"Russia's Big Bang'' by James T. Hackett in The Wall Street Journal, March 28, 1997, p A16, gives a chilling report of the breakdown of command and control systems governing the launch of Russian nuclear-tipped ICBMs. Even Russian Defense Minister Igor Rodionov has said that, "Russia might soon reach a threshold beyond which its rockets and nuclear systems cannot be controlled.'' Col. R. Bykov, who served in the Soviet Strategic Rocket Forces for 33 years, describes an incident in which a "smart aleck'' in a missile regiment figured out how to bring the launch contact points together without the launch code. Meanwhile the Clinton Administration refuses to deploy technology to intercept even one ICBM fired at the United States. Robert Jastrow will discuss this at the San Diego meeting.
"A Nuclear Waste Firm is Sued - For Paying a Regulator Too Little'' by Bill Richards in The Wall Street Journal, February 27, 1997, p 1, reports that a Utah environmental regulator supplemented his $60,000 annual income with payments in cash, gold coins, and real estate valued at $600,000 from the nuclear waste company he was regulating. (Utah law sets a maximum of $50 on such payments.) When the regulator retired, the payments stopped. Now, the regulator is suing the company because, he claims, the company orally agreed to pay him an additional $5 million dollars.
"Over the Top'' by K. Kemm in Green & Gold (P.O. Box 74416, Lynwood Ridge, Pretoria, 0040, South Africa) reports that the Alar apple scare was based on human equivalent doses to animals of 5 tons of apples or (another study) 23 tons of apple juice per person per day. The Alar was harmless, but fruit at these doses is definitely lethal.
