Macmillan and Eisenhower: The Test-ban Negotiations, 1957–60

More than 12,000 scientists, engineers, and other professionals, many of them leaders in their fields, as well as more than 1000 other signatories, called on the United States to take the initiative in halting the nuclear arms race, “a grim feature of modern life.” In a Declaration on the Nuclear Arms Race, the many signers call the continuing competition “increasingly a mortal threat to all mankind.” They urged the administration to halt the testing and deployment of new nuclear weapons and nuclear weapons systems for a period of 2 to 3 years and challenged the Soviet Union to reciprocate. They called also for a rapid move toward a comprehensive nuclear test ban. The declaration emphasized that these bold steps would not jeopardize U.S. security owing to the immense destructive capacity of the U.S. nuclear arsenal. There is no defense against nuclear missiles.

The environment is very important in the aspects of peace because when we destroy our resources and our resources become scarce, we fight over that.I am working to make sure we don't only protect the environment, we also improve governance.

Kirjanik Vladimir Beekman kirjutas Nõukogude Eesti lastele kaheosalise raamatu nimega „Aatomik“ (1959) ning „Aatomik ja Küberneetiline Karu“ (1968), kus uraanituuma lõhustumisel tekkinud energiale on antud inimeselaadne kuju. Piiritu jõuga peategelane osaleb looduse ümberkujundamisplaanides, millel on suur keskkonnamõju. Raamatud järgivad Nõukogude Liidu tuumaenergeetika arendusplaane, nii nn rahuaatomi kui ka külma sõja jutupunkte. Artiklis on võrreldud raamatuis kujutatud tegevusi tõelisuses aset leidnud sündmustega, uuritud kirjutamiskonteksti ning teema levikut lastekirjanduses. Fosforiidikaevandamise ohu algusaegadel ilmus Beekmanil aga keskkonnakatastroofi eest hoiatav romaan „Eesli aasta“ (1979).
 
 Summary
 In Soviet Estonia, Vladimir Beekman (1929–2009), a writer with a degree in engineering, wrote a two-story sequence for children: Aatomik (‘The Atom-Boy’, 1959) and its sequel Aatomik ja Küberneetiline Karu (‘The Atom-Boy and the Cybernetic Bear’, 1968), in which the energy generated by the fission of uranium nuclei was given a human form. The publishing of the books was followed by puppet-animation films. The protagonist, a boy with immense power, is involved in several plans of transforming the natural world, projects that had or would have had major environmental impact and caused catastrophes. The stories follow the Soviet Union’s nuclear development plans, both the narratives introducing the “Atoms for Peace” policy and the Cold War propaganda. The article juxtaposes the adventures of the Atom-Boy with the nuclear tests and the achievements of the nuclear industry in the Soviet Union.
 Beekman began his literary career as a poet, eagerly reflecting the ideals of Soviet society, including the Cold War propaganda and the nuclear arsenal development. He had a background that suited the regime, having spent part of his boyhood in a Soviet orphanage and making his literary debut in the Stalinist period. He graduated from the Tallinn Polytechnic Institute as a chemical engineer, but made his career as a literary administrator, serving as a long-standing secretary and chairman of the Writers’ Union. He left behind a valuable legacy as a translator of Western children’s literature into Estonian (Selma Lagerlöf, Astrid Lindgren, Tove Jansson, Annie M. G. Schmidt, etc).
 Beekman’s stories of the Atom-Boy fit into the tradition of writing about nuclear energy for children. Both Soviet and Western literatures provide examples of this genre in children’s and young adult literature. Such books might belong to the genre of popular science for kids (The Walt Disney Story of Our Friend the Atom), face the fears or casualties of the nuclear accidents in power plants (Joe Holliday’ s young adult book series in the 1950s, Leonid Daien’s Chornobyl – the Bitter Grass), or advocate and justify this energy source. Beekman’s stories belong to the last category: the experiments of the Atom-Boy finally all end well, without doing irreversible damage to the environment. He even melts the ice of the Arctic Ocean with the help of nuclear power.
 As nuclear testing and the related problems and accidents were classified in the Soviet Union, it remains unclear whether Beekman's tales of the Atom-Boy belong to the realm of popular science or science fiction for kids. They are usually given the label of ‘the fairy-tale of the Century of Technology’. The stories follow the Soviet Union’s propaganda points on nuclear power, but also on nuclear arms race.
 In 1979 Beekman published the novel Eesli aasta (‘The year of the donkey’), which warned of environmental disaster during the early days of the phosphate mining plans. The Writer’s Union played a role in the campaign against phosphate mining, known as the Phosphorite War.

