ST. disruption of relationships between weapons laboratory scientists and U.S. military brass. In 1980, nuclear bomb designers do not seem very troubled by prospects for an in te rna tiona l agreement imposing atomic interruptus on their efforts. Asked if he thinks people at the Livermore lab are worried about possibilities of a ban on underground testing, Guido smiles. “ No. I don’t. I don’t think there’s too much concern right now. It’s not a big problem if it’s not here.” If a comprehensive ban treaty were to be initialed tomorrow, according to Guido, Livermore employees “ would be very concerned. They were for a while when they thought it was imminent because they saw it as jeopardizing their livelihood. And of course then that, in today’s economy, makes people very aware of what they ought to be thinking about. They worry about their career if they see something on the threshold that looks like it might bring the curtain down on what they’ve been doing for the past twenty years.” Three years ago, prospects for a complete ban on nuclear testing looked bright. The newly-installed Carter administration was proclaiming its support for such an international agreement. United States, British and Soviet negotiators were sitting down in Geneva to hash out a comprehensive test ban treaty. But U.S. nuclear weapons laboratories went on the offensive. Together with the Joint Chiefs of Staff and allies in the Department of Energy, they succeeded in shifting the American negotiating position toward a weaker treaty . U.S. negotiators began pushing for a three-year expiration — even while the Soviets were changing their own stance from favoring a three-year limit to supporting an unlimited time span. Meanwhile, President Carter luiiuiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiHiiiiitiiuiiiiiHiuiiiuiiiuiiiiuiuiuiiiiiuiuniitiiiiiiuiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiuimiiiiHiiiiiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiWMinuuiuiiwuuiiiiiiiimiiiiiiuiiiiuuuuuiiuiiuuiiiiiiuuuiiiiiiuuuiiiiiiuuiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiuiiiiimiiiimiiiiiuu ■ . . . . . . . . . . test ventings — devoted major articles named Schooner, part of the now- istered at three Utah locations the a ilUlllllllllllllllllll u iiuiiiHIllllUIUIIIIIHIUIIIUII | The United States Government con- § tinues to claim that ongoing underI ground nuclear weapons tests have | not been causing radiation exposure | to the general public. Although evi- | dence to the contrary has emerged i within the last year, the nation’s | politicians and mass media have been | maintaining silence on the issue. | When a former U.S. Air Force | official appeared before a House of = Representatives subcommittee Aug- | ust 1, 1979, his testimony discredited | the Government’s longstanding con- | tentions about monitoring data from | underground nuclear tests. | As chief of operations for the Air | Force Technical Applications Center, | Colonel Raymond F. Brim was re- | sponsible for monitoring off-site fall- 1 out from underground atomic explo- । sions at the Nevada Test Site from | 1966 to 1975. “ The American people = have not received the true facts over S the past sixteen years of under- | ground testing regarding nuclear fallout and radiation,” Brim told the House subcommittee on oversight and investigations. “ There is indisputable evidence on record that shows that the people, not just of Utah and Nevada but of a much wider and more encompassing area of the United States, were unknowingly subjected to fallout of radioactive debris that resulted from vestings of underground and cratering tests conducted at the Nevada Test Site. Because of weather and wind patterns, this debris was frequently carried much farther than has been reported to the public.” Despite Brim’s credentials and the specific nature of his charges, the retired colonel’s public testimony on Capitol Hill went totally unreported by newspapers with national reputations such as the Washington Post, Washington Star, New York Times and Los Angeles Times. In contrast, papers in Utah — the state most directly downwind from underground nuclear test ban treaty seems an unwarranted disruption of relationships between weapons laboratory scientists and U.S. military brass. publicly stopped mentioning the need for a comprehensive test ban agreement — although such a treaty is widely regarded as a necessary prerequisite for nuclear non-proliferation and worlwide disarmament. In contrast to the now-paralyzed SALT II treaty, under which the U.S. and Soviet Union heighten their own atomic warfare capabilities within the guise of strategic arms “ limitations,” the comprehensive treaty would be a multilateral agreement potentially binding over a hundred nations to a substantive step for non-proliferation. White House concern about not jeopardizing Senate swing votes for the SALT II treaty has been used as an excuse for indefinitely stalling progress in comprehensive test ban negotiations. Such negotiations presently seem doomed to go nowhere before the November elections. Willingness to let a comprehensive ban treaty languish behind SALT is not new. The Washington Post — even while noting in a September 1978 editorial that “ to continue testing warheads underground is at this point merely to drive the arms race mindlessly on” — declared that “ for political reasons, a test ban may have to stand in line behind a SALT treaty.” All indications now point to an extremely long wait, caused as much as anything by the idea that pro- SALT political machinations will be allowed to torpedo a serious compreto Brim’s testimony. In Salt Lake City, the Tribune headlined its story “ Radiation Level Cited by U.S. Called Too Low,” while the Deseret News headline read “ Underground N-Tests Become Suspect.” Reviewing transcripts of previous Congressional testimony by U.S. Government officials, Brim said, “ made me extremely concerned once again that I could not reconcile some of the events described in the report with those I had knowledge o f .” Commenting on sworn testimony presented in 1978 by Defense Department acting assistan t secretary Donald Kerr — who later became director of the Los Alamos nuclear weapons laboratory — Brim said that “ from my own research and experience, I know of several (under- ? ground test ventings) that he did not include. I also felt that he was selective in the information he gave concerning tests that he did report.” Congressional testimony on April 23, 1979 in Las Vegas, when Nevada Test Site manager Mahlon Gates admitted that forty underground tests have vented radiation into the atmosphere off-site instead of the previous official figure of nineteen, “ failed to provide complete information regarding fallout from some of those additional tests,” Brim declared. The Government has quietly conceded tha t several underground nuclear tests spewed radioactive clouds across the United States and into Canada during the 1960s and early 1970s. Raymond Brim’s