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Nuclear Underground Exposed — Treaties, IMS, Nevada & Why Testing Now Is Folly (Part 2) · International Flavor: Where the Truth Tastes Better

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  this incredibly awesome music to bring
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  you some incredibly awesome political
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  talk on DAM radio.
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  >> Hello, good evening. Welcome. I am
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  Samuel Trap. This is International
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  Flavor. You are on DAM Radio live from
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  the Lake Ozark real estate of the art
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  studio
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  with me. Uh last night we just to recap,
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  we were discussing nuclear weapons and
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  President Trump's uh statement that well
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  we're just going to start some more
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  nuclear weapons testing. Let's do that.
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  Which we pretty much quit and what was
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  it 1992.
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  Uh I was on the Nevada nuclear test site
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  during those years and uh was around for
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  the last uh nuclear tests that were
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  conducted there escorting my Russian uh
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  counterparts whilst they verified our
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  nuclear testing. I gave a preliminary
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  discussion of what that was last night
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  and we're going to get into and last
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  night we had decided that there's a lot
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  of information to go through and I'm
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  going to go through it um as long as it
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  takes might might finish tonight might
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  not but I'm not going to rush through it
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  cuz it's it is a a topic that I enjoy
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  talking about. It's a topic that I know
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  a reasonable amount about and I was
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  directly involved in what went on out at
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  the Nevada nuclear test site during the
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  waning years of nuclear testing programs
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  last night. We covered some of the
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  basics. Uh we had some good conversation
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  on the telephone and uh that was pretty
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  cool. If you'd like to call in, please
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  do. 573-746820.
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  You can uh uh send in
• 1:57
  uh emails if you like to lived
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  damradio.com.
• 2:02
  I actually even read them sometimes or
• 2:04
  Samuel T internationalflavor.com.
• 2:08
  If you want to listen to last night's
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  show, go out to internationalflavor.com
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  and listen to it. or JR does an
• 2:16
  excellent job of putting all the shows
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  out at live ra damradio.com
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  podcasts and you can listen to
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  everybody's prior shows should you feel
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  the urge and uh
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  I I believe let's see we're going to
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  continue on we're going to start with
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  treaties and where the treaties are
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  where we stand in the treaties but
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  before we get to that there are a couple
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  of things that are really pissed me off
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  today. Things, you know, things that I I
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  I just can't stand. Okay, [snorts] so
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  Whitaker, whatever his name is, US
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  ambassador Ukraine or whatever is
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  whatever they call him these days, went
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  over there and basically told Zalinski,
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  "It's time to uh to uh
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  uh finalize this conflict." That didn't
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  go too well. Zalinski's [laughter]
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  not listening at all. Surprise,
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  surprise. That's not happening. Um, but
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  I watched
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  you'll never get this in news over here
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  and there's a lot well there's a lot of
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  people that have begun to discover RT
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  news. Okay. In English, very similar to
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  what the US put out um what do they call
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  it? Uh, Radio Free Europe or uh Voice of
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  America or whatever that we have put
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  out. Now, you could argue that a lot of
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  it is uh um propaganda. You certainly
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  need to look at every side of the
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  equation. But here is a there's a couple
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  of stories in there today that I'm going
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  to share you with you. Two of them have
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  to do specifically with nuclear testing
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  and President Trump's recent thoughts on
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  it. And so whether you believe it or
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  not, I don't care you. But it's a
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  different point of view and you can hear
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  the other side. I don't think there's
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  anything to disagree with. It's just
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  regular reporting. Frankly, I tend to
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  believe what comes out of RT and Al
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  Jazzer and other places more than I
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  believe the crap that they spew over
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  here. Um, you know, and and it reminds
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  me of when I was a a younger man and you
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  could watch the news and it wasn't so
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  full of twist and nonsense. And uh, ours
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  has gotten slightly better recently,
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  truthfully. I mean, there's still
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  vitriol everywhere, but uh this is uh uh
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  a little bit different. But I wanted to
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  share with you and if you want to find
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  this look upr.comrussiaward
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  slash627301-
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  Ukrainian-dones-kill-
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  civilians
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  slash and uh you know you probably won't
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  get there but the title of the article
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  on RT is Ukrainian forces kills
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  civilians with direct FPV drone hits.
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  And there are some pretty damn graphic
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  videos. And uh so I'm going to read the
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  story to you cuz it's really not that
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  long, but all the videos are there. This
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  is disgusting
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  uh what they what they did. two
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  Ukrainian
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  civilians, Ukrainian civilians who
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  attempted to reach Russian military
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  positions while carrying white flags
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  were fatally struck in direct FPV drone
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  firstperson view drone attacks by
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  Ukrainian forces. According to Russian
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  media reports, the disturbing videos
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  obtained by Ria Noveastian TAS on Monday
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  show unarmed men, two of them walking
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  along a dirt road outside the village of
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  Petra Pavlovka near Kupansk in Hark uh
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  Harkov region.
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  In the footage, an FPV drone hovers in
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  front of the first man for several
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  seconds as he walks forward, accompanied
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  by his dog. The drone swoops for swoops
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  down and strikes him directly in the
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  torso as he attempts to duck. The man is
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  killed instantly and the dog is seen
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  writhing in pain. The second man drops
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  his belongings and slowly approaches the
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  scene, making the sign of the cross over
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  the first victim's body. Later in the
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  footage, he is also struck by a a drone.
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  In the extended footage of the second
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  strike, the second civilian is on his
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  knees praying at the time of the
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  Ukrainian drone attack which killed him
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  on the spot. This is disturbing. I'm
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  telling you, I watched them both and I
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  don't like this stuff. Anyway, uh the
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  disturbing videos highlight hardships
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  civilians are facing while trying to
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  flee the war zone. Four-time Ukrainian
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  MP turned Russian blogger, guy named
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  Oleg Sario has said, "Poor villagers,
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  and these guys are obviously old and
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  they're obviously civilians. Poor
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  villagers and the elderly have only one
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  option. Cross the front lines like in
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  the video or wait it out in the basement
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  until it rolls over their heads. This
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  carries the risk that the Ukrainian
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  military will execute them for having
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  pro-Russian sentiments. Sarov wrote on
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  his own telegram channel [snorts]
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  in late October. Chief of the Russian
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  general staff Valeri Garasimov reported
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  to President Putin that around 5,500
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  Ukrainian servicemen were surrounded in
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  cross Naresk which is known as Pakovsk
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  in Ukraine. Another 5,000 troops were
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  blocked in Dimmitro which is Mir Negrad
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  and in Kupansk. Ukraine's Vladimir
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  Zalinski previously described the
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  situation as difficult, but now he
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  denies any encirclement at all and
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  accuses Moscow of exaggerating its
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  battlefield gains. I follow these every
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  day. The guy's full of crap and he's
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  lying. Okay. Um, you can watch this
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  every day and see where they're going
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  with the videos all what do you call it?
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  Uh, geo geollocated. all of these
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  videos. Last week, Putin in the
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  surrounded places stated that Moscow
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  would halt offensive operations to allow
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  Ukrainian and foreign journalists to
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  visit the front lines to see with their
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  own eyes that the Ukrainian troops were
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  trapped in these three towns.
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  Kiev, however, barred media workers from
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  making the trip. The defense ministry
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  accused Kiev of deceiving both the
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  Ukrainian public and the international
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  community about military setbacks.
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  Officials report that Ukrainian soldiers
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  have attempted to approach Russian
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  positions with white flags in recent
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  days. But their own people are killing
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  them. And that's been going on for three
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  years. You know, you go surrender, if
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  you go to surrender, you're going to be
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  killed by your own people. And uh you
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  know they don't you can't do that. So
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  you're supposed to either you you either
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  die in in u combat or you die trying to
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  surrender. Um I don't know. This needs
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  to uh uh be taken care of. We're going
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  to get back to the nuclear story now.
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  But that that story bothered me enough
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  to want to share it. Um, let's talk
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  about before we get to the next parts of
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  uh of my
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  uh what do you call it reporting from
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  last night. We're going to continue on
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  the nuclear testing side and what it
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  entails. Last night I told you about how
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  it works and the underground nature, the
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  vertical versus the horizontal shafts
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  and how that all works and uh and what
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  we did and how long it took. So that the
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  US energy secretary, there's a story
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  about him from the 2nd of November.
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  Okay, just uh what was that? Sunday, I
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  guess that would have been. And he said,
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  let's see, nuclear weapons tests
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  recently ordered by US President Donald
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  Trump will not involve actual nuclear
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  weapons, said energy secretary Chris
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  Wright. On Fox News Sunday briefing,
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  Wright described the trials as part of a
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  modernization program involving
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  sophisticated systems the US has been
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  developing to replace aging components
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  of its nuclear arsenal. I think the
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  tests we are talking about right now are
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  system tests. These are not nuclear
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  explosions. These are what we call
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  non-critical explosions.
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  adding [snorts]
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  that various components will be tested
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  to ensure that they deliver the
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  appropriate geometry and set up the
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  nuclear explosion.
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  When he was asked if residents near the
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  nuclear test site in the Nevada desert
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  should expect to see a mushroom cloud
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  anytime soon, he replied, "No worries
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  about that." Now, that's absolutely
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  true. There haven't been mushroom clouds
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  there since the 50s. There was one
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  venting incident which I think was in
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  72, but I don't remember the date. I
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  talked about it last night. We're not
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  going to cover that again. But above
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  ground testing ended in the 50s. Okay.
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  Uh Trump, well maybe early 62, something
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  like that. After the Cuban missile
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  crisis, Trump instructed the Pentagon
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  last week to start testing our nuclear
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  weapons on an equal basis with Russia
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  and China. Russia and China aren't
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  conducting nuclear tests, so that's a
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  problem. Um, Vice President JD Vance
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  said it is important to ensure that the
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  nuclear arsenal we have actually
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  functions properly. Now, that I might
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  support, but there are ways to do that.
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  We have all of the data from every test
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  that ever happened. And if you reviewed
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  it now again, you could probably gain 10
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  times more off of off of the information
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  with today's technology. Does that make
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  sense? Um, let's see. The US stopped
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  conducting nuclear testing in 1992 under
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  a Congressmandated
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  moratorum and the rest of the world
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  followed suit except for the examples I
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  gave last night. Uh, Washington Post
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  said on Thursday that resuming nuclear
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  tests would take years and hundreds of
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  millions of dollars. Sounds like they
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  were listening to me last night. The US
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  carried out its last nuclear detonation
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  more than three decades ago at the
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  Nevada test site, which now relies on
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  computer simulations instead of live
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  explosions. And we're going to follow
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  that a little bit more. Uh, let's see
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  here.
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  And today's news, uh, Dimmitri Pascoff,
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  uh, was was, uh, quoted and he he was
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  talking, Kremlin expects Trump to
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  clarify what he means about his nuclear
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  test claims.
