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The names of nine places where bombs or bomb components minus their nuclear charges were located between 1951 and 1977 are revealed in a 332-page official Pentagon history. The names of 18 other locations were blacked out by government censors before the document was released to Robert Norris, a private specialist on nuclear weapons and author of numerous books on the topic.
Using other documents, Norris and his co-authors said they could identify 17 of those other locations, ringing the globe from Canada to Iceland to South Korea and Japan.
The nine nuclear weapon locations named in the Pentagon document are Cuba, Puerto Rico, Britain, West Germany, the U.S. territories of Guam, Johnston Island and Midway, and Alaska and Hawaii, which were U.S. territories in the early years of the Cold War.
Even with material blacked out, the "History of the Custody and Deployment of Nuclear Weapons," published in February 1978 as a top secret document, reveals new information about the location, timing and types of U.S. nuclear weapon deployments.
"It shows a huge expanse of nuclear weapons around the globe," Norris said in an interview yesterday.
The narrative portion of the Pentagon history makes no reference to U.S. nuclear weapons in Cuba, but an appendix listing locations outside the continental United States says an unspecified number of "non-nuclear depth bombs" were stored in Cuba between December 1961 and July-September 1963. The crisis over Moscow's stationing of surface-to-air nuclear missiles in Cuba was in October 1962.
The term "non-nuclear" referred to components, such as bomb casings or assemblies, for nuclear weapons, the report said. At that time, bomb design technology required that the actual nuclear charge, or capsule, be kept separate from the non-nuclear assembly. In the event of war, capsules could be flown to bases where they would be inserted into the assemblies to make complete bombs.
At least 18 lawsuits are in the works as a result of the April 20 bloodbath, with just about everyone a potential defendant - gun makers, the gunmen's parents, the school district and the sheriff's department.
Even the parents of one of the killers, Dylan Klebold, have filed a notice of intent to sue Sheriff John Stone. The Klebolds say Stone failed to inform them about the violent tendencies of the other gunman, Eric Harris.
Investigators were aware that Harris had made threats and maintained a hate-filled Website, and the Klebolds claim they would have made sure their son stayed away from Harris if they had known that.
The Klebolds' lawyer, Gary Lozow, said Thomas and Susan Klebold want to protect themselves from lawsuits filed by victims and will not seek more money that what other people are seeking from them.
Harris and Klebold stormed their high school just after lunchtime, scattering gunfire and bombs. They killed 12 students and a teacher and wounded at least 23 others before committing suicide in the deadliest school shooting in U.S. history.
In the days after the massacre, Littleton came together, putting up silver-and-blue Columbine ribbons in windows and on fences and wearing lapel pins. They turned out for funeral services, organized campaigns to raise money, and made dinners and did other chores for victims' families.
Harriet Hall, the mental health worker in charge of providing counseling to the Columbine victims, said she is not surprised how much the community has clashed since then.
"I'd be worried if there weren't disagreements. I think it is possible to have nobility, anger and grief at the same time, if you recognize your grief, but it is rare indeed," Hall said. "This is a natural response to what the community has been through."
The parents of Isaiah Shoels, the only black student killed in the massacre, are suing the Harrises and the Klebolds, in addition to two men charged with helping the teens get the guns used in the attack. The lawsuit alleges the parents failed to take action when their sons stockpiled guns and bombs, and gave them "extraordinary privileges" despite their run-ins with the law.
They do agree with the Klebolds on one thing - they also have filed notice of intent to sue the sheriff's department.
Sam Riddle, a spokesperson for the Shoels family, said "the Shoelses caught all kinds of hell when they filed their lawsuit," yet "now these other families are following" them.
Colorado law requires anyone who wants to sue a government agency to file notice of intent to do so within six months of an incident. In this case, that deadline expired this week.
Under Colorado law, the families cannot collect more than $600,000 in a lawsuit against a government agency.
Several parents who filed notice said they are not motivated by money and will decide whether to pursue their lawsuits after the official investigation is complete. They said they want to know whether the massacre could have been prevented.
One likely case would come against school officials. Some parents claim school officials ignored how certain cliques at Columbine hassled less popular students like Harris and Klebold. Other cases might claim that school security was inadequate or that administrators didn't do enough to prevent the shootings.
"I hope the lawyers who have filed these notices review the cases and realize that there is no legal liability on behalf of the county, sheriff or any other county employees that have been named," said Bill Tuthill, an attorney for Jefferson County.
There is support for the Klebolds' case, even in some unlikely corners. Brian Rohrbaugh, whose son, Dan, was among the slain students, said he could understand why the Klebolds sued.
"Clearly, if the sheriff's department had done what would have been expected of them," Rohrbaugh said, "I think everything that happened April 20 would have been avoided."
