December 7, 1995. Copyright, 1995, Graphic News. All rights reserved

THE MIDNIGHT STRIKE OF DOOMSDAY
By Nicholas Booth, Science Editor

LONDON, December 7, Graphic News Ð The Cold War may be over, but one of its most chilling legacies endures. In Chicago on December 8, a group of distinguished scientists will debate the setting of the so-called ÔDoomsday ClockÕ which warns how close we are to nuclear midnight. The threat of confrontation between the superpowers may have receded but the threat of nuclear terrorism grows apace and, although a comprehensive test ban is imminent, both France and China continue to explode devices underground.

The Chicago meeting Ð just a few blocks from where the first ever self-sustaining nuclear reaction took place Ð celebrates the fiftieth anniversary of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. It was founded by scientists who worked on the first atomic bombs but whose consciences led them to try to stop the weapons ever being used on civilians, and to campaign to bring nuclear energy under international civilian control. In this they failed, but since its first issue on December 10, 1945, the Bulletin has warned the public of the dangers of nuclear weapons and the arms race. A clock first appeared on the cover of the Bulletin in 1947, with its hands set near to midnight: it has been moved 14 times since then, in response to technical and political developments.

The ÔDoomsday ClockÕ has become more than a terrifying index of the nuclear age by ingraining itself in the public psyche like a piece of pop art. The idea for the clock face came from the wife of the first editor who set it, for aesthetic reasons, at seven minutes to midnight. Its debut, using bold typefaces and garish orange, was hard to ignore, for up until then the Bulletin had been a newsletter. Professor Joel Slemrod of the University of Michigan has shown that when the clock setting moves towards midnight, people spend more: if the international situation looks dire and gloomy, human beings will not save their money in deposit accounts.

The clock setting has accurately reflected the state of the Cold War. When Harry S Truman announced the first Russian bomb in 1949, it was moved forward to three minutes to midnight, and again in 1953, by another minute Ð because of the first hydrogen bomb tests. The Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962 passed too quickly to be reflected in the bulletin but the signing of the Partial Test Ban Treaty in 1963, together with the era of detente in the early 1970s saw a relaxation to twelve minutes by 1972.

Then came the Reagan era and the announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative, or Star Wars programme. In 1984, the clock was again reset to three minutes to midnight, reflecting new tensions in the Cold War, but with the appointment of Gorbachev, and the signing of the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty in 1987, it was moved back to six minutes. Currently, following the demise of the Soviet Union, the minute hand is Ôoff the scaleÕ at seventeen minutes to midnight.

In Chicago, scientists and moderators will debate the proliferation of nuclear weapons and increasing means of delivery, and set the clock again at a press conference at noon. As the Bulletin says in its current issue, ÔThe Bulletin Clock is not just the property of a magazine. It belongs to everyone who cares about the future of humankind.Õ

Source: Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists