Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from July 1997

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from July 1997

Pugwash at 40.(40th anniversary of the Pugwash Conference on nuclear weapons)(Editorial)
July 1, 1997... THEY ARE OFTEN CALLED THE OLD GUYS AT OUR OFFICE. WE INTEND NO disrespect, we merely speak factually. The "old guys" are scientists who helped develop the atom bomb during World War II. After the war, they devoted significant portions of their...

And still champion....(U.S. military superiority is not in danger)(Editorial)
July 1, 1997... TO HEAR SOME PEOPLE TALK, U.S. ARMED forces are in danger of losing their huge technological lead over any potential enemy. In a recent book, David Shokman, a British journalist, reported the views of U.S. scientists in the defense sector...

Russia's weapons: from the bizarre to the bazaar.(publication of 'Soviet Military Power' and 'Russia's Arms Catalog')
July 1, 1997... Russia's Arms Catalog (which you'll see advertised on the back cover) is a glitzy, high-gloss, multi-volume set of books that documents the variety of superpower arms now being hustled to the world's aspiring military powers. The first four...

After the killing.(destruction of the rain forest in Guatemala)
July 1, 1997... We fell through the cloud deck at sunset, exchanging a vista of ruby cloud tops for a rolling carpet of darkening jungle in northern Guatemala. The jungle scrolled beneath the descending 737 at 300 miles an hour, uninterrupted by artificial...

Angles and loopholes.(Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty)
July 1, 1997... It took more than 40 years of on-again-off-again work to finally come up with a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTB). But last September, the ban was signed at the United Nations amid rhetorical flourishes and photo-ops. Now it is time to figure...

Treaty tactics.(arms control treaties)
July 1, 1997... After four years of half-hearted efforts, in December the administration finally went to bat for Senate ratification of the Chemical Weapons Convention, putting in place a meticulously crafted campaign. The strategy included the direct...

Let's reprocess the MOX plan.(plan to reprocess excess weapons plutonium into mixed-oxide fuel)
July 1, 1997... The Energy's Department's decision in January to "dispose" of about 50 metric tons of excess U.S. weapons plutonium by both reactor irradiation and immobilization in glass has led to considerable controversy. At the heart of the...

Portrait of a bad idea.(ballistic-missile defense programs)(Cover Story)
July 1, 1997... In a still-MAD world, U.S. ballistic-missile defense programs undercut the ABM treaty. At the conclusion of the March summit in Helsinki, the Clinton administration reported that it had achieved a set of agreements clearing the way for...

After Helsinki, the hard work.(includes summary of the highlights of the summit on Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty II)
July 1, 1997... The chief goals of the Helsinki summit last March were to bridge the gap over NATO enlargement and to encourage ratification by the Russian Duma of the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) II. Ratification had stalled because of Russian...

Who's minding the store? When it comes to nuclear weapons issues, it isn't Congress.
July 1, 1997... When it comes to nuclear weapons issues, it isn't Congress. Last July as congress was preparing to approve the 1997 nuclear weapons budget, Sen. Dale Bumpers addressed a virtually empty Senate chamber. Pete Domenici of New Mexico, the...

When money talks, Congress listens. (federal subsidies of weapons exports)
July 1, 1997... Did foreign campaign contributions distort U.S. policy? An investigation into that possibility is under way, drawing unprecedented attention to the corrosive influence of money in politics. Strangely absent from investigation, however, is the...

A Chinese puzzle.(U.S. reaction to Chinese efforts to develop a nuclear bomb)(includes related information on the CORONA spy satellite)
July 1, 1997... In the early 1960s, the questions were: How soon will China get the bomb? And should the United States strike first? Had Tom Clancy been writing techno-thrillers in the early 1960s, the nascent Chinese nuclear weapons program would have made...

Potential, not proliferation: Northeast Asia has several nuclear-capable countries, but only China has built weapons.(includes related information about statements made by North Korean defector Hwang Jang Yop)
July 1, 1997... Northeast Asia's stunning economic success has boosted personal income, improved health care, and increased life expectancy--all combined with dramatic progress toward democratization. But economic growth and increased industrial...

The Swords of Armageddon.
July 1, 1997... By Chuck Hansen Chucklea Publications, 1995 8 volumes, 2,500 pages CD-ROM, $300, microfiche, $194 The Swords of Armageddon is perhaps the largest compendium of information on nuclear weapons technology, history, and policy ever made available...

Nuclear Rites: A Weapons Laboratory at the End of the Cold War.
July 1, 1997... By Hugh Gusterson University of California Press, 1996 349 pages; $39.95 Mike Moore In the waning days of the Cold War, anthropologist Hugh Gusterson interviewed in depth dozens of nuclear weapons scientists at Lawrence Livermore...

U.S. nuclear stockpile, July 1997.
July 1, 1997... The nuclear overseers in the Pentagon and Energy Department who decide on the size and composition of the U.S. stockpile have quietly adopted a multi-tiered approach that maintains more than 10,000 intact warheads in various states of readiness,...

Leave no stone unburned.(Defense Dept.'s Integrated Data Base of military targets)(Column)
July 1, 1997... U.S. and Russian nuclear-tipped missiles, it is proudly said, have been "detargeted." Given the ease of retargeting, it is mostly spin for public consumption. Meanwhile, targeting remains a prosperous business. The motherlode of targeting...