new revelations, drawing on his experiences as the Air Force Technical Applications Center officer in charge of tracking such off-site radioactive releases, provide an inside look at how those ventings were intentionally downplayed and at times covered up by the U.S. Government. test hensive test ban. By the end of 1980, however, prodisarmament forces in the U.S. may be in excellent position to push for a firm comprehensive test ban treaty. Substan tial evidence shows the current underground tests inevitably contaminate our continent’s environment with radioactivity, in addition to fueling the global arms spiral. “ While the directors o f the weapons laboratories may regret any reduction in the number of buttons on their telephones,” says House Armed Services Committee member Bob Carr, “ the nation would profit from the channeling of scientific talent into more productive pursuits.” Many of the nation’s most prestigious nuclear physicists can be counted on to endorse a comprehensive test ban campaign. Recent “ advances” in nuclear explosives -*■ such as the neutron bomb aimed at killing people while leaving property intact, or the latest versions of atomic bombs slated for attachment to cruise, MX and Trident II delivery systems — are ready for deployment even if an underground test ban were to go into effect immediately. And extensive computer simulation is capable of taking atomic scientists through many phases of weapons research. But Duane C. Sewell, assistant secretary for military programs at the Department of Energy, reminded a Congressional committee in spring defunct Plowshare program advertised as a “ peaceful” use of nuclear explosives, belched a large, radioactive cloud into the atmosphere in December 1968. “ This effluent cloud was tracked continuously by Air Force planes until it reached the border of Canada where standing orders prevented tracking outside the United States,” Brim testified last year. “ I remember a few days later an article appeared in the New York Times which reported an increase in radiation detected in Canada. When we read the article at AFTAC, we knew that it was the cloud we had tracked to the border. The timing and rate of travel of the cloud when it left the United States was entirely consistent with the subsequent increased radioactivity detected in Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal. I remember distinctly that we discussed this article at AFTAC, and we decided to say nothing.” With the New York Times reporting on January 10, 1969 that “ neither United States nor Canadian spokesmen are willing to state definitely that the American test was the cause for the increased radiation levels” in Canada, the issue dropped, unresolved, from public sight. Despite the implications of Brim’s testimony about the credibility of Government assurances that underground testing is not venting radiation to the general population — or perhaps because of them — the House subcommittee that heard his testimony has not shown any interest in pursuing the matter further. But in Utah, additional recent evidence indicates the U.S. Government’s deliberate deceptions about underground test releases of radioactivity are continuing. While Department of Energy officials continue to assert that no underground tests have vented since 1971, abnormally high readings of radioactivity were regiiiiiniiiiiiuiiniiuiinHUiuiiiiiimnuuiiiiniHiiiuiHiunmniiiiimiiiuiiiiiuiiiiiiiiiiiiiimuiiiiiiminuiumuimiuiuuiimiiiiimiiiiii 1980 that budgeting for future underground nuclear tests “ will permit some advancement in the state-of-the-arts of weapons technology.” A halt to atomic explosions would be sufficiently disruptive of military arms development to upset the coun try ’s nuclear weapons industry, particularly if the ban were to last more than a few years. Passing through the heavily-guarded entrance onto the Nevada Test Site, moving through one inspection checkpoint after another, the magnitude of the problems at hand seem magnified by the pride of the officials acting as tour guides. Socially- inculcated insanity has not only become acceptable; it is beloved. The test site’s undertones, its tensions, its purposes are deeply familiar — with us since we learned to fear nuclear holocaust. That has been a long time now. Peering into the massive canyon left by a hydrogen bomb explosion codenamed Sedan, the immensity of a thermonuclear weapon’s power would be hard to dismiss. The cone- shaped c ra ter measures several hundred feet deep and a quarter of a mile across; it is a source of evident satisfaction for its nuclear caretakers. Looking into it, decades of fear of The Bomb seemed to funnel to the abyss in front of us; a capability developed by humans, yet so beyond human scale, threatening to decimate the future. Expropriated for uses widely estranged from moral standards, southern Nevada’s dry mesas and valleys are forlorn and ominous. Madness has been unleashed under an official cloak of “ normality.” While they may be logical to power structures that have conscripted all the world’s inhabitants for a suicide mission, the nuclear tests constitute a direct threat to human survival. day after an underground nuclear explosion on September 27, 1977 code named Coulommiers. Radiation ; levels ranging from eighteen to thirty- nine picocuries per cubic meter, definitely higher than normal background radiation, were confirmed by the state health director. Data from Federal rad ia tion monitoring, overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency, are classified (with the excuse that readings | on released fission products would | reveal details about the type of nuclear bomb tested). And on at least three occasions in 1979, Federal monitors in Utah were not even operating when underground nuclear tests occurred. Preston J. Truman, a lifelong Utah resident who chairs the Committee on Southern Utah of the environmentalist Brine Shrimp Alliance, | checked official Federal monitoring E stations immediately after several f underground test explosions last | year; driving to monitor posts while f hearing radio news reports that the U.S. Department of Energy had just announced confirmation from its off-site monitoring equipment that no releases of radioactivity were detected, Truman discovered the monitoring gear had never been turned on, “ And as is usually the way it happens,” Truman points out, s “ the wind was blowing our way.” With doubts intensifying about the safety of underground tests, Utah citizens are becoming more vocal in expressing their disapproval. The nights before two underground tests at the start of 1980, Utah Governor Scott Matheson received more than a hundred phone calls of protest from constituents upset by the continuing nuclear detonations upwind. With new information seeping out, contradicting the Government’s assurances of underground test safety, such outraged messages are bound to increase in the future. HHIWWB 19
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