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"H-Bomb Secret" Now Online
DrDNA writes "In 1979, the US Government sued Howard Morland, Erwin Knoll and Sam Day at The Progressive Magazine for prior restraint over the planned publication of 'The H-Bomb Secret: How We Got It--Why We're Telling It,' citing national security. Six months later, a Federal appeals court vacated the restraining order on publication, and the article was published. There's an interview about the case with George Stanford, of Argonne National Lab, Illinois, a technical adviser for the Progressive Magazine. After all this time, the Progressive article is now online (4Mb pdf)."
Speaking of the history of the H-Bomb, a great read on the subject is the mammoth Pulitzer Prize winning book The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes. He also wrote Deadly Feasts which I enjoyed even more.
Of the Radioactive Boyscount who built a nuclear reactor in his shed from uranium paint you find on antiques
meridian at tha.net
Alaska Bugs Sweat Gold Nuggets
Nowadays we are into multi-culturalism, and besides, there are now many immigrants from India in various walks of life in American society, and then there was George Harrison and all of that, so the comfort level with Indian culture and Hindu religious icons is much better these days. But back then, Oppenheimer was already suspect for being somewhat left-of-center in his politics and for being somewhat of an egghead (to use swing-era slang), and being Jewish in America of that time already made a person suspect of not worshipping the same God, perhaps in the way being Muslim in America does today, and gosh, quoting some obscure Hindu scripture really put a person way in left field.
But the nagging, unanswered question I have is this: isn't "I am become death" ungrammatical or am I missing some fine point. I can understand "I am death" (present tense) or "I have become death" (past perfect? -- I am not up on grammer), but I always thought "I am become death" was the result of some mistranslation on the order of "all your base."
Well, there was never going to be an invasion of Japan. Japan began suggesting surrender as early as Feb 1945 - the main sticking point later in the negotiations being that we wanted something unconditional whereas the Japanese were insisting that the Emperor retain a non-political title.
The bombs did force an unconditional surrender, but more importantly, it stopped Stalin dead in his tracks, who we had recognized as a grave threat who was now moving aggressively toward Japan. The worst-case scenario here was that Stalin, weakened but holding far more control of Europe and Asia than he could have hoped, could move for a year-round port city on the Pacific. He was clearly willing to commit his citizens to the last man - his ability to send hundreds of thousands of soldiers, including women to their deaths scared the hell out of the other ally leaders. Stalin could move against Japan from the north and take territory from Japan that would be extremely valuable to Russia against a US enemy (Russia entered the war against Japan on Aug 8 by easily invading Manchuria). Stalin realized that the US was the only other power to escape WWII with any resources, and that the two would be in conflict.
Stalins best scenario was to move against Japan after a successful US invasion - both US and Japanese forces would be weak and the US would not be prepared for an invasion from the north. Russia could more easily bring forces to the location than the US, and Russia could win most or all of the island. Stalin realized that the US would buckle under the scale of the Russian army, particularly since the US public would oppose defending real estate given that the real enemy (Japan) was defeated.
The US position was difficult. We couldn't afford to invade given that scenario - Japan could be lost to Russia regardless of whether we defeated Japan or not. Quite possibly the bombs were viewed as the solution to both problems - first, we could quickly end the war with Japan without giving Russia time to become entrenched, and avoiding any further invasions. Second, we send a message to Stalin that we can defeat his armies without committing US soldiers, and that we can bring resources to bear much more quickly than he can (how long does it take to hopscotch a B-29 across the Pacific vs. mobilizing hundreds of thousands of troops). Stalin knew nothing about the bombs until they were dropped but FDR certainly made it clear to him throughout the war that US resources were as limitless as the US wished them to be, so he had to assume the worst. Stalin made it clear to FDR that the number and commitment of his troops were as limitless as he wished them to be, so we had to assume the worst as well.
It's not pleasant to think that the bombs were used against the Japanese as a demonstration to the Russians, but that's quite likely to have been the case. The only possible upside to this is that Japan had a much brighter future not being an iron curtain nation.