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Nuke U: How the University of California Is Helping to Blow Up the World
Since the early 1940s, UC has managed the nation's top laboratories for designing nuclear bombs. Today, California's public university system is still immersed in the nuclear weapons business.
Sixty-five years after the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Aug. 6 and 9, 1945, the University of California imprimatur is an air freshener for the stench of preparations for global annihilation. Nuclear war planners have been pleased to exploit UC's vast technical expertise and its image of high-minded academic purpose.
During most of WWII, scientists labored in strict secrecy at the isolated Los Alamos lab in the New Mexico desert, making possible the first nuclear weaponry. After the atomic bombings of Japan, UC continued to manage Los Alamos. And in 1952, when the government opened a second nuclear bomb generator, the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory east of San Francisco, UC won the prize to manage operations there, too.
A few years into the 21st century, security scandals caused a shakeup. UC lost its exclusive management slots at Los Alamos and Livermore, but retained major roles at both laboratories.
In mid-2006, the Los Alamos lab went under a new management structure, widened to also include Bechtel and a couple of other private firms. A year later, a similar team, likewise including UC and Bechtel, won a deal to jointly manage Livermore.
At Los Alamos, I learned that the new management team was, legally speaking, an LLC, a limited liability corporation. I'm still trying to wrap my mind around the concept of "limited liability" for managers of a laboratory that designs nuclear weapons.
Weird, huh? But not any stranger than having the state of California's top system of higher education devoted to R&D for designing better ways to blow up the planet.
Yes, those laboratories do some nifty ecological research and other laudable things. But nuclear weapons remain central to the labs' mission. And, lofty rhetoric aside, the federal government is pouring billions more dollars into the continuous high-tech pursuit of nuclear weapons "modernization."
Last spring, the White House announced plans for this decade that include investing $80 billion "to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex"—in addition to "well over $100 billion in nuclear delivery systems to sustain existing capabilities and modernize some strategic systems."
In fact, the U.S. government is now on a jag to boost spending for its nuclear arsenal. As the Livermore-based organization Tri-Valley CAREs noted weeks ago, "the 2011 budget request for nuclear weapons is the largest in our nation's history; bigger than under George W. Bush and a whopping 40 percent higher than the amount spent for nuclear weapons activities on average during the Cold War."
Credit where due: the UC-managed laboratories for nuclear bombs have been on the cutting edge of digital advancement. Their record recalls a comment from Martin Luther King Jr., who noted the proliferation of "guided missiles and misguided men."
When I interviewed Los Alamos press officer Kevin Roark, he explained that "this laboratory has been at the forefront of computing research and development" from the Manhattan Project days of slide rules and punch cards to the lab's present-day computers, with one able to do upwards of 100 trillion calculations per second.
An official website of the University of California boasts that "UC has been involved in the management of these laboratories since their inception—a relationship spanning seven decades—as a public service to the nation." With a lab on the UC Berkeley campus included in the mix, "the three laboratories have a combined workforce of more than 21,000 and operate on federally financed budgets totaling more than $4 billion."
For sure, there's plenty of money sloshing around to reward the masters—and academic servants—of the nuclear weapons industry. But should the University of California be managing laboratories that design the latest technologies for nuclear holocaust?
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52 Comments so far
Show AllThe Lab has gotten the majority of the Federal stimulus money in New Mexico. 16th highest county in USA.
OilBomber has increased funding for new Abomb trigger designs.
And half of the latest research walks out the gates as CD's in the pockets of Chinese and israeli spies.
Now that's a comforting thought.
And I thought nuclear warfare was so last century!--excepting depleted uranium, of course. Los Alamos is also the center for developing directed-energy weaponry.
Jill, I normally enjoy your posts, but this one is just not correct.
DARPA is a very, very small organization with a surprisingly large budget. DARPA is manned by managers. They provide contracts to universities and private companies to do innovative research. These universities and companies are NOT subsidiaries of DARPA, and usually, what funding they receive from DARPA is a tiny percentage (usually less than 1%) of their actual budgets. The first letter in DARPA is Defense, so it behooves them to fund research with a militaristic bent.
Don't blame universities for this kind of "education". This is where the money is. If our government provides plentiful funding for weapons research, this is where scientists will go. If instead our government provided plentiful funding for green research, our scientists would greet that challenge with the same kind of enthusiasm.
The issues that you mention stem from our government and it's desire for world hegemony; they are not driven by scientists.
On the other hand, DoE has a program called SBIR (Small Business Innovation Research) which often goes to small companies and startups for creative research and early production.
