Group opposes non-nuclear tests on nuclear bombs in Nevada

Ken Ritter

Thursday, Jan. 11, 2001 | 8:58 a.m.

An anti-nuclear group said Wednesday that government tests at the Nevada Test Site raise troubling issues of weapons proliferation.

"Research toward making nuclear weapons more useable is not progress toward global elimination of nuclear weapons," said Andrew Lichterman, an official with the Western States Legal Foundation.

Lichterman cited government documents referring to a test tunnel in which conventional, non-nuclear explosives are used to test the effects of a new generation of nuclear bombs that are designed to bore into the earth and destroy underground targets.

Lichterman said the documents were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and the testing is being conducted under the guise of the Science-Based Stockpile Stewardship program.

Darwin Morgan, Department of Energy spokesman, said work at the test site 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas focuses on conventional, non-nuclear weapons.

Morgan said the Defense Department's has been conducting research for years at its Threat Reduction Agency research tunnel near the center of the 1,350-square-mile test site.

Lichterman said his Oakland-based foundation was releasing the unclassified material to show that the United States is continuing to hone its nuclear weapons capability despite claims that its nuclear stockpile is being reduced.

"The U.S. likes to project an image that its Stockpile Stewardship program is aimed only at maintaining its existing arsenal in a safe and reliable way," Lichterman said. "These documents show that these technologies are being used to explore ways to make nuclear weapons more useable."

He worried that the government research represents an erosion of the U.S. commitment to nuclear nonproliferation and blurs the line between conventional and nuclear warfare.

Nuclear weapons were exploded at the test site from 1951 until 1992.