Minutes to Midnight:
"Doomsday Clock" Chronicle

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists has marked nuclear danger since 1947, when its famous clock first appeared on the cover.  Since then, the clock has moved forward and back, reflecting international tensions and the developments of the nuclear age.

The clock first appears on the Bulletin cover as a symbol of nuclear danger.

The Soviet Union explodes its first atomic bomb.

The United States successfully tests a hydrogen bomb in late 1952--and the Soviet Union quickly follows suit.

The United States and Soviet Union sign the Partial Test Ban Treaty, "the first tangible confirmation...that a new cohesive force has entered the interplay of forces shaping the fate of mankind."

France and China acquire nuclear weapons; wars rage in the Middle East, the Indian subcontinent, and Vietnam; world military spending increases while development funds shrink.

The U.S. Senate ratifies the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The United States and the Soviet Union sign the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I) and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty; progress toward SALT II is anticipated.

SALT talks reach an impasse; India develops a nuclear weapon.   "We find policymakers on both sides increasingly ensnared, frustrated, and neutralized by domestic forces having a vested interest in the amassing of strategic forces."

The deadlock in U.S.-Soviet arms talks continues; nationalistic wars and terrorist actions increase; the rift between rich and poor nations grows wider.

Both superpowers develop more weapons for fighting a nuclear war.   Terrorist actions, repression of human rights, conflicts in Afghanistan, Poland, South Africa add to world tension.

The arms race accelerates.  "The blunt simplicities of force threaten to displace any other form of discourse between the superpowers."

The United States and the Soviet Union sign a treaty to eliminate intermediate-range nuclear forces (INF); superpower relations improve; more nations actively oppose nuclear weapons.

(In October 1989, the clock is redesigned to expand the definition of world security.)  Democratic movements in Eastern Europe shatter the myth of monolithic communism; the Cold War ends.

The United States and the Soviet Union sign the long-stalled Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START) and announce further unilateral cuts in tactical and strategic nuclear weapons.

Both the United States and Russia still have not implemented START II, nor have they ratified the chemical and biological weapons conventions; worldwide arms trade continues to boom; more than a thousand tons of weapons-grade uranium and plutonium is stockpiled, much of it under inadequate security.  "In the past four years, it has become clear that opportunities have been missed, open doors closed."

Reprinted courtesy of The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists

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