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United States can exercise little or no control, such aa stepped up
espionage, ingenuity in devising partial substitutes for testing, and
the extent te which the Soviets may be willing to accept the risks of
clandestine testing as well as the risks of a lower probability of
achieving desired performance characteristics. The achievementof
technological parity as regards the practicable limits of nuclear
weapons development as now foreseen with and without continuation
of testing appears, therefore, to be a matter of time differential only,
with the United States holding an advantage for an indeterminate period
in either case.
Concerning developments in the nature of "break-throughs,”"
that is, beyond presently foreseen practicable limits, both parties will
be inhibited by a test cessation and the advantage will He with the
nation which is able to maintain the higher level of effort and interest
in nuclear weapon research and development, the security with which
it guards its findings, and the risk it is willing to accept in the conduct
of clandestine test operations or its attitude toward the abrogation of
treaties.
Relative technological status of nuclear weapons development at
the moment and for the foreseeable future is not an adequate index of
relative military poature, Consequently, an assumption that the
further improvement of weapons designs and the knowledge of weapons
effects to be gained from nuclear testing is more important to the
Soviets than to the United States is untenable. Within the time available for the submission of the Defense Department's viewa on the
subject matter set forth in NSC 1840, it has not been possible to prepare, on the basis of material submitted by the Atomic Energy Commission and the Central Intelligence Agency a system-by-system
comparison which the Panel has indicated to he desirable in order to
appraise the relative impact of test cessation on the military postures
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U.S. research and development programe aborted or drastically
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As pointed out by the Joint Chiefs of Staff, cessation of testing
as of the date under consideration will find a number of important
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of the Free World and the Soviet Bloc. With the rapidly changing
_ weapon development scene it is highly questionable whether such an
appraisal would he valid even for a brief period.
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