The Nation - News from June 7, 1989

At least 50 nuclear weapons and nine nuclear reactors, the products of U.S. and Soviet naval accidents since World War II, are lost on the ocean floor, Greenpeace officials said. “There are more likely more Soviet weapons and reactors on the bottom of the ocean,” said William M. Arkin, co-author of the report by the Greenpeace environmental group, which favors nuclear-free seas, and the Institute for Policy Studies, a liberal research group. Since World War II, 10 U.S. and Soviet accidents and a U.S. decision to scuttle a reactor have left 50 sunken warheads and nine reactors on the ocean floor, the report said. Forty-three of the 50 warheads and six of the nine reactors reportedly are Soviet.