United Nations: A Low-Yield Anniversary

Along Manhattan's East River, a special eleven-day session commemorating the 25th anniversary of the United Nations was just getting under way when the statesmen's words of peace were upstaged by the contrapuntal sounds of a world still preparing for doomsday. The discordant notes came from Novaya Zemlya on the Arctic Circle, from Lop Nor in China's Sinkiang province, and from the Nevada desert. For the first time since the nuclear era was born (like the U.N., just 25 years ago), the Soviet Union, Communist China and the U.S. all exploded experimental nuclear weapons...

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