From: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com (abolition-usa-digest) To: abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Subject: abolition-usa-digest V1 #170 Reply-To: abolition-usa-digest Sender: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Errors-To: owner-abolition-usa-digest@lists.xmission.com Precedence: bulk abolition-usa-digest Tuesday, August 24 1999 Volume 01 : Number 170 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:35:50 -0400 From: Ellen Thomas Subject: Re: (abolition-usa) Project Abolition events Karina et al, let us know what we can do to help with the Washington DC "Wall of Denial" on November 9th. Ellen Thomas Proposition One Committee PO Box 27217, Washington DC 20038 202-462-0757 -- fax 202-265-5389 prop1@prop1.org -- http://prop1.org *** BAN AND BURY ALL RADIOACTIVE BOMBS * depleted uranium, fission, neutron * About NucNews: http://prop1.org/nucnews/nucnews.htm - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 08:40:08 -0400 From: Ellen Thomas Subject: (abolition-usa) Michigan meeting in October? Can someone please tell me if there is an Abolition 2000 meeting in Ann Arbor in October? Do you know the dates/locations? I would like to attend the entire session. Hope there's a workshop on pending Congressional legislation. If not, would like to sponsor one. Have some news and ideas from the Hill. Need to make arrangements for travel, so would appreciate any info. Thanks! Ellen Thomas PROPOSITION ONE COMMITTEE P.O. Box 27217, Washington, DC 20038 USA 202-462-0757 (phone) | 202-265-5389 (fax) http://prop1.org | prop1@prop1.org - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 14:17:29 -0400 From: ASlater Subject: (abolition-usa) obscenity at National Atomic Museum - - Web posted Friday, August 6, 1999 5:20 a.m. CT Atomic Museum defends sale of 'Fat Man' bomb earrings; Japanese protest By CHRIS ROBERTS Associated Press Writer ALBUQUERQUE (AP) - Tiny silver replicas of the first atomic bombs, sold as earrings at the National Atomic Museum, are stirring emotions in one of the Japanese cities that was leveled by an atomic blast during World War II. The earrings are shaped like the "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" atomic bombs that were developed during the war at Los Alamos under the Manhattan Project. They sell for $20 a pair at the Energy Department museum on Kirtland Air Force Base. The bomb dubbed "Little Boy" was dropped on Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945. Nagasaki was obliterated by Fat Man three days later. As many as 175,000 people were killed immediately in the two attacks, according to museum exhibits. The Japanese surrendered five days after the second bomb. Members of the Japanese anti-nuclear group Gensuikyo found the earrings and other items, including medallions that commemorate the bombing missions over Japan, on the museum's Web site. "We're very angry," Gensuikyo spokesman Naomi Kishimoto said in Hiroshima. "It's not the sort of thing you should be hanging from your ears or using to decorate your desk. It's unforgivable that (the) museum would sell through the Internet something that praises the unit that dropped the atomic bomb." Gensuikyo is known in English as the Japan Council Against A and H Bombs. Despite the protest, museum director Jim Walther said Thursday the museum doesn't plan to stop selling the earrings. "This museum does not advocate war or the use of nuclear weapons," Walther said. Museum Store Manager Tony Sparks said he received 14 angry e-mails ranging from well-reasoned arguments to obscenity-laced tirades. One e-mail promised thousands more. Walther said items sold in the museum store reflect history and present the work of dedicated scientists in the United States. And Sparks added that material in the shop advances the argument that the bombings saved the lives of U.S. troops as well as pointing out the immorality of war. The earrings, especially a matched set with one of each bomb, are the most popular item in the store, Sparks said. But he also points to a book with black and white photos of vast areas in the Japanese cities where buildings were flattened. He flips through a display of posters and picks out one with a quote from physicist Albert Einstein: "It is my conviction that killing under the cloak of war is nothing but an act of murder." "We're aware that it's sensitive," Sparks said. "We have such a high contingency of Japanese visitors, most of whom are interested in hearing our side. We are careful not to glorify it." Visitors to the museum Thursday had a wide range of reactions. Lois Dove of South Fork, Colo., said she didn't