Description
Book SynopsisThe seismologist Lynn R. Sykes, a central figure in the development of the science and technology of nuclear test monitoring, has dedicated his career to halting nuclear testing.
Silencing the Bomb tells the inside story behind scientists’ quest for disarmament in a tale of intrigue, international politics, and science used for the global good.
Trade ReviewLynn R. Sykes has a long record of using seismology to study the important question of how to differentiate nuclear explosions from earthquakes. That experience makes him uniquely qualified to present this cautionary tale about the sclerotic process by which well-founded scientific insight filters its way into the politically loaded formulation of national policy-particularly defense policy. -- Daniel Davis, Stony Brook University
Table of ContentsAcknowledgments
Introduction
1. A Hurried Trip to Moscow in 1974 to Negotiate the Threshold Nuclear Test Ban Treaty
2. Development and Testing of Nuclear Weapons
3. From the Early Negotiations to Halt Nuclear Testing to the Limited Test Ban Treaty of 1963
4. Attempts to Hide Nuclear Tests: The Big-Hole Evasion Scheme
5. U.S. Overestimation of Sizes of Soviet Underground Explosions: 1961–1974
6. New Methods to Identify Underground Tests: 1963–1973
7. Congressional Hearings on a Comprehensive Test Ban
8. Peaceful Nuclear Explosions
9. Heated Controversies Over Yields of Soviet Tests and an Unsuccessful Attempt at a CTBT
10. Continued Debate About Yields, Accusations of Soviet Cheating on the Threshold Treaty, and Its Entry Into Force
11. Renewed Interest in a CTBT, the OTA Report, and the Group of Scientific Experts: 1979–1996
12. Dealing with “Problem” or “Anomalous” Events in the USSR and Russian Republic: 1972–2009
13. Negotiating the Comprehensive Test Ban: Global Monitoring, 1993–2016
14. Monitoring Nuclear Tests Sites and Countries of Special Concern to the United States
15. Senate Rejection of the CTBT in 1999
16. The CTBT Task Force and the 2002 and 2012 Reports of the National Academies
17. Strategic Nuclear Weapons: Soviet and U.S. Parity
18. Nuclear War, False Alarms, Accidents, Arms Control, and Ways Forward
Glossary and Abbreviations
References
Index
