The article is about the attempts by soviet defectors and spies to leak secrets about the United States’ nuclear program or the Manhattan Project. The article states that there was a total of 1,500 leaks, 200 acts of sabotage and 100 confirmed cases of espionage. All of these instances were covered up and hidden until last month when it was declassified by the Department of Energy. The article then went on to discuss some of the leaks or breaches in the security surrounding one of the US’ closest guarded secrets. These stories included comedic leaks such as a breach by Priests in in Midwest equipped with a page from the Chicago Bible College that contained information about a new isotope called uranium 235. Unfortunately it contained a story of perpetrator being shot speeding past a roadblock at a covert military base.
This article illustrates that the US government will do anything to insist that everything is in working order and under control. If the US did it in the past what’s stopping them from doing it now and in the future? What’s stopping them from lying now? For all we know Americans could have access to Venus or we could be developing nuclear tipped bullets? It also brings up the question of what we might not know the whole story too? For all we know Bermuda triangle is a US military testing ground and all the stories we heard growing up about supernatural were government cover ups. It goes to show that our government doesn’t tell us about a lot of things we may want to know about but they also are willing and able to deny things they don’t want us to know about. However our government has a right o keep some things secret and rightfully so. Had our nuclear secrets been completely leaked or stolen by another country altogether we may be living different lives today.
After reading the article I would say that it was very well written, it comes from the New York Times, but was far too long. I feel that it could be very drastically shortened by eliminating passages such as “As the Manhattan Project swung into high gear beginning in 1934,…” or “It was soon supplemented by more valuable details from rogue scientists,…”. Also on page two it talks about the Chicago Bible College and forgetting to capitalize the c in college when it is capitalized on their website. Overall I thought this was an interesting article yet was much t long and had a in the name of a place.
posted for T. Gibbons
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ReplyDeleteThere were many things that I thought Tomas did well in his current events write-up. I thought that his review of the article was very well written. I also liked the way that Tomas stated his summary of the article. He gave the specific numbers of reported leaks, acts of sabotage and espionage to support the main idea that there have been numerous attempts by Soviet defectors and spies to leak secrets about the US’ nuclear program or the Manhattan Project. Giving the specific numbers made clear that this seems to be a serious problem. I also think that Tomas did a good job explaining what the significance of his article was and raising questions based on what he read in the article. He stated that the article shows “the US government will do anything to insist that everything is under control.” When this type of information is declassified and disclosed to the public, it does make you wonder how much we are not being told by the government. I agree with Tomas that some things should be kept secret for our protection, but Tomas’ review of this article tells me that maybe we are not being told a whole lot more.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Tomas’ review was very well written, I thought he could have improved on a few things. I think he could have improved on how he started his write-up to “The Difficulties of Nuclear Containment.” When I first read Tomas’ review, I did not feel drawn in right away. I think that if Tomas had said in his topic sentence that the US is at great risk due to leaks about our nuclear program, it would have grabbed my attention more and I would have wanted to read on right from the beginning. I also think that while Tomas did a great job of raising questions and concerns about what we are being told and not told by the government, it would have been great if he had talked about what the possible negative effects of this are. He mentioned that the author could have improved the article by shortening it and removing a typo, but I would have liked to have known whether he felt the author had fully covered the topic, or whether he had wanted to know anything more.
Overall, I think Tomas did a great job. One thing I learned from Tomas’ write-up is that there have been many attempts by Soviet defectors and spies to leak secrets about the US’ nuclear program. I did not know this before reading Tomas’ write-up. This is an important matter of national security. It is scary to think that the citizens of the US were unaware of these secrets being leaked. We hope we can trust the government, but stories like this make me feel like we don’t know all of the information we should.