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The arms race was (and is) driven by the U.S.military-industrial complex, without the consent of the U.S. people.
Arms are consumer durables and the second hand market in arms is terrorising ordinary people right across the so called 'developing world'. Again, in the South, its the corrupt politicians that buy those arms not the people.
The first one is assembled by putting together a few kilograms of fissionable or fissile material within as short a period as possible -- (within some microseconds if possible). This can be achieved by using chemical devices, i.e., imploding several small amounts (subcritical amounts) into a small volume inside the bomb. Several subcritical amounts when fired into a small volume, exceed critcal mass and thus fissile material (U-235 or Plutonium-239) fissions with neutrons. Each fission of either U-235 or Pu-235 nucleus induced by a neutron, produces two radioactive fission products and on the average 2.5 neutrons with the evolution of a large amount of energy. It is an uncontrolled chain reaction and thus a fraction of fissile material is fissioned. Fission products that are produed along with enormous amount of energy, disperse in the environment. This type of bomb was dropped n Hiroshima and on Nagasaki.
The second one (commonly known as hydrogen bomb) consists of an atom bomb with deuterium and tritium compounds like lithium deuteride etc. Fission bomb is first triggered so that temperature in the assembly is raised to several million degrees (between 10 -100 million degrees). At these high temperatures deuterium and tritium start reacting with each other to form a helium atom and 14.6- MeV neutron. As you can see that it produces a stable atom of helium and a fast-moving neutron. This neutron can react with other atoms in the environment. For example, it can react with nitrogen-14 to give carbon-14.(a radioactive isotope of carbon). One can produce additional number of radioisotopes as well. In short, in addition to fission products we also have neutron-induced radioisotopes. These are also dispersed along with enormous amount of energy in the environment.
This types of bomb has been tested by many nations in South Pacific and in Siberia from 1952 to 1963. Generally, a hydrogen bomb is 100 to 1000 times more distructive than a fission bomb.
The third kind (neutron bomb) is similar to the hydrogen bomb. The difference is that it is detonated at high altitudes so that neutrons can travel to ground level and destroy life. Of course, some neutrons do react with other material and produce radioisotopes. The fission bomb is kept as small as one can assemble and the amount of tritium and deuterium is kept large. Once the fission bomb raises the temperature so as to initiate tritium-deuterium (D-T) reaction, the fusion energy evolved in the D-T reaction keeps the temperature high for a longer duration and thus keeps the reaction going for relatively a longer time. 14.6-MeV neutrons shoot out in all direction. They can be deflected to some extent toward the earth. Human life is destroyed by neutrons over a certain area under the bomb. As the distance becomes longer between the spot where the bomb is detonated and the ground, the neutron flux also reduces. 14.6-Mev neutrons fly to all directions. The ones that are directed toward the sky and are not deflected, do not harm humans or cause property damage. It is not as distructive as the hydrogen bomb but it is false notion that there is very little radioactivity associated with it. It is descrbed as 'not a dirty bomb'. However, it is also a dirty bomb.
There are good reasons why neutron bomb should not be used.
(1) Fission products are produced when the fusion reaction (reaction between deutron and tritium) is induced). These fission products will evantually come down to the earth along with rain etc. over a period of three years and thus get into the food-chain. That will result in higher incidence of cancer in the population on the globe.
(2) There is a treaty banning detonation of bombs in our atmosphere. If the Super power (USA) uses the bomb for killing "terrorists", other countries will follow her example. USA will not have any moral authority to ask other countries to ban the production or the use of neutron bombs.
(3) Multitudes of nuclear reactions can be initiated by a flux of 14.6 MeV neutrons and thus some radioactivity will be induced in the materials. It cannot be stated that there will be no induced radioactivity produced in the surface area below the place the neutron bomb is detonated.
I find it very difficult to believe that President Bush is entertaining the use of neutron bombs. It was a relief to know that for the last thirty eight years we could take for granted that super powers would not deploy nuclear weapons. Now we hear that President Bush is considering such suggestions. Use of any nuclear weapons poses a grave risk to (bio-life) human beings here on the earth. It must be understood that exposure to radiation leaves insult to biolife.
I am still trying to get some more information on this type of devices. Let us hope cool heads will prevail and neutron bombs will never be deployed in any kind of conflict.
Hari Sharma.
When I was six months old, so mum tells me, all the tinned food, including
petfood, disappeared from the grocery shops. I wanted to find out why.
It was nearly LeMay and Power's finest hour.
The C.I.A. stage-managed a 'counter-revolution' at the Bay of Pigs in 1961 which was an embarrassing failure. Kennedy refused permission for U.S. planes to provide air cover, a decision extremely unpopular with the military 'hawks'. By 1962 Cuba was by far the biggest thorn in the Agency's side. Castro and Cuba proved that there was another way that worked, and it wasn't the American way.
The Pentagon had deployed fifteen Jupiter Intermediate Range Nuclear Missiles in Turkey on the Southern border of the U.S.S.R.. NATO nuclear missiles now had access to Russia. A counter force was ready to be sent from Russia to Cuba to maintain the balance.
General Thomas Power headed Strategic Air Command and Curtis LeMay was U.S. Air Force Chief of Staff. Both were worried that the Soviet nuclear arsenal was catching up with the U.S. and might soon overtake it. They both favoured war rather than to risk the 'balance of power' equalising or swinging against them in the future. Cuba was the excuse they had been waiting for.
