Nuclear Timeline and

Assorted Nuclear News Items over the years

1914

1945

• Federation of American Scientists formed "by atomic scientists from the Manhattan Project who felt that scientists, engineers and other innovators had an ethical obligation to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on critical national decisions, especially pertaining to the technology they unleashed - the Atomic Bomb."
• Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists founded by "University of Chicago scientists who had worked on the Manhattan Project and were deeply concerned about the use of nuclear weapons and nuclear war."  See also 1947,
  

1946

1947

• The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists puts a symbolic clockface on its cover, proclaiming that it is "seven minutes to midnight." The clockface is intended to "symbolize[] the urgency of the nuclear dangers that the magazine’s founders are trying to convey to the public and political leaders around the world."

1949

1950

1951

• March 6-29 - US citizens Julius and Ethel Rosenberg put on trial in New York for conspiracy to commit [nuclear] espionage. Found guilty.  (See July 24, 2008)
  

• April 5 - Rosenbergs sentenced to death.  (See 1953)
  

• Sept. 28 - 20th Century Fox releases their sci-fi classic The Day the Earth Stood Still.  The film's explicit warning that the earth must end warfare or be destroyed echoes public fears about nuclear war.  Here's a retrospective commentary on the film from the New York Times, on the occasion of a remake of the film.
  

1952

1953

• June 19 - Julius and Ethel Rosenberg executed in New York for conspiracy to commit espionage.  (See 1951) "The couple were the only two American civilians to be executed for espionage-related activity during the Cold War."

• August 12 - First Soviet thermonuclear / hydrogen / fusion explosion (see also 1949, first Soviet atomic explosion)
  

• In response to US and Soviet hydrogen bomb tests, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists moves their symbolic Doomsday Clock forward to "two minutes to midnight." The Bulletin writes "Only a few more swings of the pendulum, and, from Moscow to Chicago, atomic explosions will strike midnight for Western civilization."

1954

1955

• The manifesto calls for a conference of world scientists to "appraise the perils that have arisen as a result of the development of weapons of mass destruction,"
  
• cites specifically the danger of fallout contamination by hydrogen bombs revealed by the Bikini tests of 1954, and
• ...calls on "scientists of the world and the general public, to subscribe to the following resolution:
• In view of the fact that in any future world war nuclear weapons will certainly be employed, and that such weapons threaten the continued existence of mankind, we urge the governments of the world to realize, and to acknowledge publicly, that their purpose cannot be furthered by a world war, and we urge them, consequently, to find peaceful means for the settlement of all matters of dispute between them."
• Leads to the 1957 Pugwash Conference in Pugwash, Nova Scotia. (See 1957, 1995)
  

1956

1957

• May 15: First British thermonuclear / hydrogen / fusion explosion (see also 1952, first British atomic explosion)
  
• July: First Pugwash Conference convened, it is "attended by 22 eminent scientists" from around the world. (see 1955, 1995)
• Nevil Shute's novel, On the Beach published (See 1959)
  

1958

• Feb 5 - "A nuclear weapon without a fissile core was lost following a mid-air collision" involving a B-47; "The weapon was jettisoned into the water several miles from the mouth of Savannah River in Wassaw Sound off Tybee Beach, but the precise point of impact is unknown."  (Center for Defense Information). The bomb was never recovered, nor was the accident publicly disclosed until 2001. (See 2001)  Detailed story

1959

• On the Beach released as a Stanley Kramer film starring Gregory Peck and Ava Gardner (See 1957)
• Alas, Babylon, a post-nuclear-war novel by Pat Frank published (See 1960)
  

1960

• Feb. 13 - France becomes the world's fourth nuclear power with a test nuclear detonation in Algeria. (See 1968)
  
• April 3 - an adaptation of Alas, Babylon broadcast on the Playhouse 90 dramatic television series. (See 1959)
  