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  And here's what you get from the Russian
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  side. The Kremlin has called for a
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  clarification from the Washington
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  following recent remarks by Donald Trump
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  who claimed the that Russia and China
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  are secretly conducting nuclear weapons
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  tests as I'm going to show you tonight
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  or tell you about tonight. That's
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  impossible
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  because we would know instantly if they
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  did. So there are no secret nuclear
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  weapons testings going on or we would
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  know. All right. And I'll explain that
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  as we go through. Russian President
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  Vladimir Putin uh his spokesman Dmitri
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  Pescov told RT Tuesday that neither
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  country has resumed such activities and
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  that both remain committed to existing
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  international agreements which we're
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  going to cover first. Right. [snorts]
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  We probably still need to receive
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  clarifications from the American side.
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  Pescov said neither Russia nor China has
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  resumed nuclear tests. Moreover, both
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  Moscow and Beijing insist that all
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  countries remain committed to their
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  obligations under the comprehensive
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  nuclear testban treaty. I was part of
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  the threshold testban treaty which
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  limited it to 150 kiloton. Pescov made
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  the remarks days after Trump claimed in
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  a televised interview that the US was
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  Trump just pulls crap out of his rear
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  end. And here's an example, okay? That
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  the US was the only country that doesn't
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  test nuclear weapons. And he suggested
• 15:09
  that both Moscow and Beijing had resumed
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  such activities. He ordered the Pentagon
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  last week to begin preparations to
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  restart nuclear testing. what the
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  American head uh what the head of the
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  American state means, we simply cannot
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  say right now unfortunately. The Kremlin
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  spokesman added
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  um the US last carried out fullscare
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  nuclear test in '92 when the moratorum
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  in place has been in place since then.
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  Energy Secretary Chris Wright clarified
• 15:41
  Sunday that the tests ordered by Trump
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  will not involve detonations, describing
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  them as non-critical trials. Despite
• 15:47
  Trump's assertions, Russia's most recent
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  nuclear related tests, including the
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  launch of the Burvestnik nuclearpowered
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  cruise missile and the Poseidon
• 15:58
  underwater drones did not involve
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  nuclear explosions. Putin has previously
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  indicated that Russia would only
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  consider resuming testing if other
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  nuclear powers abandon the moratorum.
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  China's foreign ministry denied
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  conducting nuclear tests also and has
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  urged the US to uphold its own
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  obligations under the global test ban
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  framework.
• 16:24
  While Trump claimed the goal of renewed
• 16:27
  testing is to push for global
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  denuclearization,
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  he also boasted that the US possesses
• 16:33
  enough nuclear weapons to blow up the
• 16:35
  world 150 times. Now, that's what we
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  were attempting to get rid of in my
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  youth. And [laughter] now, well, that's
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  what the hell. Let's get back into it,
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  right? [snorts] Uh anyway, nonsensical
• 16:49
  nonsense as usual in uh uh the world of
• 16:54
  politics, especially in Washington. Um
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  last night I covered for you how
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  underground testing actually works. Uh
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  tonight we're going to start with
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  treaties, what they say and where we go
• 17:08
  hopefully. And we're going to take our
• 17:10
  time going through it. Somebody wants to
• 17:12
  call and ask questions, I'd be happy to
• 17:14
  go through as much as I can say on it.
• 17:16
  Um, we're going to talk about our US
• 17:19
  record in the Nevada story. What what
• 17:21
  what happened in Nevada. Then we're
• 17:24
  going to go on into um Russia, which is
• 17:28
  the next largest uh uh p group well
• 17:32
  Soviet Union that conducted tests in
• 17:35
  semipolatinsk NovaL. And we're going to
• 17:38
  go through all of that and then we're
• 17:40
  going to go into other also wicks also
• 17:43
  ran France, UK, China, India, Pakistan,
• 17:47
  Israel and the DRP DPRK. Uh we're going
• 17:51
  to go through and see where where they
• 17:53
  did. Later we're going to talk about
• 17:55
  what it would take to restart nuclear
• 17:59
  testing, right? and uh uh and and then
• 18:03
  we're going to conclude with uh a little
• 18:06
  bit of facts and some of the things that
• 18:08
  uh that uh come from it. If we get
• 18:10
  finished today, great. But I'm not going
• 18:13
  to um
• 18:15
  I'm not going to kill myself to make
• 18:17
  sure I get there if we don't finish
• 18:18
  tonight. Well, there you have it. We
• 18:21
  won't. So, how do you like them apples?
• 18:26
  Um
• 18:28
  do you remember that from Goodwill
• 18:29
  Hunting? Do you like apples?
• 18:32
  Guy says, "Yeah." He goes, "I got a
• 18:36
  number. How do you like them apples?"
• 18:39
  Remember that? Uh, I digress talking
• 18:42
  about apples. So, we're going to start
• 18:43
  with treaties. And, uh, let's talk about
• 18:47
  what the treaties say
• 18:51
  and where we sit in those treaty eras.
• 18:55
  Now, if you remember last night, I
• 18:57
  talked a little bit in the beginning
• 18:58
  about how the um
• 19:02
  1962 Cuban missile crisis or was it 63?
• 19:06
  Oh, I think it was 62 Cuban missile
• 19:08
  crisis where uh you know, we had to turn
• 19:12
  back and create some kind of a deal to
• 19:15
  um so the Cubans didn't get missiles in
• 19:18
  their in their area. And so in 1963
• 19:24
  there had been plenty of above ground
• 19:28
  testing, plenty of in the ocean testing
• 19:31
  and things like that. But after the
• 19:34
  Cuban missile crisis and everybody had
• 19:37
  these uh nuclear fallout shelters in
• 19:40
  their backyard and whatnot, um in 1963
• 19:45
  there they entered a limited or partial
• 19:49
  test ban treaty name called the LTBT.
• 19:55
  What it bans and what it permitted.
• 19:57
  Okay. After the Cuban missile crisis
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  scared the daylights out everybody.
• 20:02
  Washington, Moscow, and London cut the
• 20:04
  first big deal. They banned all tests in
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  the atmosphere, outer space, and
• 20:09
  underwater. No more mushroom cloud
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  postcards. No more stranchium 90 uh
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  underground tests remain legal. If you
• 20:18
  pop a device underground, radioactive
• 20:20
  radioactive debris crosses the border,
• 20:23
  you have violated the treaty that there
• 20:26
  should be no venting beyond your own
• 20:29
  territory. That clause is the hinge that
• 20:33
  uh you know
• 20:35
  swung the door closed on you know three
• 20:38
  decades of US underground testing. Okay.
• 20:42
  At the Nevada tight uh site this flipped
• 20:45
  our script. Atmospheric testing which we
• 20:48
  had done plenty of was over
• 20:52
  and underground testing was now the
• 20:54
  default. The NNSS, which was then called
• 20:57
  NTS, nuclear test site, uh stated, you
• 21:01
  know, bluntly, 100 atmospheric tests
• 21:06
  were conducted through July of 1962.
• 21:11
  The limited threshold, the limited test
• 21:14
  ban treaty was signed on August 5th of
• 21:17
  1963,
• 21:19
  which started the age of underground
• 21:21
  testing. And so, you know, it didn't end
• 21:26
  testing. You know, it put a put a little
• 21:29
  bit of a lid on it and said, "Keep your
• 21:31
  mess inside your own borders." Okay.
• 21:34
  Later in 1974,
• 21:37
  about 11 years later, the treaty that uh
• 21:41
  I was involved in, the threshold test
• 21:44
  ban treaty, TTBT,
• 21:47
  and the 1976
• 21:49
  peaceful nuclear explosions treaty, PN
• 21:53
  neoton
• 21:57
  cap, okay, on how much you could blow up
• 22:00
  even underground. Okay. The US and the
• 22:04
  USSR narrowed the underground uh limits.
• 22:07
  No underground nuclear tests above 150
• 22:11
  kilotons after March 31st of 1976.
• 22:16
  That is the basics of the TTBT.
• 22:19
  Negotiators carved out the you know
• 22:23
  category of peaceful nuclear explosions
• 22:26
  which are earth moving. I told you a
• 22:29
  tiny bit about those last night. Canal
• 22:32
  digging fantasies that uh you know both
• 22:35
  sides were attempting to figure out in
• 22:38
  the 60s and 70s and they set
• 22:42
  150 kilotons and 1.5 megat tons total
• 22:46
  for group explosions plus verification
• 22:49
  rules. These two treaties sat in limbo
• 22:53
  for years while they hammered out how do
• 22:58
  we prove this? Okay.
• 23:01
  In 1988,
• 23:03
  this is when I got involved, right?
• 23:06
  There was a joint verification
• 23:08
  experiment and both of these um
• 23:14
  treaties, the PNET and the TTBT entered
• 23:18
  into force in December of 1990.
• 23:21
  The 150 kiloton ceiling and the
• 23:24
  verification package have been legally
• 23:26
  in effect ever since. What did it mean
• 23:29
  in practice? Right. US and Soviet test
• 23:32
  designers had to, you know, figure out
• 23:35
  how to live below the 150 kiloton with
• 23:38
  realworld uncertainties. You know, in
• 23:40
  the verification game, you know, they
• 23:42
  each got the ability to go to each
• 23:44
  other's sites and watch while the other
• 23:46
  conducted their tests. They had data
• 23:48
  exchanges, calibration shots, on-site
• 23:51
  access, and specific circumstances. All
• 23:54
  the nitty-gritty that I was involved in
• 23:56
  that you keep, you know, the threshold
• 23:58
  honest, right?
• 24:00
  the declassified records. You know
• 24:02
  what's really funny is I still can't get
• 24:04
  a copy of uh all the radiation I was
• 24:08
  exposed to at the Nevada nuclear test
• 24:10
  site. I I really want it and because
• 24:14
  frankly, you know, I got issues.
• 24:16
  [laughter]
• 24:18
  But anyway, um the declassified record
• 24:22
  showed the back and forth in painful
• 24:24
  detail. The the discussions that we
• 24:26
  would have out there were just amazing.
• 24:29
  the little arguments that we would we
• 24:31
  would get into about whether you were
• 24:33
  able to see something. I don't know if
• 24:35
  any pe any anybody remembers it, but
• 24:36
  when I when I was out there, so
• 24:38
  typically there were uh there were
• 24:40
  usually 20 26 Russian
• 24:44
  uh scientists and
• 24:47
  hangers on, right, that that that flew
• 24:49
  over and stayed for 9 months a year. And
• 24:52
  uh they were allowed to verify what we
• 24:55
  were doing. And I I had some funny
• 24:58
  stories. I may have told them before,
• 24:59
  but one of one of what I always tell
• 25:02
  this story cuz the guy was such a nut.
• 25:05
  And um there was a little tiny guy.
• 25:09
  And uh so in those days the two
• 25:12
  interpreters there was well we we
• 25:14
  usually had two interpreters on the
• 25:16
  American side and then we'd have uh um
• 25:19
  there was only one on the Russian side.
• 25:21
  There was one guy that came and stayed
• 25:23
  the whole time and his name was Valeri
• 25:25
  Kuzmine and he was also um according to
• 25:29
  the discussions that we had had he was a
• 25:31
  professor at Moscow State University too
• 25:34
  and at one point he he um told me that
• 25:37
  he was a colonel
• 25:39
  um and you know he didn't go much
• 25:42
  further than that whether it was
• 25:43
  military KGB who knows doesn't matter I
• 25:46
  don't care and they didn't believe that
• 25:48
  I was a a lowly staff sergeant there he
• 25:50
  he he would always. Uh-huh. Yeah, right.
