Volume 1

The nature of radioactive fallout and its effects on man : Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Congress of the United States, Eighty-fifth Congress, first session on the nature of radioactive fallout and its effects on man May 27, 28, 29, and June 3, 1957.

  • United States. Congress. Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.
Date:
1957-1958
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: The nature of radioactive fallout and its effects on man : Hearings before the Special Subcommittee on Radiation of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, Congress of the United States, Eighty-fifth Congress, first session on the nature of radioactive fallout and its effects on man May 27, 28, 29, and June 3, 1957. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    or anticipated employment of nuclear weapons. To get that infor- mation we must participate on the full-scale weapons tests. To do the job, we have called upon many of the Government laboratories, and a number of the civilian laboratories to actually go into the field and to obtain the data. The Armed Forces special weapons project would then have as its job the assembling of that group of people. We actually coordinate ihat effort, and guide those people in the field to obtain the required data. Chairman Duruam. You tell the weapons division at Los Alamos or Livermore the type of weapons you want? Dr. Suerron. It is usually not that way. More nearly the case is that they are detonating a particular type of weapon in the process of development. In a more normal case, we would be aware of that type of weapon and need for information from that type of weapon. We do not tell them the type of weapon. Chairman DurHam. You suggest through the military channels what type of weapon you desire. Isn’t that the procedure. That is, for whatever size mission ? Dr. Sueitron. Yes, sir. There are broad characteristics required by the Department of Defense in the weapons which eventually would be stockpiled. Chairman DurHam. What part do you take in evaluating the tests after they have already been completed ? Dr. Surtron. When a test has been completed and we have ob- tained the data in the field, AFSWP continues to monitor the agen- cies that have taken that data, and in the final production of the reports. One of our largest functions is production of final test reports, on the effects, and not the development of weapons. Chairman DurHam. Do you go into the hazard at all of the radia- tion fallout or does that rest entirely in the laboratories? Dr. Suetron. Our large participation in fallout has been pretty well confined to the local fallout. For instance, in the last Pacific tests, we did document many thousands of square miles of the ocean. It was the AFSWP that documented the local fallout in the last Pacific tests. Chairman DurHam. Do you have any contact with NATO or the Far Eastern organization SEATO? Dr. Suxuron. In addition to obtaining the information on weapons effects, we do transmit to the services that type of information in various publications. Those various publications are distributed to the American portion of NATO. Of course, there is the classification problem again. Typically one of our best known publications is one called Capabilities of Atomic Weapons. This is a compilation of the effects as we best know them. That is distributed to all of the Armed Forces of the United States. Representative Horirietp. Dr. Shelton, do you have or can you present to the committee an unclassified list of the tests which we have held and an estimate of the radioactive mission of those tests? Is that permitted ? | Dr. SHeiron. You are asking for a compilation of the tests in chronological order, and you are asking for the amount of radiation produced on those tests?