New Details on the 1961 Goldsboro Nuclear Accident

National Security Archive
Multi-Megaton Bomb Was Virtually "Armed" When It Crashed to Earth in North Carolina, Sandia Lab Report Concluded

Nuclear Stockpile Safety Review from the Mid-1970s Identified Four Weapons Systems that Needed "Time Urgent" Evaluation Because of "Nuclear Detonation Safety Concerns"

1986 Sandia Lab Study Found that, with Respect to "Fully Assembled" and "Combat-Ready" Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Could Not Claim "in an Absolute Sense, that We Take Every Action to Ensure their Safety"
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 475
Posted - June 9, 2014
For more information contact:
William Burr - 202/994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu

One of the two Mk39 thermonuclear weapons that landed when a B-52 bomber broke up over Goldsboro, North Carolina in February 1961. This was the weapon that came closest to detonation.

The T-249 switch used to arm nuclear bombs on Strategic Air Command bomber aircraft. Photo courtesy of Glenn's Computer Museum

U.S. Nuclear Weapons Safety Issues, 1957-1986

Washington, D.C., June 9, 2014 – A recently declassified report by Sandia National Laboratory, published today by the National Security Archive, provides new details on the 1961 Goldsboro, North Carolina, nuclear weapons accident. While both multi-megaton Mk 39 bombs involved in the mishap were in the "safe" position, the report concluded, by the time one of them hit the ground it was in the "armed" setting because of the impact of the crash. If the shock had not also damaged the switch contacts, the weapon could have detonated.
Since the advent of the nuclear age, the nightmarish possibility of an accidental detonation has made weapons safety a boiler-plate item in the U.S. nuclear weapons program — yet potentially serious errors continue to occur. A series of 2013 reports on the Goldsboro accident provided a fresh reminder of the role of luck in preventing nuclear disaster: the same switch involved in the 1961 event had failed in other incidents.[1]
Eric Schlosser's extraordinary book Command and Control Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety, raises important questions about the record of nuclear weapons safety in the United States during and after the Cold War. Two major studies by Sandia National Laboratory, cited by Schlosser in his book, have been recently released by the Department of Energy in response to National Security Archive Mandatory Declassification Review requests and are included in this publication. Both are demanding studies which require attentive readers. One is a 1959 study of nuclear weapons safety when experts at the national nuclear laboratories were beginning to review the problem more comprehensively. The other is an overview of safety history published in 1987 which reviews the impact of changing weapons design on safety policy, the impact of accidents on policy, and initiatives taken by experts at Sandia to improve safety.
Also included in today's posting are recently declassified Joint Chiefs of Staff documents from early 1958 which address a problem that increased apprehensions about safety: the introduction of sealed-pit nuclear weapons into the arsenal. Embedding plutonium pits or highly-enriched uranium in the bombs or warheads themselves, unlike previous nuclear weapons where fissile material capsules were kept separate until arming occurred, this development made the weapons ready for use but created new vulnerabilities, including greater contamination risk. While the Joint Chiefs of Staff dismissed the risk of an accidental detonation — special features on the weapons allegedly made the probability a "negligible factor" — sealed-pit weapons would figure in the major accidents of the following years, including Jonesboro (1961), Palomares, Spain (1966) and Thule, Greenland (1968), where they would do considerable environmental damage.
Some of the highlights of the documents:

• A memorandum of conversation involving President Dwight D. Eisenhower, JCS Chairman Nathan Twining, and British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan in which the two Americans made optimistic statements about weapons safety. Atomic Energy Commission chairman Lewis Strauss soon asserted that those statements did not address the conditions that would emerge when sealed-pit weapons entered the stockpile. He presciently observed that "In case of [high explosives/HE] detonation on crash there would be plutonium scattered outside of the HE danger area, and this might necessitate evacuation of personnel and even clean-up operations."
• A statement in one of the JCS papers laid out the requirement that made future accidents possible by SAC bomber aircraft flying sealed-pit weapons: "A portion of SAC must be kept on continual alert status fully armed and ready for instant implementation of emergency war plans."
• A declassified State Department letter from early 1958 indicating a growing risk of accidents in the European Command area because of the eventual "saturation" of nuclear stockpiles.
• According to a Sandia Laboratory 1959 study, the Cold War goal of keeping nuclear weapons in a high state of readiness meant that safety was "fundamentally a matter of playing percentages." This meant that "absolute" nuclear safety was illusory and that giving ground "safety-wise" was necessary in order to have "useful" weapons.
• According to the same report, one of the dangers of an accidental nuclear detonation was that it could produce "public and diplomatic reactions leading to disastrous curtailment of military readiness and nuclear capability." Even worse, "an accident might be mistaken for the opening round of an unannounced nuclear war."
• A safety policy review performed in the late 1960s developed risk criteria for accidental nuclear detonations: in either "normal" or "abnormal" environments (where an accident had occurred) the annual risk of such an accident would be no greater than one in a million for an arsenal of ten thousand weapons or more.
• Studies at Sandia Laboratory of stockpile safety in the mid-1970s identified four nuclear weapons systems which needed review on a "time-urgent basis because of nuclear detonation safety concerns."
• The author of the 1986 safety policy history asserted that "the perceived need to keep weapons fully assembled and deployed on combat-ready systems … prevents us from claiming, in an absolute sense, that we take every action…. to ensure their safety."

