3. Memorandum From the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs (Bundy) to President Kennedy0
Seaborg, Wiesner, and I have asked for a short meeting on Friday.1
The problem is this: in the last year of the Eisenhower Administration, AEC conducted a series of ingenious and illuminating experiments involving explosions of a few hundred pounds of chemicals, with very small—but rapid—nuclear reactions as one element of them. These nuclear reactions were miniature versions of a real atomic explosion, but with a force not to exceed ten pounds of chemical explosives—and in fact [Page 9] the actual levels involved have been of less than one-pound force. Still, because it was felt that these experiments might be denounced by the Soviets—or others—as clandestine “atomic tests,” their existence was kept very secret. And to give you a free hand in the matter, they were suspended on January 18th.
Seaborg and Wiesner think they should be renewed. Rusk and McCloy concur, and so do I. These experiments may lead to real improvements in nuclear weapons—in particular they may help to improve the range or power of such a weapon as Polaris by showing the safe way to a more efficient warhead. It has always been the U.S. position that weapons development must continue actively even while atomic tests were suspended, and we do not believe that these small explosions, overwhelmingly chemical in character, can properly be called atomic tests in the common meaning of the phrase—there is no mushroom cloud here, by a long sight.
There does exist the possibility that news of this activity will leak out, and we believe it will be important, in this event, to explain the matter promptly, accurately, and with no sense of guilt. The attached statement2 aims to produce this result, and we think it should be held for use by Seaborg as needed.
At the same time, we think the very hush-hush atmosphere around these experiments should gradually be lifted; it is not sound to act as if this were a guilty secret when our conviction is that it is an innocent one. We also believe it should become a part of our Geneva position to urge that “atomic explosions” be clearly defined as involving a lot more power than such experiments as these. This matter is under discussion with McCloy.
The only real alternative is to stop these experiments for many months, because if we do not start them before Geneva, it will probably be politically unwise to make a new decision to approve them while Geneva talks are going on. But if we put them off—till fall—we not only slow up possible improvements in needed weapons, we also discourage the talented group of research men at Livermore, perhaps to the point of breakup, and we increase the chance that some disgruntled weaponeer will leak the story in a damaging way.
[Page 10]We do not pretend that our recommendation is without risk. These experiments will be attacked by some ardent disarmers in our own country if they become known, and the Soviet Union will be able to join in if it chooses. But on balance we think the course we suggest is right—the alternative looks worse.3
- Source: Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Nuclear Weapons, Testing, February-April 1961. Top Secret.↩
- February 10.↩
- Not printed.↩
- According to a journal kept by Seaborg, he, Bundy, and Wiesner discussed the matter with the President at a meeting in the White House on February 10, and “obtained the President’s approval for continuation of the experiments that we were interested in.” (Glenn T. Seaborg, Journal of Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman, U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, 1961-1971, vol. 1, pp. 11-12. Seaborg kept a handwritten journal that he edited into a typescript in 1985. It is the edited, typed version that appears in the published Journal.)↩
- Printed from a copy that bears these typed initials.↩