“Crucified on a Cross of Atoms”: Scientists, Politics, and the Test Ban Treaty*

Abstract

This paper investigates scientists' roles in the nuclear test ban debate from the 1950s to the achievement of a treaty in 1963. Although guided by the principles of science, scientists approached the test ban debate in many ways. The chemist Linus Pauling attempted to bring morality to bear on U.S. policy, and was smeared as disloyal. Other scientists advocated a test ban from within as government advisors, and from just outside the government as unofficial diplomats at the Pugwash conferences. Although inspired by moral concerns, these scientists found that in order to influence policy they had to uphold, rather than question, the nuclear deterrent. Physicist Edward Teller, meanwhile, sought to cement the link between nuclear weapons and national security. Congressional debate over the Limited Test Ban Treaty revealed that the scientific expertise that scientists relied on to argue for a test ban in the end proved a weakness, as equally credentialed scientists questioned the feasibility and value of a test ban, consequently weakening both the test ban as an arms control measure and scientists' public image as objective experts.

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