GREATEST SECRETS OF THE COLD WAR

Popular Mechanics ^ | FR Post 4-11-2003 | BY JIM WILSON

[vannrox]

GREATEST SECRETS OF THE COLD WAR

They read like plots from thrillers, but each of these chilling events actually happened.

BY JIM WILSON

PM Photos by Brian Kosoff

Unsuspecting civilians are doused with radiation and germ weapons. Intelligence agents recruit psychic spies. Generals plan an attack on a Chinese nuclear weapons plant. A phantom army triggers the largest arms buildup in history. Politicians secretly construct an underground city to escape fallout. The United States comes within 7 minutes of launching its ICBMs. No, these aren't screenplays that were junked when the Soviet Union went belly up. Each of these events actually happened. For the two generations of Americans who fought and financed the Cold War, it was an epic struggle between us good guys and the "evil empire." Now, as the epoch fades into history, the declassification of tens of thousands of pages of secret documents has begun to cast a penetrating light on the era. As nine of these files reveal, truth can be stranger than fiction.

Target San Francisco Most people remember the Cold War as an era when the greatest threat was a nuclear strike launched by a foreign power. In reality, Americans were also at risk from testing by their own military. In addition to nuclear weapons, the U.S. military feared an attack by an enemy employing less publicized technologies. The most serious scenario was a biological warfare attack mounted against a seaboard city from a submarine or a small, fast patrol boat. According to declassified records, the Pentagon attempted to estimate how cities might be damaged by such an attack by ordering the U.S. Navy to spray a cloud of supposedly harmless bacteria over San Francisco. Historians say local health records show an upsurge in cases of a pneumonia-like illness after the 1950 experiment. They also claim that one death was caused by the attack. In 1966, the Pentagon ordered the U.S. Army to launch a similar biological attack on the New York City subway system. Details of this experiment remain classified.

Operation BRAVO A generation ago, the White House was gripped by reports that "Red" China was preparing to build its own nuclear weapons. Top officials considered several strategies to stop the Chinese program. In 1963, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, planned Unconventional Warfare Program BRAVO. It called for the United States to prevent the People's Republic from building a nuclear weapon by launching a secret attack against a weapons plant in north central China. The attack was to be carried out by a nonnuclear bombing mission or a 100-man sabotage team made up of Chinese Nationalists. The plan was vetoed on the urging of the State Department. China went forward with its nuclear weapons program, exploding its first device (right) at its Lop Nor test site on Oct. 16, 1964. ESP Troopers One of the strangest files reveals the use of psychics as spies. The CIA-financed project-code-named GRILLFLAME-was conducted at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), beginning in the early 1970s. The CIA says its ESP troopers, who used sensory deprivation (left), never produced useful information. Yet the project may still have been a success. It turns out that for two decades Stanford University had also worked on a secret over-the-horizon radar (OHR) system to spot Soviet ICBMs seconds after launch. The OHR system operated at the same microwave frequencies the Soviets believed were responsible for brain waves. For reasons he later said he never understood, OHR inventor Oswald G. Villard Jr. found himself assigned to GRILLFLAME. Some speculate that the ESP troopers were a ruse to divert Soviet spies away from OHR.

The Green Run Soon after the Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear bomb in August of 1949, the United States decided it needed to learn more about the types of weapons its enemy was building. To find out, the Air Force conducted the Green Run experiment at the Hanford nuclear production plant (right). On the night of Dec. 2, 1949, the plant "released three tons of irradiated uranium fuel that had been allowed to cool only 16 days," reports a declassified Department of Energy document. The release-aimed at duplicating pollution from a Soviet reactor-placed more than 7800 curies of radioactive iodine, well-known to concentrate in human thyroids, into the air of the Pacific Northwest. By comparison, the accident at Three Mile Island released only 15 curies of radioactive iodine.

Blue Gemini Americans know NASA's Gemini program as a followup to the Mercury manned orbital missions. Few know about a shadow effort, Blue Gemini, that sought to recruit NASA technology and astronauts to fly military missions. At first, NASA warmed to the idea of sharing launch costs in exchange for allowing Air Force officers to fly as copilots. Documents suggest the military had offered NASA as much as $100 million. But as senior officers began laying out the details of their proposed operations, administrators of the civilian agency became less and less enamored with the idea of using astronauts as high-flying military observers. As with the proposed Operation BRAVO attack on China's nuclear weapons plant, State Department reservations would eventually quash the plans to militarize NASA's manned space flight. Blue Gemini would never fly. Doomsday Hotel Beginning in the 1970s, curious tales began to emerge from Washington, D.C., about a "doomsday hotel." Located near the nation's capital, it was said to be the ultimate fallout shelter. But only for the well-connected. In congressional testimony, military officials acknowledged the shelter-called Mount Weather?existed, but refused to disclose its whereabouts, lest it be targeted by a Soviet ICBM. With everyone's ICBMs now targeted at the open sea, the location of Mount Weather (right) has been revealed to be in Berryville, Virginia, about 75 miles from Washington. Today it houses the computer and phone-system hubs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In 1995, the existence of a second doomsday hotel, located beneath the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, was revealed. It is now open to group tours.

