回答: 当年受核试验辐射致病的军人和科研人员有谁过问过？ 由 农村户口 于 2015-05-06 14:43

The United States conducted 204 previously unannounced nuclear weapons tests during the cold war, the Clinton Administration disclosed today. The number of secret tests was about twice as high as private analysts had suspected and accounted for almost 20 percent of the 1,051 nuclear tests conducted by this country. 

The underground tests, which took place from 1963 to 1990 in Nevada, were often small enough to escape detection by seismic instruments. Some resulted in accidental releases of radioactive gases into the atmosphere, usually in amounts too low to be considered harmful. 

The Energy Department, as part of a newly ordered declassification of millions of documents relating to the vast nuclear buildup of the past 50 years, also disclosed for the first time the full extent of its plutonium production, and details of its huge stockpiles of the material. The department manages the nuclear weapons production program. 

The secret tests did not violate any laws or international weapon-testing agreements because they were conducted underground. But they illustrate what officials at the department now call a damaging atmosphere of secrecy that compromised safety and environmental considerations, a situation that the Administration says it is trying to correct. Atmosphere of Secrecy 

"We were shrouded and clouded in an atmosphere of secrecy," Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary said at a news conference, where the new details were disclosed. "And I would take it a step further: I would call it repression." 

Department officials said that among the millions of documents yet to be reviewed might be more information about previously disclosed experiments in which hundreds of human subjects were exposed to plutonium without granting informed consent. Although extensive details of those tests were disclosed in 1986, Mrs. O'Leary said she was "appalled and shocked and it just gave me an ache in my gut and my heart" when she heard of them. 

In general, her attitude toward the secrecy at the department and the lack of public trust it engendered differ greatly from those expressed publicly by any of her predecessors. 

Still, some researchers who have been pressing the Government to offer more data about the nuclear weapon program said they were disappointed at how little new information was disclosed today. 

"The Federal Government has never told the American people how many nuclear weapons are in the arsenal," said Drew Caputo, a lawyer with the Natural Resources Defense Council, an environmental group. "That is information that we really need." Review Still Under Way 

Others said that until the exact yields, or explosive force, of the previously secret tests were disclosed, it would not be possible to answer important arms control questions, including whether compliance with a comprehensive ban on nuclear testing could ever be verified. 

But the Energy Department said the disclosures today were just the first step in an effort to review 32 million documents for possible declassification. That holds open the possibility that the numbers of warheads and testing yields might later be disclosed. The Pentagon, and some officials within the Energy Department, have resisted some efforts to declassify certain information, officials conceded. 

The disclosures could, over time, produce substantial new insights into the nuclear weapon program, of value to historians, arms control experts, and environmental groups and civilians who live near nuclear production plants and are concerned about the health effects of the program. 

Mrs. O'Leary, who is to visit Russia next week, said she also hoped the department's increasing openness would lead other nuclear powers to unveil their own secrets as the days of global nuclear confrontation recede. 

In one indication that the years of secrecy have left even the Government in the dark about some of its own secrets, she said that the figures made public today about the amount of plutonium might be revised later. 

"As we progress in the cleanup, we may be discovering more plutonium," she said. "So you can look to see these figures revised." 

In all, the department said, the United States produced 89 metric tons of weapon-grade plutonium. At seven of its plants, existing stockpiles of the bomb material amount to 33.5 metric tons, far more than is ever likely to find its way into bombs. At another plant, the Pantex plant in Texas, plutonium stocks are still to be used for weapons and the stockpile amount was not disclosed. 

Private analysts were especially intrigued by the 18 unannounced tests conducted during the Reagan and Bush Administrations, the last one in 1990, a time when more sensitive seismological instruments could detect all but the smallest tests. 

"That troubles me," said Michael Krepon, an expert in arms control working at the Stimson Institute, a research organization in Washington. "It tells us that we need to go back and look at the dates, get the yields and understand why we did not pick it up." 

Photo: "We were shrouded and clouded in an atmosphere of secrecy," Energy Secretary Hazel R. O'Leary said at a news conference, where new details were disclosed about unannounced nuclear weapons tests. (Associated Press) Graph: "The Hidden Explosions" The number of previously unannounced nuclear weapons tests accounts for almost one-fifth of all American nuclear tests since 1945. All the tests revealed yesterday were conducted underground at the Nevada Test Site. Graph tracks annual number of announced and previously unannounced tests from 1945 through 1992. Also shown is a type breakdown of the total 1,051 nuclear tests conducted by the United States since 1945. (Source: Department of Energy)