The BBC has a “great story”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7720049.stm about the 1968 crash of a nuclear-armed B-52 bomber in Greenland. The BBC says that

The high explosives surrounding the four nuclear weapons had detonated but without setting off the actual nuclear devices, which had not been armed by the crew.

The Pentagon maintained that all four weapons had been “destroyed.”

That sounded familiar to me, but according to the piece,

*declassified documents obtained by the BBC* under the US Freedom of Information Act, parts of which remain classified, reveal a much darker story, which has been confirmed by individuals involved in the clear-up and those who have had access to details since.

The documents *make clear that within weeks of the incident, investigators piecing together the fragments realised that only three of the weapons could be accounted for.*

Even by the end of January, *one document talks of a blackened section of ice which had re-frozen with shroud lines from a weapon parachute. “Speculate something melted through ice such as burning primary or secondary,”* the document reads, the primary or secondary referring to parts of the weapon.

The U.S. conducted a search for the weapon, but never found it.

The Beeb also has what it says is a “declassified USFG video”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7720671.stm of the operation to clean up the debris from the crash. And there’s “another video”:http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/7720655.stm of an interview with two of the pilots from the mission in question.

A colleague passed along “a WNN story”:http://www.world-nuclear-news.org/NN_A_look_at_the_future_of_nuclear_power_0311082.html on the topic. Apparently “Carlton Stoiber”:http://editorialcartoonists.com/cartoonist/profile.cfm/StoibC put forward this “pyramid superstructure [that] has the advantages of operating experience and seismic safety.”

!/images/61.jpg!

During last week’s public lecture at the Monterey Institute, the amazing “Maj. Gen. Vladimir Dvorkin”:http://www.pircenter.org/english/members/dvorkin.htm told an anecdote, which meant to underline that the Soviets perceived cheating in strategic arms control as shameful.

At some point during the SALT negotiations, Soviet military experts supposedly told Leonid Ilyich Brezhnev that they knew of several potential loopholes (legal or technical, beats me), which could be exploited. Leonid Ilyich supposedly responded by saying:

bq. _Obmanyvat’ ne razreshu!_

Basically, he said that *cheating by his own people was something he would not put up with* (or, up with which he would not put, if you want the funny in there).

And I apologize beforehand to non-Russian speakers, but this classic impersonation of Brezhnev (if you imagine the style of delivery, it makes the anecdote more funny) by the duo from the show “Gorodok”:http://gorodok.tv/ was something I couldn’t resist sharing. (The silly plot is as follows. _Brezhnev, hungover after a night out with “Erich Honecker”:http://www.totalwonkerr.net/1676/honeckers-bunker, is giving out awards to “life savers” — a firefighter, a surgeon… When he comes up to the guy in the red sweater, it turns out that this last candidate for a medal is no lifesaver in the traditional sense — he sells beer someplace nearby. And since Brezhnev’s still feeling the impact of last night’s intense “discussions” about schnaps after the ones about the vodka…_)

Anya is blogging “much substance”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2078/bolton-esque-sanctions-on-russias-rosoboronexport over at ACW, which means I get to post charts like the one below:

“_Cross-posted from ACW_”:http://www.armscontrolwonk.com/2074/nukes-to-lightbulbs.

The amazing Laura Holgate (with Robert Schultz) and the great Pavel Podvig are crossing swords over at the web edition of the _Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists_. The issue: “Megatons to Megawatts”:http://www.usec.com/megatonstomegawatts.htm.

Say Holgate/Schultz:

bq. As Pavel Podvig points out in “his July Bulletin Web-Edition column”:http://thebulletin.org/web-edition/columnists/pavel-podvig/the-fallacy-of-the-megatons-to-megawatts-program, the US-Russia “Megatons to Megawatts” program that is designed to eliminate 500 metric tons of HEU has been one of the most successful and cost-effective programs to reduce nuclear danger. Nonetheless, Podvig argues that extending or expanding the program could increase the risk of nuclear terrorism. Quite simply, _he is wrong_–his conclusion failing to take into account several key points that add up to a compelling case for moving faster and farther to eliminate HEU and its inherent risks.

“Go have a read”:http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/in-support-of-the-megatons-to-megawatts-program.