1961

• January - Pres. Kennedy takes office
• January 30 - Kennedy's State of the Union address
• September 29 - The television series The Twilight Zone broadcasts the episode "The Shelter."  In it, when a nuclear attack seems imminent, previously well-behaved suburban neighbors go berzerk trying to break into a family's shelter.
• October 30 - Soviets detonate largest thermonuclear explosion to the present day, 50 megatons, in Arctic test
• November - Concern about Soviet (and US) nuclear testing and international politics (Time Magazine)
  

1962

• September 8: Soviet order detailing the shipping of nuclear bombs and short-range nuclear missiles to Cuba, with permission for local Soviet commanders to decide on their own to use the nuclear weapons to repel an invasion of Cuba if they cannot get instructions from Moscow.   (See Oct. 27)

• October 14 (Sunday) - US U-2 spyplane photographs missile trailers and missile launchers under construction in Cuba.
• October 18 (Thursday) - Pres. Kennedy meets with Soviet Foreign Minister Andrei Gromyko in the White House's Oval Office. 
  
• "Kennedy repeats [a previous] warning that the U.S. would not tolerate Soviet offensive weapons in Cuba, [but does not reveal the U-2 photos, and] was unable to detect any reaction from the poker-faced Gromyko."  [The Week the World Stood Still, by Sheldon Stern, Stanford University Press, 2005 - p. 64-65]
• October 20 (Saturday) - In the middle of the Cuban Missile Crisis, the CIA gave this (presumably top secret) report predicting "Major consequences of certain US courses of action on Cuba", including the consequences of inaction, blockade, or military strike (from the National Security Archive at George Washington Univ.).
• October 22 (Monday) - President Kennedy addresses the nation on television, giving this speech, making public for the first time the presence of nuclear missiles in Cuba.  Here's a more legible copy of the speech, with a streaming audio as well.
• October 22 - 28: Texts of official letters between Kennedy and Khrushchev during the crisis, from the Kennedy Presidential Library.
• October 27 (Saturday) - The peak of the crisis; a meeting between Attorney General Robert F. Kennedy and Soviet Ambassador Anatoly Dobrynin. (Also from the National Security Archive).
• October 27 (Saturday) Soviet encrypted order rescinding permission for Soviet commanders in Cuba to decide to use nuclear weapons without direct orders from Moscow.  (See Sept. 8)
• October 28 (Sunday) 9:00 a.m. EDT: Khrushchev declares on Radio Moscow that "the Soviet government ... has issued a new order on the dismantling of the weapons... and their crating and return to the Soviet Union." (Chronology - see p. 380)
  

1963

• August 5 - US, USSR, Britain sign the Limited Test Ban Treaty:
• Nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, in outer space, and under water are banned. 
• Underground tests are still allowed under the treaty.
• Treaty takes effect October 10th.
• France doesn't sign the treaty, and in 1966-1974, makes 41 atmospheric tests in the Pacific
• November 22 - Pres. Kennedy assassinated, Pres. Johnson takes office

1964

• January - Dr. Strangelove, a Stanley Kubrick film, released
     An excellent 40th anniversary commentary on Dr. Strangelove
  

• September 7 - President Johnson's re-election campaign runs the infamous "Daisy" television commercial, which seeks to suggest that Johnson's opponent, Senator Barry Goldwater, might start a nuclear war if elected.  Goldwater's tone in his acceptance speech for the Republican nomination may have fed this fear; Johnson's campaign certainly sought to exploit it.
  

• October  7 - Fail Safe, a Sidney Lumet film, released.
• October 16 - China becomes the world's fifth nuclear power with a test nuclear detonation in China

1966

• January  17 - US B-52 bomber on airborne alert collides with KC-135 tanker during midair refueling near Palomares, Spain.  Both planes are destroyed.  Three hydrogen bombs from the B-52 fall on land, the conventional explosives in two detonate, spreading radioactive material.  A fourth hydrogen bomb falls in the Mediterranean nearby, and is not recovered until 81 days later.  American Heritage article. 

