LETTERS ON THE H-BOMB CONTROVERSY
LETTERS ON THE H-BOMB CONTROVERSY I just received my copy of The Progressive containing the Morland article. The magazine is dated November. It was my understanding that this article was supposed...
...But what scares me even more is how many people are still in a 1950s consciousness concerning atomic secrets...
...The introduction into the court record of technical information that was not included in my article was initiated by the Government for reasons that are still not clear...
...William W. Winpisinger President International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers Washington, D.C...
...I am of the opinion that a little caution is due, regardless of the issues of censorship or nuclear secrecy...
...In my description last month of how the H-bomb works, 1 stated that the physical pressure of radiation reflected off the inside wall of the bomb casing compresses the fusion fuel package directly...
...Miles Smith Los Angeles, California Sadly, as a result of your recent publication of an article entitled "The H-Bomb Secret — How We Got It, Why We're Telling It," I can find no logical reason to continue my subscription to your magazine...
...Thus the defendants have been informed of such discussions about the technical deficiencies of the article only after the censor has approved...
...Vicki Watson Madison, Wisconsin This letter is to inform you of my distaste and disgust over your publication of the article on hydrogen weapons...
...You are despised by all...
...Dana Fradon...
...Howard Morland stated — if nuclear technology is too dangerous to talk about, it's too dangerous to use...
...As you said yourselves, you had them licked...
...That statement omits an important intermediate step: X-rays from the fission bomb that serves as the H-bomb trigger are absorbed by an exotic, high density polystyrene-type foam...
...As a political conservative, I found your magazine to be highly enlightening by providing me with challenging viewpoints...
...The defendants' attorneys were obliged to obtain security clearances in order to read the secret documents the Government was showing to the judge...
...When The Progressive acts like The National Enquirer, it is time for the readers to end their relationship with it...
...A more important point got lost...
...My account incorrectly attributes the compression effect to radiation pressure...
...It seems to me that The Progressive, by publishing the H-bomb article, is saying that nuclear technology is not too dangerous to talk about...
...A wall of secrecy separates the defendants and their attorneys...
...That empty space should be filled with hard foam material that explodes when it absorbs x-rays, as shown here...
...Government must be made to admit that the knowledge of how to make nuclear weapons is not really a secret and that the limiting step for most countries is the need to have in their hands the nuts and bolts of nuclear technology...
...I trust that you will keep up the good fight and that this contribution in behalf of the Machinists Union membership will support the cause of a genuinely free press...
...James K. Galbraith Cheverly, Maryland...
...Furthermore, if this case is typical, the Government will eventually reveal publicly more of its "secrets" than are already out if it attempts to take private citizens to court in order to silence them...
...This information was released for public filing on September 24, when a Government brief authorized the restoration of certain passages that had been previously deleted from ihe public version of the August 31 brief of defendants Erwin Knoll, Samuel H. Day Jr., and myself...
...Rick Hevier Onalaska, Wisconsin As a subscriber and supporter of your First Amendment fray with the Government attorneys, let me congratulate your fine staff, as well as your most aware attorneys...
...Apparently the desire for notoriety with the resulting monetary gain has colored your thinking...
...I wish The Progressive would now have the courage to turn around and say — this information is too dangerous to print and nuclear technology is too dangerous to export to other countries or to use at home...
...Your real reason is to get a few subscriptions...
...The Government had no obligation to show any secret documents to the judge...
...Abraham Lincoln somewhere said th6 Constitution is not a death certificate...
...You have now put yourself in the position of technically appraising the ability and capabilities of innumerable groups/persons throughout the world...
...I think you should be prosecuted and punished under the Atomic Energy Act...
...Ira Glasser Executive Director American Civil Liberties Union New York, New York You evidently completely lack concern for the safety of our country and the world...
...The important thing is that you have raised the H-bomb issue — in terms which can, possibly, make the arms race again a subject of political debate...
...I hope this sort of delay will not occur again...
...By giving information on how to construct a mass-destruction device, I hope you have judged that the device cannot be built by individuals or groups which might desire to do so...
...It probably does not contain any tritium, but it probably does contain, at the center, a one- or two-inch diameter rod of highly enriched uranium or plutonium running its length...
...Do you wish the United States to give up its capability to use the H-bomb...
...We have been following your case closely, and note with alarmed interest that the issue of prior restraint remains menacingly unresolved...
...It is not too much to expect that journalists have some degree of good judgment and a sense of responsibility...
...The U.S...
...Shirley Delhert Columbia, Missouri Enclosed please find the Machinists Union's contribution to The Progressive 's struggle against the Corporate State's censorship of a free press...
...and "preoccupation with or exploitation of what is sensational in literature, art, etc...
...Particularly, I think only a goddamn idiot is going to insist on publishing an instruction sheet on how to construct an H-bomb merely to prove his right to do it...
...Our Government has had a veil pulled down over our eyes for a long time, numbing our awareness and preventing us from experiencing the gut-level sadness and terror brought about by the very existence of such weapons...
...No such debate is possible without facts...
...The foam is transformed into a highly energized plasma which explodes and compresses the fusion fuel package...
...Stephen Batson Ruby, South Carolina The important thing is not that you have successfully defended the First Amendment...
...Thomas R. Dunnam Houston, Texas I am writing to you as a liberal and as a long-time ACLU member...
...I've had bad dreams from it for several nights...
...everyone should be able to read about it...
...Since bomb technology is no secret — power plant technology is dangerous...
...George Schmelzer Ann Arbor, Michigan I read with morbid fascination the mechanics of the H-bomb explosion...
...The pertinent passages, on Page 47, are as follows: "Essentially, the x-rays produce a plasma of energized matter which pushes on the fusion fuel tamper in much the same way that boiling water produces steam which pushes on the blades of a turbine...
