Rhodes comes to the conclusion that, in addition to the obvious rivalry between the superpowers, the arms race was driven by interservice competition, scientists and industrialists promoting new technologies, defence spending as an economic engine, and the peculiar role of defence as a party political issue. Attempts to control and roll back the arms race foundered because of Soviet intransigence over what they perceived as intrusive inspections, and also because the US hawks resisted any reduction in the pace of technological advance.

Of the US hawks, Edward Teller is singled out as a force for ill throughout the thermonuclear programme. Thanks to his grandiose schemes, Teller set back the development of thermonuclear weapons by years, as Rhodes discusses in the design of the first thermonuclear bomb. Teller originally had two design ideas, the “Alarm Clock” and the “Super”. Because Alarm Clock would not have lead quickly to megaton yields, Teller became obsessed with the flawed design of Super. This led to years of frustration before physicist Stanislaw Ulam realised how important compression would be in the fusion process. The Soviet Union was not so obsessed, so Andrei Sakharov was able to design a lower yield bomb employing compression relatively quickly.

Espionage played a major role in the development of Soviet nuclear bombs as Rhodes neatly shows in his description of how the USSR shadowed the US. The contrast between the Soviet nuclear weapons programme and the well-funded Americans was stark: the Soviets were pathetically underfunded until the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and scientists worked with the fear that failure would mean the gulags.

Politics, espionage, physics, personalities and history – Rhodes has done it again. His 1986 epic The Making of the Atomic Bomb was hailed as the most comprehensive history of 20th-century physics and politics. This sequel surpasses expectations. There is some overlap, but most of the material is new and astonishing. For complete coverage, the two books should be read together.

Rhodes’s grasp of the importance of key scientific discoveries is impressive, the more so because he is not a scientist. Dark Sun shows how the history of science and technology should be written and how it should be taught.

But what about Britain? Where is our debate? Because of the US’s moratorium
on nuclear testing and because Britain carries out its nuclear tests in
Nevada, the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston has been prevented
from carrying out any tests since 1991. Now that the global nuclear test
ban negotiations in Geneva are getting down to serious business and a ban
could be achieved by March 1995, it looks increasingly likely that Britain’s
nuclear weapons designers will never be able to test their weapons again.

A complete ban on nuclear testing is a major part of the US policy to
stop the spread of nuclear weapons. Although Britain blocked all attempts
to achieve a test ban between the mid-1980s and mid-1993, the British government
now supports the American policy. This late conversion means that the Ministry
of Defence has given little thought to long-term strategies for the AWE
in a global test-ban environment. There is no public debate on the future
of Britain’s nuclear weapons designers. Unlike the US, there seems to be
little talk of Britain’s weapons laboratory producing high-tech golf balls
or building up expertise on verification of disarmament agreements.

Even at the height of the Cold War, it was never easy to recruit scientists
to Aldermaston. It takes a special kind of scientist prepared to work in
such a closed system. Most papers are highly classified and written for
a select audience. Work details are not discussed at home, the pay is lousy
and ‘contract’ work is far from secure. Now that the weapon design teams
will be restricted to computer simulation and to above-ground experimentation,
it will be harder than ever to convince bright young engineers, chemists
and physicists to enter the nuclear weapons business. The only growth in
this declining industry is in the dismantling of an aged stockpile, and
to do that job you need years of experience in building the weapons.

You may ask why this matters. Surely if the Cold War is over and we
have finished testing the Trident warhead then Britain does not need to
design any more nuclear weapons? Therefore, there is no need to test them
and thus there is no problem. This is true – and certainly there seems to
be no immediate plan to design and build any more nuclear weapons in Britain
– but Aldermaston is still charged with two tasks. The first is to keep
the current nuclear weapon stockpile safe. The second is to be ready to
design a new nuclear warhead if called upon to do so. In other words, the
government is demanding ‘business as usual’ for Aldermaston and not taking
into account the new era that we are entering.

