Samuel Cohen
Encyclopedia
Samuel Theodore Cohen was an American
physicist
who invented the W70
warhead, more popularly known as the neutron bomb
.
and raised in New York City
. He studied math and physics at UCLA before joining the Army after Pearl Harbor
. In 1944 he worked on the Manhattan project
in the efficiency group and calculated how neutrons behaved in Fat Man
, the atomic bomb that was later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. After the war he studied for his Ph.D. at Berkeley
before dropping out to join the RAND Corporation. At RAND Corporation in 1950, his work on the intensity of fallout radiation first became public when his calculations were included as a special appendix in Samuel Glasstone
's book The Effects of Atomic Weapons. Cohen was personally responsible for recruiting the famous strategist Herman Kahn
into the RAND Corporation.
During the Vietnam War
, Cohen argued that using small neutron bombs would end the war quickly and save many American lives, but politicians were not amenable to his ideas and other scientists ignored the neutron bomb in reviewing the role of nuclear weapons. He was a member of the Los Alamos Tactical Nuclear Weapons Panel in the early 1970s. President Carter delayed development of the neutron bomb in 1978, but during Ronald Reagan
's presidency, Cohen claims to have convinced Reagan to make 700 neutron bombs, 350 shells to go into the 8 inch (200-millimeter) howitzer and 350 W70 warheads for the Lance missile.
announced the testing of a 95% 'clean' (2-stage) fusion weapon, later identified to have been the 11 July Navajo test at Bikini Atoll during Operation Redwing. This weapon had a 4.5 megatons yield. Previous 'dirty' weapons had fission proportions of 50-77%, due to the use of uranium-238 as a 'pusher' around the lithium deuteride (secondary) stage. (The fusion neutrons have energies of up to 14.1 MeV, well exceeding the 1.1 MeV 'fission threshold' for U-238.) The 1956 'clean' tests used a lead pusher, while in 1958 a tungsten carbide pusher was employed. Hans A. Bethe supported clean nuclear weapons in 1958 as Chairman of a Presidential science advisory group on nuclear testing:
In consequence of Bethe's recommendations, on 12 July 1958, the Hardtack-Poplar shot of the Mk-41C warhead was carried out on a barge in the lagoon yielded 9.3 megatons, of which only 4.8% was fission, and thus 95.2% "clean".
Cohen in 1958 investigated a low-yield 'clean' nuclear weapon and discovered that the 'clean' bomb case thickness scales as the cube-root of yield. So a larger percentage of neutrons escapes from a small detonation, due to the thinner case required to reflect back X-rays during the secondary stage (fusion) ignition. For example, a 1-kiloton bomb only needs a case 1/10 the thickness of that required for 1-megaton.
So although most neutrons are absorbed by the casing in a 1-megaton bomb, in a 1-kiloton bomb they would mostly escape. A neutron bomb is only feasible if the yield is sufficiently high that efficient fusion stage ignition is possible, and if the yield is low enough that the case thickness will not absorb too many neutrons. This means that neutron bombs have a yield range of 1-10 kilotons, with fission proportion varying from 50% at 1-kiloton to 25% at 10-kilotons (all of which comes from the primary stage). The neutron output per kiloton is then 10-15 times greater than for a pure fission implosion weapon or for a strategic warhead like a W87 or W88.
, Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense, effects manual DNA-EM-1, updated 1981 (U.S. Freedom of Information Act).
Provided that the weapon was not used in a thunderstorm, no fallout effects would occur from the use of a neutron bomb according to that manual, as the combination of 500 m burst altitude and low yield prevents fallout in addition to significant thermal and blast effects. The reduction in damage outside the target area is a major advantage of such a weapon to deter massed tank invasions. An aggressor would thus be forced to disperse tanks, which would make them easier to destroy by simple hand-held anti-tank missile launchers.
Cohen's backing of investigations into these controversial ideas won him some media attention after many years of being ignored. In 1992 he was featured in the award-winning BBC TV series Pandora's Box, episode To the Brink of Eternity, discussing his battles with officialdom and colleagues at the RAND Corporation. Cohen controversially argued: "When we started this systems analysis business, we stepped through the looking glass where people did the weirdest things and (used) the most perverse kind of logic imaginable and yet claimed to have the most precise understanding of everything."
in 1979 for his bid to reform modern warfare. Author Charles Platt
reported in a 2005 profile of Sam Cohen that "...he showed me the Medal of Peace that he had received from the Pope in 1979."
