Safety No Barrier to Test Ban

Abstract

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.