From 50 Years Ago: Atom Tests Ban Now Feasible.

Few in this country realise how deeply public opinion in the West, as also in Japan, is con-cerned with the dangers of atomic fall out from test explosions. This is an issue on which barring Government scientists in the USA the best scientific opinion in Europe and America is nearly unanimous.

Talk of clean bombs has not created any impression nor conveyed any reassurance to thoughtful Americans. In Britain, an active movement has been going on, largely among the intellectuals, for banning atomic weapons, and, therefore, even the mass-circulation papers are occasionally forced to report this subject. American papers with large circula-tions – and these are the ones which get around – virtually give no expression to the public concern over the dangers of atomic radiation. But the voice of the people is not entirely stif-fled, it finds expression in ‘broadsheets’ and weeklies with very limited circulation such as I F Stone’s Weekly, the columns of which show up, week by week, the absurd and untenable stand which the Atomic Energy Commission took on the question of detection of test explo-sions and the production of ‘clean bombs’...