Info 2007 - Nuclear Weapons: Who has what

Photo by Cristina Biaggi, 1983

NUCLEAR WEAPONS: WHO HAS WHAT

Arms Control Association, October 2007

At the dawn of the nuclear age, the United States hoped to maintain a monopoly on its new weapon, but the secrets for making nuclear weapons soon spread. Four years after the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japan in August 1945, the Soviet Union detonated its first nuclear device. The United Kingdom (1952), France (1960), and China (1964) followed. Seeking to prevent the nuclear weapon ranks from expanding further, the United States and other like-minded states negotiated the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT in 1968. In the decades since, several states have abandoned nuclear weapons programs, but possess nuclear arsenals. Iraq initiated a secret nuclear program under Saddam Hussein before the 1991 Persian Gulf War. North Korea announced its withdrawal from the NPT in January 2003 and tested a nuclear device in October 2006. Iran and Libya have pursued secret nuclear activities in violation of the treaty’s terms.

Nuclear Weapon States
The nuclear-weapon states (NWS )are the five states – China, France, Russia, United Kingdom and the United States – officially recognized as possessing nuclear weapons by the NPT. Although the treaty legitimizes these states’ nuclear arsenals, it also establishes that they are not supposed to build and maintain such weapons in perpetuity. Article VI of the treaty holds that each state-party is to “pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament.”

In 2000, the five NWS committed themselves to an “unequivocal undertaking…to accomplish the total elimination of their nuclear arsenals.” But for now, the five continue to retain the bulk of their nuclear forces. Because of the secretive nature with which most governments treat information about their nuclear arsenals, the figures below are best estimates of each nuclear-weapon state’s nuclear holdings, including both strategic warheads and lower-yield devices referred to as tactical weapons:

China: 100-200 warheads
France: 350 strategic warheads
Russia: 4,327 strategic warheads, 2,000-3,000 operational tactical warheads and 8,000-10,000 stockpiled strategic and tactical warheads
United Kingdom: Less than 160 deployed strategic warheads
United States: 5,914 strategic warheads, 1,000 operational tactical weapons and 3,000 reserve strategic and tactical warheads.

Defacto Nuclear-Weapon States
Three states – India, Israel and Pakistan – never joined the NPT and are known to possess nuclear weapons. Claiming it nuclear program was for peaceful purposes, India first tested a nuclear explosive device in 1974. That test spurred Pakistan to ramp up work on its secret nuclear weapons program. India and Pakistan both publicly demonstrated their nuclear weapon capabilities with a round of nuclear tests in May 1998. Israel has not publicly conducted a nuclear test, does not admit to or deny having nuclear weapons and states it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Nevertheless, Israel is universally believed to possess nuclear arms. The following arsenal estimates are based on the amount of fissile material – highly enriched uranium and plutonium – that each of the states is estimated to have produced. Fissile material is the key element for making nuclear weapons. India and Israel are believed to use plutonium in their weapons, while Pakistan is thought to use highly enriched uranium.

Israel: 75-200 warheads
Pakistan: up to 60 warheads

States of Immediate Proliferation Concern
Iran is pursuing an uranium enrichment program and other projects that could provide it with the capability to produce bomb-grade fissile material and develop nuclear weapons within the next several years. In contrast, North Korea has the material to produce a small number of nuclear weapons, announced its withdrawal from the NPT and tested a nuclear device. Uncertainty persists about how many additional nuclear devices North Korea has assembled beyond the device tested in 2006. In September 2005, Pyongyang “committed to abandoning all nuclear weapons and existing nuclear programs.”

Iran: no known weapons or sufficient fissile material stockpiles to build weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) concluded in 2003 that Iran had established the capacity to indigenously produce fissile material. The IAEA continues to investigate and monitor Tehran’s nuclear program.

North Korea: has separated enough plutonium for up to 12 warheads

Syria: has foresworn nuclear weapons as a state-party to the NPT and its nuclear research reactor is subject to IAEA monitoring. In September 2007, Israel conducted an airstrike on what unnamed officials and some analysts allege may have been the construction site of a nuclear research reactor similar to North Korea’s Yongbyon reactor. In addition, according to a 2004 declassified intelligence report to Congress, “Pakistani investigators in late January 2004 said they had ‘confirmation’ of an IAEA allegation that Abdul Qadeer Khan offered nuclear technology and hardware to Syria, according to Pakistani press, and we are concerned that expertise or technology could have been transferred. We continue to monitor Syrian nuclear intentions with concern.”