• 25:53
  [laughter] Like you're you're just some
• 25:55
  sergeant, you know, out here hanging out
• 25:58
  with everybody here. And and we had a uh
• 26:01
  a colonel or a general on our side who
• 26:03
  was going to be um uh conducting all the
• 26:08
  discussions along with all the
• 26:09
  scientists, Department of Energy people.
• 26:12
  Um
• 26:14
  there were several companies that were
• 26:16
  involved in it out there and I can't
• 26:17
  remember names of them. They'll probably
• 26:19
  come up as we read through this because
• 26:21
  there were always tons of them out
• 26:22
  there, but they were all subject to the
• 26:24
  uh Department of Energy. And so they
• 26:26
  would do I was involved in tests that
• 26:29
  were vertical and then tests that were
• 26:31
  horizontal. The horizontal ones would
• 26:33
  went under under mountains and uh and
• 26:36
  they would blow them up and they'd
• 26:37
  collapse. But the whole point was to
• 26:40
  well there were several points. One was
• 26:42
  to we called it the hydrodnamic yield
• 26:45
  measurement method. So, you could figure
• 26:46
  out from watching the uh waves of uh the
• 26:51
  shock and all the the the signals that
• 26:54
  came up those cables I told you about
• 26:55
  last night, you could measure the force
• 26:58
  of the bomb that you put in in a certain
• 27:00
  amount of uh whatever the u um
• 27:06
  the environment was. And if you know,
• 27:08
  you put it in granite, here's what
• 27:10
  happens. You put it under the ground and
• 27:12
  limestone, here's what it is. You put it
• 27:14
  under lava, which is plenty of what's
• 27:17
  going on there in in uh Nevada nuclear
• 27:20
  test site and here's what you get, you
• 27:21
  know, and so all kinds of this stuff was
• 27:23
  going on and they got to to verify all
• 27:26
  of it. Well, and there were tons of
• 27:27
  scientists and then there were a couple
• 27:29
  of people like the colonel and or the
• 27:31
  the supervisor of whoever it was. We
• 27:33
  knew who it was. Whichever general was
• 27:35
  in charge from the Russian side or the
• 27:38
  American side, of course, everybody knew
• 27:40
  who they were. Everybody knew who the
• 27:42
  interpreters were. Most people knew who
• 27:44
  the scientists were. We had a much
• 27:45
  smaller team, although the uh private
• 27:49
  contractor types worked with the Russian
• 27:51
  types fairly well and sometimes we had
• 27:53
  to um
• 27:55
  you know interpret for them as well. It
• 27:57
  was it was I don't want to say that I
• 27:59
  didn't do didn't do didn't do much. I
• 28:02
  mean I I found that job to be relatively
• 28:04
  easy. It was just you know speak Russian
• 28:06
  all day and that was that. And um it was
• 28:08
  a lot of fun. And uh anyway, but there
• 28:11
  was one particular guy, a little little
• 28:13
  guy named Mr. Deacov. And Dickov
• 28:16
  basically, I mean, if you translate it
• 28:18
  means wild man. And the guy's name is
• 28:21
  Deacov or Wildman, however you want to
• 28:23
  say it. But uh Mr. Deacov was, I don't
• 28:26
  know, 5 foot tall, maybe 5'2. He was a
• 28:30
  tiny little guy. And um was funny as
• 28:34
  hell. He'd come out there and he always
• 28:36
  wore like a a white shirt or something
• 28:39
  and uh short sleeves. It was generally
• 28:42
  pretty odd out there. And he would run
• 28:44
  around and ask questions, you know, and
• 28:46
  all he did was bounce around to other
• 28:48
  places and uh and he would uh he came up
• 28:51
  to me and uh Valeri Kousin and we were
• 28:54
  sitting there talking just, you know,
• 28:56
  shooting the Well, pardon my
• 28:58
  French. While we were watching the the
• 29:01
  uh scientists and engineers running
• 29:04
  around and uh he came up to me and he
• 29:06
  goes,
• 29:08
  "Sam,
• 29:10
  uh and he's wearing this tiny little
• 29:12
  tie. He's wearing a clip-on tie that
• 29:14
  like a little kid would wear. Um it
• 29:16
  couldn't have been more than 6 in long
• 29:18
  and he's got this thing uh clipped on
• 29:20
  his neck." And I was like, "Oh, it's a
• 29:21
  very nice tie, Mr. Decuff." And uh I was
• 29:25
  [laughter]
• 29:26
  I was like, "What in the hell's this guy
• 29:28
  doing?" And he's wearing this tiny
• 29:30
  little tie and he goes um and it it went
• 29:33
  down to about his ch, you know, the top
• 29:35
  of his chest and that's it. This tiny
• 29:37
  little kid's tie was hanging on. I was
• 29:38
  like, "That's a great tie you got
• 29:40
  there." And he goes, "Yeah." He goes,
• 29:42
  "We we picked this up at the, you know,
• 29:44
  in Las Vegas the other day." He goes,
• 29:46
  "Uh,
• 29:48
  this tie is great." This tie is
• 29:51
  fantastic. Look, Sam, it hooks onto my
• 29:55
  shirt, you know, with this little hook
• 29:57
  up on top. He had a clip on tie. He
• 30:00
  didn't have to tie it or nothing. He
• 30:02
  just clipped it on. Anyway, that was
• 30:03
  stupid part of the story, but uh we had
• 30:06
  a lot of fun messing with that guy. He
• 30:08
  was It was very odd. And I got more
• 30:10
  stories about him, too. But that's not
• 30:12
  the point of tonight's show on this
• 30:14
  nuclear testing stuff. He uh the
• 30:18
  verification part, here's where it comes
• 30:20
  in. and and the the scientists were
• 30:22
  verifying the real stuff that were
• 30:24
  going. But guys from the KGB like this
• 30:26
  guy um and he was a KGB goon or a party
• 30:31
  apparatic and he got to come over and do
• 30:34
  he was a very nice guy. I don't have
• 30:36
  anything you you know negative about
• 30:38
  him. I thought he was hilarious. And he
• 30:40
  um he would come up and he'd, you know,
• 30:43
  see a building in the distance or a uh
• 30:46
  huge crane somewhere and he'd go he'd
• 30:49
  say, "Uh, Sam, how tall is that tower?"
• 30:52
  And I'd say, "I don't know. Looks like
• 30:55
  it's about 600 ft." And he'd go, "Is
• 30:58
  it?" I like I don't know. Do you want me
• 31:01
  to find out? And he'd say, "Can you?" I
• 31:04
  was like, "Sure." So I'd walk over to
• 31:06
  somebody and go, "How tall is that
• 31:07
  tower?" And the guy go, "I don't know.
• 31:10
  It looks like 600 ft or 500 or
• 31:13
  whatever." I was like, "I don't know." I
• 31:15
  said, "The guy wants to know how tall
• 31:17
  the tower is. Is he allowed to know?" He
• 31:18
  goes, "I don't care." He said, he goes,
• 31:20
  "I'll see if I can find out for him."
• 31:22
  And then he come back and tell him how
• 31:24
  tall the tower was. Or you'd see some
• 31:26
  huge crane off on the street. Can you
• 31:28
  tell me the specifications of the crane?
• 31:30
  And we weren't hiding a damn thing. you
• 31:32
  know, uh the scientists might have been,
• 31:34
  but if you if you're out there, clearly
• 31:36
  you can see what's going on. Anyway, it
• 31:39
  was pretty hilarious. But the
• 31:40
  verification of the treaty was the
• 31:43
  important part. And the whole time we
• 31:46
  were trying to build relationships with
• 31:48
  these guys, at least I was. And we would
• 31:51
  have discussions at the on-site
• 31:52
  inspection agency. We would talk about
• 31:54
  these things, what happened. You'd
• 31:56
  always get debriefed. You'd always be
• 31:58
  talking to people and they'd say,
• 32:00
  "What's going on here?" And and frankly
• 32:02
  the the around this time remember the
• 32:05
  Soviet Union's collapsed by now and
• 32:07
  there's uh the walls come down and we're
• 32:09
  we're we're trying to uh uh allegedly
• 32:13
  start to help these guys and make them
• 32:15
  our friends. And so uh there was we were
• 32:18
  they were excited. We were excited.
• 32:20
  There was plenty of reason to be
• 32:21
  positive about all of this. You know,
• 32:23
  geez, all this all this nonsense that's
• 32:26
  been going on since World War II is
• 32:28
  finally ending. But nope, didn't go that
• 32:33
  way, did it? Here we are, fast forward
• 32:36
  35, 30 years later, and we're in the
• 32:38
  same old crap that we were back then. In
• 32:41
  fact, probably worse. But it all started
• 32:43
  with these uh uh TTBT and PNET treaties
• 32:47
  that we got to work on. And the took the
• 32:50
  wild west of underground testing and
• 32:53
  put, you know, a regulator on it, a
• 32:55
  governor on the engine, you know, 150
• 32:57
  kilotons, period. So in 1996
• 33:01
  is when this came up. Now I had left
• 33:03
  active duty in 1995 and uh I think in 96
• 33:08
  I was in law school by that time and uh
• 33:11
  um in 1995
• 33:13
  they signed something that called that
• 33:16
  is all the parties. This is the big one.
• 33:19
  In 1996 came about the comprehensive
• 33:23
  nuclear test ban treaty CTBT.
• 33:26
  the all means all banan that really
• 33:30
  isn't enforced because not everybody's
• 33:32
  ratified but they ban all nuclear
• 33:35
  explosions anywhere underground
• 33:38
  underwater in the air in space military
• 33:42
  or peaceful it builds a verification
• 33:44
  machine it's called the comprehensive
• 33:48
  nuclear test ban treaty organization
• 33:52
  CTBTO got to have your acronyms Okay. It
• 33:56
  has a preparatory commission in Vienna
• 33:59
  and a global international monitoring
• 34:03
  system IMS
• 34:06
  whose data are processed at the
• 34:09
  international data center ID.
• 34:13
  So it's legally it's clean. Technically
• 34:15
  it's serious. But the catch is the o the
• 34:19
  the treaty only enters into force when
• 34:22
  all 44 named states sign and ratify. And
• 34:29
  we're not there. We're not even close.
• 34:32
  Okay. In in the status of 2025, here it
• 34:36
  is. United States and China have both
• 34:39
  signed CTBT, but neither has ratified
• 34:43
  it.
