Crossing the Rubicon Barton 1. Bernstein A Missed Opportunity to Stop the H-Bomb?
are in some way limited, the future of our society will come increasingly into peril of the gravest kind. --Panel of Consultants on Disarmament, September 1952 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 That first thermonuclear] test ended the possibility of the only type of agreement that 1 thought was possible with Russia . . . an agreement to make no more tests. [It]would have been self-policing. . . . 1 still think that we made a grave error in conducting that test at that time. . . . Those who pushed that thing . . . without making that attempt have a great deal to answer for.’ -Vannevar Bush, April 1954
“In the thermonuclear tests at Eniwetok,” President Harry S. Truman announced in his January 1953 State of the Union address, “we have entered another stage in the worldshaking development of atomic energy.” This
I am indebted for counsel to Coit Blacker, McGeorge Bundy, Alexander Dallin, Peter Galison, Allen Greb, Jonathan Haslam, Gregg Herken, David Holloway, Gail Lapidus, Condoleezza Rice, David Rosenberg, Scott Sagan, Martin Sherwin, and Herbert York; for various sources to Roger Anders, Nancy Bressler, Jack Holl, Sally Marks, and William Tuttle; for support to the Ford Foundation Program in International Security, Barbara and Howard Holme, the Center for the History of Physics (American Institute of Physics), the Harry S. Truman Library Institute, and the Center for International Security and Arms Control; for access to the James Conant papers to Theodore Conant; and for early access to the Lewis L. Strauss papers to Lewis H. Strauss and Richard Pfau. Earlier versions of this paper were presented in 1986-88 to the Peace Studies group and the Nuclear History group at Stanford University, and parts were presented in 1987 to the Institute on Global Cooperation and Conflict summer program at Sussex.
Barton I. Bernstein is Professor of History and Mellon Professor of lnterdisciplinay Studies at Stanford University, where he directs the International Relations Program and the International Policy Studies Program. His most recent publications include “America‘s Biological Warfare Program in the Second World War” in the Journal of Strategic Studies, and (with Peter Galison) ”In Any Light: Scientists and the Decision to Build the Superbomb, 1942-1954,” in Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences.
1. Panel of Consultants on Disarmament, “The Timing of the Thermonuclear Test,” undated (probably September 1952), Department of State, Foreign Relations of the United States (hereafter FRUS), 1952-54, Vol. I1 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office [U.S. GPO], 1984), p. 1006. 2. Vannevar Bush in April, 1954; Atomic Energy Commmission (AEC), In the Matter of!. Robert Oppenhezrner (Washington, D.C.: U.S. GPO, 1954), p. 582.
International Security, Fall 1989 (Vol. 14, No. 2) 0 1989 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College and of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
132 Crossing the Rubicon 1 133
potential new weapon, he explained, ”moves into a new era of destructive power, capable of creating explosions of a new order of magnitude, dwarfing the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.” It was the world’s first test of a thermonuclear de~ice.~
Truman’s statement about the October 31 explosion, tucked into a single Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 paragraph in a lengthy speech, was designed to downplay the recent event. His comment was only the second official mention of the test. He did not disclose that, at about ten megatons, it had literally destroyed a small Pacific island, leaving a gaping crater in the ocean floor. The explosion was about 800 times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb.4 Warning the Soviets and the world of the dangers of nuclear war, Truman stressed that he wished that the world could pursue only the peaceful atom, and he blamed the Soviets for blocking international control of atomic energy. He said that he, with the American people, would support the incoming Eisenhower administration’s efforts to ”make this newest of man’s discov- eries a source of good and not of ultimate destruction.” But he held out virtually no hope for any control of the arms race or the achievement of a Soviet-American settlement in the near future. He called for continued tough- ness in dealing with the ”masters of the Kremlin” and thus justified building a stockpile of H-b~mbs.~ Such bleak counsel, expressing Truman’s sincere beliefs, concealed dis- putes within the administration on whether, and how, to mention the ther- monuclear test, and, more importantly, even whether to hold it at all. A small group of respected advisers (the Panel of Consultants on Disarmament) had pleaded, unsuccessfully, that the United States not hold the test and that it seek instead an agreement with the Soviet Union not to conduct any thermonuclear tests. Until that first test, these advisers believed that there was a real possibility of blocking the H-bomb. After the test of a thermonu- clear device, an actual weapon seemed only about a year away, and an agreement, impossible. The proposed Soviet-American agreement, had it been established, might have spared the world much of the horror of the hydrogen bomb era; it thus may have constituted a missed opportunity to halt, or at least to slow down,