Curtis LeMay was clear about what to do.
'The Russian bear has always been eager to stick his paw in Latin American waters. Now we've got him in a trap, let's take his leg off right up to his testicles. On second thoughts, let's take off his testicles too."
He was angry about not being allowed to invade Cuba, saying just after the crisis that,
"...at any point the Soviet Union could have been obliterated without more than expectable losses on our side."
General Power was at least as eager to get World War III started as LeMay. As a military colleague put it,
"General Power was demanding: he was mean; he was cruel, unforgiving, and he didn't have the time of day to pass with anyone. A hard, cruel individual... I would like to say this. I used to worry about General Power. I used to worry that General Power was not stable. I used to worry about the fact that he had control over so many weapons and weapon systems and could, under certain circumstances, launch the force."
Sunday 14th October 1962. Pentagon satellites send back the first pictures of ground preparations in Cuba for what seem to be nuclear missile sites.
Monday night, October 22nd 1962. Kennedy speaks on American TV to
the Russians and to the world of the threat posed by the Cuban missiles.
He explains why they must never arrive... or else. While he speaks the Pentagon
slides up from Defence Condition (or Defcon) 5 to Defcon 3, two steps down
from all-out war.
54 Strategic Air Command bombers take off, each carrying 4 H-bombs, to boost
the 12 plane peacetime 24 hour patrol.
136 Atlas and Titan Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles are prepared for
firing.
36 test missiles at various bases are taken over by S.A.C.. A.F.S.C. and civilian personnel are replaced by S.A.C. command and control crews.
Wednesday October 24th 1962. Defcon 2 is declared, now only one stage from all-out war.
Thursday night, October 25th 1962. Air Defence Command F-106's armed with Falcon (GAR 11) nuclear air to air missiles get the order to scramble at Volk Field, Wisconsin. Practice alert drills were cancelled at Defcon 3 so the interceptor crews assume they are going to war. Since they have not been briefed that SAC bombers are aloft dispersing and do not know the SAC airborne alert routes nuclear friendly fire is a real possibility. But the launch klaxon at Volk field is an error. An airforce guard at Duluth Section Direction Centre had detected an intruder inside the base perimeter and sounded a sabotage alarm which had somehow keyed the scramble klaxon at Volks Field. As soon as Duluth realise it's a mistake Volk Field is told. Volk's commanding officer leaps into his car, drives out onto the Tarmac and flashes his headlights at the squadron of F-106's about to take off. The intruder turns out to be a bear.
Friday morning 4am, 26th October 1962. An Atlas ICBM is launched from Vandenburg Air Force Base across the Pacific in the direction of the Soviet Union towards the Kwajalein test range. A politically unsanctioned and potentially catastrophic action. S.A.C. have taken over the test missiles at Vandenburg at the time of Defcon 3, programmed them with Soviet targets, and are well into the process of attaching nuclear warheads. The Atlas was singled out and was the only missile at Vandenburg not to have a nuclear warhead being prepared or already installed. It is launched on its pre-crisis schedule with S.A.C. concurrence, a deliberate provocation.
Friday afternoon, 26th October 1962. Titan II test launch from Moorestown. All missile test launches immediately cancelled at the highest political level. Col. William Watts flies down to Patrick AFB to explain how this firing had been allowed.
Sunday morning 8.58am, 28th October 1962. U.S. radar NORAD picks up a missile launch from Cuba with a near Tampa, Florida trajectory. NORAD commander is rung at home and S.A.C. command in Omaha warned. Only after predicted impact at 9.02 didn't happen the missile is determined to be a simulation caused by a misplaced computer test tape.
S.A.C. airborne alert bombers deliberately flew past their turnaround points. The bombers only turned around when the Soviet freighters carrying the missiles to Cuba stopped dead in the Atlantic.
A U-2 high altitude spy-plane strayed over Siberia. LeMay had neglected Presidential orders to cancel all overflights. Kruschev said, "...an intruding American plane could be easily taken for a nuclear bomber which might push us to a fateful step." Russian air defence interceptors flew fully armed with nuclear rockets with all safety devices removed.
The U.S. Navy tracked soviet nuclear subs. aggressively throughout the world - forcing them to surface and reveal their positions. A serious provocation when it had orders to do so only if the subs. entered U.S. quarantine areas.
S.A.C. Minuteman crews not trained in Titan and Atlas safety procedures took command of test missiles at Malmstrom AFB. One of the S.A.C. crew assigned to a control centre which wasn't quite finished confesses, "We didn't literally hot-wire the launch command system - that would be the wrong analogy - but we did have a second key... I could have launched it on my own if I'd wanted to."
Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002
Subject: Scramble At Duluth
From: "Joseph A. Hart" <tbird331@attbi.com>Dear Sir,
I read with great interest your dissertation on the Cuban Crisis and how easily it could have resulted in a nuclear exchange involving the US, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. I doubt if many people knew then or now how close we were to the tragedy. As a direct principal I think I can give you some insights concerning the "scramble" of the F106 jets from Duluth Air Base.
I was a Captain and a F106 combat qualified pilot in the 11th Fighter Interceptor Squadron at Duluth . The Squadron under the command of Lt Col Kupersmith had 18 airplanes and about twenty - four rated pilots.
The Base commander was Col. Hurley, a charismatic officer who was very popular with the pilots in the 11th Squadron. When the news of the Cuban Crisis broke Col. Hurley was on a fishing trip in Canada with his son. In his haste to return to the base Col. Hurley and his son were both killed in an automobile accident. As a result the morale all over the base, and particularly in the Fighter Squadron was very low.
