Kyle Monsma

1 April 2007

American Studies

Mr. Puchalla

Why America Made the H-Bomb

In the summer of 1945, the world was forever changed. The annihilation of two cities

and the surrender of Japan showed the potency of atomic weapons in war. The atomic age was

ushered in as one of great technological development and much fear. With the end of WWII, a

new conflict arose between the U.S.A. and the Soviet Union. Most Americans saw the Soviet

Union as aggressors leaving its massive army in Eastern Europe. This conflict between two

super powers developed into the Cold War. The Soviet threat became real to Americans in the

September of 1949 when the Soviet Union detonated its own nuclear weapon. A technological

race between the Soviet Union and U.S.A. began. To exert dominance, the U.S. developed the

thermonuclear bomb. The thermonuclear bomb, also known as the Hydrogen bomb, works by

setting off a fission based nuclear reaction which heats up deuterium and tritium (hydrogen

isotopes) to point in which the isotopes began to fuse. The fusing of the two isotopes puts out an

immense amount of energy in the form of electromagnetic radiation, which will incinerate

anything in a large radius. This H-bomb has a devastating power that has to be measured in

megatons (millions of tons of TNT). The development of the thermonuclear bomb was a

necessity to help Americans, in general, feel safe from the communist threat by allowing the U.S.

to maintain nuclear superiority and to provide deterrence from a direct Soviet attack.

After WWII, many Americans had differing views on the atomic bomb, and its many uses

along with how to deal with the Soviet Union. The Truman administration in charge of
developing and forming policies at the time came to shape American policies that would last for

the next 10 to 20 years. The policies formed were the response to a changing world theater and

Soviet aggression, which many Americans feared. Before 1949, the Truman policies were based

on assumptions about the U.S.S.R., which were expressed in the “Mr. X” article written by

George Kennan. George Kennan worked as a formal diplomat between the U.S. and the Soviet

Union and wrote of “[t]he political personality of Soviet Union” (Kennan, 36). He warns U.S.

government officials “that Soviet policies will reflect no abstract love of peace and stability,” and

instead they will have “a cautious, persistent pressure toward the disruption and weakening of all

rival influence and rival power” (Kennan, 47-48). The Truman administration, knowing of the

Soviet hopes in the eventual demise of capitalism, decided to take an even stronger containment

stance. This new stance would be on a global scale using improved economic, political, and

military power as tools. The U.S. as the sole nuclear power implemented the nuclear bomb to

strengthen its political and military might for containment. Many Americans showed their

support for this position in the summer 1949, when 70% of Americans in a Gallup poll opposed

any pledge by the U.S. to not be the first using an atomic weapon in war (Boyer, 86). Military

officials also agreed with the use of the atomic bomb for containment; George C. Kenney in the

Strategic Air Command discussed openly the Pentagon’s plan of a gigantic nuclear strike

involving 133 A-bombs against Russia in the event of a war. In addition, the atomic bomb

became an important ingredient in America’s defense posture against the new foreign threat.

Continued research and development of the fission bomb was also continued, but the U.S.

monopoly on nuclear weapons soon came to an end.

Americans were struck with fear when Truman announced the U.S. had picked up

“evidence that […] an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R.” (Truman). In September of
1949, the Soviet’s successfully built and tested their own nuclear bomb; the U.S.A. had lost its

monopoly. The atomic bomb could no longer be used as easily as an offensive weapon from

strategic bombers nor as a defensive posture against Soviet invasion. The American government

was shocked how the under developed Soviet Union was able to develop its own nuclear bomb

so quickly. The Truman administration, military leaders, and the American public had to rethink.

Truman commanded that a top-secret review be carried out on U.S. policies and tactics. The

result was the NCS-68 documents, which had a greater effect on future government policies than

the “Mr. X” document (the NCS-68 documents were however influenced by the “Mr. X”

documents). The NCS-68 documents and the Joint Intelligence Committee predicted the

buildup of the Soviet atomic arsenal and the possibility of attack from the Soviet Union once it

had sufficient capabilities. It was calculated that Communist nations as a whole would beat

Americans in “conventional, or nonatomic, warfare” and reach “an approximate stalemate in

nuclear weapons […] by about 1954” with the USA (NCS-68, 75). However, the document also

indicated “[t]he United States might extend its advantage for a few years longer if the hydrogen

bomb should be perfected” (NCS-68, 75). Americans, after calming down from fear of attack,

changed the goal of US monopoly on atomic weapons to that of U.S. superiority. The U.S. Joint

Chiefs of Staff requested a full out attempt to build the H-bomb. Additionally, Truman had all

ready made known his strong support for “research on all nuclear technology including

thermonuclear technology” on January 31, 1950 (“Timeline of Nuclear Age”, 1950). Because of

the Soviet’s development of their own atomic bomb, the research and development of the H-

bomb received a new incentive in the U.S.A., and the program was set in motion.

