Thermonuclear Reactions

      
                           

                                                       USS Cape St. George
                                                                      CG 71

                                               Ensign Kevin Burns and grandfather
                                                     photo by Brian Burns

     In ceremonies this May, Kevin Burns graduated from Cornell University and was commissioned an Ensign in the U.S. Navy. In July he will begin study at the Navy's Nuclear Propulsion School in Charleston, S.C. with training for the submarine service. A final research paper at Cornell was entitled; Tactical Nuclear Weapons; Their Invention, Integration and Effect on Warfighting Doctrine from the 1940s to the 1970s. Kevin sent the paper to me, his grandfather aware of my interest in the subject and of course all his work.
     The paper carries the reader over a distressing several decades during which the planet was hostage to expanding nuclear forces and the possible threat of extinction. In 1945, SAC's General Curtis LeMay, the "father" of strategic firebombing said that the only nuclear bomb he wanted was one that could destroy all of Russia. J.Robert Oppenheimer was the "father" and "mother" of the American atomic bomb. "Opie" maintained that strategic nukes were unusable and ultimately self-defeating. They would have to be honed down to a less devastating size to have battle field value. Oppenheimer was declared a threat to national security, fired from his job and the U.S. proceeded to build the "super" weapon, a hydrogen bomb.* But the U.S. also developed "tactical" weapons and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles fully expected that these nukes would gradually replace conventional weapons and be used. In the 1950s, as the French military sank deeper into Vietnamese rain forests, Dulles offered the French for their use two nuclear weapons, ". . . neither one nor three, two!" ** The offer was not accepted.
     At about the same time the U.S. Navy distributed to personnel an elongated card, The Atomic, Biological and Chemical Warfare Handi-Pocket Reference. It was designed to be folded in two places and carried in the wallet. Thus it was readily available to help the sailor identify and deal with with suspicious incoming ordinance -  such as (paraphrase):
     Nerve Agents - Appearance, no distinctive appearance, no distinctive odor; Effects - no immediate effects - later headaches, shortness of breath, convulsions, paralysis of the respiratory organs; First Aid - Don mask - seek medical assistance.
     The ABC Handi-Pocket Reference was more helpful concerning a nuclear attack.
     Nuclear Weapon - Appearance, earthquake-like; Effects - bright light, concussion, heat, with causalities and damage dependent on distance from ground zero. First aid - seek medical assistance..
     My ABC Reference was never consulted in terror.But it remained in my wallet for decades until the USSR imploded - it now rests in a
Cuban cigar box among my most cherished collectibles.
      In March 1962, I sat at a steel gray desk staring at a card inscribed with one word "THINK". I did and then resigned from IBM. In September I started teaching at T.R. Proctor High School and over the next two years instructed students of grades 7,8,9,10, and 11. As my first class of 7th graders filed into the room I was struck by one characteristic - they were really short.. They also proved to be funny, there was much laughter. They were eager to learn anything. I would tell them ghost stories - then test - "Revolutionary War ghosts prefer to vacation at (A) Fort Ticonderoga, (B) Fort William Henry, (C) Fort Crown Point, (D) all of the above." But I digress.
     Monday morning, October 15th - the first day of the Cuban
Missile Crisis. Seventh graders entered the classroom and piled up around my desk asking questions. "Is there going to be a War?" "Are the Cubans going to invade us?" "Are the Russians going to bomb us?" "Are we going to be killed?" Absolutely surprised I spent the next twenty minutes saying soothing things to frightened children - "Stop it! There will be No War !" Having just said that for perhaps a fifth time the twenty foot window shade decided to race to the top
and slam repeatedly around the rod. The students screamed. I yelped. It was our introduction to war nerves.
     The 1970s witnessed the development of neutron bomb technology. There were high hopes for neutron weapons - such weapons might be ideal for urban combat - rooting out and killing guerrillas without devastating bridges and department stores.
Maybe yes, probably no. But as of 2015, with a single exception, nuclear armed nations  have been unwilling to use nuclear weapons in armed conflict. The exception was the U.S. that did use atomic bombs against Japan, a non nuclear state. To date nuclear armed nations have feared the "known" consequences that would inevitably follow an escalation into nuclear war, e.g. the scramble by most states to obtain their own nuclear arsenal. The "unknown" are horrific to imagine, e.g. how does a military planner identify his/her front line? But this nonuse could certainly change - and the rise of violent non state actors complicates things still further.
    The dance of the human species with "litt'le shyn'ng man the atom" as Riddley Walker would say continues.*** Atomic energy has brought benefits to millions and simultaneously extraordinary danger to the planet. There have been four catastrophes and one near miss - Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Chernobyl, Fukushima Daiichi and Three Mile Island. One wonders what's next.


Burns, Kevin. Tactical Nuclear Weapons unpublished manuscript. May 2015.
See Also: * Bird, Kai American Prometheus; J.Robert Oppenheimer 2007.
Cohen, S.T. The Truth About the Neutron Bomb 1983.
**Hearts and Minds  film   1974.
 ***Hoban, Russell. Riddley Walker 1980
Nichols, Thomas et al.Tactical Nuclear Weapons and NATO 2012.