Jul 25, 2025

Bulletin 365: Russiagate exposed / WORK WITH US DURING HIROSHIMA-NAGASAKI WEEK / Congress requires two pit pit factories; other updates / History of broken pit promises at LANL

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Ukraine war updates, analysis. Much is happening there, affecting the entire world. We urge anyone interested in nuclear disarmament to read and think about what we've put there, and share that page with friends and colleagues.

This Bulletin:

1. Russiagate exposed, again and more so
2. Please work with us during Hiroshima-Nagasaki week
3. Plutonium warhead core ("pit") update
4. History of broken pit promises at LANL

Dear friends and colleagues -- 

Our work here has been slower than usual due to pleasant family responsibilities preceded by a shared covid adventure, but will resume at full pace next week, inshallah. In the meantime we have kept up our Ukraine news page, our pages on plutonium pit production, and some of the news regarding nuclear modernization, and have made quiet progress on some analytical products.

1. Russiagate exposed, again and more so

Starting on July 20, we began posting some of the more interesting analyses regarding Director of National Intelligence (DNI) Tulsi Gabbard's revelations regarding the highly-placed conspiracy to undermine the first Trump presidency and U.S.-Russian relations.

This conspiracy set back the cause of peace and disarmament for what is now almost a decade. Consequent events could continue, like dominoes, to do so for decades to come. As we wrote on July 20,

By the time of the 2017 inauguration at the very latest, it was clear to us at the Study Group that there was a criminal conspiracy to undermine the incoming Trump Administration. This assessment had nothing to do with judgments about the merits of the Trump presidency, then just beginning, but rather with the quality of the evidence brought forward to support the Russiagate thesis. That evidence was laughable. "If that is all you have, you don't have anything," [we said]. 

It goes much deeper than Hillary Clinton and her minions, or various corrupt senior officials. Acceptance of the "Russia-as-bogeyman" theme is an enduring necessity for the military-industrial complex and the U.S. government as presently constituted -- not the Constitutional government but the government as it actually is. 

Yes, I [Greg] am sure this is being brought out right now to take the heat off the Epstein issue. But it's very scary for all involved to bring this up, in this powerful way. This is not a cheap diversion. The timing may be related to Epstein and the MAGA base, but the content is not. That -- the content, the conspiracy to destroy a President -- is what it is, and it's awful. And it has been highly consequential. Hundreds of thousands of lives have been lost in the subsequent, contingent Ukraine War, for starters. 

Russiagate lie "unleashed the kraken" of bitter hatred of Russia that is embedded in the U.S. foreign policy and "intelligence" community. The media profited immensely from it -- about doubling their viewership, as I recall. "Ordinary" Americans are meanwhile poorer, and the juggernaut of war, which will lead to nuclear war if it continues, is hardly stoppable this side of economic and social collapse. This was not a harmless political prank. The main task is now to make sure as many people as possible understand what happened, so that the process of finding the appropriate consequences for those involved will be just, and be seen as just. To repeat, what was released on Friday is not altogether new. Many close observers saw this for what it was. Perhaps now others will also. [Emphasis added for this Bulletin.]

This is a very big deal, in other words, not just because it accelerated the complete trashing of U.S.-Russian relations and set the stage for the thoroughly-provoked Russian invasion of Ukraine, and also not just because it revealed how American "democracy" was working at the highest levels back in the "good old days" of 2016. As Dorothy of the Wizard of Oz said, we are not in Kansas anymore. We haven't been. People who do not work closely with government generally do not know how dramatic the changes in government have been since about 2008. As one senior auditor said to me, that was the year in which congressional oversight more or less stopped. We at the Study Group were nonetheless able to make great progress in our government interactions after that date, but in hindsight we were (and still are) operating on the remaining fumes of democracy.

These "new" revelations (the documentary evidence is new, not the overall story) are also important because Russiagate brought about a kind of mass hysteria that affected millions of people, and which still affects much of the public and the media which leads them.