This brief report was prepared in response to a letter of July 17, 1990, by the Honorable Dante B. Fascell, chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, requesting an assessment of the safety of US nuclear warheads with particular attention to the extent to which additional nuclear explosive tests might be needed to further improve their safety. Chairman Fascell's letter contained five questions. Namely: (1) are our nuclear weapons safe; (2) are there ways to deal with the warhead safety question other than through nuclear testing; (3) should we add insensitive high explosives to all our nuclear weapons - and, if so, why; (4) do we need to increase the number of nuclear tests to ensure the safety of our nuclear arsenal; and (5) what advantages are there to reconfiguring our nuclear testing program so as to make the warhead and delivery vehicle more interchangeable. Mr. Kidder provides answers to these questions, noting that older, less-safe weapons are being retired or retrofitted; further, nearly all of the most important safety improvements can be made with no significant increase beyond the modest number of tests required currently.

The past year saw a massive increase in the number of state parties to the 2017 Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Treaty). Almost seventeen countries became party to the Nuclear Treaty either through ratification or accession. Australia, Costa Rica, Cuba, Gambia, Mexico, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Palau, Palestine, Samoa, San Marina, South Africa, Uruguay, Vanuatu, Venezuela, and Vietnam became members through ratification, while Cook Islands became a party through accession. Saint Lucia signed the treaty in 2018. As per Article 15, the treaty will come into force ‘90 days after the fiftieth instrument of ratification, acceptance, approval or accession deposited.’ As of the time of writing this report, the convention has twenty-three state parties. The Nuclear Treaty underlies the grave implication for the environment that may ensue from the use or testing of nuclear weapons or other nuclear explosive devices. Article 6(2) of the treaty positively obliges states to take environmental remediation steps for the areas under either their control or jurisdiction if any part thereof is contaminated through either the use or testing of nuclear weapons or any other nuclear explosive devices. This obligation is without any prejudice to other liabilities under bilateral or multilateral treaties or under customary international law. Article 7(6) further obliges the state party that has caused harm to the areas under either control or jurisdiction of any other state through its nuclear-related activities to assist the affected state party in environmental remediation.

The Trump administration is considering renewing nuclear weapons testing (1), a move that could increase the risk of another nuclear arms race as well as an inadvertent or intentional nuclear war. Following in the long tradition of scientists opposing nuclear weapons due to their harmful effects on both humanity and the planet (2), we ask the U.S. government to desist from plans to conduct nuclear tests. During the Cold War, the United States conducted 1030 nuclear weapons tests, more than all other nuclear-armed nations combined (3). In 1996, the United States signed the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), agreeing not to conduct a nuclear weapons test of any yield (4). The United States has not yet ratified the CTBT but did spearhead the 2016 adoption of UN Security Council Resolution 2310, which calls upon all countries to uphold the object and purpose of the CTBT by not conducting nuclear tests (5). Eight of the nine nuclear-armed states, including the five permanent members of the UN Security Council, have observed a moratorium on nuclear testing since 1998 (3, 4). The ninth, North Korea, responding to international pressure, stopped testing warhead detonations (as opposed to missile flights) in 2017 (6). If the United States ratified the CTBT, joining the 168 countries who have already done so (4), there is a good chance that the other holdout countries would ratify the treaty as well (7).

Nuclear Monitoring![Figure][1] Underground nuclear testing site at Frenchman Flats, Nevada, USA. PHOTO: © KAREN KASMAUSKI/SCIENCE FACTION/CORBIS Seismic energy sources generate low-frequency sound waves in the atmosphere called infrasound. Infrasound stations are one type of facility used to detect nuclear weapons tests. Assink et al. found a small infrasound signal from the 2016 nuclear test by the Democratic People's Republic of Korea. The signal was smaller than the one from their 2013 nuclear test, suggesting that the 2016 test may have occurred at greater depth. Infrasound stations provide monitoring for nuclear tests and can be combined with seismology to constrain source depth. Geophys. Res. Lett. 10.1002/2016GL068497 (2016). [1]: pending:yes

