Political Shock Wave

It was only a "little, tiny bomb," said Atomic Energy Commissioner Willard F. Libby, but last week, half a year after the explosion, its political shock wave jolted Washington.

The A-bomblet, packing the wallop of 1,700 tons of TNT, exploded 800 ft. underground on the AEC's Nevada proving grounds, opened up a new vista for the peaceful uses of atomic explosives (see SCIENCE). But the prospect of the bright atomic future stirred up less interest in Washington than a dispute over how far away an underground A-bomblet's shock wave can be detected. Reason: the ability to detect or conceal a test explosion has a vital bearing on the growing debate over whether the U.S. should accept Russia's proposal for a suspension of nuclear tests, with each side stationing inspection teams inside the other's territory.

The AEC said flatly that, in this case, "the maximum distance" was 250 miles. But the Disarmament Subcommittee, chaired by Minnesota's Democratic Senator Hubert Humphrey, found out from the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey that its seismographs picked up tremors as far away as Alaska. Prodded by the subcommittee, the AEC corrected itself, announced that the explosion was detected at College, Alaska, 2,300 miles from the blast site.

Since the AEC's Chairman Lewis Strauss firmly opposes any test-suspension agreement on the ground that the Russians would cheat, and influential Nuclear Physicist Edward Teller supports Strauss by insisting that they technically could cheat, the 2,050-mile mistake caused a flurry of accusations that the AEC had been doing some cheating itself. Hubert Humphrey all but accused Strauss & Co. of deliberately twisting truth. Asked the Strauss-baiting Washington Post and Times Herald: "Has the AEC been bending the scientific facts to suit a preconceived position?"

In a written reply to Minnesota's Humphrey, Libby assured him that the Atomic Energy Commission's mistake was "entirely inadvertent." After questioning AEC officials, Capitol Hill's Joint Atomic Energy Committee issued a bipartisan verdict of acquittal. Declared North Carolina's Committee Chairman Carl Durham: AEC made an "honest error."