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Show t Tin Suit Luke Tribune, Sunday, Odobor 17, 1 Team Plays High Stakes in Nuclear Showdowns By Robert Mary rnent officials found themselves without a plan for responding and Associated Press Wn'er A special team of scientists and engineers based in this desert gambling resort where showdowns are com moil think about unthinkable slakes every day. They are the Nuclear Emergency Search Team, known element of as NEST, a America's nuclear program. And its 200 members hope there is no cause to change that. Their job is to be ready if terrorists ever try to hold an American city hostage with a nuclear device. They are charged with finding and disarming terrorist nuclear weapons. And failure would mean catastrophe. With international terrorism on the increase and a growing capability for many to produce such dec ices, the threat of a crisis is taken seriously. "We think the potential for it happening exists, says Malilon Gales, 63, a retired Army general who heads the Nevada Operations Office of the Department of Energy and runs the country's nuclear testing program. "There's a potential there and if it happens weve got to be ready. My greatest fear is that some terrorist group lioping to gain political advantage of some kind would see fit to carry out a threat. Pm more afraid of nuts within the I'nited Stales than terrorists from abroad. Seventy Threats There have been 70 nuclear-relatethreats made since a wave of terrorism swept America in the early 1970s. Twenty of those were deemed valid enough by the FBI to warrant further investigation and NEST operatives have responded in several instances. To date, they have not encountered any nuclear device. NEST spokesmen say a real crisis would present critical choices: Do you risk panic by announcing a nuclear-mandate- d evacuation of a major city? Do you delay evacuation and risk thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of lives? confusion reigned The nation's elite nuclear fire department was born three months later as Gates surrounded himself with some of the finest minds in the nuclear weapons business. Where Threats Go Today, by law, any nuclear threat is forwarded to the EBI. If the threat appears valid, recordings or copies of the message are sent to NKST's threat assessment group, the Emergency Action and Coordination Team (EACTt. The team includes scientists from Lawrence Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear laboratories plus the Nevada Operations Office. The team is requiied to respond to NCSTs threat assessment oifice in the basement of a Germantown, Md . building within two hours. LAS VEGAS high-stake- s little-know- OK o fc BRAZILIAN EMBROIDERY Cali to Command NEST is deployed to seek out a nuclear device, a call also goes to the National Military Command Center for ordnance disposal units from one of 55 designated Army bases around the country. "We think a terrorist might booby trap the device because he would want to protect it until some catastrophic moment when it would detonate. Breeching the booby trap is the Army's job," Gates said If the location of the device is spelled out, team members respond with elaborate equipment stored in the Las Vegas hangar. If The equipment d includes a power generating plant "In case w'e get stuck somewhere in the boonies," Gates says. There arre also mundane looking vans that can be camouflaged with signs ranging from pizza parlors to plumbers, two helicopters, a Con-va580 and smaller aircraft all crammed with radiation tracking gear to comb busy city streets or the remote countryside. There are briefcases and makeup cases NEST members can carry through airport lobbies, down busyd ir Base. Md , cmi rush to a nearby scene while the more elaborate equipment is being llown in from Las Vegas. Saving Panic nuclear power plant in the I'nited States and ull military bases One of the more ominous features of tlie situation room is a digital dock showing the current time in all four time zones. Beneath is an "incident dock" which starts when un incident begins. "Ur it tan be used in a countdown mode to a designated threat time," says Doy le. "That's so we don't lose sight of the bottom line were working against." "Theres a knee-jerresponse among people when you say the word radiation, NEST spokesman Jack Doyle said of the cases. "If the public knew you were searching for something like a nuclear device, there would be panic in the streets This way you tan walk tluuugh crowds and not alarm anyone." NEST East, a smaller contingent of personnel and equipment stationed at Andrews Air Force k While some NEST operatives would go to the scene, others would man a situation room with maps showing the political world, every Emanate? am G57i?eDiniDGD nrrrrt ora2efB3mcD araG3jssfa(CO crmr Prrtrrrny Q3CD Gnrr?. CQUZEAGa QuepEoQi Patio Furn Qcmrnmrm W'hcn the threat was over, Gates told his superiors in Washington: . . . 237-200- 0 WANT-AD- S z z wide-bodie- streets or into crowded buildings The c ases are stuffed w ith radiation detection equipment and "talk" to the carrier through a tir.y plug in his or her ear and to technicians in vans or at a central location The bland-lookincases belie their dangerous mission. NEST members have also been used to monitor radiation during the Three Mile Island crisis and to advise authorities at the conventional bombing of Harveys Resort in Lake Tahoe. In the latter case, it was because we can look into the black box and tel! what's there,' Gates said. If a device is found, do you risk that are challenging booby-trap- s likely to be a part of the deadly package? NEST was born in 1974, the outgrowth of a nuclear threat against Boston. Fortunately, the threat was a hoax because govern o by people for different things." Gates says. "The scientists try to determine whether the person knows what he's talking about. Does he understand nuclear theory, nuclear reaction? Are the words right? Other groups examine the threat from the point of view of Is the guy psycholinguistics nuts? Is this a rational mind speaking here." If EAt'T decides the threat is real, a NEST team is deployed from a nondescript brown hangar across from busy McCarran International Airport in southeast Las Vegas. 'The callup could be a simple one a handful of scientists to help officers track down stolen uranium such as they did in Wilmington, N C Or it could be similar to a 1975 incident when 40 men searched for a nuclear device in an extortion threat against Union Oil Co. in Los Angeles. No device was found. All 200 members have been called out only once. In the w'inter of 1978, in Operation Morning Light, they tracked down chunks of a "hot Russian satellite that disintegrated over Canada. d GET RESULTS WITH is analyzed "The message difierenl The equipment is containerized and ready to move on an hour's either by notice commercial airuait or s Irom the Military Airlift Command at Scott Air Force Base, 111. "Enough of this. Give me a mission to respond to and well develop the ( upahility." FRAMES AND MAT BOARDS HUCK WEAVING I NEEDLEWORK GOODIES FOR CHRISTMAS STITCKEKY Z 100's of Counted Cross Stitch books All Colors Cross Stitch fabrics in 0 z 3 CO Counts Z a. 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