The 1956 Presidential election campaign gave increased impetus to the push for a test ban when candidate Adlai Stevenson suggested that the United States unilaterally stop testing as a first step in obtaining a test ban agreement with the Soviet Union. Although Stevenson ultimately lost the election, he made test ban a partisan issue. As Stevenson and Eisenhower sparred on the test ban issue, the Camnmission "conducted a seventeen shot Pacific test series called Redwing, which further advanced the Commission's designs of nuclear weapons which produced minimal fallout. Within a few months of the election, and curing the internal Eisenhower Administration sparring over positions to take at the 1957 London disarmament conference, Stassen virtually separated test ban negotiations from the American disarmament package and set the stage for separate agreement on the test ban issue. In 1957 Albert Schweitzer added his voice to the opponents of testing, the Pope endorsed Schweitzer's stand, and Linus Pauling obtained the signatures of 2,000 scientists on a petition opposing testing. That spring the Joint Cammittee on Atomic Energy cautiously explored the health effects of radiation in hearings held over the summer of 1957.°% As the Eisenhower Administration moved toward test ban negotiations the Commission stepped up the pace of testing, conducting the twentyfour shot Plumbbob series at Nevada in 1957. The tests, which explorec air defense and anti-submarine warheads consisted of relatively small explosions. The Commission also explored a novel method to prevent fallout by testing a device deep underground. shot proved undercround. that nuclear weapon tests Consequently, the Rainier could be performed entirely Again, the Federal Civil Defense Administration anc the Department of Defense conducted civil and military effects tests as part of the series. 40 19