Daily Hansan
LAWRENCE, KANSAS
59th Year, No.32
Monday, October 30, 1961
Nikita Explodes the Big One
World's Reaction Is Quick, Angry, Fearful
By United Press International
The Western world deplored the "arrogance" of the Soviet Union in setting off its monster bomb today in defiance of appeals to call off the test.
Adlai Stevenson, United States Ambassador to the United Nations, termed the Soviet explosion of a bomb with a yield of 50 million or more tons of TNT an "arrogant act" which has sent the world on "a great leap backward toward anarchy and disaster."
ON CAPITAL HILL in Washington, Sen. Wayne Morse of Oregon said "Russia's explosion of the bomb is simply immoral." He told newsmen the super-blast marked a "sad hour in the history of civilization." He added "it is clear we are dealing with a desperate nation."
Sen. Henry Jackson of Washington, chairman of the Joint Subcommittee on Atomic Weapons, said the Russian bomb is "a weapon of intimidation, fear and blackmail." He said it must be answered by renewed U.S. testing in the atmosphere, although he said such tests should be limited in number and involve low yield weapons.
There was no immediate comment from President Kennedy, who was en route from Oklahoma to Washington.
IN LONDON, the Foreign Office said the British Government "deplored" the Soviet action and shared "the indignation which will be universally felt at this wanton disregard for the welfare and safety of the human race."
In Oslo, Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsend said he and all others who had hoped the Soviet Union would refrain were bitterly disappointed. He added that the radioactive fallout from the super-bomb would cause unrest and fear all over the world.
Nikita Khrushchev
Acting Canadian Prime Minister Harold Green said in Ottawa
(Continued on page 8)
By Clayton Keller
Gunn, Taylor Give Housing Position
James E. Gunn, administrative assistant to the Chancellor, and Emily Taylor, dean of women, made the statements before members of the Canterbury Association, the Episcopal church for students, at the regular Sunday evening meeting.
Two representatives of the administration said last night they do not believe the off-campus housing discrimination problem will be solved by refusing to list landlords who discriminate.
They said discrimination will be ended more quickly by quiet, individual action than by organized group action.
Mr. Gunn said it would be impossible to discover whether persons on the housing list were discriminating or not.
"IF A STUDENT HAD A HOUSING list and was turned down by a landlord, how could we prove he was turned down because of his race?" Mr. Gunn asked.
"No landlord rents to anyone who comes to his door," he added. "He judges on the basis of appearance or habits."
"The entire situation comes down to what will help most and what will hurt the situation," said Dean Taylor. "The administration doesn't know how purging the housing list would help. There would be no way to check."
A student suggested the University should add a rule prohibiting discrimination to its list of rules given landlords.
"Would anything as superficial as this really satisfy those people who
are pushing this?" Dean Taylor asked.
"I don't know. I don't think there's any accurate way to tell the extent of discrimination." Dean Taylor replied.
Mr. Gunn said the University would not solve anything by including such a rule unless it could be enforced.
A student suggested that by including such a rule, the University would be going on record against discrimination. The slower process of educating landlords could be carried on from this point, he said.
"Does this mean discrimination doesn't exist?" the student asked.
"I think we're dealing with something deeper than whether a person says he discriminates or not." Dean Taylor said. "Many people who discriminate say they aren't discriminating, and they actually believe it."
"IT WOULD BE A FAIRLY EASY way to get the administration off the hook," he said, "but how effective it would be. I don't know."
The student said that if a rule prohibiting discrimination was added, it could be enforced through complaints by students.
"THE UNIVERSITY SHOULD
"ONLY EIGHT STUDENTS have complained to the administration in the last six years," Dean Taylor answered. "The other cases we've heard about through the Kansan or the Civil Rights Council."
Mr. Gunn said a strong stand by the University might do more harm than good.
(Continued on page 6)
Extra Megatons 'No Accident'
WASHINGTON — (UPI) A scientist said today that the latest Soviet explosion may well have been bigger than expected.
But he scoffed at any notion that it "got out of control." Nuclear explosions by definition are uncontrolled releases of energy on a fantastic scale.
They cannot, however, trigger atomic chain reactions in the atmosphere or soil or anything else except the special materials packed into the bomb.
A speaker at the United Nations suggested earlier that Russia's blast might have got out of hand when it was set off this morning.
F. H. Corner, Deputy Secretary of New Zealand's External Affairs Department, told the General Assembly's main political committee the Novaya Zemiya explosion might have been 75 megatons instead of 50.
"WAS THIS the result of an accident?" he asked. "Or was it another gesture? Is the concept of humanity a bourgeois one? . . . A quite unnecessary act of political braggadocio has taken place."
Corner, pointing out that the blast might have had 75-megaton force, said that it was difficult to control the strength of nuclear reaction and suggested that Russia might have accidentally unloosed more power than it planned.