blame the Japanese for objecting to the earrings. "It's not appropriate to have the earrings," Dove said. "If I was Japanese, I would probably be very offended by it," said Denise Skinner of Santa Barbara, Calif. "But I don't think they should be told to stop selling them." Ben Parks of Amarillo, Texas, said he understands the Japanese reaction, but thinks the earrings should stay on the shelf since the bombs ended the war. "I also understand the losses we'd have had if it weren't for the weapons," Parks said. "It goes back to a few people - their military leaders. The population of Japan didn't have input into what was going on. There were innocent casualties and victims." Kishimoto still would like to see the items removed. "We condemn their efforts to rationalize the atomic bombing by saying that it saved many lives," Kishimoto said. Even though Walther says the earrings will continue to be sold at the store, he said there is room for more of the Japanese perspective. The museum is planning to move to a new location outside the Air Force base where people can come and go without military security restrictions. Alice Slater Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) 15 East 26th Street, Room 915 New York, NY 10010 tel: (212) 726-9161 fax: (212) 726-9160 email: aslater@gracelinks.org GRACE is a member of Abolition 2000, a global network working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 12:05:43 +1000 From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Subject: (abolition-usa) GLOBAL DE-ALERTING FAX CAMPAIGN FROM SEPT 1 PREPARE TO FAX YELTSIN/CLINTON John Hallam Friends of the Earth Sydney, 17 Lord street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, Fax(61)(2)9517-3902 ph (61)(2)9517-3903 nonukes@foesyd.org.au http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd/nuclear/bbletter.html APPEAL: THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE IN THE WORLD BETWEEN NOW AND DECEMBER31 FROM SEPT 1, FAX YELTSIN, CLINTON TO TAKE N-WEAPONS OFF ALERT. PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, +7-095-205-4330, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, +1-202-456-2461, Dear All, You will be getting many messages of this kind because this is possibly the most important single issue that can ever come your way between now and the next year. Following this appeal there are two sample letters, one from FOE Australia and one from Bob Tiller of PSR USA. I urge you to act on them. I am writing to urge you to fax Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton from Sept 1 onwards to take strategic nuclear weapons off alert before December, and to ask that the de- alerting of strategic nuclear weapons be discussed at the coming September 21 meeting of the G8. This is of absolutely vital importance. Getting 5000 nuclear missiles off alert status before the Y2k bug plays havoc with their command and control systems is just about the most important thing anyone can possibly do. Arguably there is simply no other issue this important between now and December/January. It might be literally a matter of survival. Can you get this appeal and the two sample letters out to your networks as fast as you can and ask them to fax it from September 1? If people wish to customise from the two letters that is best. It's important I think, to get it out as fast as possible, but ask people to stick to the sept 1 date (or after). Please try to fax from September 1 onwards, preferably not before. Please use the fax numbers I have provided. The numbers here work. I've just checked them. Try and get everyone you know to do it. If you are a large organisation please try and get all your members to do it. Many thanks and may the fax gremlins smile on you! John Hallam. DRAFT MODEL LETTER TO YELTSIN AND CLINTON FOR GLOBAL FAX CAMPAIGN STARTING SEPTEMBER 1 PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, +7-095-205-4330, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, +1-202-456-2461, Dear Presidents Yeltsin, and Clinton, I am writing to you to convey my extreme concern over the possibility that Y2K -related problems in the computerised command, control, and monitoring systems of nuclear forces and weapon systems, may give rise to an unacceptable risk of accidental nuclear war, as a result of incorrect data and miscalculation. I therefore urge you to solve the problem by taking your nuclear forces off alert, or by standing them down. I ask that standing down nuclear forces in view of the problems posed by the 'Millennium Bug', be a matter for urgent priority discussions at the G8 Summit in Berlin on Sept 21. As well asY2K considerations, taking