Two Explosions As U.S. Resumes Testing

Press, Volume C, Issue 29621, 18 September 1961, Page 11

Two Explosions As U.S. Resumes Testing

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—CopyrtgM) WASHINGTON, September 17. The United States yesterday conducted an underground nuclear test in Nevada and the Soviet Union detonated a nuclear device in the atmosphere in the Arctic, the Atomic Energy Commission announced.

It was the second explosion by the United States after a gap of nearly three years. The previous test took place on Friday.

The Central Meteorological Office in Tokyo yesterday announced that the Soviet Union appeared to have detonated another nuclear device in the several megatons range, said the Associated Press. The agency’s announcement was based on abnormal atmospheric pressures detected by Japanese observation stations.

The agency failed to pinpoint the site of the explosion. It only said that air shock waves recorded in Tokyo were believed caused by a new Soviet nuclear blast and had taken place at “a considerable distance northwest of Japan.” It said the scale of the abnormal atmospheric pressure detected was equal to Russia’s tenth nuclear test

conducted last Wednesday. At that time the United States Atomic Energy Commission said it had a yield of several megatons, or the equivalent of several million tons of T.N.T.

In Washington, the Atomic Energy Commission gave the developments in two brief separate announcements, said Reuter. The first said: "The Atomic Energy Commission announced this afternoon that a nuclear test of low yield was conducted underground today at the commission's Nevada test site.” The second said; “The Atomic Energy Commission announced this afternoon that the Soviet Union today detonated in the atmosphere near Novaya Zemblya another nuclear device, with yield of the order of a megaton” (equivalent to about one million tons of T.N.T.). The United States detonation, at the Nevada proving ground, was the second in the series ordered by President Kennedy after the Soviet Union's decision to resume atmospheric tests. The first American test took place at Nevada on Friday. The Soviet test detected yesterday was the eleventh in the series which began on September 1. President’s Statement

Minutes after Friday's explosion at the Nevada testing ground, President Kennedy issued a statement noting that it produced no fallout—“in marked contrast to Soviet nuclear tests in the atmosphere.” He said the United States was “forced reluctantly” to decide to resume nuclear testing because Russia resumed tests without warning after years of East-West nuclear test ban talks at Geneva. President Kennedy reaffirmed that the United States was ready to negotiate a controlled test ban agreement “of the widest possible scope.” He described the test as the first in a United States programme "to strengthen the defence of the free world.” He said that as the pro-

gramme progressed tests would be used to provide information for the United States to improve detection systems, and to study the use of nuclear detonations for peaceful purposes. The first test came shortly after Mr Pierre Salinger, White House Press Secretary, told reporters the United States would not announce any of its projected tests in advance. Nor would it announce all the tests it carried out. The decision against having news coverage of the actual explosions was a departure from previous policy under which reporters got eyewitness stories of the blast.