Sir

None of the discussions I have seen about the US government's plans to spend $4 billion a year maintaining the safety and reliability of its stockpile of nuclear weapons has pointed out that once upon a time a small group of scientists with no prior experience in the field and using 1940s knowledge and technology and no computers at all managed in the space of about three years to design two completely different atomic bombs, both of which worked spectacularly on the first try.

How can it now require a huge experienced design staff and new computers and experimental devices worth billions to assure the continued availability of weapons already designed and well tested? Such a claim certainly does not seem to attribute very much competence to those in the field today.

The only people who need $4 billion a year spent on stockpile stewardship are those in whose pockets those dollars will end up and the politicians who want their votes.