1967

• February - Treaty of Tlatelolco opened for signature - forbids nuclear weapons in South America, Central America, and the Caribbean.  Nuclear powers not located in the region agree to neither introduce nuclear weapons into the region nor threaten nations in the region with nuclear weapons.  While most nations in the region sign immediately, several (including at least Argentina and Cuba) postpone ratification for many years (See also 1994, 2002)

• June - China detonates its first thermonuclear / fission / hydrogen bomb in a test in China (see also 1964, first Chinese atomic explosion)
  

• September - Pres. Johnson announces plans for the Sentinel anti-ballistic-missile or ABM system.  (See also 1969, 1972)

1968

• January 21: US B-52 bomber on airborne alert crashes near Thule Air Force Base in Greenland while attempting an emergency landing.  The conventional explosives in at least one of the four nuclear weapons on board explodes, spreading radioactive debris.  According to The Nuclear Information Project, "The day after the accident, Strategic Air Command ordered the nuclear weapons removed from airborne alert aircraft."  Milnet.com reports "Airborne alert was terminated in 1968," partly because of this and other accidents.

• July 1: Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty(NNTP) opens for signature, "The United States, United Kingdom, Soviet Union and 59 other countries sign" immediately, subsequently nearly all nations join the treaty.  Takes effect in March, 1970.  In the treaty, both nuclear-weapons states and non-nuclear-weapons states agree not to spread nuclear weapons beyond the nuclear-weapons states of the day.  Also, nuclear-weapons states agree to negotiate in good faith toward ending the nuclear arms race, eliminating nuclear weapons, and moving toward a treaty on complete disarmament.  As of 2000, only Cuba, Israel, India (see 1974,1998), and Pakistan (see 1998) were not signatories.  North Korea signs but later withdraws from the treaty (see 2003).
  
  
• August 24: First French thermonuclear / hydrogen / fusion explosion (see also 1960, first French atomic explosion)

1969

• In response to the NNTP (see 1968), the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists turns back their symbolic Doomsday Clock to "ten minutes to midnight." 
  

• January - Pres. Nixon takes office

• April - Secret US State Dept. memo: "our intelligence indicates that Israel is rapidly developing a capability to produce and deploy nuclear weapons," despite the fact that "Israel has said publicly ... that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East."  Later, some will estimate that Israel had the makings of an atomic bomb as early as 1967, which would have made it the sixth nuclear power in the world.  To this day, Israel does not publicly acknowledge that it has nuclear weapons, despite the widespread belief that they do. (See 1975, 1986)
  

• August - US Senate votes to deploy Safeguard, the successor to the Sentinel ABM system. (See also 1972, 1975, 1976)

1972

• May 26 - US and USSR sign the Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty or "Salt I" that freezes numbers of ballistic missile launchers (e.g. silos and submarines) and the ABM treaty that limits each nation to one anti-ballistic missile system.  (See also 1969, 1975, 1976)

• In response to the SALT I and ABM treaties, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists turns back their symbolic Doomsday Clock to "twelve minutes to midnight." 

1974

• May 18 - India becomes the world's sixth declared nuclear power with a test nuclear detonation in Rajasthan, India.

• August - Pres. Nixon resigns, Pres. Ford takes office.
  
  
• <>Oct. 24 - ICBM test-launched from cargo plane as a test of a way to keep missiles from being targeted in turn by enemy missiles.
  

1975

• October 1 - US ABM (antimissile) system Safeguard goes operational near Grand Forks, ND. (See also 1969, 1972, 1976)

• October 2 - US House votes to close the only Safeguard site

• October 15 - Secret US State dept. memo says the CIA "believe[s] that Israel already has produced nuclear weapons." (See 1969, 1986)

1976

• January - Congress approves shutdown of Safeguard program (See also 1969, 1972, 1975)

1977

• January - Pres. Carter takes office

1978

• President Carter asks congress to fund a "Crisis Relocation Program" to evacuate major American cities in the event of a crisis that makes nuclear attack appear imminent.  (look midway down the second page). (See also 1982, 1985)

1979

• Sept 22 -Vela satellite (US) detects a flash over the southern Indian Ocean which many suspect was the flash of a South African nuclear test shot.  If so, it would be South Africa's first nuclear test.  Whether it really was a nuclear explosion and if so, who detonated it, is never fully determined.  (see also 1991, 1993)

• Nov. 9 -False alarm caused by a misused training tape brings the US within minutes of launching nuclear retaliation at the Soviet Union.  See PBS/NOVA summary of four such false alarms in 1979,1980,1983, and 1995.