The construction of the world’s first thermonuclear bomb experienced many obstacles.

Before the Soviet detonation of the bomb many opposed the development of the H-bomb, even
top U.S. Air Force generals questioned how it would be ethical to use a bomb that could

obliterate an entire city with potentially 1,000 times the power, if not more, of current atomic

bombs. After the Soviet test, this obviously changed; a Gallup poll in February of 1950 showed

69% of Americans favored building the H-bomb and 9% gave “reluctant approval” (Boyer 89).

Despite the need for the bomb at the time and strong public support for the program, there were

many Americans, 19% in the same Gallup poll, who disagreed with the development of the H-

bomb (Boyer 89). Scientists also had varying views on the issue. Scientists such as J. Robert

Oppenheimer, Enrico Fermi, and I.I. Rabi all opposed making the hydrogen bomb, because the

weapon had no limit on its explosive capability. They believed that no government should have

the limitless power of the H-bomb due to the “adaption to war like aims and activities

[corrupting] the mentality of men” (Einstein). On the other hand, Scientists led by Edward Teller

(including Ernest Lawrence and Luis Alvarez), supported the development of the H-bomb,

because they believed it was inevitable that the U.S.S.R. would eventually attempt to surpass the

U.S.A. by making a Soviet H-bomb.

With the enactment of NCS-68 document as the new basis of U.S. policies and tactics

funding to the National Security Council increased a full 350%. Funding for the development of

the H-bomb soon flooded money into Los Alamos again, and the program began under the

guidance of Edward Teller. After scientists had discussed, researched, and went through many

design changes, the program had constructed a massive thermonuclear device which stood two

stories high and was code named “Mike” (and was technically not a bomb, because it was too

large to be carried by a plane). On October 31, 1952, the US detonated the first thermonuclear

device. With a power of 10.4 megatons, the device set off a massive explosion 500 times that of

the bomb dropped on Nagasaki. The mushroom cloud formed from the bomb was massive. The
cloud was 100,000 feet high and clearly visible from a distance of over fifty miles! The

American program was a success. Americans now had a little comfort from a nuclear attack

despite communist aggression and the ongoing Korean War.

The outbreak of the Korean War put the topic of the use of atomic weapons in war under

hot debate in America. The continual frustrations and costliness of the Korean War lead

American approval for using the atomic bomb in Korea on military targets from a minority of

28% on August 1950 to majority of 51% on September 1951 Gallup polls (Boyer 92). Although

many military generals such as McCarthy and other Americans wanted to use the A-bomb, it was

never used, because of the political complications which would have arisen. While a majority

Americans approved the use of the nuclear bomb in war, using it first contradicted the victory

culture of the U.S.A. at the time. The victory culture believed fighting should be done only after

being attacked, such as in Pearl Harbor. Also the hesitation was due to how many politicians and

diplomats supposed the America’s allies and the rest of the world may react to such an event.

Eventually the Korean War came to an end in July 27, 1953, without the use of nuclear weapons.

The death of Stalin came soon after in March helped relax the high political tensions. A few

months later, America found itself with a new problem.

On August 12, 1953, the Soviets tested their own thermonuclear bomb. Americans were

initially struck with fear, but it was soon realized that this nuclear bomb was crudely built. The

bomb developed by the Soviet scientists was not a true H-bomb and used a layer cake design

with alternating layers of plutonium and deuterium to produce an explosive yield of 400 kilotons.

The power of the Soviet’s nuke was only a small fraction of the massive power of the “Mike”

test which yielded 10.4 megatons. America still remained the superior nuclear power. However,

the Soviet bomb had an advantage; it was a usable bomb. In 1953, the Dooms Day Clock was
set only two minutes till midnight showing some were pessimistic about the future. New policies

on specifics uses of the new super bomb and atomic bombs had to be reformed yet again to adapt

to the new political environment of the thermonuclear age.