States That Had Nuclear Weapons or Nuclear Weapons Programs at One Time
Belarus, Kazakhstan and Ukraine inherited nuclear weapons following the Soviet Union’s 1991 collapse but returned them to Russia and joined the NPT as non-nuclear-weapon states. South Africa secretly developed and dismantled a small number of nuclear warheads and also joined the NPT in 1991. Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program prior to the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but was forced to verifiably dismantle it under the supervision of UN inspectors. The March 2004 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq definitively ended the country’s pursuit of nuclear weapons. Libya voluntarily renounced its secret nuclear weapons efforts in December 2003. Argentina, Brazil, South Korea and Taiwan also shelved nuclear weapons programs.

SoNG: Waterloo Talking Blues

Women's Video Collective. Copyright 1983. All Rights Reserved.

Ann, singing Waterloo Talking Blues, 1983. 

 Waterloo Talking Blues 
Written by Ann, 1983
PeHP Source: WVC  
 

This song, written shortly after the incident, tells the story of the 54 women who were arrested in Waterloo in the summer of 1983 as they attempted to march from Seneca Falls, NY to the Women's Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice.

Well, we took a bus from New York City

about 45 of us, we all we’re ready

to meet our sisters for a walk in Seneca Falls.

Slept on the floor of a church overnight,

got up in the morning early and bright

to pay a friendly call on the Women’s Hall of Fame.

Honoring the feminists, community locals,

the founding mothers of our not-to-distant past:

Lucretia Mott, Jane Hunt, Harriet Tubman,

Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

Well, we gathered en masse upon the lawn,

formed a circle and raised a song.

With our voices high and our banners drawn,

a bunch of us, slightly over a hundred in all

Proceeded in an orderly fashion gaily forward,

up the straight and narrow and formerly public

sidewalk in the town of Seneca Falls

Well, our peace parade moved right along

and we carefully stayed off the town’s folks lawns

And we’re totally amazed when an egg was thrown

from the upper most, flag-draped window of a two-story home

Didn’t do too much damage but it looked as though

our 15-mile hike was indeed going to be a long one.

When a message came down from some women who knew

and had seen just what were about to go through,

a mile or two up the road in a town called Waterloo.

Waterloo? Do you recall what happened to Napoleon Bonapart

when he visited there some time ago. Do you?

Well, never mind, we said, we’ll go straight on through,

singing, “This land I your land, we live here, too.”

In what hitherto, and somewhat mistakenly, I suppose,

was still considered a free country.

Well, we got to the bridge and to our dismay,

there were hundreds of townspeople blocking the way

waving little American flags stapled to sharp pointy sticks.

Screaming “Nuke the Lezzies” and “Kill the Jews!”

“Let’s get some blood on the evening news!”

“Go home, commies!” But all we were trying to do

is to stop the deployment of the Pershing and Cruise.

And to honor our fine, founding mothers and

our fine, founding sisters along the way.

We were mighty concerned about the men folk’s flatteries

and the sheriff’s bullhorn had run out of batteries

so none of the sides could figure out

what was being said exactly but they were getting awful loud.

That sheriff kept getting smaller and smaller

while the peace camp women got taller and taller

which was pretty damned amazing because by then

we were all sitting down in our circle again

In the asphalt lawn on the sticky black pavement

at the very peak of the mid-afternoon, July 30th, Waterloo sun.

Let’s have a meeting with the Waterloo 54.

Well, we reached consensus, soon I’d say,

and agreed, indeed, it was here we’d stay.

The KKK can stand in the way

of a bridge but can not, I repeat, can not, kill the spirit.

But those kindly townspeople were about to throw us

over the bridge to the river below us

but not before they killed us first

with their sharp pointy sticks

or smothered us in the flag.

With guns and feet, four-letter words and fist

they yelled and they swung and they swung and they missed

But the sit-down women, I said, the sit-down women,

yeah, the sit-down women were accused of inciting a riot.