Nuclear explosions are the most visible manifestation of the arms race, and the conclusion of a multilateral treaty that will meaningfully restrict nuclear testing has for three decades been a priority. While some see testing as essential for the development of nuclear weapons and for upholding nuclear deterrence postures, others are acutely concerned about the possible health hazards of nuclear tests. Proponents of a comprehensive test ban, or a very-low-threshold test ban, are convinced that further test limitations are the first, indispensable steps that must be taken to halt and reverse the nuclear rivalry among the great powers and to prevent the spread of nuclear wapons to more countries. The Stockholm International Peace Researach Institute (SIPRI) and the Canadian Institute for International Peace and Security (CIIPS) have jointly conducted a thorough study of the complex technical and political issues involved in a possible cessation or limitation of nuclear tests. This SIPRI-CIIPS publication contains papers by leading physicists, nuclear weapon designers, seismologists, international lawyers, strategic analysts, political scientists, and former government advisers and arms control negotiators. The editors' concise summary of all the issues and viewpoints is presented in the first part of the book, which also contains their own conclusions about the feasibility of achieving a meaningful test limitation that is adequately verifiable by existing or proposed technical means.

The panel presentations evoked a moving, wide-ranging audience discussion and further remarks by the panelists. The issues addressed included the admission into the International Psychoanalytic Association after World War II of psychoanalysts who had collaborated with the Nazis; the fear and risks for professionals generally of speaking out against repressive or dangerous state policies; the career concerns which make scientists and academicians susceptible to political manipulation; the extent of moral responsibility of each individual; and the possible ways we can learn to resist socialization to genocide. We cannot afford to regard the Nazi phenomenon as unique to German society. What cultural tilts (Staub's phrase) of our own might contribute to a next, far more destructive, nuclear holocaust? Political activism, for example, we know, is not conducive to career advancement in the United States. The experience of the German analysts warns us of the danger of seeking to preserve the scientific status of a professional group at all costs. Drawing parallels between the Nazi holocaust and the nuclear arms race is filled with risks. Those who work with nuclear weapons, and believe in nuclear deterrence policies, are hoping to prevent war. Yet the nuclear arms race, like the Nazi holocaust, requires for its perpetuation the total collaboration of a society. From the panelists in this symposium we may learn a lot about the forms that our own resistance to knowing and acting may take. Even under National Socialism there were ways of resisting available to the German analysts which they did not follow. The symposium raised important questions for ISPP as an organization, especially concerning the proper

This study was undertaken to determine if Navy veterans who participated in an atmospheric nuclear test in 1958 were at increased risk of death from certain cancers. Cancer mortality risk of 8554 Navy veterans who participated in an atmospheric nuclear test in the Pacific was compared with that of 14,625 Navy veterans who did not participate in any test. Radiation dosage information was obtained from film badges for 88% of the test participants. The median radiation dose for the test participants was 388 mrem (3.88 millisieverts [mSv]). Among participants who received the highest radiation dose (> 1000 mrem, or 10 mSv), an increased mortality risk for all causes (relative risk [RR] = 1.23; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.04, 1.45), all cancers (RR = 1.42; 95% CI = 1.03, 1.96), and liver cancer (RR = 6.42; 95% CI = 1.17, 35.3) was observed. The risk for cancer of the digestive organs was elevated among test participants (rate ratio = 1.47; 95% CI = 1.06, 2.04) but with no significant dose-response trend. Many of the cancers of a priori interest were not significantly elevated in the overall test participant group or in the group that received the highest radiation dose. Most of the cancers suspected of being radiogenic were not significantly elevated among the test participants. Nevertheless, increased risks for certain cancers cannot be ruled out at this time. Veterans who participated in the nuclear weapons tests should continue to be monitored.

The Nevada Test Site became the nation`s continental nuclear weapons test site on January 11, 1951. Over the years, the Nevada Operations Office (Nevada) built an extensive infrastructure to support and conduct nuclear tests at the site and in Las Vegas. Roads, housing, test towers, electrical systems, and water systems are just a few of the construction projects that have been required by the Site`s nuclear testing mission. Nuclear testing continued through 1992. A presidential decision directive issued in October that year stopped testing but required Nevada to conduct and experimental program and maintain a readiness posture to resume nuclear testing within 6 months through fiscal year 1995. The directive further required that, beginning with fiscal year 1996, Nevada maintain a 2-3 year readiness posture. This change in Nevada`s mission coupled with Department downsizing requires that only cost effective projects with defined mission needs be undertaken. Although Nevada has changed and rescoped some construction projects in response to the changing Test Site mission, there are two projects, one underway and one planned, that contain unneeded overlap of capability. Specifically, the audit identified two electrical system projects that provided unnecessary duplicate capability at a cost of about $1.35 million. Management concurred with our finding and agreed to implement the recommendation. Details of management`s comments and our response are included.