On January 12, 1954, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles brought into the U.S. politics

a new policy of massive retaliation. The tactic would attempt to prevent the Kremlin from ever

considering any attack on the U.S., because the fear of a gigantic American retaliation. One

article in the New York Times went to state that “[t]he old doctrine that ‘offense is the best

defense’ has become more pertinent in the age of the airplane and the atomic weapon” (Baldwin

68). This was reinforced by the U.S. detonation of the usable H-bomb, Bravo, with an enormous

power of 14.8 megatons (which was actually expected to only have a yield of 4 to 8 megatons).

If Soviets dared to strike the U.S. in any way, the response could be the complete destruction and

annihilation of the Communist world. The idea of deterrence and retaliation appeared to develop

many paradoxes; escalation of nuclear weaponry caused an attack to be less likely. The policy of

massive retaliation attempted to conventional wars by deferring future Koreas, but the strategy

was not the best way to deal with minor day to day issues. The policy was based on the

invulnerability of the U.S. homeland and that Soviet leadership would take serious the threat of

total destruction. Eventually after the Soviet development of a real H-bomb in 1955 and the

Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. vulnerability was realized. In the 1960s, M.A.D. (mutual assured

destruction) tactics were adopted, and the purpose of nuclear weapons made more flexible.

Submarines equipped with ballistic nuclear missiles provided the only deterrence from nuclear

strike, by keeping Russia vulnerable even after a successful attack against the U.S. and all its

military instillations. The overall idea of M.A.D. was that the invulnerability of both nations

would keep either nation from attacking the other. The possession of the thermonuclear
warheads made it possible to assure this destruction was possible and deterred the U.S.S.R. from

launching a nuclear strike against the U.S.A.

U.S. policies have gone through many changes from WWII into the Cold War, and

thermonuclear weapons have played a key part in these changes. Although these weapons

brought the world to the brink of a nuclear holocaust, the H-bomb allowed a period of cold peace

between the United States and the Soviet Union. These weapons of mass destruction were part

of an escalation in Cold War, which also lead to great technological leaps that benefited the

U.S.A. Perhaps, some of the greatest paradoxes come from the building and the improvement of

the thermonuclear bomb. Devastating weapons of unspeakable power actually prevented a

massive WWIII of East against West from happening. From the decision to build all the way up

to M.A.D. tactics, the American H-bomb (or warhead) has provided many Americans over time a

comfort from communist aggression, and later protection from nuclear attack.
Kyle Monsma

26 October 2006

American Studies

Mr. Puchalla

Works Citied

Baldwin, Hanson W. "Is Ther a Defense Against the H-Bomb?" New York Times 18 Oct. 1953,

sec. SM: 7+. ProQuest Historical Newspapers. King County, Mercer Island. 20 Apr. 2007.

Keyword: H-Bomb. The newspaper article written was written in 1953, to discuss possible

defenses the U.S. could employ against the H-bomb. The article was used for a quote and

to gather insight on how the U.S. thought it could defend itself through deterrence. The

article is a primary source written in 1953 and published by the New York Times; the

author, Baldwin was at the time military editor of The Times.

Boyer, Paul. "American Attitudes Toward the Bomb During the Early Cold War Years." The Cold

War. Ed. Derek C. Maus. San Diego: Greenhaven P, 2003. 83-93. The article is written

about changing view in the American public over the A-bomb and H-bomb after WW II up

to the early stages of the Korean War. This section provided me with statistics and

specific examples of the American public’s views. Boyer is a history professor at the

University of Wisconsin, and has written two books about atomic bomb and Cold War

culture.

Einstien, Albert. "The Menace of Mass Destruction." Second Annual Dinner of the Foreign Press

Association. New York. 11 Nov. 1947. The speech was given by Albert Einstein in front
 of the Security Council and General Assembly of the U.N. on how we should treat

nuclear weapons as an epidemic. The speech provides an idea on why some scientists did

not support the H-bomb nor the continued use of the A-bomb.

Engelhardt, Tom. "To Use or Not Use: Implications of Nuclear Weapons." The Cold War. Ed.

Derek C. Maus. San Diego: Greenhaven P, 2003. 133-38. The article discusses the

situation and events which made it impossible for politicians to decide to use the atomic

bomb in North Korea. The articles provides information on the victory culture of the

1950s, and the massive power of the U.S.’s nuclear arsenal compared to Russian’s

arsenal. The author, Tom Engelhardt is a historian and consulting editor for

Henry/Metropolitan Books.

Kennan, George F. "George F. Kennan ("Mr. X"): the Sources of Soviet Conduct (July 1947)."

America in the Cold War. Ed. Walter Lafeber. New York: Wiley, 1969. 35-48. The “Mr.

