Nuclear Weapons and Testing. Atomic Testing in the 1950s

The development of nuclear fission had a significant impact on global geopolitics and environmental consciousness in the post-1945 period. With international tensions focused on the manufacture and deployment of nuclear weapons, the atomic bomb provided a technological framework for Cold War hostilities. During the 1950s radioactive fallout from nuclear tests dispersed throughout the biosphere (the part of the world in which life can exist), revealing for the first time the fragility of the planet to human interference.

For U.S. ecologists such as Rachel Carson and Barry Commoner, the destructive power of the atomic bomb provided a symbol of human arrogance toward nature, an example of technology run amok. Invisible, humanmade, and highly toxic, with the ability to affect organic matter on a molecular level, radioactive fallout— like pesticides—embodied a modern environmental threat to the Earth.

“Brighter than a Thousand Suns”. Under the auspices of the Manhattan Engineer District—a covert U.S. government undertaking—an international cadre of scientists detonated the world's first nuclear weapon at a remote location near Alamogordo, New Mexico, on 16 July 1945. Directed by the acclaimed U.S. physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer and overseen by U.S. General Leslie R. Groves, the Manhattan Project met its founding mission: to deliver an operational nuclear device before Nazi Germany could attain nuclear capability.

Groves oversaw the creation of a vast military-industrial complex, including the secret cities of Los Alamos, New Mexico; Oak Ridge, Tennessee; and Hanford, Washington. Delayed by an unforeseen thunderstorm, the Trinity test began at 5:29:45 A.M. On observing the gigantic mushroom cloud of radioactive vapor drifting upward into the sky, Oppenheimer quoted the Hindu sacred text, Bhagavad-Gita: "I am become death, the shatterer of worlds." He also described the light of the blast as "brighter than a thousand suns." The invention of the atomic bomb was commonly equated with the attainment of a new level of mastery over nature.

On 6 August 1945, a U.S. Army Air Corps B-29 bomber dropped the second nuclear bomb, nicknamed "Little Boy," on the Japanese city of Hiroshima in an attempt to swiftly bring about the end of World War II. On 9 August 1945, a similar bomb, nicknamed "Fat Man," exploded over Nagasaki. Japan surrendered five days later. By the end of 1946, 140,000 had died as a result of the bombing of Hiroshima, with 70,000 deaths in Nagasaki. Both cities suffered extensive damage from the initial blast wave and from subsequent fires.

Atomic Testing in the 1950s. Large-scale nuclear testing in the 1950s reflected Cold War rivalries. Only gradually came recognition of the environmental and humanitarian implications of such testing. The Soviet Union successfully detonated its first nuclear device at the Semipalatinsk test site in Kazakhstan on 29 August 1949. Semipalatinsk served, as did Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean, as a center for Soviet testing, with 456 and 130 detonations at these two sites (of a total of 715 tests).

Environmental concerns remained of secondary importance to concerns of national defense. Military observers rarely used respirators. Soldiers searched highly radioactive debris for dosimeters and mementos. Residents of towns closest to the proving grounds received scant warnings of impending danger. In an attempt to catch up with developments in the United States, the Russian Ministry of Atomic Energy (Minatom) accelerated its testing program. The Soviets detonated their largest nuclear device—a 50-megaton bomb—over Novaya Zemlya on 30 October 1961.

In the United States the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) acquired the Nevada Proving Ground for testing purposes in 1951. Originally a 906-square-kilometer stretch of desert, the proving ground (from 1955 onward known as the "Nevada Test Site" [NTS]) encompassed 3,500 square kilometers by 1967, making it larger than the state of Rhode Island.

Conceptions of the arid American West as an open, remote wasteland suited nuclear testing purposes. On 27 January 1951, the AEC commenced its first series of atmospheric nuclear tests at the NTS. From October 1951, troops engaged in combat maneuvers following nuclear detonations, talcing sorties dose to ground zero. Scientists conducted experiments to measure the impact of blasts on military equipment and penned pigs in the path of shock waves to assess radiation burns. The destruction of "doomtowns"—makeshift houses occupied by mannequins—gave some indication of the danger posed by nuclear war to communities.

The ability of nuclear weapons to fundamentally transform landscapes also led to experiments into their peaceful application. Project Plowshare posited the idea of using nuclear explosives to irrigate deserts, forge harbors, and even carve a new Panama Canal. In 1962 a 104-kiIoton device created a crater 97 meters deep and 400 meters in diameter at the NTS. However, Project Plowshare met with critieism for its insensitivity to issues of environmental contamination and was abandoned.

The AEC also used the western Pacific Ocean for testing in the late 1940s and early 1950s. In March 1954 a hydrogen bomb code-named "Bravo" was detonated at Bikini Atoll. Resulting radioactive debris blew onto the Marshall Islands, causing nausea, burns, and hair loss among residents. The crew members of a Japanese trawler, the Luckу Dragon, who were searching for fish in the region, also suffered radiation sickness. Fish stocks taken to Japan were found to be radioactive.

As radioactive rain fell over New York State and scientists discovered traces of the carcinogen strontium 90 in milk, concern grew over the environmental risks of testing. In 1958 the U.S, ecologist Barry Commoner helped form the St. Louis Committee for Nuclear Information with the hope of alerting the public to the dangers of radioactive contamination.

Americans gradually became more familiar with the concept of nuclear fallout thanks to the efforts of concerned scientists and education programs. In schools, the affable Bert the Turtle instructed children to "duck and cover" in case of nuclear attack. Deteriorating U.S.-Soviet relations raised the specter of nuclear war and spurred a boom in sales of fallout bunkers. Meanwhile, popular B- movies such as Them! framed the nuclear threat in terms of mutation and unnaturalness, predicting that radiation would spawn a phantasmagoria of monsters.

Despite the Lucky Dragon incident, the Pacific remained a center for experimentation for the world's nuclear powers. Britain conducted tests off the coast of Australia and at Christmas Island between 1952 and 1958. France relocated its nuclear program to Polynesia after an Algerian test spread fallout across the Iberian Peninsula in 1960.

The proliferation of tests, coupled with rising concern over environmental effects, led to the signing of the Partial (Limited) Nuclear Test Ban Treaty by representatives of the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain in Moscow on 5 August 1963. The treaty prohibited nuclear tests in water, the atmosphere, and in outer space due to the danger of radioactive fallout moving beyond sovereign boundaries. Nations responded by moving tests underground.