July 31, 1971
Page 28474
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on July 22 and 23, the Arms Control Subcommittee of the Foreign Relations Committee held hearings on the subject of current possibilities for a comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty. We also heard testimony on the proposed Cannikin test by the distinguished Senator from Alaska, Senator GRAVEL, and the attorney general of Alaska, Mr. John Havelock. It was my great privilege to chair these hearings and to listen to these men, who presented a most persuasive case against the proposed test. I ask unanimous consent that their complete statements be inserted in the RECORD at this point.
There being no objection, the statements were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
STATEMENT BY SENATOR MIKE GRAVEL, BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ARMS CONTROL OF THE SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE, JULY 23, 1971
Mr. Chairman, nearly two years ago, at my request, Chairman Fulbright called a special public hearing of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to consider the Alaska underground nuclear test program.
I was deeply grateful for that courtesy. The record written at that hearing has served as a base point for all subsequent public discussion of the underground test program in Alaska.
Today's hearing demonstrates once again this Committee's leadership in dealing with the implications of our nation's underground test series.
I want to thank you personally, Chairman Muskie, for devoting this hearing of your Subcommittee on Arms Control to the Cannikin test and for your generous invitation to the Governor and myself to present the Alaska case against the test.
I know all Alaskans appreciate your continuing concern, a concern that dates back to the Milrow test in 1969.
I believe it is worth noting for the record that as Chairman of the Air and Water Pollution Subcommittee of Public Works, you held hearings on the environmental effects of underground testing in November, 1969.
Those hearings represented the first serious Senate exploration of the effects of underground nuclear testing on the environment and were an extremely valuable and pioneering service.
Despite this Committee's work, and your personal efforts, today the people of Alaska and the Pacific Rim are confronted with the spectre of the mightiest nuclear test ever detonated by our nation.
The test site is in one of the most seismically unstable regions on earth – Amchitka Island, at the Western tip of the Aleutian Chain. The test will have a yield estimated at five megatons and create a shock wave about equivalent to a seven point earthquake reading on the Richter Scale.
For comparison, the destructive February 9 earthquake in Los Angeles earlier this year registered 5.6 on the Richter Scale.
As you so clearly described it in your Senate floor statement Tuesday, as long as there is any possibility of a major disaster, the concern of those who live in the affected area can hardly be dismissed as emotional or irrelevant.
There is cause for concern, Mr. Chairman. No one can reasonably argue that there is not.
In November, 1968, an ad hoc panel of eminent scientists met under the auspices of the President's Office of Science and Technology to review questions of safety related to underground testing.
That Committee, headed by the distinguished scientist Dr. Kenneth Pitzer, concluded:
"There does not now appear to be a basis for eliminating the possibility that a large test explosion might induce, either immediately or after a period of time, a severe earthquake of sufficiently large magnitude to cause serious damage well beyond the limits of the test site.
"This possibility is more serious for tests of greater than a megaton since the larger initial explosion would lead to greater alteration of the regional stress pattern....
"The recent evidence indicates that the risks of damaging side effects from megaton tests are larger than were estimated when the proposed tests were planned."
That is a portion of the Pitzer Report's conclusion. Certainly, that conclusion should cause concern to those who would have to bear the loss resulting from earthquake or sea waves.
Recently I wrote to Dr. Frank Press, Chairman of the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences at M.I.T., and a member of the Pitzer Panel, asking whether the advancement of the science since 1968 would lead to different conclusions. Dr. Press said the conclusion would be the same.
Here is his reply:
"There is really not much I can add to the debate about the Cannikin test that has not already been said in the Pitzer Panel report.
"I believe that the chances of a catastrophe are very small but not zero. The consequences of an unanticipated destructive aftereffect of the explosion are very great indeed.
"Under these circumstances one must raise the question of the importance of Cannikin to this country's security. A very compelling case must be made on this basis to justify experimentation of this type. I have not been privy to such a justification."
"Compelling necessity", as Dr. Press so ably states it, should be the ultimate test of whether to proceed with Cannikin.
Surely none of us here today would oppose the test if its importance to our nation's survival were obviously compelling. The risk would be a necessity forced upon us by greater danger.
There is ample evidence, however, that the test is not a compelling necessity and has little to do with our survival as a free people.
Cannikin is a test of the large Spartan warhead. Its designated use is as a component of the ABM system, for the protection of some Minuteman missile sites.
There is reason to question just how important a function this type of Spartan may perform.
