nuclear arms race primary sources

The emergence of the Sino-Soviet split also made the idea of generally improving relations with the … With the atomic bombing of Japan, the United States had begun the era of nuclear weapons and the nuclear arms race. The Cold War section of Yale Law School's Avalon Project contains primary sources documents in such areas as Soviet-American Diplomacy, the Warsaw Pact, the 1960 U2 Incident, and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Khrushchev became convinced that if the United States knew they would suffer badly in a nuclear war, they would not start such a war. This radio show discussed the Cold War in detail. The view from 30,000 feet. control agreements that helped diminish the nuclear arms threat and build up. International Law on the Bombimg of Civilians. Primary Source—Excerpt. Source: RG 59, Executive Secretariat Conference Files, 1949-1972, box 127, CF 861 Bermuda Memcons . In a matter of minutes it could take 4,000 photographs that covered an area of 125 miles wide by 3,000 miles long. It is certain that further development will result in bombs of vastly greater destructive potential. Description. If that assumption should be permitted, the chance of saving civilization - perhaps the world itself - from destruction is a remote one. Pamphlets were also distributed on how to survive a nuclear war. ... to prevent the opponent from exploiting our figures for a new round of the arms race. The breakthrough came in 1952 when the United States exploded their first hydrogen bomb. (Wilson Center Digital Archives) At the outset of the Cold War, the United States was the only nation in the world to contain atomic weapons, such as those used against Japan in 1945. How realistic were these recommendations? "A compilation of archival film clips beginning with the first atomic bomb detonation in the New Mexico desert. This missile stored its fuel in its own engines. The race also resulted in frightening and powerful technology, including the development of thousands of nuclear missiles strong enough to destroy much of the earth. “Nuclear Weapons and the Escalation of the Cold War, 1945-1962,” in Odd Arne Westad and Melvin Leffler, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol. Science, Technology, Engineering and Math, the Association of Manhattan District Scientists. The public had not awakened to the potentially hazardous by-products of nuclear weapons until the U.S. Bravo test series done in 1954. By the end of the 1950s the United States overcame this problem by developing the Minuteman missile. President Reagan Proposes a Missile Defense System. Unlike conventional bombs, these new atomic bombs killed in two ways. If Iran gets a nuclear weapon you are likely to see Saudi, Egypt and other countries follow suit and we will bequeath to the next generation a nuclear arms race in the world's most unstable region. Target Committee, Los Alamos, May 10-11, 1945 The Cold War nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union is another example of a 20th-century arms race. We have no reason to fear loss of our present leadership through the free interchange of scientific information. If they were to be used against the United States, the Soviet Union needed a nuclear base in that area. The danger is that it will encourage those in power to assume that, once accepted as valid, the argument can be applied equally well in the future. 49 W. 45th Street At the present time, with the publication of the Smyth report and other published information, there are no substantial scientific secrets that would serve as obstacles to the production of atomic bombs by other nations. 170 Central Park West Four years after the U.S. successfully dropped its first bomb, the Soviets developed theirs. Headquarters: From this point of view, a demonstration of the new weapon might best be made, before the yes of representatives of all the United Nations, on the desert or a barren island. De Bethune, William Nierenberg, and Howard Levi. At a successful test of an atomic device just prior to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a leading American scientist quoted a Hindu text: “Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.” How did his expression compare with the statement issued a few months later by the Manhattan District scientists? My idea of an approach to the Soviets would be a direct proposal after discussion with the British that we would be prepared in effect to enter an agreement with the Russians, the general purpose of which would be to control and limit the use of the atomic bomb as an instrument of war. Although his proposal had little impact on the arms race, over time an expansion of research led to advances in nuclear power (the use of atomic energy to generate electricity). These bombs had been dropped by planes but it soon became clear that it would be far more effective to use rockets as a means of delivering the weapon to its target. In August 1945 the United States unleashed a new weapon of mass destruction against the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki and brought an end to World War II. Employing German scientists who had been involved in developing the V2 Rocket during the Second World War the United States set about producing nuclear missiles. As the United States perceived their main enemy to be the Soviet Union, they needed missiles that could travel long distances. Even as negotiations were