nuclear weapons off alert will increase strategic stability and confidence, and eliminate the possibility of accidental nuclear war. I would remind you that your two countries have some 5000 strategic nuclear weapons that are able to be fired within a time span of 15-30 minutes. This must never happen. Should it do so, not only would your two countries cease to exist, but it is entirely possible that human life and maybe all life life on the planet, could be terminated. Any risk of this happening at any time, Y2K or otherwise, no matter how small, is unacceptable. However, the Y2K problem adds another layer of uncertainty to the risk that already exists. Taking nuclear forces off alert was strongly recommended by the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in 1996, and a number of resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly have urged that it be done. Taking nuclear weapons off alert and placing them in a state in which hours to days rather than minutes or seconds would be required to make them launch ready, would effectively eliminate the risk of accidental nuclear war due to the Y2K computer problem. It would also make impossible the many non-Y2K related problems that have many times brought us to within minutes of a possible nuclear exchange. De-Alerting will cost you nothing, and can be done by a simple executive order to stand down nuclear forces. The UK has already altered its 'notice to fire' from minutes to days. We/I urge you to do likewise. The stakes involved far outweigh any considerations of national pride, national interest, or even national security. Indeed, the immediate stakes are so high, and the potential for global catastrophe so clear that mutually verified de- alerting must now take precedence over all other considerations. Signed... etc >------------------------------------------- >Dear Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton: > >The Cold War ended years ago, but the nuclear danger endures, menacing >us all. Thousands of nuclear weapons remain on high-alert in the United >States and Russia. Although both countries have announced their >"de-targeting" of the other, that step is virtually meaningless when >both countries keep their weapons on alert and maintain a >launch-on-warning posture. > >Keeping nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert does not add to the >security of either nation; indeed it makes all of us less secure. You >are well aware of the various occasions when Russia and the U.S. came >close to launching nuclear weapons because of misunderstanding or poor >data. Removing the weapons from hair-trigger alert would eliminate the >risk of hasty reaction. > >Therefore I urge you to lessen the nuclear danger by removing all >nuclear weapons from high-alert. This can be accomplished in a matter >of weeks without treaty negotiation or ratification. > >This approach has worked before. In 1991 President George Bush took the >bold step of removing hundreds of U.S. nuclear weapons from high-alert >status, and in response Mikhail Gorbachev did the same with hundreds of >Soviet weapons. Now we need similar courageous leadership to finish the >process that they started. > >De-alerting takes on added urgency this year. When January 1, 2000 >arrives, no one will know if all of the Y2K computer problems have been >fixed. Why court disaster by having nuclear warheads on hair-trigger >alert when we do not know how the computers in the nuclear system will >function? > >Last year the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a >resolution which calls on the nuclear weapons states to de-alert their >weapons. It is wise counsel. For the sake of our children and >grandchildren, please de-alert all nuclear weapons now. > >Sincerely, - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 23 Aug 1999 22:27:01 -0700 From: Jackie Cabasso Subject: (abolition-usa) Important article re: stockpile stewardship expansion/reorganization http://www.abqjournal.com/news/1news082099.htm =20 Friday, August 20, 1999=20 Weapons Projects May Move=20 By John Fleck and Ian Hoffman Journal Staff Writers The Department of Energy wants to shift key pieces of its nuclear weapons workload from Los Alamos National Laboratory to bolster a sister = lab in California. =20 The proposal moves some work from Los Alamos to Nevada, shifts a = large amount of plutonium and weapons maintenance now done at Los Alamos to Law= rence Livermore in California, and calls for a big new research complex at Sand= ia National Laboratories outside Albuquerque. The moves, collectively called the "Mega Strategy," are aimed at balancing the workload