THEAKHSBACE Winner takes all... Today, the United States military-industrial complex will manufacture three nuclear weapons. They did the same yesterday. TTie day before that. Theyll do it agmn tomorrow, and the day after that Each weapon will range from the small "Alpha" weapon, with an ex­ plosive power of 500 (onnes of TNT, through "Bravo" (1,000 tonnes), "Echo" (10,000 tonnes) to "Mike" (5,000,000 tonnes)*oand beyond, to 25,000,000 tonnes.-^ < Utey will go to make up the largest nuclear arsend on earth, an estimated 8,000 milUon tonnes of nuclear firepower. The bomb which was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6th, 194S, had an explosive power equivalent to 20,000 tonnes of TNT. It destroyed the centre of the city, immediately killed 78,000 people, injured 84,000 and demolished 62,000 buildings. Mixy "Using the Hiroshima analogy," said Ruth Legar Sivard, fcMmer economist of the Arms Contrd and Disarmament Agency, writing in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists atom." each with up to 17 warheads fach having of April 1975, "the nuclear stockpHe of the United States alone translates into a The Stockholm Institute of Peace a yield of 100,000 tonnes of dynamite. potential kill-power 12 tones the present worid population." That's about 615^385 Research, the worid's most prestigious The captain of a Trident submarine will bombs each the yield of the Hiroshima. and respected peace research organisa­ be the third most powerful person on earth. The submarines will go so deep nuclear scientists from the Harvard-MIT tion, reported last year that about 35 The rest of the worid, the USSR, that it will be almost impossible to contact Arms Control seminar concluded that countries will be able to make atomic Britain, France, India, Israel, probably theni. Trident missiles, currently being nuclear war by the end of the century weapons within nine years. It, like the South Africa and otheis, have about tested off the Califomian coast, will each was no longer possible, but probable. Harvard-MIT group, concluded that nuclear that much nuclear fire power again. have a range of 4,000 kilometres. The This probability was a duect consequence war will be then inevitable. Winston Churchill, on being told the Trident II missile, which will be available of the proliferation of nudear power Bomb grade enriched uranium or potential nuclear fire-power available to by 1980, will have a range of 6,000 kilo­ and weaponry. The seminar said that the indeed the more fissile plutonium, while NATO, remarked that after the first metres. This is not a defensive system, it more people had nuclear weapons, the not yet widely available, is nevertheless awful strike in a nuclear war, subsequent is a first strike, offensive system, which more probable their use. procurable through' the appropriate strikes would only serve to make the will enable the US to launch a devastating rubble bounce. The' connections between the arms sources. In 1976, a US House of Rep­ resentatives subcommittee commissioned strike on an enemy at first instance. In our colossal act of mass insanity, race and the development of nuclear Effectively, each TrMent submarine will power are dear, explicit and irrevocable. th* Nudear Regularity Commission to we can make the rubble bounce not survey commercially operated nuclear have the capacity to destroy 408 individual once, nor twice, nor ten times, but a fi^ "A great many countries," Chicago Uni­ targets using weapons each five times that versity strategist Albert Wohlsetter said mstallations for Material Unaccounted For. twenty-four tunes. In the offices of the (MUFF). The NRC reported that at August of the power of the Hiroshima bomb. BuUethi of Atomic Sciences, the doomsday last year, "as a result of their civilian nuclear energy programmes and the policies hist year, fully 8,000 pounds by fissUe Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest and clock has had its minute hand moved to material had gone MUFF. The Nagasaki lune minutes to midnight, the editors of nudear exporteis, can come within anti-war activist was lecturing at a days or hours of assembling nuclear ex­ bomb used just 16 pounds of plutomum, theological seminary in the US. After his of that prestigious magazine believing and over 40,000 people died. That MUFF that the threat of nuclear war is greater plosives without plainly receiving them. lecture, one student said "This talk about There are not two atoms, one peaceful was legifimately lost duiing processmg, arms race is all very well, but please ex­ than ever before. through sloppy handling procedures, Last year, at the Cambridge Forum, and one military. They are the same plam to me your conception of God." through souveniring by visitors to the Dan Berrigan fixed the child with a' plants, and by other less savoury events. glare and told this story. 