At the time, Warsaw Pact
forces had a massive tank superiority in Europe (though NATO maintained an overall strategic superiority); the Christian Science Monitor reported in 1981 that there were "19,500 tanks in the Soviet-controlled forces of the Warsaw Pact aimed at Western Europe. Of these, 12,500 are Soviet tanks in Soviet units. NATO has 7,000 tanks on its side facing the 19,500." A deterrent which was designed to minimise civilian casualties was a step away from the risk of indiscriminate warfare. The neutron bomb's killing by neutron radiation is different from the fallout of a normal high yield thermonuclear weapon because it can be controlled more precisely, restricted to military targets and kept away from civilians.
The speed of modern warfare meant that the civilian population would be unlikely to be able to withdraw from combat zones and would suffer a large number of deaths in a nuclear war where the blast yields and fallout were significant. Because neutron bombs do not produce the indiscriminate blast (only 40 kilopascals at ground zero from a 1 kt blast yield detonation at 500 m altitude, and only 7 kPa at 2 km distance), heat and fallout damage of other nuclear weapons, they were more credible as a deterrent to Soviet tanks. However, many people believed that the very deployment of the neutron bomb threatened an escalation to full scale nuclear retaliation, thus canceling out the supposed benefits. Advances in precision anti-tank weapons ultimately made the neutron bomb redundant tactically in its original objective. The debate over "clean" low yield nuclear weapons continues with earth penetrator technology ("nuclear bunker buster
s").
. If the "conventional story" is to be believed, red mercury was a disinformation
campaign led by US government agencies in order to lure potential terrorists into being captured. The story that was released was that red mercury was developed by the Soviet Union
as a "shortcut" to a fusion bomb, and that with the fall of the Soviet Union it was being offered on the market by the Soviet mafia. When prospective buyers showed up to take delivery of the material, they were arrested.
During the height of the story, in the 1990s, Cohen became a proponent of red mercury, claiming not only that it existed, but going further to claim that it was a powerful ballotechnic material that directly compressed the fusion fuel without the need for a fission primary. Bombs using red mercury had no real critical mass
and could be developed at any size. He further claimed that the Soviets had produced a number of "micro-nukes" based on red mercury, which are described as being about as large as a baseball
and weighing 10 pounds. According to Cohen, their existence meant that any effort to control nuclear proliferation
based on fissile material was thus hopeless. A reiteration of the claim can be seen in The Nuclear Threat That Doesn't Exist – or Does It?, by Cohen and Joe Douglass in an 11 March 2003 guest editorial in Financial Sense Online.
Cohen later went on to claim that 100 of these mini-nukes were in the hands of terrorists, and later that Saddam Hussein
had taken delivery of about fifty of these devices, which he supposedly planned on using against the US forces as they approached Baghdad
.
In the face of claims that red mercury was a disinformation campaign, Cohen claimed that Russia has such weapons, "red mercury" exists as claimed, and the US, among the technical elite, take it seriously, while at the same time starting a disinformation campaign claiming "red mercury" is bogus in order to assuage the public. Independent confirmation of such claims in the article is lacking.
presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan. Irv Rubin
was prominently present at this event, with his organization, the Jewish Defense League
(JDL), and with members of the Libertarian Party
, to protest. The JDL posted Cohen's home phone number and address on its website, urging its members to contact him, to persuade him to stop supporting Buchanan.
In her address to the 2000 Reform Party National Convention, Buchanan's running mate, Ezola Foster, cited Cohen's endorsement of Buchanan to refute the claim that the candidate was anti-Semitic.
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
physicist
Physicist
A physicist is a scientist who studies or practices physics. Physicists study a wide range of physical phenomena in many branches of physics spanning all length scales: from sub-atomic particles of which all ordinary matter is made to the behavior of the material Universe as a whole...
who invented the W70
W70
W70 is the designation for a tactical nuclear warhead developed by the United States in the early 1970s. The Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory designed W70 was used on the MGM-52 Lance. About 1250 were built in total. The warhead had a variable yield of between 1 and 100 kilotons, selectable...
warhead, more popularly known as the neutron bomb
Neutron bomb
A neutron bomb or enhanced radiation weapon or weapon of reinforced radiation is a type of thermonuclear weapon designed specifically to release a large portion of its energy as energetic neutron radiation rather than explosive energy...
.
Biography
Cohen's parents who immigrated from London, England. He was born on January 25, 1921 in BrooklynBrooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
and raised in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
. He studied math and physics at UCLA before joining the Army after Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor
Pearl Harbor, known to Hawaiians as Puuloa, is a lagoon harbor on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, west of Honolulu. Much of the harbor and surrounding lands is a United States Navy deep-water naval base. It is also the headquarters of the U.S. Pacific Fleet...
