Author:
Publication: The Washington Times
Date: November 20, 2001
URL: http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20011120-878328.htm
Osama bin Laden is not a Georgetown
hostess's dream of the extra man for a dinner party, but he may be the
man to invite to your next snipe hunt.
Rifling through discarded papers
in abandoned Taliban safe houses in Kabul is all the rage among American
and British reporters who followed the Northern Alliance into town, and
a reporter for the London Times appeared to have struck the mother lode.
In a dispatch from Kabul, he described
documents which he said appeared to be instructions on how to build "a
Nagasaki-type atomic bomb." This discovery quickly fueled speculation that
al Qaeda had assembled a nuclear-weapons factory in the heart of downtown
Kabul.
"The vernacular quickly spun out
of my comprehension," cabled the correspondent, describing his find and
his difficulty deciphering it. "But there were phrases through the mass
of chemical symbols and physics jargon that anyone could understand, including
notes on how the detonation of TNT compresses plutonium into a critical
mass producing a nuclear chain reaction and eventually a thermo-nuclear
reaction."
This was certainly enough to curl
the beard (or burqa) of almost anyone, and, after the BBC followed up with
footage of someone reading the notes, analysts in Washington and London
felt compelled to say they were skeptical that Osama had actually assembled
such a device.
But someone always has to ruin a
good story, or, in this case, to make a good story better. What Osama and
his rocket scientists and particle-beam physicists apparently were working
from, visible in the television footage, was a publication of the University
Physical Society at the University of Wisconsin, in turn taken from the
Journal of Irreproducible Results - Volume 25/Number 4, 1979 - titled "How
to Make an Atomic Bomb, a Construction Project." The full text fell into
our hands late yesterday. (Actually, the full text fell from the printer
attached to a computer plugged into rotten.com, but we like the way phrases
like "fell into our hands late yesterday" sound.) What Osama and his men
fell into was a snipe hunt, a snipe hunt of 21 years ago, or what the Wall
Street Journal calls "monkeyfishing."
These are the relevant excerpts
of the instructions from the Journal of Irreproducible Results on how to
make a Nagasaki-type bomb:
"First, obtain about 50 pounds (110
kg) of weapons grade Plutonium at your local supplier perhaps the Junior
Achievement in your neighborhood. 2. Please remember that Plutonium is
somewhat dangerous. Wash your hands with soap and water after handling
the material, and don't allow your children or pets to play in it. Any
leftover Plutonium dust is excellent as an insect repellant. You may wish
to keep the substance in a lead box if you can find one in your local junk
yard, but an old coffee can will do nicely.
"3. Fashion together a metal enclosure
to house the device. Most common varieties of sheet metal can be bent to
disguise this enclosure as, for example, a briefcase, a lunch pail, or
a Buick. Do not use tinfoil. 4. Arrange the Plutonium into two hemispherical
shapes, separated by about 4 cm. Use rubber cement to hold the Plutonium
dust together. 5. Now get about 100 pounds (220 kg) of trinitrotoleune
(TNT). Gelignite is much better, but messier to work with 6. Pack the TNT
around the hemisphere arrangement constructed in step 4. If you can find
gelignite, feel free to use TNT packed in with Playdo or any modeling clay.
7. Enclose the structure from step 6 into the enclosure made in step 3.
Use a strong glue such as 'Crazy Glue' 8. To detonate the device, obtain
a radio controlled (RC) servo mechanism, as found in RC model airplanes
and cars detonator caps can be found in the electrical supply section of
your local supermarket. We recommend the 'Blast-O-Matic' brand because
they are no deposit-no return. 9. Now hide the completed device from neighbors
and children The hall closet or under the kitchen sink will be perfectly
suitable. 10. Now you are the proud owner of a working thermonuclear device.
It is a great ice-breaker at parties, and in a pinch can be used for national
defense."
Some discovery. The good guys are
closing in on Osama and his cave and it is not clear that Osama and his
team of highly paid mullahs actually assembled a mighty Muslim bomb. He
is reported to have fled with several of his wives, though it is not clear,
either, why a man who thinks he's about to receive 72 virgins, untouched
by human hands, would take wives with him. But if some of the virgins turn
out to be reconditioned Beirut hookers, he could consult Volume 26 of the
Journal of Irreproducible Results, "in which we learn how to clone your
neighbor's wife Common kitchen utensils will be all you need.
Wesley Pruden is editor in chief
of The Times.
