Gils A
Vy
408882
.
ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
Washington 25, D. C.
No,
Tel.
1163
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
ST 3-8000
Ext.
(Sunday, September 15, 1957)
307
STATEMENT BY THE DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE
AND THE ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION
In the absence of a safeguarded disarmament agreement,
preparations are under way by the Atomic Energy Commission and
the Department of Defense for a series of nuclear tests to begin
in April, 1958, at the Eniwetok Proving Ground in the Pacific.
The United States repeatedly has stated its willingness to sus-
pend nuclear tests as part of a disarmament agreement.
Until
such an agreement is attained, continued development of nuclear
weapons is essential to the defense of the United States and of
the Free World.
The forthcoming series will advance the development of
weapons for defense against aggression whether air-borne, missileborne or otherwise mounted.
Information on the effects of weapons
will be obtained for military and civilian defense use.
Test
operations will be governed by the declaration made in the Bermuda
Communique on March 24, 1957, of the intention of the United States
"to conduct nuclear tests only in such manner as will keep world
radiation from rising to more than a small fraction of the levels
that might be hazardous.”
An important objective of the tests will be the further
development of nuclear weapons with greatly reduced radioactive
fallout so that radiation hazard may be restricted to the military
target.
This principle was first proved in the Pacific test
series of 1956.
' A United Nations agency will be invited to designate an
international group to
observe one of the detonations involving
limited fallout and studies are under way to determine the instru-
mentation which will facilitate their ORBESSPORS
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