Now a man came out and raised a loaded gun

but he was just a local boy having him some fun

So they hauled him in and let him ride out again

on just a tiny, little, bit of bail.

But the brave and mighty Sheriff Greer

was worried about election year

so him and a couple dozen cops in riot gear

dragged the Waterloo 54 off to jail.

For their own protection, of course,

but mainly for the protection of the sheriff’s job, of course.

But none of the women even backed down,

the sidewalk is public whether village and town

and there ain’t no judge’s cousin or police chief’s son

that should dare to think he could ever own one.

The 54 women held fast that day

being dragged in the wagon and taken away.

Unjustly arrested and falsely detained

and now about to be arraigned

on a misguided, much abused charge of disorderly conduct.

That’s, quote, disorderly conduct, unquote.

Strange how none of them drunked-up, flag-waving hellion,

spewing all kinds of vile obscenities, breaking through the police lines

trying to get at the women were not considered disorderly.

Of course, boys will be boys.

In the meantime

The sheriff searched high and low for a judge

While the D.A. Diller was sitting drunk in fancy little country club

a few miles down the road.

Yep, Huey Diller had been drinking hard

and the judge was home in his own backyard

having a little Saturday night barbeque with his family, friends and neighbors

and wasn’t in the mood to do any favors

for the cowardly sheriff, the drunk D.A., or just about anybody –

especially ones he didn’t even know -

but he was about to meet the mighty expanding family of the sisters Doe.

None of whom looked anything alike but all of whom

had identical first and last names, Jane Doe.

The magistrate, sunburned and grim,

couldn’t believe what had happened to him

that even he was being dragged in

on a Saturday night to arraign some innocent women for walking on a sidewalk.

Falsely accused, unjustly detained,

the Waterloo women agreed to maintain

dignity, composure, solidarity and silence - and that was just for openers.

“What’s your name?” “Jane Doe,” the first woman said,

and they threatened her with all they threaten women with

if you don’t tell them who you are from the very start.

“Will take your property, your watch and your car

and then we’ll even add on an extra charge –

‘obstructing governmental processes’ and we’ll put you all behind bars

for a year. Who the hell do you think you are, anyway?”

“Jane Doe,” the second woman said the exact same thing

and so did the third and the fourth and the fifth

and so it went on down the line,

mothers, sisters, daughters and wives

sharing one of the truly amazing adventures of our lives

in the rapidly expanding family of the sisters Doe. My how they multiply.

Well, we all got moved to the Interlaken Jail

and we all got held on $50 bail

which we all refused to pay

and awaited a court date five days away.

Then Julie came in to save the day,

“Legal counsel,” she said, “we’ll do what we can.”

“C’mon, Julie, just get us out of here and on our way.”

“Well,” she said, “we’ll do what we can.”

Well, we tried to figure out what we’d do and say

and worked out the details of bail solidarity

and even did local outreach in a limited way

due to the nature of our geographic area.

Mona was our guard, solid all the way,

brought in the veggies, took the junk food away

and even brought us some cigarettes as we watched day merge into day.

August 1st we were ready for action

but separated from our peace camp faction

so we thought we’d start a little reaction of our own

to what was going on outside of the Seneca gate without us.

So we stacked our cots, blockaded the door

and raided Pepsi from the lunchroom refrigerator

and chanted and sang and danced on the floor

until they sprayed the mace through the kitchen window.

Now the papers said that the food was flying

and we were even throwing furniture at each other but they were lying,

trying to make it appear that we were creating a distraction.

Well, the truth of the matter was at eight in the morn

long before the blockade of the jailhouse dorm,

while the guards were busy playing Frisbee on the lawn,

two little ones, so brave and strong,

got a wild hair somewhere, got over being scared,

jumped out a window and simply disappeared.

It was a long, long time – about 14 hours and 12 headcounts later –

before they were even discovered missing. Escaped.

In legal jargon, this constitutes a felony. And that, of course,

opened the rest of the women to the standard

prison harassment technique of a strip search.

What was that? Strip search.

Well the matrons came at us wearing rubber gloves,

things came to push, things came to shove

and we assured those jr. high school jailhouse guards

that we weren’t hiding any prisoners up our vaginas.