• 34:45
  India, Pakistan and North Korea never
• 34:49
  even signed it. Okay. [snorts] Israel,
• 34:53
  Egypt, Iran and Russia signed it but
• 34:58
  they haven't ratified it. And um well
• 35:01
  Russia had ratified but Russia revoked
• 35:06
  its ratification in November 2023
• 35:10
  saying it would mirror US moratorium
• 35:13
  posture. So these are the ones that
• 35:16
  matter. Um I mean if you want to what
• 35:19
  the congressional research service
• 35:21
  version you know as of 2025
• 35:25
  187 countries have signed 178 have
• 35:28
  ratified but of the required 44 annex
• 35:32
  two states only 37 have ratified. The
• 35:35
  hang-ups are the same usual suspect and
• 35:38
  the Senate Senate
• 35:41
  famously rejected comprehensive testban
• 35:44
  treaty in 1999
• 35:47
  4851
• 35:48
  to1 and that rejection you know still
• 35:52
  shapes the politics of where we are
• 35:54
  today. So people say the treaty is dead
• 35:56
  but it's really it's undead. It's a
• 35:59
  zombie zombie treaty right? It's
• 36:02
  [snorts] uh not legally alive, but it's
• 36:04
  not really buried. Meanwhile, all the
• 36:06
  sensors are on. You know, people can
• 36:09
  tell where where if you do a nuclear
• 36:12
  explosion, that's how we knew that North
• 36:14
  Korea had done it. That's how they uh uh
• 36:17
  know that what they've done with um um
• 36:22
  Iran. So this IMS the um
• 36:28
  what's the where where where where where
• 36:29
  where international monitoring system
• 36:33
  right
• 36:34
  is it's like a microphone around the
• 36:37
  planet okay there are 337
• 36:40
  facilities Vladimir Putin talked about
• 36:43
  this the other day I told you that I was
• 36:44
  watching the Soliv show because there
• 36:47
  were two things that happened one he
• 36:49
  spoke to a nuclear scientist Russian guy
• 36:51
  for about a half an hour and I hadn't
• 36:53
  had the chance to finish watching that
• 36:56
  last night, but I watched it last night
• 36:57
  laying in bed and uh uh with this
• 37:01
  Russian guy that was talking about all
• 37:03
  the testing and he was talking about
• 37:05
  some of these 337 facilities and uh
• 37:08
  Soliv was having a discussion with um I
• 37:12
  forget the guy's name. I wrote it down
• 37:13
  but you've gui something or other and uh
• 37:16
  he he gave an interesting take on it and
• 37:18
  they were talking about this 337
• 37:21
  facilities and I paid attention because
• 37:23
  I had already done the research on this
• 37:25
  and was talking to it and here's how it
• 37:28
  goes. The international monitoring
• 37:29
  system is the is like a success story
• 37:32
  from the western side and it really is a
• 37:35
  success story for the whole world with a
• 37:37
  catch. Okay. Uh when it's complete there
• 37:40
  are 337
• 37:43
  facilities,
• 37:44
  321 stations
• 37:48
  plus 16 radio nuclide labs. They're
• 37:53
  spread around 89 countries. They use
• 37:57
  seismic, infrasound, hydro acoustic and
• 38:01
  radionuclide tech to catch anything that
• 38:04
  goes boom. You know any any explosion
• 38:07
  they know about it. The network is
• 38:10
  approximately 90% complete and it is
• 38:14
  detected every declared DPRK test and
• 38:20
  the the data here's the catch that
• 38:22
  people don't like right the data stream
• 38:26
  to the IDC
• 38:29
  in where where is the IDC
• 38:33
  the international data center where does
• 38:36
  it
• 38:38
  Vienna, Virginia
• 38:41
  in near real time. That is why even
• 38:43
  without entry into divorce, cheating is
• 38:47
  hard. But the 337 facilities feed
• 38:51
  Vienna. Nobody else. The guy's name um I
• 38:55
  was right. It's Yfghani Bujinski. and uh
• 38:58
  but it's accurate on the count and the
• 39:00
  Vienna hub and it's consistent with the
• 39:03
  comprehens comprehensive testban treaty
• 39:06
  offic's own numbers. Um
• 39:09
  he said that Russia has dozens I think
• 39:13
  he's gave the number at 42
• 39:16
  um IMS facilities in Russia and the feed
• 39:20
  goes straight to Vienna so they know if
• 39:22
  somebody is uh is cheating and so we
• 39:25
  would know Vienna would know Trump would
• 39:29
  know if somebody was conducting a
• 39:31
  nuclear test underground or otherwise
• 39:34
  anywhere in the world we would know
• 39:36
  immediately. Okay. And all of that is
• 39:38
  correct. So you can bury the bomb, you
• 39:41
  can't bury a seismograph. I mean, you
• 39:43
  can, but you can't bury the fact that
• 39:45
  the tech of the seismograph transmits
• 39:48
  everything to Vienna,
• 39:50
  right? So, um, I don't know. That's
• 39:53
  that's the infrasound arrays, the
• 39:55
  hydrophones, all of that. And then
• 39:57
  radionuclide samplers all feed Vienna.
• 40:01
  And so the tech is all come of the US
• 40:03
  and they don't necessarily share it with
• 40:06
  everybody else. Okay. So where does the
• 40:10
  US uh well let's not talk just about the
• 40:14
  US. Let's talk about everything. What's
• 40:16
  the state of the law today? Right. The
• 40:18
  limited testban treaty 1963 is in force.
• 40:22
  No atmospheric space or underwater. Um
• 40:25
  so that one is still
• 40:28
  uh legal and literal. It's there. The uh
• 40:32
  threshold test ban treaty and the U
• 40:35
  peaceful nuclear explosion tests from 74
• 40:38
  and 76 are also in force since 1990
• 40:41
  capped at 150 kilotons. TTBT is the one
• 40:45
  that I participated in. Okay. Uh but
• 40:48
  comprehensive testban treaty bans all
• 40:51
  nuclear explosions um underground, above
• 40:54
  ground, anywhere. But it really isn't in
• 40:57
  force because a lot of the states
• 40:59
  haven't ratified it. And India, Pakistan
• 41:02
  and DR uh DPRK's case, they haven't even
• 41:05
  signed. Um but the the moratorum norm
• 41:10
  everybody is following for the most
• 41:13
  part. Um let's see. Um, uh, North Korea
• 41:18
  is the last to do it and I believe it
• 41:20
  was '08 and, uh, allegedly Iran had had,
• 41:25
  uh, they had suspected of doing it a
• 41:27
  couple of years ago and, uh, but I'm not
• 41:30
  so positive of that. But the norm is
• 41:33
  everybody is there's a moratorum on all
• 41:35
  of it. And if if Iran really had done
• 41:38
  one, they were talking about it, but
• 41:42
  they would know if uh a nuclear
• 41:44
  explosion had been conducted. We the US,
• 41:48
  we have been on a unilateral testing
• 41:51
  moratorum of our own with Russia
• 41:54
  actually since well Russia followed suit
• 41:57
  and so did China in 1992
• 42:00
  and we keep track of our stockpile but
• 42:03
  the comprehensive testban treaty was
• 42:05
  signed but never ratified and rejected
• 42:08
  in 1999.
• 42:10
  Both parties keep reaffirming the
• 42:13
  moratorum, but they keep the Nevada test
• 42:16
  site on caretaker status, you know,
• 42:19
  hoping to uh, you know, someday get to
• 42:22
  funnel all that money back out there to
• 42:24
  all their uh, private colleagues, right?
• 42:28
  Um, Russia of course revoked CTBT uh,
• 42:32
  that it was ratif uh, ratification
• 42:35
  um, which they had done some time ago.
• 42:38
  They revoked it in 2023, but it will
• 42:40
  still mirror it first. And even
• 42:43
  recently, Moscow, Pescov, uh, Putin have
• 42:47
  all said that we won't do anything
• 42:50
  unless Washington moves first. Okay. Um,
• 42:55
  could anybody sneak a test? The short
• 42:57
  answer is no. Um, it it's designed to
• 43:01
  catch it. you know, the CTBTO's chief
• 43:04
  publicly warns that any renewed
• 43:06
  explosive tests would harm global dis
• 43:10
  security. So, you know,
• 43:13
  that's his um response to a presidential
• 43:16
  directive in Washington to prepare for
• 43:19
  resuming testing. So, whatever anybody
• 43:22
  thinks about the politics, the
• 43:23
  international monitoring and diplomatic
• 43:25
  blowback really aren't theoretical. CTBT
• 43:29
  is not in force, but the trip wire is if
• 43:31
  you light the match and you know have
• 43:34
  the planet sensors file a report but for
• 43:37
  your press secretary can say no comment.
• 43:39
  Everybody knows that you've broken it,
• 43:41
  right? So um
• 43:45
  what are the common confusions? Israel
• 43:48
  is outside of everything. A lot of
• 43:50
  people like to say Israel never
• 43:51
  participates and they they you know they
• 43:53
  they've been very quiet about it. you
• 43:55
  know, nobody talks much about it, but
• 43:57
  Israel did sign the comprehensive
• 44:00
  testban treaty, but they haven't
• 44:02
  ratified it. Um, India, Pakistan, North
• 44:05
  Korea didn't even sign them. Um, if the
• 44:08
  CTBT isn't in force, nobody
• 44:13
  uh nothing stops anyone from uh from uh
• 44:18
  conducting nuclear testing. That's not
• 44:20
  right. um limited test ban and threshold
• 44:23
  test ban and the peaceful nuclear
• 44:26
  explosions are all in force. CTBT
• 44:29
  creates a political norm to detect and
• 44:31
  disclose and everybody is doing still
• 44:34
  the right thing but the zombies you know
• 44:37
  the undead treaty
• 44:39
  are still hanging around there. Um could
• 44:42
  you test small and hide it?
• 44:46
  I Well, I don't think so because the
• 44:49
  smaller you go, the less weapons useful
• 44:51
  data you get from an explosion anyway.
• 44:54
  The larger you go, the easier it is to
• 44:56
  detect. That's why the US have thrown
• 44:58
  resources at non-exlosive stockpiles
• 45:01
  instead of begging geology, you know, to
• 45:03
  uh let them test some huge ones again.
• 45:06
  So, I don't know. Um,
• 45:10
  good stuff. Where where does that leave
• 45:13
  us? It leaves us heading into the next
• 45:16
  segment which is America's history. Um,
• 45:20
  and what is the record of and the Nevada
• 45:24
  story, right? Let's set the scene first.
• 45:27
  And I told you a little bit about it cuz
• 45:29
  I was there. And uh, you're 65 miles
• 45:32
  northwest of Las Vegas. It's um,
• 45:36
  1360 square miles.
• 45:40
  It's the Nevada nuclear test site.
• 45:42
  today. It's called the Nevada National
• 45:44
  Security Site. Area 51's out there.
• 45:48
  Uh it's an America's nuclear workshop.
• 45:52
  From 1951
• 45:54
  until 1992,
• 45:57
  928
• 46:00
  nuclear explosive tests in total were
• 46:04
  created with 100 in the atmosphere
• 46:08
  and 828
• 46:11
  underground.
• 46:13
  The you know the the government still
• 46:16
  post these you know with with with you
• 46:19
  know pride that we have done this. I
• 46:21
  thought I thought it was nuts. The last
• 46:24
  US nuclear explosion was on September
• 46:27
  23rd of 1992.
