Word: nuclearization
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Early on Monday, June 26, word reached Bodo, Norway's military and civilian surveillance and rescue center 50 miles north of the Arctic Circle, that a nuclear-powered Soviet submarine was dead in the water and billowing smoke 65 miles off the northern coast. There was an immediate sense of deja vu: in April another Soviet nuclear sub sank in the Norwegian Sea, with the loss of 42 lives. Following standard procedure, the center telexed its counterpart in the Soviet port of Murmansk to inquire if help was needed...
...Soviets declined help, obviously not eager to have foreigners, especially military men from a NATO country, clambering on their sub or plucking their sailors from the sea. Later in the day, Soviet officials revealed that an air seal in the cooling unit of one of the vessel's nuclear reactors had ruptured. By that time, the stricken sub, an Echo II-class vessel with a crew of about 90 and believed to be carrying eight nuclear missiles, had begun crawling eastward under auxiliary diesel power, escorted by a Soviet freighter...
...modern engineering achievements, few are as complex as the nuclear submarine; only manned space vehicles come close. And as is the case in space flight, accidents are bound to happen in a global armada of about 367 N-subs -- 195 Soviet, 133 U.S., 19 British, nine French and at least one Chinese. In the 1980s alone, according to a recent report by Greenpeace and Washington's Institute for Policy Studies, about 60 -- the number is a minimum due to spotty disclosure records -- nuclear sub accidents have been logged, including fires, collisions and leaks of radioactivity...
Experts say the environmental threat posed by the nuclear reactors and atomic weapons lost at sea is small. Reactors are contained in casings so strong that they remain intact even under the tremendous pressure of very deep water; missiles crumple at great depth but will not detonate unless they are electronically "armed" -- something that would only happen in wartime. NATO intelligence has confirmed that nine reactors and 50 nuclear weapons of various sizes are resting on ocean floors. Said one Danish official: "Nuclear things don't just go off, but the idea of these weapons and reactors rusting away...
Soviet secretiveness over accidents has been a cause of upset in the West, where high standards are observed regarding disclosure of nuclear accidents. In Norway patience is wearing particularly thin. Anger was plainly evident last week when Foreign Minister Thorvald Stoltenberg denounced Soviet reluctance to divulge information as "unacceptable...