Jill,
As a psychologist with 30 years of university research, I can say with all sincerity that your initial post is the most ignorant and anti-intellectual statements I've ever seen.
Your second post simply extends the stupidity, framed in your self-righteous "ethics".
The only thing worth saying is this: You really ought to keep your mouth shut when you don't know what you're talking about.
This is a third slimy comment on Solomon's article, again written by someone who has no idea what she's talking about.
It's a bit more complicated than simply typing names into google. Even if you get the right information, you have to have enough intelligence to know how to interpret it. Subsidiaries of DARPA and OGA - do you even know what a subsidiary is?
You claim they recruit people with no ethical center. But how can you smear all these people, about which you know nothing?
This is without a doubt one of the stupidest, most anti-intellectual comments I've ever seen.
And you, Doug, appear to be one of those with a Kool-Aid drinking problem.
What are your own credentials to post such a critical analysis?
As a psychology student in the university of california system in the 1960's I learned that 80% of the funding for psychological experiments within that system came from the defense department and I am sure that many other important educational systems have the same arrangement. I remember being fascinated by the experiments with dolphins until I learned that the navy was funding this research in order to determine if the dolphins could be trained to carry bombs. Of course now I realize that the number one priority of America is controlling the world through permanent war.
Solomon Asch, Stanley Milgram, Philip Zimbardo. Great experiments that reveal so much about human nature. Unfortunately, just as with 1984 and Brave New World, they've been taken up as guides by the criminals in charge. I'm sure Zimbardo believed that his Stanford Prison Experiment could help people resist situationally-induced sadism. Then came Abu Ghraib. Wonder who funded his experiment?
Makes you hope people run out of ideas.
Thalidomide,
I was also a psychology student in the UC system in the 1960's, and then spent roughly 30 years as a research psychologist at a large state university.
I have no idea where you got your information from, but your claim that 80% of psychological research funding within the UC system came from the defense department is simply absurd.
Yes, some researchers get grants from agencies such as the "Office of Naval Research", but these are far fewer than they get from government agencies such as the NSF and NIMH. Most of the defense-funded research in psychology is involved in studying cognitive (e.g., attention) and emotional (e.g., stress) processes that might help or impair the individual person. Although the defense department saw the information as valuable to soldiers, the researchers designed it in a way that made it more relevant to all humans than simply soldiers (It tended to be basic rather than applied research).
By far most external grants in psychology go into clinical research, with no relation to defense except perhaps PTSD. The overwhelming majority of dophin research (of which there is very little) is concerned with language and social behavior, both of which have little connection with warfare.
"What do you do for your living?"
"I invent things."
"Good things? Does it increase the cost efficiency of backyard solar electricity, maybe?"
"No, I invent better ways to mass-murder thousands and millions of people in an instant."
"Does this give our country some inherent advantage over other countries?"
"No. We know pretty much for sure that once something is invented, everybody else in the world can and will re-invent it."
"So, you're inventing the probable deaths of all your grandchildren, where otherwise they would have had a much better chance?"
"Yes, but the pay is good. Look at all these things I've bought!"
gotta pay the mortgage...
unless we take back the land...
Excellent! It's wonderful how humor can even bring a smile when talking about the darkest of truths.
A smile accompanied by gut pain.
Indeed it was....hope Doug sees it....his 30 years "experience" has made him an angry man.
Things could be worse. Imagine if Lockheed Martin had won the management competition. Although the current LLC includes Bechtel and others, UC is still key. At least UC does not maneuver behind the scenes to promote war and stockholder profits.
But the problem is not who manages; it is who directs and what the direction is. There should be a complete change in the goals of the labs - from nuclear weapons to renewable energy and counteracting global warming. That would energize the staff, reduce the risk of nuclear war and help make real progress in energy use transformation. To the extent that Obama promised real change, he needs to be held to account.
I'm sure the teaching staff at UC is comprised of people of good character, but they don't run the place. The senior management at most state universities are selected by politicians through the political process. In the end, they are just businessmen, no different in character than the businessmen who run Bechtel ... or BP for that matter.
Not to be picky, but Los Alamos is not an "isolated ... lab in the New Mexico desert". It's in the northern high country (at 7320 ft) of NM, northwest of Santa Fe. While bombs and things are tested in the desert down south, Los Alamos is not down there.
To RichM:
Norman Soloman is not quite in the same league as the U. of C. Is that not obvious? You are a little over the top here.