Recently, in Senate Committee testimony, Dr. Harold Agnew, of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory of the AEC said high yield Spartans would be useful in only a limited way. He said:
"I said that they would be useful in a limited way, as I said in my previous testimony, with regard to breaking up high rate attacks and to provide a mechanism for high altitude attacks against very large yield weapons which might be used in a particular role which the Soviets might employ."
A new, improved, lower yield Spartan warheads – a device that does net require Cannikin – will take over many of the basic Spartan functions.
Dr. John Foster, Director of Defense Research and Engineering for the Defense Department, has said the improved Spartans,
“... will carry a smaller warhead but to much greater velocities. This missile will enable the system to more effectively intercept SLBM's and depressed trajectory ICBM's. They have a larger area capability than the standard Spartan and reduce the nuclear effects on the system."
So rather than being an integral part of the system itself, we see that the basic Spartan is of only marginal importance, for use only under certain conditions and in certain specific contingencies.
And these arguments are only important if one accepts the notion that the ABM itself is a weapon that will prevent war. All ABM protects is one aspect of our deterrent – the Minuteman system, and that system, once safely protected, can only take lives, not save them
I do not believe the ABM will prevent a war. I do not believe it would help us "win" a nuclear exchange.
I certainly do not believe Cannikin is a compelling factor in the ABM picture. Consequently, I do not believe Alaskans and others who reside along the Pacific Rim should be forced to take the risk to life and property that will be required if Cannikin is detonated.
Let me just outline some of these risks. First, and most obvious, there is the risk of a triggered earthquake. Dr. James Brune, who will testify before the Committee this morning, certainly is far more competent than I to describe the suspected triggering mechanism of earthquakes.
A vast body of scientific opinion views the earthquake in itself as a triggering mechanism.
The great Alaska earthquake of 1964 began with a shock of about 6.5 and triggered itself to a peak of 8.4. The Aleutian Islands earthquake of September 11, 1969, began with a shock measured at 5.2 and peaked at 6.6.
Cannikin may provide a trigger of between 6.8 and 7.2. What type of energy can be released with that kind of trigger? No one knows.
Suppose there is an imminent earthquake very near Amchitka, for which Cannikin is the trigger. Would Cannikin's 7 point natural earthquake remain a harmless 7 point event?
The AEC believes the magnitude of shock would be slightly greater if both events occurred together. At 7 points on the Richter scale we are already courting the birth of a tsunami wave. If 7 and 7 add up to 7.5, such a wave is a certainty.
The AEC's own literature lists 7.5 as the level of shock at which a dangerous tsunami is certain to occur.
To support its conclusion of minimal risk, the AEC offers the results of the 1969 Milrow test and experience at the Nevada test site.
Any competent statistician would question either the use of the Nevada experience of the one megaton Milrow test in calculating the odds for a five megaton test in Alaska.
Our nation has never before conducted a five megaton test anywhere. Certainly, the Nevada tests, in a seismically quiet area, cannot be applied to the experience in Alaska where the earth is violently unstable.
With the triggered earthquake there is the related danger of sea waves.
The entire Pacific Rim is vulnerable to these destructive waves, so often born in the Aleutian Trench area from natural earthquakes.
Most of the deaths resulting from the terrible Alaska earthquake March 27, 1964, were caused by sea waves generated by the earthquake, rather than the earthquake itself.
Despite the AEC's attempts at assurance in the Cannikin environmental impact statement, not enough is known about the origin of characteristics of sea waves to flatly predict that one will not result from Cannikin itself or an earthquake triggered by Cannikin.
Another danger is that of radioactive contamination of the water around the island, either dynamically or through absorption into the groundwater system of massive quantities of radioactive byproducts.
The Cannikin impact statement also includes what the AEC terms an "unlikely possibility" that the water within the cavity chimney system created by the blast will flow through a system of inter-connecting rock fractures.
This model is likened to an "open crooked pipe" through which radiated water would reach the surface within two or three years and flow into the ocean concentrations of radioactivity
1,200 times the level considered safe by the Federal Radiation Council.
That process would continue for 130 years. Rapid migration and ocean contamination is the most grotesque and worrisome possible consequence from Cannikin.
The AEC in its impact statement fails to mention the possibility that Longshot, Milrow and Cannikin could all three start discharging radioactivity concurrently around Amchitka. What would that do to the dilution factors and the accumulation factors?
The AEC downgrades the possibility of groundwater contamination and downgrades the effects if it should occur. But the risk is taken seriously by Alaskans and others who have an enormous economic stake in the resources of the sea.