This collection includes a declassified State Department history on two major U.S. overseas nuclear accidents, one near Palomares, Spain in January 1966, the other near Thule, Greenland, two years later, in January 1968. First published on the Archive's Web-log Unredacted, this history, prepared by James Miller, provides a detailed account of how the U.S. government tried to manage the diplomatic furor that both accidents triggered. As the AEC had forecast in 1958, accidents involving sealed-pit weapons posed risks of contamination of radioactive material and the Palomares and Thule incidents required major clean-ups which the United States had to undertake. The recovery operation at Palomares was particularly challenging because one of the hydrogen bombs was lost underwater for several months.
Keep reading at  National Security Archive >>

ALERT: U.S. has accepted country's nuclear enrichment program

Mary Greeley

Bolivia announces the construction of a nuclear reactor

Mary Greeley

Cuba Supports Nuclear Iran

capitolhillcubans

From Iran's Tasnim:

Cuba Stresses Iran’s Right to Use Peaceful N. Energy

The Cuban foreign minister, in a meeting with visiting Iranian deputy foreign minister in Havana, said Iran has inalienable rights to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

The issue was raised by Bruno Eduardo Rodríguez Parrilla in his Wednesday evening meeting with the Iranian Deputy Foreign Minister for the European and Latin American Affairs Majid Takht Ravanchi.

The Cuban official expressed satisfaction with the achievements made by Iran, specially during Tehran’s negotiations with the Group 5+1 (the five permanent UN Security Council members plus Germany), and said based on the international laws, Iran is entitled to use nuclear energy for peaceful purposes.

He also voiced Cuba’s support for Iran’s stance on the nuclear issue.

Iranian Lawmakers Introduce Bill To Allow Production Of Weapons Uranium

Pat Dollard

Excerpted from The Jerusalem Post: Iran’s hardline lawmakers are seeking to increase uranium enrichment under the country’s nuclear program to a level that can produce bomb-grade material, a state-run website said on Wednesday.

The bill could bring Tehran into direct conflict with the major powers that reached an interim agreement with Iran in Geneva last month, requiring Tehran to suspend its enrichment of higher grade uranium.

However, Iran’s most powerful authority Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has so far backed the accord.

The hardliners, irked by the foreign policy shift since moderate President Hasan Rouhani was elected in June, oppose the Geneva deal.

The bill introduced on Wednesday, “if approved, will oblige the government to … enrich uranium to 60 percent level in order to provide fuel for submarine engines if the sanctions are tightened and Iran’s nuclear rights are ignored (by major powers),” said hardline lawmaker Mehdi Mousavinejad, according to the English language Press TV website.

It was not immediately clear whether or when the parliament might discuss the bill but the official IRNA news agency said it was introduced by some 100 lawmakers and had been tagged with a “double urgency” status, meaning it could be discussed in parliament within a week.

“The bill is aimed at giving an upper hand to our government and the negotiating team … It will allow the government to continue our nuclear program if the Geneva deal fails,” IRNA quoted Hossein Taghavi Hosseini, spokesman for parliament’s National Security and Foreign Affairs committee, as saying.

DISSUADING FURTHER SANCTIONS

The November 24 accord is meant to give the United States, Russia, China, France, Britain, Germany and Iran a period of six months to negotiate a final settlement of the decade-old standoff, easing worries over a new war in the Middle East.

“Iran’s parliament lacks power and particularly after Rouhani’s election win, the hardline lawmakers do not have the upper hand,” a senior western diplomat in Tehran said.