When the crisis started Col. Kupersmith ordered that all flyable aircraft be mated with a pilot and four armed airplanes were kept on 5 minute alert status at all times. I was one of the 5 minute alert pilots the night of 25 October.
The 11th was a very close knit origination and the pilots wives were an integral part of the Squadron. To improve moral they prepared a buffet diner and served it in our squadron Mess Hall to all the members of the squadron who didn't have to be someplace else. It was during this dinner that the Scramble Klaxon went off.
Because I was closest to my airplane when the klaxon sounded I was first to leave the my hanger and taxi toward the west end of the runway. Under the rules of engagement no further confirmation of the scramble was required and I and the three pilots in the planes behind me had every intention of taking off with armable nuclear weapons on board. About halfway down the taxiway the order came by radio to abort the scramble. This of course had to be authenticated. The authentication required the use of code book and a key that was valid for only a specific amount of time. This procedure was not easy to do particularly at night, while taxiing, and wearing gloves. When the order to abort was authenticated the four airplanes returned to the ramp and were re-fueled and re-setup on alert.
Back inside the squadron mess hall there were some extremely white faces among the wives. My own wife said she was sure we were at war the minute that Klaxon sounded.
I don't remember the names of the three pilots behind me on the taxiway but I can give you a few names of pilots it could have been.
Steve Booras
Jimmy Hopper
Charlie Wilson
Charlie Travina
Jim Artman
Lou Kressin
Willie Hammett
Tom Pope
Gene Roberts
Ed Woelfel
Frank LoescheDuring the Cuban crisis we did get one airplane airborne with an armable nuclear weapon on board. This happened about two days into the crisis under circumstances I do not know. The flight was a single ship and the pilot was Captain, (later) General Winston Deporter. I believe this was the first and only time in the history of Air Defense Command that a live MB1 was taken aloft.
At the time of this event the Russian cargo ships with missiles on board as deck cargo were steaming towards Cuba. President Kennedy said they would not be allowed to reach Cuba, Russia of course said they would. To anybody who thought about it at all, this was the flash point that would determine the fate of both countries for centuries to come. During the run to the airplanes this was predominate in our minds. Further, from the first day of training in Air Defense Command, we were drilled and drilled some more to believe that when that klaxon went off we were at war. Once in the airplane we had the task of getting an expensive weapons system airborne and this occupied our minds completely. The applicable axiom was the Fighter Pilots Prayer "O Lord , I don't care if I die, just don't let me F_ _ K up."
The F106 carried five missiles. Two were radar guided all the way to the target, and two were self guided heat seeking missiles. All four carried a small but adequate high explosive head.
The MB1 nuclear weapon was probably the dumbest weapons system ever purchased. The weapon was unguided once it left the airplane. Prior to launch the airplane radar computed a lead collision course and the best range to fire the missile. A lead collision course is the course of the missile that would put it under the target at a point in space slightly ahead of the position the target occupied at launch. The missile was not designed to hit the target. Rather it was supposed to explode just under the bomber or group of bombers and bring them down by over-pressuring then with the atomic blast. The effect of that blast on the F106 that delivered the missile was never adequately ascertained. Thank God we never had to fire one!
In the 1960s the percieved threat was from Russian Bear bombers coming over the pole at high altitude and then dropping to tree top level to deliver their weapons. We trained for this but because it was so dangerous, particularly at night, we were restriced to an altitude no lower than 5000 feet above the terrain even though the Russians were believed to have terrain mapping radar which hooked to their autopilots and allowed them to go much lower. Can you imagine the effect on our own cities and countryside if we had to launch the atomic missile at altitudes this low? You can probably tell I was not a big fan of this weapon.
The blockade of Cuba worked, the crisis passed and LeMay bitterly criticised Kennedy for not allowing an invasion of Cuba. As Macnamara put it, '...after Krushcev had agreed to remove the missiles President Kennedy invited the chiefs to the White House so that he could thank them for their support during the crisis and there was one hell of a scene. LeMay came out saying, "We lost! We aught to just go in there today and knock 'em off!"
At a conference in 1989 in Moscow to discuss the crisis it was revealed C.I.A. 'intelligence' of only conventional capability in Cuba could not have been more wrong. The Cubans had 20 nuclear warheads for their R-12 ballistic missiles which could have reached Washington quite easily. There were also 9 tactical nuclear missiles that Soviet commanders in Cuba were delegated power to use. Neither class of weapon needed orders from Moscow to be fired. Any attempt to invade Cuba as was being pressed for by LeMay and Power would have been disastrous.
Kruschev said in retirement that he had wanted to protect Cuba from invasion and equalise, '...what the west calls the balance of power. We had no desire to start a war. On the contrary our principle aim was to deter America from starting a war. We were well aware that a war which started over Cuba would quickly expand into a world war.'
The Soviet Union never went to full nuclear alert all the years of the Cold War. After Cuba the U.S. never did again, so far. Neither did the two nations ever directly confront each other again.
According to the World Health Organisation a nuclear exchange at the time would have meant roughly 300 million people killed plus 300 million seriously injured.
On the 26th of March 1964 this H-bomb test, Castle Romeo, was one of the biggest ever.