In these days when the nation is deeply concerned about mercury poisoning and the market for seafood products has fallen off sharply, even the suspicion that radioactive water is leaking to the surface could devastate the market for all fishery species of the North Pacific.
It is not at all certain that radioactive waste is diluted by seawater. Radioactivity reconcentrates in seafood. Those who dumped mercury in seawater said it was safely diluted.
Now it is found that larger fish concentrate mercury at levels dangerous for those who eat them.
DDT is such a problem it is being outlawed by some states. Comparatively, certain radionuclides like strontium and cesium have fabulously greater re-concentration features in the food chain.
The danger that radioactivity will escape is no less than the danger that an earthquake may be triggered. Indeed, these two actions could inter-react, the earthquake affecting the cavity; not only the cavity caused by Cannikin, but the cavity caused by Milrow.
The Milrow test produced an enormous amount of radioactive waste that could still be brought to the surface by groundwater, or through an unsuspected fault opened by a natural earthquake or the Cannikin test itself.
State Commissioner of Fish and. Game Wallace H. Noerenberg spelled out the risk to the fisheries quite clearly in his statement at recent hearings in Alaska. He said:
"Amchitka island lies in an ocean zone used extensively by important segments of the North Pacific anadromous salmon fisheries. Chum salmon from Honshu and Hokkaido Island of Japan and pink, chum and sockeye salmon from eastern Kamchatka Peninsula pass through the surrounding water of the island during both mature and immature stages of their life history. Aleutian and Bering Sea stocks of U.S. sockeye, pink, coho and king salmon also are known to be present in waters near the island as maturing and immature stages.
"The 'ownership' of salmon passing by Amchitka is thus international in scope and the consequences of any contamination of these animals would be worldwide in regard to marketing and human consumption problems.
"The Bristol Bay sockeye fishery of Alaska is the world's single most important fishery in value; these fish are particularly vulnerable at Amchitka since they migrate past the island on feed and/or spawning migrations up to four times during their ocean life (i.e., first at a post-smelt stage, recently emerged from the Bristol Bay river and lake systems, once and often twice during their immature feeding migrations and finally while en route to the Bay on their final spawning migration at the end of their second or third year in the ocean).
"Should contamination of these salmon occur, the economic disaster to one of Alaska's largest industries would be of very large magnitude. The value of pack from Bristol Bay salmon in some years, e.g. 1970, approaches 50 percent of the total Alaska pack value.
"Further, the implications among the native people in and north of Bristol Bay, I.e., Kuskokwim, Yukon, Norton Sound and Kotzebue Sound districts, is also extreme since between one-third and one-half of the salmon catch in those districts is used for vital subsistence food by the people."
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, let me reaffirm some key points:
First, there is no compelling necessity for this test.
Second, eminent scientists who have studied problems of safety associated with high yield nuclear tests caution that because of potential risks, any decision to test must be based on the most compelling national necessity.
Third, Alaskans do not wish to accept the associated risks of this test and have strongly urged the President to cancel Cannikin and restore Amchitka Island to its wildlife refuge status.
The people of Alaska are grateful, Mr. Chairman, for this opportunity to discuss the proposed Cannikin test. I sincerely hope that the test will be cancelled so that no one will have to bear the threat or suffer the consequences of experimentation with natural forces about which we know so little.
STATEMENT BY JOHN HAVELOCK, ATTORNEY GENERAL FOR THE STATE of ALASKA, BEFORE THE SUBCOMMITTEE ON ARMS CONTROL OF THE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE, SENATE, JULY 23, 1971
It is my understanding that this Committee is considering an extension of the treaty banning atmospheric nuclear testing to include all testing of nuclear weapons. It is probably beyond the competence of the state government of Alaska to express an opinion on the broad, theoretical issue: it is certainly beyond my personal capacity. But it might be of interest to the Committee to hear some observations on how the present American policy on testing is administered by the Executive Branch of government, under the present arrangement of only limited legislative instruction and broad executive authority as seen from the perspective of a state within which the largest test is to be conducted.
My comments will not extend as such to the desirability of exploding the giant device, the last in the series currently undertaken by the Atomic Energy Commission, code named Cannikin and scheduled for Amchitka, Alaska this autumn. For reasons which I will indicate, we do not have sufficient information to offer a definitive opinion on that issue. My comments will be addressed to the method by which the decision to hold a test has been arrived at, a method which is the subject of substantial concern among the elected leadership and the people of our state.
