September 1961 saw the breakdown of the informal nuclear testing moratorium that had lasted for most of the previous three years. The Soviet Union were the first to resume atmospheric testing on September 1, 1961. The United States would soon follow with underground testing in Nevada and atmospheric testing in the Pacific.
The resumption of nuclear testing would inaugurate a period of heightened conflict between the US and the USSR which included the escalation of the Vietnam War and the Cuban Missile Crisis.50 years later it is pretty difficult to imagine the testing of hydrogen bombs in the open atmosphere. Let us hope that the world today would not accept the use of nuclear weapons. It makes me wonder why the US and Russia need to have nearly 20,000 nuclear warheads between them. Go figure!
Have a really great day!
Rob; in Vancouver.
"And I thought about the psychic numbing involved in strategic projections of using hydrogen bombs or nuclear weapons of any kind. And I also thought about ways in which all of us undergo what could be called the numbing of everyday life."
Robert Jay Lifton
