Ly
Here is a letter from Teller to President Kennedy on 7 December 1961,
rtee re
ee
Number BY-61-198, which is Teller's repl-- to the President suggestion
that he study in detail the recommended program for atmospheric testing to be
performed in the spring of 1962 and present his comments to the President.
. The first part of the letter summarizes the specific reasons why Teller
feels atmospheric testing has become essential, and the second section addresses
the proposed tests specifically.
Teller begins by citing the Soviet's progress
already to date in their surprise resumption of testing and that the "specific
danger against which we must guard is the possibility that the Russians can achieve
effective defense against a United States retaliatory blow.
He notes that the Russians
already have pul/ great deal of yield into the warheads that can be carried by their
missiles as well as claiming to have made progress in their missile defense systems
and that we must undertake an atmospheric testing program which will help to
counter these dangers.
Specifically we must develop light weight warheads for
our rockets to enable us to put a number of warheads on target to cut down the
the capabilities of their missile defense system as well as to putting work into
the development of high yield warheads that could do damage from high altitude and
would not have to be detonated at low
altitudes where the atmosphere can
24
P rovide diiscrimui
imi natii on and inc
i
rease the effectiv
i eness of a Russian missile
defense system.
both
The combination of our need to dev
elop more numerous
and more powerful weapons results
in Teller's feeling that we must
add effort
into the d eve1lopment of
''clean" explosiv
i es, whiich ch is
i intimately connected
with the clean thermonuclear type
of explosives in which the latest Sovi
ets
tests have put them into the leading
position.
The question of an effective
ABM system bases several are
as in
j whii ch additional testing is req
uired according
.
o Teller. Not only to perfect or
to develop a somewhat effective
ABM system