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From: awtron@strawber.princeton.edu (Andrew Walter Tron)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Rickover and Safety (was seawolf submarine)
Message-ID: <1990Dec3.051754.3936@cbnews.att.com>
Date: 3 Dec 90 05:17:54 GMT
References: <1990Nov30.023259.10033@cbnews.att.com>
Sender: military@cbnews.att.com (William B. Thacker)
Organization: Princeton University
Lines: 27
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: awtron@strawber.princeton.edu (Andrew Walter Tron)

In article <1990Nov30.023259.10033@cbnews.att.com> ANDREW::esmythe@ATL.dnet.ge.com (Erich J Smythe) writes:
>
>Anyone with hard (and unclassified) facts on the _nuclear_ safety records
>of the two navys care to comment?  It would be interesting to see how
>the safety/speed tradeoff is going.
>
As for the safety of Soviet nuclear subs, I have two points:

1. The defector Viktor Suvorov commented in one of his books (I beleive
   "The Aquarium", but I don't have it handy so I can't verify it) that
   that the Soviet Navy used prisoners on death row to refurbish the
   reactor cores of their ships, the rationale being that this job was so
   dangerous that it was a virtual death sentence.

2. About a month ago, my second cousin came over to Canada for a visit.
   He told me that he served on a conventional submarine for his military
   service, and that he knows of people who served on nukes and have suffered
   radiation poisoning as a result.

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