Science and Politics in Early Nuclear Test Ban Negotiations

MAR 01, 1998

In a technical conference related to nuclear test ban negotiations in the late 1950s, Soviet and US scientists disagreed along national lines about the capabilities of scientific instruments, the validity of theories and the handling and interpretation of data.

DOI: 10.1063/1.882183

Kai‐Henrik Barth

Scientists are no strangers to politics. Newspapers report daily about scientific experts participating in controversies such as low‐level radiation, DNA testing, cloning or global warming. We find scientists testifying in congressional hearings, courtrooms and various committees on issues requiring both technical expertise and political judgment. This inseparability of science and politics is particularly visible in highly contested areas such as national security and nuclear arms control.

References

1. G. Herken, Cardinal Choices: Presidential Science Advising from the Atomic Bomb to SDI, Oxford U.P., New York (1992).
J. R. Killian Jr, Sputnik, Scientists, and Eisenhower: A memoir of the First Special Assistant to the President for Science and Technology, MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass. (1977).
R. G. Hewlett, J. M. Holl, Atoms for Peace and War, 1953–1961: Eisenhower and the Atomic Energy Commission, U. California P., Berkeley (1989).
2. H. K. Jacobson, E. Stein, Diplomats, Scientists, and Politicians: The United States and the Nuclear Test Ban Negotiations U. Michigan P., Ann Arbor (1966).
For an account of post‐World War II arms control negotiations, see J. E. Sims, Icarus Restrained: An Intellectual History of Nuclear Arms Control, 1945–1960, Westview, Boulder (1990).
3. For the technical aspects of detecting underground explosions, see P. G. Richards, J. Zavales, in Monitoring a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, E. S. Husebye, A. M. Dainty, eds., Kluwer, Dordrecht, The Netherlands (1996), p. 53.
The complete “Report of the Conference of Experts to Study the Methods of Detecting Violations of a Possible Agreement on the Suspension of Nuclear Tests” is reprinted in US Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Special Subcommittee on Radiation and Subcommittee on Research and Development. Technical Aspects of Detection and Inspection Controls of a Nuclear Weapons Test Ban, 86th Cong., 2d sess., US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1960), part 2, p. 479.
4. E. Rabinowitch, Bull. Atomic Scientists, October 1958, p. 282.
5. For a list of participants see Jacobson and Stein in ref. 2, pp. 212, 214.
6. The verbatim records of the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests, Technical Working Group 2, can be found in folders 1 to 3, box 8, unbound transcripts of meeting proceedings, record group 326, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland. Hereinafter, this collection is denoted as TWG2.
7. TWG2, meeting 12, p. 31.
8. TWG2, meeting 14, p. 97.
9. The decoupling theory was originally published by A. L. Latter, R. E. LeLevier, E. A. Martinelli, W. G. McMillan, A Method of Concealing Underground Nuclear Explosions, RAND report R‐348 (30 March 1959);
reproduced in US Congress, Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Special Subcommittee on Radiation and Subcommittee on Research and Development. Technical Aspects of Detection and Inspection Controls of a Nuclear Weapons Test Ban, 86th Cong., 2d sess., US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC (1960) part 2, p. 851.
For a scientific‐historical reevaluation of the decoupling theory, see L. R. Sykes, in Monitoring a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, E. S. Husebye, A. M. Dainty, eds., Kluwer. Dordrecht. The Netherlands (1996), p. 247.
10. TWG2, meeting 19, p. 87.
11. TWG2, meeting 7, p. 13. Riznichenko’s argument is published in Yu. V. Riznichenko, Problems of Seismology: Selected Papers, Mir and Springer, Moscow and Berlin (1992).
chap. 6. pers, Mir and Springer, Moscow and Berlin (1992), chap. 6.
12. C. Romney, J. Geophys. Res. 64, 1489 (1959).https://doi.org/JGREA2
13. Riznichenko: TWG2, meeting 17, p. 51. Romney: TWG2, meeting 18, p. 41. Tukey: TWG2, meeting 18, p. 121.
14. Riznichenko: TWG2, meeting 17, pp. 41 and 46. Romney: TWG2, meeting 17, p. 67. Fedorov: TWG2, meeting 13, p. 71, and meeting 18, p. 126.
15. R. Gilpin, American Scientists and Nuclear Weapons Policy, Princeton U.P., Princeton, N.J. (1962), p. 239.
For the Soviet position, see the verbatim records of the 150th meeting of the Conference on the Discontinuance of Nuclear Weapon Tests, folder 4, box 3, unbound transcripts of meeting proceedings, record group 326, National Archives II, College Park, Maryland. Quote is on p. 12.
16. B. A. Bolt, Nuclear Explosions and Earthquakes: The Parted Veil, Freeman, San Francisco (1976).

More about the Authors

Kai‐Henrik Barth. University of Minnesota in Minneapolis.