. In 1944 he worked on the Manhattan project
Manhattan Project
The Manhattan Project was a research and development program, led by the United States with participation from the United Kingdom and Canada, that produced the first atomic bomb during World War II. From 1942 to 1946, the project was under the direction of Major General Leslie Groves of the US Army...
in the efficiency group and calculated how neutrons behaved in Fat Man
Fat Man
"Fat Man" is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States on August 9, 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons to be used in warfare to date , and its detonation caused the third man-made nuclear explosion. The name also refers more...
, the atomic bomb that was later detonated over Nagasaki, Japan. After the war he studied for his Ph.D. at Berkeley
University of California, Berkeley
The University of California, Berkeley , is a teaching and research university established in 1868 and located in Berkeley, California, USA...
before dropping out to join the RAND Corporation. At RAND Corporation in 1950, his work on the intensity of fallout radiation first became public when his calculations were included as a special appendix in Samuel Glasstone
Samuel Glasstone
Samuel Glasstone authored 40 popular textbooks on physical chemistry, reaction rates, nuclear weapons effects, nuclear reactor engineering, Mars, space sciences, the environmental effects of nuclear energy and nuclear testing...
's book The Effects of Atomic Weapons. Cohen was personally responsible for recruiting the famous strategist Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn
Herman Kahn was one of the preeminent futurists of the latter third of the twentieth century. In the early 1970s he predicted the rise of Japan as a major world power. He was a founder of the Hudson Institute think tank and originally came to prominence as a military strategist and systems...
into the RAND Corporation.
During the Vietnam War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
, Cohen argued that using small neutron bombs would end the war quickly and save many American lives, but politicians were not amenable to his ideas and other scientists ignored the neutron bomb in reviewing the role of nuclear weapons. He was a member of the Los Alamos Tactical Nuclear Weapons Panel in the early 1970s. President Carter delayed development of the neutron bomb in 1978, but during Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
's presidency, Cohen claims to have convinced Reagan to make 700 neutron bombs, 350 shells to go into the 8 inch (200-millimeter) howitzer and 350 W70 warheads for the Lance missile.
'Clean' nuclear tests
In 1956, President Dwight D. EisenhowerDwight D. Eisenhower
Dwight David "Ike" Eisenhower was the 34th President of the United States, from 1953 until 1961. He was a five-star general in the United States Army...
announced the testing of a 95% 'clean' (2-stage) fusion weapon, later identified to have been the 11 July Navajo test at Bikini Atoll during Operation Redwing. This weapon had a 4.5 megatons yield. Previous 'dirty' weapons had fission proportions of 50-77%, due to the use of uranium-238 as a 'pusher' around the lithium deuteride (secondary) stage. (The fusion neutrons have energies of up to 14.1 MeV, well exceeding the 1.1 MeV 'fission threshold' for U-238.) The 1956 'clean' tests used a lead pusher, while in 1958 a tungsten carbide pusher was employed. Hans A. Bethe supported clean nuclear weapons in 1958 as Chairman of a Presidential science advisory group on nuclear testing:
... certain hard targets require ground bursts, such as airfield runways if it is desired to make a crater, railroad yards if severe destruction of tracks is to be accomplished... The use of clean weapons in strategic situations may be indicated in order to protect the local population.
– Dr Hans Bethe, Working Group Chairman, 27 March 1958 "Top Secret - Restricted Data" Report to the NSC Ad Hoc Working Group on the Technical Feasibility of a Cessation of Nuclear Testing, p 9.
In consequence of Bethe's recommendations, on 12 July 1958, the Hardtack-Poplar shot of the Mk-41C warhead was carried out on a barge in the lagoon yielded 9.3 megatons, of which only 4.8% was fission, and thus 95.2% "clean".
Cohen in 1958 investigated a low-yield 'clean' nuclear weapon and discovered that the 'clean' bomb case thickness scales as the cube-root of yield. So a larger percentage of neutrons escapes from a small detonation, due to the thinner case required to reflect back X-rays during the secondary stage (fusion) ignition. For example, a 1-kiloton bomb only needs a case 1/10 the thickness of that required for 1-megaton.
