The World’s First Nuclear Disaster

Dear reader,

Among the remaining few hot button issues that the second Trump administration has yet to engage is the recurring question of the need for nuclear weapons tests. Geo-political factors—including Trump’s passive aggressive stance toward NATO, his as yet undisclosed strategy with Iran and attempts at containment of North Korea—complicate the administration’s efforts at articulating a coherent nuclear posture. And new technological advances in the simulation of weapons testing have rendered the need for live tests less urgent. Also, such tests, were they to be conducted, would likely involve underground facilities in Nevada, a politically important state where testing is unpopular.

Nor, as the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists points out, is there much to be learned from the past involvements of William Brandon, Trump’s choice to head the National Nuclear Security Administration. In keeping with the administration’s practice of advancing candidates with no apparent qualifications, Brandon has little experience with either the agency he is expected to run or its policies.

On the other hand, Project 2025, the blueprint for most of the administration’s initiatives to date, calls for the U.S. to “move to immediate test readiness.” And as suggested by the Bulletin, one pathway for a return to nuclear testing is for Trump “to abandon the pretense that tests are necessary for scientific reasons.”

To order a “simple test” that would require between 6 and 10 months of preparation, the president would need only to declare a national emergency—a step he has already taken eight times during the first four months of his term. Bypassing Congressional oversight (including the compliant Republican majority), the authority of the Courts, and the Constitution, and evading applicable statutory and regulatory constraints, Trump has already declared often wildly exaggerated national emergencies in the arenas of energy, terrorism, the southern border, the northern border and the opioid supply chain.

Nuclear weapons tests have not been a regular feature of U.S. security policy for decades. During the Cold War they were deemed essential by all parties, and their catastrophic impact on public health was downplayed to pave the way for public acceptance.

Hard as it may be to believe today, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, with lesser contributions on the part of France and Great Britain, conducted 499 largely atmospheric and underwater nuclear tests between 1945 and 1963, when the Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT) was signed. From 1964 through 1996, it is estimated that a staggering 1,377 nuclear tests were conducted, mostly underground. While the underground tests were considered safer, radioactive gasses were purposefully vented into the atmosphere, and highly toxic substances including plutonium leaked into the ground.

In Operation Crossroads, Bob Alvarez recalls his own encounter with two of the most mishandled and deadly nuclear weapons tests, conducted on the Bikini Atoll in 1946 and code-named Baker and Able. U.S. Navy ships were contaminated, and huge numbers of navy personnel were ordered to scrub them down without minimal protection from exposure to radiation.

Alvarez is a folk hero to generations of scholars and activists who have fought to alert the general public to the perils of the nuclear age, whether it was the health hazards associated with weapons tests and the release of radioactive particles into the earth’s atmosphere, or the dangers inherent in the nuclear waste stream. His many contributions to the Spectator can be found here.