Nuclear test ban forum: chemists take lead role

Abstract

A strong call for a comprehensive treaty that would ban all nuclear weapons tests was made by prominent chemists from the U.S. and the Soviet Union at a symposium in Las Vegas last week. Testing currently is limited to underground explosions of up to 150 kilotons. Nobel Laureate Glenn T. Seaborg, who has spoken out against continued testing on previous occasions, told a gathering of about 350 test ban advocates that a total ban would forestall the dangerously destabilizing development of so-called third-generation nuclear weapons for use in exotic systems such as the Strategic Defense Initiative. Seaborg—who from 1961 to 1971 headed the Atomic Energy Commission, the agency then responsible for developing and producing U.S. nuclear weapons—questioned the Administration's claim that confidence in current nuclear systems can be maintained only by testing weapons taken from the stockpile. He also expressed doubts over the Administration's charge that a ban on underground tests could not be monitored. ...