abundance of fissionable materials in that it was designed to produce
either plutonium or electric power, 48 .
A New Era
The Limited Test Ban Treaty and the production cut-back signaled a
new era for the nuclear weapon program.
The overriding Cold War mission
of the Atomic Energy Commission, producing a nuclear arsenal to protect _
the free world, had been successfully achieved and the fact politically
recognized.
The
Commission had
tactical missiles,
artillery pieces,
created warheads
a variety of nuclear bombs,
for
strategic
nuclear shells
atomic demolition devices resembling gigantic
mines, antisubmarine weapons,
and torpedoes.
So
efficient were
and
for ~
land
its
factories that by the early 1960's the nuclear arsenal numbered in the
tens of thousands of weapons.
Robert McNamara
Burope. "49
The
.
.
.
"Of this huge total, Secretary of Defense
reported that 7000 were located in Westem
Commission's
achievement ranked
as
one
dramatic and awesome feats in the history of the nation.
of
the
most
Although the
nuclear weapon program consumed the largest portion of the Commissicz's
budget, it could no longer claim the urgency oer overriding importance cf
the 1950's.
|
The Commission continued to carry out an extensive weapon ‘esting
program, now planning and conducting tests by fiscal year rather than dy
periodic series.
In the 1960's test series consisted of weapon cesion
and verification shots, Plowshare experiments, and Vela program shcts.
Because the shots were all fired underground no further militaror
Civil effects tests were conducted.
The Commission, however, méinteinsc