Changing Nuclear Course

IN 1980 A WORKMAN dropped a wrench from the top of a rocket gantry, it fell eighty feet, hit the fuel tank on the rocket, punctured it, and the fuel started leaking. It was a huge rocket with a full load of fuel and a huge atomic bomb on top. Nobody had any idea what would happen or what to do about it if it did. Maybe the fuel would just all leak out then stop, requiring a clean up and damage repair, and a new fuel tankk fill up. Maybe the atomic bomb would go off, kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, and radioactively poison millions more, a self inflicted accidental one bomb atomic attack against our own country. Nobody had any idea. So, they kept it a secret, and tried to get as many people as possible out of the area. The fuel leak started in mid afternoon, and continued through the night. Finally, about four in the morning, the remaining fuel exploded, killing one person, and making a hell of a noisy flashy uproar. The actual nuclear warhead was tossed about a hundred feet from its original position atop the rocket, but did not explode, thank heavens. Then there was the time that an American B52 accidently dropped a full load of atomic bombs on Portugal, none of which exploded because they were not armed. Accidents at nuclear reactors are famous, particularly the very famous incidents in Russia, the United States, and Japan. They are impossible to cover up, while mishaps involving atomic bombs can, to a certain extent, be covered up and lied about. The bottom line is that both nuclear reactors and atomic bombs are deadly dangerous, even in the best and safest conditions, even when entirely under competent control. And now the incoming American president says he wants his country to have more nuclear bombs, even when it already has more than all other countries in the world combined. There is no way in hell that a majority of the American people are in favor of that. Five'll get you ten that nearly every senior level officer in the military, every diplomat, and every historian in the world thinks its a bad idea to start another nuclear arms race, and to reverse decades of trending towards global nuclear disarmament. Ronald Reagan understood that we must work towards world wide elimination of nuclear weapons. We could really use Ronald Reagan about now.