at the department's major research and testing sit= es to ensure the right mix of skills is available in the future to maintain the nuclear stockpile, said Energy Department Deputy Assistant Secretary Gil Weigand, who is in charge of weapons research and development. The Livermore moves are aimed at giving scientists there handson responsibility for nuclear weapons, rather than simply weaponsrelated bas= ic research, Weigand said in an interview Thursday. "You need a challenging workload where they are really touching t= he bomb," he said. =20 Weigand says the move is necessary to bolster the number of exper= ienced U.S. weapons workers. Nucleardisarmament advocates see the changes as a worrisome retrenchment of U.S. nuclearweapons work. The proposal seeks a dramatic increase in explosive testing with plutonium and plutoniumlike metals. "It's clearly a huge expansion of stockpile stewardship and beyon= d any scenario of what might be needed to keep the arsenal in a safe condition,= " said Jackie Cabasso, executive director of the Western States Legal Foundation= in Oakland, Calif. "For Los Alamos, this will mean more explosive tests with plutoni= um and more secret work at the plutonium facility," said Jay Coghlan, program di= rector for Concerned Citizens for Nuclear Safety, a watchdog group in Santa Fe. The critics also say other nations will read this spreading aroun= d of weapons work as the latest sign that the United States wants to keep its weapons indefinitely, rather than moving toward a smaller arsenal. "For other countries, expanding activities at the Nevada Test Sit= e is really offensive. It really flies in the face of what a test ban is all a= bout," said John Burroughs, executive director of the Lawyers Committee on Nucle= ar Policy in New York. With no change from the current path, Lawrence Livermore's dwindl= ing handson work on nuclear devices jeopardizes its role in the nuclear weapo= ns complex, said Bob Peurifoy, a retired Sandia National Laboratories nuclea= r weapons designer. "If you go down that road, you're going to close Lawrence Livermo= re as a device lab," said Peurifoy, who frequently works as an adviser to the Ene= rgy Department and who has been briefed on the proposed changes. "They've got= to have something to put their hands on." Details of the proposal have leaked out of the department in piec= es over the last month. But Weigand's interview Thursday marks the first public acknowledgement by the department of the details and scope of the plan. Weigand said the plan, being developed as part of the Department = of Energy's Fiscal Year 2001 budget proposal, would ensure the labs are able= to do needed refurbishment and modification of U.S. nuclear warheads after the = turn of the century. Few if any people would be moved when the work is moved, Weigand = said. The Nevada Test Site would be the new home of Atlas, a $48.3 mill= ion machine under assembly at Los Alamos that would smash soda cansized targe= ts with massive jolts of electricity, yielding enormous pressures and temper= atures needed to study how nuclear weapons work. =20 =20 Weigand said moving Atlas to Nevada would free up Los Alamos to focus on hydrodynamic radiography, a crucial technique used by nuclear weapons designers. Scientists fire Xrays into exploding shells of high explosive = and plutoniumlike metals. That lets scientists check and refine the operation= of "primaries," the initial Abomb triggers for thermonuclear weapons. Weigan= d wants a more aggressive schedule of the tests at Los Alamos. Part of the tests involve a topsecret project, codenamed Appaloos= a. They employ an exotic metal, plutonium242, that can be imploded in bomb shapes without undergoing an explosive nuclear chain reaction. This gives scient= ists Xray movies of fullscale weapons tests that never go "nuclear." Moving plutonium work to Livermore will give Los Alamos more spac= e at its plutonium facility for the Appaloosa work. At the same time, Los Alamos would build one of the world's 10 mo= st powerful proton accelerators to test out a new kind of hydrodynamic radiography. Scientists want more and higher quality pictures at more ang= les of exploding triggers. For a future machine, the Advanced Hydrotest Facility= , they think the answer might be to surround triggers in multiple proton beams a= nd Xrays, all delivering splitsecond pictures. Weapons designers can use the= se pictures as they do today, to verify the accuracy of weapons codes that simulate an exploding nuclear weapon. But critics inside and outside of= the weapons labs wonder about the prudence and the cost of transferring wor= k away