Blast may have been missile -S.A. expert

Press, 31 October 1979, Page 8

Blast may have been missile -S.A. expert

NZPA-Reuter Durban A Soviet nuclear inter-cbn-tinental missile which failed to explode after a 1963 launching may have been responsible for last month’s “South African” nuclear blast, a South African chemistry professor has suggested. Professor J. Van R. Smit, of Westville University, Duri ban, was a member of a mission sent to investigate if the ; impact of what was believed to be a Soviet missile which landed 1900 km south of the Cape Peninsula in 1963 had left traces of radio-activity. United States radar had detected on August 1. 1963. an unidentified object overflying Africa. It plunged into the Antarctic region off the Cape. That was the day the United States-British-Soviet treaty banning nuclear tests in the atmosphere was signed. Western experts were aware Moscow wanted to make one l last nuclear warhead test’ with an inter-continental missile. Professor Smit told the “Rand Daily Mail,” newspap-i er that he now believed cor-| rosion of the nuclear war-) head may have caused the! blast recorded by an Ameri-I can satellite on September; 22.