The first H-bomb ever 'Mike' was exploded at 7.15 am local time on November 1st 1952. The mushroom cloud was 8 miles across and 27 miles high. The canopy was 100 miles wide. Radioactive mud fell out of the sky followed by heavy rain. 80 million tons of earth was vaporised. Mike was the first ever megaton yeild explosion.
Castle Bravo was a lithium-deuteride fuelled H-bomb exploded 1st March 1954 at Bikini Atoll. It yielded 15 megatons and had a fireball 4 miles in diameter. It was much bigger than the test crews had been expecting. It engulfed its 7,500 foot diagnostic pipe array all the way out to the earth-banked instrument bunker, which barely survived. Test crews were trapped in experiment bunkers well outside the expected limits of its effects. It menaced task force ships, one of which held Marshall Rosenbluth, a U.S. theoretical physicist, "I was on a ship that was thirty miles away, and we had this horrible white stuff raining down on us. I got 10 rads [100 chest x-rays] of radiation from it. It was pretty frightening. There was a huge fireball with these turbulent rolls going in and out. The thing was glowing. It looked to me like a diseased brain up in the sky. It spread until the edge of it looked as if it was almost directly overhead. It was a much more awesome sight than a puny little atomic bomb. It was a pretty sobering and shattering experience." Bravo vaporised a crater 250' deep and 6,500' in diameter out of the atoll rock. The 'horrible white stuff' was calcium precipitated from vaporised coral.
The Soviets put together H-bombs with a yield of 100 megatons but the design was never tested at full strength.
Bristol's Nuke trains are Railtrack's best kept secret. Even their staff have very little idea what's on them.
High level Uranium waste is hauled back and forth from Gloucester through Stapleton Road, Lawrence Hill and Temple Meads and out West to Hinkley point near Bridgewater. This route is part of a national network that feeds freshly reacted Uranium into Sellafield. Here Plutonium, created in the reactor, is extracted and the fuel rods are sent back to the power station to continue the cycle. We never hear Sellafield described as what it really is: a Plutonium extraction plant.
Just how regularly? Well Railtrack would rather not tell you... for safety reasons... You might blow up their train! Yes, of course, and shower you and your neighbours in radiation. They know we can’t check up on ‘safety’ procedures if they don’t tell us what or when waste’s being transported. ‘Trust me, I’m smuggling Plutonium past your children’s playground!’
The waste problem is not new. Key member of America’s A-bomb project, Robert Oppenheimer, saw it was impossible to deal safely with waste and called for all nuclear piles to be closed down at the end of World War II. He was clearly right but branded a “communist” and publicly disgraced with the removal of his security clearance. Thrown out of the club.
Nagasaki’s Nazi bombResearch in the last couple of years has shown that Uranium for the totally unnecessary second nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki in 1945 came from the Nazis. Martin Boorman, head of Hitler’s hated Gestapo secret police, turned it over to the Americans at the end of the war in exchange for a new identity which the US government presumably obliged him with.
[ref: http://u234.com/hydrick/noname.html] (see article on this page)
Fifty years on, the Uranium fission bombs dropped on Japan look relatively puny. The Hiroshima bomb was rated at fifteen kilotons or fifteen thousand tons of TNT. It didn’t take long to discover that, with Plutonium, you could set off a thermonuclear reaction - just like the Sun. There is no limit to the size of these Hydrogen (fusion) bombs but fifteen Megaton bombs (a thousand times more destructive than Hiroshima) were tested in the Pacific in the sixties. The Russians had a design for a 100 megaton Hydrogen bomb but apparently never tested it.
The rush for Plutonium had begun. This element does not occur in nature and has to be manufactured in Uranium reactors - hence Britain’s nuclear power programme. An ignorant public, misled by credulous journalists, swallowed the lie.
The Sterilising BombPlutonium is also essential for the ultimate Capitalist weapon, the Neutron bomb. Stockpiled without our knowledge or consent these send out an slaughtering pulse of neutrons annihilating all living material in the target area but leaving buildings and other property intact, ready for its new occupiers.
Nuclear power is a dead-duck industry. Not only do we now have more Plutonium than we know what to do with but it is the most expensive and the most terminally polluting way of producing electricity there is. By allowing the waste to come through our City - any city, town village or field in fact - we are building up more problems for the future. Britain is stockpiling carcinogenic waste which lasts for ever and is impossible to make safe. That is unless you happen to have a rocket ship handy to send it into the Sun.
Bristol’s Nuclear War on Iraq and KosovoWhen Saddam Hussein was discovered to have a nuclear reactor the Iraqi people were bombed with our nuclear waste. The Depleted Uranium which has caused horrific birth defects right across Iraq will have to have been hauled by train through Bristol. Because Saddam might be able to make a bomb our government nukes his people. And our government save billions of pounds it would have had to spend storing the waste in the UK. Along with the USA we have been menacing the world with our civil & military nuclear programme for nearly fifty years.
There is no excuse any more. ‘Benefits’ of nuclear power are only trotted out by the pathologically ignorant. When the idea of ‘free energy’ from the atom was sold to the public in the fifties it was delivered in a cradle of lies which has now been irredeemably smashed. Now it’s time to stop the trains that keep the lie alive!
REF:
'Dark Sun, The Making Of The H-Bomb', Richard Rhodes, Simon and Shuster, 1995.
