‘Doomsday Clock’ Gains 4 Minutes
The countdown to nuclear disaster gained four minutes Tuesday when The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists reset its “Doomsday Clock” to reflect the easing of superpower tensions.
“The likelihood of a full-scale nuclear holocaust has been reduced,” said Leonard Rieser, chairman of the board of directors, before he pushed the clock’s minute hand back to 10 minutes before midnight.
Recent revolutionary changes in Eastern Europe and Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev’s commitment to helping lift the Iron Curtain led the magazine’s board to change the clock for the eighth time in its 43-year history, Rieser told reporters.
The bronze, 18-inch clock hangs in the Bulletin’s headquarters on the University of Chicago campus. Its hour hand is always positioned at midnight, symbolizing doomsday, and the minute hand is superimposed on a map of the world.
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