We've seen them in the movies, but now we can read the real-life
history of America's nuclear warriors, the Nuclear Emergency
Search Team, known as NEST. The story of NEST, which would
protect the U.S. in the case of an attempt at nuclear extortion
or terrorism, is told in declassified documents published
Tuesday. The 69 documents, released under the federal Freedom of
Information Act, were published by the National Security
Archive, a respected research organization at George Washington
University. (More about the National Security Archive.) They
tell the story of MIGHTY DERRINGER, a training exercise in 1986
in which NEST attempted to find a nuclear device smuggled into
Indianapolis. In the training scenario, the device was
detonated, destroying 20 blocks of downtown Indianapolis. The
archive said the documents "offer the first detailed public look
at the inner workings of the agencies, military units and other
U.S. entities responsible for protecting the country from a
terrorist nuclear attack." And they r