from those most experienced at it. =93Moving Los Alamos work to Nevada doesn't make any sense from c= ost or technical standpoint," said Greg Mello of the Los Alamos Study Group, a disarmament organization in Santa Fe. "It's creating a new lab in the des= ert." Weigand would not say how much the moves would cost, but said the amount was "not significant." And he argues that weapons designers at Los Alamos= are being stretched thin by their responsibility for maintaining weapons. Department of Energy policy calls for the lab that designed a wea= pon system to be responsible for regularly taking a few out of the stockpile = and tearing them apart, looking for signs of deterioration. Los Alamos is responsible for five nuclear warhead types, while Livermore is responsible for three. Weigand said the workload was "exhausting" the Los Alamos weapons designers. As a result, he's proposing shifting responsibility for one of= the weapons, the W80 cruise missile warhead, to Livermore. Sandia National Laboratories benefits from the proposal. No maj= or programs are leaving the Albuquerque lab, which is responsible for the electronic systems and other nonnuclear components in nuclear weapons. But Sandia will get a $300 million complex of buildings to centra= lize research into computer circuits and microscopic machines. =20 [Sidebar] DOE PROPOSAL The Department of Energy's proposal to shift workload among its nuclear w= eapons research and testing sites:=20 *Gives an unknown portion of Los Alamos' job inspecting plutonium pits to= its sister lab, Lawrence Livermore in Livermore, Calif. This $7.9 millionayea= r job, called pit surveillance, is a linchpin of maintaining aging U.S. nuclear weapons. Pits are hollow, eggshaped shells of radioactive plutonium the s= ize of a grapefruit. When crushed by high explosives, they become tiny Abombs th= at touch off the hydrogen fuel in thermonuclear weapons. Scientists fear plu= tonium and its highexplosive shell is vulnerable to aging. DOE wants to send pit surveillance to Livermore to give that lab more "handson" work with pluto= nium components. At Los Alamos, about 30 people inspect about 15 pits a year.=20 *Sends two Los Alamos research machines to Nevada. The prize is Atlas, a = $48.5 million machine that uses electrical power equivalent to 100,000 lightnin= g bolts to crush a soda cansize "target." Los Alamos has spent $2 million s= o far on Atlas, mostly refurbishing a building. Under the proposal, Atlas' 80fo= ot ring of capacitors would have to be disassembled at Los Alamos, reassembl= ed and tested at the Nevada Test Site at unknown additional cost. Atlas targets=20 typically lead, tungsten and copper are standins for plutonium and urani= um in weapons.=20 *Makes Los Alamos the nation's center for hydrodynamic radiography. It's = a technique for nuclear weapons designers to refine and check the operation= of nuclear weapons by detonating mock weapons, with inert materials substitu= ted for their explosive plutonium. Xrays of the blasts allow scientists to st= udy the results.=20 *Builds one of the world's 10 most powerful proton accelerators at Los Al= amos to try out a new technique in weapons testing. The new accelerator at Los Alamos would operate at 50 Giga electron volts, about 60 times the power = of the lab's current accelerator. Scientists want to try shooting the proton bea= m through exploding nuclear primaries from multiple angles in a future mach= ine called the Advanced Hydrotest Facility.=20 *Builds a $300 million microelectronics complex at Sandia to develop comp= onents for refurbishing aging U.S. nuclear weapons. =20 Copyright 1997, 1998, 1999 Albuquerque Journal Call the Journal: 5058233800 - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 18:53:40 +1000 From: FoE Sydney - Nuclear Campaign Subject: (abolition-usa) SEPT 1 START GLOBAL DE-ALERTING FAX CAMPAIGN John Hallam =46riends of the Earth Sydney, 17 Lord street, Newtown, NSW, Australia, =46ax(61)(2)9517-3902 ph (61)(2)9517-3903 nonukes@foesyd.org.au http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd http://homepages.tig.com.au/~foesyd/nuclear/bbletter.html APPEAL: THE MOST IMPORTANT ISSUE IN THE WORLD BETWEEN NOW AND DECEMBER31 =46ROM SEPT 1, FAX YELTSIN, CLINTON TO TAKE N-WEAPONS OFF ALERT. PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, +7-095-205-4330, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, +1-202-456-2461, Dear All, You will be getting many messages of this kind because this is possibly the most important single issue that can ever come your way between now and the next year. =46ollowing this appeal there are two sample letters, one