• 46:31
  After that, there was a self-imposed
• 46:33
  moratorum. The desert didn't uh you know
• 46:37
  have another nuclear
• 46:40
  explosion since. So
• 46:44
  that was the end. But let's rewind to
• 46:46
  the 1950s
• 46:48
  when America was learning by doing.
• 46:51
  Sometimes learning the hard way. Above
• 46:54
  ground in those early years, you saw the
• 46:57
  mushroom clouds climbing over Frenchman
• 47:00
  flat and yucka flat. We had to watch the
• 47:02
  movies um to to you know the history. We
• 47:06
  had to we had like two days of history
• 47:08
  stuff when we got in there. the idea
• 47:12
  uh you saw soldiers, real people in real
• 47:16
  trenches brought in for exercises
• 47:20
  um to desert rock. The idea was to train
• 47:24
  for the nuclear battlefield
• 47:27
  to observe and to maneuver through the
• 47:29
  dust that it created. um at Upshot Knole
• 47:33
  in 1953.
• 47:37
  More than 21,000
• 47:40
  soldiers took part in Desert Rock 5,
• 47:45
  including for the famous atomic cannon
• 47:48
  shot Greyel. That is not an urban
• 47:52
  legend. It's a historic record. You
• 47:56
  still can find the videos of this, the
• 47:58
  old reels on old YouTube channels. And
• 48:02
  we had to watch those. Um, and I
• 48:07
  couldn't believe it. These people are
• 48:08
  out there with sunglasses on in foxholes
• 48:13
  and trenches. 21,000
• 48:17
  soldiers
• 48:19
  underneath a nuclear explosion so they
• 48:22
  could train. and they all got irdiated.
• 48:26
  And uh no doubt um 98%
• 48:31
  of them are dead by now, if not all of
• 48:33
  them. But uh uh there was plenty of
• 48:37
  issues from that. Um I watched those
• 48:40
  images. They're old black and white
• 48:42
  films, troops crouched in foxholes, then
• 48:46
  standing up under the cloud. These are
• 48:48
  not propaganda. They're primary source
• 48:52
  history. the own documentation on desert
• 48:55
  rock um or headcounts, units, distance
• 49:00
  from ground zero, a dry inventory of how
• 49:03
  to march men through a nuclear
• 49:06
  detonation.
• 49:08
  There's nothing romantic about it. It's,
• 49:11
  you know, radioactive
• 49:13
  logistics. It's nonsense. But by the
• 49:17
  time the 1963's limited testban treaty
• 49:20
  came about, atmospheric shots were over.
• 49:23
  Okay, they could go underground. So the
• 49:26
  program went underground. Arguably
• 49:28
  safer. Okay, I didn't know that I'm not
• 49:31
  so positive it was so safe when I was
• 49:34
  out there either. We had to wear a
• 49:35
  doseimter every every day. You had this
• 49:38
  thing clipped on your on your uniform or
• 49:40
  your clothes. We didn't wear uniforms
• 49:42
  out there. We wore uh uh you know I
• 49:45
  don't know dockers and uh pullovers but
• 49:48
  um you had to wear your doimeter
• 49:51
  everywhere you went and every month they
• 49:53
  would take your doceimeter badge and
• 49:56
  they would replace the doimeter. So you
• 49:58
  had your badge on it which showed where
• 50:00
  you could go on the facility. You know
• 50:03
  uh you had a TS for top secret and you
• 50:05
  had S for secret. There was a Q badge
• 50:08
  for the guys who were who were really up
• 50:10
  there and then uh or could go to every
• 50:13
  single site and mine was a TS and and we
• 50:17
  I got to go to all the cool places but
• 50:19
  not every single one of them, right? But
• 50:23
  but on the it would all always have this
• 50:25
  little uh this little uh chip on there
• 50:29
  that was a doimeter and they would take
• 50:31
  those things and I'd say now when do I
• 50:33
  get the readings? You can't have them.
• 50:36
  What? You're not allowed. You don't get
• 50:39
  You don't get your doimeter. That
• 50:41
  doesn't happen. You're you you your
• 50:43
  doimeter, you're not allowed to look at
• 50:45
  it. The only people that can look at the
• 50:47
  doimeter are uh uh I don't know what
• 50:50
  other people. So, I don't know how
• 50:51
  irradiated I was. And uh it'd be they
• 50:54
  said, "Well, allegedly you're allowed to
• 50:57
  file a Freedom of Information Act and
• 50:59
  get your doseimters." Maybe I should do
• 51:01
  that as part of the show. We'll we'll
• 51:03
  figure out how I can get from the
• 51:05
  Department of Energy or from the
• 51:06
  Pentagon or whoever's got it get my uh
• 51:09
  radiation studies. Wouldn't that be
• 51:11
  entertaining? Maybe I'll try to figure
• 51:13
  that out. I'll uh see if I can uh do a
• 51:16
  uh I'll I'll do some research on it and
• 51:18
  hopefully report that to you tomorrow
• 51:20
  night where we go from here.
• 51:23
  But by 1963, atmospheric shots were
• 51:26
  over. Program went underground. Um there
• 51:30
  were line of sight experiments that I
• 51:32
  told you a little bit about the HLOS,
• 51:34
  the firing of device down a pipe which
• 51:38
  would blast hardware without cratering
• 51:40
  the surface. And once in a while you
• 51:42
  would do a vertical line of sight test.
• 51:44
  And uh they did one called the Huron
• 51:47
  King in 1980 which was a an under 20
• 51:50
  kiloton device at the bottom of a shaft
• 51:53
  and a partially evacuated chamber at the
• 51:56
  service which contained live
• 51:57
  communication satellite
• 52:00
  and a vertical pipe that carried the
• 52:02
  radiation up to it. Mechanical closure
• 52:05
  snapped shut to stop it. stop the
• 52:08
  radiation before it shredded the the the
• 52:11
  payload, the um the uh what you call it
• 52:15
  the um communication satellite. Um
• 52:20
  but then the chamber got winenched away
• 52:22
  as the ground subsided and that's that
• 52:25
  actually occurred. You know, if you look
• 52:28
  out at Yaka Flat and there are pictures
• 52:30
  of it online, you can pull it up. You
• 52:33
  can imagine a uh a pockm marked plane of
• 52:36
  uh shallow bowls. Each one of them is a
• 52:40
  subsidance crater which is the overhead
• 52:43
  soil settling into a cavity left by the
• 52:45
  the explosion.
• 52:48
  So those bowls are permanent footnotes
• 52:51
  of underground testing. If you look at
• 52:53
  the aerial photos, you know it's the
• 52:56
  loomer al l lunar album of US nuclear
• 53:00
  history. So the naming protocols, they
• 53:04
  would name them, right? My own memory
• 53:06
  from this is because they used to pass
• 53:08
  out stickers for them all. And uh a lot
• 53:11
  of them were named for Texas counties
• 53:14
  and uh that one um
• 53:18
  there was a test called Bayer and it was
• 53:20
  around San Antonio. That one went up on
• 53:23
  April 4 of 1991.
• 53:25
  Okay. Um,
• 53:28
  and uh, let's see.
• 53:31
  Trying to remember the dates of that if
• 53:33
  I was there for that one,
• 53:36
  man. I I it would have been close. I I I
• 53:41
  came to the I but I can't remember uh
• 53:45
  what what the name of the I was there on
• 53:47
  so many of them cuz at any given time
• 53:49
  they were drilling holes for two or
• 53:50
  three different tests and so you were
• 53:53
  bouncing around between different holes
• 53:55
  and different uh vertical or horizontal
• 53:58
  shafts of where you they were able to
• 54:00
  look at and the Russians could go we
• 54:02
  want to go to this site today or we want
• 54:03
  to go to that site. You go to different
• 54:05
  ones. Um but um the you remember how
• 54:10
  these uh I told you about the cables and
• 54:13
  the huge money that they spent on that
• 54:17
  uh there there were so many of these
• 54:19
  that had gone on. I mean crossing these
• 54:23
  places in the desert it was you know
• 54:27
  kind of surreal to watch what was going
• 54:29
  when we had to drive 45 50 miles. I
• 54:32
  mean, it was a huge facility. Like I
• 54:35
  said, 1300 and something square miles
• 54:38
  and uh 65 miles from Vegas, but you you
• 54:41
  you'd have to go another 60 into the
• 54:43
  interior where they would uh blow these
• 54:45
  things up, right? And uh I don't know.
• 54:50
  Uh Nevada didn't always get everything
• 54:52
  right. I told you a little bit last
• 54:54
  night about Baneberry in 1970 and the
• 54:57
  venting gas plug failed. the fissure uh
• 55:01
  opened up and radioactive plume uh put a
• 55:05
  column about 10,000 feet in the air. So
• 55:09
  they didn't always not every one of them
• 55:12
  collapsed as they were supposed to
• 55:13
  collapse and and do so
• 55:17
  um they did some peaceful use testing.
• 55:20
  They were anything but peaceful to the
• 55:22
  people that were living uh downwind of
• 55:24
  there. There was one called the Sedan uh
• 55:28
  test in 1962 which was part of operation
• 55:32
  plowshare. It was a nuclear earth moving
• 55:35
  experiment that cut a crater in the
• 55:39
  ground 1,280
• 55:41
  ft across and 320 ft deep. Still the
• 55:48
  biggest man-made hole you can tour in
• 55:52
  the US. But the sedan also produced
• 55:55
  heavy fallout across the country. All
• 55:59
  across the country. So a classic example
• 56:02
  of how engineering with nuclear bombs
• 56:05
  collides with the public health. The
• 56:08
  crater is huge. The plume map is uh
• 56:12
  distressing. Okay. So let's put this in
• 56:15
  a simple timeline. Our government well
• 56:17
  put it in a simple thought process.
• 56:19
  First, our government has been
• 56:22
  destroying us for the longest of times.
• 56:25
  And uh from 1951 to 1962, they did it
• 56:29
  with nuclear testing. 100 times above
• 56:32
  ground. Okay. So, the signature images
• 56:36
  are towers, airdrops, balloon shots,
• 56:39
  mushroom clouds you could see from
• 56:40
  Vegas. Uh from 1963 on they went
• 56:45
  underground shafts thousands of feet
• 56:47
  deeps, devices sealed in canisters,
• 56:49
  diagnostic snaking back to trailer
• 56:52
  complexes. Through the 70s and 80s the
• 56:55
  you know there were there were uh names
• 56:59
  of these things. Mandrel, Grommit,
• 57:01
  Tinderbox, Skoolin, Julen till Divider
• 57:04
  ended the chapter in 1992. So what has
• 57:07
  the US done since we hung up this um big
• 57:12
  uh faux hammer? The subcritical
• 57:16
  experiments in U1A complex is now
• 57:18
  rebranded pulse. These are deep
• 57:21
  underground experiments with plutonium
• 57:25
  and high explosives
• 57:28
  that never go critical.
• 57:33
  Right? No self- sustaining chain
• 57:35
  reactions, no nuclear explosions. It's
• 57:39
  basically a stockpile by measure. They
• 57:43
  they they verify it by measuring and
• 57:46
  math, high-speed diagnostics, X-ray
• 57:48
  imaging, simulations that keep nuclear
• 57:51
  warheads safe and reliable and do not
• 57:55
  break the test moratorum. So, the
• 57:58
  government does talk about these openly.
