Here's an interesing paper/befare the moritorium from Doyle Northrup to Killian
on 9 May 58.
Bethe
€
the letter is in reaction both to the deliljrations of the term panal
en TREE
to Killian looking into the possibility of monitoring a test ban as well as the
public record on administration statements and press reports on positions of people
such as bethe.
Northrup has been
and
.
.
.
oN
.
.
still is trying to em phasize Certain
of the qualifications on the ability to detect and identify and monitor a treaty
although he doesn't feel that these points are emphasized
enough to the non-
technical officials making the statements and [I assume the highest decisions.
tle also feel that the press has oversimplified and not qualified some of Beta's
statements about whether the Russians would cheat and whether an adequate control and inspection system could be set up.
data based on
Thus he is setting out specific
experience and analysis on just what could and couldn't
be done under certain types of detection systems and what vast areas of uncertainty there are.
His final two conclusions are that "adequate data are not available to acurately
asses the detection and identification capabilities for underground tests in
the USSR" and certain limitations as well as lack of analvsis of current tests
"greatly degrade the realibility of assessing the present state of Soviet weapons developments in terms of comparable US developments.
It is doubtful if
the realibility obtainable is adequate to the needs of a decsision as far reaching as that of test sesation."
Starbird,
Farley, and Scoville of CIA all received copies of this letter.
A lengsthly
report on seismic,
acoustic,
and electromagnetic svstems
for monitoring was forwarded to the State Nepartment and Jim Fish on 25 June S8.
This detailed report on system capabilities and limitations also emphasis the
absolute necd for inspection and other intelligence to complement the detection
stations and technical monitoring capabilities.
’
vi
f
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