Nuclear warhead design takes place over a period of several years. New
designs are based on the knowledge of previous designs. Almost all of the
work is done in the laboratory and engineering workshops and computers play
a major part in this process. The warheads and the explosions are modelled
using sophisticated computer codes and experiments. Until recently, once
there was enough confidence in the new design, an underground nuclear test
would be carried out in the Nevada desert. The design team would thus obtain
information on why their design did or did not work exactly as expected
and if necessary they would go back to the drawing board. The scientists
would then produce a modified design, carry out another nuclear test and
so on until the warhead was exploding in the required manner. Typically,
this process would take many years and several tests, although the collaboration
with American weapon designers has helped to speed up Britain’s programme
in comparison with, say, the French (who carry out more nuclear tests per
warhead design than the other nuclear weapons state). It was the nuclear
explosions which ‘proved’ a weapons designer’s worth. How will they cope
with not being able to test?

There are several policy options. The first is to continue what the
government is doing and carry on as though nothing has happened – that is,
expect the AWE scientists to produce new, safe warhead designs for ever
and to be able to attract new blood. The only way this can be achieved is
by spending a large portion of what was the nuclear testing budget on building
a new laser facility (which could be used by the wider academic community),
a charged particle beam facility and vastly increased computer capacity.
Aldermaston scientists could also be encouraged to carry out unclassified,
publishable research and to collaborate with the national and international
scientific communities. Only with these new toys would the AWE scientists
be able to continue to contribute to the long established information exchange
between Britain and the US, feel competent in maintaining Britain’s stockpile
and feel able, should they be ever called on, to design a new warhead.

Second is the option to do most of the above, but to insist that new
nuclear wea-pon designs are not needed for the future. The AWE would then
be charged with maintaining the current stockpile for as long as British
politicians require. This option will include the capability to remanufacture
the warheads if corrosion and the like make this necessary, so that the
stockpile can remain as it is now. It will also require Aldermaston scientists
to develop innovative ways to deal with the radioactive remains of dismantled
warheads.

A third approach – which is currently considered unacceptable by all
the political parties – is to call a halt to the British nuclear weapons
programme and, over a period of years, scale down and eventually dismantle
the arsenal. In some ways this is the most honest approach because it doesn’t
pretend that the creative minds at Aldermaston will, in the long term, be
satisfied with looking after Britain’s old nuclear arsenal and designing
warheads on the computer with little chance of ever building them and with
no chance of being able to prove their design skills by carrying out a nuclear
test explosion.

Stopping the spread of nuclear weapons is one of the most important
tasks for the world today. A global nuclear test ban is too important
in that process – both politically and technically – to allow other considerations
to dominate. But, having served successive governments in their nuclear
weapons policies for nearly 50 years, the Aldermaston scientists and engineers
deserve proper consideration of their future. And Britain needs informed
debate on the future of our nuclear weapons laboratory.

Patricia Lewis is director of the Verification Technology Information
Centre, London.

The failure to achieve consensus on a final document was due entirely
to disagreement on the issue of a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT).
This is very worrying. In 1995, the fifth and final review conference will
coincide with a meeting to decide how long the NPT should be extended. If
there is little desire for such an extension, no international means will
then exist for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons.

There have been many efforts over the years to negotiate a CTBT. In
1963, Britain, the United States and the Soviet Union set out to negotiate
such a treaty, but after 10 days of talks in Moscow merely reached agreement
to stop all above-ground nuclear tests. This Partial Test Ban Treaty has
now been ratified by 119 countries, and France and China also observe its
conditions, although they are not parties to the treaty.

Between 1977 and 1980 the three countries again tried to negotiate a
comprehensive test ban. But in 1982 the US broke off these negotiations.
For 19 months from August 1985 the Soviet Union, in an attempt to restimulate
talks, announced a unilateral moratorium on nuclear testing. However, that
move was never reciprocated by the US or the UK, and that too has now had
its day.

In addition to the trilateral talks, a continuing effort has been made
in the 40-nation Conference on disarmament in Geneva to achieve a negotiating
mandate for a CTBT. Until this year, there has been very little movement.
However, the conference has now adopted a ‘non-negotiating’ mandate to address
the possibility of a CTBT.

