A poet as well as a physicist ... He was a national hero. ibid.
Robert was a loner. And at New York’s Ethical Culture School he inhabited his own rarefied world. ibid.
At first his lectures were incomprehensible. ibid.
She was also a member of the communist party. And introduced Oppenheimer into her political circle. ibid.
‘Blood on his hands!’ Truman complained later. ‘Damn it, he hasn’t half as much blood on his hands as I have. You just don’t go around bellyaching about it.’ ibid.
He was the father of the A Bomb. The government’s top adviser on atomic weapons. Privy to all the nation’s secrets. ibid.
The debate over the H-bomb sparked a controversy fraught with danger for the unsuspecting scientist. ibid.
His security clearance was suspended. ibid.
Oppenheimer testified for twenty-seven hours. ibid.
He would live to thirteen more years, but he wasn’t the same man. ibid.
The dawn of the Cold War. Two superpowers race to build a weapon of unlimited power ... It was a race that would push the world to the edge of catastrophe. American Experience: Race for the Superbomb, PBS 2015
‘It was an organic necessity. If you are a scientist, you cannot stop such a thing.’ ibid. Openheimer
Before long Stalin would have his bomb. ibid.
The race for the superbomb was on. ibid.
In April of 1954 the ANC held secret hearings to view the security clearance of its most prominent scientist – Oppenheimer stood accused of earlier left-wing sympathies and more to the point of opposing the development of the hydrogen bomb. American Experience: Race for the Superbomb II
They would now test prototypes of an H-bomb, small enough to be dropped from a plane. The first test codenamed Bravo took place on Bikini Atoll in March 1954. ibid.
Titan II Missile Complex 374-7 Damascus, Arkansas, September 18 1980 6.25 p.m.: ‘This would be missile leak number 10 so far in Arkansas.’ American Experience: Command & Control, PBS 2017
24 January 1961: 19 years before the Damascus accident, a B-52 bomber carrying two powerful hydrogen bombs took off on a routine mission over North Carolina … The B-52 began to break apart mid-air … The only thing that prevented a full-scale detonation of a powerful hydrogen bomb in North Carolina was a single safety switch. ibid. nuclear dude
The number of nuclear weapons accidents was increasing. ibid.
But a few years ago the department of energy released a declassified document that said there had been more than a thousand accidents and incidents involving our nuclear weapons. ibid.
This Film is Restricted: ‘The government has decided that in the present state of international tension you should be told how best to protect yourselves from the dangerous effect of nuclear attack.’ Storyville: Atomic, Living in Dread and Promises, serious rozzer addresses public, BBC 2015
‘Observers without goggles must face away from the blast.’ ibid. nuclear bomb detonation
More than 2000 nuclear warheads have been detonated. ibid. caption
There are now 15,700 warheads on Earth. $1 Trillion will be spent on them in the next decade. ibid. caption
The so-called Stuxnet worm is specifically designed to infiltrate and sabotage real world power plants, factories … Storyville: Zero Days: Nuclear Cyber Sabotage, news, BBC 2017
In Iran alone it was identified 30,000 times. A super-computer virus has put on alert several countries’ secret services. ibid.
What was it about the Stuxnet operation that was hiding in plain sight? ibid. commentary
Multiple explosions of gas pipelines going in and out of Iran. ibid. expert
This was obviously the first, biggest and most sophisticated example of a state or two states using a cyber weapon for offensive purposes. ibid.
Israel asked US for green light to bomb nuclear sites in Iran. ibid. online news headline
There were probably only a few countries in the world that would want, that had the motivation to sabotage Iranian’s nuclear enrichment facility. There are no tell-tale signs. ibid. expert
Even civilians with an interest in telling the Stuxnet story were refusing to address the role of Tel Aviv and Washington. ibid. commentary
Hawaii, Saturday January 13th 2018 8.07 Emergency Alert: Ballistic missile threat inbound to Hawaii. Seek Immediate Shelter. This is not a drill. Storyville: On the Morning You Wake (To the End of the World), BBC 2022
There are still more than 14,000 nuclear weapons in the world. ibid.
Emergency Alerts … There is no threat or danger … ibid.
In 1939 Germany was under the spell of a charismatic madman. His goal – world domination. German scientists were the first to split the atom. Putting them one step closer to a bomb that could win the war in one terrible explosion. Race for the World’s First Atomic Bomb, caption, BBC 2015
The action he [Roosevelt] demanded came to be known as the Manhattan Project. The war in Europe raged on. ibid.
The work at Los Alamos was a race to beat the Germans to the bomb. ibid.
They feared the bomb could ignite the atmosphere. ibid.
Now nuclear war is expected. And planned for. The Whistle Blower 1985 starring Michael Caine & James Fox & Nigel Havers & John Gielgun & Felicity Dean & Barry Foster & Gordon Jackson & Kenneth Colley & David Langton & Dinah Stabb & James Simmons et al, director Simon Langton, mad establishment bloke to Caine
Forty years ago, at the height of the Cold War, these nuclear submarines were locked in battle against the Soviet navy. Their crews were bound by a code of silence. The Silent War, BBC 2013
Submarine crews were now on the frontline of the Cold War. ibid.
In 1966 the Royal Navy joined the nuclear club. ibid.
The Hunter Killer was smaller and stealthier than a missile submarine. ibid.
Throughout the 1970s and ’80s the nuclear balance between East and West was constantly shifting. And the front line of the Cold War was now hidden beneath the ocean. This was a war of espionage and intimidation. The Silent War II, BBC 2013
There seemed to be no end to Soviet investment and technological innovation. ibid.
140 million kilometres from planet Earth a cosmic powerhouse shapes our world. The Sun, a giant nuclear reactor one million times bigger than Earth. Strip the Cosmos s1e2: Inside the Sun, Science 2014
The outside is an ocean of whirling plasma. ibid.
Nuclear power – that almost magic transformation of matter into energy. The China Syndrome 1979 starring Jack Lemmon & Jane Fonda & Michael Douglas & Scott Brady & Wilford Brimley & James Hampton & Peter Donat & Richard Herd & Daniel Valdez & Stan Bohrman & James Karen et al, director James Bridges, Fonda
We came very close to the China Syndrome – if the core is exposed for whatever reason, the fuel heats beyond core-heat tolerance in a matter of minutes, nothing can stop it, and it melts right down through the bottom of the plant theoretically to China. ibid. expert
We do not have a program for the safe disposal of nuclear waste. ibid. dude at evidence hearing
Our obsession with the bomb was faintly ludicrous in the face of growing American and Russian superiority. This, incidentally, was a view which was quite widely held by scientists working at a lower levels in the Services in the 1950s. Peter Wright, Spycatcher
I found missile research utterly demoralizing. Partly it was because I was hoping I would soon be joining MI5. But I was not alone in realizing that the missile system was unlikely ever to be built. It was a folly, a monument to British self-delusion. In any case this kind of science was ultimately negative. Why spend a life developing a weapon you hope and pray will never be used? ibid. p26