Home
|
THE FILM
|
Interviews |
About
|
Transcript | Notes |
Milton Leitenberg: See, we don't have these [pictures].
Visitor: These are bunkers.
Leitenberg: I know, we have some pictures of bunkers, but not as good as that.
Slava Paperno: Where were the devices that filled the weapon with formula?
Lepeshkin: Right here.
Leitenberg: It's in the bunker.
Paperno: In the bunkers, right?
Lepeshkin: Right here. In the bunkers, in the bunkers.
Paperno: In the bunkers.
Leitenberg: In the bunkers.
Paperno: How was it done? What did it look like?
Lepeshkin: A portioning device. Do you know what a portioning device is?
Paperno: Yes.
Lepeshkin: You know [what a portioning device is]? This is also a portioning device. The liquid goes in there, there's a thingamajig that's set up, you press it down and everything pours there.
Paperno: And what's the result?
Lepeshkin: The result is this product here, filled with liquid. That's it. Then the lid is fastened on and into the munitions line it goes.
Paperno: And so, what are you holding in your hand?
Lepeshkin: The product.
Paperno: Huh?
Lepeshkin: The product.
Leitenberg: Little bomblets.
Paperno: The product?
Lepeshkin: Yes.
Leitenberg: Little, round...
Paperno: Milton calls them bombs, you call them products.
Lepeshkin: It's alright to call them bombs.
Leitenberg: BombLET.
Paperno: Bomblet.
Lepeshkin: Bomblet.
Paperno: Bomblets. Yes.
Leitenberg: Little, round, with little veins.
Lepeshkin: They're round, yes, with little veins.
Leitenberg: So when it flies through the air they disperse. Spread.
Lepeshkin: Let me explain. See, there's a plane flying, and they scatter and spin, due to having what he calls winglets. And they have a vеin, or band, you know, with those...
Leitenberg: It's what's called a multiple munition.
Lepeshkin: And those things rotate, like this...
Leitenberg: There's a mother... just a big, long, empty tin can from here, to that copy machine. And the bomblets are stacked in that. And they're dropped by an aircraft.
Lepeshkin: What he's saying is right.
Leitenberg: Not missiles.
Lepeshkin: Yes, that's right. It's kind of a magazine, you know?
Paperno: A magazine, yes, a magazine.
Lepeshkin: A magazine. And that magazine holds up to two hundred and fifty of them, I think.
Paperno: How many?
Lepeshkin: Two hundred and fifty.
Paperno: Two hundred and fifty in a single magazine?
Lepeshkin: Well, they're small, like this.
Paperno: What size are they?
Lepeshkin: They're about like this.
Leitenberg: Again, this is modelled on the American bomb.
Lepeshkin: They're exactly the same.
Leitenberg: The Americans had three of these. Slightly different dimensions. They were also round, the armature, the cutaway diagram is exactly the same. And to my horror, I discovered just last year that in two unclassified publications in the early 1990s [corrected below to 1960s], defense publications, but not classified.
Paperno: American?
Leitenberg: Yes. We published those diagrams. OK, it's not published for everybody, but they were Department of Defense publications that you could come by one way or another. And the Russians had an army of people in Washington, trying to get all those publications. And so, these... the Soviet ones are modeled so closely on the American ones, that there's no question that the internal design is exactly the same.
Paperno: What year was that published here? Those...
Leitenberg: It was published, actually, twice: '62, '63, '64. They were compendia of all American multiple munitions. Hundreds of pages. Description of each one.
Paperno: Was that publication a mistake? An accident, or...
Leitenberg: No. Well, a mistake, yes, of course, from my point of view. But the Department of Defense considered this as for internal use, and didn't think, you know, they were sending it to Moscow. They didn't send it to Moscow. But the Russians got one somehow. It should have been, at a minimum, it should have been classified. At a minimum.