Generally:
If UC doesn't do it—support the military-industrial complex—someone else will, but that doesn't mean that they should not be slammed for doing it. Similarly for all the other "reputable" academic institutions going after the big bucks.
The whole country and most of its institutions of "higher learning" are saturated with this madness. UC may have a disproportionately higher number of "defense" and nuclear-related contracts, but most universities have their own share and are always competing to get more. That's where the real money is.
Obama's nuclear budget is bigger than Bush's, he's even more committed to modernizing our nuclear capability, and he appropriately wins the Nobel Peace Prize for this and his ongoing and unblinking commitment to extending our illegal, criminal wars in the Mideast. Then he has the predictable temerity to warn Iran against any nuclear daydreams it might have, expecting no one to notice the glaring hypocrisy.
We pour countless billions, hell, trillions, into our well-oiled death machine, but can't muster the energy or interest to pass a decent health care bill; do anything real to address our utterly failed educational system (in which poorly educated people with high tech skills line up to work in nuclear weapons labs); create a jobs program to get millions of unemployed back to work with living wages; shore up our disintegrating infrastructure; convert from nuclear, oil and coal to sustainable non-polluting energy systems--you know, do anything life-sustaining.
No, the Greatest Country in the World is devoted to destroying the world. It's our sole identity. It's what makes us FREE. Will we ever even begin to realize how insane all this is? Or will we just rationalize it in millions of ways, the way insane people have always done?
Ephraim -
You provide no evidence for your opening comment . If you are going to make such a preposterous claim, then you should provide evidence and references for your assertion that:
"The whole country and most of its institutions of "higher learning" are saturated with this madness. UC may have a disproportionately higher number of "defense" and nuclear-related contracts, but most universities have their own share and are always competing to get more. That's where the real money is".
This statement is not remotely true. Having a physics department has nothing to do with manufacturing nuclear weapons. Having a nuclear engineering department has little, and in most cases nothing, to do with manufacturing nuclear weapons. By no stretch of the imagination would the term "saturated" be appropriate in this context. Even when you try to hide behind the more ambiguous word "defense", you seem to be confused regarding the amount of research and money involved.
I am not defending UC Berkeley. I am defending the overwhelming majority of our universities from overgeneralized smears such as yours.
Ever consider adding an anger management class to your resume Doug?
No, I haven't done extensive research or written a book about this, so I don't know precise locations and federal grant amounts that have gone to university R&D on nuclear weapons. And it may be that "most" universities participating in nuclear weapons work is an exaggeration. But it is hardly confined to UC, as the following sampling of references indicates:
http://www.brookings.edu/projects/archive/nucweapons/sites.aspx
http://www.nrdc.org/nuclear/expl/eainx.asp
http://freelance-documentdrivennews.blogspot.com/2010/02/toxic-colleges-made-nuclear-weapons.html
Beyond Sputnik: US Science Policy in the 21st Century (book)
So before you accuse me of "smearing" our pristine and innocent university system, maybe you should do some research of your own. Nuclear weapons R&D is spread around all over the country and has been for 50 years, as anyone knows who's been awake to the US's full commitment to military overkill. Are you suggesting this research and development is limited to only a few strategic sites, and our universities are only focused on pure learning? Get real, as they say. Maybe you have your conscience to protect, who knows? Since the Manhattan Project, major universities have been full participants in nuclear weapons R&D, though you're right that they haven't ALL been. So "saturated" was a bit of hyperbole on my part. But the broader laboratory work that emanates from original university research certainly saturates this nation. Which of these marvellous institutions do you work for?
This is another outstanding article by Norman Solomon. Solomon didn't give a complete systemic analysis it's true, but he did get at the fact that a major educational institution is party to providing the means to blow up the planet. The fact is as might be clear to many is the whole educational system like the media is a servant of the military industrial national security complex.
AD
UC is a land grant college. Just about every state has a couple. Most have the word "state" in their name, ie Oregon State, Arizona State. These are the aggie schools. They were set up to help the farmers produce more food. It has been a spectacular success. For example after they rounded up all the American Indians in the mid west and put them on the "res", a lot of the land could be given away - homesteaded - and get the sod busters our there and provide a living for a lot of white settlers. Up until now we have food busting out of our seams. You know we are all overweight. ( That might change. See Russian fires. ) However, the way this was accomplished was with fossil fuel ie. oil. We use oil at the rate of about 100 calories of energy for every 10 calories of food energy we produce.
