Friday, Oct. 3, 2003 | 11:24 a.m.
The aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and President Bush's push to resume underground nuclear testing at the Nevada Test Site have rekindled interests in the Cold War and atomic issues, experts say.
Officials of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation hope that renewed interest will one day make their new Atomic Testing Museum one of Southern Nevada's most popular attractions with a projected 800,000 visitors a year.
Although the museum in the Frank H. Rogers Science and Technology building on the Desert Research Institute campus at 755 E. Flamingo Road is still a year away from opening, tours for foundation members begin Saturday of the unfinished 8,000-square-foot facility that will resemble segments of the Test Site past and present.
Also on Saturday, the Francis Gary Powers Jr. Cold War exhibit will begin its nine-month run in the adjacent 2,000-square-foot exhibit hall. Today at 5 p.m., the three-story, 66,000-square-foot, $13.1 million Rogers building will be dedicated. Federal and state money combined with private donations paid for the building.
"When the museum is completed, we will show the world what this all meant -- how the Test Site was a piece of world history in our community and how our community was a part of world history," said Arthur H. Wolf, director of the Atomic Testing Museum and co-founder of the Nevada Museums Association.
"A (University of Nevada, Las Vegas) study says it is possible we will get as many as 800,000 visitors a year, which would make the museum second only to Hoover Dam as Southern Nevada's most popular attraction."
Wolf says there is little question that current events have increased interest in the Cold War and what went on at the Test Site, 65 miles north of Las Vegas -- a facility that in its half-century of operation has employed more than 100,000 workers, including a current staff of about 3,500.
"There is only one Test Site, and so many people cannot go to it," Wolf said. "But they will be able to come here and get a real feel for it."
The Nevada Test Site, located 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas, was one of the most secret battle grounds of the Cold War. In 41 years of testing that ended in 1992, 928 nuclear weapons were detonated in the air and beneath the surface.
Interest in the Test Site waned when the previous President Bush put a moratorium on nuclear weapons tests in October 1992. The voluntary test ban in the dying days of the Cold War, came two years after Russia halted its nuclear tests.
In the 11 years since the moratorium, the United States has tried to halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons worldwide, saying its own cessation of testing demonstrates America's sincerity to put an end to the nuclear threat.
After the al-Qaida attacks on the United States, however, the current President Bush began pushing to develop new nuclear weapons at the Test Site, a move that sparked debate on Capitol Hill.
The Bush administration requested $70 million to study and develop new types of nuclear weapons and to shorten the time it would take to resume tests at the Test Site from the current three years to a proposed 18 months.
Proponents say that in the wake of efforts by Iran, North Korea and others to build bunkers deep underground to evade conventional U.S. weapons, nuclear bombs may be the only way to reach them or serve as an effective threat to those nations' biological and chemical weapons.
"I support the president because I think we've had enough from terrorists and the nations that support them," said Al O'Donnell, 81, who worked at the Test Site from 1951 to 1968, was in charge of detonations and today is a proponent of the museum as an educational tool for youth.
"America's interest in the Test Site and Cold War has escalated since Sept. 11. Many of us feel that if the terrorists are going to get real nasty we have to get nasty too and utilize testing to make sure our arsenal is ready. I don't think people object as much today to nuclear testing as they once did."
In the midst of the Korean War in 1950, President Harry Truman signed a letter that created the Test Site for continental nuclear weapons experiments because the war in the Pacific hindered nuclear tests on remote islands.
The Test Site's primary mission is to stand ready to test nuclear weapons, but the Department of Energy -- the Test Site's manager -- has no current plans to revive underground testing, officials said.
Since 1992, weapons have been tested in non-detonating experiments at the Test Site. Such tests are called subcritical and primarily involve measuring the effects of explosives on plutonium, computer simulations and lab experiments that tell scientists when old components in weapons should be replaced to keep them effective.
The United States has signed three treaties designed to limit nuclear testing: One in 1963 to stop above ground and underwater tests, one in 1974 to limit tests to less than 15 kilotons. In 1996 the nation's representatives agreed to halt all tests. That treaty was never ratified by the Senate but is abided by, nonetheless.
