TODAY. Turning Point .The bomb and the cold war. Episode 4: The Wall – outlines the nuclear weapons race.
Introduction: 2019, with Donald Trump in power Mike Pompeo, Secretary of announces that USA is ls leaving the Arms Control Treaty – the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia. Only the New Start Treaty remains, due to expire soon . USA-Russia relations at a low point because of Ukraine, Russia withdraws from nuclear communications. Now other nations also have nuclear weapons, increasing the danger of confrontation, not co-operation, and of nuclear war.
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The Soviets were always insecure about American power. Americans also afraid of Soviet might. So Kruschev exaggerated Soviet nuclear weapons, to impress Americans. So USA in 1956 devised U2 spy plane. 1957 – Soviets develop Sputnik satellite- a space win, increasing USA’s fear. CIA satellite spying showed Soviet nuclear weapons much fewer. Daniel Ellsberg (Rand Corporation analyst 1959- 64) shows that Soviets were not trying for a first strike capability, not trying to dominate the world militarily. That discovery should have led to a change in USA thinking.
But it didn’t. USA propaganda continued, with the fraudulent belief that Russia ‘s foreign policy was world domination
Why has this totally fraudulent belief persisted all this time? Because there are jobs in it, and it’s very profitable. So many companies – Boeing, Lockheed, IBM, Martin and more become reliant on the government and the defense industry, becoming “a nuclear-headed hydra”. It changed universities, with 75% of natural science funding coming from defense industries. Society becomes oriented around defense, security and nuclear weapons. Exponential increase in the number and diversity of weapons, with an unlimited budget. (Good visuals of many types of nuclear weapons) By 1961 23000 nuclear weapons, most of them thermonuclear- a thousand times more powerful than the one dropped on Nagasaki. Eisenhower finally realised what a threat that this permanent armaments industry was to democracy – and warned against the “military-industrial-complex”. So many congressmen were reliant on the armaments jobs in their district. Armaments were seen as good business by Republicans and Democrats.
Presidents Richard Nixon and then John Kennedy push for the weapons industry aiming to race the Soviets, beat the so-called “missile gap”. Confrontation increasing, between Kruschev and Kennedy, (told by Kruschev’s great-granddaughter). Focus on Berlin, – graphic coverage of the Wall going up, the guards, the repression, the “death strips” .
Meanwhile American missiles set up in Europe, aimed at Russia., in Turkey aimed at the Kremlin. So Soviets tried to set up a threat to USA in Cuba’s communist regime. A CIA-led insurgency there had failed, (told by veterans) .
Pressure on Kennedy to invade Cuba, but he was reluctant. Castro urged Kruschev to attack USA, but Kruschev was reluctant. Tortuous secret diplomacy. Privately both Kennedy and Kruschev wanted no nuclear war. But they were not really in control, and they publicly threatened with nuclear weapons. This crisis led to the PARTIAL NUCLEAR TEST BAN TREATY putting nuclear testing underground.
1963: Kennedy assassinated, 1964 – Kruschev deposed. Brezhnev took over, aiming to be ahead in nuclear missiles. Both USA and Soviet union raced for nuclear missile superiority, but aiming to never use these weapons – use would be a mutual suicide pact. They developed the policy of Mutually Assured Destruction. Use of thousands of these weapons within 30 minutes – would kill of the entire earth, cut out sunlight and plant growth, and coat the earth with radioactive fallout.
So – the battles between the Soviets and the USA were proxy battles in other countries, intervening in other countries ‘ civil wars – Nicaragua, Angola, North Yemen, Domenica, Bangladesh, East Timor, Mozambique. Congo, (brutish visuals) . In Vietnam China and Russia supported the North Vietnamese, while many Asian allies supported USA. USA used Latin American countries to mobilise the Cold War. In Chile USA orchestrated the overthrow of President Allende, and the takeover by fascist Augusto Pinochet. U.S. intervention left a chaotic rule in Guatemala , an authoritarian rule in Iran. Far from spreading democracy, USA “got into bed with anyone who called themselves anti-communist“.
1969 President Richard Nixon- publicly blustered about the evils of Soviet communism, but in reality, talked with the Soviets about negotiation, introducing “detente”. The Strategic Arms Limitation Agreement (SALT 1) 1n 1972, the first agreement to limit intercontinental ballistic missiles. The U.S. Anti Ballistic Missile System. But the number of warheads was increasing in both USA and Russia – to a total of 70.000 nuclear weapons. A movement in USA to not trust the Soviets will culminate in the 19080s with President Ronal Reagan. Still, Reagan’s hatred of nuclear weapons brought him and Russia’s Mikhail Gorbachev together.
