Word: amchitka
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Like the Pentagon papers, the underground nuclear explosion at Amchitka Island raised a question about secrecy in Government. Even before Richard Nixon decided to proceed with the test, citizen opponents went to court, demanding that scientific papers relating to the decision be made public. The Administration refused, claiming that they were internal documents protected by the doctrine of executive privilege. Finally, a U.S. District Court judge ordered some of the papers released; they revealed, among other things, that the President's chief environmental adviser had warned against the test...
Since tests in the atmosphere were banned by international treaty, the new warhead would have to be tested underground. The choice fell on one of the world's most remote islands-Amchitka, near the end of Alaska's Aleutian chain-where AEC officials dug a shaft more than a mile deep, and proposed to lower the five-megaton Spartan warhead down to the bottom. All it cost was $200 million, and they anticipated no trouble...
Necessary Precedence. They were wrong. Environmentalists set up an outcry that such a massive explosion, five times as powerful as the previous Amchitka blast in 1969, might trigger an earthquake or, in case of a blowout, contaminate the area with radioactive fallout. Committees were formed, suits were filed, studies were conducted by Government agencies. Politicians, diplomats and strategists were consulted...
...President. The Canadian government expressed a "deep sense of disquiet" and, like Egan, held the Administration accountable for any aftereffects that might be caused by the explosion. Taking a more direct approach, a Canadian group chartered a minesweeper, Greenpeace, Too, and sailed from Vancouver for Amchitka, where they intended to anchor outside the three-mile limit in hopes of persuading Washington to cancel the test. Japan, Peru and Sweden have asked that the test be canceled...
...ever generated an aftershock greater than the explosion itself." Only an aftershock ten to 30 times as great as the original explosion, he said, could cause an earthquake. The minute Schlesinger got the word from Nixon, AEC workers were set to work shoveling sand, gravel and cement into the Amchitka shaft, in the "stemming" operation that is supposed to seal the explosion off from any possibility of blowout...