I suppose, whatever we may view as the shortcomings of discretionary executive decision- making on nuclear testing, the situation was a lot worse before the adoption of the National Environmental Policy Act by the 91st Congress. The Atomic Energy Commission has conceded in principle the application of this act and a copy of the final environmental statement purporting to satisfy the requirements of the act was furnished us late last month.
At risk of instructing the Committee on matters it already well knows, let me briefly recite the five points which the Congress required to be covered in detail in the environmental statement:
1. The environmental impact of the proposed action,
2. Any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented,
3. Alternatives to the proposed action,
4. The relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and
5. Any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented.
While on paper these requirements constitute a substantial step forward in exposing the grist of analysis that feeds the policy mill, as administered by the AEC, this process is little short of sham.
In saying so, I do not mean to impeach the good faith or integrity of the scientists and generals who have attempted to direct the AEC in conformity with the Environmental Policy Act. The problem is not personal, but broadly systematic; the same problem which brought the country to the brink of constitutional calamity just a few weeks ago. That problem is the persistence of unwarranted official secrecy in governmental decision making.
The National Environmental Policy Act is based on assumptions diametrically opposed to the mystique of the superior wisdom of high science or high office which nurtures secrecy in government. The act requires that an agency considering an action having a significant effect on the environment lay out the rationale or the proposed decision, including the cons as well as the pros, for public scrutiny and participation through debate, prior to making a final commitment on the proposed action.
Though in the extremes of the practical applications of the act, there are dangers of administrative chaos, in the main, the act can be used as a quiet instrument of revolution in the struggle to avoid the total isolation of the people from their government and the government from the consent of the governed.
As Mr. Justice Stewart remarked on June 30, in the New York Times against the United States,
"In the absence of the governmental checks and balances present in other areas of our national life, the only effective restraint upon executive policy and power in the areas of national defense and international affairs may lie in an enlightened citizenry – in an informed and critical public opinion which alone can protect the values of democratic government."
It is this ultimate bulwark of the decision making process of a democracy which the National Environmental Policy Act was designed to strengthen. The government itself, as well as the press, has a solemn obligation to quench the people's thirst for knowledge, not by assuring us of the integrity and wisdom of our leadership, not by marshaling the supporting arguments for a position taken, but by telling us in detail, the bad with the good, the impact of a proposed decision on the human environment.
The reference to the "human" environment in the National Environmental Policy Act is one of its nicer features, not "natural" environment, but "human." This distinction, among others, the Atomic Energy Commission has missed, or is perhaps incapable of sensing after a pinch of secret national security spice scents the policy stew.
The National Environmental Policy Act calls for a cost-benefit analysis, but the AEC has rung up numbers of bald eagle nests dislocated, sea otters affected and fish killed, inferring incorrectly that the standard imposed by the act is an atomic absolute such as extinction of a species or a level of "safe" radiation dosage. The AEC is in much the same position as the unfortunate oil industry spokesman after the Santa Barbara spill who asked why all the fuss over a few dead birds?
The National Environmental Policy Act envisions a relative standard: Whether, considering the costs or risks and the benefits, the action is worth it, "in balance". But the AEC shows us only half the scale with some dispensable otters and eagles on it.
The effect on the human environment of the decision to hold a test itself and the advantages and disadvantages of the testing program on this particular test are a brooding omnipresence unidentified in the impact statement. Secrecy has made a charade of the Act. But one sentence in the Environmental Impact Statement covers the point: "Cannikin is a vital part of the U.S. weapons development program."
Although the effect of the environmental statement is to minimize every adverse impact, these innuendos should be weighed against the warning of the report prepared for the President's Office of Science and Technology in 1968 by the ad hoc panel on the safety of underground testing:
"The need for these tests as planned should be compelling if they are to be conducted in the face of the possible risks that have been identified."
When, at the urging of Governor Egan, the Atomic Energy Commission generously agreed to hold public hearings last May under the National Environmental Policy Act, I quoted Dr. Harold Agnew, Director of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory to the panel as stating on April 20 in public testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee that tests of the Spartan missile were to be carried out at Amchitka, Alaska. Since Dr. Agnew spoke, I asked the panel, has the President reviewed the need for continued national security on the general purposes of the test explosion? Though I was promised an answer, I have not yet received it.