• 58:00
  You know, they do run a press release
• 58:01
  when one is fired. The first Nimble
• 58:05
  series shot under Pulse was in May of
• 58:08
  2024. So since 1992, it's been only
• 58:12
  physics, you know, um not mental clouds.
• 58:17
  Um uh mushroom clouds, I mean. Um the
• 58:21
  sites go from Mercury up through
• 58:24
  Frenchman Flat. It's a very large place.
• 58:26
  There's special effects. There craters
• 58:28
  everywhere and there are accidents and
• 58:30
  rumors. Bottom line is America built an
• 58:33
  underground testing machine
• 58:36
  and uh tell you what they used it and uh
• 58:41
  you know that is what they did. And a
• 58:44
  and a personal aside from me um because
• 58:48
  I was there and uh we were laying cable,
• 58:52
  you know, like I told you about and to
• 58:54
  the NASA control room and I I thought it
• 58:58
  was really cool and interesting, but I
• 59:00
  also thought what a freaking waste of
• 59:03
  money. How many of these tests did you
• 59:07
  need?
• 59:09
  I mean, seriously, we conducted almost a
• 59:12
  thousand tests.
• 59:14
  A thousand nuclear explosions
• 59:17
  underground and above ground. Only 10%
• 59:19
  of them above ground. But what do we get
• 59:22
  out of it? Seriously. And if everything
• 59:26
  is aging and it doesn't do any good
• 59:28
  anymore and Trump says we got to start
• 59:30
  it back up, now what?
• 59:33
  the world has gone to these
• 59:36
  u you know less lethal means. Why in the
• 59:41
  world would we want to go start all that
• 59:42
  crap again?
• 59:45
  I don't know. We haven't lit a real
• 59:47
  device since ' 92.
• 59:50
  We have kept the engineering talent I
• 59:54
  suppose is alive underground.
• 59:57
  Um stockpile is still there. the site is
• 1:00:01
  ready, I suppose, if the president does
• 1:00:04
  order
• 1:00:06
  a return to testing. That's unclear yet,
• 1:00:10
  but you couldn't just jump right back
• 1:00:12
  in, right?
• 1:00:14
  Well, let's move on to what Russia has
• 1:00:17
  been doing or did over the same period
• 1:00:21
  because they did a good number of these
• 1:00:24
  two. So let's talk about Semipalatinsk
• 1:00:29
  and Nova Ziml. Uh the Russian story for
• 1:00:34
  their testing
• 1:00:36
  semiolatinsk is in uh today's Kazakhstan
• 1:00:41
  also called the polygon the polygon and
• 1:00:45
  Nova Zimla the Arctic archipelago where
• 1:00:49
  Soviets lit the sky with Zar Bomba. Do
• 1:00:51
  you remember Zar Bomba? the largest
• 1:00:53
  nuclear explosion ever. And then later
• 1:00:57
  they dug into perafrost to keep the
• 1:00:59
  bangs underground. And between these two
• 1:01:01
  facilities, you get a backbone of the
• 1:01:04
  Soviet and the Russian testing record.
• 1:01:07
  So uh Tar Bomba, you can go out and
• 1:01:10
  watch that footage on um YouTube. Zar
• 1:01:14
  Bomba Zar being you know Zar and the
• 1:01:17
  Bomba of course bomb the the Zar bomb is
• 1:01:21
  huge and you should check it out. Um in
• 1:01:24
  semi palatinsk this is
• 1:01:28
  picture the expanse of of a small US
• 1:01:30
  state
• 1:01:32
  18,000 to 19,000 square kilometers
• 1:01:36
  uh carved into zones for different kind
• 1:01:38
  of experiments. They had an experimental
• 1:01:40
  field for atmospheric shots. They did it
• 1:01:43
  too. They had bore holes. Um they had an
• 1:01:46
  atomic lake and they had something
• 1:01:49
  called Dealen Mountain for tunnel tests.
• 1:01:52
  From 1949 to the 1980s, the Soviets did
• 1:01:57
  about 456
• 1:01:59
  tests.
• 1:02:02
  116 to 118. Nobody knows the actual
• 1:02:05
  amount above ground. So more than us.
• 1:02:10
  and 340
• 1:02:12
  or so underground.
• 1:02:15
  That's the official tally cited by
• 1:02:17
  international health and monitoring
• 1:02:18
  bodies that have been studying the area
• 1:02:21
  for decades. I wonder and and the funny
• 1:02:24
  part is you can't find anything about
• 1:02:26
  this international health and monitoring
• 1:02:28
  bodies that have been monitoring what's
• 1:02:31
  gone on near Nevada. How come we don't
• 1:02:34
  have the same thing? And these are all
• 1:02:36
  western. They get to go over there. Oh
• 1:02:37
  jeez, we're really worried about these
• 1:02:38
  international health and monitoring
• 1:02:40
  bodies. Look what those Russians were
• 1:02:42
  doing. We were doing the same thing.
• 1:02:45
  Nonsense. I I I I never understand that.
• 1:02:48
  It's always, well, look what they were
• 1:02:50
  doing. Well, what were you doing at the
• 1:02:53
  same time? Anyway, semipalatinsky is
• 1:02:56
  where the USSR went from the first
• 1:02:59
  lightning was the name of the uh device
• 1:03:02
  in 1949
• 1:03:04
  and uh
• 1:03:07
  they began to uh mature into an
• 1:03:11
  industrial uh testing machine. They were
• 1:03:13
  they were pretty regular about it just
• 1:03:16
  like us. And after the 1963 limited
• 1:03:19
  testban treaty pushed everybody out of
• 1:03:22
  atmospherics, they shifted to
• 1:03:24
  underground as well. They did the same
• 1:03:27
  thing vertical and tunnels. They they w
• 1:03:30
  moved underground and cut visible
• 1:03:32
  fallout but didn't erase the legacy.
• 1:03:35
  Everybody has a long paper trail of
• 1:03:37
  health studies in neighboring
• 1:03:39
  communities. And um
• 1:03:43
  the site was formally shut down in
• 1:03:45
  August 29 of 1991,
• 1:03:50
  a date later adopted by the UN as the
• 1:03:53
  International Day against nuclear
• 1:03:56
  testing.
• 1:03:58
  So the atomic lake that shouldn't exist.
• 1:04:03
  In January 1965,
• 1:04:05
  the Soviet Shagan test at Balapon
• 1:04:09
  excavated a crater and left behind a
• 1:04:13
  turquoise bowl that is called the atomic
• 1:04:17
  lake. It's more than a photo op. It
• 1:04:20
  kicked off a diplomatic headache. US and
• 1:04:23
  Japanese sensors picked up radioactive
• 1:04:26
  debris outside of the USSR, which was a
• 1:04:31
  problem under the limited testban treaty
• 1:04:33
  because it banned that release debris
• 1:04:36
  beyond your own borders was a problem.
• 1:04:39
  Uh Moscow's line was it was deep
• 1:04:42
  releases were insignificant. Washington
• 1:04:45
  cried foul. Either way, the physics
• 1:04:48
  lessons
• 1:04:49
  uh stood even contained underground
• 1:04:54
  shots can uh you know burp up uh fishing
• 1:04:58
  products into the open if the burial
• 1:05:01
  isn't deep enough or the geology is
• 1:05:04
  water saturated. Okay. Um let's go on to
• 1:05:10
  Nova Zimla where the Russians um where
• 1:05:13
  where where the ceiling
• 1:05:15
  um was the sky until it wasn't right. Uh
• 1:05:19
  there were three test zones there with
• 1:05:21
  three separate purposes. Zone C is Suhoy
• 1:05:24
  uh NOS in the big air arena. Uh massive
• 1:05:30
  atmospheric tests including the Tsar
• 1:05:33
  Bomba in 1961.
• 1:05:37
  approximately 50 megat tons
• 1:05:41
  the largest shot above ground. Then they
• 1:05:44
  had zone A Chonaya Guba Black Bay early
• 1:05:50
  underwater and above water surface shots
• 1:05:53
  and later a handful of vertical
• 1:05:56
  underground tests
• 1:05:58
  and then they had zone B matkin sh the
• 1:06:02
  tunnel complex. Um these are tunnels cut
• 1:06:05
  into metamorphic rock under persistent
• 1:06:08
  perafrost where most underground testing
• 1:06:11
  happened from 64 to 90. Um most of these
• 1:06:14
  were were were tunnels vertical I mean
• 1:06:17
  I'm sorry horizontal. Uh so depending on
• 1:06:19
  which technical catalog you read, Nova
• 1:06:22
  Zimlad hosted about 130 to 132 tests
• 1:06:26
  total. The vast [snorts] majority of
• 1:06:29
  Soviet total yield with 42 underground
• 1:06:32
  after the limited test ban treaty
• 1:06:35
  move um you know parties underground.
• 1:06:38
  The last Soviet test was October 24 of
• 1:06:41
  1990.
• 1:06:43
  This is where Soviet engineers learned
• 1:06:46
  to run very large yield underground
• 1:06:49
  shots in frozen rock. Yields were
• 1:06:53
  estimated up to multi-megaton class
• 1:06:56
  underground. And um wow. If semi
• 1:07:00
  palatins was a factory, Nova Zimla was
• 1:07:03
  the cathedral where they proved that uh
• 1:07:06
  you know the containment would hold and
• 1:07:08
  because they had some big tests up
• 1:07:10
  there. Um the perafrost uh fractured a
• 1:07:15
  couple of times at Matkinshar
• 1:07:18
  uh Soviet data released after the cold
• 1:07:20
  war indicated that a lot of noble gas
• 1:07:23
  seepage from underground was around and
• 1:07:26
  there were twothirds of the event showed
• 1:07:28
  some release and several significant
• 1:07:30
  venting incidents that forced them to
• 1:07:33
  change their practice.
• 1:07:36
  um you know uh the US had their uh
• 1:07:40
  mistakes as well but the Soviets
• 1:07:43
  especially in the north had more so
• 1:07:46
  after 1990 the shutdown and what's going
• 1:07:50
  on presently semipalatants closed in 91
• 1:07:54
  um independent Kazakhstan
• 1:07:57
  um studies since then document health
• 1:08:00
  and environmental problems Nova Zimlab
• 1:08:03
  was quiet after 1990
• 1:08:06
  at least for nuclear explosions. What's
• 1:08:08
  changed lately is politics. In 2023,
• 1:08:11
  Russia revoked its ratification of
• 1:08:13
  comprehensive nuclear threshold, I'm
• 1:08:16
  sorry, nuclear testban treaty, saying it
• 1:08:18
  wanted parody with the US, which signed
• 1:08:20
  but didn't ratify. uh diplomats still
• 1:08:22
  say they more the mirror the moratorum
• 1:08:26
  but they say that the Arctic site is
• 1:08:30
  ready if uh the US starts over again
• 1:08:34
  with testing. So in 2024 the head of
• 1:08:38
  that site said publicly that he could
• 1:08:40
  take re resume testing at any moment.
