‘Value Of A-Tests Much Exaggerated’

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29715, 8 January 1962, Page 11

‘Value Of A-Tests Much Exaggerated’

(N.Z. Press Association—Copyright) NEW YORK, January 6. An adviser to President Kennedy on nuclear weapons and disarmament questions, Dr. Hans Bethe, said last night that the value of nuclear tests had been grossly exaggerated.

“We already know so much about atomic weapons that there is very little to learn,” he said in a public address. Dr. Bethe, who was speaking on the nuclear arms race, said he was a spokesman for those opposing resumption of United States atomic testing after the Soviet Union resumed in September. He predicted that tests would continue but would taper off without there being a formal test ban. It would be “entirely safe” for the United States to reduce its nuclear weapons stocks to a “few hundred invulnerable missiles’ ’ placed in widely-dispersed locations, he said. Dr. Bethe, professor of physics at CorneU University. also disclosed that Sov-

let and United States scientists have had private and “encouraging” private talks on a spot-check arms inspection plan devised by » Harvard professor, Dr. Louis Bruno Sohn. The talks “may not mean very much in the light Of power politics.” but the important question was whether such a plan would be acceptable to the Soviet Union, Dr. Bethe said. "Private conversations with a fewRussian scientists and social scientists seem encouraging.” The “New York Times" said the talks were apparently held in closed session when scientists attended the seventh International Conference on Science in World Affairs in the United States last September.