What are the people of Alaska to think when they really do not know what the test is for, yet the press and the Congress itself debate the test question, pro and con, as if it were a fact that the test is part of the development of the first generation Spartan missile. Official secrecy has denied the general public the right to debate this issue except in a house of mirrors.
I have asked myself (and having no special access to information I do not know what the test is for) what harm would there be if this were the true purpose and the fact were officially confirmed? Since it has already been as much as stated by a number of people who have access to official secrets, then the harm is surely done already, but even then, what was the harm?
Has it caused "the death of soldiers, the destruction of alliances, a greatly increased difficulty of negotiation with our enemies, the inability of our diplomats to negotiate?" fears cited by Mr. Justice Blackmun in his dissent in the New York Times case, or has this secrecy, on the contrary, impaired the ability of this country, sensibly and democratically to make policy both external and internal to our boundaries?
It can be argued that the permanent officers of the AEC are today's battleship admirals at bay, their vision limited by the specialization of professional experience, protected in a last redoubt by the armor plate of official secrecy. If this is not so, let free debate determine the issue.
I hold no brief for breach of any official secrets act, but who is to bell the cat in another ten or twenty years if the government then reveals what so many now purport to know, that Cannikin tests the Spartan missile system? If it is a crime to make public the government's secrets, should it not also be a crime to make secret facts rightfully the public's? Spartan secrecy should not subvert America's Athenian democracy.
It is an irony of some poignancy that the men who, in their ways laid the foundation for the National Environmental Policy Act by introducing systematic analysis into public policy decision making have taken the brunt of the criticism of the nation's wayward course abroad the past several years.
If there are lessons to be learned from the history recited in the Pentagon Papers, one is surely that secrecy is a long-term course to public policy making is sometimes a short term boon.
The value to the nation of shrouding the purpose of the CANNIKIN test of Amchitka from our enemies must be weighed against the damage done in disguising its purpose from ourselves.
In its preliminary calculus, the AEC should weigh the damage done to the quality of a public decision against the speculative values of secrecy. A debate carried on in a closed bureau of government or in the artificial atmosphere of suppositions does not produce as true a result as a public decision on the same subject publicly arrived at. Despite the semantic confusion between national security interests and national security secrets, the larger issues of national security are surely only in the rarest instance issues also for secrecy. In the sense that Congress looks for guidance to an informed public, the secrecy attaching to the test program also chills the ability of Congress to make effective decisions.
Another lesson of recent times is that moods and character of a people may be more important weapons in international relations than the hardware of war. This Committee is at the center of the exploration of this principle in its applications both home and abroad. The choice of weapons systems, the creative design of our politico-military structure in the world contest is an environmental issue of great delicacy. I do not envy this Committee its share of the responsibility for weighing the relevance of nuclear diplomacy to the needs of the world.
If that issue is to be weighed in keeping with our traditions, if we pursue the best chance of deciding these questions aright, the process must take place, in the words of the first New York Times case, New York Times against Sullivan, after "open and robust debate," having in mind, as the National Environmental Policy Act puts it, that "proposed action must be assessed from the perspective that each generation is trustee of the environment for succeeding generations."
Mr. Chairman, as an additional exhibit to my testimony, I would like to submit for the record a copy of a letter from Governor Egan to Secretary of Defense Laird urging at least a year's delay in arming the Amchitka device.
Hon. MELVIN R. LAIRD,
Secretary, Department of Defense,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. SECRETARY: It is my understanding that, though the decision is ultimately the President's, the Atomic Energy Commission is still planning to go ahead this fall with the testing at Amchitka, Alaska of by far the largest underground nuclear device ever fired in North America.
The plan for an early detonation has not been disturbed despite considerable recent scientific testimony as to the environmental risks involved in such a test.
Even more disturbing has been testimony to the effect that the test is not even really necessary, but results from a definition of American security interests which has been overtaken by the march of events.
The only explanation given by the AEC for pushing ahead now is that the test is a "vital part of the U.S. weapons development program," an explanation which is years old and reveals nothing.
Mr. Secretary, Alaskans would be among the first Americans to assume any risk if it really was in the national security interest. But many Alaskans are troubled today that no current statement has been made by yourself or any member of the Executive ultimately charged with the protection of the national security. Nor has any explanation been given as to what that national interest is.
Despite the debate which has raged in the Congress and the public press on the assumption that the Amchitka test is intended to test the warhead for a first generation Spartan missile system, the Department of Defense has been officially silent on what the test is really supposed to prove.
