U.S. EXPECTED TO RESUME TESTING

Press, Volume C, Issue 29609, 4 September 1961, Page 13

U.S. EXPECTED TO RESUME TESTING

World-Wide Criticism For Soviet Explosion

(MX Press Association—Copyright)

WASHINGTON, September 2.

The Soviet Union’s explosion of a nuclear test device is expected today to hasten a decision by President Kennedy on resumption of United States nuclear tests. Well-informed officials now consider it likely President Kennedy will make a decision early next week and that it will be to start United States testing again. The last United States explosions were held late in 1958.

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman, when asked whether Britain would resume the testing of nuclear weapons, said: “It is a new situation which has arisen and needs careful consideration.”

The announcement of the first Soviet teat, an explosion of a nuclear device “larger than an average bomb,'’ in the atmosphere over central Asia, was made late yesterday by the White House It came only 24 hours after the Soviet announcement that it planned to resume nuclear tests in the light of the present world situation. So far, the Russian people have not been told of the latest test. Nothing has appeared in the Soviet press or radio.

Plans are still going ahead for the establishment of a new United States disarmament agency.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which is working on the plans, has agreed tentatively on a skeleton outline, and is meeting again early next week to continue its work.

President Kennedy has been depicted as more anxious than ever to emphasise a United States search for means to safeguard disarmament negotiations, now that the Soviet Union has resumed its tests. Not long before United States intelligence sources informed the President, and the world, of the new Soviet blast, the chief United States disarmament negotiator (Mr Arthur Dean) reported to him on his return from the fruitless test ban talks at Geneva

He declared afterwards that the Soviet policy was now to terrorise the world, and said the West would not capitulate to “a strategy of blackmail and terror." He said that the new 100megaton nuclear bombs on which the Soviet Union was working, would be “far too large for any military objective.’’ Therefore the Soviet policy must be one of “overkill,” to intimidate the world.

Yesterday it was announced that Britain, the United States and Russia were to hold a further session of the test ban talks in Geneva on Monday The session was agreed to on a suggestion of the United S‘ates. which called the talks off on Thursday In Chicago, the United States Ambassador to the United Nations (Mr Adlai Stevenson) took a grim view last night of the news of the Soviet explosion “The hope for disarmament and peace have suffered another blow from the Soviet Union." he said, after arriving from New York for a three-day holiday. In New York, before the White House announcement of the Soviet test. Mr Stevenson had expressed the hope that the Soviet Union would reconsider its decision—announced two days ago—to resume nuclear testing.

“I hope the Russians will reconsider in the interests of disarmament and the health and security of the human race,” he said. It was learned today that the Administration was considering som > modification of the secrecy policy covering the United States nuclear weapons arsenal, A.P. said. The reason was to give the American people and the world a better idea of the amount of atomic fo*ce available to the United States for its own defence and the defence of its allies.

President Kennedy said last Thursday, after a meeting with Cabinet officials and Congressional leaders, that the United States atomic weapons systems were "wholly adequate” to deal with the policy of “atomic blackmail” which he declared was now being practised bv the Soviet Union.

But some of the President’s advisers feel that the public, in the United States and abroad, should be given a better idea of the proportions of American strength and the military purposes for which it was designed. A.P. said that among other objectives, they evidently would like to dramatise and make understandable the Soviet “overkill’’ policy.

Tne term came from military sources and meant the destruction of human life beyond the limits of military necessity, the news agency said. One of the points which the proposed statement on United States nuclear weapons capacity would bring out was that American bombs had been developed for military purposes and not for maximum destructive capacity apart from military considerations. British Comment In London, a British Foreign Office statement on the Soviet test said: “This news is deplorable. These tests take a considerable time to arrange and the Russians must have been making active preparations while still talking at Geneva of a treaty banning such tests. “As the test appears to have been in the atmosphere and not underground it also increases by an amount as yet unknown, the danger to health from radio-activity.”

In Paris, French Government sources said last night the Russian test was long premeditated and that there would probably be more This type of test required several weeks of preparation, they said.

“This medium - powered blast is probably in ‘preparation for a more important explosion,” the sources said. Japan today told the Soviet Union that the decision to restart nuclear tests “mercilessly tramples on the prayerful hopes for peace of all peoples who fear war and love peace.” Mr Hisanari Yamada.

Japan’s Ambassador to Moscow. handed the protest to Mr Vasili V. Kuznetsov, the Soviet deputy Foreign Minister.

The Note was drafted before the Soviet Union triggered off its nuclear device in central Asia.

The Foreign Ministry in Tokyo said it had instructed Mr Yamada to ask the Soviet Government if the test actually took place and then, if it was true, to lodge a strong verbal protest immediately. Mr Zen’aro Sosaka, the Japanese Foreign Minister, told Japanese reporters in Osaka, western Japan, that the Soviet Union had “invaded the peace of the world.”

He added: “I must have my doubts about the Soviet Union’s insistence for a peaceful co-existence.” Test Deplored

In Kuala Lumpur, Tunku Abdul Rahman, the Prime Minister of Malaya, said today the explosion of a nuclear device by Russia was “deplorable and showed utter contempt and disregard for world opinion.” In Brussels, the Liberal International, attended by many world liberal leaders, yesterday described the Soviet Union’s decision to resume tests as “shameless” and unanimously approved a resolution calling on N.A.T.O. members to strengthen the West’s defence “to be ready to resist any form of Communist aggression.” The North Vietnamese Minister for National Defence (General Vo Nguyen Giap) today declared his country’s “resolute support” for the Soviet decision.

Hanoi Radio reported that in an order of the day to armed forces to mark North Vietnam’s sixteenth National Day, he said: “Russia’s sole aim is to defend the cause of world peace and check all schemes of war-seeking imperialists.”