TODAY. Turning Point, The Cold War and the Bomb. Episode 3- Institutional Insanity
This begins with Volodymyr Zelensky in 2022 and Russian attacks on Ukraine, and Ukraine’s strong resistance. Author Garret Graff calls this first successful resistance “probably the turning point of the entire war.” So – it became a full scale war.
Now back to the 1950s. In the early years of the cold war, the USA treated nuclear war as something that could be survived. Public education programs. The message was that the Soviet Union was an existential threat, but that you could survive, with school training, with fallout shelters.
Fear of communism led to developing bigger bombs against the communists.
The movement to the hydrogen bomb, the thermonuclear device. Scary film of testing this on Elugelab Island in 1952, horrifying many, including Robert Oppenheimer. Albert Einstein wrote “General annihilation beckons“. Eisenhower shocked and shaken – “the power to erase human life from this planet“. The Soviets feel that they must equal this – their first hydrogen bomb test August 1953. So the USA responds in 1954 with the super-large Castle Bravo hydrogen bomb test on Bikini Atoll – making a 4-mile wide fireball. The island populations were affected by the radiation – horrifying personal stories. A Japanese ship affected by the “death ash“. The fisherman’s dying message – “let me be the last person killed by this awful weapon”.
A series of nuclear tests in the USA and across the world. Daniel Ellsberg recalls how he worked with the very clever test designers – “It turns out that intelligence is not a very good guarantee of wisdom“. The movie Dr Strangelove has words directly taken from them, and Ellsberg describes that film as a documentary. “Everything in that film could have happened“. People other than the President could launch an attack. Ellsberg saw the war plans – “they were strange and horrible“. The plan was to hit every city in Russia and China with thermonuclear weapons- with 600 million deaths – one fifth of the world population then. The Soviets then followed with a similar policy. It opened up the world as the playground of the two powers.
Covert operations all around the world. The CIA was created in 1947 modelled on Britain’s MI6. The Soviets had the KGB, very repressive under Stalin. In the USA intelligence and operational planning, and action, were combined in the CIA. By 1949 the CIA were doing paramilitary operations against the nations of Central Europe that were Soviet satellites. They started with Ukraine, training Ukrainian exiles (graphic film here), creating and funding “Ukrainian resistance cells” from 1949 – 1953 . These were suicide missions, because the British counter-spy Kim Philby was informing the Soviets. Subsequent operations to Poland, Romania – were also disasters.
From 1953, U.S. foreign policy , as run by the Allen Dulles and John Foster Dulles, brothers, saw communism behind every nationalist movement, happy to spread American democracy via any government, however vicious brutal and corrupt. The Dulles brothers also were dedicated to furthering the interests of multinational corporations, which meant controlling the countries that supplied resources.
They started with Iran and Guatemala, overthrowing the elected governments. The CIA used money and propaganda, controlling the Iranian media, flooding it with “fake news”, and created “communist thuggery”. They succeeded in reinstalling the Shah. Western oil companies now ran the oil business. Guatemala followed the same pattern, a highly repressive regime was set up.
The cold war was a battle for minds and hearts. The CIA from the late 40s to the early 60s had hundreds of “influence operations”, co-opting overseas and some American media.
The Soviet Union’s KGB used “Active measures” – set up to use disinformation, planting major stories in overseas news media to cause disruption and confusion, forging documents slipped to journalists. These were often accepted especially in developing countries as genuine proof of American conspiracies. In the Soviet Union, Stalin had complete control of the media.
Stalin’s death in 1953. Nikita Kruschev ushered in a new period – the Thaw. His story here told by his great-granddaughter. Kruschev released many innocent victims of Stalin’s gulags, revealed Stalin’s crimes, set the Soviet Union on a different course, opened up the possibility of liberal reform, lessened censorship. But Kruschev also believed that the Soviet Union must show its strength to the USA, boasted of its military strength, with a disinformation campaign to scare Americans about a 100 megaton bomb, and the number and reach of its missiles.
USA’s military thinking moved to plans to evacuate high-ranking officials, expecting that in a coming nuclear war most of America will die, but the government will survive in a mountain bunker.
Daniel Ellsberg reported on the secret doomsday machines, in the Pentagon Papers, and copied all his nuclear reports, published “Confessions of a nuclear war planner”. Now in 2022 we see him urging for cutting the defense budget, getting rid of ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles) – to avoid armageddon.
The episode ends with the warning of how suddenly a crisis can arise, with the greatest danger to the world, as happened in 1962 – when the Russians placed intermediate range nuclear missiles on the island of Cuba.