This was followed by a covid mania in which hundreds of thousands of people in the U.S. died in entirely preventable, institutionally-required ways. The preventable carnage was at least equal to the number of U.S. deaths in World War II and could be twice that, and it is not over. Effective treatments were withheld. Doctors and public health experts who knew how to prevent and to cure were prevented from doing so. Bogus "vaccines" were forced on millions, doing little if any good for most and as far as we can see, much bad. Many of us gradually figured out what was going on, but said little.

Propaganda isn't new, but since most of us have never lived in let's say North Korea, we had not experienced the psychology and sociology of totalitarianism before. Yes it's soft (for most people, most of the time), and yes it's often subtle, but its effects are thorough nonetheless and as we have seen in Ukraine and in our recent pandemic management, often deadly.

The effects in our legacy news media and in Congress remain truly severe. While Russiagate was a U.S. political phenomenon, the "fallout" is, as Tarik Amar put it yesterday, worldwide.

The effects on most nuclear disarmament, arms control, and on some peace groups -- on thinking, public messaging, and strategies -- have been devastating.

The mass formation many of us have observed and studied via books, articles and lectures over the past five and more years was one of the subjects at our July 16 discussions. Psychiatrist Dr. Mary de Luca, one of our panelists, was kind enough to prepare these take-away notes. Are we more susceptible to stupidity (Bonhoeffer) than ever, and if so what can we do about it, in our work?

2. Please work with us during Hiroshima-Nagasaki week

For a number of reasons, we think the best way to honor the Hiroshima and Nagasaki victims and prevent more of them is to double and triple down on building opposition to making more nuclear weapons right here in our region, while also writing and talking to national audiences and allies -- doubling and tripling down on that too. The week spanning those two crimes 80 years ago is a very good time to make that push.

It is important to honor the victims of those crimes and to understand what happened then, and why. But how shall we do that?

When a crime is being committed NOW and we have or can acquire the means to stop it, it is not appropriate for us to merely gather to commemorate past crimes, or even to condemn possible future crimes in a general way. Such actions would not show much spirit. They would be morally deficient. We've organized dozens of Hiroshima and Nagasaki protests and demonstrations running back four decades now, from the largest in New Mexico history to intimate days of meditation and prayer. That's not what's needed here and now. 

Most of know that "increasing awareness" is never a good strategy.

Our opposition must be real, if we would be real. If it's politically comfortable it's not real opposition. We must measure the quality of our resistance by the discomfort it engenders in those who are responsible for the ongoing crime. If, in our case, the New Mexico delegation is comfortable or supportive of what we are doing, we aren't doing much. These individuals consistently promote and fund war, genocide, and nuclear weapons. We have to change their minds, change their jobs, or make them irrelevant.

In New Mexico, we are "fortunate" to be "present at the creation" of the new nuclear arms race. We also live in a kind of nuclear colony that is not really sovereign to the degree other states are sovereign within the United States of America. Our location gives us latent power, privilege, and responsibility.

By far the most important issue before us is whether to continue building out a new factory for nuclear weapons cores ("pits") in our midst, at a cost far exceeding any other project in the state's history. Other nuclear issues have different degrees of political relevance and merit -- some more, some less, some none at all -- but the $25+ billion factory, without which a new nuclear arms race cannot be fully pursued by the U.S. for the coming crucial decade, is the Dragon King of nuclear politics in New Mexico. Nothing else matters anywhere near as much.

With all this mind, we crave your help, preferably your in-person help, during the week of 8/4- 8/8, to recruit further public opposition to this factory. Opposition is large and growing, but not fast enough as yet. Most opposing opinion is still invisible, and as such has no political agency. It has to be clear, public, enduring, and practical. Hence the Call.

We will have work going on in Albuquerque here at our offices, in Santa Fe, and possibly also in Taos. There will be work happening elsewhere as well, but for reasons of morale, mutual education, and administrative simplicity we'd like people to be physically present at least once or twice during the week, if possible.

You don't have to help for the whole week to be very helpful, because as we never tire of saying, you have contacts we don't.

Please tell us if, when, and where you can help, so we can plan. Write Trish. 

Some people have already stepped forward. We have targets and methods in mind, but these will evolve as we better understand how many people are available during this one-week push.

