Pub Date : 2020-01-15DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0009
Ken Young, W. Schilling
This concluding chapter returns to the alignment of forces that worked to sideline those scientists who opposed the then-predominant doctrine of strategic bombing. It stresses the confusion and the acrimony of the brief but decisive period in which the Super's potential for U.S. security or global insecurity was contested. With distance, it becomes possible to understand the vigor and passion with which the Super, and the deployment of nuclear weapons for massive retaliation, was resisted, as well as the organizational imperatives of air force leaders to outwit that resistance, the better to protect the deeply embedded air power doctrines that prevailed at that time. The result is that the world was left with the proliferation of nuclear and thermonuclear weaponry. The question remains, however, as to whether that proliferation would bring stability or fragility.
{"title":"Conclusions","authors":"Ken Young, W. Schilling","doi":"10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0009","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0009","url":null,"abstract":"This concluding chapter returns to the alignment of forces that worked to sideline those scientists who opposed the then-predominant doctrine of strategic bombing. It stresses the confusion and the acrimony of the brief but decisive period in which the Super's potential for U.S. security or global insecurity was contested. With distance, it becomes possible to understand the vigor and passion with which the Super, and the deployment of nuclear weapons for massive retaliation, was resisted, as well as the organizational imperatives of air force leaders to outwit that resistance, the better to protect the deeply embedded air power doctrines that prevailed at that time. The result is that the world was left with the proliferation of nuclear and thermonuclear weaponry. The question remains, however, as to whether that proliferation would bring stability or fragility.","PeriodicalId":149467,"journal":{"name":"Super Bomb","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"121949333","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-15DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0008
Kenneth K. Young, W. Schilling
This chapter outlines the process which began with the unexpected publication of the transcript of the Personnel Security Board hearing. Now, the search was on for villains, and theories about the slow—and seemingly unenthusiastic—development of the Super abounded. With active encouragement from air force sources, the pillorying of Los Alamos took place in the press, culminating in a widely read journalistic account of where the blame lay. With its dubious claim to extensive research, James Shepley and Clay Blair Jr.'s The Hydrogen Bomb owed its paternity and its material to the advocacy coalition that had successfully pushed for the Super. The issues were now public, and the original closed circle of decision widened to include other partisans in the worlds of science and politics. So acrimonious had the progress of the Super been that scores remained to be settled. And they would be.
{"title":"Rewriting Los Alamos","authors":"Kenneth K. Young, W. Schilling","doi":"10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0008","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0008","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter outlines the process which began with the unexpected publication of the transcript of the Personnel Security Board hearing. Now, the search was on for villains, and theories about the slow—and seemingly unenthusiastic—development of the Super abounded. With active encouragement from air force sources, the pillorying of Los Alamos took place in the press, culminating in a widely read journalistic account of where the blame lay. With its dubious claim to extensive research, James Shepley and Clay Blair Jr.'s The Hydrogen Bomb owed its paternity and its material to the advocacy coalition that had successfully pushed for the Super. The issues were now public, and the original closed circle of decision widened to include other partisans in the worlds of science and politics. So acrimonious had the progress of the Super been that scores remained to be settled. And they would be.","PeriodicalId":149467,"journal":{"name":"Super Bomb","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127687713","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2020-01-15DOI: 10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0002
Ken Young, W. Schilling
This chapter is an account of the impact on U.S. thinking and policy of the first Soviet atomic bomb test. It ended the U.S. monopoly of atomic weapons—a development that some had foreseen and others had discounted as a possibility. An atomic Russia triggered fears of a “bolt from the blue” assault on U.S. cities. One reaction was to seek to prioritize U.S. air defenses. Another was to confirm the program agreed to that summer to accelerate the production of fissionable material for atomic bombs. The surge of anxiety also brought hitherto obscure speculations about thermonuclear physics into the public domain. It seemed apparent to some that the Soviet nuclear threat should be countered not by a multiplication of atomic bombs but by an American “superbomb.”
{"title":"The Shock of the “New World”","authors":"Ken Young, W. Schilling","doi":"10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0002","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7591/cornell/9781501745164.003.0002","url":null,"abstract":"This chapter is an account of the impact on U.S. thinking and policy of the first Soviet atomic bomb test. It ended the U.S. monopoly of atomic weapons—a development that some had foreseen and others had discounted as a possibility. An atomic Russia triggered fears of a “bolt from the blue” assault on U.S. cities. One reaction was to seek to prioritize U.S. air defenses. Another was to confirm the program agreed to that summer to accelerate the production of fissionable material for atomic bombs. The surge of anxiety also brought hitherto obscure speculations about thermonuclear physics into the public domain. It seemed apparent to some that the Soviet nuclear threat should be countered not by a multiplication of atomic bombs but by an American “superbomb.”","PeriodicalId":149467,"journal":{"name":"Super Bomb","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2020-01-15","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127973101","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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