Meet America's secret team of nuclear first responders

Meet America's secret team of nuclear first responders toggle caption NNSA In an aircraft hangar at Joint Base Andrews, just outside of Washington, DC, one of the government’s most secretive groups gathered recently to celebrate its 50th anniversary. “Please note that this is an unclassified event, so please understand that there is a lot that our people are not going to be able to discuss,” Rick Christensen, the director of the National Nuclear Security Administration’s office of nuclear incident response told the small crowd sitting in folding chairs. Then-president Gerald Ford was appalled, and six months later the government created NEST to aid in the response to, “lost or stolen nuclear weapons and special nuclear materials, nuclear bomb threats, and radiation dispersal threats,” according to the secret memorandum that set up the team. And they learn how to evaluate other terrorist threats—for example, using nuclear material to make a so-called “dirty bomb.” Sponsor Message There’s less that can be openly discussed about those missions, but, Tilden says, NEST doesn’t want to be seen as a shadowy government agency flying around in black helicopters.