Hydrogen Bomb

On April 12, 2001, the Air Force Nuclear Weapons and Counter proliferation Agency reported a hydrogen bomb was likely buried 5 to 15 feet below the ocean floor. In mud. Just beyond the surf near Savannah. There is "no current or future possibility of a nuclear explosion," the report said. And if left undisturbed, the conventional explosives in the bomb posed no hazard. Nothing has been said about the hazard posed by the nuclear material.
The fuss is all about hydrogen bomb "No. 47782."
It has been laying abandoned in the water within 20 miles of Savannah since 1958. Four months after the Air Force lost the hydrogen bomb, the Atomic Energy Commission changed its policy and did not allow the use of nuclear bombs during training.
According to the Air Force the bomb did not have a detonation capsule. Without it, there was no risk of a nuclear explosion. That’s why they were flying it around in a World War II vintage propeller plane and playing war games above Virginia.
The Air Force and the Navy don’t want to go and get it because they claim that the conventional explosives on the bomb might detonate and hurt the crew going to salvage it.
So they are going to abandon their responsibility and leave the muddy hydrogen bomb within 20 miles of a city of 131,510 souls.
The argument that the bureaucrats give for the bomb being safe is that the ‘detonation capsules’ on board. The detonation capsules would have been used to trigger the nuclear explosion when the bomb was dropped, but the enriched plutonium and uranium within the core is still a danger.
A hydrogen bomb is a fusion device. It fuses material together to create energy and blow things up. The problem with the cowardly argument of the bureaucrats is that one of the parts of a hydrogen or thermonuclear bomb is an atomic bomb. Just because the fusion might not happen does not mean that the fission won’t.
Fission bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and resulted in a horrendous loss of human life. About 15 pounds of plutonium in a bomb made 13 years prior to the more advanced Savannah bomb killed about 100,00 people.
To further display the ignorance or dishonesty with which the bureaucrats have been handling this problem – it is common knowledge that the nuclear materials used within the bombs – and particularly that bomb laying in the mud off Savannah – achieve a higher level of atomic activity in water and are more likely to spontaneously explode than if they are exposed to air. This fact was discovered during the Manhattan project and resulted in several cases of radiation poisoning and at least one death. These have been noted in the movie ‘Fat Man and Little Boy’ starring Paul Newman.
The aluminum casing of the bomb is corroding. The highly radioactive materials within are creating an internal breach.
Even if the molten mess only fizzles the catastrophe is capable of showering a radioactive mist over Savannah. If it only bubbles out children will suffer and it will slowly render the local area uninhabitable and destroy the fishing industry for decades.
The actual reason that the bureaucrats have for not disposing of this danger appears to be that they can get away with it. The Governor is too weak and Senator Zell Miller is too tied up with his personal interests and aren’t doing their jobs.
Americans everywhere should be proud of Representative Jack Kingston and do their utmost to see that the Americans of Savannah are protected from the vicious and lazy bureaucrats that have caused this filthy problem to fester for so long.