At the environmental impact hearings held this May before the Atomic Energy Commission, in Anchorage, we quoted Dr. Harold Agnew, Director of the Los Alamos scientific laboratory as publicly stating that the Spartan test was to be carried out at Amchitka, Alaska. Alaska Attorney General John Havelock then asked the Commission, "Has the President since the April 20 statement of Dr. Agnew, reviewed the need for continued national secrecy on the general purposes of this test explosion?"
Though a response was promised, to this date, Mr. Secretary, we have not received a reply, underlining the inference that neither the official secrecy surrounding the purposes of the test nor possibly even the purposes of the test itself have received a review of the highest level in recent months.
I understand why such a recent review might not have taken place. There are many other events such as the President's call on Wednesday for endorsement of a treaty banning the placing of nuclear devices under the ocean floor which might bear upon an armaments decision with as many ramifications as this nuclear explosion project. Under the circumstances, it would seem prudent to give active consideration to postponing the arming of the Amchitka device for at least one year. This would give time for a complete review of the issue, preferably a public review, in keeping with the traditions of decision making in a democracy.
Only when the government has made available information on all possible aspects of the test which do not infringe upon secrecy interests in national security can the public, including the Alaskan public and its elected representatives make an independent evaluation of the wisdom of this major governmental action. Your frank explanation of these issues would be of great value to the American people and concerned Alaskans.
Sincerely,
WILLIAM A. EGAN,
Governor.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, this defense of Cannikin was challenged in a letter of July 22, which was addressed to me, as chairman of the Arms Control Subcommittee, by three recognized authorities in the field of strategic policy and arms control: Dr. Herbert Scoville, Jr., Dr. Marvin Goldberger, and Dr. Morton H. Halperin.
I ask unanimous consent that the statement by the AEC and the response by these distinguished scholars be inserted at this point in the RECORD. I also ask unanimous consent that a covering letter from Dr. Jeremy Stone, director of the Federation of American Scientists, also be inserted into the RECORD.
There being no objection, the statement and letter were ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
STATEMENT BY AEC: THE NECESSITY FOR THE CANNIKIN EXPERIMENT
The nuclear device to be tested in the Cannikin event, scheduled for the fall at Amchitka Island, is related to the optimum development of a warhead for the Spartan missile of our Safeguard Ballistic Missile Defense Program. The measurements of device performance which will be obtained from the test are essential to our optimum defense deployments of safeguards for protection of our Minuteman missile sites. Several nuclear tests have been conducted in the program leading to this requirement, but they did not have the hardware improvements incorporated in the present design nor were they at the yield level to demonstrate proper final performance. This device is the most intricate and complicated configuration ever undertaken in the weapons program and incorporates a design that is different from any other nuclear weapon ever produced.
Nuclear weapons produce energy output and effects in various forms such as thermal radiation, neutrons, fission products, x-rays, gamma rays, and shock waves. In the Cannikin experiment, it is vital that these various outputs be measured to be certain that the constituent parts satisfy the requirements of the device design.
This system is designed for exo-atmospheric intercept with x-rays as the kill mechanism. This intercept mode puts two important constraints on the warhead: (1) it must have a low fission output in order to reduce radar blackout effects and (2) a large fraction of its output should be x-rays to increase lethality and make it more difficult for the attacker to harden his reentry vehicles. Full understanding of the x-ray output spectrum is important to successful operational planning. Cannikin objectives include determining the yield of the warhead and making extensive x-ray output measurements.
The principal reasons for the full yield test are:
To minimize the possibility of stockpiling a defective design. There is a chance that there is some deficiency in the warhead which has not been found in spite of extensive design calculations and testing of the warhead at partial yield. There is no way to demonstrate that such a defect does not exist other than by testing at full yield. Theoretical calculations indicate a good physics package, but a design as complicated as this could provide serious surprises. Although it is difficult to lay out a history of all post test failures, a recent example in 1967 was the full yield proof test of the Minuteman III warhead which produced only 40% of the predicted yield and resulted in a redesign before final proof test and production. Therefore, failure to do the Cannikin test would result in a drastically reduced confidence in the performance of the system.
To measure the yield. The test should permit the yield to be measured to an accuracy of plus or minus 15%. Without a test of the fully fueled design, one would have to rely on calculations and extrapolation of the results of testing at lower yields. The uncertainty of the calculations is difficult to estimate but in the absence of u full yield test, it would probably be possible to specify the yield only to plus or minus 25-30 percent.
