40. Letter from Seaborg to Bundy, August 301
As I indicated to you on the telephone, I had reduced to writing my thoughts on a plan for announcing the resumption of testing—[Typeset Page 133]should the President find it necessary to make such a decision. Actually, the plan is essentially the one that you and I talked about on one or two occasions recently, the last being on August 17, when we met with the President. There was some reference to such a plan at this meeting.
I don’t believe the development that we talked about on the telephone this evening necessarily changes what I consider to be the merit of this plan. It may affect the timing, however.
You also inquired how soon we would be able to commence, and from the way you phrased your question, I had the impression that you were more or less hoping that the answer would be that we could commence rather soon—primarily for strategic and not necessarily for technical reasons. There are certain things that we could do rather quickly—say in one or two weeks. For example, we could fire [text not declassified]. On such short notice, however, these would have to be on a “go, no-go” basis—indeed, this would be the only purpose of the test since adequate diagnostic instrumentation could not be implaced and made operative in time.
[text not declassified]
I would like to stress again, however, the penalty which we would pay if we proceed on this basis. The events that I have described above and others I have not mentioned have the advantage of early readiness, but the disadvantage of interfering with subsequent tests which are far more [Facsimile Page 2] important. As you know, there are only a limited number of underground sites now available. It is for this reason that I would suggest that consideration be given to a planned and coordinated program in accordance with the capability indicated in my letter to the Principals (Secretary Rusk) dated July 19, 1961. This program was carefully coordinated with the Department of Defense and could be commenced in about four or five weeks.
In connection with the subject of readiness, I suggest you might wish to refer back to my memorandum of August 10. I think the discussion there is still relevant in helping to understand the problems that are involved in preparing for, and conducting a meaningful series of tests.
Cordially,
- Thoughts on conducting a meaningful series of tests. Secret. 2 pp. Kennedy Library, National Security Files, Subjects Series, Nuclear Testing, 8/10/61–8/30/61.↩