To Test or Not to Test
HERMAN, GEORGE E.
WASHINGTON-U.S.A. By George E. Herman To Test or Not to Test October 1958 produced two milestones in the history of nuclear weapons testing: The United States successfully completed a...
...Against these considerations, and against our desire to test Project Plowshare devices for the peaceful outdoor use of atomic energy, must be plotted the cost in increased radiation danger to the children of the world...
...Then the Soviet negotiators reversed their stand on many issues and ended hope of a test ban agreement...
...With Russia posing virtuously as the world leader in the fight for peace and against fall-out, and with detection so easy and foolproof, open-air testing by either side seemed temporarily unthinkable...
...This means that there is nothing to propagate a shock wave from an explosion, no overpressure except from fragments of the explosion itself if they reach the target...
...Thus a series of American open-air tests, the last to date, significantly shifted the balance of threats and deterrents...
...was therefore ready to quit testing and start producing, confident that if tests were banned at this point we would be well ahead in nuclear weapons...
...Some U.S...
...In fact, it changed the balance of forces in the world...
...he put a good deal of his Administration's energy into exploring ways of accomplishing this...
...We badly need tests to see whether the Nike Zeus can disable an incoming missile at high altitudes, either by hurtling fragments or by irradiation with neutrons...
...The Russians have added to the radioactive burden of humanity by more than 30 per cent with just one 50 megaton shot...
...How about the neutron bomb...
...At this writing the questions are not yet answered, but Washington is making preparations to test if necessary...
...the Russians are hard at work on a parallel device...
...Perfecting its performance is extremely important to U.S...
...The Nike Zeus is a critical defensive weapon...
...Balancing the risk of radiation damage from tests against the risk of total destruction from nuclear war is a political and not a scientific job...
...There is also the animosity of non-nuclear countries to be taken into account...
...And the United States, through its President, must decide whether the course of the race requires new open-air testing of American devices...
...Our progress was clear to Soviet scientists...
...Their announcement was held up because the U.S...
...Now the technology race is wide open again...
...First, the President needs some answers to key questions: Have the Soviet scientists in their latest test series exploded any devices of revolutionary technology which might again alter the balance of forces...
...In the upper reaches of an ICBM's flight, where it is moving most slowly, there is virtually no air...
...Some in our Government urged it...
...It is enough to say that after three years of hard work and a great deal of real progress, the Soviet leadership last March reversed its former stand on many issues...
...The disappointing failure of that reaction to materialize speeded our entry into the testing picture...
...In Geneva, too, the discussion revolved mainly around underground testing...
...At the moment, the neutron bomb does not exist in our laboratories or on our drawing boards...
...hoped to take advantage of world reaction against Soviet tests...
...But nobody knows for sure where an incoming missile can best be destroyed...
...Early in September it resumed testing...
...We had the much smaller Atlas and Titan in the works, but as a result of the 1958 breakthrough could fit them with 5-7 megaton warheads...
...President Kennedy took office determined to do what he could to get the stalled Geneva talks moving...
...New tactical devices could help overcome Communist superiority in manpower, but for the most part they can be tested underground...
...By George E. Herman To Test or Not to Test October 1958 produced two milestones in the history of nuclear weapons testing: The United States successfully completed a vital series of tests...
...The importance of the U.S...
...Additional American testing in the atmosphere will certainly increase the load, even if only by a small percentage...
...and the then three nuclear powers—Britain, the USSR and the U.S.—met in Geneva to begin talks on how to prevent further nuclear tests...
...tests lay in the final proof of a new and revolutionary method for making nuclear explosions more efficient— "getting more bang from the bomb...
...One is the Nike Zeus, America's missile defense weapon...
...The entire burden from their lengthy test series has yet to be calculated...
...In three years American scientists have cooked up many ideas which look good on the drawing boards and check out well when put through the computers, but which must be tested to see if the theory agrees with the fact...
...The samples of radioactive dust drifting around the world make it possible for each side to reconstruct reasonably well what the other has done, although not how...
...The nuclear production race, of course, had never ceased...
