A-TEST IN SAHARA

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 29046, 7 November 1959, Page 13

A-TEST IN SAHARA

Support By Britain? (Rec. 9 p.m.) NEW YORK, Nov. 5. Diplomatic observers today interpreted a speech by the British delegate, Mr David Ormsby-Gore, to the United Nations Political Committee, as indicating British support for the French plans to explode a nuclear weapon in the Sahara Desert soon. The United States has not yet indicated its attitude to the Sahara test, but French sources said they counted on Washington’s support as well. Twenty African and Asian nations have submitted a resolution urging France to call off her plans for testing the bomb. The proposal specifically would have the Assembly express “grave concern” over the intention of the French Government to conduct atomic tests in the Sahara, and urge France to refrain frcm such tests.

Mr Ormsby-Gore, who is British Minister of State for Foreign Affairs, tried to quell African fears about hazards from the test when he said that a “considerable degree” of British experience in its tests in Australia showed that radioactivity decreased sharply with distance. He said British experience showed that the effects of the explosion would not endanger the health and safety of Sahara inhabitants, much less those living further away. Mr Ormsby-Gore emphasised that it was an atomic bomb that France planned to explode, not a hydrogen bomb, such as Britain had exploded in its Australian proving ground. “That makes a profound difference,” Mr Ormsby-Gore said. The French explosion would be a fraction of that of an H-bomb, which projected a large quantity of radioactive matter high into the stratosphere.