So it makes sense that UC would be interested in energy production. Atomic bombs are about the best energy production event that mankind has been able to achieve. It served it's purpose, ending the war an all, but it was bit wasteful. But that what war is - wasteful. It wont be much longer and we will be all wasted out. Nothing left to waste. Maybe a sacrificial lamb would be in order.
Curtis said "UC is a land grant college. Just about every state has a couple. Most have the word "state" in their name, ie Oregon State, Arizona State."
California has those kind of colleges too, they are called California State Colleges (or more correctly now, Universities) and are totally different and separate from the UC system, always have been. So I am not sure what point was supposed to be made and whether it applies to the State College system but getting the main facts wrong don't help to make your point.
I hope my next lab technician job doesn't involve working in a nuclear power plant but in North Dakota, they'll pay us more money to work in one than in most other technical labs. They promise full time jobs too so I won't be limping from one temporary job to another. I get some strange feeling that I have to take a criminal's job just to be prosperous, happy, and get a good date. I'm stumped on which direction to take.
I can have ethical strength but how do I know if or where it will get me? What if I don't ever get any viable choices? I'll try my best to work in some place better but I have to get some balance somewhere out of all this for now.
Does anybody remember a "smallpox supervirus" project?
Back in (I think) 2006, the New York Times (most likely; otherwise the WaPo) described a biomedical lab at (I think) University of Miami.
They were developing a smallpox supervirus which would be resistant to all treatment and vaccination. Supposedly the purpose of the research was based on a hypothetical scenario of the terrorists developing such a virus and in case they did, we should develop one so we could study how best to combat it.
I know this is all vague, but I did read this article. When I looked it up online later, I couldn't find a damn thing about it.
"Does anybody remember a "smallpox supervirus" project?"
Google smallpox chimeras.
Great link here: http://www.zkea.com/archives/archive05003.html
“It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding.” –Upton Sinclair
I knew this quote, and I've read Upton Sinclair, but never noticed that this quote was from him. Amazing how it applies so neatly to so many situations today!
As a worker in this area, I do object to the misinformation pedaled by Solomon, and his hidden agenda sucks.
Yes, there have been some mismagement missteps during UC's management tenure, mostly due to the fact that managing a diverse state-wide system of university campus' is very, very different to managing a National Laboratory. My question to Solomon is: Would you rather have DoE provide the management? We are already seeing the fallout of having private companies manage national facilities like Sandia NL and the South Pole.
Solomon also falls far short in explaining that most of the work conducted by LANL is in the area of nuclear stewardship and alternative energy. These are significantly larger efforts in terms of funding and manpower than research into "modernization" of our nuclear arsenal. All work today on modernization is modeled on computers, which in turn makes significant contributions to grid and databasing technologies (among others).
I look rather to the University of Illinois where, in 1986, my nuclear family godfather established "Swords and Ploughshares" - published by the Program in Arms Control, Disarmament and International Security (ACDIS). Arthur has since passed away, and how I still miss him.
Link: http://acdis.illinois.edu/aboutacdis/history.html
Trylon
Knowing that LANL also does considerable research in alternative energy does help me sleep at night. LANL, LLNL and SNL account for more than 95% of US research into alternative energy. It is clear that your call to shut down the NLs is poorly thought out, unless you are a shill for the oil and coal companies.
Your specious claims against stewardship are also poorly reasoned. Our nuclear weapon stockpile contains over 90% of the nation's available processed plutonium. Stewardship ensures that this stuff is not stored in a cement-lined drum and dumped/forgotten in some temporary land-fill. Again, your arguments display a complete absence of critical thinking. We have let the genie out of the bottle, and it is not going anywhere.
Finally, in response to your utterly and ignorant comment "One could NEVER imagine a research institution from which useful technology arose out of purposes other than mass slaughter", I think about Salk, Sabin, Watson/Crick, ALL fundamental physics research conducted prior to the 1920s, astronomy, seismology, ad nauseum, the list of scientific milestones that was not funded by, or contributed to, the MIC, is endless. Most FUNDAMENTAL research is not funded by the MIC; the MIC looks only to applied research. It appears that you advocate that we, mankind, stop wondering.
What you consider indoctrination, is in reality unfettered curiosity, a component of the human condition, that the MIC taps into.
University of California is not alone in their efforts to blow up the world, Tel Aviv is trying hard to surpass them.
I haven't seen CD carrying any articles or news stories on the strikes, walkouts, campouts and a whole lot of determined action at UC campuses. Don't know if I missed when they appeared, but I hope it's not an intentional blackout of this action born out of great conviction and solidarity.