Because of this belief, Starbird said
tisear a
he had requested from LASL
and Livermore their comments on the advisability of maintaining the
Pacific proving grounds on the basis which would permit testing
throughout the year.
He said he was not anticipating continuous testing
ona scale such as operation Hardtack, but rather more frequent testing
of a few weapons ata time.
He added that he had changed his position
on the need for testing a 20 to 40 kiloton weapon underground at NTS
during 1958 and now believed it important that such a test be conducted
during December 58 or January 59.
Mr. Libby urged that the commission
increase its underground testing program and said he also believed that
the US may soon adopt a policy of testing all nuclear weapons underground
except certain clean weapons which would be detonated above ground for
weapons effects tests.
General Starbird then reviewed the recommended
budgets supplemental of 4.8 million dollars for the weapons laboratories,
pointing out that 2.7 million for LASL would be spent largely on development
NIKE-ZEUS , and anti-ICBM missile; and the 2.1 million for Livermore
would be spent on accelerating work on the Polaris and on the development
of small size nuclear weapons.
----Mr. Graham inquired whether the
Department of Defense was, in effect, beginning a trend toward the
development of smaller and cleaner weapons.
Starbird replied that the
policy was to maintain large thermonuclear weapons at the present level
and to develope medium size and small clean weapons."'
A lengthy
discussion followed which indicated the problems posed by the large number
of military weapons systems being proposed, on which the AEC was asked
to prepare warheads, and the difficulty with meeting the DOD's needs
within preseat budgets.
Eventually, the commissioners agreed that
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