“Girls,” she yelled.

“Women,” we said.

“All right, girls,” she said.

“Women.”

“We’re looking for razor blades, knives, guns and bombs,

rubber bands and any other deadly weapons

you may have smuggled on your 20 foot walk

from the cafeteria to the bathroom.

But we all sat down and we all held hands

in a tight little circle and refused to stand

for this indignity and simply wouldn’t move.

“I got herpes and aids,” I cried

and then sat back and waited for the panic to subside.

The prison guards were utterly horrified,

after all, it’s what they suspected all along.

But it wasn’t until Barbara Jane Doe,

tribal elder among the wisest of all,

stood up and spoke to one and to all

that a feeling of calm came over that hall.

“The hour’s late and we’re tired and worn

but were willing to talk for however long

it takes to establish some communal respect.”

And that’s just exactly what we did.

We knew that the guards have difficult jobs

and the women here face unlikely odds

that we’ll ever be able to leave here

unconditionally free and clear.

Well, eventually it came around to August the third,

the day that the Jane Does were allowed to be heard,

there were 43 of us left in the prison yard

and hundreds more being banned and barred

at the Seneca Women’s Encampment for a Future of Peace and Justice

right next door to the Seneca Army death-dealing Depot

in the teeming metropolis,

the town of Romulus,

New York, just off Route 96.

Well, some 15 Does had our private say,

we were given trial dates a month away

and we all announced we would refuse to stay

on hand to participate

in such a miscarriage of justice.

Well, the D.A. sat with beady little eyes

and a starchy white collar, he just realized

how much this illegal detainment was actually costing.

And he knew he’d never recover those dollars,

he was wilting in the heat like week-old flowers

so he called a recess and conferred for a couple of hours

with the judge.

And to this day he’s probably holding a grudge

because he couldn’t convict us of a charge

that didn’t exist.

Now, Jane, from Vienna, spoke of the Nazis;

Jane, from Nebraska, complained of the Klan;

Jane, from Virginia spoke of the waste and

how we’d neglected the elders of our land.

With one mass hearing, they met our demands.

We got back our fingerprints and photographs.

And the Waterloo 54 walked out the door,

even freer then we were five days before.

She wrote no more.

But praise the Goddess and

long live the name of those fine, fine women:

the Waterloo 54!

Video 1983 - Die-In, part 1

Nagasaki Day Die-In, part 1
August 9, 1983
Main gate of the Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.

Video 1983 - Die-In, part 2

Nagasaki Day Die-In, part 2
August 9, 1983
Main gate of the Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved

Video 1983 - Die-In, part 3

Nagasaki Day Die-In, part 3
August 9, 1983
Main gate of the Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.

ViDeo 1983 - Waterloo arrests

"Peace camp marchers arrested at the bridge"

July 31, 1983, Waterloo, NY

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.

STATEMENT OF THE WATERLOO 54

We are a diverse group of 54 women from throughout America who on July 30th, 1983, began a peace walk along with 75 of our sisters. We set out from Seneca Falls, New York, to the Women's Peace Encampment in Romulus. Our purpose was to honor the great, defiant women in our past who have resisted oppression and to bring their courageous spirit to the encampment.

In the small town of Waterloo, 4 miles into our walk, our way was blocked by several hundred townspeople brandishing American flags and chanting, "Commies, go home!" To diffuse the potential violence, many of us sat down in the classic tradition
of nonviolence to discuss what to do. Others of us faced the mob, speaking calmly to individuals. One man said to one of us, "If more people here understood what you're saying to me, this wouldn't be happening. There is a lot of misinformation.” Gradually, the tension began to subside.

We had earlier taken great care to notify the authorities of the towns through which we had planned our walk; we had been assured of its legality. For the past week, however, Vietnam vets and local VFW members had been devolving a plan to prevent us from passing by blockading the bridge. On July 28, the Seneca County Sheriff assured the
women at the encampment that he had successfully dissuaded them from hindering us; that he had gotten them to agree to stand on the side and let us pass.

