CLINTON ST. QUARTERLY By Norman Solomon During three decades, more than 500 atomic bombs have exploded — at first in the air, now underground — in the wind-swept desert of southern Nevada. At the test site, signs say “ U.S. Department of Energy.” As always, it is a military operation. One cannot help but be in awe of a place that is practicing for the end of the world. Quality control for nuclear annihiliation is a profession here. Tunnel vision is not a hazard of the activities; it is integral, essential. Amid the ugly pockmarks of the test site, where craters give off the appearance of a moonscape from the air, there is a certain dreadful clarity even with all the euphemisms. The dirty work is done here — ordered by presidents and corporate backers, who do not sully their hands, who simply give the orders, review the reports and assess the asset-and-debit balance sheets. A hundred miles north of Las Vegas, the austere yet ecologically- intricate desert seems transmuted, and profoundly violated. In 1980, the nuclear explosions are continuing at a rate of one every few weeks, at up to 150 kilotons per blast. “Weapons designers, the physicists that design the things, are a special breed of people,” says Troy E. Wade, the Department of Energy deputy manager at the Nevada Test Site. “ They can do other things, but it would be a great loss to the government.” Test site public relations director David G. Jackson agrees: “Any scientist, or professional of any kind — a doctor, a lawyer, a writer — you have to stay up with the state of the art. You have to maintain that challenge.” To Jackson, who has been doing PR work at the 1,350-square-mile test grounds for ten years, a ban on Inthe atomic age, dry runs for global death are being choreographed amidst spectacular wonders of nature. underground nuclear testing would pose a problem of how “ you keep the really top people interested. Could you keep them challenged without allowing them to conduct experiments from time to time — to allow them to practice their trade, if you will.” The government’s well-oiled public image machinery continues to function with the apparent goal of making p repa ra tions for Armageddon seem as civic as a Boy Scout troop jaunt into the woods. In a new Energy Department film, produced by Nevada Test Site officials and released this year, footage of a nuclear-fitted missile unreels, accompanied by spritely music. As an announcer is saying “ prototypes for all warheads of recently-developed nuclear defense systems in the United States arsenal have been tested in Nevada,” the background music is of the sort often heard in supermarkets. Yucca Flat, ringed by desert mountain ranges of southern Nevada, stretches out along a dry sea of sagebrush dotted with an occasional green Joshua tree. Ever since the early 1950s, the mushroom clouds which darkened that picturesque valley have served as symbols of doom, underscoring the real possibility of atomic holocaust. The future has been put on notice. Today the atomic bombs at the test site explode underground. The arid beauty of the valley lends Yucca Flat an eerie, startling presence — assuring escorted visitors that, in the Atomic Age, dry runs for global death are being choreographed amidst spectacular wonders of nature. To hear Department of Energy personnel describe them, America’s nuclear bomb designers are somewhat petulant geniuses whose talents may forever be lost if they are denied actual atom ic explosions as a component of the research process. Energy Secretary Charles Duncan calls the Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia nuclear weapons laboratories “ tremendous national assets.” Their researchers are superstars of the atomic holocaust-capability biz. “ You do bring your personal pride into an operation, into a profession when you’re working for an organization that has a national reputation and the prestige that go along with what I think we have at Livermore and I believe we have at Los Alamos,” says Raymond S. Guido, a veteran of the Livermore lab’s atomic explosives design work. “ Kind of like being on the New York Yankees,” interjects Jackson. “ I mean, you know, there’s being a pro and then there’s being a Pittsburgh Steeler.” It is easy to forget that nuclear weapons managers and lab scientists are talking about atomic bombs as they compare themselves and their colleagues to professional ball players or automobile designers for General Motors and Ford. Each prototype “ device,” they stress, is unique. “ I could never, in the twenty-two years that I ’ve been working at the Laboratory, think of much of the things we do as routine. I really personally think it’s very exciting, and it’s very challenging and offers a special kind of opportunity for people who have some technical skills,” says Guido. Seated at a conference table in his office on the edge of the Nevada Test Site, he is wearing an unpretentious white polo shirt. Next to the dosimetry identification badge in front of his shirt dangles a silver Cross. “ You don’t do very many of the same things over again,” he continues. “There are so many new features that get introduced, and in most of today’s concepts there’s differences in the measurements that people want to make, from a technical standpoint, to be able to say, yes this indeed is satisfying the requirements... “ There’s always challenge and there’s always excitement. And that I think exists right from the cradle to the grave routine, really — from the start of the ideas back at a physicist’s planning level in the laboratory, maybe consulting with people who are looking at the military requirements, to the completion of the concept, to design, to fabrication, to building the systems out here, to building the diagnostics for the particular systems, safety systems, putting it all down hole.” For atomic weapons designers, the pleasures associated with producing new and improved versions of The Bomb reach ineffable climax “ down hole” at the Nevada Test Site. A prospective comprehensive test ban treaty, barring underground nuclear detonations, seems an unwarranted 18 Illustration by Allan Brewster
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