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Scientist Backs Reliability of W-76 Nuclear Warhead
A Massachusetts Institute of Technology scientist has said U.S. W-76 nuclear warheads are dependable and reliable despite some concerns in U.S. nuclear laboratories, the New York Times reported today. About 70 percent of the warheads would explode as intended if they were used in combat, according to the researcher’s findings (see GSN, July 5). “No matter how cautious the assessment, the W-76 remains a reliable component of the U.S. nuclear deterrent,” nuclear weapons expert Geoffrey Forden wrote in the July issue of Jane’s Intelligence Review. Developed at the Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico in the early 1970s, the W-76 is carried on submarines patrolling the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. Physicist and former Los Alamos official Richard Morse has led criticism that a design flaw makes the warhead unreliable and that the weapon would be a dud or explode with reduced force, according to the Times. Federal officials have denied any problems with the warheads. Forden’s estimate is based on a statistical analysis of the probable number of classified W-76 tests during the warhead’s development, the Times reported. He wrote that the W-76 had been tested eight times and that only one test “produced a substantially lower yield than expected.” “At the very least, this 70 percent of the W-76’s should detonate as planned,” Forden wrote. “This is a worse-case scenario” (William Broad, New York Times, July 13).
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