar incident. The hunter killer submarine HMS
Triumph hit the seabed on 19 November 2000 off the
West coast of Scotland.
’These Trident submarines are a risk to the people
of Scotland. This incident could have resulted in
a major nuclear accident. The submarine should
never have been in water so shallow that it could hit
the seabed.’
References and Acknowledgements
10.2.1 Useful Facts, Figures and Diagrams
This section was written by Rachel Boyd and
Davida Higgin.
10.2.2 A Sample Letter to Your Favorite
Policy Maker
The letter was composed by Rachel Boyd.
Recommended Further Reading
From Nuclear Deterrence to Nuclear
Abolition - General Lee Butler, Address to the National Press
Club in Washington on December 4th 1996.
This text is available on our website, and comes highly recommended.
All articles in this section
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