GREATEST SECRETS OF THE COLD WAR They read like plots from thrillers, but each of these chilling events actually happened. BY JIM WILSON Unsuspecting civilians are doused with radiation and germ weapons. Intelligence agents recruit psychic spies. Generals plan an attack on a Chinese nuclear weapons plant. A phantom army triggers the largest arms buildup in history. Politicians secretly construct an underground city to escape fallout. The United States comes within 7 minutes of launching its ICBMs. No, these aren't screenplays that were junked when the Soviet Union went belly up. Each of these events actually happened. For the two generations of Americans who fought and financed the Cold War, it was an epic struggle between us good guys and the "evil empire." Now, as the epoch fades into history, the declassification of tens of thousands of pages of secret documents has begun to cast a penetrating light on the era. As nine of these files reveal, truth can be stranger than fiction. Target San Francisco Most people remember the Cold War as an era when the greatest threat was a nuclear strike launched by a foreign power. In reality, Americans were also at risk from testing by their own military. In addition to nuclear weapons, the U.S. military feared an attack by an enemy employing less publicized technologies. The most serious scenario was a biological warfare attack mounted against a seaboard city from a submarine or a small, fast patrol boat. According to declassified records, the Pentagon attempted to estimate how cities might be damaged by such an attack by ordering the U.S. Navy to spray a cloud of supposedly harmless bacteria over San Francisco. Historians say local health records show an upsurge in cases of a pneumonia-like illness after the 1950 experiment. They also claim that one death was caused by the attack. In 1966, the Pentagon ordered the U.S. Army to launch a similar biological attack on the New York City subway system. Details of this experiment remain classified. Operation BRAVO A generation ago, the White House was gripped by reports that "Red" China was preparing to build its own nuclear weapons. Top officials considered several strategies to stop the Chinese program. In 1963, Gen. Maxwell Taylor, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, planned Unconventional Warfare Program BRAVO. It called for the United States to prevent the People's Republic from building a nuclear weapon by launching a secret attack against a weapons plant in north central China. The attack was to be carried out by a nonnuclear bombing mission or a 100-man sabotage team made up of Chinese Nationalists. The plan was vetoed on the urging of the State Department. China went forward with its nuclear weapons program, exploding its first device (right) at its Lop Nor test site on Oct. 16, 1964. ESP Troopers One of the strangest files reveals the use of psychics as spies. The CIA-financed project-code-named GRILLFLAME-was conducted at the Stanford Research Institute (SRI), beginning in the early 1970s. The CIA says its ESP troopers, who used sensory deprivation (left), never produced useful information. Yet the project may still have been a success. It turns out that for two decades Stanford University had also worked on a secret over-the-horizon radar (OHR) system to spot Soviet ICBMs seconds after launch. The OHR system operated at the same microwave frequencies the Soviets believed were responsible for brain waves. For reasons he later said he never understood, OHR inventor Oswald G. Villard Jr. found himself assigned to GRILLFLAME. Some speculate that the ESP troopers were a ruse to divert Soviet spies away from OHR. The Green Run Soon after the Soviet Union exploded its first nuclear bomb in August of 1949, the United States decided it needed to learn more about the types of weapons its enemy was building. To find out, the Air Force conducted the Green Run experiment at the Hanford nuclear production plant (right). On the night of Dec. 2, 1949, the plant "released three tons of irradiated uranium fuel that had been allowed to cool only 16 days," reports a declassified Department of Energy document. The release-aimed at duplicating pollution from a Soviet reactor-placed more than 7800 curies of radioactive iodine, well-known to concentrate in human thyroids, into the air of the Pacific Northwest. By comparison, the accident at Three Mile Island released only 15 curies of radioactive iodine. Blue Gemini Americans know NASA's Gemini program as a followup to the Mercury manned orbital missions. Few know about a shadow effort, Blue Gemini, that sought to recruit NASA technology and astronauts to fly military missions. At first, NASA warmed to the idea of sharing launch costs in exchange for allowing Air Force officers to fly as copilots. Documents suggest the military had offered NASA as much as $100 million. But as senior officers began laying out the details of their proposed operations, administrators of the civilian agency became