Denna artikel Undergångens skuggor har publicerats på utmärkta siten TTF, Transnational Foundation for Peace and Future Research, http://blog.transnational.org/.
Den är skriven av professor Gunnar Westberg. Denne var ordförande i Svenska Läkare mot kärnvapen 1997-2004 och har också varit en ordförande i International
Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, IPPNW, som erhöll Nobels fredspris 1985.

Artikeln.
During the years since the end of the Cold War, Peter Handberg – a writer and translator – has travelled many times in the Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. He has visited many sites where nuclear weapons were kept at the time, ready to destroy the world.
Handberg has also spoken to military officers who once watched over these instruments of Armageddon. He has written an important book on the subject, Undergångens skuggor (Shadows of Doom).

He has just led a group of people from Sweden to some of these bases, abandoned since 1987. We were about ten physicians from the Swedish section of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War (IPPNW) and ten others – historians, people with an interest in the Baltic states, etc..
I learnt three important facts, from the book and be visiting these sites:

1. The size of the Soviet nuclear complex in these small Baltic states was enormous; there were at least 35 bases.
2. The officers who watched over the missiles were, especially in 1983, convinced that an American attack would come and they expected to launch their missiles.
3. There were at some of these bases, in the sixties but also much later, short distance missiles with a range of not more than 600 km, enough to reach Southern Finland and Eastern Sweden only. They carried a large number of bombs, mostly of at least 100 kt effect, or about six Hiroshima bombs.

The reason “neutral” Sweden was targeted was that a US attack with bomb planes carrying nuclear weapons was expected to come also over Sweden, possibly using Swedish airfields.
Maybe that was correct: Sweden would have been used as a platform for an American nuclear attack on the Soviet Union. Such a scenario is described by Thomas Reed, once head of US Air Force, in his book At the Abyss. At the Abyss

Reed was a US defence analyst who in the eighties participated in the selection of enemy targets in the strategic plane called SIOP.
I can not avoid comparing this piece of history to the situation today: Sweden’s government is moving ever closer to NATO and has – through the Host Country Agreement – prepared for NATO bases in the country and thereby – potentially at least – for an attack to be carried out by NATO from Swedish territory. We Swedes are making ourselves a target.

Kommentar: Boken har recenserats av Peter Englund i Dagens Nyheter
” Denna genomtänkta och rasande intelligenta bok rymmer uppgifter som kan chockera även luttrade katastrofkännare … Men det är givetvis inte bara vad författaren gör utan även hur han gör det som förvandlar ”Undergångens skuggor” till en så lysande bok. Handbergs stil är imponerade säker: att läsa honom är som att se en katt gå över ett väldukat middagsbord. Här finns inte ett felplacerat ord, inte en död punkt, inte en falsk ton.”
Peter Englund, Dagens Nyheter”
I presentationen av boken står också:
Missilerna i Baltikum stod riktade mot Sverige. På ett område av Gotlands storlek fanns under 1980-talet kärnvapen som hade en sprängkapacitet som motsvarande 16 000 Hiroshimabomber. En enkel knapptryckning kunde utradera Stockholm, Linköping eller Västerås. Hotet om total utplåning kastade skuggor över hela efterkrigstiden. I Undergångens skuggor får vi bland andra möta de baltiska raketförbandens veteraner – de som stod ständigt beredda att avfyra de dödliga missilerna. Med hjälp av GPS-navigator, nyfikenhet och fascination – inte minst inför sina egna reaktioner – spårar Peter Handberg de förfallna ruinbaserna i städernas utkanter. Detta är ett spännande och skrämmande reportage från en samtidshistoria vi helst vill glömma.
”Hon öppnar den tjocka järndörren till kommandobunkern från vilken gångarna strålar ut i fyra siloschakt. Rå luft slår emot oss, vi stiger ned i underjorden.” Boken är rikt illustrerad med ett unikt bildmaterial, både i färg och svartvitt.

i Andra om: kärnvapen, NATO,Sverige, Värdlandsavtalet, FN, FN-stadgan, Krig, USA, Politik, massmedia IAEA desinformation