3. Truman speech, January 7, 1953, in Public Papers of the Presidents: Harry S. Truman, 1952-53 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. GPO, 1966), p. 1125. 4. Gordon Dean to Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 7, 1952, AEC Document (Doc.) 356, Historian’s Office (HO), Department of Energy (DOE), Germantown, Md. 5. Truman speech, January 7, 1953. International Security 14:2 I 134
the nuclear arms race. Lamenting that there had been, indeed, a lost chance, Vannevar Bush, the major 1952 proponent of the agreement, told a close associate, "I feel that an opportunity was missed and that history will prob- ably record that it was." Bush, the president of the Carnegie Institution and
Roosevelt's top World War I1 science adviser, admitted that he had no idea Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 whether the Soviets would have joined in an agreement, but he believed "that the attempt [would have been] worthwhile.'"j Claims of a missed chance, especially when illuminated by recently de- classified sources from that period, inspire an effort to understand more about this little-known 1952 proposal,' why and how it lost, and whether it was seriously considered at the upper levels of the administration. Was this lost opportunity a near miss, blocked by minor contingencies, or was its defeat virtually inevitable, dictated by the Truman administration's attitudes and other powerful forces? This essay argues that, because of the domestic political consensus and the views of the Truman administration itself, there was no likelihood that this 1952 proposal could have won acceptance in the United States. To put these issues in a broad context, the essay also briefly discusses the 1952-53 panel's general report for reorienting American nuclear policy, the relation- ship of these recommendations to the 1953-54 Oppenheimer loyalty-security case, and the question whether the Soviet Union in 1952-53 might have accepted an American proposal to bar all thermonuclear testing. Such a proposal, this article concludes, would have been in the Soviets' interest and might indeed have proved acceptable.
6. Vannevar Bush to James Conant, March 29, 1954, Box 27, Bush Papers, Library of Congress (LC). On Bush, see also AEC, In the Matter of]. Robert Oppenheimer, pp. 561-568. Strangely, in 1954, Bush incorrectly placed this proposal in 1953, not 1952, and also erred by recalling it as only his idea, not a panel recommendation. 7. Until recently, the main sources on the panel were the skimpy references in AEC, In the Matter of Oppenheimer, pp. 247-248,561-568,589-590, and 927-928. The panel is also mentioned, very briefly (usually just a paragraph), in six older studies: Norman Moss, Men Who Play God: The Story of the H-Bomb and How the World Came to Live with It (New York: Harpers, 1968), p. 58; John Major, The Oppenheirner Hearings (New York: Stein, 1971), pp. 142-143; Stanley Blumberg and Gwinn Owens, Energy and Conflict: The Life and Times of Edward Teller (New York: Putnam, 1976), p. 294; Robert A. Divine, Blowing on the Wind: The Nuclear Test Ban Debate (New York: Oxford, 1978), p. 16; Philip Stern, with Harold Green, The Oppenheimer Case: Securify on Trial (New York: Harper and Row, 1969), pp. 194-195; and McGeorge Bundy, "The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb," New York Revim of Books, May 13, 1982, p. 19. In 1988-89, two additional studies briefly treated the 1952 effort: McGeorge Bundy, Danger and Survival: Choices about the Bomb in the First Fifty Years (New York: Random House, 1988), p. 228; and Peter Galison and Barton J. Bernstein, "In Any Light: Scientists and the Decision to Build the Superbomb, 1942- 1954," Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, Vol. 19, Part I1 (1989), p. 328. Crossing the Rubicon I 135
An Earlier Opporfunity
The hope for a no-test agreement had first arisen in late October 1949, when eight members of the Atomic Energy Commission’s (AEC) General Advisory Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 Committee (GAC), chaired by physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, had secretly tried to head off development of the H-bomb. At the time, alarmed by the Soviet Union’s first A-bomb test, the Truman administration was considering whether to transform its slow quest for a thermonuclear weapon into a “crash” program, modeled on the World War I1 Manhattan Project. Up until October 1949, the American H-bomb program had a low priority. It had received little funding and scant scientific attention, largely because no one knew how to solve basic scientific problems, most resources were being devoted to fission weapons (A-bombs), and advisers were unsure whether the H-bomb was militarily or morally