less and less enamored with the idea of using astronauts as high-flying military observers. As with the proposed Operation BRAVO attack on China's nuclear weapons plant, State Department reservations would eventually quash the plans to militarize NASA's manned space flight. Blue Gemini would never fly. Doomsday Hotel Beginning in the 1970s, curious tales began to emerge from Washington, D.C., about a "doomsday hotel." Located near the nation's capital, it was said to be the ultimate fallout shelter. But only for the well-connected. In congressional testimony, military officials acknowledged the shelter-called Mount Weather–existed, but refused to disclose its whereabouts, lest it be targeted by a Soviet ICBM. With everyone's ICBMs now targeted at the open sea, the location of Mount Weather (right) has been revealed to be in Berryville, Virginia, about 75 miles from Washington. Today it houses the computer and phone-system hubs for the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In 1995, the existence of a second doomsday hotel, located beneath the Greenbrier Resort in White Sulphur Springs, West Virginia, was revealed. It is now open to group tours. Secret Soviet Fallout The Russian government has acknowledged that a long-rumored series of accidents at Soviet nuclear weapons plants actually did take place. These events occurred beginning in 1948 at the Mayak complex in the southern Ural mountains, where the Soviets operated seven plutonium production reactors. Soviet records reveal that these events released into the air more than five times as much radiation as that produced by all the world's 500 above-ground nuclear tests plus the major nuclear accidents at Chernobyl and Windscale (now Sellafield), England (in 1957). While the report may be new to the public, it was old news to the U.S. government. A highly secret monitoring unit called the Air Force Technical Applications Center has been operating a long-range detection program to monitor Soviet fallout for 50 years. 7 Minutes To Armageddon If you've ever had to give your boss really, really bad news, you can imagine how officers in Cheyenne Mountain, Colorado, felt when their radar screens lit up with 2200 Soviet missiles. The "launch on warning" protocols required confirmation, followed by the immediate notification of then-President Jimmy Carter. When other tracking stations reported all clear, the mystery deepened. With supposedly only 7 minutes left to launch U.S. ICBMs, the mystery was solved. Someone had put a training tape on the wrong machine-it was literally a textbook attack. After the 1979 incident, the Air Force moved its training operations to another location, and it has since upgraded its tracking center. Moscow's Phantom Arsenal During the 1980s, the rationale for the United States undertaking the largest weapons buildup in history was detailed in a widely circulated Defense Department document titled Soviet Military Power. The report estimated that the Soviet Union commanded weaponry that exceeded the U.S. arsenal in every category. It turns out many of those weapons never existed. Declassified CIA estimates of Soviet military power suggest the Defense Department's fears were caused by a phantom arsenal of nonexistent weapons. One example: The much-feared improved T-80 tank never existed. It appears analysts mistook an outmoded T-72 retrofitted with armored fabric side skirts for a new weapon. In fact, the Soviets weren't even maintaining the weapons they did have. At a press conference late last year, Gen. Eugene Habiger, top commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, acknowledged that during the 1980s "the Russians weren't modernizing their forces as we were." As a result, "The service life of their systems is coming to an end." I've heard of some of these, but the ESP troopers are really bizarre, as was the biological/ radiation weapons testing on US residents. I can only imagine what they are doing today.
Okay, we're busted. The US military is really Satan's Network on Earth, and we've got a number of black projects running right now that have the potential to murder millions of innocent Americans... Seriously, I've heard of most of these, although some of them are new to me. The T-80 tank, for example, most certainly does exist. Several of our new NATO allies operate them... The inert agents used in the biological warfare tests are generally really inert/harmless (decades of testing on them have shown it to be so), and such tests are still occasionally run on US cities with no ill effects whatsoever - the last one I heard about was San Diego in 2000, I think. I believe tests have been run in Houston... And I doubt anyone noticed. The ESP troopers story is very interesting. Until relatively recently the CIA and DoD had been using remote viewers in order to supplement satintel and get intel on underground facilities. Odd thing is that while the results of the program were mixed, there was apparently a degree of success achieved.
