Mushroom over Mururoa

Until recently, Algeria's remote Sahara has been the test site for France's fledgling atomic program. With the agreement under which France uses the site about to run out and Africans, in general, resentful of the French tests, Charles de Gaulle had to find another place to blast. The one he chose is about as far from population centers as possible. It is Mururoa atoll, 750 miles southeast of Tahiti in the South Pacific.

In the past three years, France has spent $600 million on the new test facility. Some 15,000 Frenchmen, supported by 40% of France's navy, have been busy building bunkers, laying airstrips, deepening Tahiti's harbor and extending its piers. Last week, the job completed on schedule, French Admiral Jean Lorain gave the order from aboard his flagship, the cruiser De Grasse, and an irregular black mushroom rose above Mururoa lagoon.

The explosion marked the start of a new and crucial phase in the development of France's atomic arsenal. From the four explosions in the Sahara in 1960-61 and subsequent tests, the French developed a 60-kiloton Abomb, but it is so bulky that France's 40 or 50 force de frappe Mirage IV jet bombers are able to carry only one apiece. What the French hope to achieve in the new tests is a smaller, powerful warhead to ride atop the intermediate-range missile for which silos are already being dug in France's Haute-Provence. The French timetable calls for the missiles to be ready by 1969, followed by Polaris-type submarines in the early 1970s.

The next detonation, now scheduled for Bastille Day, July 14, is likely to be relatively low-powered, as was the first. After that will come at least four higher-yield explosions, including the firing of devices laced with lithium and tritium, as important experiments toward ultimately developing the H-bomb. At one of the final explosions in late summer will be a very important guest. De Gaulle plans to stop off for a brief visit at the Polynesian site during his trip to Southeast Asia.

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