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Nov 21, 2025 Bulletin 367: We seek your support; issue updates on pits, nuclear testing, "A House of Dynamite," more Permalink for this bulletin (please forward!). Previously:
Dear friends and colleagues -- One of the drawbacks of failing to send regular Bulletins is that there gets to be too much to report in a single Bulletin. Before starting that report we would like to thank those who have made our work possible this year -- and to ask for everyone's support as we grow our programs in the New Year.
We are excited about what we can do next year. Naturally, much of what we want to do costs money. Since 1989 the Los Alamos Study Group community – our staff and board, volunteers, interns, and supporters – has consistently provided leadership on nuclear weapons issues in New Mexico and nationally. Our work includes research, scholarship, and writing, education and lobbying of nuclear decision makers in Washington, providing an information clearinghouse for journalists, local organizing, litigating, and advertising. To the extent funding allows, we are not just a “think tank” but also an “action tank.” We have a long history of successes in defeating, delaying, and legally constraining nuclear weapons projects including plutonium pit production, running back to the early 1990s. In the present era, we see informed, principled, local resistance as more important than ever. The Study Group is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. All donations are fully tax-deductible. We are entirely non-partisan. Candid (formerly Guidestar) has given us its highest "Platinum" rating for transparency; our tax filings are posted there. Examples of what more resources could fund include: cost-effective print ads (such as these), drive-time radio spots, billboards, and targeted mailings; local organizing and national outreach help, augmented by visiting activists and students; paid internships; and additional staff. Other aspects of our work will continue but as you will already understand, these are no longer “normal” times – or rather, the “new normal” is all-too-rapidly becoming one of growing instability and war. More than ever we need, as Einstein said, “active participation in the fight against war and everything that leads to it.” That “we” is not somebody else. It’s each of us. When we participate in the fight against war and nuclear weapons, something fresh and new is born. We change. We leave behind the war culture, which has used our passivity as permission. We join a community of resistance and renewal. We in New Mexico have a uniquely powerful location at the center of the U.S. nuclear warhead complex. In the fight against nuclear weapons and war, we have the privilege – and the responsibility – of proximity. There are many ways to contribute. You can mail a check (our address is below) or securely contribute on-line at https://lasg.org/contribute.htm, where you can also see other ways to give. As you will see there, you can also give anonymously, as some do. If you are already a supporter or volunteer, please think about others you might approach to join you, and us. Thank you.
We would like to draw your attention to these two recent "advertorials" or "infomercials" placed in the weekly, free Santa Fe Reporter:
In these ads, we do our best to distill essential facts and arguments in a popular form. Please feel free to forward them widely to interested parties. These ads reach approximately 60,000 people in the Los Alamos "laborshed" and provide us avenues to provide a more complete picture of the nuclear weapons gigaproject underway in northern New Mexico than would otherwise be available. We have contracted to publish three more such ads this year. We have been laying the groundwork to augment this outreach with other media (drive-time radio, other print ads, and more), funds allowing. Stay tuned -- and please help if you can.
We tried to avoid talking about it, but we had a great many press inquiries regarding the implications of Trump's nuclear-testing "chaos bomb." You have probably read some of the dozens of hand-wringing mainstream articles about this. Our views on this topic were pretty well explained on these outlets:
All parties should understand that the U.S. is NOT going to conduct a nuclear test, no matter what. That's the starting point for understanding what is going on and appropriately intervening. In sum: the U.S. does not need to test, and there is nobody responsible in any cognizant federal agency who wants to test. That makes nuclear explosive testing well-nigh impossible. If the U.S. tests, others will test -- which in the case of, say, North Korea, would be very bad for U.S. security. Everybody knows this, so there will be no nuclear testing. In the meantime, it doesn't matter what Russia (for example) does. They don't need to test any more than we do. The question of what Russia is or is not doing in the nuclear testing field is irrelevant. China? Much the same. Right now, the nuclear labs are manipulating this discourse again, as they have done for decades, to extract even more money for their toys and distract from their horrendous costs overruns. Frank Rose (not at all on "our side" of the nuclear policy spectrum) understands quite well some what is going on: "Trump’s Nuclear Testing Remark Was a Signal — Not a Strategy. See the above interviews for more detail and color. 4. A recent presentation many may find useful Earlier this week we gave this talk to Indivisible Albuquerque, a large and important political group in New Mexico. Aside from a general update and explanation that goes to exploding some local myths, we also gave them some examples of what we wanted, policy-wise, which we reproduce here:
You may agree or disagree with this "Short note about LANL's tritium venting, a strange and confusing subject," Greg Mello, Sep 20, 2025. NNSA has provided a wrap-up; their press release with useful links.
This can be found in this slide deck from a talk by Dr. Theodore Postol, The Security Risk to Germany from US-German Deployments of Mobile Long-Range Missiles on German Soil, Oct 13, 2025. We commend it to you, along with the other updates we flag and post on our nuclear weapons modernization page.
We've hosted three local showings of this film (in Santa Fe, Los Alamos, and Taos), each followed by discussions, and we will host a fourth showing on Sunday November 30 at the Guild Cinema (map) in Albuquerque, at 12:30 pm. We find this film terrific for the questions it raises and urge other groups -- and, particularly, schools -- to use it as an educational tool. It is "R" rated, for language only -- the same language that is very familiar to every high school student today. I spoke with Libbe HaLevy on her Nuclear Hotseat podcast about the film and these showings ("Greg Mello: HOUSE OF DYNAMITE: Film Explodes Nuclear “Protection” Myth of US Safety, , Oct 28, 2025). Our internet connection was terrible for this interview but Libbe somehow miraculously pieced it together. Next time:
Best wishes to all, Greg, for the Los Alamos Study Group |
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