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posted by martyb on Thursday September 26 2019, @11:03PM   Printer-friendly
from the neither-long-ago-nor-far-away dept.

https://foreignpolicy.com/2019/09/22/blast-from-the-past-vela-satellite-israel-nuclear-double-flash-1979-ptbt-south-atlantic-south-africa/ (may be paywalled; alternate link):

Shortly before sunrise on Sept. 22, 1979, a U.S. surveillance satellite known as Vela 6911 recorded an unusual double flash as it orbited the earth above the South Atlantic. At Patrick Air Force Base in Florida, where it was still nighttime on Sept. 21, the staff in charge of monitoring the satellite's transmissions saw the unmistakable pattern produced by a nuclear explosion—something U.S. satellites had detected on dozens of previous occasions in the wake of nuclear tests. The Air Force base issued an alert overnight, and President Jimmy Carter quickly called a meeting in the White House Situation Room the next day.

Nuclear proliferation was just one of the Carter administration's headaches in late 1979. The president was dealing with a slew of foreign-policy dilemmas, including the build-up to what would become the Iran hostage crisis. Carter was also preparing for a reelection campaign in which he had hoped to showcase his foreign-policy successes, from brokering Israeli-Egyptian peace to successful arms control talks with Moscow. The possibility that Israel or South Africa, which had deep clandestine defense ties at the time, had tested a nuclear weapon threatened to tarnish that legacy. And the fact that South Africa's own nuclear weapons program, which the Carter administration was seeking to stop, was not yet sufficiently advanced to test such a weapon left just one prime suspect: Israel. Leading figures within the administration were therefore keen to bury the story and put forward alternative explanations.

Those alternative explanations were widely dismissed by many members of the scientific and intelligence community at the time; four decades years later, they look even more questionable.

On the 40th anniversary of the Vela event, Foreign Policy has assembled a team of scientists, academics, former government officials, and nonproliferation experts to analyze the declassified documents and data in the public domain, explain the political and strategic objectives of the key players at the time, and argue why a mysterious flash 40 years ago still matters today.

[Ed. Note: Many here may not have experienced what it was like during the cold war with frequent nuclear weapons tests and the ever-present threat of thermonuclear war. Given the increasing rhetoric and sabre rattling going on around the world today, this seemed a good reminder of the past. Let's hope we do not try to repeat it.]


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  • (Score: 2) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 27 2019, @11:04AM (2 children)

    by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday September 27 2019, @11:04AM (#899514) Homepage Journal

    It also seems far less certain today than it was during the Cold War that all the nuclear powers aren't bug-fuck crazy.

    You and I experienced the cold war very differently then.

    --
    My rights don't end where your fear begins.
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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 27 2019, @04:05PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 27 2019, @04:05PM (#899613)

    some of the powers being "unpredictably" bug-fuck crazy would have probably been a more accurate turn of phrase.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by The Mighty Buzzard on Friday September 27 2019, @04:35PM

      by The Mighty Buzzard (18) Subscriber Badge <themightybuzzard@proton.me> on Friday September 27 2019, @04:35PM (#899627) Homepage Journal

      Very few citizens of the primary movers died (almost exclusively spies, politicians, and traitors) and not one city got nuked. I'd say the leadership of the nuclear powers involved had sanity in spades to keep from letting the cold war turn hot. Not acting as you'd have done does not make them insane. Allowing a communist nuclear superpower who thinks they're at war with you to forcibly coopt nation after nation because they scare you most certainly does though.

      --
      My rights don't end where your fear begins.