Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1960-02-07
The Tunnels Are Ready

4Here Is wealth. or important
information in the bulky annual re-
port just submitted to Congress by the
Atomic Energy Commission, but nothing
in this 628-page document is freighted
with more significance than the follow
lowing sentence: THE Nevada Test Site
has been kept in standby readiness by
maintaining the buildings and equip
ment and repairing, or preparing, GER
tain tunnels"
More than year has passed since
our country voluntarily suspended all
types OF experimental nuclear detona-
lions in the hope of working out with
Britain and the Soviet Union an ade-
quately policed agreement on a per-
manent test ban. But the hope still
seems very far from fulillment. At any
rate, after some Is months of negotia-
ton in Geneva, we and the British find
the Russians as reluctant as ever to &C
cept genuinely effective methods of con-
troll and inspection. In addition, we find
them refusing to recognize the demon
Strable fact that certain underground
shots are indiStinguishable from natural
earth tremorS, or can be so "muff1ed" as
to be made undetectable, under present
seismic monitoring systems.
1t is because of this fact that a
limited ban-one that would rule out
atmospheric shots and the large under
ground detonations that are readily
detectable-has been proposed as an in
term agreement pending efforts to de-
wise effective safeguards against every
type OF test, big and small. The Rus
SLAMS, however, have continued to insist
on a total prohibition-the kind that
could be violated or evaded with great
ease in the area of below-surface explo-
sions of relatively low-yield, but highly
significant, nuclear devices. That is why
the United States, in keeping with the
Presidents announcement a few weeks
ago, now feels free to resume" such
testing. And 1t may do so at any time,
depending on whether or not the Krem-
lin shows evidence, in the weeks ahead
(either at the May summit conference
or during Mr.. EiSenhower's June visit
to the USSR), of being willing to CO.
operate in an adequate policing system
against clandeStine experimentation.
Certainly, In these circumstances, it
is reassuring to know that the Acc has
been keeping the Nevada Test Site in
readiness for resumption of limited
scale underground shots. Actually, the
Russians themselves may at this very
moment be carrying out such tests, and
If they are (there is at present no pos
slble way of determining whether they
are or not), then they are doing some
thing that could deprive us-within a
matter of two or three years-of the
nuclear superiority we now enjoy. This
assumes, of course, that we will continue
indefinitely, month after month, to deny
ourselves access to NevadaS tunnels
for experiments designed to develop a
wide variety of devastating missile war
heads and revolutionary small" atomic
weapons.
Such Self-denial will make less and
less sense the longer the Russians
decline to negotiate a reliable test
ban agreement. Indeed, in the. opinion
of some experts, the United States
in accord with the fundamental law
of observation-disclosures resume I'M
foreground detonations next summer, or
in early fall at the latest, regardless of
what the Kremlin may or may not
promise in the meantime There is much
to support this view, and the arguments
in its behalf will become compelling if
the Russians continue to stall.