; Because of this belief, Starbird said . Ws 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 frequenttesting 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 f NIKE- ZEUS , an@ 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 mecting the DOD's necds within present budgets. Eventually, the commissioners apreed that fr T 7