BOOK PROPOSAL
CRIMES OF THE NUCLEAR STATE
David Kauzlarich
Department of Sociology
SIUE
Ronald C. Kramer
Department of Sociology
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, Michigan 49008
I. PURPOSE AND SCOPE
The criminological study of the state or of governments (see Friedrichs, forthcoming and Henry, 1991 for distinctions) has blossomed in recent years. With the publication of Gregg Barak's (1991) Crimes by the Capitalist State, Ken Tunnell's (1993) Political Crime in Contemporary America, and the forthcoming anthology Controlling State Crime edited by Jeff Ross, the modern framework for the study of crimes by institutions occupied by governmental elites has been clearly established, at least for the critical criminological community. This is not to say that governmental malfeasance was ignored prior to the 1990's(1)
, or that criminologists as a whole believe the state can be studied as a criminal
agent(2). It is to say, however, that the recent surge of scholarship in this area is quite encouraging, and
that it has made it difficult for criminologists to be necscient of the ubiquity of this growing social
problem.
As the conceptual frameworks for studying crimes of the state march on, there is also a surge in
research on the behavioral and phenomenological dimensions of governmental crime. However, the
enormous social injuries directly caused by the United States' nuclear and atomic weapons production,
threats, tests, and experiments have been seriously ignored. Indeed, a review of the literature reveals
that only Friedrichs (1985), Harding (1983), and Kauzlarich, Kramer, & Smith (1992) have devoted
significant attention to the general relevance of nuclear energy to criminology. In Crimes of the
Nuclear State we endeavor to connect the harms caused by the United States' polity's reckless atomic
and nuclear weapons actions to the discipline of criminology.
The objectives of the book are to:
(1) Place the historical and contemporary, potential and actual, harmful effects of U.S. atomic and nuclear weapons policies and actions within the criminological domain through the use of international, domestic, and human rights law, as well as
various social harms definitions of crime.
(2) Document the nature, distribution, and extent of the illegalities involved in the United States'
government's:
a. Manufacture and production of atomic and nuclear weapons.
b. Testing and experimentation of atomic and nuclear
weapons; and
c. Threats to use atomic and nuclear weapons.
(3) Inductively generate a theory on the etiological dimensions of these criminal atomic and nuclear
actions.
a. Examine the possibility of our theory to explain other
instances of state criminality.
(4) Explore the degree to which nuclear crimes can be deterred or prevented in the future, from both
academic and citizen perspectives.
The book will be multi-dimensional, with definitional, empirical, theoretical, and pragmatic analyses of
the problem of state violence in general, and nuclear crimes in particular; sociological in that the crimes
are considered within their wider structural and organizational contexts; and historical, because of the
tremendous role that weapons of mass destruction have played in the world affairs of the twentieth
century.
Crimes of the Nuclear State will primarily be a scholarly work, but one which we hope to write in
such a fashion as to be intelligible to the general public. We write the book as both scholars of, and
activists against, state violence, and desire it to be a tool for continuing public and scholarly discourse
on the serious problem of state criminality.
II. CHAPTER SUMMARIES
Chapter 1: A Criminology of the Nuclear State
Chapter 2: The Laws
Chapter 3: Manufacture and Production
Chapter 4: Testing and Experimentation
Chapter 5: Atomic and Nuclear Threats
Chapter 6: A Theory of the Criminal Nuclear State
Chapter 7: Conclusion
CHAPTER 1: A CRIMINOLOGY OF THE NUCLEAR STATE
Criminologists as a whole have not given significant attention to organizationally-based criminal actions
of the state; they are largely consumed with conducting research and creating theories concerning
traditional street crimes. Although these types of crime cause serious harm, suffering, and economic
loss, the harms, actual and potential, caused by certain actions of states qualitatively and quantitatively
dwarf the injury of street crimes. We discuss the social injurious nature of nuclear weapons policies
and identify the reasons for many criminologists' apparent disinterest in state crime: Disciplinary and
ideological hegemony, convenience, and politics.
All of this does not mean that criminologists have completely ignored crimes committed by governmental elites and agencies. In fact, the study of state crime in the United States dates back several decades, with a noticeable surge in monographs specifically devoted to the phenomenon in the last few years. This literature is thoroughly reviewed, and it is noted that
nuclear crimes have received diminutive criminological attention.
