The Need for the early resumption of underground nuclear weapons tests

The Need for the early resumption of underground nuclear weapons tests PDF Author: Robert Erastus Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Atomic bomb
Languages : en
Pages : 3

Get Book Here

Book Description

The Need for the early resumption of underground nuclear weapons tests

The Need for the early resumption of underground nuclear weapons tests PDF Author: Robert Erastus Wilson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Atomic bomb
Languages : en
Pages : 3

Get Book Here

Book Description


Atomic Bomb History: Declassified Account of Return to Nuclear Weapons Testing by U.S. After Test Moratorium 1958-1961 - The Only Detailed

Atomic Bomb History: Declassified Account of Return to Nuclear Weapons Testing by U.S. After Test Moratorium 1958-1961 - The Only Detailed PDF Author: U. S. Military
Publisher: Independently Published
ISBN: 9781798885673
Category : Science
Languages : en
Pages : 328

Get Book Here

Book Description
This unusually important and authoritative history report provides the only official account of major aspects of the American atomic bomb testing program, with technical and political insights into nuclear tests conducted after the test moratorium ended in 1961. The author, Dr. Bill Ogle, a scientist and manager, played a central role in the United States nuclear test program from the first explosion at Alamogordo in 1945 through the time of his death in May 1984. During the critical periods just before and following the moratorium he served as Scientific Deputy to the Military Commanders of the Joint Task Forces that were created to carry out U.S. tests in the Pacific. As Test Division Leader at Los Alamos, he was responsible also for a major part of the underground test program in Nevada.On August 22, 1958, President Eisenhower announced that the United States was ready to begin test ban negotiations on October 31, and to suspend nuclear weapons tests on that date for one year while the negotiations proceeded. The suspension might continue from year to year depending on progress in other areas. A week later Premier Khrushchev agreed to the same date for negotiations, but not to a moratorium. In fact, Soviet testing, in abeyance since March, resumed on September 20 with two very large explosions, and continued until November 3. In compliance with the President's statement, no U.S. tests were conducted after October 30. No further tests then were performed by either nation until the Soviets burst forth with an astonishing 45 shots in 65 days beginning on September 1, 1961. Of these, 14 were above a megaton, and one yielded 63 megatons -- the largest bomb ever fired by any nation. The Soviet program gave every evidence of careful and deliberate preparation.Following the 1958 test suspension, the United States dismantled most of the complex infrastructure required for its own nuclear test programs, both in Nevada and in the Pacific. Almost three years later when President Kennedy found it essential to United States interests to resume testing in response to the Soviet testing, the experience for America's testing community was technically agonizing, operationally painful, and economically very costly. The atmospheric component of test resumption had especially high political obstacles and costs. In this book, which was eight years in preparation, Ogle has provided a detailed description of the events of that period. The book does not argue for or against nuclear testing underground or in the atmosphere. Rather, it presents a comprehensive account of the major difficulties that attended U.S. test resumption in both of those environments after a period of total cessation. Dr. Ogle's book is unique in several respects. It is the only detailed account by an "insider" of United States nuclear testing. The earlier development of testing methods and weapons technology is presented as necessary background for the reader. The author, in addition to accumulating and knowledgeably screening a vast collection of original documents from the period, personally interviewed more than 70 key political, technical, and operational professionals who participated in the events described in the main part of the book. The collection of data and interviews on which this book is based will be preserved intact in the archives of the Los Alamos National Laboratory. Since many of the original sources are no longer available, this archival material is unique and irreplaceable.CHAPTER I - Premoratorium Internal Readiness Activities * CHAPTER II - Test Moratorium, 1958-1961 * CHAPTER III - Return To Testing - Nevada * CHAPTER IV - Return To Atmospheric Testing - Pacific

A History of U.S. Nuclear Testing and Its Influence on Nuclear Thought, 1945–1963

A History of U.S. Nuclear Testing and Its Influence on Nuclear Thought, 1945–1963 PDF Author: David M. Blades
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1442232013
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 247

Get Book Here

Book Description
The story of U. S. nuclear testing between 1945 and 1963 is a vivid and exciting one, but also one of profound importance. It is a story of trailblazing scientific progress, weapons of mass destruction, superpower rivalry, accidents, radiological contamination, politics, and diplomacy. The testing of weapons that defined the course and consequences of the Cold War was itself a crucial dimension to the narrative of that conflict. Further, the central question - Why conduct nuclear tests? - was fully debated among American politicians, generals, civilians, and scientists, and ultimately it was victory for those who argued in favor of national security over diplomatic and environmental costs that normalized nuclear weapons tests. A History of U. S. Nuclear Testing and Its Influence on Nuclear Thought, 1945–1963 is an examination of this question, beginning with the road to normalization and, later, de-normalization of nuclear testing, leading to the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in 1963. As states continue to pursue nuclear weaponry, nuclear testing remains an important political issue in the twenty-first century.

