Facing Up to the Beast

While the U.S. is catching up with Russia in the space race, the Russians are pulling ahead of the U.S. in vital areas of nuclear technology. Though he has already made the basic decision to resume U.S. atmospheric testing, President Kennedy has yet to decide when. The feeling is growing in Washington that it can hardly be too soon.

This week, as the President met with the National Security Council to ponder his final decision, the Pentagon presented an exhaustive study of Russia's recent test series. It confirms earlier reports that the Russians have made alarming nuclear advances that threaten U.S. security--and illustrates why the President's advisers, once divided on the issue of renewed testing, are now unanimous in urging the tests:

> The Russians demonstrated spectacular improvement in their weight-yield performance--on which the superiority of U.S. nuclear technology largely rested. U.S. experts believe that the Soviets have passed the U.S. in the large-yield weapons field, caught up with it in the medium-yield field, and are closing the gap in the low-yield range. This gives the Russians great military flexibility and enables them to place more powerful warheads on smaller missiles. The top Russian test blast of 58 megatons would have yielded 100 megatons if it had not been encased in a lead jacket, and U.S. experts estimate that its air-dropped device weighed only 20,000 to 30,000 lbs. If that estimate is correct, the Russians could easily refine the device into a 100-megaton warhead for one of their giant and crude ICBMs (known to U.S. intelligence men as "the Beast") and send it over a reduced range of 3,500 nautical miles--enough to reach the U.S.

> The second-largest Soviet explosion did not test a "device" but a full-fledged warhead that yielded some 25 megatons and weighed only 10,000 lbs. It .could be hung on the Beast and sent for a full range of 6,000 miles. By comparison, the biggest U.S. missile yield is less than 10 megatons for Titan II.

> The Soviet concentration in the one-and two-megaton range was probably designed to develop better warheads for the plentiful Russian intermediate range missiles that now threaten Western Europe. Higher yield devices, including the 25-megaton warhead, could be carried by Russia's "second generation" ICBM, its first storable (but still liquid) fuel rocket, which is more economical and will become operational in quantity this year.

> In their fission triggers for thermonuclear weapons, the Russians approached the theoretical maximum efficiency--something the U.S. has not got near. With such efficiency, they were able to eliminate most of the fallout from the fission process and make their bombs remarkably clean. U.S. scientists had expected the Soviet triggers to account for up to 50% of the yield; they actually accounted for less than 2%.

> The Russians are already substantially ahead of the U.S. in the anti-ICBM field and, according to present estimates, will have a workable system before the U.S. They have already tested anti-ICBM devices at high altitudes and attempted interceptions of long-range rockets along their range in Siberia.

In the face of such facts, the U.S. obviously has no choice but to resume atmospheric testing. The Kennedy Administration still seems to be fretting about the effect on international opinion; an interdepartmental group under White House Press Secretary Pierre Salinger is pondering about how the tests should be presented to the world. Advance elements of a joint nuclear task force have already sailed for the Pacific testing sites at Johnston. Christmas and Jarvis Islands. But Salinger's group will probably recommend that the first atmospheric tests take place on the flats of Nevada, where the U.S. can de-emphasize the effects of fallout by stressing proximity to its own people.

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