Fall-Out Sweeps Over United States

Press, Volume C, Issue 29657, 30 October 1961, Page 13

Fall-Out Sweeps Over United States

(HZ Press Assoctattm—Copyright) NEW YORK, October 29. The giant cloud of invisible radioactive fall-out from the Soviet Union’s record nuclear explosion was swept by 80 miles-an-hqur winds eastwards across the north of the United States today. The nuclear debris was moving towards the Great Lakes area, carried by high winds towards the heavily-populated east coast areas before moving into the Atlantic Ocean.

The cloud was 200 miles wide when it passed over the Pacific coast of the states of Washington, Oregon and northern California yesterday. It was expected to extend from southern Canada to south of New York when it reached the Atlantic, after a journey expected to take several days. A United States Weather Bureau fall-out expert, Mr Robert List, said that snow falls or rain in the area of the cloud could bring some of the radioactive particles to earth, the Associated Press reported. But he added: "We would be surprised if we get more debris from this than any other Russian explosion." The Soviet bomb, estimated to range from 30 to 50 megatons—a force equal to 30 to 50 million tons of TNT—was exploded on Monday. Weather experts said that the blast’s intense heat probab’y sucked up about 95 per cent of the radioactive debris into the stratosphere, where it was expected to remain until next spring, when it would drop back to earth. Cheek On Fall-out As the cloud passed over America, the United States Public Health Service increased fall-out surveillance by its 58 sampling stations. United Press International reported. In other reactions to the giant explosion:— The United States cabled an appeal to the Soviet Union not to test an even bigger bomb. Americans demonstrated outside the Soviet Union's United Nations head, quarters. A leading United States nuclear scientist. Dr. Edward Teller, said that fall-out from nuclear testing was not catastrophic. The United Nations cabled to the Soviet Foreign Minister (Mr Andrei Gromyko)

the text of its appeal to the Soviet Union not to explode a 50-megaton hydrogen bomb. The General Assembly voted 87 to 11 on Friday to urge the Soviet Union not to set off the bomb. The cable to Mr Gromyko was sent at the request of the president of the General Assembly (Mr Mongi Slim, of Tunisia), but was not signed by Mr Slim or any other United Nations official. Observers said it was unusual for the United Nations to transmit the text of a resolution to any one nation. No precedent for the action could be recalled. The United Nations resolution was passed in spite of Soviet bloc attempts to delay it or defeat it Only the 10 Soviet bloc nations and Cuba voted against the resolution, which said: “The assembly, seized with the question of halting nuclear weapons tests, solemnly appeals to the Government of the Soviet Union to refrain from carrying out their intention to explode in the atmosphere a 50-megaton bomb before the end of the month.” The only nation abstaining was Mali. 2000 Demonstrators The demonstration at the Soviet United Nations mission attracted about 2000 persons, including college students and mothers carrying small children. Twenty-one picketers were taken to nearby police stations, some of them being carried away bodily by police after refusing to leave the inside and the front steps of the building. The picketing was carried on to the accompaniment of banjo-playing, folk-singing and a choral sing-song. A small delegation of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy managed to obtain an audience with the Second Secretary of the Soviet United Nations mission. Mr Vladimir Petrovich Filatov. They presented him with a letter saying the Soviet Union had disgraced itself by resuming nuclear testing. A separate protest was addressed to Mr Khrushchev. "Not Catastrophic'’ Dr. Teller's comments were made at a symposium at Kenyon College, Gambier, Ohio. The nuclear physicist said that fall-out from nuclear testing was not catastrophic, and he deplored the lack of agreement among scientists recanting its danger. He said: “We have been asking the wrong questions about the dangers of fall-out If we ask the right questions, there will be less disagreement." Dr. Teller said people had

been asking if fall-out was good or bad, and whether it was dangerous. “If we ask how fall-out from atomic testing increases natural radiation,” he said, “then the answer will be 3 to 4 per cent. “If we ask whether the effects of the additional 3 per cent, are harmful, we have to assume that a little is a little harmful. “We know radiation can cause some mutation. One answer is that mutations are harmful, and yet the world would not have developed as it is without mutations. So we cannot consider fall-out catastrophic,” he said. In response to a question, Dr. Teller said his remarks applied only to nuclear testing, and not to nuclear war. He said that he thought fallout shelters were a good idea.