JFK+50: Volume 6, No. 2114
SOVIETS SHOW DISREGARD FOR THE WELFARE OF MANKINDWashington, D.C. (JFK+50) Fifty-five years ago today, October 30, 1961, the White House announced the news that the Soviet Union had exploded the most powerful atomic weapon in history. The 50 megaton atomic bomb was detonated at the Soviet Arctic testing site.
The explosion remains the largest in all of recorded human history. The RDS 220 thermonuclear weapon was christened in the West as the Tsar Bomb. It weighed 60,000 pounds and its size was 26 x 6.9 feet.
President John F. Kennedy said...
"The Soviet Union has shown its complete disregard for the welfare of mankind."
The White House also issued the following statement...
"The Soviet explosion was a political rather than a military act. Any such weapon would be primarily a mass killer of people in war & the testing of this device primarily is an incitement to fright & panic in the cold war."
Tsar Bomba-type casings
Sarov, USSR
User Croquant
www.commons.wikimedia.org/