'Rolling Stone' investigative reporter The US missile silos m the Mid-West Howard Khon, in his investigatk>n of the are manned by men trained to kill their strange death . of former Kerr-McGee neighbouis if the launch command comes plutonium worker Karen Silkwood over and their neighbours freeze tip*. They are the last three years has accused Israel of locked in little cubides, and are armed. being involved in the organised diversion Each silo is connected to a central control of fissile and potentially fissile nudear room which monitors a duster of silos material from the US, and last year it with upwards of thirty missiles. On day, was revealed that Israel had hijacked an a supervisor in the control room was entire ship, its cargo of yeUowcake, and fiddling with his terminal and stumbled crew in the Mediterranean Sea. on the launch command for the day. In Eariy last year, Princeton University the silo, when the command arrived, student John PhiUips designed 'a device' the man on duty froze for eight minutes; f^R PLAY which would have resulted in a crude but long enough to countermand the false effective atom bomb had he had access launch order. Dan Berrigan explained to the requisite fissile material. He got that God was the force that stopped that his plans and information from public launch. and campus libraries housmg physics Senator John Pastore, who was chair­ texts, and declassified US govemment person of the Joint Committee on Atomic TASTE documents. Prior to ireleasing: his work Energy last year, said . in. a debate on to the US government, Phillips, was app­ arms funding that "Sure this is an ugly roached by French' and Pakistan govern* worid in many respects. Sure we have ment representatives who wanted his bombs up to our necks that can bum this paper for their govemments. Luckily, he worid 20, 30 tiiiies over. .Do you not was altruistic, and refused to supply his think I regret that? But this (di|pli)smg data to foreign agents. the number of nuclear weapons deployed While the US has effectively scrapped and stores) is unilateral disarmament and the development of the B-1 bomber, it this is suidde.. .All the (American people) is progressing vigorously with its Trident want to know is-can we protect theh submarine program, as well as the hard> freedom, can. we keep this country free. ware for Its 'counterforce' strategic That is what.they want to know." planning, strategic nuclear weapons and Senator Mike Gravel, long an opponent delivery systems like the cruise missiles of nuclear power and the arms, replied and the neutron bomb. that "adding ever greater overkill capabi- The Trident submarine is the most lity-the second and the third TNT equiv­ powerful killing machine ever designed alent ton for every human being on the by man. Each submarine will be, over SSO planet, or the 40th tune, we can evaporate feet long, 200 feet high, cost about $949 every large Soviet city-is not defense: it million each, and will carry 24 multiple is paranoia." warhead independently targetable missiles. -MARK HAYES Queensland Theatre Company «7f 27r STUDENT RUSH PRICE $2.50 15 minutes prior to any performance on presentation of student card. Phone 221 3861 Z SEMPER March 1,1978 Editorial Contents VOLUME 48, NUMBER 2 THE STATE OF QUEENSLAND of making decisions and living within a free and democratic society. The vast.majority of (Queensianders do It is not so much some sort of conspiracy PAGE ARTICLES not control their own Uves. And it takes on their part which keeps the media churning only a relatwely 'mmor' exercising of state out their propoganda and reinforcing the idea that reality is defined by them and power 2 The Arms Race: Winner takes all... police power ( as opposed to the mote should rest with them. .rather it is because sensational enforcement of the ban on most of the people working within the media marches) for this fact to become readily do not possess an adequate understanding of the 4 Dispelling the Qld Biishie Image apparent. alternatives themselves. Take the blitz by police on pedestrians DESTROYING MYTHS 5 Fire Hoses to be Used Against Marchers? which occurred some time ago. Uniformed Queenslandeis should work towards asserting police were stationed on every inner-city and strengthening the right to free speech in comer and were booking people who this state. They should also support attempts to 6 Comment: The State of Queensland destroy the myths about our way of living crossed against a 'Don't Walk' sign, even wliich biind us to an undeistandine of the when no traffic was present, or who broader possibilities and stop us from discovering 8 Students In Bondage altematWely placed a foot outside the that alternative solutions to problems do exist.