1980

• June 3 -False alarm caused by a faulty computer chip brings the US within minutes of launching nuclear retaliation at the Soviet Union.  See PBS/NOVA summary of four such false alarms in 1979,1980,1983, and 1995.

• Randall Forsberg, "An arms control expert and political science professor at City College of New York," founds the Nuclear Freeze Movement with the paper "Call to Halt the Nuclear Arms Race."  The Freeze Movement is credited by at least some as slowing the arms race.  (See also 1982)
  
  
• Sept 19 - Maintenance accident in a Titan-II missile silo in Arkansas causes a rocket-fuel explosion.  It blows the silo's blast cover off the silo and throws the undetonated warhead 600-1400 feet outside. Contemporary article in New Scientist magazine.  Retrospective article in an Arkansas newspaper.  Bill Clinton, then governor of Arkansas, remembers the incident in his memoir.  A little over a year later, retirement of the liquid-fuel Titan II fleet was ordered by the Secretary of Defense.  Deactivation of the last Titan II was June 23, 1987.
  

1981

• January- Pres. Reagan takes office

• June 7 - Israeli warplanes bomb the unfinished Iraqi Osirak nuclear reactor near Baghdad.  Israeli statment: "The atomic bombs which that reactor was capable of producing whether from enriched uranium or from plutonium, would be of the Hiroshima size. Thus a mortal danger to the people of Israel progressively arose."  Iraq denies having plans to use the reactor for weapons production.

• T.K. Jones, Deputy Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering, Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces, tells interviewer Robert Scheer that "nuclear war was not nearly as devastating as we had been led to believe. He said, 'If there are enough shovels to go around, everybody's going to make it.'  The shovels were for digging holes in the ground, which would be covered somehow or other with a couple of doors and with three feet of dirt thrown on top, thereby providing adequate fallout shelters for the millions who had been evacuated from America's cities to the countryside. 'It's the dirt that does it,' he said."

• Nov. 18: Pres. Reagan proposes the "Zero Option" for intermediate-range nuclear forces in Europe - that both Soviet and US/NATO IRBMs in Europe be completely eliminated.  Given that the Soviets already had many such missiles deployed and the west wouldn't deploy modern missiles until late 1983, the proposal was to trade existing Soviet missiles for planned US missiles, and was consequently not well received in Moscow.  The "Zero Option" was widely perceived as a propaganda ploy to reduce European resistance to the missiles' deployment.  Perhaps surprisingly, it came to pass in 1987-1991.
  

1982

• June 12 - 700,000 to one million people march in New York city calling for a freeze of the nuclear arms race, "after dozens of towns and state lawmakers had passed nuclear freeze proposals" (See also 1980)
  

• Pres. Reagan requests $252 million for civil defense programs, to grow to $4.3 billion over several years,  including a "crisis relocation" program - which would evacuate major American cities in times of crisis during which nuclear attack seemed imminent.  Eventually congress allocates $144 million, but the Senate Armed Services Committee notes that while it "continues to believe that an increased civil defense effort is important . . . it does not believe that the 'crisis relocation'plan will work."  (From FEMA's report "AMERICAN CIVIL DEFENSE 1945 - 1984", p.22-23)  (See also 1978, 1985)
• Here is another analysis from the period from the Center for Defense Information

• Nov. 10: Leonid Brezhnev, General Secretary of the Communist Party for the Soviet Union, dies.  He is succeeded by Yuri Andropov, who lives only 15 months in office.

• December 13: James Scoville Jr., former assistant director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and deputy director for research of the Central Intelligence Agency, writes in the New York Times that the US' planned MX missile "invites attack" by the Soviets.

1983

• March 23: President Reagan proposes a space-based defensive system against ballistic missiles, in what comes to be known as the Star Wars speech.  Here are excerpts from the speech, the anti-ballistic-missile part is at the very end.
  

