Name: Ajax Vachher
Social Justice Group: Nuclear Weapons/Nuclear Proliferation
Date of Fieldwork: January 20, 2023
Name of Organization and person (people) with whom you met and their title(s): Lawrence Bullock
Type of Fieldwork: Interview
What I did and what I learned about my topic, activism, social justice work or civil and human rights work from this fieldwork?[:: :
On Friday, January 20th, and Friday, January 27th, my social justice group with Erick, Tyler, Ajev, and myself interviewed Lawrence Bullock. Lawrence worked in the nuclear bomb launch zones, and his job was to clean the nuclear weapons. I had originally thought that there were 2 people in the missile silos to launch the missile but it turns out that there is a third person behind both of them ready to shoot one or both of them if either of them show any hesitation to launch the bomb.
Lawrence told us that every 48 hours, there would be a shift change, and that when he went down there, he wouldn’t go back up for 2-3 days. The conditions didn’t seem that bad, even though they couldn’t go up for multiple days. He had to wake up at 4 a.m. every day he was in the missile silos and get to work. There was a gym, a kitchen, a place to sleep, and the place where they worked. Although the conditions inside seemed nice, Lawrence said that the civilians outside would make it stressful for him and other people because the civilians would know who was in there and when they were in there, and they would protest because they didn’t want nuclear weapons on their soil, and then Lawrence said how they didn’t see the people who worked in the silos as allies but rather as occupiers of their space.
The process of launching a nuclear weapon seemed pretty controlled from the way Lawrence described it. First, authorization from the President of the U.S. had to come in via flash traffic messages or coded messages. The launch is commanded by a captain or lieutenant who reports to a brigade commander, who then reports to a two-star general, and it’s controlled by a NATO commander, who is mostly going to be a four-star U.S. general. Lawrence said that they only take orders from a U.S. general who gets orders from the president. It seems complicated but also under control, and Lawrence said that he didn’t see a nuclear weapon being launched accidentally.
In Russia, their nuclear launch policy is different. If Putin says launch, they launch, but in America, when the President wants to launch, he’s only going to do it if he is advised by his commanders. Russian missiles are also more worn out and less up to date than U.S. missiles. In Russia, Lawrence said that there isn’t really any reason for them to launch a nuclear weapon because the only thing stopping Russia from taking over Ukraine is the rest of the world, and using a nuclear weapon would cause many difficulties and make it look like Russia is using their last resort because they are losing. Ukraine is getting help from the rest of the world, though. They recently got sent tanks from the U.S., which sent M-1 Abrahms, but it will take many months for them to arrive in Ukraine, and it’s also harder to maintain them because they run on jet fuel, which is more expensive, and the tanks won’t be of use for a long period of time since they don’t arrive for many months. Ukraine has been getting assistance from many countries, and Lawrence said that Russia could launch a nuclear weapon if they were losing terribly because they thought they would run over Ukraine, but Ukraine got what they wanted. Russia probably won’t because they know the consequences of launching a nuclear attack and the problems it would cause.
The amount spent and the amount they got paid depended on the presidents. Lawrence said that you would get more funding if the president was a Republican because Republicans believe that having a stronger military is better. When Ronald Reagan was president, the U.S. spent a lot of money to get high-tech equipment and worked to develop the military. Democrats on the other hand are trying to undercut the military and take money away from funding and to spend less money on the military. When Jimmy Carter was president, he wanted more democracy in the country and worked to form treaties instead of improving the military as much. Both examples of presidents believed that different things would benefit the country, and the amount spent was different because one thought that a stronger military would benefit the country and the other thought that a country with a strong democracy would be better.
Lawrence gave a lot of information in both interviews, and I was able to learn a lot from him. Our first interview was pretty successful, and even though the second one with him wasn’t as long, I still learned a lot from him. There is still a threat to society from nuclear weapons, but they haven’t been used in a pretty long time and hopefully won’t be used again. This was an amazing opportunity to get to interview someone who worked right next to nuclear weapons, and I learned a lot from him.