Debates over the appropriate definition of crime, and thus the proper subject of the criminological
enterprise, have been waged throughout the discipline's history. After reviewing various approaches to
defining crime, we find that neither a narrow legalistic conception or a broad human rights definition of
crime are by themselves desirable frameworks for the incrimination of the nuclear state. While rigid
legal frameworks limit the investigatory scope of certain harmful behaviors, especially state behaviors,
various social harms approaches are often plagued by ambiguity. For two of the three types of nuclear
crimes explored in this manuscript, we propose an integration of these seemingly antithetical definitional
approaches through the framework of customary and conventionary international law. We note that
international law, as law, provides criminologists with a reasonably clear definition of behaviors deemed
by the international community as deviant, immoral, or criminal. Upon closer inspection of these laws,
we also find that many, if not most, contain very humanist and peaceful principles which we believe are
relatively congruent with the various social harms approaches. This congealment is not intended to be a
substitute for either approach, rather a complementary manner of defining crime by state agencies.
Thus, we accept the merits of both approaches (and indeed employ both at certain points in the
manuscript), but acknowledge that for many state actions, traditional legalistic definitions and social
harms approaches appear to have more conceptual-methodological problems and disadvantages
(principally constriction and legitimacy) than an approach which contains consideration of the rich body
of international law.
CHAPTER II: THE LAWS
In this chapter we review the relevant laws which outlaw various facets, products, and harms
associated with past and present U.S. nuclear weapons policies, conspiracies, and behaviors. A brief
description of the laws' historical development and contemporary significance is offered. These laws,
conventions, charters, and regulations include:
(1) The Declaration of St. Petersburg (1868).
(2) Hague Convention (1907).
(3) Geneva Protocol for the Prohibition of the Use in War of Asphyxiating, Poisonous, or Other Gases,
and of Bacteriological Methods of Warfare (the 1925 Geneva Gas Protocol).
(4) United Nations Charter (1945).
(5) Nuremberg Principles (1945-46).
(6) United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (the 1948
Genocide Convention).
(7) The Universal Declaration of Human Rights
(8) Geneva Conventions (I-IV) (1949).
(9) International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (1966).
(10) Various United Nations General Assembly Declarations.
(11) United States Clean Air Act (1972).
(12) United States Clean Water Act (1970).
(13) United States Resource Conservation and Control Act (1976).
CHAPTER 3: MANUFACTURE AND PRODUCTION
The production of nuclear weapons (then known as atomic bombs) began in the United States in 1942
with the creation of the Manhattan Engineering District, headquartered in New Mexico. Until very
recently, 17 facilities (the nuclear weapons production complex) had for 50 years devoted billions of
dollars to the production of nuclear materials and equipment. In order to make nuclear weapons,
conversion of materials such as uranium and plutonium is required, and since only a pure form of these
materials are used in the weapons, an enormous amount of radioactive and hazardous waste is
generated. Improper and negligent dumping of nuclear waste by the production complex has resulted in
the contamination of the natural environment in the areas surrounding the facilities and has led to above
average instances of birth defects and miscarriages, wildlife depletion and disfigurement, and other
harms to the public health.
This chapter is devoted to an examination of the nature, extent, and distribution of these crimes against
humanity and U.S. regulatory law. We focus on the historical, organizational, and structural contexts
which facilitated these crimes in an effort to shed light on the etiological dimensions associated with this
aspect of the criminal nuclear state. (See enclosed article, "State Corporate-Crime in the U.S. Nuclear
Weapons Production Complex", which we will revise and update for this chapter of the book).
CHAPTER 4: TESTING AND EXPERIMENTATION
The United States government's experimentation/testing with nuclear and atomic weapons has played a
critical role in general nuclear weapons policy. These tests, predominantly conducted during the heights
of the Cold War, represent behavior both sanctioned and often times directly executed by the U.S.
government. Generally speaking, the objective of these tests was to discern the effects of exposure to
nuclear or atomic radiation, presumably to instruct state and military decisions regarding nuclear/atomic
weapons policy. The tests normally occurred without the express or implied consent of the subjects, a
clear violation of the principles of international law which emerged from the horrible "medical"
experimentation practices of Nazi Germany.