Wednesday, August 19, 1998
Houston, A researcher has announced findings that the American atomic bomb program credited with developing the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan to end World War Two, and which resulted in the United States emerging from the war as the most powerful nation on earth, used components developed by Nazi Germany, including enriched uranium, to fabricate the bombs. The revelation counters important aspects of the traditional history of the American bomb project, known as the Manhattan Project. The commonly accepted version of atomic bomb history states the bombs were created entirely by the United States, at a cost of $2 billion and five years of work by a battalion of top scientists, with assistance from Great Britain. While the new evidence does not refute American success initially enriching uranium — the key component of one of the bombs — strong documentary evidence indicates time pressures, technological delays, and a surprise opportunity to obtain from Germany the needed components that were in short supply in America, allowed the Manhattan Project to complete its bombs in time for the mid-August 1945 delivery deadline.
“What I suspect will shock people the most is it appears the possession of the enriched uranium and other components fell into our hands not by capture, but as part of what may have been clandestine negotiations between top Nazis and key United States military and governmental leaders,” said Carter Hydrick, the researcher who has spent eight years investigating the events. “The agreement appears to have been made in exchange for allowing these fugitives to escape from Europe and receive United States protection while they lived in semi-seclusion for decades after the war,” he stated. Hydrick displayed several documents from the United States National Archives and elsewhere to support his historical revision, as well as drawing from previously enigmatic events in the traditional history he contends have long been misunderstood, to show that Nazi Germany was an important source of nuclear bomb components used in the attacks on Japan.
Among the documents are captured Navy cargo manifests from German submarine U-234 that lists 580 kilograms, or 1120 pounds, of uranium oxide, as well as most of the Nazis’ latest, and most secret, war-making technologies; including, two fully disassembled Messerschmidt 262 jet fighters, the first jet aircraft used in combat and the only such planes employed in World War Two; the newest silent electric torpedoes; and plans and material to build Germany’s feared V-2 rockets. The existence of U-234 and its cargo have long been known, and have been the subject of discussions over whether the uranium or any other components found on the vessel were used in the war against Japan, but, until now, no connection has ever been proved.
“The first big break was finding a secret dispatch from the Commander of Naval Operations in Washington indicating the uranium was stored for the journey in cylinders lined with gold,” explained Mr. Hydrick. “Further research showed that gold, which is a very stable substance, was only used to handle uranium that had already been enriched in order to protect it from contamination by corrosion.” Only enriched uranium is fissile enough to make a uranium bomb. Hydrick explained that, at $100,000 per ounce in 1945 dollars, the enriched uranium was well worth the investment in gold to protect it. According to Hydrick’s sources, gold would not have been used to ship uranium that had not yet been enriched, since the value of raw uranium did not justify such expense. He cites instances in the United States program when uranium that had not been enriched was shipped in cloth bags and steel drums with no protection from corrosion whatsoever.
A second, stronger, validation that the uranium on board U-234 was enriched uranium came from eye-witness accounts of a crew member of the submarine, who was present at both the loading and unloading of the boat. The crew member reported in two memoirs that the uranium containers had the label “U235” painted on them just before they were lowered into the submarine. U235 is the scientific designation for enriched uranium. The same crew member reported that United States Navy personnel later tested the supply tubes of the submarine with geiger counters after it was turned over to the United States and the instruments registered a very high level of radioactivity. Without understanding the import of the U235 designation, the crew member assumed the uranium was left over from Germany’s failed, but later highly publicized, plutonium breeding reactor experiments.
“The evidence seems very strong that the uranium on board U-234 was bomb-grade, enriched uranium,” said Hydrick.
Even if the uranium was enriched, that does not prove it was used in the Manhattan Project, concedes Hydrick. To prove the two events were related, he presented copies of documents held in the United States National Archives that show relationships between the Manhattan Project and the U-boat. One of the documents is a secret cable, again from the Commander of Naval Operations, directing that a three-man party had been dispatched to take possession of the cargo from U-234. According to the document, accompanying two Naval officers in an otherwise all-Navy operation was Major John E. Vance of the Army Corps of Engineers, the department of the Army under which the Manhattan Project operated. Additional documents show that a few days following Vance’s arrival, when another accounting of the cargo was made, the uranium had disappeared from the materials in Navy possession. Transcripts of telephone conversations that occurred approximately one week later between two Manhattan Project intelligence officers identify a captured shipment of uranium powder as being in control of, and being tested by, a person identified only as “Vance.” “It would be an improbable coincidence if they were not talking about the same “Vance” as the officer who visited U-234, and the same uranium powder captured from that vessel,” suggested Hydrick.
A second connection is also documented between the Manhattan Project and U-234 — which carried eight high-profile military and scientific passengers who were not crew members, along with its deadly cargo, says Mr. Hydrick. “Two of the captured passengers on U-234 had contact with an alleged United States Naval Intelligence officer identified in separate documents by the prisoners, as ‘Mr. Alvarez’ and as ‘Commander Alvarez’,” Hydrick said. The alleged “Commander Alvarez” appears to have been the personal handler of Dr. Heinz Schlicke, one of the scientific passengers on board U-234, who had now become a prisoner of war. Dr. Schlicke was an expert on high frequency technology such as radar and infra-red technology.
Upon researching the Navy officers and alumni rosters of 1943 and 1945, Hydrick found no entry in the name of Alvarez was recorded in either document. “General Groves, who headed the Manhattan Project, is well documented as having frequently provided military identification to scientists within the Manhattan Project in order for them to operate unimpeded, when necessary, within the military establishment,” said Hydrick. The researcher then points to one of the heroes of the Manhattan Project, Luis W. Alvarez, as the probable identity of “Commander Alvarez,” who he suggests was dressed incognito in Navy uniform to surreptitiously cull information and technological expertise from Dr. Schlicke.
