Nuclear accident forecast once missiles deployed

Press, 31 October 1983, Page 5

Nuclear accident forecast once missiles deployed

Experts had estimated that there would be a nuclear accident within a year of the new Pershing 2 missiles’ being deployed in West Germany, a public meeting at the Canterbury Public Library war told last evening. About 50 people attended the meeting, which was called by the New Zealand Nuclear Free Zone Committee to consider the danger of a nuclear was caused by accident. Barbara Leonard, a member of a newly formed group called Computer Professionals Against Nuclear War, said people had the mistaken belief that computer guidance systems could not fail. This was not borne out by past experience.

Computers did break down and malfunction. Computer programmers could make mistakes and complex computer programmes were never “bug free.”

The increasing complex-

ity of the systems used meant that they were getting beyond human control, she said.

A United States investigation of the Defence Department’s early warning system found that there were 150 false alarms in one 18month period. That included a false alarm which lasted six minutes. In the early 19605, a false alarm lasted for 20 minutes.

The new Pershing 2 missiles, scheduled to be deployed in West Germany in December, would take only four minutes to hit a target in the Soviet Union. That meant there would be barely any time for human intervention if there was a false alarm, she said.

The Soviet response to the deployment of the Pershing 2 missile would be to institute a “launch on warning system,” which would be fully automated and which would not give any time for human intervention in case

of a false alarm. Dr Bob Hodgson, a senior lecturer in engineering at the University of Canterbury, said that on the basis of scientific definitions of the term “risk” and “safety,” the early warning systems used by the United States were not safe. It was not likely that the systems used in the Soviet Union were safe. “The safest system is one that does not exist. That is what we must work for in the future,” he said. “We do not want our lives held hostage to the reliability of systems in this way.” In the meantime, there were ways of increasing the safety of early warning systems. They needed to be scrutinised by programmers who had no part in their design. France had suggested that a system of surveillance satellites under international control be used and another idea was to have independent scrutineers from non-nuclear nations.

The peace campaigner, Mr Larry Ross, said that a nuclear accident could be caused by mechanical failure or malfunction of nuclear weapons, or by the people or computers controlling the early warning or firing systems, or by the misjudgment or miscalculation of decision makers, particularly in a crisis. New Zealand could be at risk even in a nuclear war caused by accident or mistake. The Government had indicated that it would support the United States in the event of a nuclear war without even evaluating the causes of the war, he said. Mr Ross said he believed a solution could be found to the nuclear problem, since the bomb was first produced in the human mind. The anti-nuclear movement had to become a political force. Its members should lobby candidates at the next General Election and canvass to support candidates who supported the antii nuclear movement. f 1 h