So although most neutrons are absorbed by the casing in a 1-megaton bomb, in a 1-kiloton bomb they would mostly escape. A neutron bomb is only feasible if the yield is sufficiently high that efficient fusion stage ignition is possible, and if the yield is low enough that the case thickness will not absorb too many neutrons. This means that neutron bombs have a yield range of 1-10 kilotons, with fission proportion varying from 50% at 1-kiloton to 25% at 10-kilotons (all of which comes from the primary stage). The neutron output per kiloton is then 10-15 times greater than for a pure fission implosion weapon or for a strategic warhead like a W87 or W88.
U.S. Department of Defense manual on the neutron bomb
Cohen's neutron bomb is not mentioned in the unclassified manual by Glasstone and Dolan, The Effects of Nuclear Weapons 1957-77, but is included as an 'enhanced neutron weapon' in chapter 5 of the declassified (formerly secret) manual edited by Philip J. DolanPhilip J. Dolan
Philip J. Dolan graduated in physics from West Point in 1945, was assigned to the Manhattan Project, Los Alamos, in 1948, and received his MSc in physics from the University of Virginia in 1956. Dolan held U.S. Army posts ranging from 'Instructor in Nuclear Weapons Employment' to 'Nuclear Effects...
, Capabilities of Nuclear Weapons, U.S. Department of Defense, effects manual DNA-EM-1, updated 1981 (U.S. Freedom of Information Act).
Provided that the weapon was not used in a thunderstorm, no fallout effects would occur from the use of a neutron bomb according to that manual, as the combination of 500 m burst altitude and low yield prevents fallout in addition to significant thermal and blast effects. The reduction in damage outside the target area is a major advantage of such a weapon to deter massed tank invasions. An aggressor would thus be forced to disperse tanks, which would make them easier to destroy by simple hand-held anti-tank missile launchers.
Cohen's backing of investigations into these controversial ideas won him some media attention after many years of being ignored. In 1992 he was featured in the award-winning BBC TV series Pandora's Box, episode To the Brink of Eternity, discussing his battles with officialdom and colleagues at the RAND Corporation. Cohen controversially argued: "When we started this systems analysis business, we stepped through the looking glass where people did the weirdest things and (used) the most perverse kind of logic imaginable and yet claimed to have the most precise understanding of everything."
Alleged support from the Pope for low yield tactical nuclear bombs
Cohen reportedly worked in France on low-yield, highly discriminate tactical nuclear weapons in 1979-80. He claimed that he was awarded a medal by Pope John Paul IIPope John Paul II
Blessed Pope John Paul II , born Karol Józef Wojtyła , reigned as Pope of the Catholic Church and Sovereign of Vatican City from 16 October 1978 until his death on 2 April 2005, at of age. His was the second-longest documented pontificate, which lasted ; only Pope Pius IX ...
in 1979 for his bid to reform modern warfare. Author Charles Platt
Charles Platt (science-fiction author)
Charles Platt is an author, journalist and computer programmer. He relocated from England to the United States in 1970, is a naturalized U.S. citizen and has one daughter, Rose Fox...
reported in a 2005 profile of Sam Cohen that "...he showed me the Medal of Peace that he had received from the Pope in 1979."
At the time, Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact
The Warsaw Treaty Organization of Friendship, Cooperation, and Mutual Assistance , or more commonly referred to as the Warsaw Pact, was a mutual defense treaty subscribed to by eight communist states in Eastern Europe...
forces had a massive tank superiority in Europe (though NATO maintained an overall strategic superiority); the Christian Science Monitor reported in 1981 that there were "19,500 tanks in the Soviet-controlled forces of the Warsaw Pact aimed at Western Europe. Of these, 12,500 are Soviet tanks in Soviet units. NATO has 7,000 tanks on its side facing the 19,500." A deterrent which was designed to minimise civilian casualties was a step away from the risk of indiscriminate warfare. The neutron bomb's killing by neutron radiation is different from the fallout of a normal high yield thermonuclear weapon because it can be controlled more precisely, restricted to military targets and kept away from civilians.
The speed of modern warfare meant that the civilian population would be unlikely to be able to withdraw from combat zones and would suffer a large number of deaths in a nuclear war where the blast yields and fallout were significant. Because neutron bombs do not produce the indiscriminate blast (only 40 kilopascals at ground zero from a 1 kt blast yield detonation at 500 m altitude, and only 7 kPa at 2 km distance), heat and fallout damage of other nuclear weapons, they were more credible as a deterrent to Soviet tanks. However, many people believed that the very deployment of the neutron bomb threatened an escalation to full scale nuclear retaliation, thus canceling out the supposed benefits. Advances in precision anti-tank weapons ultimately made the neutron bomb redundant tactically in its original objective. The debate over "clean" low yield nuclear weapons continues with earth penetrator technology ("nuclear bunker buster
Nuclear bunker buster
Bunker-busting nuclear weapons, also known as earth-penetrating weapons , are a type of nuclear weapon designed to penetrate into soil, rock, or concrete to deliver a nuclear warhead to a target. These weapons would be used to destroy hardened, underground military bunkers buried deep in the ground...
s").