“Luis Alvarez was the scientist on the Manhattan Project who is credited with coming up with, at the last minute, the successful solution for simultaneously detonating the 32 fuses that exploded the second, or plutonium bomb, which was the bomb dropped on Nagasaki,” the researcher said. Before a solution was found for this problem, according to Hydrick, the Manhattan Project had struggled for a year and a half with the dilemma. Hydrick points to documentation from the National Archives showing that Alvarez was the head of a three-man committee tasked with solving the fusing problem.
“Dr. Schlicke had in his personal care while on the U-boat, a supply of Germany’s newly developed infra-red fuses,” Hydrick continued. “In the national archives there is a secret cable recounting how Schlicke was flown back to the U-234 site by two United States Navy personnel expressly to retrieve those infra-red fuses. These fuses work on the basis of light, and at the speed of light. The evidence strongly suggests, in my view, that Luis Alvarez and “Commander Alvarez” were one and the same person and that Luis Alvarez used Dr. Schlicke’s infra-red fuses to ignite all 32 detonation points on the American plutonium bomb simultaneously at the speed of light, solving the plutonium bomb detonation problem.”
As substantiating evidence of the link, Hydrick cites the fact that prior to his assignment in the Manhattan Project, Alvarez worked on high-frequency technology, including radar, the same field in which Schlicke was an expert. “Based on their backgrounds, of all the people in the Manhattan Project who would be expected to interface with Schlicke, if there was an interface, it would be Luis Alvarez,” Hydrick claims. “It is interesting that Alvarez is the one name that shows up as the United States’ counterpart to Dr. Schlicke.”
Following the war, Schlicke joined the United States military as a contract worker in the top-secret project, “Operation Paperclip.” Luis Alvarez went on to win the Nobel Prize for Physics relating to his high-frequency work, and was one of the original proponents for the now widely accepted theory — though greatly maligned at the time of its introduction — that a large meteorite struck the earth eons ago, causing the extinction of the dinosaurs and other profound events in the history of pre-homo sapien Earth.
While Hydrick’s revelations regarding the uses of U-234’s cargo and passengers will probably cause widespread controversy among historians and World War Two enthusiasts, his proposition that U-234 was intentionally surrendered to United States forces according to a prearranged agreement with top Nazi leaders is certain to bring a storm of debate. “The evidence is not of the compelling, ‘smoking gun’ nature of the documentation proving the link between U-234 and the Manhattan Project. But there is a significant body of circumstantial evidence suggesting some of Hitler’s top men made a deal with our leading intelligence and military people to hand over the U-boat in return for their freedom and protection. This evidence needs to be further explored,” Hydrick says.
That body of circumstantial evidence, according to Hydrick, suggests that Martin Bormann, chief of the Nazi Party, Hitler’s personal manager and secretary, and arguably the most powerful man in the German Reich outside of Hitler, at the end of the war negotiated the control of the U-boat and its passengers and cargo over to the United States prior to the fall of Berlin in late April 1945. Historians have long argued the claim that Bormann died trying to escape from Berlin on May 1, 1945. The main evidence given for his death was based on eye-witness accounts by Hitler’s chauffeur and Artur Axmann, head of the Hitler Youth organization, both of whom maintained strong Nazi convictions and connections until their deaths and, therefore, their motives have been considered suspect. Although neither witness categorically stated they were certain they saw Bormann dead, their account has become the traditional version of Bormann’s end. Despite this finding, Bormann was convicted of war crimes in absentia at the Nuremberg trials and a warrant was placed for his arrest that remained in effect for many years, as did a later warrant issued in West Germany in 1967* based on new evidence of his continued survival. Many sightings of Bormann, alive and well, were reported over the three decades following the war. The supposed grave of Bormann’s escape partner, Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller, was also disinterred in 1963 and found to contain the skeletal remains of three men, none of them Mueller.
The traditional history has many holes in it, according to Hydrick. “The presently accepted account says Bormann and Gestapo chief Heinrich Mueller attempted their escape together, travelling partially through the subway tunnels around the Reichs Chancellery before they met their deaths in the street fighting. It’s fairly certain they escaped together, but the problem with the rest of the story is that the subway had been flooded by the SS — which, by the way, killed thousands of German women and children who were forced there for shelter when their homes were bombed out. The SS flooded the subway to keep Russian troops from secretly approaching and attacking Hitler’s bunker through the underground,” explained Hydrick. “The subway escape legend appears to be a cover story devised beforehand for later dissemination. It did not take into account the unforeseen flooding by the SS.”
A more logical, objective and credible version of the Bormann escape, according to Hydrick, was reported by Joseph Stalin’s intelligence agents. Stalin stated to Harry Hopkins, political consultant and confidant of Presidents Roosevelt and Truman, and later secretary of state, that Soviet agents reported Bormann’s escape from Berlin late the night of April 29 in a small plane and in the company of three men — one heavily bandaged — and a woman. From there, Stalin insisted, his agents traced Bormann to Hamburg, where he boarded a large U-boat and departed Germany.