“Iran’s Supreme Leader backs the deal and ultimately, lawmakers have to follow his path.”

The Iranian government would have no choice but to obey such a bill if passed by parliament. But diplomats and analysts believe Iran could be using parliament as a bargaining tool in the talks.

“This draft bill has been prepared in reaction to America’s hostile measures,” Mousavinejad told the official IRNA news agency on Tuesday.

Despite opposition by President Barack Obama’s administration, 26 US senators introduced legislation on Thursday to impose new sanctions on Iran if the country breaks the Geneva interim deal.

The proposed legislation would require reductions in Iran’s petroleum production and apply new penalties to Iran’s engineering, mining and construction industries if Iran violated the interim agreement or if negotiators failed to reach a final comprehensive deal.

Washington earlier this month also blacklisted 19 more Iranian companies and individuals under sanctions aimed at Iran’s nuclear program.

Keep reading >>

Iran Delegates Break Off Nuclear Talks

breitbart

VIENNA, Dec. 13 (UPI) --

An Iranian delegation broke off talks with six world powers over implementing a landmark nuclear deal to return to Tehran, Iran's news agency said Friday.

The so-called expert-level delegates, meeting since Monday at the Vienna headquarters of U.N. nuclear watchdog International Atomic Energy Agency, halted the talks on enforcement mechanisms to return to Tehran for consultations, the official Islamic Republic News Agency said in a report monitored by United Press International.

The report did not say why the delegation, led by Iranian Foreign Ministry political and legal affairs Director General Hamid Baeidinejad, suspended the talks Thursday night.

Stephen Clement, leading the talks for EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton on behalf of the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council plus Germany, had no immediate comment.

The suspension of the talks came hours after the Obama administration, facing growing pressure from Congress to maintain or increase economic sanctions on Iran, blacklisted more than a dozen companies and individuals for allegedly helping Tehran evade international oil sanctions.

At the same time, House and Senate lawmakers agreed Thursday not to vote on new sanctions this year, following a White House campaign to stall legislative action for at least six months while the United States, Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany negotiate a comprehensive deal over Tehran's nuclear program.

Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told Time magazine in an interview published Monday any new sanctions would kill a comprehensive deal.

The talks in the Austrian capital were part of an interim six-month deal reached Nov. 24 in Geneva, Switzerland, calling for Iran to halt production of near-weapons-grade nuclear fuel in exchange for some relief from economic sanctions amounting to $6 billion to $7 billion.

Obama: Iran Deal Better than 'All-or-Nothing' Approach

breitbart

By William Bigelow 

Barack Obama, speaking at the Saban Forum of the Brookings Institute on Saturday, insisted that the deal he struck with Iran allowing Iran to keep its uranium enrichment while the West relaxed sanctions will “eliminate the incentive” for Iran to build nuclear weapons. Obama lambasted those, including Israeli prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who favor what he called an “all-or-nothing” approach in which Iran would dismantle its entire nuclear program before the West relaxed sanctions, saying:

You’ll hear arguments, including potentially from the prime minister, that said we can’t accept any enrichment on Iranian soil, period, full stop, end of conversation. One can envision an ideal world in which Iran said, ‘We’ll destroy every element and facility and you name it, it’s all gone.’ I can envision a world in which Congress passed every one of my bills that I put forward. There are a lot of things that I can envision that would be wonderful.”

Obama said there is no way to stop Iran from enriching uranium: “Theoretically, they will always have some capability because technology here is available to any good physics student at pretty much any university around the world. And they have already gone through the cycle to the point where the knowledge we are not going to be able to eliminate. But what we can do is eliminate the incentive for them to want to do this.”

He continued, “When I hear people criticize the Geneva deal say it’s got to be all or nothing, I would just remind them that if it’s nothing, if we did not even try for this next six months to do this, all the breakout capacity we are concerned about would accelerate in the next six months. They’d be that much closer to breakout capacity six months from now. And that’s why I think it’s important for us to test this proposition.”

Obama said that despite the fact that Netanyahu publicly denounced the deal, they share the same goals: “Bibi and I have very candid conversations and there are occasionally significant tactical disagreements. But there is a constancy in trying to reach the same goal, and in this case that goal is to make sure that Iran does not have a nuclear weapon.”

