Steven Aftergood: Once Upon a Time the US Led the World in Negotiating a Reduction in Nukes
Once upon a time, the government of the United States sought ways and means to achieve negotiated reductions in stockpiles of nuclear weapons through the verified destruction of such weapons.
In 1965, US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur J. Goldberg presented what was known as the "Transfer" proposal, under which the U.S. would transfer 60,000 kilograms of weapons grade uranium to nonweapons uses if the Soviet Union would transfer 40,000 kilograms. Each country would destroy existing nuclear weapons to make these materials available.
In order to assess whether nuclear weapons could be verifiably destroyed for this purpose without disclosing sensitive design information, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Defense Department conducted a field test of the process in summer 1967.
The field test was part of a program known as "Cloud Gap," a remarkable government initiative established in 1963 "to test the feasibility of hypothetical arms control and disarmament measures."
The 1967 Cloud Gap Field Test-34 was "an investigation of the demonstration of the destruction of nuclear weapons by visual observation, use of radiation detection equipment, inspection of X-ray plates of weapons, and laboratory analyses of the resulting fissionable material."
The field test, which was documented in more than a thousand pages, did in fact identify weaknesses in the protection of classified information and in the ability of inspectors to distinguish real weapons from decoys. The final report on the test, however, also noted ways in which these weaknesses could be mitigated.
Today, Cloud Gap Field Test-34 is scarcely a footnote in the history of nuclear weapons and national security, a road not taken.
Yet in its unusual dedication to the empirical testing of policy options, Cloud Gap may still have something to teach.
An assortment of Cloud Gap documents obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, including the Final Report on Field Test-34, may be found here:
Read entire article at Project on Government Secrecy Volume 2005, Issue No. 85
In 1965, US Ambassador to the United Nations Arthur J. Goldberg presented what was known as the "Transfer" proposal, under which the U.S. would transfer 60,000 kilograms of weapons grade uranium to nonweapons uses if the Soviet Union would transfer 40,000 kilograms. Each country would destroy existing nuclear weapons to make these materials available.
In order to assess whether nuclear weapons could be verifiably destroyed for this purpose without disclosing sensitive design information, the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency and the Defense Department conducted a field test of the process in summer 1967.
The field test was part of a program known as "Cloud Gap," a remarkable government initiative established in 1963 "to test the feasibility of hypothetical arms control and disarmament measures."
The 1967 Cloud Gap Field Test-34 was "an investigation of the demonstration of the destruction of nuclear weapons by visual observation, use of radiation detection equipment, inspection of X-ray plates of weapons, and laboratory analyses of the resulting fissionable material."
The field test, which was documented in more than a thousand pages, did in fact identify weaknesses in the protection of classified information and in the ability of inspectors to distinguish real weapons from decoys. The final report on the test, however, also noted ways in which these weaknesses could be mitigated.
Today, Cloud Gap Field Test-34 is scarcely a footnote in the history of nuclear weapons and national security, a road not taken.
Yet in its unusual dedication to the empirical testing of policy options, Cloud Gap may still have something to teach.
An assortment of Cloud Gap documents obtained by the Federation of American Scientists, including the Final Report on Field Test-34, may be found here: