Super Bomb

Ken Young, R. Schilling Warner

Description

Super Bomb unveils the story of the events leading up to President Harry S. Truman's 1950 decision to develop a "super," or hydrogen, bomb. That fateful decision and its immediate consequences are detailed in a diverse and complete account built on newly released archives and previously hidden contemporaneous interviews with more than sixty political, military, and scientific figures who were involved in the decision. Ken Young and Warner R. Schilling present the expectations, hopes, and fears of the key individuals who lobbied for and against developing the H-bomb. They portray the conflicts that arose over the H-bomb as rooted in the distinct interests of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Los Alamos laboratory, the Pentagon and State Department, the Congress, and the White House. But as they clearly show, once Truman made his decision in 1950, resistance to the H-bomb opportunistically shifted to new debates about the development of tactical nuclear weapons, continental air defense, and other aspects of nuclear weapons policy. What Super Bomb reveals is that in many ways the H-bomb struggle was a proxy battle over the morality and effectiveness of strategic bombardment and the role and doctrine of the US Strategic Air Command.

Sujets

• États-Unis
• History of the Americas
• Nuclear weapon
• 20th century
• Military history
• USA
• Histoire

Informations

• Publié par: Cornell University Press
• Date de parution: 15 février 2020
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781501745171
• Langue: English
• Poids de l'ouvrage: 2 Mo

Extrait

Super Bomb

a volum e in th e series

Cornell Studies in Security Affairs

Edited by Robert J. Art, Robert Jervis, and Stephen M. Walt

A list of titles in this series is available at cornellpress.cornell.edu.

Super Bomb Organizational Conflict and the Development of the Hydrogen Bomb

K e n Yo u n g a n d Wa r n e r R . S c h i l l i n g

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: Young, Ken (Director), author. | Schilling, Warner R.  (Warner Roller), 1925–2013, author. Title: Super bomb : organizational conflict and the development  of the hydrogen bomb / Ken Young and Warner R. Schilling. Description: Ithaca, [New York] : Cornell University Press, 2019. |  Series: Cornell studies in security affairs | Includes bibliographical  references and index. Identifiers: LCCN 2019019716 (print) | LCCN 2019020252 (ebook) |  ISBN 9781501745164 (cloth ; alk. paper) Subjects: LCSH: Hydrogen bomb—United States—History. |  Hydrogen bomb—Government policy—United States—History. |  Arms race—History—20th century. | United States—Military  policy. | United States—Politics and government—1945–1953. Classification: LCC UG1282.A8 Y68 2019 (print) | LCC UG1282.A8  (ebook) | DDC 355.8/251190973—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019019716 LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2019020252

ISBN 9781501745188 (epub/mobi ebook)

ISBN 9781501745171 (pdf ebook)

Chapter 7 is based in part on Ken Young, “The Hydrogen Bomb, Lewis L. Strauss and the Writing of Nuclear History,”Journal of Strategic Studies36, no. 6 (Spring 2013): 815–40. Used by permission of Taylor & Francis.

For Maria Olivia Young (b. 2014) That she may grow up in a world free from fear

Contents

Preface Acknowledgments

 Introduction 1.Shock of the “New World” The 2. Advising on the Super 3. A Decision Reached 4.and Political Consequences Moral 5.and Development Dissent 6. Tactical Diversions 7.Los Alamos Rewriting  Conclusions

Notes Bibliography Index

vii

ix xv

1 18 40 55 71 87 108 133 151

167 193 211

Preface

This book has had an unusually long gestation period. The idea originated at the Institute of War and Peace Studies (IWPS) at Columbia University in the immediate postwar period and was finally realized at the Department of War Studies, King’s College, London, some sixtytwo years later. Columbia’s Institute of War and Peace Studies was a pioneering insti tute established on the initiative of Dwight D. Eisenhower, Columbia’s then president, general of the army, and the future US president. Eisenhower confessed to finding it “almost incomprehensible that no American uni versity has undertaken the continuous study of the causes, conduct and 1 consequences of war.” As he saw it, the role of such an institute would be to “study war as a tragic social phenomenon—its origins, its conduct, its impact and particularly its disastrous consequences upon man’s spiritual, 2 intellectual and material progress.” The founding of the institute (now the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies) in 1951 led the in ternational movement toward the academic study of international security, paralleled some years later in the UK by the foundation under Michael (later Sir Michael) Howard of the Department of War Studies at King’s College, London, where this project was revived, with its coverage extended beyond President Harry S. Truman’s original January 1950 decision to proceed with development of the hydrogen bomb, and was carried to completion. Columbia’s institute was initially headed, and directed for some twenty five years, by William T. R. Fox, a highly respected scholar of international relations. He was included in the august company of scholars and prac titioners brought together by the Rockefeller Foundation in 1954—among them Hans J. Morgenthau, Reinhold D. Niebuhr, Paul Nitze, and Arnold Wolfers—in a historic event to establish the foundations of realism as an

ix