desirable.8 On October 30, physicists Enrico Fermi and 1.1. Rabi, both Nobel Prize winners on the GAC, had joined the other six GAC members at the meeting in opposing development of the H-bomb. All eight men regarded the weapon as terrible, its power creating the prospect of mass killing of noncombatants reaching far beyond a fission bomb. Calling the H-bomb “evil,“ Fermi and Rabi proposed trying to stop its development with a ban on thermonuclear testing. “If such a pledge were accepted even without control machinery,” these two physicists stated, ”it appears highly probable that an advanced state of development leading to a test by another power could be detected by available physical means.” Development of this weapon, the two advisers emphasized, could not be adequately explored without actual test-firing. “Many tests may be required,” all eight GAC members agreed, “before a workable model has been evolved or before it has been established beyond a reasonable doubt that no such model can be e~olved.”~ Fermi and Rabi suggested a middle way between the stark alternatives of unconditional opposition to the H-bomb (endorsed by the six-man GAC majority) and firm commitment to develop it (Truman’s January 1950 deci-
8. J. Carson Mark, A Short Account of Los Alamos Theoretical Work on Thermonuclear Weapons, 1946- 1950, LA 5647 (Los Alamos, N.M.: Los Alamos National Laboratory, 1974), pp. 1-7; and Barton J. Bernstein, ”Four Physicists and the Bomb: The Early Years, 1945-1950,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, Vol. 18, Part I1 (1988), pp. 241-244, 257-259. 9. Fermi-Rabi annex attached to J. Robert Oppenheimer, chairman of General Advisory Com- mittee (GAC), to David Lilienthal, chairman of AEC, October 30, 1949 (GAC report), AEC Doc. 349, HO, DOE. International Security 14:2 I 136
sion). In the Fermi-Rabi conception, the United States could still do ther- monuclear research but need not develop the weapon unless it learned (mostly from atmospheric fallout) that the Soviets had violated the pledge and tested a device.1°
In 1949, these two physicists had faith in the reliability of atmospheric Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 detection, especially if aided by seismic monitoring. Atmospheric detection had picked up fallout from the small Soviet A-bomb test, and thus there was strong evidence that it could also pick up a thermonuclear detonation, which would be far more powerful. Detection was “highly probable,” the two men judged.” Enrico Fermi, because he was admired for his cautious, nearly infallible scientific judgment (he was known as “the Pope”) and his reluctance to take political positions, should have been an unusually persuasive au- thority on this technical matter. l2 Because these two advisers knew that America could produce a large arsenal of A-bombs (there were over 100 in late 1949)13well before the Soviet Union might develop an H-bomb, they were not worried about the small margin of risk in accepting a test ban, even without inspection. “We have in our possession, in our stockpile of atomic bombs,” they asserted, “the means for adequate ‘military’ retaliation for the [Soviet] production or use“ of an H- bomb. And because the Soviet Union had few large targets (the kind most suitable for a thermonuclear weapon), American fission bombs in substantial numbers constituted an acceptable alternative for the United States. l4
10. Ibid. The 1949 Fermi-Rabi proposal is discussed more fully in Bundy, “The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb,” and in Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 214-222. 11. Fermi-Rabi annex. For similar assessments, see summaries of Committee on Atomic Energy (CAE), Research and Development Board (R & DB), in C.A. Rolander to K.D. Nichols, “Review of CAE-R & DB Minutes,” January 29, 1954, Lewis L. Strauss Papers, Herbert Hoover Library (HHL), West Branch, Iowa. 12. Emilio Segre, Enrico Ferrni: Physicist (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1970), pp. 101, 164-165. 13. Calculations of “over 100 are cautious estimates drawn from DOE chart with number of nuclear components in 1948; from graph, “Combined Strategic Offensive and Defensive War- heads,” which includes 1948-49 data, in DOE letter to author, January 8, 1978; and from Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) 1952/11, February 10, 1950, CCS 373 (10-23-48), Records of the JCS, Record Group (RG) 218, U.S. National Archives (NA). Some experts have estimated 250 nuclear weapons in 1949 and 450 in 1950; see Thomas B. Cochran, William M. Arkin, and Milton M. Hoenig, Nuclear Weapons Databook, Vol. I (Cambridge, Mass.: Ballinger, 1984), p. 15. Data for 1949-52 are still classified, despite my repeated efforts under the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to secure these figures. But see Dan Kimball, memorandum, November 2, 1951, Kimball Papers, Harry S. Truman Library (HSTL), Independence, Missouri; and David Rosenberg, “U.S. Nuclear Stockpile, 194550,’’ Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 38, No. 5 (May 1982), pp. 25-30. 14. Fermi-Rabi annex. For later U.S. surprise over speedy H-bomb progress by the Soviets, see Rabi to Lewis L. Strauss, chairman of AEC, August 24, 1953, Strauss Papers, used in 1978-89 Crossing the Rubicon I 137
