Operation Hardtack

Operation Hardtack, the U.S. nuclear test program at Eniwetok, will get under way this week, weather permitting. Already 10,000 men, 100 ships and 120 aircraft of Air Force Major General Alvin Luedecke's Joint Task Force Seven are deployed around Eniwetok's dazzling white coral atolls at the heart of a 590,000-sq.-mi. mid-Pacific "danger zone." From April through August Task Force Seven expects to set off 26 to 30 nuclear explosions, ranging from 50 kilotons to several megatons, from test towers, in mid-air and beneath the sea. Programed highlights:

P: The Navy's first nuclear depth-charge blasts at deep level to establish kill potential against deeply submerged enemy submarines, also at shallow-level to develop new-type attack against surface vessels. Target: a guinea-pig fleet of three destroyers, a submarine, a merchantman and ten barges.

P: The U.S.'s first test-firing and test-explosion of a nuclear-tipped ballistic missile at loo-mile-plus altitude to determine how a nuclear fireball will act in space's near-vacuum, an experiment preliminary to the building of an anti-missile missile. (The Russians test-exploded their first atomic missile, U.S. intelligence believes, at 60-mile altitude above Siberia last winter.)

P: The President's much-heralded showpiece shot of a new-type "clean" bomb, designed to reduce fallout and for use against military targets in limited war.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.