Issue with the ending

I stand (partially) corrected. But somebody could have said something to the effect of "Phew, plutonium is left in one piece! No need for ABC suits..." Then again, that would spoil the flow of the narrative, as they say.

Well I forgot to mention that the minute amount of
plutonium I was talking about would have to be
ingested in some way.
As for the rest of your post ..... I stand corrected.
Thanks.

Actually, you are not 100% correct.

Weapons grade plutonium is very dangerous, inhaled it can increase the risk of cancer significantly

Yes, there is not much risk handling the explosive wrapped core, there is quite a bit of layering between it and the actual fissile material, but the actual plutonium in it is very dangerous.

Also density does not equal rigidity or the hardness of a material. Lead is a very dense metal but is very mailable and easy to break apart.

Your example of the Titan missile exploding in its silo is correct, but that's because the warhead DID remain intact, and none of its primaries misfired.

Things like that do not always work out that well. In 1966 a B-52 collided with a tanker over the Spanish coast, dropping four hydrogen bombs into the ocean and along the coastline. None of them fully detonated, but some did have their safety's fire and the resulting explosions spread highly radioactive plutonium and uranium (from the third stage of the weapon) all over the area resulting in a massive clean up operation.

During Operation Dominic, the Bluegill Prime, and Bluegill Double Prime tests resulted in contamination of Johnston Atoll from non-nuclear explosions and nuclear warheads.

There were also dozens of safety tests done at the Nevada test site to test primaries that misfire, I'm sure you can find all sorts of information about contamination from those tests.

The biggest goof in The Peacemaker is though at the end has to be the total lack of any detonators on the explosive lenses, and also that the count of explosive lenses looked fairly low...

Anyways yea, plutonium is bad stuff.

good reply....did you recurve/recarve pinocchio's nose....hands you some tritium ....

Yes and no. You could hold plutonium and it would not cause you any harm you are quite correct in that as it is an alpha emitter. However just because it is a very dense element does not follow that it can be dispersed by an explosion and what in effect would have actually occurred had the film been a real event is a 'dirty bomb'. The whole localised area would have become contaminated with contaminted particulate matter. In the marine environment it has been demonstrated that alpha-emtitting radio-isotopes such as plutonium associate and bond with fine grain mud and clay particles, which no matter how high their atomic mass can easily be picked up and transported by even the lightest of breezes. The open cuts that Kidman and Clooney received in the blast would have certainly received some atomised particulates of plutonium in them and that is when such alph-emitters become so toxic. Because on the skin they are harmless but in the body they have so little energy they become trapped in individual cells bouncing around and destroying parts of the cells DNA leading to mutations and mutations to deadly cancers.

The point here is not that a missile engine (sited some metres from the warhead) exploded, or that a bomb was in a train wreck or some other trauma.

There was no protection or distance between the plutonium and the explosive.

Remember that what exploded was the very explosive that is sited next to the plutonium in order to force the plutonium particles together and trigger critical mass. The removal of one part of the explosive would they hoped mean critical mass would not be reached, but the core would have been destroyed and scattered across the city.