occurring, the United States and the Soviet Union began a nuclear arms race, with each striving to gain a military advantage over the other by building more and more … Located on the lower level of the New-York Historical Society, Located on the lower level of the New-York Historical Society, The Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History. Web. This would undermine its effectiveness in a nuclear war. The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. Subscribe to our Spartacus Newsletter and keep up to date with the latest articles. Philadelphia, United States, Philadelphia: National Public Radio, 2010. This is an English language bibliography of scholarly books and articles on the Cold War.Because of the extent of the Cold War (in terms of time and scope), the conflict is well documented. This resulted in the U.S. spending six trillion dollars on its nuclear weapons program, containing ten thousand nuclear warheads, while Russia had only half as many. Although the a… The main problem was developing a missile that was accurate. I agreed with Henry Stimson. Such action would be interpreted as a generous gesture on our part and lay the foundation for sound international agreements that would assure the control and development of atomic energy for peaceful use rather than destruction. United Nations. The idea was to use these to support troops if a war broke out in Europe. The detonation of the first atomic bomb in July 1945 started the Atomic Age, an era in which the fear of nuclear attack and the promise of nuclear power pervaded American culture. Therefore, after the war, the United States concentrated on developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). As the United States radar network faced the Soviet Union, missiles placed in Cuba could be aimed at what became known as America's 'soft underbelly.' ... President Ronald Reagan thought that the nuclear arms race that had resulted from MAD could lead to the battle of Armageddon prophesied in the Christian Bible that would destroy the world. We have seen in the case of Hiroshima and Nagasaki that one crude, pioneering atomic bomb is sufficient to destroy a city of medium size. The information given to the Soviet Union was important for them to keep progressing technologically and keep up with America, Britain and Canada in the arms race. New York, NY 10024 This set focuses on the Space Race during the mid-1950s and 1960s and examines the impact of the Space Race today. because of our special awareness of the possibilities of atomic energy for the advance of our civilization or its utter destruction.". It is possible that we may not even know who our attackers are. The plane could fly at, altitudes of above fourteen miles. Although they had exploded their first atomic weapon in 1949, they were a long way behind the United States in nuclear technology. If Iran becomes a nuclear weapon state it is the end of non-proliferation as we know it. The bomb that hurried Russia into Far Eastern war a week ahead of schedule and drove Japan to surrender has accomplished the specific job for which it was created. But I think the bomb instead constitutes merely a first step in a new control by man over the forces of nature too revolutionary and dangerous to fit into old concepts. Defensive measures were mentioned in the document. It was now possible for the United States to work out the size and position of the Soviet forces. In this novel, Paul Boyer attempts to explain the intense and lasting impacts of the nuclear arms race on American culture. Primary Sources. Read the document introduction and transcript and apply your knowledge of American history in order to answer these questions. New York, NY 10036, Our Collection: They had concentrated on producing large missiles that could travel long distances. Further panic took place in the Soviet Union when in March 1962, Kennedy told a journalist that in some circumstances the United States might start a nuclear war. A heavily edited draft of the statement was found among the photographs and personal accounts of Mildred Goldberg, a Manhattan Project secretary. In 1949 the Soviet Union exploded its firs… We have been made strongly aware of the dangers inherent in the mishandling of this tremendous force by the peoples of the world. NHK, "Nuclear Arms and the Human Race" Nuclear Files Archive. The Soviet Union also became concerned when, in 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced a program to build nuclear shelters. Liam Fox It was my belief that Japan was, at that very moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of "face". With the development of the U-2 planes the Soviet missile sites became very vulnerable to attack. These missiles were also fairly small (54 feet long and 10 feet in diameter) and could be stored in silos under the ground, protected from an enemy attack. Rockets were cheaper, faster and more difficult to destroy in the air. This may even be a conservative estimate of the damage that will occur before we are in a position to retaliate, if retaliation be any longer possible. The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him. The scientists warn of the havoc that nuclear weapons could wreak if not handled with extreme care and consideration. We would then follow the old custom of secrecy and nationalistic military superiority relying on international caution to prescribe the future use of the weapon as we did with gas. The exclusiveness was short-lived, however. The task of compilation took the editor to primary sources at the National Archives, mainly in Manhattan Project files held in the records of the Army Corps of Engineers, Record Group 77 but also in the files of the National Security Agency. 