The whole cold war was pretty messed up. From Mcarthyism to the cuban missle crises. It has opened my eyes to revisonist history. That history is written by the "victors". For the longest time what we did was looked upon as just and fair because we were the good guys. WHile at the same time we often created most of our own problems. Still this era has put out some of the funniest millitary and public service announcment films I have ever seen. It does not get much better than duck and cover. "theres the flash, remember billy duck and cover"
It seems the US and Russia caused each other to increase miltary spending often by faking or enhancing the actual technology availible. SDI caused Russia some serious headaches I don't know that it was the primary force behind the fall of the Soviet Union as some say. Remote viewing is a wild concept, I think what makes it so strange to me is that the technique used are so removed from anything considered "New Age" like astral projection etc.
There's some really funny classified information about Reagan's Star Wars program. Quite possibly the most elaborate hoax ever pulled off.
Wow. Communism made Nazism look tame by comparison. The Communists killed over 100 million people last century, and robbed freedom from BILLIONS of people. Are you sure we weren't the "good guys"? Are you really this poor a critical thinker?
I don't think he's disputing the fact that we're the good guys. I think he's saying that just because we are, some circles believe that we can do no wrong. Some people seem to feel that critically reviewing our own past mistakes and faults in hope of becomming "better guys" is tantamount to treason.
100 million people? ???? BILLIONS of People? ??? ? post a link for these stats would ya. That might validate your claims. You can think we were the good guys if makes you feel warm and fuzzy at night. But the fact is we were an equal player in the Cold War. Our actions often spurned and escalated the tensions between "us and them" It didn't help matters when Truman replaced Roosevelt he had this attitude of superiority because we had the atomic bomb. Then to use that power to make the USSR submit to the will of the United States. Stalin makes getting nuclear weapons a priority, because of our attitude towards his country. Hard to believe that a few months earlier we were allies. There was still tension between the two countries but at least they were trying to work together. Our ability to use the bomb escalated our animosity. Soon, BOTH countries were overestimating what the other could do. The US thought all communism was the same and run for Russia, which it was not. Russia felt that the US was going to blow them away, also not true. Soon being called a commie for simple things like voting democrat was becoming common. The US had a resounding fear that communism would take over, that spies would infiltrate our way of life and lead us down the path of communism. Sure there were people who wanted America to have a communist party, heck during the great depression, Ronald met Nancy at a communist party meeting. . . . . hmmmmmm, must be a pinko. People would research communism and decide it wasn't what they wanted our thought it was. That's why you have the black list in Hollywood, over 15,000 government workers loosing their jobs. Communism is also why the words, under God were added to the pledge, flag day was instituted, and another holiday that didn't stick Loyalty day. All of this done because there was a fear that communism would take over our way of life. Now looking back would it have happened, HELL NO. People were jumping the gun getting all worked up about communism. Soon the government is sending more spies into the USSR, making more nuclear bombs, and freaking the USSR out. SO what do you think they do. The exact same thing. Further escalating the cold war. The cold war was everyone's fault not Communists or Americans, it was both sides, staring each other down with a gun in their hands, waiting for the other guy to pull the trigger. THAT is what I mean by us creating our own problems, our actions were causing a reaction, then we would take more action. All the while the Government is heaping the blame on the USSR and their godless government. Sorry you cant see that. maybe this will help. I mean its always nice and tidy when you can point the finger at someone else so you dont feel bad, but thats not how it usually is.
I want to point out that I dont deny Stalin and other Communist leaders did herendous things, its just that when you are throwing out numbers like 100 million people dead and over a billion people were robbed of freadom because of it, you had better back up your claims, because that looks like inflated numbers to me. Not to say that millions upon millions of people were not killed but I doubt the numbers you are putting up are accurate.
