Nuclear Testing Dilemmas

Report Outline
Resumption of Nuclear Weapons Race
Deadlock on Inspection and Control
Controversy Over Dangers of Fallout

Resumption of Nuclear Weapons Race

Peremptory rejection by the Soviet Union, on the second day of the 17-nation disarmament conference which met at Geneva on March 14, of an Anglo-American draft treaty to ban nuclear weapons tests was a severe blow to hopes for East-West agreement on a first essential step toward general and complete disarmament. These hopes were revived in some measure by the statement of the British Foreign Secretary, Lord Home, March 20, that Great Britain, in addition to concessions already made in the Western draft treaty, would be willing to accept an “absolute minimum” of international inspection if Russia would agree to a reasonable compromise and permit negotiation of a definitive treaty to prohibit further tests of nuclear weapons.

Lacking such accomplishment at Geneva, President Kennedy has given notice that the United States will resume nuclear testing in the air by the end of April. The Soviet Union, which conducted its latest series of tests last autumn, has stated that it will test again if the United States does so. And it may not be long before Communist China enters the nuclear race. Sen. Hubert H. Humphrey (D Minn.), chairman of a Senate disarmament subcommittee, said last Jan. 22 that Peiping might explode an atomic device “anytime within this year.”

East-West Differences at Geneva on Testing

The draft treaty proposed by the United States and Great Britain on March 15 was a modified version, of a document presented by them at the three-power Geneva testban conference last April. The 1961 draft called for cessation of nuclear weapons tests above and below ground and under water; a voluntary moratorium on underground explosions of less than 19 kilotons; an annual quota of 20 onsite inspections of suspected clandestine tests on territories of each of the three nuclear powers; direction of an international control commission by a single administrator acceptable to the three countries.