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large tests would be very costly but did not attempt to evaluate the
impact of the economic factor on a possible nuclear test agreement.
These views of the Committee were transmitted with the Panel reports
by the Special Assistant to Defense, State, AEC, and CIA on March 17,
1959.
On April 14 the Special Assistant forwarded a summary of the
recommendations of the Panel on High Altitude Detection and the Panel
on Seismic Improvement aimed at a future program for the improvement
of our technical capabilities for detection and of our understanding of
these problems. On April 23, the Special Assistant met with the Deputy
Secretary of Defense and the Chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission
on these recommendations. It was agreed that they should be imple-
mented and responsibility for the implementation was accepted by the
Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission.
On May 1, 1959, a Working Group of the Panel on High Altitude
Detection met at the request of the Special Assistant to consider the
special problem of the detection of tests between 50 and 100, 000 kilometers by apparatus located on the earth. A memorandum, dated
May I, presented the Working Group's preliminary conclusions. A
complete report will be prepared by June 1, 1959.
25.
Technical Considerations Affecting Arms Control
On the basis of extended discussions by the PSAC on the problems
of nuclear test suspension and arms control during the first 16 months
of its new role, the Special Assistant prepared a memorandum for the
President outlining the principal technical factors which may have a
bearing on policy decisions affecting nuclear test negotiations, dated
March 31, 1959.
26.
Monitoring A Long-Range Rocket Test Agreement
As requested at the January 6, 1958, meeting of the National Security
Council, an Ad Hoc Working Group on the Monitoring of a Long-Range
Rocket Test Agreement was set up under the PSAC with the agreement
of the Department of Defense and the Atomic Energy Commission.
Chaired by Dr. Kistiakowsky, it included four other individuals. Its
report was submitted to the NSC on March 28, 1958. it concluded that,
while the remote detection of long-range rockets leaving the atmosphere
could be made almost certain by technical means, the discrimination
between rockets for military and ''peaceful purposes" would be very
difficult and that firings for "peaceful purposes" could supply the required
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