To measure the x-ray flux and spectrum. The main uncertainty in x-ray output is the uncertainty in yield. If Cannikin were not conducted, one would be forced to rely on theoretical calculations to determine x-ray flux and spectrum without the benefit of any meaningful experimental data.
I would like to comment on some safety aspects of Cannikin.
A number of individuals and private organizations have recently questioned whether it is safe for the AEC to go head with the detonation of the Cannikin device at Amchitka. Some have charged that the AEC is acting with disregard for safety in its planning for Cannikin. These are serious charges which have led me to look into the AEC's study and investigation about the safety of Cannikin. I have found that the AEC has been conducting active investigations of all aspects of the Cannikin test safety since early 1967, studying these matters with extraordinary thoroughness.
An important part of these investigations was the Milrow experiment which was conducted at Amchitka in 1969 for the sole purpose of verifying whether the larger Cannikin test could be conducted safely. This experiment accomplished the purpose of confirming preshot predictions as to the minimal effects of that megaton explosion.
Throughout its test operations the AEC utilizes the best advice and counsel that it can obtain in regard to safety. In planning for Cannikin the AEC has obtained the services of appropriate Federal agencies, of scientists at several universities and of several independently recognized experts from a variety of scientific disciplines. For Cannikin, a Standing Panel of Consultants for the AEC has performed a review of the effects predicted on the geology, groundwater, ecology, and natural and man-made structures from ground motion and radiation hazards. In addition, because of the seismic nature of the Aleutians, the Special Panel for Seismology has reviewed and advised upon programs which the AEC has conducted to study the seismological effects of Cannikin. For the most part, these experts were selected from candidates recommended by the National Academy of Sciences.
The Panel of Consultants as well as the Special Panel for Seismology was made up of individuals from the U.S. Geological Survey, University of California, University of Illinois, St. Louis University, University of Nevada, Washington State University, University of Michigan, Columbia University, California Institute of Technology, Palo Alto Medical Clinic, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Sheppard T. Powell and Associates, and Shannon and Wilson, Inc.
They represent such disciplines and subdisciplines as radiobiology, soil mechanics, structural engineering, geophysics, hydrology, radiation medicine, ecology, geology, oceanography, tsunaminology, seismology, and hydroeology. All told the talents of some 60 recognized scientific and technical advisors and participants have been involved to varying degrees with deliberations on these subjects for the AEC's conclusions as to the safety of the Cannikin test. In addition, several hundred AEC and AEC contractor personnel have been engaged in direct performance of studies.
It is on the basis of these extensive investigations that the AEC has been able to state in its environmental Statement for Cannikin that the Cannikin test can be fired without important detrimental impact. I am personally convinced that this conclusion is amply supported by facts, the most important of which are reported within the environmental statement.
The decision on the requirement for this system was made some time ago. Until such time as intelligent international understanding can be reached which makes such weapons developments unnecessary, we have no other choice. If we are to develop and deploy an effective system, we must have this test.
FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS,
Washington, D.C.,
July 22, 1971.
Hon. EDMuND S. MUSKIE,
Chairman,
Subcommittee on Arms Control, International Law and Organization
Senate, Foreign Relations Committee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: For your possible information and use I list some of the credentials of the members of the Federation's Strategic Weapons Committee, signers of the attached letter:
Dr. Herbert Scoville, Jr., Chairman of the Committee, was formerly Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency under Presidents Eisenhower and Kennedy, and Assistant Director of the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency under President Johnson.
Dr. Marvin L. Goldberger, presently Chairman of the Federation of American Scientists, was a member of the President's Science Advisory Committee (PSAC) and Chairman of its Strategic Weapons Panel during years in which Cannikin was considered by the President's Committee. He is now Chairman of the Department of Physics of Princeton University, and was for seven years Chairman of the Jason Division of the Institute for Defense Analyses.
Dr. Morton H. Halperin was a Deputy Assistant Secretary for Policy Planning and Arms Control under President Johnson and a member of the senior staff of the National Security Council under President Nixon.
Respectfully,
JEREMY J. STONE, Director.
FEDERATION OF AMERICAN SCIENTISTS,
Washington, D.C.
July 22,1971.
Hon. EDMUND S. MUSKIE,
Chairman, Subcommittee on Arms Control, International Law and Organization
Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
U.S. Senate,
Washington, D.C.
DEAR MR. CHAIRMAN: In a letter to Senator Pastore, Secretary Packard stated that the measurements of device performance which will be obtained from the Cannikin test (of the so-called basic or first generation Spartan missile warhead) are “essential in my view to the optimum defensive deployments of Safeguard for the protection of the Minuteman missile sites" (Italics added.)