from FOE Australia and one from Bob Tiller of PSR USA. I urge you to act on them. I am writing to urge you to fax Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton from Sept 1 onwards to take strategic nuclear weapons off alert before December, and to ask that the de- alerting of strategic nuclear weapons be discussed at the coming September 21 meeting of the G8. This is of absolutely vital importance. Getting 5000 nuclear missiles off alert status before the Y2k bug plays havoc with their command and control systems is just about the most important thing anyone can possibly do. Arguably there is simply no other issue this important between now and December/January. It might be literally a matter of survival. Can you get this appeal and the two sample letters out to your networks as fast as you can and ask them to fax it from September 1? If people wish to customise from the two letters that is best. It's important I think, to get it out as fast as possible, but ask people to stick to the sept 1 date (or after). Please try to fax from September 1 onwards, preferably not before. Please use the fax numbers I have provided. The numbers here work. I've just checked them. Try and get everyone you know to do it. If you are a large organisation please try and get all your members to do it= =2E Many thanks and may the fax gremlins smile on you! John Hallam. DRAFT MODEL LETTER TO YELTSIN AND CLINTON FOR GLOBAL FAX CAMPAIGN STARTING SEPTEMBER 1 PRESIDENT BORIS YELTSIN, +7-095-205-4330, PRESIDENT BILL CLINTON, +1-202-456-2461, Dear Presidents Yeltsin, and Clinton, I am writing to you to convey my extreme concern over the possibility that Y2K -related problems in the computerised command, control, and monitoring systems of nuclear forces and weapon systems, may give rise to an unacceptable risk of accidental nuclear war, as a result of incorrect data and miscalculation. I therefore urge you to solve the problem by taking your nuclear forces off alert, or by standing them down. I ask that standing down nuclear forces in view of the problems posed by the 'Millennium Bug', be a matter for urgent priority discussions at the G8 Summit in Berlin on Sept 21. As well asY2K considerations, taking nuclear weapons off alert will increase strategic stability and confidence, and eliminate the possibility of accidental nuclear war. I would remind you that your two countries have some 5000 strategic nuclear weapons that are able to be fired within a time span of 15-30 minutes. This must never happen. Should it do so, not only would your two countries cease to exist, but it is entirely possible that human life and maybe all life life on the planet, could be terminated. Any risk of this happening at any time, Y2K or otherwise, no matter how small, is unacceptable. However, the Y2K problem adds another layer of uncertainty to the risk that already exists. Taking nuclear forces off alert was strongly recommended by the Canberra Commission on the Elimination of Nuclear Weapons in 1996, and a number of resolutions of the United Nations General Assembly have urged that it be done. Taking nuclear weapons off alert and placing them in a state in which hours to days rather than minutes or seconds would be required to make them launch ready, would effectively eliminate the risk of accidental nuclear war due to the Y2K computer problem. It would also make impossible the many non-Y2K related problems that have many times brought us to within minutes of a possible nuclear exchange. De-Alerting will cost you nothing, and can be done by a simple executive order to stand down nuclear forces. The UK has already altered its 'notice to fire' from minutes to days. We/I urge you to do likewise. The stakes involved far outweigh any considerations of national pride, national interest, or even national security. Indeed, the immediate stakes are so high, and the potential for global catastrophe so clear that mutually verified de- alerting must now take precedence over all other considerations. Signed... etc >------------------------------------------- >Dear Presidents Yeltsin and Clinton: > >The Cold War ended years ago, but the nuclear danger endures, menacing >us all. Thousands of nuclear weapons remain on high-alert in the United >States and Russia. Although both countries have announced their >"de-targeting" of the other, that step is virtually meaningless when >both countries keep their weapons on alert and maintain a >launch-on-warning posture. > >Keeping nuclear weapons on hair-trigger alert does not add to the >security of either nation; indeed it makes all of us less secure. You >are well aware of the various occasions