US Air Force pays $13 billion for new ‘doomsday’ planes that protect president during a nuclear attack – sparking fears America’s preparing for WWIII
- The contract is to replace the four doomsday planes in use due to them ageing
- The fleet is used to protect the president in the event of a nuclear attack
- READ MORE: America’s ‘doomsday’ plane was sent on a four-hour training
By STACY LIBERATORE FOR DAILYMAIL.COM, 30 April 2024
American is set to get a new fleet of ‘doomsday planes’ that some have said signal the nation could be preparing for World Ward III.
The US Air Forced announced a $13 billion contract to develop craft to replace the aging Boeing planes that are used to protect the president during a nuclear attack.
The funds were awarded to Sierra Nevada Corp, which will design a successor to the E-4B ‘Nightwatch’ that features a mobile command post capable of withstanding nuclear blasts and electromagnetic effects.
The project, called Survival Airborne Operations Center, is expected to be completed by 2036…………………..
The Air Force has a fleet of four E-4Bs, with at least one on alert at all times, but the Boeings are aging and many parts have become obsolete.
Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC), an American aerospace company, said: ‘SNC is building the airborne command center of the future!………………………………..
Boeing was let go as the sole provider of the doomsday planes in December 2023 after the company and US military could not agree on pricing for the next-generation fleet.
Details of SNC’s design have not been shared, but the craft will likely resemble the current E-4B ‘Nightwatch.
The current doomsday plane includes an advanced satellite communications system, nuclear and thermal effects shielding, acoustic control and an advanced air-conditioning system for cooling electrical components.
The planes can also be refueled in the air and have remained airborne and operational for as long as 35.4 hours in one stint.
The engine can produce 52,500 pounds of thrust and the plane can carry up to 800,000 pounds.
Each E-4B ‘Nightwatch’ is 231 feet long with a 195-foot wingspan – and cost $223 million to make.
The Air Force said in the FY2024 budget request that SAOC will provide ‘a worldwide, survivable, and enduring node of the National Military Command System (NMCS) to fulfill national security requirements throughout all stages of conflict,’ according to SWNS.
As a command, control and communications center directing US forces, executing emergency war orders and coordinating the activities of civil authorities including national contingency plans, this capability ensures continuity of operations and continuity of government as required in a national emergency or after negation/destruction of ground command and control centers,’ the military branch added.
‘SAOC will fulfill the requirements of the AF Nuclear Mission by providing Nuclear Command, Control and Communications (NC3) capabilities to enable the exercise of authority and direction by the President to command and control US military nuclear weapons operations.’
SNC has not revealed what airframe they will use for their doomsday planes.
The E-4Bs are operated by the First Airborne Command and Control Squadron of the 595th Command and Control Group, are coordinated by the United States Strategic Command and are stationed near Omaha, Nebraska, at the Offutt Air Force Base.
One of the doomsday planes was sent on a four-hour training flight in 2022 after Vladimir Putin placed Russia’s nuclear forces on high alert.
Military flight tracking sites showed the modified Boeing 747 had departed from the US Air Force base in Lincoln, Nebraska and carried out a training flight with other specialist military aircraft. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-13363035/US-Air-Force-pays-13-billion-new-doomsday-planes-protect-president-nuclear-attack-sparking-fears-Americas-preparing-WWWIII.html
TODAY. What’s the connection between the UK Post Office scandal and Soviet Lt. Col. Stanislav Petrov?
Well, nothing really. But we need to remember what Stanislav Petrov did. On September 26, 1983, Petrov, in charge of the Soviet Union’s nuclear missile system, received the computer screen order to “Launch”. The system reported that a total of five Minuteman ICBMs had been launched by the USA. Soviet nuclear doctrine called for a full nuclear retaliation. Petrov had to make an instant decision. But he feared that it was a false alarm. He disobeyed the order.
The outcome proved that Petrov was correct, and nuclear armageddon was avoided.
So, faulty technology caused a terrible danger – and one man had the integrity to doubt the digital message, and to act on his doubt.
Contrast this with the actions of Post Office and Fujitsu authorities who covered up and lied about the faulty Horizon IT system. That resulted in 900 false convictions, 4 suicides, and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of lives ruined.
In both cases, it was a failure of digital technology.
Now, as we plunge in to the Age of Artificial Intelligence, there is the frightening potential for more digital failures, – and worse, for human error, or even malevolence, in setting up AI programmes.
We need, as never before, people like Stanislav Petrov – people with the scepticism and the integrity - to not blindly comply with technocratic wizardry. The very recent, and still ongoing British Post Office scandal is a worrying reminder of the prevailing view about “not rocking the boat”. The boat may be sinking.
Antinuclear 