Abstract
By the beginning of 1949, an American defense strategy that relied increasingly on the retaliatory power of nuclear weapons had acquired clear and distinct outlines. What was also emerging was a closer, more dynamic competition with the Soviet Union that would, with time, sharply escalate tensions and give nuclear weapons an even more prominent role in East-West relations. The unexpected Soviet explosion of a nuclear device in late August 1949 dramatically altered the framework of the Soviet-American relationship. Not only did it end the American monopoly months, if not years, ahead of most predictions, giving the competition a new sense of urgency and reality; it also accelerated the US decision to develop a thermonuclear device, thereby further solidifying the American commitment to a nuclear strategy. Moreover, the Soviet surprise set in motion the bureaucratic process that would lead to the most thorough postwar examination of US objectives and policy—NSC 68—yet undertaken.
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Notes
Quoted from a 1971 interview with LeMay in Thomas M. Coffey, Iron Eagle: The Turbulent Life of General Curtis LeMay (New York: Crown, 1986), 280.
Quoted in Richard H. Kohn and Joseph P. Harahan (eds.), Strategic Air Warfare (Washington, D.C.: Office of Air Force History, 1988), 95.
USAF Briefing Paper for the President, Dec. 16 and 20, 1948, box 2, Forrestal Papers, Suitland; JCS 1952/1, Dec. 21, 1948, in Thomas H. Etzold and John Lewis Gaddis (eds.), Containment: Documents on American Policy and Strategy, 1945–1950 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1978), 357–360.
See Robert Frank Futrell, Ideas, Concepts, Doctrine: Basic Thinking in the United States Air Force, 1907–1984 (2 vols.; Maxwell AFB: Air University, 1989), I, 242–245.
Memo, Symington to Forrestal, Feb. 25, 1949, Eisenhower Pre-Presidential Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library, Abilene, Kansas; “History of B-36 Procurement Presented to House Armed Services Committee by Maj. Gen. F.H. Smith, Jr.,” (Mimeo; ca. 1949), sec. 1, Center of Air Force History collection, Boiling AFB, Washington, D.C.; Harry R. Borowski, A Hollow Threat: Strategic Air Power and Containment Before Korea (Westport, Conn: Greenwood, 1982), 151. Stockpile numbers are unofficial.
See John Lewis Gaddis, The Long Peace (New York: Oxford University Press, 1987), 111.
Memo, Forrestal to JCS, Oct. 23, 1948; memo, Forrestal to JCS Oct. 25, 1948; and memo, Lalor for Harmon, et al., Jan. 12, 1949, all in RG 330, CD 23–1–19. Also see John Ponturo, Analytical Support for the Joint Chiefs of Staff: The WSEG Experience, 1948–1976 (Arlington, Va.: Institute for Defense Analyses, 1979), 51–54.
See Robert H. Ferrell, The Eisenhower Diaries (New York: Norton, 1981), 159.
Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, chs. 11 and 14, covers the issue of AEC-Congressional relations especially well. Also see the “JCAE Chronology,” and Harold P. Green and Alan Rosenthal, Government of the Atom: the Integration of Powers (N.Y.: Atherton Press, 1963), 233–252. Truman’s remark about elections is in Lilienthal Journals, II, 564.
Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, ch. 12; Lewis L. Strauss, Men and Decisions (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), 215–230; Lilienthal Journals, II, 564–636.
For a concise and informative account of the infighting among members of the scientific community, see Herbert York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1976).
For Dean’s views, see Roger M. Anders (ed.), Forging the Atomic Shield: Excerpts from the Office Diary of Gordon E. Dean (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 48–50, 57–64.
This prediction proved correct. In fact, the Soviets had been pursuing theoretical studies at least since 1947, and on or about November 1, 1949, Stalin approved a high-priority development program that resulted in the test of a boosted fission bomb with thermonuclear characteristics in August 1953 and demonstration of a weaponized model in 1955. See David Holloway, “Soviet Thermonuclear Development,” International Security 4 (Winter 1979–80): 192–197.
Paul H. Nitze, “The Relationship of Strategic and Theater Nuclear Forces,” International Security 2 (Fall 1977): 124–125.
Memo by Nitze, Dec. 19, 1949, ibid., I, 610–611; Paul H. Nitze, From Hiroshima to Glasnost: At the Center of Decision—A Memoir (New York: Grove, Weidenfeld, 1989), 87–92; Interview No. 3 with Nitze by Richard D. McKinzie, Aug. 4, 1975, Northeast Harbor, Maine, Oral History Collection, Truman Library, p. 8.
Dean Acheson, Present at the Creation (New York: Norton, 1969), 348; Lilienthal Journals, II, 613–614.
Memo of Telcon by Acheson, Jan. 19, 1950, ibid., I, 511; Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, 399–409; G. Gordon Arneson, “The H-Bomb Decision,” Foreign Service Journal (May 1969), 27, and (June 1969), 25.
JCS 1952/11, WSEG Rpt No. 1, Feb. 10, 1950, RG 218, CCS 373 (10–23–48) sec. 6, Bulky Package. Ponturo, WSEG Experience, 73–75; and Philip M. Morse, In at the Beginning: A Physicist’s Life (Cambridge, Mass: MIT Press, 1977), 258–259, summarize the briefing.
See for example Robert Chadwell Williams, Klaus Fuchs, Atom Spy (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1987);
and Gregg Herken, The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945–1950 (New York: Knopf, 1980), 322–323.
Alice Cole, et al., History of Strategic Arms Competition, 1945–1972, Chronology—U.S. (2 vols; Washington, D.C.: Historical Office, Office of the Secretary of Defense, 1974), I, 101.
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© 1993 Samuel R. Williamson, Jr. and Steven L. Rearden
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Williamson, S.R., Rearden, S.L. (1993). Move and Counter-move: The Development of a Nuclear Arsenal. In: The Origins of U.S. Nuclear Strategy, 1945–1953. Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute Series on Diplomatic and Economic History. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-137-05882-9_5
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