Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing
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Battlefi eld of the Cold War The Nevada Test Site Volume I Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing 1951 - 1963 United States Department of Energy Of related interest: Origins of the Nevada Test Site by Terrence R. Fehner and F. G. Gosling The Manhattan Project: Making the Atomic Bomb * by F. G. Gosling The United States Department of Energy: A Summary History, 1977 – 1994 * by Terrence R. Fehner and Jack M. Holl * Copies available from the U.S. Department of Energy 1000 Independence Ave. S.W., Washington, DC 20585 Attention: Offi ce of History and Heritage Resources Telephone: 301-903-5431 DOE/MA-0003 Terrence R. Fehner & F. G. Gosling Offi ce of History and Heritage Resources Executive Secretariat Offi ce of Management Department of Energy September 2006 Battlefi eld of the Cold War The Nevada Test Site Volume I Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing 1951-1963 Volume II Underground Nuclear Weapons Testing 1957-1992 (projected) These volumes are a joint project of the Offi ce of History and Heritage Resources and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Acknowledgements Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing, Volume I of Battlefi eld of the Cold War: The Nevada Test Site, was written in conjunction with the opening of the Atomic Testing Museum in Las Vegas, Nevada. The museum with its state-of-the-art facility is the culmination of a unique cooperative effort among cross-governmental, community, and private sector partners. The initial impetus was provided by the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation, a group primarily consisting of former U.S. Department of Energy and Nevada Test Site federal and contractor employees. The foundation worked with the Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration, the State of Nevada, and a local non-profi t, the Desert Research Institute, to bring to fruition a mixed-use, public outreach facility that benefi ts all concerned parties. The facility houses the museum, the Department’s public reading room and Nuclear Testing Archive, and offi ce space utilized partially for cultural resources/historic preservation activities at the Nevada Test Site. Similarly, Atmospheric Nuclear Weapons Testing represents a unique collaboration between the Atomic Testing Museum and two headquarters offi ces and a fi eld offi ce of the Department of Energy. The Atomic Testing Museum provided the original inspiration for the project and access to museum artifacts and photographs. The Department’s National Nuclear Security Administration provided funding for researching and printing the history. The Nevada Site Offi ce offered support and resources throughout the researching and writing of the history. The Offi ce of History and Heritage Resources of the Department’s Executive Secretariat researched and wrote the history. Terrence R. Fehner is a senior historian and the Department’s Deputy Federal Preservation Offi cer working in the Offi ce of History and Heritage Resources. F.G. Gosling is the Department’s Chief Historian and Federal Preservation Offi cer. The authors wish to thank the many individuals who offered comments, support, and assistance. They made this work possible and helped make it a better and more complete history. Darwin Morgan served as the primary point of contact for the Nevada Site Offi ce and the National Nuclear Security Administration. Michael W. Brown of the Nevada Site Offi ce also provided assistance. At the Atomic Testing Museum, Director William G. Johnson provided full access to the museum resources and responded promptly and completely to all requests by the authors. Vanya Scott and Maggie Smith of the museum were unstinting in offering their time and effort. Without the constant support of Troy Wade, former assistant secretary for defense programs at the Department and president/chairman of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation, this history would not have been written. iii Martha DeMarre at the Department’s Nuclear Testing Archive in Las Vegas and her staff, especially Jeff Gordon, Bob Furlow, and Terry Wade, provided the authors with hundreds of unpublished documents, newspaper articles, and reports. They were the primary source for the photographs used in this history. They also offered sound advice on further avenues of research. Janice Langley and Richard Reed at the Remote Sensing Laboratory helped locate photographs and processed our requests for high resolution copies. The Department’s Offi ce of Classifi cation and Information Control reviewed the draft manuscript for security purposes and confi rmed it to be unclassifi ed. Too many of the offi ce staff had a hand in the review to allow the authors to name them all. They also offered helpful suggestions for improving