Secret Soviet Fallout The Russian government has acknowledged that a long-rumored series of accidents at Soviet nuclear weapons plants actually did take place. These events occurred beginning in 1948 at the Mayak complex in the southern Ural mountains, where the Soviets operated seven plutonium production reactors. Soviet records reveal that these events released into the air more than five times as much radiation as that produced by all the world's 500 above-ground nuclear tests plus the major nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Windscale (now Sellafield), England (in 1957). While the report may be new to the public, it was old news to the U.S. government. A highly secret monitoring unit called the Air Force Technical Applications Center has been operating a long-range detection program to monitor Soviet fallout for 50 years.

7 Minutes To Armageddon If you've ever had to give your boss really, really bad news, you can imagine how officers in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, felt when their radar screens lit up with 2200 Soviet missiles. The "launch on warning" protocols required confirmation, followed by the immediate notification of then-President Jimmy Carter. When other tracking stations reported all clear, the mystery deepened. With supposedly only 7 minutes left to launch U.S. ICBMs, the mystery was solved. Someone had put a training tape on the wrong machine-it was literally a textbook attack. After the 1979 incident, the Air Force moved its training operations to another location, and it has since upgraded its tracking center. Moscow's Phantom Arsenal During the 1980s, the rationale for the United States undertaking the largest weapons buildup in history was detailed in a widely circulated Defense Department document titled Soviet Military Power. The report estimated that the Soviet Union commanded weaponry that exceeded the U.S. arsenal in every category. It turns out many of those weapons never existed. Declassified CIA estimates of Soviet military power suggest the Defense Department's fears were caused by a phantom arsenal of nonexistent weapons. One example: The much-feared improved T-80 tank never existed. It appears analysts mistook an outmoded T-72 retrofitted with armored fabric side skirts for a new weapon. In fact, the Soviets weren't even maintaining the weapons they did have. At a press conference late last year, Gen. Eugene Habiger, top commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, acknowledged that during the 1980s "the Russians weren't modernizing their forces as we were." As a result, "The service life of their systems is coming to an end."

[Chairman Fred]

Has anyone noted the pro-Nazi bias, wherein the author has used quotation marks?

"'Red' China."

[capitan_refugio]

"MOL" was the "Manned Orbital Laboratory." It used a Gemini capsule and a converted Agena(?) module as the space lab. The idea was to make polar launches, so the vehicle would pass over the Soviet Union and Communist China several times daily. Lauches were to be from the "Space Launch Complex #6" ("Slick-6") at Vandenberg AFB in California.

The "DynaSoar" was the "Dynamic Soaring Vehicle." This was a military forerunner to the Space Shuttle we know today. It was delta-winged and had some lifting body capability.

If memory serves me, these military projects we both cancelled in the Kenndy/Johnson Administrations. However, several of the military astronauts on these projects transitioned into the NASA Gemini, Apollo, and Space Shuttle programs.

[Centurion2000]

really? or are you just kidding?

No, it's true ....

Salyut 3 was launched on June 25, 1974. It was another Almaz military space station, this one launched successfully. It tested a wide variety of reconnaisance sensors, returning a canister of film for analysis. On January 24 1975 trials of the on-board 23mm Nudelmann aircraft cannon (other sources say it was a Nudelmann NR-30 30mm gun) were conducted with positive results at ranges from 3000 m to 500 m. Cosmonauts have confirmed that a target satellite was destroyed in the test. The next day, the station was ordered to deorbit. Only one of the three intended crews successfully boarded and manned the sation, but Salyut 3 was an overall success.

http://www.wikipedia.org/wiki/Salyut

[The Great Satan]

Unsuspecting civilians are doused with radiation and germ weapons. Intelligence agents recruit psychic spies. Generals plan an attack on a Chinese nuclear weapons plant. A phantom army triggers the largest arms buildup in history. Politicians secretly construct an underground city to escape fallout. The United States comes within 7 minutes of launching its ICBMs.

A government scientist takes the heat for an anthrax threat from a foreign power. The President hides his knowledge of the real authorship of the most daring attack on the US ever perpetrated. A bogus "assassination attempt" is concocted to cover a backdoor deal with a murderous blackmailer.

It's not just fiction. It really happened.

[piasa]

...Which is pretty funny since radioctive iodine is used to treat thyroid cancer....

(snip) Treatment depends on the type and stage of the thyroid cancer as well as the patient's overall health. Surgery is the most common treatment for thyroid cancer, followed by treatment with radioactive iodine. This substance destroys cancer cells with radiation from inside the body rather than the outside.

