The test in question was the brainchild of MIT President and Eisenhower Science Advisor, James Killian. It was designed to test a theory put forth by Nicholas Christofilos, an American-Greek physicist. The idea was that the electromagnetic pulse from a thermonuclear explosion in the upper atmosphere could disable Russian intercontinental missiles in flight. The Pentagon also wanted to test firing an intercontinental ballistic missile from a ship.
According to Anne Jacobsen’s book Area 51, the test, code named Argus, was authorized by President Eisenhower and carried off in record time. “On August 27, August 30 and September 6, 1958 three nuclear warheads were launched from X-17 rockets from the deck of the USS Norton Sound as the warship floated off the coast of South Africa in the South Atlantic Ocean.” The rockets carried the warheads 300 miles into near space and then the 3.8 megaton bombs detonated. 3.8 megatons is equivalent to an earthquake with a magnitude of 7.6 on the Richter scale.
3.8 megatons is a lot of energy to unleash in near space above the South Hemisphere. The South Hemisphere was chosen to hide the test from the Russians, The ultraviolet radiation from these three explosions ripped through the ozone layer and blew a hole in it.
Ironically, the tests were said to be unsuccessful. The electronic pulse didn’t disarm the triggering devices on the test ICBM’s in flight, or did they?
Anne Jacobsen in her excellent book, Area 51, repeatedly makes the point that the Manhattan Project, later Atomic Energy Commission, now Department of Energy, created a ‘deep’ government that is self-governed. Even the President of the United States, the Commander in Chief, does not have clearance to read the AEC’s most secret documents. The Manhattan Project and the Cold War created a ‘black ops’ super state — Eisenhower called the military industrial complex — that still exists, is compartmentalized on a ‘need to know’ basis and outside the oversight of the Executive, Legislative and Judiciary branches of government.
Edward Snowden is a hero in my eyes because he exposed a corner of the ‘black ops’ deep state. The more we learn about what the secret ‘black ops’ deep state has done and is doing, the more every American should be concerned that an unelected shadow elite is running the country’s foreign policy.
Blowing a hole in the ozone layer is simply madness. James Killian was a madman, not a patriot.