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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Also puzzling: the significant number of nuclear targets in the Middle East, including in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Egypt. I really don't know enough about the history of nuclear strategy and targeting to know what to make of this. Thanks to
@ncweaver@MikaelThalen for the cc's.pic.twitter.com/2rD6zazg3k
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Thomas Rid Retweeted Martin “Doomsday” Pfeiffer (⧖) 🏳️🌈
Extremely helpful here, thank you
@NuclearAnthro. The already published US nuclear target lists from the late 1950s don't seem to include any West German targets (at first glance)https://twitter.com/NuclearAnthro/status/1085371738005729280?s=20 …Thomas Rid added,
Martin “Doomsday” Pfeiffer (⧖) 🏳️🌈 @NuclearAnthroReplying to @RidT @LawDavF and 2 othersDick move but “rational” under the right assumptions. I’m wondering how this would fit into SIOP, say, the preemptive option if conventional conflict had not begun. Ping@wellerstein@AtomicAnalyst See also: https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/nukevault/ebb538-Cold-War-Nuclear-Target-List-Declassified-First-Ever/ …2 replies 1 retweet 3 likesShow this thread -
So I uploaded the yield tables with some context (these are all the nuclear-related materials from a larger leak, so this is all the context that can be helpful here). 30 pages. https://archive.org/details/1980-kgb-nuclear-leak … Thank you
@wellerstein@NuclearAnthro@ArmsControlWonk@NarangVipin & others6 replies 1 retweet 11 likesShow this thread -
Taking a quick look before going to bed for an early flight: 1. there are only about ~540 or so total targets. That's pretty low by SAC standards. 2. the Middle Eastern ones are all type "P" (airfield). 3. the list of scaled HOB yields is interesting (2.5 kt - 1.4 Mt).
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Replying to @wellerstein @RidT and
4. I find the capitalized countries on page 11-12 interesting, including fact there are many not represented in this list. 5. The fact that some of these pages are only graded CONFIDENTIAL (a low level of classification) kind of interesting.
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All of which are just food for thought. I will sleep on it a bit. It would be interesting to really plug through all of the coordinates, SAC numbers, etc., and see how they match up with other docs.
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Replying to @wellerstein @RidT and
My current "most plausible to me" theory is that this is a SAC doc used to establish numbers of warheads for weird scenarios they might imagine unfolding. But this is just a theory.
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