• Sept. 1: Korean Airlines flight KAL 007 strays over Soviet airspace and is shot down by Soviet fighter jet.  All 269 aboard are killed.  The Soviets claim the plane was on a covert spying mission, and were otherwise unapologetic: Foreign Minister Gromyko said "Soviet territory, the borders of the Soviet Union are sacred. No matter who resorts to provocations of that kind, he should know that he will bear the full brunt of responsibility for it."  US ambassador to the UN said "Straying off course is not recognized as a capital crime by civilized nations."  Conspiracy theories abounded.
  

• Sept. 26 -False alarm: unusual reflected sunlight causes Soviet spy satellite to report the launch of several US missiles against the USSR.  The Soviet officer in charge of monitorinig the satellites says he didn't pass the warning on to his superiors because he didn't believe the US would launch so few missiles to start a war.  A Christian Science Monitor restrospective article on the event.  A Washington Post article with more details.  See also: PBS/NOVA summary of four such false alarms in 1979,1980,1983, and 1995.
  
  
• Nov 2-11 -Nato exercise Able Archer 83, which included a simulation of a nuclear strike against the Soviet Union, "led some in the USSR to believe" that the exercise "was a genuine nuclear first strike." Here's an extensive CIA/Center for the Study of Intelligence article on Soviet fears of war in the early 80's, and Able Archer in particular.
  

Many believe Able Archer marked the closest the world had come to nuclear war since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

• Nov 20 - The ABC television network airs the made-for-television movie "The Day After", depicting the effects of a nuclear war on Lawrence, Kansas.  It was watched by 100 million viewers.  ABC followed its broadcast with a live panel discussion including science popularizer and arms race opponent Dr. Carl Sagan, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, former Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, writer and political commentator William F. Buckley and the then-Secretary of State George Shultz.  Director Nicholas Meyer later said that "When [Reagan] signed the Intermediate Range Weapons Agreement at Reykjavik (in 1986) with Gorbachev, I got a telegram from his administration that said, ‘Don't think your movie didn't have any part of this, because it did.'"  Here's a retrospective article from Lawrence, Kansas, where much of the film was set (and filmed on location).  An extensive analysis from Conelrad.com.
  

• Dec. 15 - Deployment of U.S. Pershing II missiles begins in West Germany.  The Pershing II's capability of reaching Soviet territory in 12-13 minutes greatly disturbs Soviet leadership.  (See 1987)
  

1984

• Feb. 9 - Soviet premier Yuri Andropov dies after only 15 months in office.  He is succeeded by Konstantin Chernenko, who lived in office only 13 months, and was ill during much of that time.
  

• US-Soviet relations reach a low point.  The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moves their symbolic Doomsday Clock forward to "three minutes to midnight."

• October - Pres. Reagan's reelection campaign runs the "Bear in the woods" commercial, which seeks to suggest that the Soviet Union (traditionally represented by a bear) is a dangerous ("vicious") adversary, and that (only) Reagan is strong enough to deal with it. 
  
• (Former) Vice President Mondale's reelection campaign runs the "Draw the line at the heavens" commercial, which explicitly says that Reagan's policies will lead to a nuclear arms race in space.
  

1985

• March - Mikhail Gorbachev is named the leader (General Secretary of the Communist Party) of the Soviet Union.
  

• John Hersey's Hiroshima reprinted with an added final chapter (see also 1946)

• Pres. Reagan greatly reduces the budgetary amount requested for FEMA's civil defense programs.  (See also 1978, 1982)

1986

• US-Soviet agreement for on-site verification of nuclear testing, July 1986 (Time Magazine) 
  
• details about US-Soviet negotiations in 1986

• September - The US begins deploying its newest missile, the MX or "Peacekeeper" in refurbished Minuteman silos near Cheyenne, Wyoming.  (See 2005)
  

• October 5 - The London Sunday Times publishes extensive details of Israel's nuclear weapon production programs, as leaked by Mordechai Vanunu, a former Israeli nuclear plant technician.  The article estimates Israel has 100-200 nuclear weapons. 
  