when Russia and the U.S. came >close to launching nuclear weapons because of misunderstanding or poor >data. Removing the weapons from hair-trigger alert would eliminate the >risk of hasty reaction. > >Therefore I urge you to lessen the nuclear danger by removing all >nuclear weapons from high-alert. This can be accomplished in a matter >of weeks without treaty negotiation or ratification. > >This approach has worked before. In 1991 President George Bush took the >bold step of removing hundreds of U.S. nuclear weapons from high-alert >status, and in response Mikhail Gorbachev did the same with hundreds of >Soviet weapons. Now we need similar courageous leadership to finish the >process that they started. > >De-alerting takes on added urgency this year. When January 1, 2000 >arrives, no one will know if all of the Y2K computer problems have been >fixed. Why court disaster by having nuclear warheads on hair-trigger >alert when we do not know how the computers in the nuclear system will >function? > >Last year the United Nations General Assembly overwhelmingly passed a >resolution which calls on the nuclear weapons states to de-alert their >weapons. It is wise counsel. For the sake of our children and >grandchildren, please de-alert all nuclear weapons now. > >Sincerely, - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ Date: Tue, 24 Aug 1999 21:12:31 -0400 From: ASlater Subject: (abolition-usa) Action Alert/President Clinton Dear Friends, Have you all seen the articles below which indicate a new Russian proposal for cutting US and Russian arsenals to 1500 warheads? Please write a letter to President Clinton, your Congressional reps, the press, urging that the US forego its efforts to undercut the ABM treaty and take up the generous Russian offer to cut arsenals to 1500 warheads. Once that occurs we can start negotiations on a treaty with all the nuclear weapons states for abolition. Peace, Alice "Moscow Proposes Extensive Arms Cuts U.S., Russia Confer Over Stalled Pacts" By David Hoffman Washington Post Foreign Service Friday, August 20, 1999; Page A29=20 MOSCOW, Aug. 19=97Russia proposed cutting nearly in half the number of nuclear warheads that would be allowed under a prospective START III treaty, a Russian official said today, as talks on the stalled arms control agreements resumed this week in Moscow. President Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin agreed in June to try to reanimate the long-dormant talks, including discussions on the unratified START II accord and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty. The first round of discussions ended with renewed Russian warnings against modifying the ABM treaty. The 1993 START II treaty called for reducing the levels of nuclear warheads to 3,500 to 3,000 on each side. But Russia's lower house of parliament, the State Duma, has resisted ratifying it. At a meeting in Helsinki in 1997, Clinton and Yeltsin nevertheless set as a target for the next step, START III, a ceiling of 2,500 to 2,000 warheads for each side. However, a Russian official said that Moscow this week proposed slashing the maximum to 1,500 or fewer--a reduction that would reflect the reality of Russia's strategic forces, which are declining because of obsolescence and lack of money to build new systems. Many experts here think Russia's nuclear arsenal will decline to fewer than 1,000 warheads in the next decade. Details of the latest Russian proposal were not provided, but it is likely to meet resistance in the Pentagon and among Republicans in Congress. Moreover, the United States has urged Russia to ratify START II before formal negotiations can begin on the follow-on treaty. The ABM treaty also promises to incite a negotiating wrangle. The Clinton administration is headed toward a decision next year about building a missile defense system, and Yeltsin agreed to talk about possible changes in the ABM treaty at a summit meeting earlier this year. However, Russia has strongly resisted changes to the treaty, which limits the use of such systems by each country. Meanwhile, some Republicans in Congress want to scrap the treaty altogether. In a statement after this week's talks, the United States and Russia reaffirmed that the ABM treaty is "the cornerstone of strategic stability" and a Russian official openly warned against modifications. Grigory Berdennikov, director of the Russian Foreign Ministry's security and disarmament department, told reporters: "We see no variants which would allow the United States to set up a national ABM system and still preserve the ABM treaty and strategic stability in the world." He said any modifications would undermine the START treaties and expressed fear that "the arms race may spread into space." If the United States deploys a missile defense system, he added, Russia "will be forced to raise the effectiveness of its strategic nuclear armed forces and carry out several other military and political steps to guarantee its national security under new strategic conditions." He was not more specific, but cash-strapped Russia has barely been able to afford one missile modernization program in recent years.