We will be reaching out, in some cases with your help, to latent allies. Often people just need a call. We will reach out to some of our legislators, to our congressional delegation, to local government officials, as well as to businesses, individuals, and organizations. We will ask them to sign the Call and to help in other ways as may be appropriate for them.

We are going to have discussions and trainings that week as well. I'd rather not describe these and possible other activities yet, until we see who is involved and where. If you know of people who might want to help, talk to them.

Thank you for your solidarity. "It is for him that is lonely or in prison to dream of fellowship, but for him that is of a fellowship to do and not to dream." (William Morris, A Dream of John Ball)

3. Pit update

• As noted in the subject line, Congress -- in this case, both armed services committees -- is now requiring the completion and operation of both pit factories. This will become law, in the FY2026 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA). For Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), pit production has long been in statute, so these twin proposals add nothing new at LANL. For the Savannah River Site (SRS) however, Congress's thumb is now on the scale in an explicit way. Does this preempt the outcome of the current Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS) for pit production? No, but in a practical sense -- sort of. For SRS, it puts into law what was already true technically given the quantitative pit requirement already in statute and the age, condition, and lack of capacity at LANL. To stop the Savannah River Plutonium Processing Facility (SRPPF), a judge would have to go against the expressed will of the other two branches of government, once the FY26 NDAA is signed by Trump, and it will be. 

Many people made a massive technical-political-legal* error in promoting, or in other conspicuous cases failing to oppose, LANL pit production. Preventing LANL production is an winnable battle and a logically necessary one. (*The legal error was made by the plaintiffs in the South Carolina lawsuit, discussed here). 

• For the first time, the pit facility at SRS, SRPPF is explicitly now required to be able make all seminal pit types in the enduring arsenal. We believe this was implicit before, but in any case it now explicit. 

• There appears to have been an unquantified increase in the capacity requirements at both production sites. At SRPPF, we suspect the true average capacity is now at least the single-shift capacity of both sites. That figure would be about 41 pits per year (ppy) at LANL plus 84 ppy at SRS (see p. 13), or 125 ppy. There is probably an allowance for potential downtime as well. This may be why Dr. Verdon said single-site capacity, should a single-site plan be sought, would need to be about 140 ppy. 

At LANL, the roughly average 41 ppy production is to be achieved, after FY2032, by a single production shift, yet infrastructure provisions are being requested to accommodate an additional 800 workers in a second production shift. Recall that LANL is under a legal mandate to make 80 ppy, if possible, as soon as possible (see final notes, below). 

• We have already provided a budget update (well-sourced), and an update on NNSA's reported willingness to cannibalize usable warheads to proceed with W87-1 production using recycled pits (privately sourced). 

• We are now seeing multiple sets of "books" for nuclear warhead accounting. There is the reconciliation bill, the normal discretionary funding product of the appropriations committees, the FY26 congressional budget request (CBR) which did not contain future-year spending, the FY25 CBR which did, the late-2024 emergency extra appropriation for Weapons Activities, and the off-the-books unspent prior-year balances. No one outside government understands this, and it is likely that congressional committees do not either. 

• At LANL, we are seeing a longer duration to complete a major project necessary for reliable 30 ppy production (see below). I am certain that other long-term capital projects necessary for LANL pit production will be making an appearance next year or the year after, e.g. replacement of the Sigma building in TA-3.  

• Of interest to some, we have prepared two wonky tables that might interest some of you, especially journalists and policy wonks. The main lesson that can be derived from this history is the mutability, under opposition and other adverse circumstances, of what appear to be "set-in-stone" plans at LANL. 

Don't try to read these on your phone, LOL.

The first is a sketch of the several different approaches DOE and NNSA have taken at LANL over time to make pit production possible. Following that is a fully-referenced table of DOE and NNSA pit production commitments at LANL. It is a story of broken promises, one after another. Congress has seen an earlier version of both tables and it is appropriate that our members should have ready access to this also. We also have a history of the exploding cost projections at both sites, not quite ready for prime time. We will post them all together when they are done. 

Best wishes to all,

Greg, for the Los Alamos Study Group

4. History of broken pit promises at LANL