Then Obama loaded his argument, insisting that sanctions were ineffective in turning the Iranians from their nuclear ambitions and cunningly making the opposition to the deal look as if it only came from Israel and its American supporters, ignoring the Arab states who are nervous about Iran’s nuclear ambitions: “The idea that Iran, given everything that we know about their history, would just continue to get more and more nervous about more sanctions and military threats and ultimately just say, ‘We give in,’ I think does not reflect an honest understanding of the Iranian people and the Iranian regime. I think even the so-called moderates or reformers inside of Iran would not be able to simply say, ‘We will cave and do exactly what the U.S. and the Israelis say.’”

The reality is: Sanctions brought Iran to the table. The Saudis and others in the Arab world don’t want a nuclear Iran. The deal does nothing to inspect the dangerous nuclear work done in Parchin.

But for Barack Obama, vilifying the Israelis and tacitly encouraging Iran to go forward with its deadly ambitions are the reality he has chosen.

Report: Iran Takes Next Step in Uranium Enrichment

breitbart

By AWR Hawkins 

On December 7, Iranian atomic energy agency's Behrouz Kamalvandi said Iran is taking the next step in uranium enrichment by testing more efficient technology. This includes more advanced centrifuges.

According to The Jerusalem Post, Kamalvandi said "initial testing on a new generation of more efficient centrifuges had been completed." 

While this next step in uranium enrichment may not technically violate "the agreement struck between world powers and Iran last month," it is disconcerting in so much as the material provided by the advanced centrifuges can "provide the fissile core of a nuclear bomb if enriched to a high degree."

It is important to note that the "new generation of centrifuges" could also "enable [Iran] to refine uranium much faster." 

On December 4, Breitbart News reported that the White House was willing to allow Iran to continue a "strictly limited enrichment program."

Report: IAEA Stats Show Iranian Centrifuges Jumped 400% Under Obama

breitbar

www.thisismoney.co.uk

According to a new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency, Iran’s nuclear enrichment capabilities skyrocketed under President Obama’s administration. According to Fox News’ analysis of IAEA documents, “the vast majority of Iran’s enrichment capability came online during the Obama administration.” In 2007, Iran had 3,000 centrifuges. By 2009, Iran likely had 5,000. Today, Iran has 19,000 centrifuges according to Secretary of State John Kerry.

State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki told reporters that the administration wasn’t attempting to blame anyone for the development of Iranian centrifuges; instead, she said, they were focused on “the fact that we're now at a point where we are halting and rolling back the progress of their program and we're working towards a comprehensive agreement to bring an end to it."

The Obama administration has been trumpeting its sanctions as both effective, and conversely unable to stop Iranian nuclear development. President Obama suggested during the 2012 campaign that he had been dramatically harsh on Iran via sanctions, but Kerry recently stated, “sanctions came in, and today there are 19,000 centrifuges and growing.”

Found! Mexican officials snag stolen truck hauling dangerous radioactive material

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Panetta says US must be ’very firm’ with N. Korea as it issues more threats

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

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Traces of mystery radiation detected across Europe: report

LiveScience.com

Trace amounts of the radioactive material iodine-131 have been detected across Europe over the past two weeks, according to nuclear officials there. The source of this radiation-spewing material is unknown.

Iodine-131 is a by-product of the type of nuclear fission reactions that occur in reactors and nuclear weapons; it emits radiation that can cause cancer when absorbed in high enough doses. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said the levels of iodine-131 that have been detected in several locations across Europe are abnormally high, but not high enough to pose a public health risk, Reuters reported today (Nov. 11).

Austria's Environment Ministry said the small levels of radioactive iodine it detected would expose the population to a radiation dose equal to just one-40,000th of the dose received in a transatlantic flight.

Nonetheless, the IAEA is on the hunt for the source of this free-flying nuclear fission product, which the agency does not believe to be a remnant of the nuclear disaster in Fukushima, Japan, earlier this year. Iodine-131 decays quickly, with a half-life of just eight days.

The uptick in radioactive iodine was first detected in late October by the Czech Republic's Office of Nuclear Safety, and has since been measured elsewhere, the IAEA said.

