~13‘
work on |
items
on which
some progress can be accomplished without tests."
Further on Vela and readiness, "The exigencies of the seismic improvement
program have essentially eliminated the readiness capability for resumption on
short notice of full-scale underground testing.
We would hope to receive
authorization and funds to restore this capability in the near future.
If such
testing is resumed, we would be in a position to test (and stockpile is successful)
a variety of itens |
."
1
mentioned above and|
aebe)
(These include the developments
After a discussion of the methods that
have been used to cer Cocaanetan different from those stockpiled
in the past, forstorkpate;it is summarized that "The conclusions about weapon
development which we have reached on the basis of the past few years‘ i work and our
anticipation of the next few year's work, one can say that the test moratorium
has considerably impeded development both in thermonuclear and fission weapons
design, that progress which is quite important militarily can still be made without
full-scale nuclear testing, and that great care must be exercised in examining
new designs before they are stockpiled in order to insure that they will function
properly.
The laborapory has kept approximately a constant number of personnel
on weaponization and device design, which together constitute the weapons program.
We expect that this number will not decrease during the next 2 1/2 years, in view
of the weapons program which we foresee even without resumption of testing."
In noting the detrimental effect of the moratorium on the Plowshare program
since nuclear explosions are not permitted due to political considerations, some
contributions to the Plowshare program which have come from Vela experiments (Cowboy