The Cold War was not only a period in American history where the United States was locked in a massive international rivalry and arms race with the Soviet Union but it was a time of fervent technological, strategic and political development. The United States during World War II had developed a massive new process for technical progress with an applied goal. That is to say, the Manhattan project which culminated with the building of the first ever Atomic bomb was a very important milestone. It showed that civilians and the military could work together for a common goal. While the government and the military had the resources the scientists had the necessary know how to make something as complex as an atomic weapon possible. During the early Cold War the development of thermonuclear weapons was very important and it symbolized how the Cold War was different from everything which came before it. Edward Teller and his colleagues understood all of the political and strategic implications of building the H-bomb and they recognized that their program was ultimately hamstrung by political concerns. These political and strategic issues were always at the forefront of thinking and they were the most important reason why Teller and his group ultimately built the H-bomb regardless of many different criticisms for its utility and power. The development of nuclear weapons by the United State after the Second World War had very important technical, political and strategic implications. One of the most important reasons for the development of Thermonuclear weapons also known as the Teller-Ulam design or the H-bomb was spurred by the Cold War. The politico-strategic logic of the Cold War, deterrence and the nuclear arms race it spurred was important for the development of the H-bomb and its role as one of the primary ways in which the superpower rivalry unfolded.
The origins of Thermonuclear weapon concepts actually came from Edward Teller in his time at Los Alamos during World War II. The design was technically workable but Oppenheimer and others in charge of the Manhattan project chose to focus on fission as the most prudent technical development for nuclear technology at the time. The development of the H-bomb began in the fall of 1943 in Los Alamos where a group under Teller’s direction began a project to attempt to liquefy deuterium but this proved incredibly difficult and impractical. Later they decided to add tritium to lower the temperature required to make fusion possible (Galison and Bernstein 271-272) The fact that tritium was hard to and the theoretical difficulty of making a working H-bomb meant that during the war Teller’s group was put on the backburner in favor of the fission bomb. While most everyone else at Los Alamos continued to work on the fission weapons, Teller “devoted nearly the entire last year of the war to working exclusively on the H-bomb” and many think that Oppenheimer’s decision not to back the Super or H-bomb might have “disappointed and antagonized” Teller. (Galison and Bernstein 271-272) During the war at Los Alamos, Teller’s project was sidelined in favor of what was the time a much more feasible fission weapons but one cannot underestimate how important the research done during the war impacted the later development of the H-Bomb.
The development of Teller’s hydrogen bomb was one of the defining moments of the early part of the Cold War and it showed that the changes which took place to institutional science during World War II were something which could successfully be applied to a project as ambitious as the creation of a thermonuclear weapon. Hans Bethe one of the most important scientists associated with the American nuclear program both at Los Alamos and later during the H-bomb program. Made a very interesting point. As a result of WWII and the passage of the G.I Bill of Rights, the “largest graduate programs in physics before the war had about fifty graduate students; now this number jumped to a hundred and, in some universities, to over two hundred” (Bethe) The sheer amount of physics graduate students allowed laboratories like Los Alamos among other government laboratories and universities to build “large staffs of highly competent scientists in the years since 1948.” (Bethe) The American nuclear development after the war was highly dependent on having well-trained and qualified scientists to the work on these incredibly complex projects and that is something which has for the most part defined the work necessary for building something as complex as the hydrogen bomb.
The problem of actually building a feasible, H-bomb was something of a problem which Edward Teller and his team were having a hard time figuring out how to make it work. But with the help of another physicist Stansilaw Ulam who came up with a new solution to the problem of making a workable bomb. Ulam’s proposal suggested using a flow of neutrons which were created in the first explosion, a fission explosion which would cause compression of a second fusion core filled with thermonuclear fuel through use of “hydrodynamic lenses” (Goncharov 1035) Teller would refine upon Ulam’s design by suggesting a mechanism which would derive energy for the “shock compression of the secondary fusion core not from the neutron flow, but from radiation emitted by the primary charge.” (Goncharov 1035) The joint work by done by Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam on a two stage thermonuclear weapon actually led to a successful testing of the Mike device on November 1, 1952. (Goncharov 1036) The successful test of a thermonuclear weapon was a culmination of a long process in which many people worked very hard to create the most powerful weapon known to mankind but there is a much more interesting question. What were the political, moral and strategic reasoning for against the development of the H-bomb?
