Ever had trouble with your computer?  You are not alone...

By Jim McCluskey

 

On Sunday, as part of the CND 50th Anniversary International Conference, I attended a round-table discussion of about thirty people, chaired by a senator from Canada and including experts from around the world in various scientific fields. 

The senator introduced an Indian gentleman who was a leading expert on fissile materials and had prepared a power-point presentation on that topic. (It takes about 100 grams of highly enriched uranium to make a nuclear bomb. Two thousand tons of it have been manufactured and the whereabouts of some of this massive amount cannot be accounted for.)

The presenter switched on his lap-top and immediately a message flashed onto the large screen – NO SIGNAL. He fiddled to no avail. Others gathered round. Eventually the help settled down to three bearded, middle-aged gentlemen working on the problem. 

Sitting on my right was a 50-something ex-commander of a nuclear submarine who has taken early retirement, as what he was doing had gradually dawned on him.  He has spent his life since retiring going around the world warning people about the horrendous dangers they are being exposed to by their paranoid leaders.

The commander has a well-developed sense of humour. He nudged me and said with extreme scepticism, 'We'll be all right now - that's three professors we have working on the problem.' His scepticism proved justified. The NO SIGNAL message remained in place.

At last the chap on my left, a Scottish scientist and a leading authority on Britain's nuclear arsenal, got up and left the room.

He returned with a young black girl. She went to the lap-top, elbowed the professors aside, had things running perfectly in about thirty seconds - and left. Nobody said who she was or where she came from.

Was she one of the cleaners? Help in these matters can come from unexpected quarters. 

There are 27,000 nuclear weapons in existence, 5,000 of which are on high alert and about two keystrokes on a computer away from launch. The entire system is almost totally dependent on electronic and computer technology, which must work flawlessly at all times...

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