U. N. AMBASSADOR Adlai E. Stevenson told the 103-nation committee this was a "solemn day in the history of the United Nations and of international relations."
Stevenson said the most lethal explosion in history had been set off for no purpose other than "intimidation."
"This morning, we have heard the shocking news that the Soviet Union has exploded a bomb much larger than last week's and apparently even larger than 50 megatons," Stevenson said.
CHARGING SOVIET Premier Nikita Khrushchev with "violence unprecedented," Stevenson said he "exploded his bomb in cynical disregard of the United Nations."
The U.S. ambassador, who said last week his endorsement of cessation of nuclear weapons tests cost him many votes in his 1956 race for the U.S. Presidency, then read into the record the essence of a statement he had issued before the meeting.
Soviet Delegate Semyon K. Tsarapkin, replying to Stevenson, neither confirmed nor denied that today's blast was the advertised 50-megaton explosion. He read to the committee a statement issued by Soviet Premier Nikita S. Krhushchev last Saturday to justify it.
New Bomb May Exceed Promised 50 Megatons
STOCKHOLM—(UPI)—The Soviet Union set off the biggest man-made explosion in history today, a blast that may have been bigger than its promised 50-megaton bomb.
Scientific instruments around the world recorded the Soviet blast at 2:33 a.m., Lawrence time, high in the air over the Arctic testing range on Novaya Zemlya Island and indicated its force may have approached a level equal to that of 100 million tons of TNT.
THE BLAST WAS DESCRIBED by some scientists as up to three times bigger than the Soviet Union's estimated 30-megaton bomb which was set off Oct.23. This would make it far larger than the 50-megaton bomb which Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev forecast would be detonated Oct.30 or 31 to wind up Russia's latest series of nuclear tests.
The British government was the first to register a protest. Within hours of the blast the foreign office in London said the British government "deplored" the explosion by the Soviets of their latest thermonuclear bomb.
In Oslo, Norwegian Prime Minister Einar Gerhardsen expressed bitter disappointment over the Soviet test.
THE BOMB EXPLODED today was the one announced to the 22nd Soviet Communist Party Congress in Moscow by Khrushchev on Oct.17.At the time,he said Russia would test a 50-megaton bomb, (a megaton equals 1 million tons of TNT) as well as the firing mechanism for a 100-megaton bomb by the end of the month. But he said then that he hoped no bomb of the larger size ever would have to be exploded.Russia itself, he said, would feel the effects of such a bomb.
Today's explosion was at least the 26th known Soviet bomb set off in the current test series. All but one underwater have been in the atmosphere, with resultant grave radioactive fallout dangers for the world. The United States set off its fourth fallout-free underground explosion yesterday since it resumed in the wake of the Soviet move earlier this month.
The Dutch Ambassador to the U.N. flatly called the Soviet blast "an act of terror against humanity."
THE SOVIET SUPER-BOMB, which was set off in defiance of world-wide protests and pleas from the United Nations and the White House, was universally condemned in the Western world.
The seismological institution of Sweden's Uppsala University reported the force of the explosion to be more than 2.5 times that of last Monday's 30-megaton blast—which would make today's superbomb equal to at least 75 million tons of TNT.
AT LONDON'S KEW OBSERVATORY, seismologist Jan Piega said "our records show that it is definitely a nuclear explosion of about 50 megatons."
He said his monitors could not determine the exact force of the explosion, but said the bomb was exploded at a "great altitude."
Similar reports of the explosion came from scientists at the Danish Seismographic Institute in Copenhagen, French seismologists at Strasbourg, The Finnish Institute of Radiophysics at Helsinki and the Royal Netherlands Meteorological Institute at Utrecht.
SWEDISH NUCLEAR SCIENTISTS said they believed today's device weighed about 15 tons, and probably was 16.25 feet high and 9.75 feet in diameter.
5 feet in distance.
They said they believed the bomb was rather "dirty."
The Japanese Meteorological Agency's observatory at Matsushiro said the maximum figure recorded on its machines was 2.5 times that of the Oct. 23 Soviet 30-megaton explosion.
SEVERAL HOURS AFTER THE Soviet blast first was reported, the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission in Washington confirmed the test and said a statement would be issued later.
test and said a statement would be
It was believed that this latest Soviet explosion sent about 66 pounds of Strontium 90 and about 3,300 pounds of other radioactive by-products circling the earth with westerly winds.
The Stockholm Meteorological Institution reported that Arctic winds are blowing to the west over the Kara Sea and probably would carry any radioactive dust towards Siberia. The test area of Novaya Zemlya is a frozen wasteland of glaciers, polar bears and sparse population in the Arctic Ocean between the Kara and Barents Seas.
Although today's blast was the biggest and dirtiest ever set off by man, the bomb was of questionable value to the Soviet Union save as a propaganda weapon.