Word: cannikin
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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...dull black cylinder on a mock Spartan anti-ballistic missile waited buried an incredible 6,000 feet beneath tiny Amchitka Island in the Aleutians. The signal was given and in one-tenth of a millionth of a second, Cannikin, code name for the most powerful underground nuclear test ever held by the U.S., exploded with the force of 5 million tons of TNT. TIME Correspondent Karsten Prager reported from the command bunker on Amchitka that half a second after detonation the earth heaved upward, hiding the test site in a curtain of dust and water, and aftershocks rumbled...
Solit Decision. The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, representing a coalition of environmental and peace groups hastily organized to oppose Cannikin, launched a legal challenge against the Atomic Energy Commission in July. The case seesawed through the federal courts until critical environmental reports were released. Then the appeal for a hearing to halt the test went to the Supreme Court. Convening on less than a day's notice in an extraordinary Saturday session, the justices were told that they had just 1½ hours to deliberate until the uncertainty might begin to jeopardize part of the test. An hour later...
...word is go. Or, as AEC Chairman James R. Schlesinger put it, "The Atomic Energy Commission is now planning to proceed with the Cannikin test. We have received the requisite authority to go, including detonation...
...with Nixon's decision made, AEC Commissioner Schlesinger was firm: "The primary purposes of Cannikin are to proof-test the Spartan warhead . . . before large investment of funds is made on that component of the Safeguard system. Environmental damage has been exhaustively considered, and overriding requirements of national security have, of necessity, taken precedence...
...explosion last spring that U.S. monitors rate at from four to six megatons. "It became evident," Schlesinger explained, "that the Soviets were ready and eager to test high-yield weapons." In other words, the Russians were testing ABMs, recognized that the U.S. must therefore also test ABMs, and the Cannikin explosion would not jeopardize the disarmament talks, which, said Schlesinger, "are proceeding in businesslike fashion...