20,000 Megatons: U.S. Contemplates

20,000 Megatons

U.S. Contemplates

Considering the present state of international affairs, with the CIA, the Defense Department, and that globe-trotting Machiavelli, Henry Kissinger, all doing whatever they please in the name of that catch-all excuse, "national security," it's not too surprising that the United States government may be currently violating two major international treaties regarding nuclear escalation and the deployment of nuclear warheads in the seabeds of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

Tony Hodges, Executive Director of Life of the Land, a Hawaii-based environmental group, claims that the U.S. Navy, under the direction of the Defense Department and possibly the CIA, has been planning and has begun to implement, at least experimentally, a program to place nuclear missile silos and other underwater nuclear launching devices in the seabed under the

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"Collection of data necessary for specific site selection began on a massive scale in 1 968, utilizing the Deep Sea Drilling Project of the National Science Foundation's Glomar Challenger."

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code name “Operation Desktop.”

Such a program would be in direct violation of both the Strategic Arms Limitation (SALT) agreements and the 1971 Seabed Arms Control Treaty.

Working from confidential sources within the Lockheed, Westinghouse and Rand Corporations, Hodges – who recently visited Ann Arbor to make his only public presentation to date – claims to have discovered that feasibility studies and experimental deployment were performed as early as 1971, just months after the Seabed Arms Control Treaty was signed.

"Such use of nuclear arms was outlawed because it was believed that they could threaten the sea-life environment, and had the potential danger of causing earthquakes and tidal waves," says Hodges.

"I don't want to see the sea bottoms become a nuclear battleground."

In an effort to curtail this project, Hodges, a one-time U.S. Senate candidate from Hawaii, has presented his findings to Senator Frank Church, Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, on December 15. Church called for an immediate investigation of the matter, but has yet to come up with a report.

A copy of Hodges' 47-page, quasi-scientific report, has also been presented to the 52 signers of the 1971 Seabed Arms Control Treaty and to the United Nations General Assembly.

Interestingly, the results of his eight month investigation have been met by a virtual media blackout by the nation's leading newspapers and broadcast networks.

Beginning with an investigation of the Glomar Explorer, the $300 million Howard Hughes super-ship, which was built ostensibly to recover a sunken Russian submarine in the CIA's "Operation Jennifer," Hodges learned that submarines and other naval vessels of this type may have actually been used for seabed drilling of missile silos south of Honolulu and off the Atlantic coast.

Hodges contends that the hull of the Glomar Explorer was too small to carry the remains of the Soviet submarine and that the vessel was equipped to do the drilling work required for emplanting missile silos under the seas. He claims that the Glomar Explorer's real purpose was to install missile silos in the deep ocean, probably in July and August of 1974.

"The CIA and Colby provided a cover for 'Operation Desktop' by leaking the story of 'Operation Jennifer' to Seymour Hersh and Jack Anderson," Hodges says. "The story was leaked because the real operation was going to be exposed as a result of accidental theft."

Hodges says there are three basic types of nuclear missile-launching devices presently being used: the free-floating device (nuclear missiles encased in floating cannisters, just under sea level, that can be detonated from any distance by a low-frequency radio signal); a tethered launching device (where the nuclear warhead is only anchored to the seabed); and the missile silo, like those used on land (see llustration). All three of these would be in direct conflict with treaty agreements.

"These devices are almost impossible to detect," explains Hodges, "and offer an excellent opportunity for surprise attack." Seabed silos can be located almost anywhere in the world's oceans, as deep as 5,000 meters. They can be installed in so-called "sensitive areas" under the cover of commercial and scientific operations. Offshore drilling rigs, Hodges says, are often used as covers for these operations.

From sources in the Rand Corporation, Hodges learned that silos can be pre-fabricated and equipped with missiles, "allowing for simple, remote-control emplacement in water depths to which submarines can't go."

In addition, seabed silos are almost invulnerable to attack. According to Hodges, the effects of a one-megaton blast would be less on a seabed silo than on a land silo. It would be very difficult to guide any warhead to a seabed target.

The feasibility of such a system has been confirmed by various sources. Spokepersons from the U.S. Navy have admitted that there were preliminary investigations of seabed nuclear deployment, but insist that "the investigations never went beyond the talking stage."

Dr. John P. Craven, former Chief Scientist of the Navy's Strategic Systems projects, admitted to Hodges in an interview that "The data necessary for specific site selection exists for most of the possible sites. Collection of this data began on a massive scale beginning in 1968, through utilizing and partially directing the Deep Sea Drilling Project carried out by the National Science Foundation's Glomar Challenger."

Kosta Tsipis, a well-known analyst of strategic missile systems and a director of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Center for International Studies, says that seabed missile systems are "absolutely possible, and that they need not be placed in the deepest water to become invulnerable to attack." Such seabed silos, Tsipis says, could even be placed in a lake.

Hodges' investigation has led him to believe that, in addition to implanting missile silos and other launching devices in the seabed, the United States may be experimenting with tidal wave and earthquake generating devices. "Such devices could be used as a threat against third world countries," he says. continued on page 28

In one of three possible installations, a nuclear missile could be launched from a conventional silo on the ocean floor; capsule opens and missile heads for target. Would Seafarer give the signal?