Several details of these events ring true to Hydrick. For example, it is a well-known fact that while Berlin was being bombed and the Nazi leadership fell into panic or fled, Martin Bormann maintained secret radio negotiations with Admiral Karl Doenitz, the commander of all of Germany’s U-boats, and had made plans to escape to Doenitz’s submarine headquarters. Doenitz at first resisted this effort but ultimately was ordered by Hitler (presumably at Bormann’s bidding) to accept Bormann at his headquarters. From this point on, Hydrick concedes, details become sketchy and many disparate accounts are given of Bormann’s escape or possible end. But parallels from various, otherwise unconnected, Fuehrer bunker escape stories seem to indicate a probable scenario, according to the researcher.
First, Hitler’s good friend Hanna Reitsch, the famous German aviatrix and counterpart to Amelia Earhart, tells in her autobiography how she flew seriously injured German Air Force General Ritter von Greim, whom Hitler had just made Commander of the Luftwaffe, out of Berlin late one night in the last days of the war. Other accounts confirm the flight was made April 29, 1945, the same night Stalin’s agents reported Bormann’s escape by small aircraft. Reitsch recounts how they flew to Doenitz’s headquarters “to make our last visit and farewell to Grand Admiral Doenitz” before flying south to the Austrian/Swiss border — an odd and seemingly careless detour of several hundred dangerous miles with the badly injured and very important General von Greim. “There was something more to that trip than fond good-byes,” insists Hydrick.
Second, a separate, independent account purportedly of Gestapo Chief Heinrich Mueller’s escape follows a somewhat similar path, though in it he was flown out of Berlin alone. In this account, Mueller was flown out of the German capital late the same night as in Reitsch’s tale, in a Fieseler Storch airplane, the same aircraft used in Reitsch’s story, under exactly the same conditions Reitsch describes. Mueller makes no account of flying to meet Doenitz, but tells a story about flying to the Austrian/Swiss border that is decidedly similar to Reitsch’s version.
There are obviously discrepencies in these stories, as there are in virtually all accounts of these events; and it is hard to know what is true and what is disinformation, according to Hydrick. But the similarities of the independent accounts set against the observations of Stalin’s informants that three men, one injured, and a woman, flying out of Berlin in a small airplane, seem to paint a compelling scenario. “The description of that little group of night flyers is explicit and unique in its observations,” argued Hydrick, “and yet it adheres in its details, even the unusual ones, with the Stalin account. It identifies Bormann and Mueller by name; also a heavily bandaged man, which fits the description of von Greim at the time; and a woman, which would be Hanna Reitsch, probably the only woman in the world one could have expected to see in that circumstance, at that place, at that time. The three accounts just seem to interlock too well not to be connected,” insists Hydrick.
Hydrick adds other proof to his escape proposition, as well. The chief radio operator of U-234 describes how, in mid-April, he received at least one message on a high-priority frequency (and probably at least one other coded communique) directly from Hitler’s bunker in Berlin while the U-boat was stationed in Kristiansand, Norway. The order read: “U-234. Only sail on the orders of the highest level. Fuehrer HQ.” “There are many implications here, the main ones being there was some kind of connection and an arrangement made between U-234 and someone at Hitler’s headquarters,” Hydrick asserted. An order sent to the U-boat a short time later by Admiral Doenitz seems to be an effort to keep the U-boat under his command. It reads: “U-234. Sail only on my order. Sail at once on your own initiative.” U-234, the largest U-boat in the German navy, set sail within hours, leaving Kristiansand bearing due south, exactly toward Hamburg, where Stalin’s observer’s reported Bormann boarded the “large” U-boat in the early hours of May 1.
“There appear to be discrepencies between these accounts, too,” said Hydrick, “like the fact it would normally take a U-boat only a day to sail from Kristiansand to Hamburg and according to our accounts U-234 left Kristiansand in mid-April and would not have picked up Bormann until May 1.” But U-234 was not heard from again after leaving Kristiansand until May 12, almost a full month. By then, the U-boat was only 500 miles northeast of Newfoundland. If the boat was following the course its captain and traditional history said it took headed for Japan, then it was travelling at only 1 1/2 miles per hour. “That is slower than a man walks and far slower than a fleeing U-boat is likely to have travelled,” Hydrick argued.
Hydrick contends that U-234 silently patrolled the North Sea according to prearranged plans with Bormann at Hitler’s headquarters, until Bormann was able to negotiate an agreement with Doenitz. As the end of the war drew near, the boat slid into Hamburg harbor under cover of night and picked up Martin Bormann and Heinrich Mueller, then continued its voyage, by way of a rendevouz off the coast of Spain to off-load Bormann, and then on to its surrender to United States forces at sea, again under mysterious conditions.
Hydrick asserts that a successful negotiation between Bormann and Doenitz would explain not only the radio transmissions, but it would explain why Doenitz, with no political experience and virtually no political following, and quite to the surpise and puzzlement of leaders worldwide, became Hitler’s successor. He also believes that a series of enigmatic events leading up to U-234’s surrender point to an intentional secret capitulation of the boat outside of the parameters of the general surrender orders given on VE Day.
Lastly, he contends a photo taken by a local newpaper photographer at the time U-234 docked on United States shores, shows a mysterious, unidentified civilian prisoner with a remarkable physical resemblance to Heinrich Mueller disembarking the Navy ship that carried U-234 passengers from the U-boat to shore. Hydrick believes the subject of the photo is, in fact, the former head of the Gestapo stepping onto American soil. According to Hydrick, Mueller’s mission was to oversee the transferral of the atomic bomb components and other war materials from Germany to the United States and that, in return, Mueller, Bormann and many other Nazis received American protection for decades, and continue to receive such protection even up to the present day.
