Nuclear War

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Cold War workers who were exposed to radioactive materials rally for compensation
Former Cold War workers gathered in Oak Ridge to demand help for workers made sick from exposure to hazardous materials in the government's nuclear weapons facilities. The U.S. Department of Labor responded with data that 41,322 people have received $3.8 billion since the department took over responsibility for these claims in 2004. Activist Janet Michel, who suffers from autoimmune disease after working in Oak Ridge's uranium enrichment plant, championed the compensation program a decade ago and reforms 6 years later. She says changes are still needed: "There's too much death and there's too much denial."
by nwsource.com :: 2008-07-01 :: Cold War Homefront - Daily Life

One Minute to Midnight: Kennedy, Khrushchev and Castro on the Brink of Nucleur War
In 1962 Americans became aware of the chance of the Third World War, when Soviet missiles were spotted 90 miles from Florida. America's nuclear advantage had failed to deter Nikita Khrushchev from setting up missiles in Cuba. On Black Saturday, October 27, 1962, the world came close to nuclear apocalypse. The countless books and films dedicated to that event show the fascination of imagining catastrophic destruction. Can this book tell us anything new? Michael Dobbs thinks so: He has interviewed Soviet veterans, drawn new maps, and plotted more accurate positions of Soviet and American vessels.
by timesonline :: 2008-06-12 :: Cold War Leaders

British planners feared tea shortage after nuclear attack
Never mind the radiation: British planners worried there would be a dramatic shortage of tea after a nuclear attack, declassified documents revealed. The shortfall of the staple British beverage would be "very serious" if the country were to come under attack with atomic and hydrogen bombs, said a memo from 1954-1956. "The tea position would be very serious with a loss of 75% of stocks and substantial delays in imports and with no system of rationing it would be wrong to consider that even one ounce (28 grams) per head per week could be ensured... No satisfactory solution has yet been found."
by afp :: 2008-05-10 :: Nuclear War

The Cold War Threat to the Navajo - An American tragedy
It is horrifying that the nuclear power industry is talking about resuming uranium mining near a Navajo reservation. Residents are haunted by radiation threats from over a thousand gaping mine sites deserted after the cold war arms race. After decades of mining (and spikes of cancer) mining companies walked away from cleanup duties. The federal govt has disgracefully failed its tribal trust obligation to deal with what Henry Waxman has termed "an American tragedy." It's a history of appalling neglect that would not be put up elsewhere. Among the horrors: open mines leaching contaminated rain into drinking water tables, and children swimming in radioactive holes.
by nytimes :: 2008-02-21 :: Nuclear War

Papers Show Winston Churchill Disputes on hydrogen-bomb
Winston Churchill had bitter disputes with his Cabinet during the Cold War about building the hydrogen bomb and conducting private diplomacy with the Soviet Union. He threatened to quit in 1954 in order to quell a revolt by Cabinet ministers, angered at his high-handed leadership style, according to Cabinet Secretary Sir Norman Brook's notebooks. The first flashpoint occurred during a 2-day Cabinet meeting on July 7-8, when Churchill announced that the time had come for a decision on whether to replace Britain's existing atomic weapons with the more powerful hydrogen bomb. He argued that the H-bomb was "essential" to deterring a Soviet attack.
by abcnews :: 2007-11-11 ::

Europe site of several nuke accidents during Cold War
The U.S. government has paid $3 million over the past 10 years to fund research into radioactive contamination of a Spanish village following a deadly 1966 U.S. nuclear weapons accident. The U.S. Department of Energy extended the funding for 2 years. A plan to address the issue was established in 1997 after Spanish officials discovered a year earlier that 558 acres around the village of Palomares had radioactive contamination 5 times worse than estimated, according to Jonathan Shrader. The Palomares nuclear incident is one of the most high-profile accidents involving American nuclear weapons outside the U.S.
by estripes :: 2007-11-11 ::

Canadian veterans threaten suit over Nevada nuke tests
A group of Canadian veterans who endured Cold War-era nuclear explosions in Nevada desert from 1,000 yards away, threatened to sue the Canadian government for compensation. Sent to U.S. in 1957 to join in 2 months of U.S. tests, they went through 6 explosions without any protection - to see what effect that would have on their ability to fight. Their trenches collapsed but they survived the explosions. Helicopters came and picked them up, and in one case flew through a mushroom cloud. "One day we were sitting there after the bomb went off, and these people with little white suits ... came walking around with Geiger counters, and we were ticking like clocks."
by hilium.com :: 2007-11-10 ::

How climber Pete Takeda retraced a CIA mission to Nanda Devi
In the 1980s, one day when climber Pete Takeda was around the campfire, he heard a tale which seemed stranger than fiction. It was about a clandestine CIA mission to the Himalayas to spy on China and how once there "they lost the plutonium" while planting a sensor. It prompted Takeda to do some research and he found that the story was true. He also read mountaineer M S Kohli's book, Spies in the Himalayas, on the same subject written with Kenneth Conboy which. After the Chinese went nuclear in 1964, the US and India decided to plant a nuclear-powered sensing device on Nanda Devi to monitor China's nuke plans.
by financialexpress :: 2007-05-01 :: CIA during Cold War

Gravely ill after working in the U.S. nuclear weapons program
U.S. Sen. Barack Obama said the federal government is moving far too slowly in paying compensation for scores of people who became gravely ill after working in the country's nuclear weapons program. "These workers performed tasks that often were very dangerous. And a lot of you might not be here today, if I weren't' shining a spotlight on it."
by nbc5 :: 2006-12-17 :: Nuclear War

Rare photographs showing Aborigines devastated by nuclear tests
Rare photographs showing Aborigines whose lives were devastated by nuclear tests have been published after 30 years out of public view. The pictures, taken by B. Wongar, were briefly shown at the in Canberra in the early 1970s before being withdrawn amid fears they would be politically embarrassing. The photographs have been published in a book Totem and Ore, which documents the impact of British nuclear testing and uranium mining on Aborigines. Wongar, a writer formerly known as Streten Bozic, took the pictures in Australia in the 1960s and early '70s, despite it being illegal at the time.
by theage :: 2006-11-13 :: Relics, Legacy and Aftermath of Cold War

Cold War tale of surprise nuclear assault by U.S.
On Sept. 26, 1983, Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Petrov of the Soviet Army was a watch officer at a satellite surveillance facility near of Moscow. His job was to monitor the satellites that would warn of a surprise nuclear assault. At a little past 12:30 a.m. his board lit up, telling him that the US had just launched a nuclear missile. This made no sense to Petrov, as US probably would have sent over more than one missile. He dismissed the warning as a false alarm. Just a few moments later though, another warning was sent, telling him that an additional four missiles were being launched. Colonel Petrov pretty much had his finger on the button at that point.
by txstate :: 2006-09-18 :: Missile Warfare during Cold War

U.S. Cold War gift: Iran nuclear plant as Cold War strategy
In the heart of Tehran is one of Iran's most important nuclear facilities, a dome-shaped building where scientists have done secret experiments that could help the country build atomic bombs. It was provided to the Iranians by the United States. Not only did the U.S. provide the reactor in the 1960s as part of a Cold War strategy, America also supplied the weapons-grade uranium needed to power the facility--fuel that remains in Iran and could be used to help make nuclear arms.
by chicagotribune :: 2006-08-24 :: Relics, Legacy and Aftermath of Cold War

Cold War in the News is an edited review of hand-picked Cold War related news and articles.