From The Guardian, 8/7/03:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1013652,00.html
'Dr Strangeloves' meet to plan new nuclear era
Julian Borger in Bellevue, Nebraska
Thursday August 7, 2003
The Guardian
US government scientists and Pentagon officials will gather today
behind tight security at a Nebraska air force base to discuss the
development of a modernised arsenal of small, specialised nuclear
weapons which critics believe could mark the dawn of a new era in
proliferation.
The Pentagon has not released a list of the 150 people at the secret
meeting, but according to leaks, they will include scientists and
administrators from the three main nuclear weapons laboratories, Los
Alamos, Sandia and Livermore, senior officers from the air force and
strategic command, weapons contractors and civilian defence officials.
Requests by Congress to send observers were rejected, and an oversight
committee which included academic nuclear experts was disbanded only a
few weeks earlier.
The purpose of the meeting, at Offutt air force base, only became
known after a draft agenda was leaked earlier this year, which
included discussions on a new generation of low-yield "mini-nukes",
"bunker-buster" bombs for possible use against rogue states or
organisations armed with nuclear, biological or chemical weapons.
The session will also debate whether development of the weapons will
require the White House to end the US moratorium on nuclear testing
declared in 1992.
_____________________________________________________
General "Buck" Turgidson:
Mr. President, we are rapidly approaching a moment of truth both for
ourselves as human beings and for the life of our nation. Now, truth
is not always a pleasant thing. But it is necessary now to make a
choice, to choose between two admittedly regrettable, but nevertheless
*distinguishable*, postwar environments: one where you got twenty
million people killed, and the other where you got a hundred and fifty
million people killed.
President Merkin Muffley:
You're talking about mass murder, General, not war!
General "Buck" Turgidson:
Mr. President, I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed. But I
do say no more than ten to twenty million killed, tops. Uh, depending
on the breaks.
From the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and
Love the Bomb
Harry
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