Misguided Secrecy

Project Argus, after six months of self-censorship by the New York Times, has finally become a matter of public record. That is, faced with obvious evidence that a nationally respected newspaper had known what was going on since weeks before the tests were actually conducted, Assistant Secretary of Defense Donald Quarles has finally admitted that atomic weapons were exploded three hundred miles above the Southern Atlantic.

What is more ominous is the apparent ease with which the government rid itself of all qualms about the International Geophysical Year and decided to conceal data transmitted by the satellite Explorer IV. Although the IGY agreement requires that all information should be revealed by September 1959, the United States has repeatedly taken Russia to task for not releasing data as soon as it was processed.

In deciding to maintain secrecy about Argus, the government also was forced to suspend release of information relayed by the satellite. The debate which has been takeing place on releasing data indicates that the U.S. had serious intentions not to fulfill its IGY obligations.

The real reasons for secrecy are not yet clear. The United States had achieved a way of conducting atomic tests which virtually reduced to nil the amount of fallout and made detection almost impossible. Instead of announcing the achievement as a great accomplishment in helping to reduce radioactive contamination of the world, the government concealed the tests, making the ease of concealment seem much more important and sinister than reduction of fallout.

The handling of the entire Argus project seems incredibly inept. From the aspersions it cast on our sincerity in participation in IGY to the questions it raises about our competence in handling any kind of international publicity, the policy adopted has provided a testimony of doubtful wisdom. When it is realized that the government was prepared to conceal the whole affair indefinitely, despite apparent Soviet knowledge of the entire theory involved, one can only wonder what secrecy in space and atomic energy really means.