French Planes To Watch Test Safety

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31086, 15 June 1966, Page 17

French Planes To Watch Test Safety

(N.Z.P.A, Reuter— Copyright)

NOUMEA (New Caledonia), June 14. High-flying French aircraft are combining with meteorological stations throughout French Polynesia to ensure that France’s forthcoming nuclear tests in the Pacific will not scatter radioactive dust over populated areas, the Bulletin du Commerce reported.

Each day the planes and the meteorological stations verify the direction of winds over a huge area of the Pacific.

No date for the tests has yet been announced, but it is generally supposed that the tests will take place early in July. French authorities are so sure that radioactive debris will be dissipated over the empty ocean that they do not plan to evacuate about 60 in-

habitants of the Island of Tureia. This Island lies about 80 miles north of Mururoa, where the tests will take place.

No date for the tests will be set until authorities are satisfied that weather conditions are favourable and that the winds at the time will carry off the contamination harmlessly. After each explosion, highflying planes will collect samples of air for analysis. Radioactivity in fish and locally produced foods will be studied in special laboratories set up in Papeete, Tahiti. It was reported from Paris yesterday that the nuclear tests will take place on a site erected during the last three years in the Mururoa atoll area about half-way between Brisbane and Santiago. Great secrecy surrounds the nature of the tests, the area, and the precise date. No press representatives will be allowed to witness the explosions. Qualified observers say that the French Pacific test programme will be on the following lines:— 1. A final testing of the 60kiloton A-bomb, essential to France’s first - generation atomic deterrent force. These bombs have already been tested in the Sahara, but it is possible that those tests were not considered decisive and that another test of possibly an improved A-bomb will now take place. Some of France’s Mirage IV aircraft, which are designed to carry the Abombs, are reported to be al-

ready in the South Pacific area. 2. A testing of new ground-to-ground missiles with an unknown range, but guessed by foreign experts to be about 1200 miles. The two major aims of the July tests in the Pacific, it seems are: To test the device for dropping A-bombs from an aircraft, and To test-the device which will constitute the miniature war-head for ground-to-ground missiles of medium range.