Det danske Fredsakademi
Kronologi over fredssagen og international politik 1. Mars 2012 / Time Line March 1, 2012
Version 3.503/01/2012
Stillehavet som atomvåbenfri zone.
Siden 1984 har man i Stillehavsområdet mindet USAs brintbombeforsøg
i 1954.
Eksplosionens voldsomme radioaktive nedfald som ramte
besætningen på den japanske fiskebåd Lucky
Dragon, fik uoverskuelige følger for befolkningen på
Bikini.
Litteratur:
Keever, Beverly Deepe: Shot in the Dark: The largest
nuclear bomb in U.S. history still shakes Rongelap Atoll and its
displaced people 50 years later.
U.S. Nuclear Testing Program in the Marshall
Islands.
- http://www.nuclearclaimstribunal.com/testing.htm
03/01/2001
International kampagnedag mod landminer.
03/01/2012
The 3 A.M. Phone Call
Zbigniew Brzezinski Received 3 a.m. Phone Call Warning of Incoming
Nuclear Attack
Declassified Documents Shed Light on Soviet Diplomatic Reactions
and Internal Pentagon Review
Secretary of Defense Advised President Carter that "We Must Be
Prepared for the Possibility [of] Another False Alert" but "Human
Safeguards" Would Prevent a Crisis
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 371
Washington, D.C., March 1, 2012 - During the 2008 campaign,
Democratic presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama
debated the question: who was best suited to be suddenly awakened
at 3 a.m. in the White House to make a tough call in a crisis. The
candidates probably meant news of trouble in the Middle East or a
terrorist attack in the United States or in a major ally, not an
'end of the world' phone call about a major nuclear strike on the
United States. In fact at least one such phone call occurred during
the Cold War, but it did not go to the President. It went to a
national security adviser, Zbigniew Brzezinski, who was awakened on
9 November 1979, to be told that the North American Aerospace
Defense Command (NORAD), the combined U.S.-Canada military
command-was reporting a Soviet missile attack. Just before
Brzezinski was about to call President Carter, the NORAD warning
turned out to be a false alarm. It was one of those moments in Cold
War history when top officials believed they were facing the
ultimate threat. The apparent cause? The routine testing of an
overworked computer system.
Recently declassified documents about this incident and other false
warnings of Soviet missile attacks delivered to the Pentagon and
military commands by computers at NORAD in 1979 and 1980 are
published today for the first time by the National Security
Archive. The erroneous warnings, variously produced by computer
tests and worn out computer chips, led to a number of alert actions
by U.S. bomber and missile forces and the emergency airborne
command post. Alarmed by reports of the incident on 9 November
1979, the Soviet leadership lodged a complaint with Washington
about the "extreme danger" of false warnings. While Pentagon
officials were trying to prevent future incidents, Secretary of
Defense Harold Brown assured President Jimmy Carter that false
warnings were virtually inevitable, although he tried to reassure
the President that "human safeguards" would prevent them from
getting out of control.
Among the disclosures in today's posting:
* Reports that the mistaken use of a nuclear exercise tape on a
NORAD computer had produced a U.S. false warning and alert actions
prompted Soviet Communist Party General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev
to write secretly to President Carter that the erroneous alert was
"fraught with a tremendous danger." Further, "I think you will
agree with me that there should be no errors in such matters."
* Commenting on the November 1979 NORAD incident, senior State
Department adviser Marshal Shulman wrote that "false alerts of this
kind are not a rare occurrence" and that there is a "complacency
about handling them that disturbs me."
* With U.S.-Soviet relations already difficult, the Brezhnev
message sparked discussion inside the Carter administration on how
best to reply. Hard-liners prevailed and the draft that was
approved included language ("inaccurate and unacceptable") that
Marshal Shulman saw as "snotty" and "gratuitously insulting."
* Months later, in May and June 1980, 3 more false alerts occurred.
The dates of two of them, 3 and 6 June 1980, have been in the
public record for years, but the existence of a third event, cited
in a memorandum from Secretary of Defense Brown to President Carter
on 7 June 1980, has hitherto been unknown, although the details are
classified.
* False alerts by NORAD computers on 3 and 6 June 1980 triggered
routine actions by SAC and the NMCC to ensure survivability of
strategic forces and command and control systems. The National
Emergency Airborne Command Post (NEACP) at Andrews Air Force Base
taxied in position for emergency launch, although it remained in
place. Because missile attack warning systems showed nothing
unusual, the alert actions were suspended.
* Supposedly causing the incidents in June 1980 was the failure of
a 46¢ integrated circuit ("chip") in a NORAD computer, but
Secretary of Defense Brown reported to a surprised President Carter
that NORAD "has been unable to get the suspected circuit to fail
again under tests."
* In reports to Carter, Secretary cautioned that "we must be
prepared for the possibility that another, unrelated malfunction
may someday generate another false alert." Nevertheless, Brown
argued that "human safeguards"-people reading data produced by
warning systems--ensured that there would be "no chance that any
irretrievable actions would be taken."
 |
 |