More >

Time capsules found after New Z quake

Something that has provided some light in the gloom of the aftermath of the earthquake is the discovery of two time capsules in the rubble of Christchurch Cathedral.
A glass bottle with a piece of parchment inside and a copper cylinder were found by rescuers searching the grounds of the cathedral. They were in the base of a state of John Robert Godley, the Irishman credited with founding Christchurch.
They're both now in the hands of experts from Canterbury Museum.
Anthony Wright is the museum's Director an
More
Time capsules found after NZ quake

España vende a Cuba 1,2 millones de equipos nucleares de “doble uso”

Son mas las dudas que las certezas. 1] Que consideran productos y tecnologias nucleares? 2] Por que no se detallan los items de las ventas? 3] Cuando se refiere a que los compradores fueron empresas privadas, a cuales consideran como tales?, pues las corporaciones cubanas de estricto dominio por parte del regimen son "privadas" en su marco legal, pero son propiedad absoluta del Clan de Biran. 4] Esas empresas "privadas" son cubanas o extranjeras? 5] Se descarta su empleo medico pues la salud publica es Cuba no es privada, ni tampoco el Instituto Superior de Ciencias y Tecnologias Nucleares.

No es esto un tema de interes de la Organizacion Mundial de Energia Nuclear?

---------------------------------------

Informe de La Gaceta

S. S. Madrid

Las buenas relaciones que mantuvo el ex ministro de Asuntos Exteriores y Cooperación Miguel Ángel Moratinos con la dictadura de los hermanos Castro también fueron extensibles a operaciones de compraventa de material de defensa. Tal y como consta en el último informe estadístico elaborado por la Secretaría de Estado de Comercio Exterior, remitido la pasada semana a los grupos parlamentarios del Congreso de los Diputados, España vendió al régimen cubano a lo largo del primer semestre de 2010 productos y tecnologías de “doble uso” (civil y militar) por valor de 1,2 millones de euros.

Aunque otros 48 países, repartidos por los cinco continentes, también se beneficiaron de exportaciones españoles de este género –deben someterse a un control especial ya que su finalidad última puede incluir objetivos militares–, Cuba tuvo el privilegio de ser la única que recibió equipos nucleares (junto otros, de menor cuantía, de la industria química). Dentro del material de doble uso, el Ministerio de Industria que dirige Miguel Sebastián, del que depende la Secretaría de Estado de Comercio Exterior, establece en el informe hasta 10 subcategorías (desde herramientas para el manejo de sustancias químicas hasta vehículos aeronáuticos).

Una de ellas es la que, bajo el título Materiales, instalaciones y equipos nucleares, aglutina “reactores nucleares, plantas para la separación de isótopos de uranio natural, uranio empobrecido y materiales fisionables, centrifugadoras de gas, espectómetros de masas y electrodos de grafito”. Si bien el Ejecutivo socialista no detalla cuáles fueron los componentes del lote de dicha transacción entre las autoridades españolas y cubanas, sí que precisa que los destinatarios últimos son empresas privadas, las cuales no dejan de estar bajo el ojo supervisor de la dictadura castrista. Además, Industria indica que de enero a junio del pasado ejercicio también se autorizaron exportaciones de estas características a Islas Mauricio y Pakistán, pero sendas operaciones no llegaron a materializarse.

Esta adquisición de herramientas nucleares –susceptibles de acabar teniendo un uso militar– por parte de Cuba, contrasta con la posición que el Gobierno de Raúl Castro ha venido expresando en el seno de Naciones Unidas. En este marco, el régimen de La Habana ha abogado por un Plan de Acción con un calendario concreto para la reducción gradual de las armas nucleares, hasta su total eliminación en 2025. Sin embargo, estas intenciones no han terminado de calar en el resto de la comunidad internacional, ya que el mismo régimen vigente hoy en la isla fue acusado en los setenta de dar cobijo a arsenal nuclear soviético.

El material nuclear circula sin control en el corazón de África

El material nuclear circula sin control en el corazón de África

LUIS PRADOS / ÁLVARO DE CÓZAR

Las instalaciones atómicas de Congo carecen de las mínimas medidas de seguridad P Algunas compañías extranjeras exportan uranio ilegalmente. Otros cables:

• "Muy poco separa a los hombres de Al Qaeda del material radiactivo de Yemen"

• Cable sobre la precariedad de un almacenamiento de material nuclear
• Cable sobre un transporte de uranio a Irán desde Tanzania y Zambia
• Cable sobre el posible contrabando de material nuclear en la República Democrática de Congo
• Cable sobre la empresa belga Malta Forrest Company
• Cable donde se comentan fotos de supuesto material nuclear de contrabando
• Cable sobre la detención de un alto cargo de República Democrática de Congo