• 1:08:44
  So theirs is closer. So the lights
• 1:08:47
  aren't on but the switch does work and
• 1:08:49
  everybody knows where it is. basically.
• 1:08:52
  So let's talk about the Burvnik for just
• 1:08:55
  a minute. I gave a story on that. Um a
• 1:08:58
  little bit of a tale last week on the
• 1:09:00
  Burvesnik and the test and what they've
• 1:09:02
  done. So the separate categories B
• 1:09:05
  separate Burvesnik is the nuclearpowered
• 1:09:08
  cruise missile says a lot about Russia's
• 1:09:10
  willingness to play at the edge of
• 1:09:11
  nuclear technology. But it's not a
• 1:09:13
  nuclear explosive test like the ones
• 1:09:16
  conducted in Sumi Palatinskov Zimla.
• 1:09:18
  It's a reactor powered propulsion
• 1:09:21
  system. It is not a nuclear explosion.
• 1:09:24
  Okay? So, all it is is propulsion just
• 1:09:27
  like you got in a nuclear sub. We do
• 1:09:28
  them too. And uh it's just we haven't
• 1:09:32
  done anything this small. And now um I
• 1:09:35
  believe the old Trumpster sitting there
• 1:09:37
  going, "Wait a minute. We don't have
• 1:09:39
  anything like that." because we don't um
• 1:09:42
  we don't have anything that'll fly
• 1:09:44
  14,000 kilometers and loiter and sit and
• 1:09:48
  you could have it sit there for a very
• 1:09:50
  long time on a nuclear engine and uh so
• 1:09:54
  well when are we making nuclear engines?
• 1:09:57
  Nobody knows but maybe they're testing
• 1:09:59
  them as well. And maybe since we're not
• 1:10:02
  I'm not involved in it anymore maybe we
• 1:10:04
  do have something similar. I don't think
• 1:10:06
  so though or we'd be all too proud to
• 1:10:08
  talk about it and so far we're not.
• 1:10:12
  So [sighs and gasps]
• 1:10:13
  I don't know
• 1:10:15
  talking about readiness. Um the
• 1:10:19
  implication is the Russians say they can
• 1:10:22
  uh uh you know test a uh test a nuclear
• 1:10:27
  bomb with this at any time
• 1:10:32
  underground
• 1:10:34
  and see what happens. I don't know. Um
• 1:10:37
  that's that's what Russia has done. But
• 1:10:40
  everything is still closed, right?
• 1:10:44
  Everything is closed. The semipalatinsk
• 1:10:48
  taught them how to test, but it's
• 1:10:50
  closed. Nova taught them how to contain.
• 1:10:53
  It's still closed. And now Moscow is
• 1:10:56
  saying that, you know, we still can uh
• 1:11:00
  can do this if you guys start up again,
• 1:11:03
  right?
• 1:11:04
  Um I wanted to make Let's see what else
• 1:11:09
  we got here. But we were moving on to uh
• 1:11:12
  France,
• 1:11:14
  UK, China, India, Pakistan, and Israel
• 1:11:19
  and North Korea. And what they did cuz
• 1:11:22
  the French were a little bit I remember
• 1:11:25
  studying all this stuff years and years
• 1:11:26
  ago. And uh uh there was some nostalgia
• 1:11:30
  and going through it for me because it
• 1:11:32
  was uh
• 1:11:34
  wow. I I had
• 1:11:38
  I had forgotten how much there was to
• 1:11:41
  forget. [laughter] Let's put it that
• 1:11:43
  way. Um so France, they did some
• 1:11:47
  explosions in the Sahara all the way to
• 1:11:49
  the South Pacific. You know, France used
• 1:11:52
  to, you know, have colonies all over the
• 1:11:54
  place. They didn't do it in France. They
• 1:11:56
  So they did it in Algeria, right? They
• 1:11:59
  ran 210 tests total. So the French did
• 1:12:04
  17 in Algeria from 60 to 66,
• 1:12:09
  193 in French Polynesia from 66 to 96.
• 1:12:13
  the official French uh breakout. Four
• 1:12:16
  atmospheric,
• 1:12:18
  13 underground
• 1:12:20
  and in in uh one of the places uh Echer,
• 1:12:25
  46 atmospheric
• 1:12:27
  and 147 underground at Muroa
• 1:12:32
  and uh in um Polynesia, right? Polynesia
• 1:12:36
  area.
• 1:12:38
  So in the Sahara, the early shots went
• 1:12:41
  into the air. The rest were drilled into
• 1:12:44
  granite and and echer. Containment
• 1:12:46
  failed. Um, sometimes is what they say.
• 1:12:51
  Uh, the barell tunnel test in May 1962
• 1:12:55
  vented hot rock and a radioactive cloud.
• 1:12:59
  Ministers on site were caught in the
• 1:13:02
  plume. You know, they got killed on it.
• 1:13:06
  Um, if the mountain, you know, you can't
• 1:13:09
  outrun it. If it if it erupts, you know,
• 1:13:12
  you're not going to outrun it. And in
• 1:13:13
  Polynia, the France moved the program to
• 1:13:16
  the Pacific in ' 66. 46 atmospheric
• 1:13:20
  tests and then they went underground and
• 1:13:23
  reef and under lagoon in the ocean.
• 1:13:28
  I I find this this is me, but and I'm I
• 1:13:32
  don't know this to be absolutely true
• 1:13:34
  because I am not a nuclear scientist,
• 1:13:38
  but what a place to conduct a nuclear
• 1:13:40
  test. You're going under coral reefs and
• 1:13:44
  setting them off. What in the world were
• 1:13:46
  you thinking? I mean, I say that to all
• 1:13:48
  of them, but especially these crazy
• 1:13:52
  French. That's nuts. Paris's own public
• 1:13:56
  posture. In 2025, there was a
• 1:13:59
  parliamentary inquiry that scrutinized
• 1:14:03
  fallout and compensation of people in
• 1:14:06
  Polynesia
• 1:14:08
  and they've been busy defending, you
• 1:14:10
  know, the the uh uh nuclear testing over
• 1:14:14
  there have been defending its record.
• 1:14:16
  But even the French regulators are
• 1:14:18
  admitting uncertainty in old dose
• 1:14:22
  reconstructions.
• 1:14:23
  So,
• 1:14:25
  you know, the cancer claims are not all
• 1:14:28
  closed, right? France's latest test was
• 1:14:32
  1996 and it ratified the comprehensive
• 1:14:35
  test ban treaty in 98. So, [sighs]
• 1:14:39
  what about the United Kingdom? They did
• 1:14:42
  it in Australia, the Pacific, and
• 1:14:46
  Nevada.
• 1:14:48
  The UK did a total of 45 tests between
• 1:14:52
  1952 and 1991,
• 1:14:55
  21 atmospheric tests
• 1:14:58
  uh in Australia
• 1:15:01
  and the Pacific and 24 underground tests
• 1:15:06
  conducted conducted at the Nevada
• 1:15:08
  nuclear test site usually in cooperation
• 1:15:11
  with the United States. Um you know now
• 1:15:14
  they actually talk about it. Britain
• 1:15:16
  raced to the Hbomb with Operation
• 1:15:19
  Grapple in 1957-58
• 1:15:22
  after earlier Australian shots. Um,
• 1:15:25
  veterans accounts and lawsuits are still
• 1:15:28
  surfacing right in Nevada. After the
• 1:15:32
  1963 limited test ban, Whiteall took its
• 1:15:35
  work underground
• 1:15:37
  in the US. Those 24 shots in Nevada
• 1:15:41
  closed out also in 1991. Right.
• 1:15:44
  So what did China do during this time?
• 1:15:48
  China is kind of an outlier
• 1:15:51
  in in one sense. All of its tests were
• 1:15:56
  at La Nure in Jing Jang I think it's
• 1:16:00
  called uh the commonly cited total is 45
• 1:16:04
  tests total 23 atmospheric and 22
• 1:16:09
  underground.
• 1:16:11
  Some say it's actually 47
• 1:16:14
  depending on how you treat uh the
• 1:16:17
  counting. So nobody knows for sure. Uh
• 1:16:22
  China used towers, airdrops, high
• 1:16:24
  alitude rocket shots early on. Then they
• 1:16:28
  moved to shafts and tunnels as the
• 1:16:30
  limited testban treaty, you know, uh
• 1:16:34
  took effect.
• 1:16:36
  um the treaty status for China as I told
• 1:16:38
  you before uh they signed it but haven't
• 1:16:41
  ratified it but they abide by the
• 1:16:43
  moratorum.
• 1:16:45
  Now let's move on to India and Pakistan
• 1:16:48
  in 1998.
• 1:16:50
  This is after everything. India did two
• 1:16:53
  tests at Pran which is Rajasthan.
• 1:16:57
  1974
• 1:16:59
  the smiling Buddha they did a single
• 1:17:02
  underground device uh publicly framed as
• 1:17:05
  a peaceful nuclear explosion.
• 1:17:08
  And then in 1998 Pocranu and operation
• 1:17:11
  shockti they did five underground
• 1:17:14
  devices from May 11th to May 13th
• 1:17:18
  including a thermonuclear design which
• 1:17:22
  is still debated to this day. Nobody
• 1:17:24
  knows whether they really did it or not.
• 1:17:26
  They did tactical fishing units and a
• 1:17:28
  subkiliton experiment. Pakistan
• 1:17:33
  answered two weeks later with Shagai May
• 1:17:36
  28th of 1998.
• 1:17:39
  Pakistan announced five underground
• 1:17:41
  devices in uh the Rosco range. Seismic
• 1:17:45
  data clearly shows at least one major
• 1:17:49
  event yields in the exact count are
• 1:17:52
  still argued. Then Shagai 2 on May 30th
• 1:17:55
  2 days later they did another
• 1:17:58
  underground shot in the Karan desert. So
• 1:18:01
  neither India nor Pakistan has signed
• 1:18:04
  the comprehensive testban treaty. They
• 1:18:07
  both observe unilateral moratorum but
• 1:18:11
  legally they're outside defense. So they
• 1:18:14
  don't they don't belong.
• 1:18:19
  Let's see. Israel, they don't talk. You
• 1:18:23
  never get anything. They are clearly
• 1:18:27
  blocked. It's widely assessed that
• 1:18:30
  Israel possesses nuclear weapons and it
• 1:18:34
  has signed but not ratified the
• 1:18:37
  comprehensive testban treaty. There are
• 1:18:39
  no declared Israeli nuclear tests. There
• 1:18:44
  is a one allegation that in 1979,
• 1:18:49
  the VA incident where a US satellite saw
• 1:18:53
  a double flash south of Africa
• 1:18:57
  consistent with an atmospheric test.
• 1:19:00
  Later reviews split between a likely
• 1:19:03
  test
• 1:19:05
  or other phenomenon. The National
• 1:19:08
  Security Archive has the declassified
• 1:19:11
  paper trail. And the US never made a
• 1:19:14
  formal accusation. It's the same old
• 1:19:17
  thing for uh for uh Israel. Nobody ever
• 1:19:21
  questions him, right? Then nobody can.
