the Super] would tend to confuse <
unwittingly, hide that fact and makeit
more difficult to find some other course.”
AS we know now, the advice of the
Oppenheimer committee was re-
jected. Early in 1950 President Truman,
acting on the basis of his own political
judgment and on thetotality of the advice he had received on. the matter,
issued directives designed to set in motion a major U.S. program to develop
the hydrogen bomb.
It is not possible here to give a full
description of what happened next, but
the following chronological outline of
the Russian and American superbomb
programs is designed to show how the
“race” for the superbomb did in fact
comeout, and to facilitate making judg-
ments about the General Advisory Committee’s advice and about “what might
have been.”
First ofall, it is now known that both
.st Russian atomic-bomb test. The oth-
er (which actually took place first) was
called George. It was a response to Joe
I, as the first Russian atomic-bomb test
was called by the U.S. intelligence establishment. Reduced to its essentials,
the purpose of the experiment was to
show, as a minimum, that a thermonuclear reaction could under ideal conditions be made to proceed in an experi-
countries initiated high-priority programs for the development of a hydrogen bombat about the same time(late
1949~early 1950), and both had been
seriously studying the subject for some
- years beforethat.
The first U.S. test series that included experiments designed to investigate
thermonuclear explosions took place at
Eniwetok in the spring of 1951. Known
as Operation Greenhouse, the series included two thermonuclear experiments.
proceed further along speculations, in-
test of the booster principle. This experiment, it must be emphasized, was
planned and programmed before the
most promising possibility. This test was
to play the role of a pilot plant in our —
development.”
mental device. This experiment came to
play a key role in the Super program.
As Teller later putit: “We needed a sig-
nificant test. Without such a test no one
of us could have had the confidence to
One, with the code name Item, was a
ventions and the difficult choice of the
OPERATION ~
CASTLE
OPERATION
OPERATION
GREENHOUSE
OPERATION
SANDSTONE
ITEM
GEORGE
TRINITY CROSSROADS
af i945
| 1946 [ 1947
[ 1048 | 1949 [ foso [ 1951 [ 1952 | 1953 | 1954
\
“JOE 1”
|
|
| 1955 [ 1956
|
|
I
MIKE AND/OR BRAVO
]
}
| 1958 | 1959 |
FIRST RUSSIAN SUPERBOMB
“JOE 4”
|
| i957
ITEM
if
KING
2
}
5 KT 1951 [| 1952 | 1953 | 1954 [ i955 [| 1956
|
O
@
U.S.S.R.
€) ALL-FISSION BOMBS
@ SUPERBOMBS
OTHER MIXED
FISSION/FUSION BOMBS
|
I
I
MIKE AND/OR BRAVO
iTEM
KING
?
|
FIRST RUSSIAN
SUPERBOMB
+?
ts
\
c \__ [1951 [ 1952 | 1953 | 1954[ 1955 [| 1956 [ 1957 [| 1958 [ 1959 |
“JOE 4"
TWO HYPOTHETICAL OUTCOMESare postulated in an effort
to evaluate how much risk would have been involved in a U.S, decision not to proceed with the superbomb. Theyare depicted in this
historical chart as branches of the time line representing the actual
world (a). The first branch is referred to by the author as the “most
probable alternative world” (6), the second as the “worst plausible
110
| 1959
“JOE 4"
{
|
|
|
| i958
=<FIRST RUSSIAN
SUPERBOMB
alternative world” (c). Both branches originate at January, 1950,
the date President Truman announced his decision to go ahead
with the superbomb. Thecircles denote nuclear-test explosions; the
labels are U.S. code names. Area of each circle is proportional to
the region that could be destroyed by that bomb, Bombs of “nominal” size (less than 50 kilotons) have been omitted after 1950.
=
D
=
co
po EIUCLA
U.S.
[| 1957
S
S
3aD
3
—