• October 12 - The London Sunday Times publishes a report that Vanunu has disappeared. (scroll to bottom of page)   He later surfaces in Israeli custody, is tried for treason and espionage, and sentenced to 18 years' imprisonment.  (See 1969, 1975)
  

1987

• Dec 8 - US and USSR sign the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF) and over the next four years, dismantle all the thousands of intermediate and short-range nuclear missiles they control in Europe.  (See 1983, 1991)

1988

• In response to the ratification of the INF treaty, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists turns back their symbolic Doomsday Clock to "six minutes to midnight."

1989

• January - Pres. George Bush takes office

• November 9 - Berlin wall "falls"

1991

• May 27 - "The United States completed the elimination of 234 Pershing II" missiles in Europe, in keeping with the INF treaty.  See 1987.
  

• July - South Africa signs the Nuclear Nonproliferation treaty, agreeing  not to acquire nuclear weapons (see also 1979, 1993)

• August - attempted coup against Soviet leader Gorbachev

• August-September: Former Soviet states declare independence

• October - US & Russia working to "de-nuclearize" the former Soviet states; those states consider keeping Soviet nukes (Time Magazine)

• December 26: Soviet Union formally dissolved

1993

• January - Pres. Clinton takes office

• March  - South African President de Klerk announces that South Africa had nuclear weapons in the past, but had dismantled them before signing the Nonproliferation Treaty (1991), (see also 1979)  If true, South Africa becomes the only state to relinquish working nuclear weapons, except for former Soviet states returning Soviet nuclear weapons to Russia.  See also this US Air Force Institute for National Security Studies paper on the history of the South African nuclear program.
  

• June: "Fighting Off Doomsday" - nonproliferation efforts (Time Magazine)
  
• Article focuses on North Korea and others, cites early efforts that (I think) became the Nunn-Lugar fund for denuclearizing former Soviet states

1994

• January: Argentina ratifies the Treaty of Tlatelolco, the last large nation in South America to do so.  This effectively bans nuclear weapons from the continent.  (See also 1967, 2002)

• April: "Well, Maybe a Nuke or Two" - US pressure on North Korea to halt nuclear weapons programs (Time Magazine) 
  
• Include summary of nuclear proliferation issues of the time

• December: International cooperation getting Kazakh enriched uranium "out of circulation" (Time Magazine)
  
• Cites Nunn-Lugar fund for the denuclearization of former Soviet states

1995

• Jan. 25 - False alarm: A Norwegian weather rocket appears to Russian radar as a submarine-launched ICBM aimed at Russia.  Russia comes to full alert. Detailed Washington Post article.  See PBS/NOVA summary of four such false alarms in 1979,1980,1983, and 1995.

• Oct. 13 - The Pugwash organization receives the Nobel Prize jointly with one of its founders "for their efforts to diminish the part played by nuclear arms in international politics and in the longer run to eliminate such arms."  (See 1955, 1957)

1997

1998

2000

2001

2002

• Oct 23: Cuba ratifies the Treaty of Tlatelolco.  Thus all nations in South and Central America and the Caribbean have banned nuclear weapons from their territories.  (See also 1967, 1994)

2003

2005

• Sept. 19: The US' last MX missile is decommissioned after a four-year phaseout, in keeping with the START II and later SORT treaty. NY Times article. (See 1986)

2006

• Experts appear to agree that it was a Plutonium device, and that the test was likely at least a partial failure
• The test yield estimates range from 0.2 to 2 kilotons (the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were 12-20 kilotons); later estimates seem to have converged on 0.5 kilotons.
  