...It heats the fusion fuel capsule from the inside while the styrofoam compresses it from the outside...
...That somewhat esoteric distinction has apparently been the focal point of in camera hearings and court filings in the case of The United States vs...
...As far as I'm concerned, the best justification for what The Progressive was doing was given at the Nukewatch workshops this summer in Madison...
...It then becomes the second A-bomb trigger which is often mentioned but incorrectly described...
...There are many things the public has a "So what if the First Amendment does go...
...Jeffrey H. Morehouse Vienna, Virginia You have made it easier for small nations and terrorists to build the H-bomb...
...May your children and your children's children suffer from the information you have released to the world...
...We still have twenty-five more...
...In the diagrams accompanying my article, 1 showed an empty space between the carrot-shaped fusion fuel package and the bomb casing that surrounds it...
...When your country asked you not to publish the article for safety reasons, you should have dropped the article immediately...
...That rod of fissionable material is compressed to supercriticality as the fusion fuel capsule surrounding it is compressed in on it by the exploding styrofoam...
...The Progressive, the prior restraint case that delayed publication of my article, "The H-Bomb Secret," for more than six months...
...They think you stink...
...Exploding styrofoam is thus an important element in the H-bomb detonation sequence which is entirely missing from my account...
...Perhaps, through mass cancellations of subscriptions, readers can demonstrate that the anything-goes-to-sell-magazines type of journalism that your publication seemingly practices is bad journalism...
...The Uranium-238 which contributes up to 90 per cent of the total explosive energy of the bomb is probably not located in the bomb casing, but rather is probably confined to the casing of the fusion fuel capsule, where its fission by high energy neutrons can further add to the heat and pressure which promote fusion...
...You have done more damage to the First Amendment than any single act I can think of...
...Our Government claims that proliferation of nuclear power is not dangerous because the knowledge of how to make a bomb is such a closely guarded secret...
...I was thoroughly appalled at the lack of ethical, moral, or professional considerations used in the publication of the article...
...The defendants refused to apply for security clearances on the grounds that a security clearance is a secrecy agreement which would interfere with the defendants' ability to write about nuclear matters in the future...
...Kathleen Smith Clayton, New Jersey If you wish to challenge nuclear governmental secrecy, 1 do not understand how the printing of something which could lead to a dangerous construct would further your aims...
...Henry O. McHenry Birmingham, Alabama I was sorry to see the way the publication of the H-bomb "secret" was turned into a freedom-of-speech issue...
...Even with my cancellation of The Progressive, I will continue to read it through our library circulation...
...At that time there seemed to be two main themes: 1. The U.S...
...Thank you for jolting me to my senses...
...To survive, the First Amendment must be dealt with in a reasonable manner...
...I am having a real problem finding plutonium-239, but when 1 do, 1 am certain I will have no problem putting the bomb together...
...Frankly, it scared the hell out of me...
...Your indecency is also clear...
...It was my understanding that this article was supposed to have been published last April...
...Finally, the fusion fuel inside the plutonium core of the primary system is probably a mixture of tritium and deuterium gas under high pressure...
...You will be punished...
...In addition to the matter of exploding styrofoam, there are probably technical errors in my description of the fusion fuel capsule of the secondary system...
...You have given every degenerate power-seeker, and every terrorist country, the means to wipe out the world...
...But Morland's discussion of the role of radiation coupling in the compression of fusion fuel is as inaccurate as if he said that boiling water turns the blades of a turbine — he leaves out the Errata steam...
...When the Government tries to suppress discussion of information that is in the public domain, at the very least it must confirm the accuracy of the information it is trying to suppress...
...Morland's discussion of the role of radiation pressure is entirely incorrect...
...1979 The New Yorker Magazine, Inc...
...In that arena, you only demonstrated the impotence of government against widely shared conviction...
...I do not agree that it is absolutely vital that simply everything be rushed into print without regard to consequences...
...Your stated reason for publishing is a palpable fraud...
...2. An even more simple theme may be Pressure generated by radiation — not the direct force of radiation pressure — is the key to the design of the hydrogen bomb...
...Your sole purpose in publishing this article can only be for the nationwide publicity you have received...
...In our society, with its presumably free press, it should be equally presumed that our journalists have sufficient capacity to decide when to come in out of the rain, drink when thirsty, and go to the toilet when the time comes...
...Or did something happen out of your control to delay your scheduled publication of this article so badly...
...The whole affair illustrates that the secrecy provisions of the Atomic Energy Act are unenforceable, in addition to being an unwarranted interference with the First Amendment rights to unfettered public discourse...
...right to know, things that are available to the determined investigator, that it simply is not in the public interest to publish...
...Your constitutional right to what you did is probably strong...
...The American public is not thanking you for the article...
...It seems purely an attention-grabber, with the added possibility of giving information to those who would use it for harmful purposes...
...Government is giving this out in the form of nuclear power plants and fuel for these plants...
...By your stupid and egomaniacal implementation of it, you have stretched it beyond its limits...
...It seriously hampered the defense, which may have been part of the reason it was done, and it ultimately resulted in the disclosure of more information that the Government is supposedly trying to keep secret...
...This raises grave questions about the efficiency of your publication...
...Webster's New World Dictionary defines sensationalism as "the use of strongly emotional subject matter, or wildly dramatic style, language, or artistic expression, that is intended to shock, startle, thrill, excite, etc...
...Even though the quotation is from the defendants' own legal brief, none of the defendants had seen that statement before September 24...
...Allen S. Rosenfeid West Bloomfield, Michigan Thanks for living up to your name...
...There is little doubt in many people's minds that that is precisely the intention of your magazine, and I can find little reason to disagree...
Vol. 43 • December 1979 • No. 12
