Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists articles from November 1995

Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists archives from November 1995

A fine madness. (goal of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists)(Editorial)
November 1, 1995... The first issue of the Bulletin--then called the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists of Chicago--was a six-page newsletter dated December 10, 1945. That was 50 years ago, a long span for the publishing business, a field with a high mortality rate....

A challenge for the 21st century. (reducing the number of nuclear weapons)(Column)
November 1, 1995... In December 1945 I was 29 years old and testifying before the U.S. Senate on how nuclear energy, under civilian control, could benefit the world, not destroy it. As I began, Sen. Warren Austin leaned over and asked me, "How old are you?" This was...

"Fairy tales" in Munich. (case involving the sale of Russian plutonium in Germany)
November 1, 1995... When three men accused of smuggling Russian plutonium into Germany went on trial this summer, the German government, the Bavarian state government, and German criminal and intelligence agencies all denied that the perpetrators had been taken in...

Senate says yes, maybe. (ballistic missile defense expenditures)
November 1, 1995... On September 6, the Senate voted overwhelmingly--85-13--to devote $3.8 billion to the development of a ballistic missile defense. But how sincerely many senators support the actual deployment of a new "Star Wars" system is subject to debate. The...

Do it better and smarter. (arms control)(Column)
November 1, 1995... The fiftieth anniversary of the Bulletin comes at an uncertain time for arms control and disarmament. Extraordinary gains have been made in recent years in reducing nuclear weapon arsenals, but it is unclear whether the Clinton administration can...

Midnight never came. (how the clock on the cover of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists represented nuclear tensions)
November 1, 1995... The best known symbol of the Nuclear Age--the Bulletin's "Doomsday Clock"--had a hard-to-ignore debut. Early Bulletins were newsletters, lacking magazine-style covers. But when the June 1947 Bulletin arrived, it had a first-ever cover--a...

Dear Mr. Khrushchev. (how a Soviet physicist influenced Soviet military policy)
November 1, 1995... By the mid-1950s, policy-makers in the United States, the Soviet Union, and Britain--the three nuclear powers--feared that an unconstrained nuclear arms race might lead to disaster. In October 1958, the three nations began talks on a...

Four trillion dollars and counting. (amount of money spent on nuclear weapons since their inception during World War II) (includes related articles on sources, figures and the Nuclear Weapons Cost Study Project Committee)(Cover Story)
November 1, 1995... In the fall of 1951, Sen. Brien McMahon of Connecticut surveyed a world in which the Soviet Union and the United States had become adversaries. Crises in Europe, Greece, Iran, China, and now Korea suggested that the Russians were intent on global...

Has Iraq come clean at last? (closure of nuclear weapons program)
November 1, 1995... The past four-plus years have been frustrating for Western nuclear sleuths who have tried to get the whole story of Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The Iraqis have cooperated at times, especially when backed into a corner. But in general, they...

Massive programs, meager results. (Iraq's nuclear weapons program)
November 1, 1995... The Iraqi uranium enrichment program appears to date from the early 1980s, following the Israeli bombing of the unfinished plutonium-production reactor at Osirak. The bombing stimulated Iraqi leaders, Saddam Hussein in particular, to create a...

Picturing the Bomb: Photographs From the Secret World of the Manhattan Project.
November 1, 1995... By Rachel Fermi and Esther Samara; introduction by Richard Rhodes Harry N. Abrams, 1995 232 pages; $39.50 On page 38 of Picturing the Bomb: Photographs From the Secret World of the Manhattan Project, we see a man dressed like Santa Claus being...

The Hidden History of the Vietnam War.
November 1, 1995... by John Prados Ivan R. Dee, 1995 329 pages; $27.50 Twenty years after the end of the U.S. war in Vietnam, that bloody conflict remains "hidden" from the American people--but in an unusual and disturbing way. We are hiding it from ourselves....

In the Shadow of War: The United States Since the 1930s.
November 1, 1995... By Michael S. Sherry Yale University Press, 1995 567 pages; $35.00 Given the pride of place that America's exceptional history and destiny holds in the minds of her people, a wide, receptive audience for Michael Sherry's In the Shadow of War is...

U.S. nuclear weapon locations, 1995.
November 1, 1995... U.S. nuclear weapons are current-stored at some 33 locations in 17 states and seven foreign countries, a significant decline from just three years ago (see "Nuclear Notebook," September 1992 Bulletin). From a peak in the 1980s of roughly 24,000...

Pentagon sees the light: defense changes its policy on blinding lasers - but still continues to order them.(Column)
November 1, 1995... On Friday afternoon before the long Labor Day weekend, the Pentagon released a one-paragraph statement from Defense Secretary William Perry announcing a new policy regarding lasers. Henceforth, "the Department of Defense prohibits the use of...