The political and strategic climate of the Cold War, the arms race and rivalry between the United States and the Soviet Union informed much of the decision making in the eventual decision to concentrate on thermonuclear weapons as a way of changing the balance of power between the two superpowers. One of the most important documents which outlined American interests and strategic goals for the Cold War and how they could be achieved was published in the spring of 1950, it was titled A Report to the National Security Council, also known as NSC 68. NSC 68 laid out what the United States thinking was in pursue the development and construction of nuclear weapons as a way of countering the ever present Russian threat. The report explains “For the moment our atomic retaliatory capability is probably adequate to deter the Kremlin from a deliberate direct military attack against ourselves or other free peoples. (NSC 38) Early in the Cold War the Soviets did not have the capability to make a surprise attack on the United States but when it could, the report warned, they could (“make a surprise attack on us, nullifying our atomic superiority and creating a military situation decisively in its favor.” (NSC 38) The possible military threat and especially nuclear threat posed by the Soviet Union was one of the primary reasons why the United States felt it necessary to develop and stockpile nuclear weapons. The report said that the United States should “should produce and stockpile thermonuclear weapons in the event they prove feasible and would add significantly to our net capability.” (NSC 38) Although they weren’t ready to make that recommendation yet because they did not know what role thermonuclear weapons would have in a future US arsenal. (NSC 38) The National Security Council is the group of the most powerful military and civilian leaders of the US government, the President, the Cabinet secretaries and important military men like the Joint Chiefs of Staff. If the NSC thought that the development of the H-bomb was the key to the United States having the upper hand on the Soviet Union in terms of their political and strategic concerns. The Cold War in this sense was much more an arms race than anything else and nuclear weapons were the thing that made the difference and especially the development of the H-bomb which the US took the initiative on in 1950. There was much political, strategic and military reasoning which bolstered the United States development of the H-Bomb but there was also much hesitation and moral questioning of the implications of the use and development of it.
Although there were powerful political interests which supported the development of Teller’s H-bomb, the scientific community was much more skeptical regarding its use and moral implications. The General Advisory Committee of Atomic Energy Commission in a report published in October of 1949 weighed in on the effort to create “a weapon whose energy release is 100 to 1000 times greater and whose destructive power in terms of area of damage is 20 to 100 times greater than those of the present atomic bomb” (York 159) The GAC which was headed by many important scientists which found that the development, construction and use of thermonuclear weapons were something which everyone should be wary of. The GAC based their recommendations on their “belief that the extreme dangers to mankind inherent in the proposal wholly outweigh any military advantage that could come from the development.” (York 160) Furthermore, the GAC said that the Teller’s design was something entirely different from the atomic bomb and that its development would not work to deter the Soviets. (York 160) The political and strategic concerns of the Cold War weren’t so powerful that critical voices although those in positions of power had no voice in trying to stop the unchecked development of nuclear weapons. Many scientists believed that the dangers posed by them outweighed their military and political utility they created especially as a deterrent.
The construction of thermonuclear weapons in the early Cold War was highly driven by the strategic concerns and fears that the United States could fall behind the Soviets and their ever growing arsenal. One way in which the H-bomb could be used to deal with the ever present threat of nuclear war was to create a powerful deterrent. The power of nuclear weapons and the threat they posed was a very important part of the calculation for why the United States chose to work on building a thermonuclear bomb. The logic of nuclear deterrence “was the ultimate in threatening awful consequences to prevent wars.” (Morgan 7) The reasoning for the use of nuclear weapons as a deterrent meant to “strip any cheap-victory strategy of plausible success” that would mean that it could gain a lot and suffer very little. (Morgan 8) Additionally, the ever present threat of nuclear war made “leaders extremely reluctant to take any action that they considered would seriously raise the risk of war.” (Lebow and Gross Stein 180) The deterrent effect of nuclear weapons were so great that they might have actually led the superpowers away from the disaster which a nuclear confrontation would have caused.
The development of nuclear weapons and especially during the H-bomb had many facets the most important of which were the technical, political and strategic implications. Edward Teller with the help of Stanislaw Ulam was able to develop a working thermonuclear weapon but they only had to build it because the political and military authorities thought it was the best course of action to face and defeat the Soviet Union. The story of the development of the H-bomb is a very good way to explain what the primary concerns of the United Stats were during the early part of the Cold War.
Works Cited
Bethe, Hans A. "``Observation on the Development of the H-Bomb''(1954)."York HF The Advisors. Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (1989).
Galison, Peter, and Barton Bernstein. "In any light: Scientists and the decision to build the Superbomb, 1952-1954." Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 19.2 (1989): 267-347.
Goncharov, German A. "American and Soviet H-bomb development programmes: historical background." Physics-Uspekhi 39.10 (1996): 1033.
Morgan, Patrick M. Deterrence Now. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Internet resource.
NSC. "A Report To The National Security Council: NSC 68." FAS. N.p., n.d. Web. 6 July 2016.
Lebow, Richard Ned, and Janice Gross Stein. "Deterrence and the Cold War." Political Science Quarterly 110.2 (1995): 157-181.
York, Herbert Frank. The advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the superbomb. Stanford University Press, 1989.Bottom of Form
