Word: megatonic
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Environmentalists predicted earthquakes or other disasters when the Atomic Energy Commission exploded a one-megaton nuclear device on Alaska's Amchitka Island in 1969. In fact, the feared mishap did not occur. Now the AEC is back for another round, and so are the environmentalists...
...Helsinki this summer, they will at last have something solid to discuss. One serious obstacle to an arms-limitation treaty had been overcome. In past talks, the U.S. had insisted upon putting a ceiling on both offensive and defensive nuclear weapons; it was especially fearful of the huge, 25-megaton Soviet S59 intercontinental ballistic missile, which is capable of destroying U.S. Minuteman sites. The Soviets, on the other hand, wanted to concentrate on a reduction of defensive weapons only-anti-ballistic missiles that would protect U.S. ICBMs against Russian attack. Now Washington and Moscow linked the two types of weapons...
...land-based ICBMs, submarine-carried missiles, airborne bombs) that either side would be allowed to maintain. The suggested ceiling: 1,900. There would also be a "sub-limit" prohibiting the Soviets from assembling more than, say, 250 missiles in the size range of the huge SS-9, whose 25-megaton warheads can wipe out U.S. ICBMs even in the hardest silos. As part of the total U.S. package, the American delegation last year proposed that ABM systems be either banned outright or limited to the defense of Moscow and Washington...
...Megaton Monster. Behind the pessimism is the deep distrust with which the U.S. and the Soviet Union view each other's proposals. The U.S. plan contemplates a comprehensive limit on both offensive and defensive weaponry. It calls for a numerical limit of about 1,900 delivery vehicles for each side. The exact mix within that limit would be left to each power to decide. Within the quantitative limit, each side could make a number of qualitative improvements on existing weapons systems...
...plan did not appeal to Moscow on several counts. To begin with, it proposed a special limit on the Soviet S59 rocket, a 25-megaton monster (v. five megatons for the largest American ICBM). In addition, the U.S. plan did not include Europe-based U.S. and NATO bombers or Sixth Fleet aircraft, though they are capable of striking targets within the Soviet Union...