19 Jan. 2013. However, the Soviet Union did not have an ally in the Americas. It was now possible to fire a missile in thirty seconds. We have not only already made public much of the scientific information about the atomic bomb, but above all with the authorization of the War Department we have indicated the road others must travel in order to reach the results we have obtained. The nature of science and the present state of knowledge in other countries are such that there is no possible way of preventing other nations from repeating what we have done or surpassing it within five or six years. The best possible atmosphere for the achievement of an international agreement could be achieved if America could say to the world, "You see what sort of a weapon we had but did not use. Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) were designed in the cold war to carry a long range nuclear payload and were developed by the Soviets in 1957. With respect to future scientific developments I am confident that both the United States and the world will gain by the free interchange of scientific information. The footage, much of it produced as government propaganda, follows the story of the bomb through the two atomic attacks on Japan that ended World War II … They discuss the changes occurring in Eastern Europe and the Tiananmen Square events in China." In the 1950s the Soviet Union had been producing medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs). The Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear … Primary Sources (1) General Dwight Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, told President Harry S. Truman that he was opposed to the... (2) Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, letter to President Harry S. Truman (11th September, 1945). The Cold War was predicated on the fact that neither side wanted to engage in a nuclear war that could destroy much of the civilized world. Through the analysis of primary source archival footage from TAMI’s online exhibit, ... the nuclear arms race and détente, as well as the fall of the Berlin Wall and decline of the USSR. Protected by the sea, these submarines could move close to the Soviet Union and therefore increase the missiles' accuracy. The Soviet Union was extremely concerned by these developments. By 1957 the United States had developed the Atlas missile that could travel 6,000 miles and land within a mile of its target. Experts usually examine the nuclear arms race country-by-country, which … In 1945 the United States possessed a monopoly on this new dreadful weapon. The Warsaw Pact has more launch pads for non-nuclear tactical missiles. On the other hand, we have every reason to avoid a shortsighted and unsound attitude which will invoke the hostility of the rest of the world. Goldberg unknowingly became a key contributor to the development of the atomic bomb as she typed out and organized the scientists’ notes. Re-Examining the Cold War Arms Race. The further the V-2 rocket had to travel, the more inaccurate it became. Click to explore primary source and secondary source databases, collections, & publications. The problem with the Atlas missile was that it took over an hour to prepare for firing. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers. Priscilla Macmillan, The Ruin of J. Robert Oppenheimer and the Birth of the Modern Arms Race (New York, Viking, 2005) Martin Sherwin and Kai Bird, American Prometheus, The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer (New York, Knopf, 2005). . You have asked for the comment, in writing, of each cabinet officer on the proposal submitted by Secretary Stimson for the free and continuous exchange of scientific information (not industrial blueprints and engineering "know-how") concerning atomic energy between all of the United Nations. The major failing of the V-2 rockets used against Britain at the end of the war was that they often did not hit their intended target. There were serious risks involved in this strategy but Khrushchev calculated that with the creation of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' (MAD), a first-strike attack from the United States would not now take place. "This is a collection of primary source documents covering the collapse of the Soviet Union during the late 1980s. However, these missiles were inaccurate and their size made them difficult to conceal. To what extent have any of these recommendations been followed? During the second half of the 20th century, the two superpowers competed for superiority in the development and accumulation of nuclear weapons. The United States became the first country in the world to use nuclear weapons when they bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945. This statement’s significance weighs even more heavily when one considers that this warning was written during a time when policies controlling the development of atomic energy were in their infancy. She described a pleasant work environment and expressed glowing admiration of the men she worked for—including Irving Kaplan, Francis Bonner, Andre J. What arguments did the scientists put forward in favor of full disclosure