OPINION Page 4 No Tuesday, November 14, 1989 The MichiganDaily'I By Mike Massy This Wednesday and Friday, recruiters from the two major nuclear weapons labo- ratories in the U.S. will be visiting the University. They are offering bright young physicists and engineers wads of money to join in their mission. Why are they here? Before you interview with them, you should know the facts. Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Lab(LANL) have designed every nuclear warhead in this country's entire nuclear arsenal. LANL was the home of the Man- hattan Project, where the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were designed, tested, and built. Many of the physicists who worked on the Manhattan project left their jobs with the anguish and guilt over what they had created. Some proposed an international ban on the fur- ther development of atomic weapons, with the forethought of their potential for global genocide. But many of them stayed at their posts, designing newer and ever more lethal applications of the technolo- gies they sired. In the 1950s, Edward Teller, known as the father of the Hydro- gen bomb (thousands of times more pow- erful than an atomic bomb), vigorously sought (and won) the establishment of LLNL to complement LANL. Since then, these labs have designed nuclear weapons -that include: nuclear artillery that fit into a Howitzer shell, nuclear anti-submarine weapons, MIRVed warheads (with 10 in- dependent warheads on a single missile), submarine-launched missles, the neutron bomb and cruise missles. They are currently developing so called uclear "third generation" weapons (including "Star Wars" weaponry), which are intended to direct the energy of nuclear explosions, thus increasing the possibility of destroy- ing enemy targets in a first strike, without obliterating the surrounding area. These new weapons are the cornerstone of current U.S. strategic policy - a policy avowing the first use of nuclear weapons in order to cripple Soviet nuclear retaliatory forces, provided there will be an "acceptable" number of casualties on both sides (100 Million Soviet and 30 Million U.S.). These third generation weapons include "Star Wars" weapons, likely to be de- ployed in space. The x-ray laser is one of these weapons. At its core is a hydrogen bomb, which produces copious amounts of x-rays. The x-ray energy is amplified and directed by metal rods, which can be pointed at on- coming missiles in space. Teller, who's word is treated as that of God ai Liver- more, was instrumental in Ronald Rea- gan's infamous "Star Wars" proclamation in 1983. In the years following, Teller, along with another LLNL scientist, falsi- fied results of the x-ray laser, thus project- ing more hope on the U.S. people that his fanciful idea could protect us from an im- pending nuclear holocaust. On another front, LLNL and LANL have adamantly opposed any attempts to- ward achieving a nuclear test ban treaty. In 1978, then President Jimmy Carter was on the verge of signing a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty with the Soviets. After meeting with the directors of LLNL and LANL, Carter reneged. LANL director Agnew said, "There's no question in my mind that we turned Carter around because we incurred so many enemies from the thugs other side! It was obvious we had an im- pact." (Los Alamos Science, Summer-Fall 1981, pg. 154). Publicly, they assert that testing is necessary to maintain confidence in our nuclear stockpiles. Reports from their own scientists refute these claims. Only 6 out of 300 nuclear tests have tested the reliability of existing warheads. on cai weapons projects or seek employment elsewhere. At the same time that LLNL landed a multimillion dollar "Star Wars" grant, the Tandom Mirror Magnetic Con- finement Fusion project was canned, forc- ing fusion workers to quit or join the "Star Wars" project. (Science for the Peo- ple, vol. 20 #1,Jan-Feb 1988,p7). Peter mpus ality. Join the demonstration. to protest Livermore and Los Alamos on campus, this Wednesday at 8 am behind the Randall Laboratory (East of the Diag). Our de-* mands: To the Federal Government (Lawrence Livermore and Los Alamos): - Ban all testing of nuclear-pumped X-ray lasers. - Stop testing and development of "3rd Generation" nuclear weapons. 'Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) and Los Alamos National Lab(LANL) have designed every nuclear warhead in this country's entire nuclear arsenal.' The reason why LLNL and LANL op- pose test ban treaties is because they are absolutely essential in developing the new "third generation" weapons. Any of these new devices requires from 100 to 200 nu- clear test explosions. ( At $10 to $30 Mil- lion for each test, that's billions of dollars for testing alone). The only chance they would have for producing exotic new weapons within a test ban treaty is through laser fusion research. LLNL and LANL boast a vigorous research effort in "civilian" laser fusion. In effect, controlled laser fusion would allow scientists to study hydrogen bombs on a microscopic scale. Thus, many of the non-classified civil- ian projects at LLNL and LANL are cru- cial to the present and future designing of nuclear weapons. About 50 percent of their research is classified, however some estimate that 85 percent is geared toward designing nuclear weapons. Many scientists are lured by LLNL to work on civilian projects, only to find that their superiors wanted them to work on classified weapons projects. In some cases, their research was cancelled and their only