Although this trouble had been anticipated, when we were actually confronted, police protection proved grossly inadequate. The police did take care to protect us from the more violent members of the community, but certain of the sheriff's orders in fact served to excite tensions. For example, while we were sitting, the Sheriff announced that if we did not disperse, we would be charged with inciting a riot. At these words, the crowd became truly menacing. The chanting swelled into a roar, and the crowd surged forward, thrusting their pointed 2-foot flag poles at us. People on the sidelines kept insisting that our actions would lead to conquest by the Russians and the denial of our freedoms as Americans. Ironically, they now were threatening our freedom with the flag that was to them the very symbol of freedom. It was also ironic that they were incensed by our response to their blockade, since the blockade itself was a classic - albeit far from non-violent protest tactic.

Aware of the danger of our situation, most of us sat down to help diffuse the violence and to discuss what to do. It was hard to do this, as we also had to cope with fear for our lives. This was not hysteria on our part. The general police appraisal of the crowd was that women could try to pass through the crowd but they would surely "be massacred.” Flowers were thrown into our midst and when we sniffed them we found they had been sprayed with mace. We prepared then for the possibility of teargas by holding moistened cloths over our noses. The announcement of our imminent arrest came more frequently over the bullhorn, and the sheriff pressured us to take an alternative route. We discussed this possibility, but realized that turning our backs to the crowd would put us in greater danger. Moreover, we wanted to stand firm in our constitutional right to pass through the town and complete our walk.

At one point, the police succeeded in making the crowd retreat about 20 feet and some of them suggested we might be able to get through on the sidewalk. The instant we stood and tried to do so, the crowd moved back in and the police began arresting us, even hand-cuffing a few of us. During the arrest, as some police tried to carry women without hurting them, they were egged on to hurt the women by the crowd’s shouts of "Drag her, drag her." In all, four truck loads of us were deposited at the Seneca County Jail by 3:30 that afternoon, including Millie, a respected local resident who had joined us when she saw the obvious injustice of our arrest. Other townspeople expressed support for us by sending fruit and beverages to us that evening.

In resistance to this injustice, we refused to give our names during processing, and refused to post bail. Though we had been taken in on a violation, "disorderly conduct," we were fingerprinted and photographed. Our court hearing was not set until August 3, four days later.

Our intent was to walk, not to do civil disobedience. We sat to diffuse the violence, to decide our course, and to make the denial of our constitutional rights clear. One of the
things we love most about our country is the Bill of Rights. These rights were denied when the police tried to disperse us and when they arrested us instead of the people threatening us. If we had retreated, we would have neglected to honor our country’s
most democratic mandate. That Saturday, everything was pushed to its most rapid, confusing and expensive conclusion.

The taunts from the crowd were "Nuke the Lezzies," "Go Home Commies," "Kill the Jews," "Throw them off the bridge, let’s see some blood." Among us are many lesbians. There are Jewish women. Almost all of us would call ourselves feminists. Most of us have various beliefs in economic or social change that people label communist, socialist, anarchist.

All of us, whatever we are, deeply feel that our civil rights to be any of these - lesbian, Jewish, feminist, critical of our country - were violated. And further, our civil rights as citizens, to walk free of terror through any town in our own land and express our views and feelings, were trampled.

We know that many of our perhaps unwitting persecutors feel strongly about the flag of our country as expressed in "My country, may she always be right, but right or wrong - my country." Yet trapped by their fear, their hatred, their unfamiliarity of lesbians, Jewish people, radicals, feminists, they missed our efforts as Americans, just as they are, to right our country's wrongs.

And it is exactly two of those major wrongs that we had come to protest - the nuclear weapons in their backyard and our position as women. As women we know all too well the connection between militarism and the violence in our lives. The masculine ideal which the military perpetuates encourages force, dominance, power and violence. It is a concept of masculinity that victimizes women, children and nature.

At this writing we are still being held at Interlaken J.H.S. Group solidarity grows stronger by the hour, and we remain undaunted in our determination to stop the nuclear weapons and save life on our planet.

Video 1983 - Flowers gone affinity group

"First women go under"
September 4, 1983
Main gate, Seneca Army Depot, Romulus, NY.

Copyright 1983. Women's Video Collective. All Rights Reserved.

GaLLeRy 1983 Cristina Biaggi

Seneca Women's Peace Camp
1983 - 1984
 



















Greenham Common Women's Peace Camp
1983