A TEST-BAN PRIMER

Who called the Geneva test-ban conference?

On Aug. 22, 1958 President Eisenhower announced the suspension of U.S. nuclear tests as of Oct. 31, 1958, and invited the U.S.S.R. to a test-ban conference in Geneva.

For what reason?

The Eisenhower Administration conceived a test-ban treaty as a possible step toward controlled general disarmament. In 1955-57, when Russian propagandists were clamoring for a ban, President Eisenhower insisted that he would negotiate one only as a part of a larger package, including a halt in production of nuclear materials for weapons purposes, and other steps toward disarmament.

Why is the U.S. now discussing a ban apart from disarmament?

President Eisenhower and Secretary of State Herter hope that a test-ban treaty will be a "first step" toward disarmament. One of the biggest obstacles to any disarmament agreement with Russia is an almost paranoid Soviet wariness toward Western inspection and control proposals. Eisenhower and Herter think that if a test-ban control system could be negotiated with the Russians, it might be a "breakthrough" on disarmament control problems.

When did the U.S. stop nuclear tests?

On Oct. 30, at the end of the Hardtack test series in Nevada. The series included three underground tests of various sizes.

Did the U.S.S.R. also suspend nuclear testing? Not right away. It carried out a series of tests in the fall of 1958, which scientists agreed were very "dirty"--meaning that they created a lot of radioactive fallout. This was several weeks after the start of the Geneva Conference. As far as the U.S. knows, the U.S.S.R. has not done any testing since then.

What would the U.S. gain from a test-ban agreement?

The stopping of all above-ground tests by Russia and Britain (as well as the U.S., of course) and perhaps some progress toward making outer space off limits for nuclear shots. President Eisenhower and Secretary Herter also believe that it would be good to get the nuclear rules set up before other nations begin to manufacture nuclear weapons.

Would a nuclear treaty have to be approved by the U.S. Senate?

Yes, by a two-thirds majority.

Would the U.S. lose any of its present bombs by the treaty?

No.

How many bombs does the U.S. have?

The number is classified, but the U.S.

does have a widely diversified and dependable "family" of bombs and warheads.

These range from small, low-yield, lightweight weapons used by ground and naval forces to the big H-bombs carried by B-52s. Furthermore, there are nuclear devices for antisubmarine warfare, antiaircraft, air-to-air missiles and intercontinental missiles.

Do the bombs and warheads deteriorate?

No, they need maintenance but they remain lethal.

Is the U.S. supply enough to obliterate Russia?

Many times over.

Would the treaty banning above-surface tests injure development of further big bombs?

It is generally conceded that the U.S. has all the big bombs it needs.

Would the stopping of U.S. underground tests hamper development and refinement of small nuclear devices?

The warheads designed for the Polaris and Minuteman solid-fuel missiles, which the U.S. is depending upon to close the missile gap in the mid-1960s, pack a nuclear punch of about half a megaton, compared with an estimated eight megatons carried by Soviet intercontinental ballistic missiles, and about three or four megatons in the nose cone of the U.S.'s Atlas ICBM. With additional nuclear tests, the yield of the Polaris and Minuteman warheads could be significantly increased, although Admiral William Raborn Jr. has said he needs no further tests of the present Polaris warhead. Some U.S. scientists and military men would like further testing to develop "clean" nuclear weapons with little fallout. The U.S. has developed small warheads, with a yield of less than one kiloton,* for use in tactical weapons, but so far these small warheads are "dirty," and the dirtiness makes it difficult for troops to follow behind the bombardment.

Would a halt in development of tactical nuclear weapons impair U.S. defense?

Some military experts think so, even if the U.S.S.R. did not evade the ban by carrying out clandestine tests. Development of tactical nuclear weapons making it possible for the U.S. to overcome Communist superiority in military manpower without resorting to mass-destruction H-bombs, has long been a hope and goal of U.S. military thinking. Former Atomic Energy Commissioner Thomas E. Murray argues that the only way the U.S. can escape from the "balance of terror" is to shift from reliance on mass-destruction H-bombs to reliance on tactical nuclear weapons. A test ban, he says, would stop development of such tactical nuclear weapons. Many earnest men who might otherwise be willing to go along with a test ban are haunted by the possibility that the U.S.S.R. would find ways to evade the ban and develop nuclear weapons superior to the U.S.'s. To guard against this possibility, the U.S. has insisted from the outset that any nuclear test-ban agreement must include an adequate system of detection and control.

How could clandestine tests be detected?

That depends on the kind of test. A test conducted on the surface of the earth or in the atmosphere is relatively easy to detect: it gives oft radiation that can be detected at great distances and in minute quantities. But special difficulties arise with tests in outer space or underground. Testing in outer space is largely a theoretical possibility, but underground testing raises troublesome detection problems here and now. Neither fallout nor radiation escapes, and the only way to detect the test is to use seismographic instruments to pick up the earth tremors. Since there is no sure way to tell from the tremor's "signature" on the seismogram whether it was caused by an earthquake or an underground explosion, inspection teams are needed to make on-the-spot checks of suspicious tremors.

Would a system of seismographs and inspectors be pretty reliable?

The U.S. thought so when it entered in the Geneva conference in October 1948, but learned in the Hardtack underground test series in Nevada in September 1958 that no detection system using known methods could be depended upon to detect explosions of less than 19 kilotons.

If Russia entered into a test-ban agreement, would she be able to carry out clandestine tests?

Yes. Underground tests of much less than 19 kilotons could be carried out with slight risk of detection. And by going to a lot of expense, the U.S.S.R. could carry out tests much bigger than 19 kilotons without much risk. Under the "big-hole" theory worked out by U.S. scientists, an explosion in a very large, spherical underground chamber would be muffled by a factor of as much as 300 to 1, so that a 100-kiloton explosion would set up no stronger a tremor than an unmuffled one-third kiloton explosion, and would thus go entirely undetected. Excavating a big-enough hole half-a-mile underground would be exceedingly costly, but perhaps worthwhile if the the U.S.S.R. very badly wanted to test a nuclear device bigger than 19 kilotons.

Is the Eisenhower Administration worried about the evasion possibilities opened up by the "big-hole" theory?

Worried, but not enough to pull out of the Geneva Conference. The Administration is going ahead, on the theory that no imaginable benefit the U.S.S.R. could gain from a nuclear test would be great enough to justify either a substantial risk of detection (which some think would entail a massive propaganda defeat for the U.S.S.R.) or the great expense of excavating a huge underground chamber (which would involve some risk because it would be difficult to hide the excavation work). More important, the Administration believes that the U.S.S.R. genuinely wants a test ban, partly because Soviet leaders are worried about a problem that also worries U.S. leaders: additional nations, notably Red China, may acquire nuclear weapons. In the Administration's view, Moscow's genuine interest in a test ban greatly reduces the risk that the U.S.S.R. might try to evade it.

* A kiloton is the equivalent in blast of 1,000 tons of TNT. The bomb that wrecked Hiroshima measured about 20 kilotons. In the strange vocabulary of nuclear weapons, a one-kiloton weapon is considered "small." A megaton is 1,000 kilotons, or the equivalent of 1,000,000 tons of TNT.

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