the manuscript. Barbara Killian and John Hopkins of the Los Alamos National Laboratory reviewed the manuscript for content and offered the authors many helpful corrections and suggestions. Others who assisted the authors in obtaining research materials and photographs include Heidi Palombo and Helen Criares at the Department’s Energy Technology Visuals Collection; John Flower, Dan Comstock, and Alan Carr at the Los Alamos National Laboratory; Maxine Trost and Beret Ranelletti at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory; Sharon Theobald, Janet Ortiz, and Lois Cooper at the Defense Threat Reduction Information Analysis Center; Eric Green at the Civil Defense Museum; Amy Beth Bennett at the Las Vegas Sun; Mike Femyer at Broadcasting 101; Alan Barnett and Doug Misner at the Utah History Research Center; and Kathryn Totton at the Special Collections Department of the University of Nevada, Reno Libraries. The Department’s graphics and printing offi ces provided advice and input throughout the process of turning the manuscript into a printed document. Jennifer Johnson of the Offi ce of History and Heritage Resources edited the manuscript, produced the layout and graphics, and advised the authors on the many things—big and little—needed for seeing the manuscript through publication. Finally, the authors would like to thank Jim Solit, director of the Department’s Executive Secretariat, for his steadfast support of the Offi ce of History and Heritage Resources and its staff. iv Table of Contents Maps of the Nevada Test Site ...................................................................................................... vi Introduction: Operation Big Shot, April 22, 1952 ........................................................................ 1 Part I: Origins of the Nevada Test Site ....................................................................................... 9 Part II: Early Atmospheric Testing, 1951-1952 ............................................................................. 45 Part III: The Trials and Tribulations of Atmospheric Testing, 1953-1954 .................................. 87 Part IV: Atmospheric Testing in the Balance, 1955-1956 ............................................................. 123 Part V: Atmospheric Testing Comes to a Close, 1957-1958 .......................................................... 153 Epilogue: From Moratorium to Atmospheric Test Ban Treaty, 1958-1963 .................................. 195 Appendix: United States Nuclear Tests, 1945-1958 ...................................................................... 203 Acronyms and Abbreviations ....................................................................................................... 221 Endnotes ...................................................................................................................................... 223 v Location of the Nevada Test Site and surrounding communities. Source: DOE, NNSA-Nevada Site Offi ce. vi vii goggles to view the burst, while others were told Introduction to turn away and shield their eyes. At the top of the Nob stood one of four television cameras prepared to broadcast the test to an anticipated Operation Big Shot, audience of millions of viewers nationwide. Special April 22, 1952 arrangements made by Klaus Landsberg of KTLA, a Los Angeles television station (relatively close-by Las Vegas as yet having none), to provide pictures direct from the site using still primitive technology were, one reporter noted, “almost heroic.” To the north of News Nob, some 1,700 soldiers were positioned in fi ve-foot-deep trenches 7,000 yards from ground zero, the closest by nearly half that any observer had ever been to a nuclear test. A thousand yards out, rockets, whose smoke trails would measure blast pressures, stood ready to be launched remotely only seconds before the blast. The B-50 bomber that would deliver the nuclear device, meanwhile, circled in a clockwise orbit at Charlie promised to be a “Big Shot,” as the an altitude 30,000 feet above the Yucca Flat target press dubbed the nation’s twenty-fi fth nuclear area.1 weapons test. With a projected explosive yield equivalent to thirty-three kilotons of TNT, Charlie would be the largest test conducted to date at the Surrounding ground zero stood an array of Nevada Proving Ground, formerly—and again to experiments for measuring Charlie’s blast, thermal, be—the Nevada Test Site. Charlie also was big in and radiation effects on a variety of inanimate the sense that for the fi rst time a nuclear weapons and animate objects. Trucks and tanks, some 35 test would be held as an “open” shot that allowed parked aircraft, and numerous other pieces of a signifi cant degree of public access. For the fi rst military equipment and ordnance were placed at varying distances out from the detonation point time, as well, ground and airborne troops would