• The North Korean government had told the Chinese that morning to expect a 4 kiloton test

2007

2008

• March 24: The Pentagon reveals that ballistic missile parts were mistakenly shipped to Taiwan in fall 2006.
• April 24: US officials report to Congress that the Syrian facility bombed by Israel in Sept. 2007 (See Oct. 14, 2007 above) was "built with North Korean assistance" and "was intended to produce plutonium for nuclear weapons."
• April 25: Syria denies yesterday's US claims of a nuclear facility in their country; The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) "criticized the United States on Friday for not sharing intelligence sooner" about the Syrian facility bombed by Israel (see previous day).
• June 2: "Israel conduct[s] a major aerial military exercise" that may be intended to show Israel has the capability to "attack Iran's nuclear program."
• June 5: Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley and Secretary Michael W. Wynne are forced to resign as a result of last fall's mistaken transport of nuclear warheads and the disclosure this spring of ballistic missile parts mistakenly shipped to Taiwan. (See Sept. 5, 2007 and March 24, 2008)
• July 24: Transcripts to be released from the previously secret grand jury testimony against Julius and Ethel Rosenberg (See 1951, 1953)
• August 20: US and Poland "sign[] a deal ... to build a U.S. missile defense base in Poland"     NPR analysis (audio and text)    Official announcement from America.gov (produced by the State Department)
• November 5: Russian President Medvedev declares intent to deploy short-range missiles near Poland in response to the US/Poland missile defense system.
• November 12:  "outgoing head of the U.S. missile defense agency [says] missile defenses are workable and working in tests."
• Some backround articles from 'both sides" of the missile-defense debate:
  
• A DoD press release describing a "successful" missile defense test in Sept. 2007
  
• An essay critical of that (same?) test from CDI.org

News items: 2009

• April 1: US, Russia announce talks to "reduc[e] their nuclear arsenals."
• May 25: North Korea test-detonates a second nuclear bomb, estimated at 2 to 6 kilotons yield (see 2006)
  

News items: 2010

• March 24: "Russia and US report breakthrough on arms" [reductions]
  
• April 8: "Russia and U.S. Sign Nuclear Arms [START] Reduction Pact"
  
• April 8: "Anatoly F. Dobrynin, the Soviet ambassador to Washington from 1962 to 1986, whose behind-the-scenes diplomacy was credited by many historians with helping to resolve the Cuban missile crisis [1962] and ease tensions in the cold war era, has died."
    - NY Times obituary
• May 3: US military reveals the precise size of the US nuclear arsenal for the first time.
• July 28: START treaty senate committee hearings?
• Sept 14: START treaty up for senate committee vote (editorial)
• Sept 25: Iran's Atomic Energy Organization reports that it is "are trying to protect their facilities from a sophisticated computer worm ["Stuxnet"] that has infected industrial plants across Iran."  (See Nov. 18)
• Oct. 31:  Ted Sorensen, Kennedy's special advisor and speechwriter, dies.  (See the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, and look for his involvement here.)
  
• Nov. 7: US State Dept. argues that delay of START ratification risks ties with Russia
• Nov. 9:  Former Bush-administration officials John Bolton and John Yoo argue against START ratification in a NYT opinion piece
• Nov. 10: Fred Kaplan (author of Wizards of Armageddon) harshly critiques Bolton and Yoo's piece
• Nov. 17: NYT editorial supporting START ratification; claims the issue is about internal politics
• Nov. 18: Pres. Obama declares START ratification is "a national security imperative."
• Nov. 18: Computer security experts report that the Stuxnet computer worm "was precisely calibrated in a way that could send [enriched-uranium producing] nuclear centrifuges wildly out of control."  (See Sept. 25)
• Dec. 1:  Belarus agrees to give up its stockpile of highly enriched uranium
• Dec. 1: Wikileaks document obliquely addresses US tactical nuclear weapons based in NATO nations.  More articles, from Europe and Latvia.
• Dec. 22: U.S. Senate ratifies the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START)
  

News items: 2011

• Jan. 26: Russian Parliament ratifies the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START)

Recent News items: 2013

• Aug. 7:  Cargo plane that once test-lauched ICBM retired (see 1974)
• Aug. 8:  Article on North Korean uranium enrichment
• Aug. 9:  Editorial on hints from Iran toward a more conciliatory negotiating position over nuclear controversies
  
• Aug. 13: U.S. Missile wing at Malmstrom (Montana) receives "unsatisfactory rating" for "tactical level errors" during inspection exercises.
• Aug. 27: Base's security chief sacked at Malmstrom

Last Modified Aug. 29, 2013.
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