It is highly significant that Secretary Packard did not say that Cannikin was essential to the deployment of Safeguard but only that it was essential to the "optimum" deploymen of Safeguard. This assertion avoids completely the critical question raised by the Pitzer report and, indeed, by common sense: Is Cannikin sufficiently important to the deployment of Safeguard to justify the risks of the test.
In this connection, we wish to point out that Secretary Packard neglected to add that the first generation Spartan interceptor missile adds only marginally to the overall capability of Safeguard – which is in any case low – to protect the Minuteman sites. The primary purpose of the Spartan component of Safeguard was always one of light area defense against a Chinese threat or accident. Indeed, the Spartan component of Safeguard is ignored by the DOD experts in calculations of Safeguard's projected effectiveness – these calculations have always referred only to the number of Sprints.
Furthermore, Secretary Packard neglected to point out that Cannikin is testing the first generation Spartan. An improved Spartan with superior capabilities achieved without such a high yield warhead is being procured. Development of this advanced Spartan was begun in 1970 and Dr. Foster has testified that it could be deployed by 1976 – ample time to cope with the threat of an attack against our deterrent forces.
We feel constrained to note that the specific data which support the relative unimportance of Spartan to Minuteman defense is classified unjustifiably since the necessary information would be readily available to the Soviet Union. The Defense Department bas been so loath to permit the public to debate this test that it was only in this letter of Secretary Packard's – the day of the Senate vote – that the Department admitted the purpose of Cannikin.
In summary, the Cannikin test is for the Spartan ABM interceptor which plays only a minor role in the defense of Minuteman and which would be inferior to a more advanced Spartan which will be available in time to meet any possible Soviet threat. Therefore, Cannikin would hardly meet the criteria of the Pitzer report that "the needs for tests as planned should be compelling if they are to be conducted in face of the possible risks that have been identified."
Indeed, it is even hard to rationalize Secretary Packard's view that Safeguard would be optimized by the use of the first generation Spartan when a more advanced Spartan will be available in its stead.
We hope this information may be useful to you in connection with the hearings on Cannikin of the Subcommittee on Arms Control, International Law and Organization of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Respectfully,
Dr. HERBERT SCOVILLE, Jr.,
Chairman, Strategic Weapons Committee Federation of American Scientists.
Dr. MARVIN GOLDBERGER,
Member, Strategic Weapons Committee.
Dr. MORTON H. HALPERIN,
Member, Strategic Weapons Committee.
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, when this subject was being debated in the Senate in connection with the AEC authorization bill on July 20, the distinguished Senator from Rhode Island, Senator PASTORE, chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, placed into the record a memorandum which he had requested from the AEC entitled "The Necessity for the Cannikin Experiment." This statement was circulated to all Senators together with a supporting letter from Deputy Defense Secretary David Packard.
Mr. President, it continues to be my hope that the administration will decide to cancel the Cannikin test altogether. It was reported in the Washington Star of July 26 that various Government agencies have forwarded conflicting recommendations to the White House on whether to proceed with this nuclear test. The Defense Department and the AEC are already on record favoring the test. But, according to the Star, five agencies have recommended that the test be postponed or canceled. These agencies are: the Department of State, the Office of Science and Technology, the U.S. Information Agency., the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Council of Environmental Quality.
It is significant that the test has evidently been opposed by these five agencies on a variety of counts. The Environmental Protection Agency is reportedly opposed on grounds that even a slight possibility of earthquake is too much of a chance to take. The Office of Science and Technology, which is the President's scientific advisory arm, is apparently opposed because the warhead to be tested is designed for the basic Spartan anti-ballistic missile which is said to be obsolete. The State Department and Council of Environmental Quality were reportedly in favor of postponing the test until the completion of the SALT talks.
Mr. President, we should postpone this test, about which so many serious doubts have been raised. A postponement will not tie the hands of the administration and prevent them from carrying out the test next year if, after further reflection, it is still considered in the national interest to do so. But in view of conflicting advice going to the President on this question, it seems to me that further discussion of this matter within the administration is necessary.
We must guard against any irrational momentum that can build up within Government bureaucracies to carry out a project even when the original purpose may no longer be justified. There is convincing evidence that Cannikin may no longer be necessary for our military security, and it certainly carries with it at least some danger of environmental disaster. Therefore, I hope this test will be postponed.