The Fermi-Rabi proposal did reach President Truman well before he made his January 31, 1950 announcement to develop the H-bomb.15 But there is no evidence that he read the proposal, much less that he thought carefully about it. Had he done so, he undoubtedly would have rejected it. His own
desires for the H-bomb dovetailed with military, congressional, and public Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 expectations for developing the weapon. Put bluntly, the president and his preeminent foreign-policy adviser, Secretary of State Dean Acheson, had no wish in 1949 or 1950 to pursue the Fermi-Rabi idea.16 Having committed the United States in 1950 to an accelerated effort to develop the H-bomb, Truman angrily rebuffed any suggestion that the arms race was not entirely the Soviets’ fault. ”Our position has been right from the beginning,” he lectured scientist-critics in 1951. “The opposition of any sort of control or inspections has been with the Russian Government. I have made every effort to obtain an agreement for the control of atomic weap- on~.”~~
Pressures for the H-Bomb, 1951-52
Despite greater funding and scientific effort, America’s H-bomb program made little progress before early 1951. That February and March, mathema- tician Stanislaw Ulam and physicist Edward Teller, in a scientific break- through, devised the configuration for the weapon. Their conception, dis- cussed at a June meeting of scientists and AEC officials at Princeton, created great scientific optimism, even among earlier opponents of the weapon.18 ”The program we had in 1949 was a tortured thing that you could well argue did not make a great deal of technical sense,” physicist J. Robert in the Washington, D.C., office of Lewis H. Strauss and presumably now transferred to the HHL. 15. GAC report, October 30, 1949, Attachment C to Memorandum to the President, November 10, 1949, AEC 26212, Series B, HO, DOE; cf. Bundy, “The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb,” p. 16. 16. Barton J. Bernstein, “The H-Bomb Decisions: Were They Inevitable?” in Bernard Brodie, Michael D. Intriligator, and Roman Kolkowicz, eds., National Security and International Stability (Cambridge, Mass.: Oelgeschlager, Gunn and Hain, 1983), pp. 327-356. For general agreement, see Bundy, Danger and Survival, pp. 218-228. 17. Truman to Lyle Borst, chairman, Federation of American Scientists, December 12, 1951, President’s Secretary’s Files (PSF), HSTL. 18. Hans Bethe, ”Memorandum on the History of the Thermonuclear Program,” May 28, 1952, HO, DOE; and Richard G. Hewlett and Francis Duncan, Atomic Shield, 194711952: A History of the US.Atomic Energy Commission, Vol. 2 (University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 1969), pp. 535-537. lntwnational Security 14:2 1 138
Oppenheimer, in 1949-50 an opponent of the H-bomb, later said. ”It was therefore possible to argue also that you did not want it even if you could have it.” But ”the program in 1951 was technically so sweet,“ he claimed in his 1954 loyalty-security ”trial” that he had believed in 1951, ”that you could not argue about that. [The issues became] purely the military, the political Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 and the humane problem[s] of what you were going to do about it once you had it.”19 In the spring of 1951, the United States had also conducted the successful “George” test, which established, to quote physicist Herbert York, ”that a thermonuclear reaction could under ideal conditions be made to take place in an experimental device.“ It was ”the largest fission explosion to date [and] succeeded in igniting the first small thermonuclear flame ever to burn on earth.” This successful test was a critical step, as Teller later explained, in the pursuit of a thermonuclear device (a self-sustaining thermonuclear pro- cess) and ultimately of the bomb itself. The configuration he had devised with Ulam, and then a test of a large device, would be essential steps along the way to the weapon.20 By early 1952, amid the glow of the Teller-Ulam breakthrough and the successful ”George” test, the Department of Defense and the powerful Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (JCAE) of Congress began pushing for further expansion of the H-bomb program. This new effort was spurred partly by physicist Edward Teller, later dubbed the “father” of the H-bomb, who warned that the Soviets, because of Klaus Fuchs’s nuclear espionage, might be ahead in the thermonuclear race. Acting Secretary of Defense William C. Foster, joined by the three service secretaries, urged the administration to intensify and broaden the thermonuclear effort. Possession of 100 thermo- nuclear weapons, Foster warned, “would constitute a military potential of the greatest possible significance [and it] would be disastrous if the Russians should succeed in developing such a potential [fir~t].”~’
