What Is Polonium 210?

The recent news is abuzz about the former Russian spy who died from radiation poisoning after ingesting Polonium 210 or Po-210. The British are investigating. The Russians are investigating. Everyone is watching.

Litvinenko claimed on his deathbed that he was poisoned by the Putin regime because of his outspoken opinions regarding Putin. Everyone knows that Russia does not take well to criticism and that they have a history of killing any Russian or former Russian who badmouths the country.

What is odd about this story is the poison used to kill Litvinenko. Po-210 is a very unstable radioactive isotope. The radiation it emits is not particularly strong; it can be stopped by a sheet of paper or the upper layer of your skin.

The only way it becomes deadly is if you ingest it. Once inside the body, it can wreak havoc on your internal organs. A fraction of a gram of Po-210 taken internally is enough to kill you.

This is just one of the odd factors surrounding this case. In order to kill someone, you have to make sure they ingest the Po-210. Normally, the Russians use more reliable means to kill someone, a bomb or a bullet is much more reliable. Plus the victim does not have the opportunity to blame his attackers in front of the entire world.

Another issue with Po-210 is that it has a relatively short half-life. This means it decays fairly rapidly into plain old lead. If you start with a gram of Po-210 in a little over four months you have a half a gram, in another four months a quarter gram and so on.

So, what exactly is going on in this case? Let's look at some other facts about this case. Litvinenko converted to Islam on his deathbed. It is said that he was sympathetic to the Chechen rebels and had been for several years. But he chose to wait until just before his death to publicly convert. It is almost as if he did not want to draw attention to his relationship with the Chechens.

Then we discover that the only real purpose of Po-210 is for use as a trigger for atomic bombs. In fact, it was first used in the Manhattan Project for just such a purpose. It is well known that the Russians also have used Po-210 as triggers for some of their nuclear devices, particularly their suitcase bombs.

As you know, after the fall of the USSR, several of these suitcase bombs came up missing. Most experts told us that they are relatively useless because the triggers had long ago decayed and were no longer functioning.

Maybe Litvinenko was not assassinated by Russian agents, maybe he was poisoned because he came in contact with the Po-210 while helping to build new triggers. It very well could be that there is a group that has one or more of these suitcase bombs and have built new triggers to make these bombs functional again.

The news has mentioned dirty bombs and such but Po-210 is not something you would use in a dirty bomb. It just does not have the effect of more potent materials like Cobalt 60 or Cesium.

It could be that there is something far more sinister afoot and the powers that be are not letting the cat out of the bag for fear of inciting panic.

You see, the first Po-210 was produced in an indoor tennis court and if you have individuals who are willing to sacrifice their lives for a cause, you could produce this stuff in large enough quantities to build new triggers.

The issue is that because of the rapid decay of Po-210, the new triggers will become useless in a year or two at most. If someone out there has in fact built new triggers, they have no reason to delay using these devices and in fact every reason to use them sooner rather than later.

It is a chilling thought.