Okay I'm going to do something slightly unusual here. I'm finishing up my book manuscript right now, ACTIVE MEASURES (http://tinyletter.com/ridt ). One specific set of fact-checking questions is particularly hard—and related to US nuclear targeting in the early 1960s. Bear with me.
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A head's up, for those who need it: to ask my question, I will have to post a few screenshots of top secret nuclear yield requirement tables and targeting lists that were technically never declassified, but that are also publicly available (just very hard to find).pic.twitter.com/SbASeeus3q
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Context: KGB obtained these documents almost certainly form Robert Lee Johnson, a US Army Sgt and spy in Paris in the early 1960s. They were then surfaced and leaked multiple times in bits and pieces in Europe and the US in the 70s & 80s. Johnson's story is also crazy. Source WPpic.twitter.com/LxufqCqxIE
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My question is simple: are these nuclear yield tables genuine? More specifically, did the US Air Force target a range of *West German* cities with nuclear weapons in the early 1960s? West Germany was then a NATO member. See country codes, WG, and city names.pic.twitter.com/J68qfiQZXS
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There are also a large number of Austrian and Finnish targets on these nuclear yield tables. Those countries, however, were not and are not NATO members. My assumption is the tables are genuine (for a number of reasons). Would you agree
@LawDavF@heatherwilly@ArmsControlWonk?pic.twitter.com/iLiseYeGID
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I checked the target numbers of several of the non-odd ones (e.g. eastern targets) and they match up with the target lists from 1958 that
@NSArchive got released. If it's a fake it's an exceptionally good one. https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/ …6 replies 1 retweet 11 likes -
Replying to @wellerstein @RidT and
It doesn’t seem fake, but it’s not a US targeting study...it’s something else but I can’t make out what.
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Replying to @NarangVipin @RidT and
I mean, everything has a VN number, so they're looking at what kind of damage and best kind of pressure used to knock it out. So it's not necessarily a list of US targets but it's all clearly in a targeting context.
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Though I think it is pretty weird to have everything co-mingled if that's what it is. I mean there is nothing I can see that distinguishes friend, foe, neutral.
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