19. Oppenheimer in AEC, In the Matter of Oppenheimer, p. 251; cf. J. Kenneth Mansfield, ”Con- versation with Dr. Oppenheimer,” October 3, 1951, Records of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy (henceforth JCAE Records), RG 128, NA. 20. Herbert F. York, The Advisors: Oppenheimer, Teller, and the Superbomb (San Francisco: W.H. Freeman, 1975), p. 77; and Teller, with Allen Brown, The Legacy of Hiroshima (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1962), pp. 51-52. 21. Foster to Secretary of State and Chairman of AEC, ”Intensification of the Thermonuclear Program,” March 28, 1952, with annex (letter by service secretaries) of March 27, 1952, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 878-881; quotation on p. 879. Crossing the Rubicon I 139
To the uninformed, this was an alarming message: Russia might be ahead, since physicist Fuchs, a Soviet spy, had known all the American H-bomb secrets up to 1946. Those secrets constituted much of the basis for the 1951 “George” test, whose results had helped redirect the American program. But
to the well-informed, like Oppenheimer, physicist Hans Bethe, and AEC Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 Chairman Gordon Dean, this argument was strained, because the dominant 1946 ideas had not proved especially useful in the American program. The key event in American progress on the H-bomb had been the 1951 Teller- Ulam configuration, which had departed from those earlier ideas and had been devised well after Fuchs’s espionage.” On May 30, 1952, five months before the first thermonuclear test, Senator Brien McMahon, who had ardently pushed for the accelerated H-bomb pro- gram in 1949-50 and enthusiastically supported bigger nuclear programs, pressed Truman to commit the nation to mass production of the H-bomb. McMahon argued that it should become America’s ”primary weapon,” at an annual cost of $200-300 million. As chairman of the powerful Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, McMahon wanted “a bold decision to attain H-bombs in real quantity as quickly as possible [because] so long as the arms race con- tinues, the ineluctable logic of our position leaves us without choice except to acquire the greatest possible firepower in the shortest possible time.” His letter, sent when the thermonuclear process had not even been tested in a device, was a bold demand for commitment of resources to something that was still unproven. He was asking for a gamble on behalf of military strength.u
An Alternative to H-Bomb Development
It was in this political environment of strong pressures for the H-bomb, before a thermonuclear device was tested, that the issue of seeking a ther-
22. Oppenheimer in February 27, 1950, meeting, FRUS, 1950, Vol. I, p. 173; Bethe, ”Memoran- dum on the History of the Thermonuclear Program”; Gordon Dean diary, March 28, 1952, and memorandum of April 1, 1952, in Roger Anders, ed., Forging the Atomic Shield: Excerpts from the Office Diary of Gordon E. Dean (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), pp. 204, 206-208; and Report by Director of Classification, ”Evaluation of Fuchs Case by the Committee of Senior Responsible Reviewers,” May 8, 1950, Fuchs Files, HO, DOE. For a different inter- pretation, see Edward Teller, “Comments on Bethe’s History of the Thermonuclear Program,” August 14, 1952, HO, DOE. 23. McMahon to Truman, May 30, 1952; and Truman to McMahon, June 10, 1952, PSF, HSTL, and also in FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 955-957. Acting Secretary Foster had implied that McMahon was concerned about the program. International Security 14:2 I 140
monuclear test ban arose in 1952. The idea came first from Vannevar Bush, the director of Roosevelt's World War I1 Office of Scientific Research and Development, then serving on a five-man Panel of Consultants on Disar- mament, created in early 1952 by Secretary Acheson to advise the State
Department. The group's senior member, Bush had long lived with the bomb, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 and in 1941 he had been the adviser who was probably most instrumental in persuading Roosevelt to launch the A-bomb project. During the war, Bush had continued as a major adviser on the project, and by 1944, fearing a postwar Soviet-American A-bomb race, had actually urged approaching the Soviets for international control of the atom. Although defeated in that venture, he never dwelled upon that unpursued approach as a "missed chance" to avoid the postwar nuclear race. In 1946, he served with Acheson, physicist J. Robert Oppenheimer, and others on the special committee that produced the Acheson-Lilienthal plan (soon transformed into the Baruch plan) for international control of atomic energy. When the Soviets rejected the American plan, Bush came to accept the reigning orthodoxy about Soviet culpability for the Cold War. As a respected senior statesman of American science, he was skilled in working through channels, in operating in the safe paths of advice-giving, and in organizing science and technol~gy.