Most thyroid cancer cells retain the ability to absorb and concentrate iodine. Radioactive iodine is given to the patient and any thyroid cancer cells that remain after surgery will absorb and concentrate it, destroying the cancer cells from within. Since all other cells in the body cannot absorb radioactive iodine, they remain unharmed. (/snip)

[piasa]

At least in your head it did!

Didn't you also say we wouldn't invade Iraq?

[The Great Satan]

Didn't you also say we wouldn't invade Iraq?

No, I never said that. I always predicted we would go to war with Iraq -- in fact I was the greatest advocate of it on this forum over the last 18 months.

I did predict that we would wait until we had secure defenses against his WMD before attacking -- which proved to be incorrect -- but I also predicted that, if we decided that would take too long, we would pursue an outside-in strategy, not a "shock and awe" inside-out strategy as advertised, and we would let Saddam get away with his life, and that does seem to have been born out by events.

[Jhoffa_]

With supposedly only 7 minutes left to launch U.S. ICBMs, the mystery was solved. Someone had put a training tape on the wrong machine-it was literally a textbook attack.

This shouldn't happen..

Ever.

I can't believe all it took to throw NORAD into per-nuclear chaos is someone putting a tape in the wrong machine..!

[thedugal]

I'm not sure how much of this article is true. I am sure, however, that anyone who puts quotes around "evil empire" and "Red" China is a liberal idiot. Therefor, I suggest 2 shakers of salt be taken with this entire piece.

[risk]

During the 1980s, the rationale for the United States undertaking the largest weapons buildup in history was detailed in a widely circulated Defense Department document titled Soviet Military Power.

We should resolve not to dismantle these weapons. To do so would squander the wealth of patriots past, and endanger us further.

[Fred Mertz]

This article is why the X-Files was so successful a TV series.

[Walkingfeather]

Er... I'm no rocket scientist nor do I play one on TV but... How would one fire a gun in 0 g's and not go tumbling and flying through space in the opposite direction?

[struwwelpeter]

Interesting piece by Bukovskiy:

Secrets of the Central Committee

Vladimir Bukovsky

---

BEFORE ME on my desk is an enormous pile of papers, some 3,000 pages marked "top secret," "special file," "exceptional importance," and "personal." At first glance, they all look the same. In the top right-hand corner is the slogan, "Workers of the world, unite!" On the left side-a severe warning: "To be returned to the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (General Department, Section I) within 24 hours." On some, the restrictions are less stringent-the document may be retained for three days or seven, or, not quite so frequently, for two months.

Lower down, in large letters across the page, are the words: "The Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Central Committee" (CC CPSU). Farther below are codes, reference numbers, a date, a list of those who have initialed the document, those who voted for the decision it contains, and those charged with its implementation. The implementers are not, in all cases, entitled to see the entire thing. Instead, they receive an "abstract from the minutes," the contents of which they are forbidden to publicize; a reminder of this appears in fine print in the left margin of the page.^* And the rules governing the use of top-secret documents from the Politburo, the Central Committee’s executive committee and the most powerful decision-making body of the Soviet Union, are even stricter:

ATTENTION

A comrade in receipt of top-secret documents of the CC CPSU may not pass them into other hands nor acquaint anyone with their contents without special permission from the CC. Photocopying or making extracts from the documents in question is categorically forbidden. The comrade to whom the document is addressed must sign and date it after he has studied the contents.

[Centurion2000]

Er... I'm no rocket scientist nor do I play one on TV but... How would one fire a gun in 0 g's and not go tumbling and flying through space in the opposite direction?

You'd have to use orbital maneuvering thrusters to counteract the thrust on it.

Come to think of it, using that autocannon would impart a LOT of spin as the rounds went down the rifling of the barrel as well.

[Walkingfeather]

and they had the computers in the 70's to handle that kind of operation? hhmmmmm

[Cloud William]

A smoothbore would serve just as well in vacuum. No air to offer resistance, no gravity to tug at the projectile, no need for spin-stabilization.

[Doctor Stochastic]

One resorts to "Hollywood Physics." One person fires a Forty Four Magnum, The Most Powerful Handgun In The World at the hapless target. The target is blown off his feet and flies backwards throught the Reinforced Plate Glass Window on the Eighty Fifth Floor Of The Skyscraper. The shooter doesn't do more than have his hand kicked up a bit.

"Bullitt" was an early example of Hollywood Physics.

Other examples are automobiles that go off a cliff and become so freightened that they burst into flame before even hitting the ground.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The gun computers on the 1930's to 1940's battleships could handle ship's roll while tracking a moving target.

[Doctor Stochastic]

One could also use the recoilless rifle principle. There wouldn't be a loader standing in back.

[Walkingfeather]

in 0 g's? wouldn't that take a heapin computer to do such a thing in the 70's ? Seems a bit impracticle.... but who am I to argue with a Doc. : )