I thought that's what I just did. Do you need more sources, because these are the ones I found in, like 5 minutes, and if you doubt the word of people like Solzhenitsyn (who is quoted on one of those pages) I'm not sure that it would be possible to come up with a source that would be of sufficient authority for you to respect. Have you ever read the Communist Manefesto? The general theme is that fudalism is violently overthrown by capitalism, which is then violently overthrown by the 'supreme idology' of communism and everybody can live happily ever after, and the transitionary totaliaran governments can melt away, but the transition can't occur completely until every capitalist country has suffered the violent upheval and revolution leading to World Communism. In otherwords, at the core of the Communist world view, it is inherently necessary to overthrow every capitalist government, including the US government. This is not something that I'm making up. This is not some strange paranoia. It is right there 'in the manual' as it was written down by Karl Marx and Frederick Engels in 1860 or 70 whatever. You seem to think that if we were nice to everybody we could all get along. This is simply not the case. Many people in this world have had and continue to have a plan for the world that does not involve 'getting along' and 'respecting each other's differences'.
Dear American Hating Morons, If you look at two generations of people who suffered under the Soviet Bloc and Red China, you easily get BILLIONS of people who have been robbed of their inalienable freedoms. Stalin killed an estimated 60 million, Pol Pot killed 7 million, and many experts claim that Communist Chinese Purges may have killed more than Stalin. 100 million is a conservative estimate. Love, John Heath
Wasnt this thead about the cold war, not how bad communism is? I thought it was but I may be wrong. Your sources showed that about 20 million people were killed by Stalin, and i did say that I knew he did horendus things, but I also said the numbers that johnheath were putting up seemed a bit inflated. After reading your material it seemed to justify my suspicion that the numbers were inflated. I should also point out that my last post was not meant for you but rather johnheath and his claim. Hey I am glad you seem to know what kind of person I am, all from two posts from me. Good for you
Otto... Disagree with your interpretation of facts, but not facts themselves. Was raised on Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn ( strange mother had me reading First Circle, Ivan D., etc. at 9...not that I fully understood it, but was ingrained with AS' sense of the Soviet state..) and can say that he was an acredited and acclaimed witness to aspects of the USSR, but not of Communism per se, as the USSR was not really Communist, but stuck in the ( probably inevitable) Rule of the Proletariat 'transition' phase... re: Marx...I think you are failing to make a distinction here that Marx would have screamed: The worldwide Communist revolution he predicted was a struggle between classes, not nations, and has no bearing on the inevitable intentions of those states calling themselves 'communist' during the Cold War than would Payne's call to the overthrow of irresponsible monrachies have bearing onb the US's present conflict with Iraq...Marx predicted the inevitablility of the overthrow due to the inherant inbalance in the system of capitalism, not due to the pressure of external sympathizers. He would, were it needed to be distinguished, see the movement as either global, irrepective of borders, or internal, within borders...not as a resetting of broders, or of one nation seeking to export the idealogy. He thought it was self-motivating. As such, your reading of the manual is incorrect in it's assertion that it predicts the USSR's foreign policy. Some within the USSR may have interpreted it as such, but that is a seperate argument not covered by the C.M. itself. Peace JAG
Now you did it. so its up to BILLIONS now. make up your mind. What in the hell gives you the right to call me an American hating moron? the fact that I question my government from time to time? If that makes me an America hater then so be it. Just to let you know I will be an "American hater" for the rest of my life. Its my duty as an American citizen to question the actions of my government, If I don't like those actions, I choose to vote for a person that I feel will meet my needs. The moment that I stop questioning my government is the moment I am no longer an American. You can just sit around and think, hey its the gov, whatever they do is fine and dandy. I wont do that. I will always let the gov know when I think they are doing something wrong. On the flip side, when they do something right, they will have my full support, and I wont have to shout it from the rooftops, to try and justify my feelings. If the country needs me I will be there to support it, even when I disagree with what they are doing in some minor or major aspect. I love my freedom to question what I think is right and wrong and will die for it. That means dieing for assholes like you who think they can lump people into their nice little packages to make the life they lead as simple as possible. I will say it again, maybe I will dumb it down for some of you here. Were some communist leaders, "naughty naughty men?" yes, but there were also some that tried their best to help their fellow citizens. Its pretty obviouse that communism does not work. Still that has little or nothing to do with the cold war and our involvment in it. I will say it once more, we were equal partners in the war and caused it to esculate on more than one occasion. Its not like America is the shiny knight that came unscathed from battle. quite the oposite actually. Sure you can say, "BUT WE WON" thats fine and dandy too, anything to make you feel better.