• 1:19:23
  It's the Schrodener test. Simultaneously
• 1:19:26
  did and didn't depending on which memo
• 1:19:29
  you wish to read. Then the one that
• 1:19:32
  everybody condemns is North Korea. I
• 1:19:34
  don't understand why, you know, why
• 1:19:36
  don't they have the right to do
• 1:19:37
  anything? They're a country. Why doesn't
• 1:19:40
  anyone I don't want them to, but who are
• 1:19:43
  we to tell another country they're not
• 1:19:45
  allowed? Uh the only state to test
• 1:19:48
  nuclear devices in the 21st century is
• 1:19:51
  North Korea. They did six underground
• 1:19:54
  tests, 2006, 2009, 2013, two in 2016,
• 1:20:00
  and one in 2017. and Pyongyang claims
• 1:20:02
  the last was a thermonuclear device. So
• 1:20:06
  the uh comprehensive testban treaty
• 1:20:09
  organization international monitoring
• 1:20:11
  system said the seismic signatures were
• 1:20:14
  recorded each time and so the network
• 1:20:16
  does exist and they can u you know keep
• 1:20:19
  track. So um
• 1:20:23
  plenty of tests. I what I meant to do
• 1:20:26
  was try to find something that would uh
• 1:20:28
  take them all for the entire u time
• 1:20:32
  period. How many atmospheric tests
• 1:20:35
  occurred and how many underground and um
• 1:20:41
  underwater
• 1:20:43
  that would be interesting to know.
• 1:20:46
  So we already talked about the treaty
• 1:20:48
  posture and and where we are going in
• 1:20:53
  that. Could testing resume and what
• 1:20:56
  would it take? The US law and the
• 1:21:00
  treaties today.
• 1:21:02
  The US is under a self-imposed moratorum
• 1:21:06
  since 92. The limited test band of 63
• 1:21:10
  still bans atmospheric and underwater
• 1:21:12
  space shots. So anything legal would
• 1:21:15
  have to be underground and fully
• 1:21:18
  contained. The threshold test ban and
• 1:21:21
  PNET uh are limited at 150 kiloton and
• 1:21:25
  it is in force. So the comprehensive
• 1:21:28
  test ban bans all test but isn't in
• 1:21:31
  force for the US because it was signed
• 1:21:34
  but not ratified. So the president could
• 1:21:38
  lawfully order an underground test under
• 1:21:41
  US law, but it would shred three decades
• 1:21:46
  of US policy and every global norm that
• 1:21:50
  we've been following for the last 35
• 1:21:54
  years, 34.
• 1:21:56
  Russia and China revoked as well the
• 1:21:59
  comprehensive testban treaty in 2023
• 1:22:04
  whatever they're that they had ratified
• 1:22:06
  earlier and both say they will mirror
• 1:22:09
  the US moratorum
• 1:22:12
  in 2024.
• 1:22:14
  Nova Zimla said they were ready at any
• 1:22:17
  minute. China signed but but never
• 1:22:20
  ratified. I apologize I got that wrong
• 1:22:22
  in the last sentence. um uh they hadn't
• 1:22:25
  ratified. Russia revoked its
• 1:22:27
  ratification, but China also has a
• 1:22:31
  moratorum and China hasn't done anywhere
• 1:22:34
  near as much as anybody else of the
• 1:22:36
  majors anyway. So
• 1:22:40
  I don't know how long would it take.
• 1:22:42
  That's an interesting question. There's
• 1:22:45
  a a government accountability office has
• 1:22:48
  noted that if the issue required an
• 1:22:51
  underground test, the length of time
• 1:22:53
  would be 18 months or more. Another GAO
• 1:22:57
  review said it would take up to 3 years
• 1:23:01
  to execute a test. Current reporting
• 1:23:04
  around Washington um underscores the
• 1:23:08
  same point, years, not months, unless
• 1:23:12
  corners are cut. an above ground shot,
• 1:23:15
  which is illegal, or a rush rushed
• 1:23:17
  underground event would uh uh both have
• 1:23:21
  to be rushed. Um so anyone promising you
• 1:23:25
  next month, that's nonsense. Um I if
• 1:23:29
  you're going to do it underground, it
• 1:23:31
  takes forever.
• 1:23:33
  A recent expert estimate for cost, what
• 1:23:37
  does it cost?
• 1:23:39
  puts a single underground test in the
• 1:23:43
  nine figures range,
• 1:23:48
  100 million with some places citing
• 1:23:53
  140 million. Once you add specialized
• 1:23:57
  drilling instruments, containment,
• 1:24:00
  security, recovery, the exact figure
• 1:24:04
  depends on depth, yield, geology,
• 1:24:08
  and what sort of data you are looking
• 1:24:10
  at.
• 1:24:13
  A modern underground test is a $100
• 1:24:16
  million question mark.
• 1:24:19
  And what would you get out of it? Nobody
• 1:24:22
  knows. What's on the shopping list?
• 1:24:24
  Right people.
• 1:24:26
  Containment geologists, stemming
• 1:24:29
  designers, deep hole drillers, timing
• 1:24:32
  engineers, diagnostic engineers,
• 1:24:34
  radiation health, emergency response.
• 1:24:37
  The old gray beards who remember
• 1:24:39
  problems you don't want to rediscover
• 1:24:42
  have all retired. Maybe you got to bring
• 1:24:44
  them back. The go GAO flagged workforce
• 1:24:47
  and aging infrastructure across the
• 1:24:49
  entire enterprise.
• 1:24:52
  with attrition and gaps. You need
• 1:24:55
  hiring, training, requalification.
• 1:24:58
  Not happening anytime soon.
• 1:25:01
  Holes and hardware, drilling rigs.
• 1:25:04
  They've all been taken away. They've all
• 1:25:06
  I mean, why would they leave them sit
• 1:25:07
  there that long? If they did, they'd all
• 1:25:09
  be unusable by now anyway. They need
• 1:25:12
  stemming material, miles of
• 1:25:14
  instrumentation cable, which has to be
• 1:25:16
  conducted. And then the US, how long are
• 1:25:19
  we going to do to put that into place to
• 1:25:21
  create these new upgraded cables?
• 1:25:24
  Billions of dollars for that. Safety and
• 1:25:26
  off-site protection, modeling, pre-shot,
• 1:25:29
  air monitoring, rapid response plans,
• 1:25:32
  drillback plans, what they have to do to
• 1:25:34
  get that, paper and process, a
• 1:25:37
  presidential directive, internal safety
• 1:25:39
  boards, independent containment review,
• 1:25:42
  all kinds of stuff. So before you buy
• 1:25:44
  the bomb,
• 1:25:46
  you better buy the equipment, buy the
• 1:25:48
  hole, get the cork, get the wire, get
• 1:25:50
  the people so you uh don't screw it all
• 1:25:53
  up before you even get started, right?
• 1:25:56
  The why in the world question is this.
• 1:26:01
  Why do we care to do this again?
• 1:26:05
  Does it resolve the uncertainty in an
• 1:26:08
  aging stockpile that you can't get from
• 1:26:10
  a simulation?
• 1:26:12
  I don't know. GAO says there's other
• 1:26:15
  options short of testing. Refurbishment,
• 1:26:19
  selective uh retirement waiverss, you
• 1:26:22
  know, something like that. Prove a new
• 1:26:24
  design, I suppose, would be another
• 1:26:26
  reason to conduct a test. Maybe when a
• 1:26:30
  new primary or unfamiliar physics
• 1:26:32
  package, I don't know, maybe it's a
• 1:26:34
  deterrent to somebody else, a show of
• 1:26:37
  strength. Maybe we're trying to find out
• 1:26:39
  data that we can use in outer space and
• 1:26:41
  radiation stuff like that.
• 1:26:44
  But then there's some why nots
• 1:26:48
  because you break the norm. CTBT is not
• 1:26:51
  enforced. The moratorum is there though
• 1:26:54
  and people aren't doing it. um
• 1:26:57
  everything that anybody does comes to
• 1:26:59
  Vienna and the only person uh country
• 1:27:02
  that has done anything in the last um
• 1:27:07
  well this century you know since the
• 1:27:09
  turn of the century has been North Korea
• 1:27:12
  number one there's it risk an arms race
• 1:27:16
  and you don't need it the US has
• 1:27:18
  certified the stockpile for decades and
• 1:27:21
  uh you know time and money tons of money
• 1:27:24
  18 months minimum in my view to get you
• 1:27:27
  out there. And you still might not like
• 1:27:32
  the answer. Some tests vent,
• 1:27:36
  underperform, or reveal awkward truths.
• 1:27:42
  Nobody could really be sneaky about this
• 1:27:45
  to do it right now. We're going to find
• 1:27:47
  out immediately. Um, ramping up going to
• 1:27:51
  take a while. What do you watch for?
• 1:27:56
  Deep drilling. Watch for purchase. Uh
• 1:27:59
  watch all the messaging that people are
• 1:28:01
  doing. And uh in late October 2025, the
• 1:28:06
  US media have reported this presidential
• 1:28:09
  order to order to prepare for war. Is it
• 1:28:12
  possible? Technically, yep. My story
• 1:28:15
  tells you it's technically possibly
• 1:28:18
  ready. Operationally ready? Nope. Not
• 1:28:21
  tomorrow. 18 to 36 months is would be
• 1:28:24
  the uh window. Strategically smart. I
• 1:28:29
  say no. Um only you only do it if you
• 1:28:33
  can explain what answer you need that
• 1:28:36
  you can't get in other ways, right? You
• 1:28:39
  have all the data still available to
• 1:28:41
  you. And what about a geopolitical
• 1:28:44
  cascade?
• 1:28:46
  Russia's ready. China says it's ready.
• 1:28:49
  And everyone is uh
• 1:28:54
  really
• 1:28:56
  we don't need this. [laughter] It'd be
• 1:28:58
  foolish for any of them to do it. So
• 1:29:00
  basically, could we do it? Yes. Will it
• 1:29:03
  impress anyone? No. Will it impress The
• 1:29:06
  Rock? No. The Rock wants depth, you
• 1:29:08
  know, not speeches. Will it impress our
• 1:29:10
  rivals? Probably not. More important
• 1:29:13
  audience is the network of sensors and
• 1:29:15
  allies that hear everything. In 2025,
• 1:29:18
  the cost of a bang isn't money in
• 1:29:21
  months. It's the sound of what? US
• 1:29:24
  credibility hitting the floor. Once
• 1:29:27
  again, we need to stay away from this.
• 1:29:30
  My name is Samuel Trap. I did get
• 1:29:33
  through the entire
• 1:29:37
  uh content of what I wanted to get here
• 1:29:39
  for part two. I appreciate you
• 1:29:41
  listening.
• 1:29:42
  um ask you to join Monday through I'm
• 1:29:45
  sorry, Sunday through Thursday every
• 1:29:48
  week 900 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at
• 1:29:52
  damradio.comlive
• 1:29:54
  or at internationalflavor.com.
• 1:29:57
  Good night.