Powers' father, Francis Gary Powers, was the pilot of a U-2 plane that was shot down on May 1, 1960, while spying on the Soviet Union. That intensified the Cold War. The younger Powers has long said Americans should not have assumed that the demise of the Soviet Union meant the end of potential threats.
In an Oct. 8, 1997, Sun story, Powers Jr., warned that the Cold War was not over and that it's now "the United States vs. any country with nuclear capabilities. There are more dangers not knowing who our foe is."
In town this week setting up his display for the Atomic Testing Museum exhibit, Powers, a former Las Vegan whose mother has long resided here, said interest in the Cold War has definitely been rekindled by current events.
"All of a sudden there is Sept. 11 and we are longing for the good ol' days of the Cold War," said Powers.
"Sept. 11 showed Americans the importance of learning from our history. We see that the roots of terrorism were forming during the Cold War. And so now there is more interest than ever in learning more about the Cold War."
Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who will deliver a videotaped address at tonight's dedication ceremony, said the accomplishments of the Test Site were a vital component for the United State's success during troubled times.
"Many of us believe the Test Site was the main deterrent to the Soviets and led to the winning of the Cold War," Reid said Thursday. "The museum could be a great educational resource for all Americans."
Reid called Bush's request to reduce time for readying the Test Site "totally appropriate," but a vote taken a month ago to provide funding for that request was defeated. Reid does not doubt that Bush could resurrect the matter.
"What the Cold War proved to me is that a nation that is weak in the military is more likely to be involved in military engagement," Reid said. "We were very strong and the Soviets were strong so there was a mutual deterrent. We stared each other down until they (Russia) could no longer afford to do so."
Reid and Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., in February introduced a bill to have the Test Site and other local sites that played a role in the Cold War considered national historic landmarks.
Reid said the contributions of the Test Site, the Fallon Naval Air Station and the Air Warfare Center at Nellis Air Force Base should be recognized as well as the Mount Charleston site of a 1955 plane crash that killed 14 scientists who were en route to build a spy plane at the infamous Area 51.
While that bill plods through the system, officials of the Atomic Testing Museum hope to open in late 2004 with a fascinating -- and complete -- journey through the history of nuclear testing in Nevada.
Nevada Test Site Museum Foundation Chairman Troy Wade worked at the Test Site from 1958 to 1989 and was its one-time manager. He said the museum will feature many hands-on interactive exhibits.
"Visitors can push buttons and individuals such as Dr. Edward Teller (the father of the hydrogen bomb) will appear on a plasma screen and talk about the Test Site," Wade said.
"Also, anti-nuclear protesters will appear on screens giving their opinions. The protesters were just as much a part of the history of the Test Site as anything else. We want to tell the complete story."
Wade and Wolf said what won't be part of the story told at the Atomic Testing Museum is the proposed nuclear waste repository at Yucca Mountain.
"It is not part of the Test Site's history," Wolf said. "However, because the museum will be growing and changing, one day, when the U.S. government and Nevada finally define what Yucca Mountain will be, then we may add an additional exhibit to the museum."
The museum currently features a few artifacts, including the George Wackenhut Guard Shack -- a replica of a Test Site guard station that serves as the museum's box office -- a piece of pipe from Area 12 that is so huge a person can walk through it and a one-fifth scale replica of a detonation chamber.
On Saturday, members of the Nevada Test Site Historical Foundation will be the only ones permitted to tour the unfinished museum. Memberships, ranging in price from $30 to $5,000, will be on sale. Those tours end Oct. 31.
The Powers exhibit in the adjacent hall will be free to everyone and will be open until the end of June.
The museum is affiliated with the Smithsonian Institution, and other exhibits include non-nuclear weapons testing accomplishments such as the development of fiber optics, fast cameras, renewable energy and the moon rover.
As visitors leave the museum, the final displays they will see are a chunk of the Berlin Wall and large fragment of rubble from the World Trade Center -- a haunting reminder, Wade said, of what not being prepared for defense means.
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