=20 ***************************** "Russian Official Says U.S. Arms Talks Failed Reuters, August 20, 1999=20 MOSCOW =97 A top Russian military official lashed out at the United States Friday over what Moscow sees as a failed preliminary round of talks on a new nuclear weapons reduction treaty.=20 Colonel-General Leonid Ivashov, who heads the Defense Ministry's international cooperation division, said the United States was dooming new arms control talks by seeking to change the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) treaty.=20 "Perhaps the Foreign Ministry would put it more gently but there were no results from these talks,'' Ivashov told reporters after three days of discussions on a new START-3 treaty.=20 Ivashov, one of Russia's most hawkish officials on defense and foreign policy, reiterated Moscow's view that U.S. plans to modify the ABM Treaty would wreck past arms control agreements.=20 "The ABM treaty is the basis on which all subsequent arms controls agreements have been built,'' he said.=20 "To destroy this basis would be to destroy the entire process of nuclear arms control.''=20 U.S. and Russian officials including Ivashov ended three days of Moscow talks Thursday on a START-3 nuclear weapons reduction treaty and America's wish to change the ABM agreement.=20 START-3 is aimed at adding to the cuts in nuclear arsenals due to be made under START-2, signed in 1993 and which foresees a reduction in stockpiles of each country to 3,500 warheads by 2003.=20 But even that 1993 treaty is still facing troubles as it has languished for six years without the approval of Russia's Communist-dominated State Duma, the lower house of parliament.=20 A member of the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee called Ivashov's comments obstructionist given Russia's failure to approve START-2.=20 "I want to know why they can't ratify the START-2 agreement,'' Ellen Tauscher, a Democrat from California, told reporters in Moscow after a trip to one of Russia's closed nuclear research cities.=20 Yet Ivashov said U.S. moves on a new ABM system overshadowed everything else in arms control by seeking to present Russia with a fait accompli about which it could do little.=20 "All this is done in violation of the obligations of the 1972 ABM treaty,'' he said.=20 The ABM treaty bans full systems designed to shoot down the other side's missiles. But the United States now plans to build a similar shield against missile programs it fears are being developed by countries such as Iran and North Korea.=20 A U.S. embassy spokesman said Defense Secretary William Cohen would meet his Russian counterpart Igor Sergeyev on September 13 or 14 in Moscow.=20 The next round of lower level talks on a START-3 deal are to continue in September in Washington.=20 Ivashov said tensions with NATO over Yugoslavia made it more difficult to reach agreement in arms control as well.=20 "The United States and NATO are trying to bring about their own order (in Yugoslavia), at the same time shutting the governments of the region out of the process,'' he said.=20 Russia strongly opposed NATO's March-June air strikes against its Slavic, Orthodox brethren in Yugoslavia. Its peacekeepers have been working with NATO forces on the ground in Kosovo since the end of the war but strains remain.=20 =20 Alice Slater Global Resource Action Center for the Environment (GRACE) 15 East 26th Street, Room 915 New York, NY 10010 tel: (212) 726-9161 fax: (212) 726-9160 email: aslater@gracelinks.org GRACE is a member of Abolition 2000, a global network working for a treaty to eliminate nuclear weapons. - - To unsubscribe to abolition-usa, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe abolition-usa" in the body of the message. For information on digests or retrieving files and old messages send "help" to the same address. Do not use quotes in your message. ------------------------------ End of abolition-usa-digest V1 #170 *********************************** - To unsubscribe to $LIST, send an email to "majordomo@xmission.com" with "unsubscribe $LIST" in the body of the message. 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