In the spring of 1955, as the Cold War intensified and the arms race
between the United States and the Soviet Union escalated at a shocking
pace, America — as it had many times before — detonated an atomic weapon
in the Nevada desert. The test was not especially noteworthy. The
weapon’s “yield” was not dramatically larger or smaller than that of
previous A-bombs; the brighter-than-the-sun flash of light, the mushroom
cloud and the staggering power unleashed by the weapon were all
byproducts familiar to anyone who had either witnessed or paid attention
to coverage of earlier tests.
And yet today, six decades later, at a time when the prospect of
nuclear tests by “rogue states” like North Korea and Iran is once again
making headlines and driving international negotiations and debate, the
very banality of one long-forgotten atomic test in 1955 feels somehow
more chilling than other more memorable or era-defining episodes from
the Cold War. After all, whether conducted in the name of deterrence,
defense or pure scientific research, the May 1955 blast (the results of
which are pictured in this gallery) was in a very real sense
routine.
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