and transparency rather than continued secret research and development? But the USA has more aircraft. In fact, there is danger that in attempting to maintain secrecy about these scientific developments we will, in the long run, as a prominent scientist recently put it, be indulging "in the erroneous hope of being safe behind a scientific Maginot Line.". If the atomic bomb were merely another, though more devastating, military weapon to be assimilated into our pattern of international relations, it would be one thing. Start of the Arms Race On August 29, 1949 the Soviet Union successfully tested its first atomic bomb. Also, as regards artillery, the relation is about 1.2:1. With deterrence at the core of foreign policy, both sides worked to increase their arms stock. They also stressed their "very special responsibility to the people of America . The collection contains documents from archives in most of the former Soviet bloc countries. ... which would lead to the beginning of the Cold War and the nuclear arms race. It was suggested that the Soviet Union needed to find a way to make the United States vulnerable to a nuclear attack. Fortunately for these students, writing really impressive term papers on the atomic bomb is easier today than it has probably ever been, in part because the amount of primary source research material about the history of nuclear weapons available through the web is actually quite large — if you know where to go. Fitted with cameras, the U-2 could photograph and read a newspaper headline from a. height of 12 miles. This was an important development, as one Polaris submarine could carry more destructive power than all the bombs dropped during the whole of the Second World War. 2nd Floor The problem of nuclear proliferation had been central to U.S. nuclear policy since 1945, when proposals for international control of atomic energy began to be publicly broached. The book discusses different ways to view the arms race such as looking at the military consumption itself and what could have been provided for the citizens if the materials did not go to the military. The "Preliminary Statement of the Association of Manhattan District Scientists" emphasizes the need to control atomic weaponry and acknowledge the consequences of its use. The world will be divided into two camps with the non- Anglo-Saxon world eventually superior in population, resources, and scientific knowledge. The Sixteen Known Nuclear Crises of the Cold War, 1946-1985 by David R. Morgan, National President, Veterans Against Nuclear Arms, Vancouver, Canada 06 March 1996 . The only time nuclear weapons have been used in war was at the end of World War II against Japan. The United States’ use of nuclear weapons to end World War II led to a determined and soon successful effort by the Soviet Union to acquire such weapons, followed by a long-running nuclear arms race between the two superpowers. H-bombs provided large explosions with smaller, lighter warheads. A printer-friendly version is available here. Primary documents related to Sputnik and the Space Race, from the Dwight D. Eishenhower Presidential Library. Of this I am assured by the most competent scientists who know the facts. The suffering, the wholesale slaughter it entailed, have been outweighed by its spectacular success; Allied leaders can rightly claim that the loss of life on both sides would have been many times greater if the atomic bomb had not been used and Japan had gone on fighting. From the point of view of military strategy, $2,000,000,000 (the cost of the bomb and the cost of nine days of war) was never better spent. Physicists predict a nuclear arms race, 1945 A Spotlight on a Primary Source by the Association of Manhattan District Scientists View this item in the collection Preliminary statement of the Association of Manhattan District Scientists, August 1945. After the Cuban revolution and the attempted Bay of Pigs invasion this situation changed. At the same time the United States developed Polaris submarines which could carry nuclear missiles. Visit the new Gilder Lehrman Institute Gift Shop here. ProQuest Central. This declaration of concern, written after the United States bombed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, offers insight into the Manhattan Project, an atomic development program led by the United States. Primary Sources. 1 (Cambridge University Press, 2010) 376-397.. Nuclear weapons are so central to the history of the Cold War that it … We are ready to renounce its use in the future if other nations join us-in this renunciation and agree to the establishment of an efficient international control. They killed by sheer magnitude of the blast and the resulting firestorm, and they killed by means of nuclear fallout. The close call of the Cuban Missile Crisis led to the beginnings of talks about slowing the arms race. There is no answer to this argument. Soviet scientists advised Nikita Khrushchev that it would be several years before they could catch up with the United States. │By Masaki Morisawa, Senior Product Manager, Gale Japan│ One of the great things about Gale Primary Sources is the serendipity – the unexpected discoveries you make when you were looking for one thing, and stumble on something totally different yet fascinating. It will be a small consolation to have the largest supply of the world’s best bombs; it may be too late to use them.
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