~~ When first invited to serve on the Panel on Disarmament, Bush had seemed petulant and he even questioned whether he was an appropriate choice. Undoubtedly still resentful that Truman (unlike Roosevelt) had disregarded him and did not invite him to the White House, Bush seemed to want to be coaxed and assured that his counsel was desired.25 In contrast, J. Robert Oppenheimer, director of the Institute for Advanced Study and chairman of the GAC, expressed unalloyed enthusiasm. He stressed that he and physi- cists 1.1. Rabi of Columbia and Charles Lauritsen of the California Institute of Technology had recently been worrying about America's arms policies and plans. "Our efforts until now have left us with a deep anxiety," Oppenheimer told Acheson, about "the state of affairs in the not too distant future." Oppenheimer looked forward to bringing his expertise to bear on American policy.26
24. Minutes of (Second) Panel Meeting of Consultants, May 6, 1952, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, p. 924. Bush has never received a full-scale biography but see Larry Owens, "Straight Thinking: Vannevar Bush and the Culture of American Engineering" (Ph.D. thesis, Princeton University, 1987), which focuses on Bush's earlier life. 25. Bush to Secretary Acheson, April 17, 1952, file 330.13/4-1752, Department of State Records, RG 59, NA. 26. Oppenheimer to Acheson, April 21, 1952, Box 191, Oppenheimer Papers, LC. In contrast, Crossing the Rubicon I 141
Joining Bush and Oppenheimer on the panel were Allen Dulles, deputy director of the Central Intelligence Agency and brother of John Foster Dulles, who was a powerful GOP adviser; Joseph Johnson, the president of the Carnegie Endowment for Inernational Peace and a former diplomat; and
John Dickey, the president of Dartmouth College and another former diplo- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 mat. The panel’s executive secretary was McGeorge Bundy, then a young Harvard government professor, and the panel chose Oppenheimer as its chairman. A prestigious group, drawn from the elites of science, education, law, and intelligence, these men seemed likely to give cautious, sound advice. Acheson’s own purposes in establishing the advisory panel are unclear. Troubled somewhat by the arms race, he undoubtedly wanted an exploration of safe possibilities to break the Soviet-American logjam in negotiations on atomic energy. As a shrewd, cautious attorney, he was canvassing possibil- ities not with the expectation of changing course but, rather, of confirming his course. Given his own analysis of the Soviet menace and the need for American nuclear superiority, it is unlikely that any bold new idea, if offered, would have been allowed to transform his policy. Thus, the consultants, in ways they may at best have dimly understood, were engaging in an exercise that was unlikely to change American policy more than slightly. Most no- tions, chipping away the edges of policy, would basically ratify it; bold ideas, possibly involving some small margin of risk, would be rejected.27 At the consultants’ second meeting, on May 6, the five men tried to devise ways of assessing Soviet sincerity for some kind of nuclear arms control. Bush suggested, in the words of the minutes, ”a test case which would not require inspection and control,” that is, a mutual pledge against thermonu- clear testing. At the time, Bush himself did not seem committed to the proposal, but rather raised it as an attractive possibility worth serious con- sideration.28In the next few months, however, his enthusiasm for this pro-
Allen Dulles’ reply to Acheson is not revealing; Dulles to Acheson, April 21, 1952, Allen Dulles Papers, Seeley G. Mudd Library (SGML), Princeton University. 27. Joseph and Stewart Alsop, “Matter of Fact,” Washington Post, May 21, 1952, Box 191, Oppenheimer Papers. Thinking about the creation and use of the panel can be traced in file 330.1314, Department of State Records, NA. See in this file, for example, Ben Cohen to Secretary Acheson, April 15, 1952; John Hickerson to the Secretary, “Disarmament: Memorandum of April 15, 1952 from Mr. Cohen,” April 17, 1952; and Bernard Bechhoefer to Sanders, ”Immediate Objectives of Board of Consultants,” April 18, 1952. Also see Acheson to Oppenheimer, April 14, 1952, Box 191, Oppenheimer Papers; and Acheson to Allen Dulles, April 14, 1952, Allen Dulles Papers. 28. Minutes of (Second) Panel Meeting of Consultants, p. 924. Bush obliquely raised the issue at the May 16-18 meeting; Draft of Panel of Consultants Minutes, May 16-18, 1952, Box 191, International Securify 14:2 I 142
posal was to grow, as was that of the other four consultants, as they came to believe that it might both block development of a terrible weapon and open the way to other nuclear arms agreements. At that May 6 meeting, John Ferguson, deputy director of the State De-