Developments in Technical Capabilities for Detecting and Identifying Nuclear Weapons Tests

Developments in Technical Capabilities for Detecting and Identifying Nuclear Weapons Tests PDF Author: United States. Congress. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Disarmament
Languages : en
Pages : 526

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Debate about Nuclear Weapon Tests

The Debate about Nuclear Weapon Tests PDF Author: Jozef Goldblat
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nuclear weapons
Languages : en
Pages : 98

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Last Nuclear Explosion

The Last Nuclear Explosion PDF Author:
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Nuclear arms control
Languages : en
Pages : 310

Get Book Here

Book Description


Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation

Uranium Enrichment and Nuclear Weapon Proliferation PDF Author: Allan S. Krass
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 100020054X
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 325

Get Book Here

Book Description
Originally published in 1983, this book presents both the technical and political information necessary to evaluate the emerging threat to world security posed by recent advances in uranium enrichment technology. Uranium enrichment has played a relatively quiet but important role in the history of efforts by a number of nations to acquire nuclear weapons and by a number of others to prevent the proliferation of nuclear weapons. For many years the uranium enrichment industry was dominated by a single method, gaseous diffusion, which was technically complex, extremely capital-intensive, and highly inefficient in its use of energy. As long as this remained true, only the richest and most technically advanced nations could afford to pursue the enrichment route to weapon acquisition. But during the 1970s this situation changed dramatically. Several new and far more accessible enrichment techniques were developed, stimulated largely by the anticipation of a rapidly growing demand for enrichment services by the world-wide nuclear power industry. This proliferation of new techniques, coupled with the subsequent contraction of the commercial market for enriched uranium, has created a situation in which uranium enrichment technology might well become the most important contributor to further nuclear weapon proliferation. Some of the issues addressed in this book are: A technical analysis of the most important enrichment techniques in a form that is relevant to analysis of proliferation risks; A detailed projection of the world demand for uranium enrichment services; A summary and critique of present institutional non-proliferation arrangements in the world enrichment industry, and An identification of the states most likely to pursue the enrichment route to acquisition of nuclear weapons.

Proceedings, American Philosophical Society (vol. 105, no. 2, 1961)

Proceedings, American Philosophical Society (vol. 105, no. 2, 1961) PDF Author:
Publisher: American Philosophical Society
ISBN: 9781422371886
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 118

Get Book Here

Book Description


Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy

Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy PDF Author: Todd S. Sechser
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 110710694X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 349

Get Book Here

Book Description
Are nuclear weapons useful for coercive diplomacy? This book argues that they are useful for deterrence but not for offensive purposes.

Restricted Data

Restricted Data PDF Author: Alex Wellerstein
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
ISBN: 022602038X
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 558

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Nuclear weapons, since their conception, have been the subject of secrecy. In the months after the dropping of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the American scientific establishment, the American government, and the American public all wrestled with what was called the "problem of secrecy," wondering not only whether secrecy was appropriate and effective as a means of controlling this new technology but also whether it was compatible with the country's core values. Out of a messy context of propaganda, confusion, spy scares, and the grave counsel of competing groups of scientists, what historian Alex Wellerstein calls a "new regime of secrecy" was put into place. It was unlike any other previous or since. Nuclear secrets were given their own unique legal designation in American law ("restricted data"), one that operates differently than all other forms of national security classification and exists to this day. Drawing on massive amounts of declassified files, including records released by the government for the first time at the author's request, Restricted Data is a narrative account of nuclear secrecy and the tensions and uncertainty that built as the Cold War continued. In the US, both science and democracy are pitted against nuclear secrecy, and this makes its history uniquely compelling and timely"--