Word: bomb
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...Brewster, who was named president of Yale in 1963 after Kennedy talked Bundy out of accepting the job. He became president of the Ford Foundation (which in a different world would have come later, after being Secretary of State), wrote a thoughtful tome on the relationship between the atom bomb and diplomacy (with scant mention of Vietnam), and headed a Carnegie Corporation project studying nuclear proliferation...
...mechanical failure or possibly even a meteorite strike--seemed almost as confusing as the jumbled pieces of the plane. And then a set of tantalizing clues emerged. Investigators discovered that several pieces of recovered wreckage bore minute traces of chemical explosives. That evidence provided the strongest support for a bomb theory. Last week, however, this line of inquiry was interrupted. On Thursday investigators learned that on June 10 St. Louis airport police had used the plane that would be TWA Flight 800 as a testing facility for a bomb-sniffing dog, and that the tiny amount of chemicals used...
...With the bomb theory fading for lack of hard evidence, the focus of the NTSB investigation has returned to mechanical failure and the possibility that a spark, despite built-in safeguards, may have somehow caused the center fuel tank to explode. Again, the problem is evidence: there is none. Computer modeling--or the simulated explosion of a retired jumbo jet--may be required to buttress the theory...
...bomb theory go to the dogs? After finding traces of explosives on the wreckage, investigators ordered federal agencies to check into how the chemicals could have got on the plane other than via a bomb. One area examined was an faa program that requires the periodic recertification of bomb-sniffing dogs by placing real chemicals on empty planes. Finally, local airport records led to the St. Louis police canine unit...
...exercise involved placing "test packages of explosive chemicals" inside the plane so that the bomb dog could find them, according to the FBI. While the packages did not contain any substance that would actually blow up, they did contain chemicals such as PETN and RDX, both of which are building blocks for plastic explosives. The FBI says the packages were removed at the end of the tests, but the exercise could have left debris that may "possibly relate to the trace residues previously identified" on parts of the plane. Indeed, the PETN found on the floor of the passenger section...