The global fallout from atmospheric nuclear weapons testing in the 1950s and 1960s caused by far the greatest exposure of mankind to ionizing radiation. Surprisingly few epidemiological studies of the possible health effects of atmospheric testing have been conducted. Here, long-term trends in infant mortality rates in the United States (U.S.) and five major European countries (EU5) were examined: The United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, and Spain. Bell-shaped deviations from a uniformly decreasing secular trend were found beginning in 1950, with maxima around 1965 in the U.S. and 1970 in EU5. From the difference between observed and predicted infant mortality rates, in the period 1950-2000, the overall increase in infant mortality rates was estimated to be 20.6 (90% CI: 18.6 to 22.9) percent in the U.S. and 14.2 (90% CI: 11.7 to 18.3) percent in EU5 which translates to 568,624 (90% CI: 522,359 to 619,705) excess infant deaths in the U.S. and 559,370 (90% CI: 469,308 to 694,589) in the combined five European countries. The results should be interpreted with caution because they rely on the assumption of a uniformly decreasing secular trend if there had been no nuclear tests, but this cannot be verified. It is concluded that atmospheric nuclear weapons testing may be responsible for the deaths of several million babies in the Northern Hemisphere.

Recent radiochemical evidence from groundwater characterization and monitoring wells in the vicinity of the TYBO and BENHAM underground nuclear tests in Area 20 of the Nevada Test Site, suggests that migration of radionuclides within groundwater beneath this portion of Area 20 may be more rapid than previously thought. In order to gain a better understanding of the hydrogeologic conditions in the TYBO-BENHAM area for more accurate flow and transport modeling, a reevaluation of the subsurface geologic environment in the vicinity of the two underground tests was conducted. Eight existing drill holes provided subsurface control for the area. These holes included groundwater characterization and monitoring wells, exploratory holes, and large-diameter emplacement holes used for underground nuclear weapons tests. Detailed and consistent geologic descriptions of these holes were produced by updating existing geologic descriptions with data from petrographic, chemical, and mineralogic analyses, and current stratigraphic concepts of the region. The updated descriptions, along with surface geologic data, were used to develop a detailed geologic model of the TYBO-BENHAM area. This model is represented by diagrams that correlate stratigraphic, lithologic, and alteration intervals between holes, and by isopach and structure maps and geologic cross sections. Regional data outside the TYBO-BENHAM area were included in the isopach and structure maps to better evaluate the geology of the TYBO-BENHAM area in a regional context. The geologic model was then evaluated with regard to groundwater flow and radionuclide migration to assess the model's implications for flow and transport modeling. Implications include: (1) confirmation of the general hydrogeology of the area described in previous studies; (2) the presence of two previously unrecognized buried faults that could act as zones of enhanced permeability within aquifers; and (3) secondary alteration within tuff confining units that is much more complex than previously described.

This article looks at the initial response of the social science community to the advent of nuclear weapons and their use on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The idea that human society as a whole was not sophisticated enough to responsibly steward nuclear weapons was widespread among American sociologists and psychologists: if society needed to change, many social scientists felt compelled to engineer that transformation. Fundamental to this effort was an analysis of the roots of human violence. I argue that this was a fundamental misdiagnosis that placed the blame in individuated human violence rather than in the organized social violence of militarism. The final section of the article explores the role of social scientists in planning for nuclear war and in creating and assessing the indoctrination of U.S. troops participating in nuclear weapons testing. This indoctrination would form the model for later indoctrinations aimed at easing general public distress over nuclear weapons testing.

Despite ongoing tensions in various parts of the world, the year 2017 ended on a positive note. The Treaty Prohibiting Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) was passed by the UN General Assembly on July 7, 2017, which will always be a red-letter day in history. It has raised many hopes for a future world without nuclear weapons and staved off the impending humanitarian catastrophe. Good health is a basic need of every individual. Therefore, each person yearns for a life free of violence and free of man-made catastrophes like the ones at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945, which killed over two hundred thousand people and resulted in genetic mutations affecting generations thereafter. Unfortunately, instead of working for nuclear disarmament, the world moved towards an unending nuclear arms race, costing billions which could have been used for healing millions of people living in despair and sickness. This is why on December 10, 2017, Oslo, the capital of Norway, was filled with excitement when the Nobel Peace Prize for this year was bestowed upon the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN). Large numbers of medical professionals from around the globe had gathered there to affirm their commitment to a healthy future through diversion of wasteful expenditure from the nuclear arms race towards universal health.