Thursday Night

Program Notes Something’s Happening 08-17-23



12 AM

Dave Emory’s For the Record

At Dave’s suggestion, we are running an archival edition of the program that he pulled up because of the atomic bomb anniversaries and the interest in the realities behind the recent film release “Oppenheimer” by Christopher Nolan. This focuses on research about an explosion at Port Chicago. Please note that the email address given in the audio, portchicago.org, is no longer valid; it leads to a Japanese language site which doesn’t appear to relate to the topic at hand. Dave recorded the original in February and cited the connection to Black History Month, which will become evident in the program; appropriate then to run it not only in relation to the atomic bomb anniversaries, but during Black August, a month of commemoration and remembrance of Black freedom fighters, martyrs, and incarcerated political prisoners.



FOR THE RECORD (58+ min)



FTR#1307 Interview with Peter Vogel (Reprise of FTR#444 Because of the Attention Generated by the Movie “Oppenheimer”)

POSTED BY DAVE EMORY ⋅ AUGUST 12, 2023



FTR#1307



Introduction: Following up information presented in Miscellaneous Archive Show M23 and FTRs 129, 163, this broadcast features the landmark research of Peter Vogel on the Port Chicago explosion of 7/17/1944. One of the largest man-made disasters in history, the Port Chicago explosion claimed the lives of 320 sailors, 220 of them African Americans. Subsequently, African-American sailors refused to continue loading ammunition at Port Chicago and were convicted of Mutiny. Officially the explosion of conventional munitions aboard an ammunition ship, the E.A. Bryan, the Port Chicago blast was actually the test of an early atomic weapon, the autocatalytic uranium hydride lateral implosion experimental device—named the Mark II. After relating Peter’s long odyssey exploring the explosion and the official dissembling that surrounds the event, the program relates the fascinating documentary trail confirming the nature of the explosion and the chronology of this early, significant step in the development of the atomic weapons.



Program Highlights Include: Peter’s proof that a sufficient amount of fissionable material for testing a fission weapon was available in 1944 (despite official pronouncements to the contrary); the negative reactions of Edward Teller (father of the H‑bomb) and Donald Kerr (director of Los Alamos National Laboratory) to Peter’s inquiries about Port Chicago; the tremendous interest of the Los Alamos National Laboratory in this (supposedly conventional) explosion; the background of Captain William Parsons (the point man for the Los Alamos research on Port Chicago); the characteristics of the explosion that pinpoint it as being a nuclear fission blast; correspondence among some of the principals in the Manhattan Project confirming that the Port Chicago explosion was a test of the Mark II; indications that the Germans were working on a uranium hydride weapon; Soviet espionage on the Manhattan Project that indicated awareness of the test of Mark II; the possible significance of the Port Chicago explosion for the revocation of Robert Oppenheimer’s security clearance; the significance of the Port Chicago explosion in the history of African-American civil liberties.



Note: This description is formatted by presenting the questions that Dave asked Peter Vogel, and then a synoptic overview of Peter’s response. For more detailed information about the Port Chicago explosion, see The Last Wave from Port Chicago: https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Last_Wave_from_Port_Chicago/xaWstgAACAAJ?hl=en





1 AM



Vic Gerami of “The Blunt Post with Vic” interviews Rabbi Avidan Freedman of the Israeli organization Yanshoof (see https://yanshoof.org/en/homepage-en/ ).



Rabbi Avidan Freedman is the co-founder and director of the organization, which is dedicated to stopping Israeli arms sales to human rights violators, including the particular case of Azerbaijan, which is currently attacking Armenians in Artsakh (also known by the Soviet-era name of Nagorno-Karabakh). He is an educator at the Shalom Hartman Institute’s high school and post-high school programs. He lives in Efrat with his wife, Devorah, and their five children.



2 AM



Behind the News with Doug Henwood of the Left Business Observer

https://www.leftbusinessobserver.com/Radio.html

Two interviews related to imperialist economic and military interventions in Africa:

August 10, 2023 Francisco Pérez of the University of Utah on the CFA franc (a holdover currency remnant of French colonialism, used in 14 francophone African countries) • Caitlin Chandler, author of this Harper's magazine article, on US interests in Niger (where a recent military coup threatens French and US interests in Niger’s extensive uranium deposits, the main supply for France’s nuclear weapons and nuclear power)




3 AM



Building Bridges from sister stations WBAI and WPFW with Mimi Rosenberg and Ken Nash

Jean Saint Vil discusses civil society, resistance and repression in Haiti, and opposition to further military intervention there

Todd Miller discusses the insertion of miles of razor wire along the US – Mexico border in Texas by the administration of TX governor Greg Abbott and its impact on migrants, residents and wildlife




4 AM Final two hours of Thom Hartmann program from earlier on Wednesday