It is very clear that U.S. officials purposefully subjected soldiers, citizens, and hospital patients to
varying levels of radiation, with some knowledge of the harmful effects such experimentation would
engender. In some instances, U.S. Army soldiers were intentionally stationed less than three miles from
the site of an atomic blast, and then subjected to rigorous medical examinations of their physiological an
psychological alteration (United States Congress, 1994). Other tests took the form of direct injection
of radioactive matter into the soldiers' bloodstream. There is also evidence to suggest that many
developmentally and physiologically disabled citizens were encouraged to participate in radiation tests
under false pretenses: That in fact the tests were conducted not to better the health of the patient, but to
provide military officials with data on the effects of nuclear/atomic radiation exposure. Moreover, some
test explosions of nuclear/atomic bombs, principally in Utah, Nevada, and the Bikini Islands, were
conducted without alerting the inhabitants of these areas that such tests were forthcoming (Gould &
Goldman, 1990). After such experiments, governmental agents surveyed and tested the unknowing
subjects in order to discern, again, the psychological and physiological consequences. The inordinate
number of health problems experienced by the victims of these tests and experiments (including
infertility, birth defects, cancer, and leukemia) are presumed to be a direct result of the U.S.
government's methods of atomic/nuclear testing (see supporting data of Archer, 1987; Caldwell,
Kelley, Heath, & Zack, 1984; 1983; Lyon, Klauber, Gardner, & Udall, 1979; National Academy of
Sciences, 1990).
This chapter has the same overall objective as Chapter 3: To examine the nature, extent, and
distribution of these crimes against humanity. We again focus on the historical, organizational, and
structural contexts which facilitated these crimes in order to gain a deeper understanding of the factors
associated with this criminal behavior by the U.S. nuclear state. CHAPTER 5: ATOMIC AND
NUCLEAR THREATS (Draft Chapter Enclosed)
It is commonly thought that the United States has not actively considered or threatened to use nuclear
weapons since the bombing of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August, 1945. But
nothing could be further from the truth. Based on governmental reports, memoirs, and secondary
histories, this chapter will clearly demonstrate that nuclear weapons have indeed been used by the
United States as a means to achieving political and military dominance in times of perceived global
crisis. Two instances of U.S. atomic/nuclear threats are explored: Threats against North Korea in the
Korean War and against North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. For both cases, we review the general
political and military environment in the respective wars, the global status of atomic weapons arsenals
during the conflicts, as well as the particular discourses of the Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson,
and Nixon Administrations on the atomic/nuclear question. The goal, like in the previous two chapters,
is to shed insight into the factors associated with this criminal behavior of the U.S. nuclear state.
CHAPTER 6: A THEORY OF THE CRIMINAL NUCLEAR STATE
There is a noticeable lack of criminological theory on the crimes of the state. There are however,
several theories of organizational crime, which some have argued may be applicable to the crimes of the
state, as well as theories of the state in general, which presumably would have some utility in explaining
the U.S. government's nuclear crimes. Our goal in this chapter is to inductively and theoretically explain
U.S. nuclear crimes, based on the empirical evidence presented in Chapters 3, 4, & 5.
A summary of theoretically-related concepts which have emerged from our three case studies is first
presented. We then offer a series of theoretical assumptions, principles, and propositions on the
etiological dimensions of the crimes of the nuclear state. Our approach is compared to extant
explanations and theories of organizational criminality and the state in order to gauge our theory's
originality and value. Finally, we discuss whether the theory holds the potential to shed insight into state
crime in general.
CHAPTER 7: CONCLUSION
The end of the Cold War has not meant the end of the nuclear threat. While the U.S. production of nuclear weapons has all but halted, victims still suffer from the consequences of discarded, deadly nuclear matter. Most military tests of the effects of nuclear weapons have halted, but families are still dealing with the loss of health and life caused by the U.S. government's reckless experimentation with the world's most deadliest device.
While the collapse of the Soviet Union might have decreased the probability of global nuclear war, the
countries of China, France, Great Britain, Russia, the Ukraine, and the United States still possess
omnicidal quantities of nuclear weapons--enough explosive power to completely destroy the world
several hundred times over. The actual and potential injury caused by U.S. atomic and nuclear
weapons policies are intimidatingly stark, deadly in their reality, and still represent the biggest challenge
to the livelihood of the globe.
We leave the reader on a more pragmatic level, raising the following questions: How can U.S. nuclear
crimes, as well as other state crimes, be prevented in the future? What steps can be taken in order to
decrease the likelihood of others being victimized by the nuclear policies of the state? How can both
scholars and the general public better understand these crimes, and develop a reasonable strategy for
charting a more peaceful global climate without threatening every living thing with extinction? Can, as
some have suggested, international agencies such as the United Nations and the World Health
Organization aid in diminishing the numerous threats to existence inherent in the nuclear bomb? Or can
change only occur as a result of citizen initiative, protest, and litigation? Is it possible to terminate the
biggest threat to the world's continuation?