options were to work on Hagelstein, who went to LLNL to work on a non-nuclear x-ray laser, was prodded by his superiors to perform calculations necessary for designing a nuclear-pumped x-ray laser. (NYT Aug.11,VI,32:1). He later "told colleagues at MIT he was 'trapped' into working on the antimissile program and did not want to be remem- bered for his weapons work"(NYT Jan 22,1987,II,18:1). We believe the work of LLNL and LANL can only bring the world closer to nuclear war. The development of newer, more accurate weapons will certainly make nuclear warfighting more palpable. The billions of dollars spent each year on the research, development, and testing of new nuclear weapons systems is at best a waste of resources better used for providing af- fordable housing, quality education, and social services for the millions of Ameri- cans who need it, and at worst a down- payment for nuclear war. As scientists, we can make a change. We must speak up and let our voices be heard. We urge our colleagues to boycott the weapons labs. Don't allow yourself to be sucked into a system which seeks to make the nuclear nightmare a re- . Convert weapons research to ian projects (alternative energy, transportation, environmental). civil- mass@ - Build homes, not bombs: money spent for R&D of nuclear weapons ($500 Million per year at Livermore), should be diverted to social programs and housing. - No more classified research. - Funds for basic research out of th hands of the Military. " Immediate cleanup of toxic wastes indiscriminately dumped by national labs. To the University of Michigan: - Bring socially acceptable compa- nies to recruit. " Ban organizations that do classi- fRed research from recruiting on cam- pus because they exclude foreign na- tionals outright from employment op- portunities and are therefore discrimi- natory. Mike Massy is a doctoral student in physics. Edited and managed by students at The University of Michigan 420 Maynard St. Vol. C, No. 50 Ann Arbor, MI 48109 Unsigned editorials represent a majority of the Daily's Editorial Board. All other cartoons, signed articles, and letters do not necessarily represent the opinion of the Daily. What's so intelligent about the CIA? Covert action, style "Their military coups, torture chambers, and terrorism cause untold pain, and their backing of multinational corporations and local elites helps push millions to the edge of starvation, and often beyond. They are the Gestapo and SS of our time, and as in the Nuremberg Trials and the war in Vietnam, they cannot shed their individual responsibility simply because they were following a superior's Was the AIDS virus genetically engineered? 4 AIDS: a possible origin orders," Phillip Agee, former CIA agent. IN ITS forty-two year history the Cen- tral Intelligence Agency has violated its charter under the National Security Act and both domestic and international law. It has gone beyond its ostensible function as an intelligence gathering and evaluating organization to one which initiates covert actions all over the world. These actions have led, in a conservative estimate, to over six mil- lion deaths. The CIA exists to support those groups and governments which will actively implement U.S. foreign pol- icy. Though the CIA and its backers would argue "security" is what moti- vates U.S. foreign policy there is little evidence to support this abstract idea. What is, however, historically evident is that U.S. foreign policy is directly motivated by U.S. economic interests and the CIA is the watchdog of those interests. As such, the CIA has been responsible for the destruction of many groups and governments that oppose U.S. interests. These principles are abundantly doc- umented in CIA supported military coups in countries including Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, and Chile, where democratically elected governments were destroyed when they attempted some kind of redistribution of wealth from western multinational corpora- tions to the local populace. The CIA's coup in Guatemala in 1954 is the most well-documented CIA action and is typical in many respects of the agency's operations. The United States was vehemently opposed to the government in Guatemala because it had proposed a land reform program that threatened the huge banana estates of the United Fruit Company. The United States, threatened by a govern- ment that actually attempted to end U.S. economic hegemony, became in- volved through its principle player, the CIA. The agency trained a small number of Guatemalan exiles, armed them, brought international pressure to bear on the Guatemalan government and when the opportunity arose, the agency sent its mercenaries in. Since 1954, Guatemala has been ruled, both openly and through civilian fronts, by the mili- tary. It has stayed in power only through massive repression - over one hundred fifty thousand people have been killed by the army and govern- ment death squads. By Mike Sobel This is the first of a four part series. AIDS is now being called the most lethal epidemic viral disease known to medical history. My uncle, an oncologist, mentioned to me in a conversation about the unknown origin of AIDS that a Soviet letter pub- lished in an English medical journal pro- posed the AIDS virus (HIV-1) was geneti- cally engineered in a United States biolog- ical warfare lab. He scoffed at the possibil- ity and I was unable to get hold of the let- ter. Apparently, the Soviet's claim has been heralded by a variety of supermarket tabloids across the country. The lack