partment’s Policy Planning Staff, had promptly objected to Bush’s idea. “By Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 ignoring the control and inspection aspects,” Ferguson complained in the words of the minutes, “you essentially remove the flavor and core of the U.S. argument on the absolute necessity for priority on disclosure and veri- fication in any disarmament arrangement and would therefore lead many to believe that disclosure and verification [are] not essential.” Ferguson did not seem interested in stopping the H-bomb but rather in emphasizing the cor- rectness of the American position in disarmament negotiations since the 1946 Baruch plan. 29 Bush’s proposal soon provoked sharper criticism, especially from Paul Nitze, director of the Policy Planning Staff and chief drafter of National Security Council document NSC 68, virtually a charter for conducting the Cold War. In June 1952, Nitze argued that the Soviets would probably cheat in an H-bomb test ban and would get away with it unless inspection and verification were required. He also raised other objections: America would lose its research lead during the moratorium and the Soviets would catch up; by not moving directly to test a thermonuclear device and develop the weapon, America would be losing an opportunity to intimidate the Soviets; and the development of the H-bomb might even frighten both nations and force them ultimately into disarmament. For Nitze, in short, a test ban would be a terrible mistake, leading to missed opportunities for America.30 Such criticism never provoked a focused dialogue. Nor did it dampen the panel’s growing efforts to secure a test ban, or at least a postponement of the scheduled October thermonuclear test. Presumably under the tutelage of
Oppenheimer Papers; and Minutes, May 16-18, 1952, Atomic Energy Lot Files, Department of State Records, RG 59, NA. At that meeting, Bush may have been cautious because of the delay in the AEC‘s security clearance for some panel members; “Telephone Conversation between Dr. Smyth and Dr. Oppenheimer,” May 16, 1952, Box 191, Oppenheimer Papers. The panel’s unpublished minutes for its June 19-21 meeting do not discuss the test ban idea; Panel of Consultants on Disarmament, Minutes of Meeting of June 19-21, 1952, Department of State Records, NA. 29. Minutes of (Second) Panel Meeting of Consultants, p. 924. 30. Nitze to Secretary, June 9, 1952, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 958-963. For background, see R. Gordon Arneson to Nitze, April 28, 1952, with RAND briefing, Atomic Energy Lot Files, Department of State Records (from Department of State, obtained under FOIA). Crossing the Rubicon I 143
Bush, the group’s senior statesman, and O~penheimer,~~a distinguished physicist, the respected “father” of the A-bomb, and the most persuasive and intelligent member, the panel moved in a direction that Secretary Ache- son could not have foreseen in April 1952 when he appointed these five men
to reconsider policy. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 In a lengthy September paper, the panel urged the Truman administration to cancel the forthcoming thermonuclear test in order to allow the new administration (expected to be Eisenhower’s) time to consider a test ban. The panel maintained that the delay of a few months would not seriously injure the thermonuclear program, but a first test could destroy all prospects for an agreement. After any test, according to the panel, the Soviets would reject an agreement, since the United States would already have gained valuable knowledge from the detonation. The test, the panel warned, would be the ”point of no return.” Any real chance for avoidance of the H-bomb would be lost.32 The panel emphasized that an American test, by providing the Soviets with valuable information through analysis of fallout, might also benefit the Soviets and help them speed up their program. Moreover, the consultants argued, in echoing the October 1949 GAC report, the H-bomb was more useful to the Soviet Union because the United States, with a much larger arsenal of atomic bombs, had a military alternative to thermonuclear weap- 0ns.33 The panel also argued that the H-bomb would alarm many nations, raising fears that America “is irrevocably committed to a strategy of destroying its
31. The influence of Bush and Oppenheimer is inferred from author’s interview with Lee DuBridge, 1975; Borden to McMahon, May 28, 1952, JCAE Records; ”Informal Interview between Mr. William Borden and Messrs. C.A. Rolander and Roger Robb,” February 20, 1954, HO, DOE; and author’s interviews with Hans Bethe, April 11 and 14, 1989. The operations of the panel are not fully documented in available archives. The Department of State Records, the Oppen- heimer Papers, and the Bush Papers are the most helpful. The Allen Dulles Papers are less useful; John Dickey’s Dartmouth presidential files contain nothing on the subject, and his personal files are closed (Kenneth Cramer to author, October 6, 1988). 32. Panel of Consultants, “The Timing of the Thermonuclear Test,” pp. 994-1008. For a slight hedge on the test ban, see pp. 1002-1003, and Ferguson to Secretary of State, September 2, 1952, in ibid., p. 993. Bundy stresses Bush’s role and believes that the proposal, made to Acheson, may have been informal and primarily from Bush. (Bundy to author, October 21, 1988.) For background, see unsigned (probably by Bush) “Memorandum,” May 20, 1952, Atomic Energy Lot Files. Oppenheimer later claimed that he did not advocate postponement of the test; Oppenheimer in AEC, In the Matter of Oppenheimer, pp. 247-248. The hearings on this matter, as on many other matters, are often unreliable, partly because of the passage of time and partly because the “trial” itself encouraged distortions by both pro- and anti-Oppenheimer witnesses. 33. Panel of Consultants, “The Timing of the Thermonuclear Test,” p. 998. International Security 14:2 I 144
