THE ATOM: Fateful Decision

Thirteen years and 113 announced nuclear and thermonuclear blasts after the first fateful mushroom cloud at Alamogordo, N. Mex., the U.S. committed itself to a grave decision. President Dwight Eisenhower, appearing before TV and newsreel cameras in Washington, announced that the U.S. was ready to suspend its nuclear-weapons tests for one year effective Oct. 31. The President attached two major conditions. He required that 1) the U.S.S.R. agree to begin political talks by Oct. 31, aimed at setting up a world network of posts equipped to detect nuclear explosions, presumably in Red China as well as the U.S.S.R., and 2) the U.S.S.R. refrain from resuming its own nuclear-weapons tests, which it unilaterally suspended last March.

The President continued with terms for the more distant future. The U.S., he said, was also ready to suspend tests on a year-to-year basis after Oct. 31, 1959, provided that 1) the world detection network is installed and working satisfactorily, and 2) progress is being made in U.S.-U.S.S.R. negotiations on disarmament, such as stoppage of nuclear-weapons production. Said Ike: "As the U.S. has frequently made clear, the suspension of testing is not in itself a measure of disarmament. An agreement in this respect is significant if it leads to other and more substantial agreements. It is in this hope that the U.S. makes this proposal."

The Earnest Discussion. The fateful U.S. decision was made by Dwight Eisenhower alone. But behind his personal decision lay weeks of earnest discussion between top-level Administration officials, each one expressing his fears, or his hopes, in the light of his particular governmental function. The calendar of one of the U.S.'s most soul-wrenching secret debates:

WINTER 1958. President Eisenhower and Presidential Science Adviser James Killian set up a panel of scientists to determine whether a worldwide net of seismographic, acoustic and other equipment could detect a violation of any U.S.-U.S.S.R. agreement to suspend tests. Named to head the panel: Cornell University's Dr. Hans Bethe, an acknowledged expert in the detection field.

APRIL. The Bethe Panel submitted its report to Killian, who turned it over to the President. The panel's chief finding: an effective detection network could indeed be set up. The report rocked the Pentagon, challenged the judgment of AEC Chairman Lewis Strauss that rogue-proof detection was not possible. But on the diplomatic side, it convinced Secretary of State John Foster Dulles that a stop-the-tests agreement was technically feasible, therefore worth exploring for its effect on world opinion.

MAY THROUGH JULY. President Eisenhower invited the Kremlin to send a delegation of U.S.S.R. scientists to sit down with U.S. and British scientists in Geneva for a joint study on test detection. The Kremlin accepted, then tried to back out. Finally, when the U.S. said its scientists would show up at Geneva with or without the Soviet representatives, the U.S.S.R. okayed the talks, sent Communist scientists to the conference room.