Russia Explodes Tenth Device In Series

Press, Volume C, Issue 29620, 16 September 1961, Page 13

Russia Explodes Tenth Device In Series

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) WASHINGTON, September 15. The Soviet Union yesterday conducted another nuclear detonation in the atmosphere, the Atomic Energy Commission announced.

The device tested had a yield of several megatons—the equivalent of several million tons of T.N.T. The detonation, the tenth in the Soviet series which opened on September 1, took place in the vicinity of Novaya Zetnlya in the Arctic region, the commission said. Since Russia began her current series of nuclear tests the amount of radioactive dust in London's atmosphere has increased one-bundredfold, it was announced yesterday. Fall-out In London But the fall-out was not exipected to have any effect on public health, the assistant scientific adviser to the London Council (Mr G. B. Courtier) said. <

Laboratory tests made by the council showed the average amount of radioactive dust in the air had risen from 0.05 units to 5.0 units. This was about the same as on previous occasions after nuclear tests in central Asia.

The maximum permissible concentration for this type of radio-active matter in highly populated areas was 100 units, about the same concentration as that of natural radio-activity. Mr Courtier said it might be two or three weeks before the effects of the Arctic tests were known. These effects might be greater, as bigger bombs had been tested there.

The British Atomic Energy Authority said that samples measured at Harwell Atomic Research Station did not exceed previously known amounts. In Offenbach, West Germany, the Central Weather Station said radio-active dust from Soviet nuclear weapons tests had reached the atmosphere over West Germany. The biggest increase was found on the German North Sea coast. U.S. Leading In Washington, the chairman of the United States Atomic Energy Commission (Mr Glenn Seaborg) said

yesterday that the United States still led in big power nuclear weapons, in spite of the rapid Soviet weapons testing programme.

“I don’t think the Russians are ahead of us in large nuclear weapons." he told reporters. Mr Seaborg had just made a secret report to members of Congress on the intelligence gained from the detection of nine Soviet blasts in the last two weeks, the Associated Press said.

Mr Seaborg declined to comment on reports from other sources that the United States would resume nuclear tests of its own within a week or 10 days, but said: “There is no change in the United States policy to conduct its tests underground.” Mr Seaborg said he was confident that the United States, while testing underground, “can go a long way toward keeping pace with the Russians even if they continue in the atmosphere.” Tactical Weapons

The United States was expected to explode a small nuclear device beilow the surface of the Nevada Desert within the next few weeks, partly to speed development of new tactical atomic weapons, United Press Interna-

tional reported. The explosion would mark the beginning of the first United States nuclear test aeries since October 30, 1958. Congressional sources said they would be aimed partly at boosting the fighting power of the Army and Marine Corps by designing more effective low-yield weapons for use on the battlefield.

But the sources indicated that the new tests also might have other objectives.

Some United States experts believed the Soviet Union’s new series of tests were aimed at developing a trigger for the 100 megaton bomb which Mr Khrushchev had said Soviet scientists were developing. “Scientists can obtain a tremendous amount of information about big bombs from the explosions of small ones,” one Congressional expert told U.P.I. His Statement seemed to indicate that the United States might also be considering the construction of new types of atomic weapons. Mr Seaborg said that the United States had no present plans for conducting tests in the atmosphere but that he would not rule out such action in the future.