Judge to rule on possession of bomb plugs

Thursday, June 13, 2002 | 10:53 a.m.

A federal judge will decide on Friday whether the United States can take back safety plugs used in the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima from the former Army Air Corps lieutenant who has held them since 1945.

Testing officer Morris Jeppson of Las Vegas had put the bomb plugs up for auction Tuesday in San Francisco.

Hours before the green and red plugs from the bomb called "Little Boy" went on the auction block, the U.S. Attorney's Office, on behalf of the Air Force, filed a motion in federal court to stop the sale, saying they were government property.

In the petition the Air Force seeks possession of the safety plugs, citing the "irreparable harm" of losing control over who has access to them.

U.S. District Judge Susan Illston allowed the auction to proceed, but agreed to hear the government's request for a temporary restraining order on Friday in San Francisco.

"The government is trying to get memorabilia from guys like us, who have collected memorabilia from three wars, rather than protect our borders from terrorists," Clay Perkins of San Diego, who gave the highest bid of $167,000, said.

Jeppson had placed three sets of the plugs into the bomb on board the Enola Gay, the B-29 that delivered the weapon that demolished Hiroshima on Aug. 6, 1945.

He kept one pair, another is held by the widow of Jeppson's former superior officer, Ed Doll, and the last is in the Naval Historical Museum in Washington, D.C.

"After all these years he's had them in his possession and nobody's said a word," said Wallace Beinfeld, who helped set up an antique arms and armor show at the Riviera, where Jeppson's plugs were displayed last week.

The government argues that the plugs are classified, because the drawings for the objects, about the size of a shotgun shell, are classified. Also, the federal request says, if the public had access, it would become a national security issue.

"The sale of the bomb plugs to the public will effectively disseminate restricted data concerning the manufacture and design of atomic weapons," the government's motion said.

Perkins, a retired physicist, termed the goverment's claim "absurd."

"There is simply no way, even in principle, to extract information about the atomic weapon from the plugs, even in 1945," Perkins said.

Perkins said he wanted the plugs, because discussions of nuclear energy after the bombs were dropped inspired his career in physics.

Butterfields auction house in San Francisco, which displayed the plugs last week in Las Vegas and auctioned them Tuesday, agreed the Air Force's argument was invalild.

"We believe that the government's 11th-hour claim of ownership of the bomb plugs, and its assertion that these 1945 bomb plugs may still be 'classified,' are completely without merit, and we anticipate that this matter will be resolved shortly," Butterfields said in a prepared statement.

Enola Gay nav-i-ga-tor Theodore Van Kirk of Novato, Calif., who was auctioning off other historic objects from the flight, believes the judge will block the government from taking the plugs.

"I think it will be tossed out, but if it isn't, it has had a very chilling effect on the auction," Van Kirk said. "That's because somebody didn't take a look at the plugs to declassify them."

The Aug. 6, 1945, log of the Enola Gay, which Van Kirk put up for auction at a starting bid of $200,000, failed to sell.

Scripps Howard News Service contributed to this report.