To make his research available to interested parties, Hydrick has opened a website at www.u234.com. He is also completing a manuscript for a book he hopes to publish later this year.
Carter Hydrick chydrick@getus.com
Tahoe Daily Tribune news Wednesday, August 19, 1998 1:58 AM
Former South Lake Tahoe resident Carter Hydrick recently returned to the lake for a vacation - the first vacation and first extended trip to Tahoe he's made in years.
Why so long?
Answer: the invention of the atomic bomb.
Hydrick has spent his vacation time the last three years, as well as significant amounts of his free time for eight years and about $20,000 of his own money, doing research for a book which Hydrick said questions the foundations of the traditional history of the atomic bomb and the Manhattan Project.
Now, with 10 of the book's 15 chapters complete, Hydrick said he feels confident enough in his evidence to come forward with the information.
The commonly accepted version of atomic bomb history states the bombs were created during the Manhattan Project. However, Hydrick said a "surprise opportunity" to obtain essential components and data from Germany allowed the United States to complete the uranium and plutonium bombs in time to drop them in August 1945.
In May, 1945, a huge Nazi U-boat was headed for Japan but surrendered to the U.S. Navy. The submarine, called U-234, was three times the size of a normal U-boat.
Hydrick said he believes, and has evidence to verify, that the contents of the submarine were transferred to the Manhattan Project to complete the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Additionally, Hydrick said the surrender of U-234 appears to have been prearranged between the U.S. military and Adolf Hitler's top lieutenant Martin Bormann in exchange for Bormann's post-war freedom.
The existence of U-234 and its cargo is not new information. However, Hydrick said he is the first to prove that uranium on board the submarine was enriched uranium, which is usable in the creation of the uranium atomic bomb. Additionally, Hydrick said he has evidence that indicates the captured enriched uranium was used in the uranium bomb which was used on Hiroshima Aug. 6, 1945.
The U-234 also held infrared fuses such as the type needed for detonation of the plutonium bomb used against Japan, according to Hydrick. Eight high-profile military and scientific passengers occupied the boat, including Germany's expert, Dr. Heinz Schlicke, in high-frequency and infrared technology.
Luis Alvarez was the Manhattan Project's scientist who was credited with coming up with, at the last minute, the solution to simultaneously detonating 32 fuses needed to explode the plutonium bomb. Before the solution was found, the Manhattan Project had struggled for 1 1/2 years to find a way to detonate the fuses.
Hydrick said he has evidence suggesting that the U-boat's technology as well as information from Schlicke were used by the Manhattan Project to complete the plutonium bomb which was dropped on Nagasaki Aug. 9, 1945.
"We couldn't have made either bomb, at least within the time we did," Hydrick said, "without U-234."
Hydrick said he has extensive evidence supporting his claims, enough that he needs a 15-chapter book to explain it all.
Hydrick now resides in Houston and works in marketing communications for the Compaq Computer Corporation.
Although not a historian, Hydrick said he loves history. Hydrick said he has spent time researching at the National Archives and Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., as well as the regional archives in Atlanta.
When he was 11 years old, Hydrick moved to Lake Tahoe. He graduated from high school and met and married his wife in Tahoe. He and his family moved in 1978.
In July, he was able to spend 10 days visiting family members still living in the Lake Tahoe area.
"This (was) the first real vacation I've had in three years," Hydrick said. "(Research for the book) has definitely taken a strong place in the activities of my life."
However, Hydrick said he has not let his research get in the way of the rest of his life.
"I'm a father and a husband, and I have to make a living," he said. "I don't think it's consumed me to the point where I've shut out the rest of my life, but it's always on my mind. It's always in the back of my head working."
Hydrick said he will be happy that his efforts have paid off if the new information finds its way into the accepted history of the atomic bomb.
"The traditional history (of the bomb) is so entrenched, I'm afraid that people might just gloss over (my information)," he said. "I want a chance to prove that I'm right. I'm confident I can prove it."
Carter Hydrick's research is extensively outlined on his web site at:
H-bomb Fireball 'It looked to me like a diseased
brain up in the sky'
The U-Bomb - political manouverings behind the H bomb http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/2807/UBomb.html
Hydrick u234 story - Tahoe Daily Tribune http://www.tahoe.com/tribune/stories.8.19.98/news/cartehydri81919Aug618.html
The Inventor of the Neutron Bomb http://tribune-review.com/ruddy/061597.html
Neutron Bombs nearly used in the Middle East http://www.theage.com.au/daily/971116/news/news3.html
The threat of the mini Neutron bomb http://www.execpc.com/~jfish/afuture/1195af04.txt
Killing our own - Chronicling the Disaster of America's Experience with Atomic Radiation, 1945-1982
Nukes description pages http://web.wse.nadn.navy.mil/wse/academic/courses/es310/Lectures/Nuclear.htm
Loads of Nuke pics http://demon.unh.edu/pages/nuclear/main.html
General availability of heavy metals to make bombs with http://www.wws.princeton.edu/programs/stpp.articles/security.html
'Dark Sun, The Making Of The H-Bomb', Richard Rhodes, Simon and Shuster, 1995.
'Cuba On The Brink', James G Blight, Pantheon Books, New York, 1993.
'The Limits Of Safety, Organisations, Accidents And Nuclear Weapons', Scott D Sagan, Princetown University Press, 1993.
'Politics and Ideology', Oded Balaban, Avebury, England, 1995