The Amchitka Bomb Goes Off

THE dull black cylinder on a mock Spartan anti-ballistic missile waited buried an incredible 6,000 feet beneath tiny Amchitka Island in the Aleutians. The signal was given and in one-tenth of a millionth of a second, Cannikin, code name for the most powerful underground nuclear test ever held by the U.S., exploded with the force of 5 million tons of TNT. TIME Correspondent Karsten Prager reported from the command bunker on Amchitka that half a second after detonation the earth heaved upward, hiding the test site in a curtain of dust and water, and aftershocks rumbled to the bunker 23 miles away. Seismographs registered a shock of the magnitude of seven on the Richter scale. But neither the earthquakes nor tidal waves that opponents of the test had feared in fact happened.

Tsunami. Their protests had been the most vigorous ever lodged against nuclear testing, both in the U.S. and overseas. Environmentalists and peace groups demonstrated in front of the White House, in Alaska and in Canada. More than 30 Senators led by Massachusetts Republican Edward Brooke sent an eleventh-hour telegram to President Nixon urging him to call off the blast. The Japanese government registered official reservations over the explosion and the possibility of a tsunami, or tidal wave, hitting the Japanese islands.

In Canada, opposition swelled to a feverish anti-American pitch. Canadian newspapers were filled with articles and cartoons denouncing the Amchitka blast. A bitter parliamentary debate caused the State Department and White House to assure the Canadians that their objections had been considered. Demonstrators closed major bridges connecting Canada and Michigan for several hours. U.S. consulates were stoned. Five American-owned companies closed down operations following threats of terrorist bombings of U.S. firms.

Solit Decision. The Committee for Nuclear Responsibility, representing a coalition of environmental and peace groups hastily organized to oppose Cannikin, launched a legal challenge against the Atomic Energy Commission in July. The case seesawed through the federal courts until critical environmental reports were released. Then the appeal for a hearing to halt the test went to the Supreme Court. Convening on less than a day's notice in an extraordinary Saturday session, the justices were told that they had just 1 1/2 hours to deliberate until the uncertainty might begin to jeopardize part of the test. An hour later by a vote of 4 to 3 they issued a 51-word decision denying the injunction.

The test was necessary, the AEC maintained, to assure that the Spartan system would provide a "thin shield" defense against nuclear attack from the Chinese. Some scientists argued, however, that ABM policy and technology has left the Spartan system behind, and the AEC is testing a warhead that would never be used as designed.

Despite the government's last-minute success in court, the victory is far from complete. The furor over Cannikin is but the latest expression of citizen discontent with the relatively unchecked freedom with which weapons are commissioned, tested and deployed. In the years since World War II, there have been approximately 500 atomic-and hydrogen-bomb tests disclosed by the AEC, almost all accepted without serious challenge in Congress or across the country. Those days are clearly over.

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