The US and USSR have embarked on a ‘step-by-step’ negotiation which
has so far resulted in last week’s ratification of the 1974 and Threshold
Test Ban Treaty (limiting the size of underground tests) and 1976 Peaceful
Nuclear Explosions Treaty. But the US has indicated that it does not intend
to take many more steps in these negotiations as it considers a CTBT only
as a ‘long-term goal.’

Last year, frustrated with the outcome of these various negotiations,
a group of states which have signed the 1963 Partial Test Ban decided to
exploit a clause in that treaty which allows them to call for a conference
to amend the 1963 treaty into a CTBT. Support from one-third of the parties
was needed to request such a conference, and by March 1989 that figure had
been achieved. The three ‘depository states’ (the UK, US, and the USSR)
are now required to hold this conference, which will take place in January
1991. But they also have power of veto over the amendment, should it come
to a vote.

Why has a CTBT been so elusive? There are many excuses. Difficulties
in verifying compliance has been particularly popular with the UK government.
However, recent advances in seismic detection techniques, as well as positive
changes in attitudes to on-site inspections, now means that a CTBT could
be verified – and that such excuses no longer hold water. The real reason
is that the US and UK governments do not want a test ban.

New nuclear warheads need to be tested. Despite advances in computer
simulation techniques and increased understanding of nuclear explosion phenomena,
no weapons designer would certify a new design for a nuclear warhead without
thorough testing. In July this year giving testimony to the US Senate Arms
Services Committee, Siegfied Hecker, director of the Los Alamos National
Laboratory stated clearly this belief that ‘as long as there are nuclear
weapons requirements .. nuclear testing will continue to be crucial.’

This is the crux of the issue. According to the present US and British
governments, while we have nuclear weapons we need to keep on testing and
they can’t see a time when twe won’t have nuclear weapons – therefore they
can’t see when we will have a comprehensive test ban treaty.

Such a treaty would not bring an end to the arms race. But it would
bring about an end to very new designs in nuclear warheads, and thus to
the nuclear programmes for the Strategic Defense Initiative and all the
proposed ‘third-generation’ warheads which are currently being researched.
In the light of changes in the USSR and Eastern Europe and of negotiations
on cuts in the strategic arsenals, it is increasingly harder to justify
why the nuclear powers need to carry on spending vast sums of money designing
a new and ‘improved’ nuclear weapons.

A CTBT would certainly save the nuclear weapon states a great deal of
money. An average nuclear test in Nevada is estimated to cost the US government
about $100 million (about 54 million Pounds) and a Soviet test is estimated
to cost about 20 million roubles (about 20 million Pounds)). In 1989 alone
the US carried out 12 tests and the Soviet Union 7.

Finally, a CTBT would also speed up the process of nuclear arms reductions,
and greatly strengthen the Non-Proliferation Treaty at a crucial time. In
the light of current concern over the spread of nuclear weapons to the Middle
East, the last thing anyone needs is for a Middle East country, such as
Iraq, to carry out a nulcear test. Such a test would be a trigger for a
new arms race, one which would be highly unstable and, given the relationships
between Israel and other Middle Eastern countries, could well lead to nuclear
weapons being used in war.

There is no time to lose. Experts already agree that Israel has a nuclear
capability, and that Iraq is well on the way. Both Iraq and Israel, along
with Iran, Pakistan, India, Brazil and Argentina, are parties to the Partial
Test Ban.

If this ban could be amended to a comprehensive test ban at the conference
in New York in January – and if the UK and USA could be persuaded not to
veto the amendment – all of these countries would be deterred from testing
nuclear weapons by highly intrusive verification procedures, such as in-country
seismic monitors, monitoring radioactive debris, on-site inspections and
aerial overflights. The Non-Proliferation Treaty would be saved. And nuclear
disarmament between the superpowers could continue safe in the knowledge
that the rest of the world is in there too.