Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from March 1996

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from March 1996

Bosnia needs a friend with staying power.(Column)
March 1, 1996... U.S. troops have finally joined their European partners on the ground in Bosnia. That's the good news. If effective, the NATO Implementation Force could become the model for a new pan-European security system based on the Western security...

Physicists test threshold - of tolerance. (determining what level of radioactive exposure is harmless)
March 1, 1996... The physicists - some of them at least - say they understand all about the latest findings in cellular biology, particularly the mechanism by which damaged cells repair themselves. On the other hand, some biologists say these physicists only...

Germans knew plutonium sting was "problematic."
March 1, 1996... During the course of an ongoing investigation by the Bundestag, the administration of Chancellor Helmut Kohl has continued to deny that the German government overstated the danger of nuclear smuggling in the run-up to elections in 1994, or that...

Korean reactor pact on target. (agreement to supply light-water reactors to North Korea)
March 1, 1996... A note from the Deja Vu Department: As 1995 lurched to to a close, the Korean Peninsula was in turmoil. In South Korea, charges of political corruption at the highest levels had scandalized the body politic while painfully reopening doors to...

Inching toward a ban. (use of land mines in war) (includes related article on the ban blinding laser weapons use)
March 1, 1996... It should be no surprise that the first U.S. military casualty in Bosnia was caused by a land mine; the Pentagon estimates that there are 3 - 6 million such weapons scattered across the country. That American victim joined an estimated 1,600...

U.S. signs on at last. (Treaty of Rarotonga)
March 1, 1996... A decade after the treaty was drafted, the United States, France, and Britain have finally decided to sign - "in the first half of 1996" - protocols to the South Pacific Nuclear Free Zone Treaty, commonly called the Treaty of Rarotonga. The...

The Senate's fits and START. (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty)
March 1, 1996... At the height of the Cold War, arms control negotiations and actions treaties served as a barometer of U.S. Soviet relations. Progress on treaties indicated a warming trend between the two countries; deadlock reflect deeper and broader...

Cool site of the day. (results of poll about the time setting of Doomsday clock at Internet site of magazine receive much attention)
March 1, 1996... By now you've probably heard that on December the hand of the Bulletin's "Doomsday Clock" was moved up to 14 minutes to midnight from 17 minutes to, where it had reposed since 1991. If an informal Bulletin poll is any indication, that setting is...

Behind the clock move; on December 7, the Bulletin's board listened; on the 8th, it moved the time up, to 14 minutes to midnight. (Doomsday Clock of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists) (includes related statement by the board)
March 1, 1996... The editors of the Bulletin invented the Doomsday Clock in 1947, and for the next 44 years, its core meaning was clear: Nuclear weapons were show-stoppers; the East-West nuclear arms race might lead to nuclear war and thus to the end of...

Remember your humanity.(Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech by Joseph Rotblat)(Transcript)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1996... At this momentous event in my life - the acceptance of the Nobel Peace Prize - I want to speak as a scientist, but also as a human being. From my earliest days I had a passion for science. But science, the exercise of the supreme power of the...

Peace-building in the post-Cold War world.(Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech by John P. Holdren)(Transcript)(Cover Story)
March 1, 1996... The long dark night of the Cold War has finally passed, and with its passing the peril of a global thermonuclear conflagration has substantially receded. This alleviation of the nuclear danger is unquestionably a great blessing and a proper cause...

The coming of incrementalism. (nuclear weapons policy)
March 1, 1996... No senior U.S. official or elected political leader today is prepared to make the case for a world without nuclear weapons. In the early years of the atomic age, it was a different story. The idea of nuclear disarmament had wide support and...

The U.S. can't have it both ways. (nuclear weapons)(Column)
March 1, 1996... As David Cortright's preceding article suggested, U.S. and Soviet leaders shared a schizoid attitude toward nuclear weapons. From time to time, nuclear disarmament rhetoric has surfaced. But it is just rhetoric. The reality is this: U.S. and...

Revolt of the non-aligned. (call for nuclear disarmament)
March 1, 1996... The U.N. General Assembly has been on record since its first resolution in January 1946 as calling for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons." But in a surprising development as 1995 came to a close, a majority in the General...

Nukes on trial. (World Court initiative on nuclear weapons) (includes related articles on the World Court Project and quotes from the discussion)
March 1, 1996... When the U.N. General Assembly unanimously called for "the elimination from national armaments of atomic weapons" in 1946, there was only one nuclear power and the number of atomic weapons could be counted on the fingers of one hand. Today there...

Japan needs no umbrella: instead, Japan should take the lead in establishing a nuclear-free-zone.
March 1, 1996... Since August 1945, the Japanese people have continued to nurture a strong antipathy against nuclear weapons. This feeling - often referred to as a "nuclear allergy" - is so widespread and deep-rooted in Japanese minds that it seems inconceivable...

A four-step program to nuclear disarmament.
March 1, 1996... The Cold War's end and the dangers of nuclear proliferation demand a fundamental reappraisal of the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. policy and in global politics. In the changing strategic environment, nuclear weapons are of declining value in...

Children of the Atomic Bomb.
March 1, 1996... The primal scenes of Hiroshima Nagasaki haunt us still with unresolved questions about life in a world with nuclear weapons. The science and ethics of medical studies of the survivors of these atomic bombings are illuminated by James N. Yamazaki,...

Effects of Atomic Radiation.
March 1, 1996... The primal scenes of Hiroshima Nagasaki haunt us still with unresolved questions about life in a world with nuclear weapons. The science and ethics of medical studies of the survivors of these atomic bombings are illuminated by James N. Yamazaki,...

Nuclear Wastelands: A Global Guide to Nuclear Weapons Production and Its Health and Environmental Effects.
March 1, 1996... French President Jacques Chirac's decision last year to conduct a series of nuclear tests in Polynesia indicates that even with the Cold War behind us, governments will continue playing power politics with nuclear weapons to the detriment of...

Russian (C.I.S.) strategic nuclear forces: end of 1995.
March 1, 1996... In 1995 more than 185 ballistic missiles were withdrawn from active service in the four former Soviet republics. Highlights of 1995 also include the transfer to Russia of more than 1,000 strategic warheads deployed in Ukraine, Kazakhstan, and...

The clock strikes out. (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists Doomsday Clock)(Column)
March 1, 1996... A recent National Public Radio story featured the Caltech seismologists, those sober nerds who patiently explain fault lines and magnitudes, unflappable no matter how high the Richter scale. So successful have the oracles been that most...