Red Mercury claims
More recently, Cohen was the main proponent of what most consider to be a mythical substance, red mercuryRed mercury
Red mercury is a 19th-century term for protiodide or iodide of mercury. It was commonly recommended for use as an antisyphilitic as late as 1913, most notably during the early years of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments. Taken orally, it caused hematemesis...
. If the "conventional story" is to be believed, red mercury was a disinformation
Disinformation
Disinformation is intentionally false or inaccurate information that is spread deliberately. For this reason, it is synonymous with and sometimes called black propaganda. It is an act of deception and false statements to convince someone of untruth...
campaign led by US government agencies in order to lure potential terrorists into being captured. The story that was released was that red mercury was developed by the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
as a "shortcut" to a fusion bomb, and that with the fall of the Soviet Union it was being offered on the market by the Soviet mafia. When prospective buyers showed up to take delivery of the material, they were arrested.
During the height of the story, in the 1990s, Cohen became a proponent of red mercury, claiming not only that it existed, but going further to claim that it was a powerful ballotechnic material that directly compressed the fusion fuel without the need for a fission primary. Bombs using red mercury had no real critical mass
Critical mass
A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The critical mass of a fissionable material depends upon its nuclear properties A critical mass is the smallest amount of fissile material needed for a sustained nuclear chain reaction. The...
and could be developed at any size. He further claimed that the Soviets had produced a number of "micro-nukes" based on red mercury, which are described as being about as large as a baseball
Baseball
Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each. The aim is to score runs by hitting a thrown ball with a bat and touching a series of four bases arranged at the corners of a ninety-foot diamond...
and weighing 10 pounds. According to Cohen, their existence meant that any effort to control nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
based on fissile material was thus hopeless. A reiteration of the claim can be seen in The Nuclear Threat That Doesn't Exist – or Does It?, by Cohen and Joe Douglass in an 11 March 2003 guest editorial in Financial Sense Online.
Cohen later went on to claim that 100 of these mini-nukes were in the hands of terrorists, and later that Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein
Saddam Hussein Abd al-Majid al-Tikriti was the fifth President of Iraq, serving in this capacity from 16 July 1979 until 9 April 2003...
had taken delivery of about fifty of these devices, which he supposedly planned on using against the US forces as they approached Baghdad
Baghdad
Baghdad is the capital of Iraq, as well as the coterminous Baghdad Governorate. The population of Baghdad in 2011 is approximately 7,216,040...
.
In the face of claims that red mercury was a disinformation campaign, Cohen claimed that Russia has such weapons, "red mercury" exists as claimed, and the US, among the technical elite, take it seriously, while at the same time starting a disinformation campaign claiming "red mercury" is bogus in order to assuage the public. Independent confirmation of such claims in the article is lacking.
Political involvement
Cohen spoke at an April 2000 fundraiser in La Canada, California, for then-Reform PartyReform Party of the United States of America
The Reform Party of the United States of America is a political party in the United States, founded in 1995 by Ross Perot...
presidential candidate Patrick Buchanan. Irv Rubin
Irv Rubin
Irving D. Rubin was chairman of the Jewish Defense League from 1985 to 2002. He allegedly committed suicide in jail when awaiting trial on charges of conspiracy to bomb private and government property....
was prominently present at this event, with his organization, the Jewish Defense League
Jewish Defense League
The Jewish Defense League is a Jewish organization whose stated goal is to "protect Jews from antisemitism by whatever means necessary"...
(JDL), and with members of the Libertarian Party
Libertarian Party (United States)
The Libertarian Party is the third largest and fastest growing political party in the United States. The political platform of the Libertarian Party reflects its brand of libertarianism, favoring minimally regulated, laissez-faire markets, strong civil liberties, minimally regulated migration...
, to protest. The JDL posted Cohen's home phone number and address on its website, urging its members to contact him, to persuade him to stop supporting Buchanan.
In her address to the 2000 Reform Party National Convention, Buchanan's running mate, Ezola Foster, cited Cohen's endorsement of Buchanan to refute the claim that the candidate was anti-Semitic.