Nuclear Spies

Vince Houghton

Description

Why did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi 's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong?Houghton's delightful retelling of this fascinating case of American spy ineffectiveness in the then new field of scientific intelligence provides us with a new look at the early years of the Cold War. During that time, scientific intelligence quickly grew to become a significant portion of the CIA budget as it struggled to contend with the incredible advance in weapons and other scientific discoveries immediately after World War II. As The Nuclear Spies shows, the abilities of the Soviet Union's scientists, its research facilities and laboratories, and its educational system became a key consideration for the CIA in assessing the threat level of its most potent foe. Sadly, for the CIA scientific intelligence was extremely difficult to do well. For when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, no one in the American intelligence services saw it coming.

Sujets

• Histoire
• USA
• Cold War
• Military intelligence
• Russia
• Nuclear weapon
• History of science
• États-Unis
• Russie

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 septembre 2019
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501739606
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

The Nuclear Spies

The Nuclear Spies

America’s Atomic Intelligence Operation against Hitler and Stalin

Vince Houghton

Cornell University Press Ithaca and London

Copyright © 2019 by Cornell University

All rights reserved. Except for brief quotations in a review, this book, or parts thereof, must not be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher. For information, address Cornell University Press, Sage House, 512 East State Street, Ithaca, New York 14850. Visit our website at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

First published 2019 by Cornell University Press

Printed in the United States of America

Library of Congress CataloginginPublication Data

Names: Houghton, Vince, author. Title: The nuclear spies : America’s atomic intelligence operation against Hitler and Stalin / Vince Houghton. Description: Ithaca : Cornell University Press, 2019. | Includes bibliographical references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2018052485 (print) | LCCN 2018052015 (ebook) | ISBN 9781501739590 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN 9781501739606 (pdf) | ISBN 9781501739613 (ret) Subjects: LCSH: Espionage, American—Germany—History—20th century. | Espionage, American—Soviet Union—History. | Nuclear weapons information—History—20th century. | World War, 1939–1945—Military intelligence. | Cold War—Military intelligence. | Military intelligence—United States—History—20th century. Classification: LCC UB271.U5 H68 2019 (ebook) | LCC UB271.U5 (print) | DDC 327.127304709/044—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2018052485

For Jon and Rae

The United States has come to see that it is in a new kind of rivalry with the Soviet Union—a rivalry that may well turn, not on territorial or diplo matic gains, or even (in the narrow sense of the word) on military advan tage. The crucial advantage in the issue of power is likely to be with the nation whose scientific program can produce the next revolutionary ad vance in military tactics, following those already made by radar, jet pro pulsion, and nuclear fission. —Don K. Price,Government and Science, 1954

For the whole world was flaring then into a monstrous phase of destruc tion. Power after Power about the armed globe sought to anticipate at tack by aggression. They went to war in a delirium of panic, in order to use their bombs first. China and Japan had assailed Russia and destroyed Moscow, the United States had attacked Japan, India was in anarchistic revolt with Delhi a pit of fire spouting death and flame; the redoubtable King of the Balkans was mobilising. It must have seemed plain at last to every one in those days that the world was slipping headlong to anarchy. By the spring of 1959 from nearly two hundred centres, and every week added to their number, roared the unquenchable crimson conflagrations of the atomic bombs, the flimsy fabric of the world’s credit had vanished, industry was completely disorganised and every city, every thickly popu lated area was starving or trembled on the verge of starvation. Most of the capital cities of the world were burning; millions of people had already perished, and over great areas government was at an end. —H. G. Wells,The World Set Free, 1914

Contents

Introduction: The Principal Uncertainty

1. A Reasonable Fear: The U.S. (Mis)Perception of the German Nuclear Program

2. Making Something out of Nothing: The Creation of U.S. Nuclear Intelligence

3. Alsos: The Mission to Solve the Mystery of the German Bomb

4. Transitions: From the German Threat to the Soviet Menace

5. Regression: The Postwar Devolution of U.S. Nuclear Intelligence

6. Whistling in the Dark: The U.S. (Mis)Perception of the Soviet Nuclear Program

Conclusion: Credit Where Credit Is Due

Notes

Selected Bibliography

Index

5

30

62

1

96

122

151

178

185

209

225

Introduction

The Principal Uncertainty

The storyline is well known, but not necessarily well understood. In Sep tember 1949, the U.S. intelligence establishment was shocked to discover that the Soviet Union had detonated its first atomic bomb. Coming just four years after the United States had become the world’s first nuclear power, the Soviet atomic bomb was produced in half the time that U.S. intelligence had predicted. The consensus among the intelligence commu nity, American scientists, the military, and the civilian political leadership had been that the earliest probable date for a Soviet atomic bomb was 1953. Somehow the Soviet Union had exceeded the expectations of U.S. national security experts by almost four years. Compounding the confusion of U.S. leadership was the fact that, dur ing the Second World War, U.S. intelligence had engaged in an effort against Nazi Germany that had correctly assessed the status of the Ger man atomic bomb program. The German program had been given consid erable attention by U.S. intelligence, yet despite the initial belief that the German atomic bomb project was significantly ahead of the progress of