The Atom: Test Quest

While the U.S. almost certainly will resume nuclear testing in the atmosphere as soon as it can get ready, one ticklish problem has remained unresolved in the two months since President Kennedy ordered the preparations to proceed: with the blasts growing bigger and the world more worried, where can the tests be held?

The old shooting grounds, Bikini and Eniwetok in the Pacific's Marshall Islands, are physically too tiny and politically too touchy for modern megatomics. Some 1,000 Micronesians live within 200 miles of Eniwetok, more than 10,000 within 600 miles. They remember...

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