The bill went down to defeat after reformers twice failed to muster the necessary 60 votes to break a filibuster mounted by opponents.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) the indefatigable advocate of revamping the U.S. election-financing laws and a Republican presidential candidate, vowed to press on. "We will not give up," he said afterward. "Eventually we will prevail."
The Senate's action marked the second consecutive year that it became the burial ground for reform legislation that had passed the House by surprisingly large margins. Although reform supporters knew they faced steep odds overcoming the filibuster, they at least hoped for a strong showing that would boost their cause. But even that appeared questionable.
Senate opponents of reform exuded confidence after Tuesday's votes.
"There is no momentum whatsoever for this kind of measure," said Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) noting that more senators (48) effectively voted to kill the reform legislation Tuesday than in 19 previous votes on the subject since 1987.
"It's dead for the year," added Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss.
The Senate bill was a stripped-down version of the one that the House passed last month. Sponsored by McCain and Sen. Russell D. Feingold, D-Wis., it would have banned so-called soft money, the
largely unregulated and increasingly large contributions by corporations, unions and wealthy individuals to the two major political parties that reformers charge are corrupting the political system.
The vote to force consideration of the measure failed, with 53 senators favoring the bid to end the filibuster and 47 against it. A subsequent vote to take up the broader House-passed measure fell short by an
almost identical vote, 52-48.
The Senate's 45 Democrats voted en masse to end the filibuster, joined on each vote by a handful of Republicans. But the vast majority of GOP senators and the chamber's one independent voted against the
motions.
President Clinton issued a statement lambasting the votes.
"Once again, a minority in the Senate has blocked bipartisan campaign finance reform. The failure ... is a victory for the politics of cynicism, and it leaves unchecked the influence of moneyed special
interests," Clinton said. "The people of this country want reform, and the Senate cannot stand in their way forever."
Despite Clinton's remarks, he has not thrown his full weight behind the battle on Capitol Hill. During his 1996 re-election campaign, the president's own technique to help the Democratic Party raise soft
money _ overnight stays in the White House's Lincoln Bedroom for large donors _ came under fire and helped spur the push for reform. The tougher House bill actually was modeled after an earlier
version of the McCain-Feingold proposal. It called for stringent regulations on "issue-advocacy" ads, through which special interest groups promote or criticize a candidate's record without directly urging
voters to support or oppose the office seeker.
McCain and Feingold dropped that provision from their current bill in hopes of winning enough additional support to overcome a filibuster.
Foes of the legislation argue that the influence of soft money contri butions is exaggerated and that stemming the flow of such funds would violate free speech protections.
(Begin optional trim)
For the maverick McCain, the latest failure of campaign finance reform may prove to be something of a doubled-edged sword.
While his quixotic crusade has afforded him a platform to emphasize the reformist streak that fuels his presidential bid, the setback illuminates his inability to build broad support for his initiative within his
own party.
The three-term senator, who chairs the Senate Commerce Committee, brushed off questions about his failure to win enough GOP converts on the issue.
"On this issue, I don't lobby," McCain said.
(End optional trim)
For Senate Democrats, the two votes belied the fact that, although all of them favored taking up McCain's bill and the tougher House version, many are loath to ban soft money contributions, especially when
the Democratic Party is raising such unregulated contributions at an unprecedented pace.
In the first half of 1999, for instance, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee already has $9 million in soft money contributions _ a better than fourfold increase over the comparable period in
1997.
Sen. John B. Breaux, D-La., acknowledged that there is Democratic opposition to a ban on soft money donations. "What the Democrats wanted was a vote on the bill," he said.
McCain put it more bluntly: "The enemies of reform were numerous, resourceful and bipartisan." He added: "There's a lot of cynicism in this whole thing."
(Optional add end)
Efforts to update the nation's election-financing laws go back more than a decade. The drive seemed to gain momentum after abuses arising out of the 1996 campaigns were revealed.
But resistance to change so far has proved insurmountable. And with another presidential election year looming and Republicans controlling the House by a mere five-vote margin, more money than ever is
being raised by both parties _ much to the alarm of reformers.
Aside from McCain, the GOP senators who joined the 45 Democrats voting to end the filibuster on the stripped-down reform bill were Sam Brownback of Kansas, Susan Collins and Olympia J. Snowe of
Maine, James M. Jeffords of Vermont, Fred Thompson of Tennessee, Tim Hutchinson of Arkansas and William V. Roth Jr. of Delaware.
The Republicans voting to end the filibuster on the broader House version were McCain, Collins, Snowe, Jeffords, Thompson, John H. Chafee of Rhode Island and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.
LA TIMES-WASHINGTON POST-10-19-99 2213EDT
10-20-99
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