X” documents made public the assumptions made by the Truman administration about

the Soviet Union and provided arguments to advance the idea of containment of

communism. The document was used as an insight on strategies and policies of the

Truman administration. It was formed prior to September of 1949. The document is an

exact copy and is a primary source from 1947.

Lafeber, Walter, ed. "NSC-68: How to Prepare for an Indefinite Period of Tension and Danger

(April, 1950)." America in the Cold War. New York: Wiley, 1969. 74-77. The

paraphrased NSC-68 documents were written in 1950; they discuss the U.S. policies and

military tactics in dealing with the Soviet Union and new alternatives to these tactics now
 that the U.S.S.R. had made its own atomic bomb. The documents were used to see the

old U.S. tactics prior to 1949 with the A-bomb and what officials in the National Security

Council believed were the only alternatives in dealing with Soviet Union. The source is a

primary source written by the National Security Council in 1950. It was paraphrased and

then released, because parts of the document remain classified.

Johnson, Kathleen. "H-Bomb Development Summary." The Cold War Museum. 4 Mar. 2007

<http://www.coldwar.org/articles/40s/h_bomb.html>. This website page gives a brief

over view of the history of the decision to build H-bomb. It allowed me to get a quick

idea of events that influenced the decision to build the H-bomb. Kathleen Johnson wrote

the information with full access to the Cold War Museum information and other

recourses.

"Postwar to H-Bomb." Los Alamos National Labratory History. Los Alamos National Labratory.

3 Mar. 2007 <http://www.lanl.gov/history/postwar/index.shtml>. The website page gives

a short paragraph on the first H-bomb test. It provided me with the size of the first

thermonuclear test. The article is written for the Los Alamos National Laboratory as a

historical view of their own facility.

Resch, John, Ed. Americans at War. Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005. 1196 pp. 4 vols.

Gale Virtual Reference Library. Thomson Gale. King County Library System. 16 Mar.

2007 <http://find.galegroup.com/gvrl/infomark.do?&contentSet=

EBKS&type=retrieve&tabID=T002&prodId=GVRL&docId=CX3427399999&source=g
 ale&userGroupName=kcls_web&version=1.0>. The article writes about specific events

and Soviet to U.S. relations which played a major role in the escalation of nuclear

weapons to the H-bomb. The article was used to help piece together different documents,

decisions, and meetings taken place between 1946 and 1952. The article was provided by

the Gale Virtual Reference Library, which contains a reliable source of historical articles.

Rossenfeld, Carrie. "Cold War: a Brief History." Atomic Archives. National Science Digital

Library. 4 Mar. 2007 <http://www.atomicarchive.com/History/coldwar/>. The website

has a section about the history of the Cold War and briefly provides information on the

topics. The page on the H-bomb provides a good overview about the split amongst

scientist to build the H-bomb, and the eventual go ahead from the government to carry

out the program. The atomic archives website is a member of the Nuclear Pathways

project, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation's National Science

Digital Library in effort to make information on historical and present nuclear issues

more available to the public.

"Timeline of Nuclear Age." Nuclear Files. National Science Digital Library. 3 Mar. 2007

<http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/timeline/html_index.htm>. The website provides

good first hand articles on the Nuclear Age and has a nice timeline of events which goes

from the 1940s to the present. The timeline helped me to piece together when some

events occurred in relation to each other. Nuclear Files is also a member of the Nuclear

Pathways project, funded by a grant from the National Science Foundation's National
 Science Digital Library in effort to make information on historical and present nuclear

issues more available to the public.

Truman, Harry S. Address. Washington D.C. 23 Sept. 1949. This address is the speech given to

the American public announcing the Soviet detonation of the bomb. The speech gives a

firsthand account on how Truman approached the atomic bomb detonated by Soviet

Union and told the American public. The address is a primary source and the exact words

of Truman on September 23, 1949.

Weisgall, Jonathan M. "The Beginings of "Nuclear Diplomacy"" The Cold War. Ed. Derek C.

Maus. San Diego: Greenhaven P, 2003. 73-82. The article is written about the chaotic

years after WWII that lead to the atomic bomb tests of July 1946 as an indirect warning

to Soviets about continued expansion. The article gave a good idea of views on potential

uses of the A-bomb and break down of U.S. to Soviet relations. The article was written

by Jonathan M. Weisgall, an attorney who represented the inhabitants of the Bikini Atoll

where the atomic bomb test of July 1946 took place.