of literature to support or refute the Soviet's accusation clearly indicates that, if this claim has proliferated within the scientific community, it has not been taken seri- ously. In this series, I will analyze the nature of the AIDS virus, particularly with re- spect to similar animal viruses, and the history of biological warfare researchrin this country. It is my intent to add cre- dence to these claims by raising reasonable doubt that AIDS is the result of a natural phenomenon. The first cases of AIDS were positively identified in the United states in 1981. Shortly thereafter, cases of the disease were identified among Africans residing in Europe. This discovery prompted a series of retrospective serological studies, the re- sults of which seemed to indicate that AIDS originated in central Africa in the late 70s. There has been some consensus that AIDS might have been present in small, central African population as early as 1959 and on through the 60s and early 70s. Yet as Quinn points out in a 1986 article, published in Science, "Serological studies of HIV in Africa have been inconsistent because of problems in interpretation of the results from ELISA (enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays) and Western blot tests of banked specimens, particularly from malaria endemic areas, and the valid- ity of these data have been questioned." In his 1987 article published in the Journal of Molecular Evolution, Yokoyama indicated that by sequencing the amino acids of the gag protein of the virus, it becomes clear that HIV-1 did not diverge from its prototype until after 1977. I will try to provide evidence in the second part of this series that HIV-1 is a prototype itself and not part of any viral evolutionary tree. In any event, I maintain that the only reliable studies to date indi- cate that AIDS is an extremely recent phe- nomenon and that it appeared in the mid to late 70s. As I will discuss in the third part of this series, this occurred after the dis- covery of recombinant DNA (rDNA) tech- nology. Therefore, I believe that, to date, it is unfair to dismiss the possibility that the AIDS virus was genetically engineered on flow in one direction: DNA to RNA to protein. It was discovered that retroviruses, however, have RNA as their genetic"com- plement. They also contain an enzyme, reverse transcriptase, that uses the RNA as a template for making DNA. The DN then integrates itself into the host cell and there serves as the basis for viral replica- tion. Retroviruses have also attracted signifi- cant interest in the field of genetic engi- neering. In his 1983 book, Replication of the Viral and Cellular Genomes, Becker claims that retroviruses are "Fast becom- ing the choice vectors to deliver foreign genes into eukaryotic cells." Retroviruses are traditionally divided*" into three categories: spuma viruses cause little or no disease in vivo (in the body), oncoviruses can cause tumors in animals and lentiviruses cause chronic progressive disease in vitro (in the lab). HIV-1 is classed as a lentivirus. The HIV-1 particle, or virion, is covered by a lipid membrane derived from the host cell. Embedded in the membrane is a gly- 'Therefore, I believe that, to date, it is unfair to dismiss the 1 possibility that the AIDS' virus was genetically engineered on the grounds that it was present in the human population be- fore the technology to engineer such a virus could have pos- sibly existed.' the grounds that it was present in the hu- man population before the technology to engineer such a virus could have possibly existed. HIV-1 is a retrovirus. The first retro- virus was isolated in 1910 by Peyton Rous at the Rockefeller Institute for Medi- cal Research. Since the discovery of their mechanism, retroviruses have attracted se- rious interest from the scientific commu- nity because they subverted the central dogma of molecular biology. After the discovery of DNA, it was be- lieved that genetic information could only coprotein (GP41) which stems the surface glycoprotein (GP120). The core of the par- ticle, made up of two proteins (P18 and P24), carries the viral RNA along with several copies of reverse transcriptase. In the next part of the series, I will fur- ther analyze the nature of the AIDS virus to show its unique and diabolic ability to completely deceive the human immune system, its mysterious genetic make-up, and its dissimilarity with other viruses of its kind. Mike Sobel is a senior in LSA and a Daily news staff member. ................U .............. ................ ................ ................ ................ ................ Letters to t he Ed ito y:..\:.~~~:\~;..................................... Thinking about racism To the Daily: "[John] was brought up in a "extreme militant racist," the study of Ezekiel's study of racism. We are also told, "they are very, very ignorant about the lives of other people." I find it quite fascinating, rather revealing and more than a little offensive that the study of ronkmhVa rn ..nnr..l nn..nL fraternity house in our very midst on this campus. Does Ezekiel really believe that some skinhead actually both- ered to make the trip into Ann Arbor in order to perform such a &d? What I fear I see surfacing about choosing for study some nice, clean-cut, well-dressed 17- 25 year olds from upper mid- dle-class families (either frag- mented or intact), who might, in fact, even "be very, very ig- norant about the lives of other people," for a study of racism.O y, :, : .:. . ,d c... f. &d.. uT:: "r8. . . . .R~ ' °' $ :.'