...The Russians had forged ahead in the missile race because they had boldly designed huge rockets to fit the early enormous hydrogen warheads...
...Meanwhile, crews have started clearing away the vegetation covering our Pacific testing stations...
...Some charge that the whole idea is merely a gimmick dreamed up in the days when testing was against our policy by those who wanted some way of winning popular support for new tests...
...One main difference between the American and Soviet approaches to renewed testing is that the emphasis on our side was on underground explosions...
...Already the pressures on the President to resume atmospheric testing have mounted enormously...
...Others fear spring radioactivity might start global hysteria and forestall our own tests...
...But the new design in hydrogen explosives enabled this country's comparatively small rockets to carry warheads of a yield comparable although not entirely equal to those topping the big Soviet ICBMs...
...Preparations for underground tests in Nevada were immediately authorized...
...What requires immediate nuclear testing...
...This improvement in the ratio of the weight of the bomb to its yield was a major step forward...
...That weight/ yield ratio is the basic mathematical unit in establishing the world balance of forces in nuclear devices and their delivery systems...
...But it has gone almost entirely into construction of new tunnels at the Nevada test grounds...
...Is the danger to that balance important enough to offset whatever biological, moral and diplomatic damage we might risk in new American tests...
...Nevertheless, good reasons remain for the resumption of American open-air tests...
...scientists are urging that no atmospheric tests be held until after the spring rains have shown how "dirty" the Soviet tests really were...
...The Russians had their giant missiles capable of carrying perhaps a 10 megaton warhead...
...The irritating and contemptuous manner in which they did it may have been calculated to sting the United States into resuming nuclear tests first...
...It seemed in fact imminent when Khrushchev, unable to wait any longer, resumed Soviet testing at the beginning of September...
...There is no need here to chronicle the earnest fumbling efforts to blend technology and diplomacy into a permanent, workable test ban agreement...
...The United States does not intend to lose any ground in the nuclear race now that Soviet testing has been resumed...
...We badly need data on what a Nike Zeus warhead can do to missiles at various distances and at different altitudes...
...But it is important and must be grimly weighed by any moral nation...
...We also had proved out the Davy Crockett, a bazooka-launched tactical atomic device which could be handled by a team of two or three men on the battlefield...
...Every nuclear device is a neutron bomb in that it emits enormous floods of neutrons along with heat and blast effects...
...As the Geneva talks flickered along, it seemed common sense rather than duplicity to prepare devices for early testing if and when the talks broke down...
...And in June, Khrushchev boasted that he too had new devices requiring tests...
...Up to $12 million a year has been poured into maintaining our test facilities...
...The headline-catching concept of a weapon which will swiftly and silently mortify all living flesh with an invisible flash of neutrons, and yet leave inanimate objects undamaged, is still something out of science fiction...
...In addition, by 1958 we had developed our two chief second-strike or counter-punch weapons: the Polaris system, and the Minuteman solid fuel rocket designed to be launched from underground silos...
...The blast effect of a nuclear explosion, for example, is given by scientists in terms of pounds per square inch (psi) of the "overpressure" (the pressure beyond that of the atmosphere) exerted on objects...
...Now the Russians have not only made atmospheric testing thinkable, they have perhaps made it urgently necessary...
...Only new tests can show what the next generation of weapons will be, whether we can again importantly reduce the ratio of weight-to-yield...
...It rests upon the President of the United States...
...The Pacific Islands facilities have slowly disappeared under a tangle of jungle growth...
...Still, the situation was not intolerable to either side...
...His advisers may tell him the risk of damage from our own comparatively clean tests is quite small...
...George E. Herman is a White House correspondent for CBS News...
...The radar system which will guide the Nike Zeus to the vicinity of incoming enemy missiles will be ready for tests this January...
...Such irradiation could damage the warhead, possibly even explode it, and disable electronic mechanisms designed to guide the missile in its last fall towards a target...
...The U.S...
...In general, our scientists have used up almost all their conclusions from the 1958 tests...
...They have extrapolated as far as seems practicable...
...security...
...Angry scientists doubt its military value even if it were feasible...
Vol. 44 • November 1961 • No. 37