REFERENCES
Archer, V.E. (1987). Association of nuclear fallout with leukemia in the United States. Archive of
Environmental Health 42, pp. 263-271.
Barak, G. (1991). Crimes by the capitalist state: An introduction to state criminality. New York:
State University of New York Press.
Caldwell, Kelley, Heath, & Zack. (1984). Plocythermia vera among participants of a nuclear weapons
test. Journal of the American Medical Association 252(2), pp. 662-664.
Caldwell, Kelley, Heath, & Zack (1983). Mortality and Cancer Frequency Among Military Nuclear
Test Participants. Journal of the American Medical Association 250(5), pp. 620-624.
Chambliss, W. (1988). On the take: From petty crooks to presidents (rev.ed.). Bloomington:
Indiana University Press.
Chambliss, W. (1989). State-organized crime. Criminology, 27, pp. 183-208.
Chomsky, N. (1987). On power and ideology. Boston: South End Press.
Chomsky, N. (1988). The culture of terrorism. Boston: South End Press.
Ermann, M.D. & Lundman, R.J. (1982). Corporate and governmental deviance: Problems of
organizational behavior in contemporary society. New York: Oxford University Press.
Gould & Goldman. (1990) Deadly Deceit: Low Level Radiation, High Level Cover-Up. New York:
Four Walls Eight Windows.
Grabosky, P.N. (1989). Wayward governance: Illegality and its control in the public sector. Sidney,
Australia: Australian Institute of Criminology.
Falk, R., G. Kolko, & R.J. Lifton (1971). Crimes of war. New York: Vintage.
Friedrichs, D. (1985). The nuclear arms issue and the field of criminal justice. The Justice
Professional, 1, pp. 5-9.
Harding, R. (1983). Nuclear energy and the destiny of mankind: Some criminological perspectives.
Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology, 16, pp. 81-93.
Kauzlarich, D. & Kramer, R.C. (1993) State-Corporate Crime in the U.S. Nuclear Weapons
Production Complex. The Journal of Human Justice, 5(1) pp. 1-26.
Kauzlarich, D., Kramer R.C. & Smith, B. (1992). Toward the study of governmental crime: Nuclear
weapons, foreign intervention, and international law. Humanity and Society, 16(4), pp. 543-563.
Lyon, Klauber, Gardner, & Udall. (1979) Childhood leukemias associated with fallout from nuclear
testing. New England Journal of Medicine 300, pp. 397-402.
National Academy of Sciences. (1990). Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation.
Health effects of exposure to low-levels of ionizing radiation: BEIR V. Washington, D.C.: National
Academy Press.
Quinney, R. (1977) Class, state, and crime. New York: Longman.
Reiman, J. (1979). The rich get richer and the poor get prison. New York: John Wiley.
Roebuck, J. & Weeber, S. (1978). Political crime in the United States. New York: Praeger.
Ross, J. I. (forthcoming). Controlling state crime. New York: Garland.
Simon, D. R., & Eitzen, D. S. (1982). Elite deviance. Boston: Allyn and Bacon.
Tilly, C. (1985). War making and state making as organized crime. In D. Rueschemeyer & T. Skocpol
(Eds.) Bringing the state back in (pp. 169-191), Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Tunnel, K. (1993). Political crime in contemporary America. New York: Garland.
Tunnel, K. (1993). Political crime and pedagogy: A content analysis of criminology and criminal
justice texts. The Journal of Criminal Justice Education, 4(1), pp. 101-114.
Turk, A. (1982). Political criminality. Beverly Hills, CA: Sage.
United States Congress. (1994) House. Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. Subcommittee on Energy. Human radiation experimentation, ethics, and gene therapy.
Washington, D.C.: USGPO.
1. 1. Some influential works on the contemporary study of state criminality include Chambliss (1988; 1989), Chomsky (1987; 1988), Grabosky (1989), Ermann & Lundman (1982), Falk, Kolko, & Lifton (1971), Quinney (1977) Reiman (1979), Roebuck and Weeber (1978), Simon & Eitzen (1982), Tilly (1985), to some extent Turk (1982) and numerous articles found in Volume 16(1) and 16(2) of the journal Social Justice.
2. Tunnell (1993) has made this point quite clear, finding diminutive attention given to political crime in criminology and criminal justice textbooks.