enemies by indiscriminate means and at whatever cost.” A successful test, the panel warned, would also harden attitudes in the United States, add to the emphasis on strategic nuclear weapons, and possibly reduce the govern- ment’s capacity to deal with the Soviets in other ways, such as through
diplomacy or development of a conventional arsenal.34 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 The panel did not want to seem too visionary, certainly not utopian. The panel members admitted that the Soviet Union might reject the test-ban offer, but they stressed that this was an opportunity “to inquire into Soviet inten- tions and attitudes” and to learn whether Soviet leaders understood ”the character of the race in weapons of mass destruction.” They acknowledged that a Soviet-American pledge on thermonuclear testing might not bar de- velopment of the H-bomb in the long run. Obviously, both nations would continue to do some thermonuclear research, these advisers warned. “Even- tually, even without tests,” the panel stated, “hydrogen devices would be constructed which would have an increasing likelihood of effectiveness,” and the stockpiles of fission bombs would also grow. Their implication, however, was that a mutual pledge would give the two powers valuable time and needed confidence to try to cut back on armaments.35 The consultants had struggled valiantly to find some way to avoid the next step-the H-bomband possibly even to reverse the nuclear arms race itself. They believed that the ongoing nuclear buildup, while seeming to offer America short-run strength, could actually imperil the nation by spurring a Soviet buildup. The Soviet Union already had fission weapons, and soon, if the race continued, would have thermonuclear weapons, too. The risks to both nations would increase, the consultants feared. They worried whether deterrence would restrain use-and mutual disaster. They were not apoca- lyptic and thus chose to imply, rather than to phrase explicitly, the fear that many who had long lived with the atom painfully understood: it was a most perilous ~ondition.~~ As loyal advisers to the State Department, the consultants had no expec- tations that if they lost within the administration, they would take their plea directly to the American people. These men accepted the constraint of se- crecy-even though they regarded it as excessive-and the subtle dictates of bureaucratic loyalty. They were committed to working through channels and
34. Ibid., p. 999. 35. Ibid., pp. 1001-1002. 36. Ibid., pp. 1000-1007. Crossing the Rubicon I 145
understood that even their modest proposal for a test postponement, passing the issue on to the next administration, depended upon support in the highest echelons of Truman’s government-first Acheson, probably Secretary of Defense Robert Lovett, and certainly the president himself. Only if the
idea had such support, the panel concluded, should it be presented to the Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 American people.37 The consultants’ proposal was both bold, in emphasizing the dangers of the nuclear arms race and the need for confidence building through a major agreement, and cautious, in not promising Soviet agreement.
The Panel Without Political Allies
Even Secretary Acheson, a staunch anti-communist, was castigated as the ”red Dean” and the administration itself assailed for ”softness on Commu- nism”; in Cold War America in 1952, opposition to the H-bomb could be politically dangerous. On May 9, for example, GAC member James Conant, the president of Harvard University, who had opposed the H-bomb in 1949, wrote in his diary, “Some of the ‘boys’ have their axe out for three of us on the GAC of the AEC [himself, Oppenheimer, and physicist Lee DuBridge, president of Caltech and also a 1949 H-bomb opponent]. Claim we have ‘dragged our heels’ on the H-bomb.” Conant went on to note, ”DuBridge worries about [attacks on] O~pie!”~~ That day, Conant had lunched with Bush, discussing Bush‘s appointment to the panel and his idea for a test ban.39 They probably also talked about the similar Fermi-Rabi proposal of 1949, since Conant had been the leader, at the October 1949 GAC session, in opposing the H-bomb for moral and strategic reasons. Conant had stayed away from the June 1951 Princeton meeting on the H- bomb where the Teller-Ulam design was discussed because of his unhappi- ness about the weapon;41 he was undoubtedly sympathetic to Bush’s idea. Preparing to leave the General Advisory Committee in August 1952, after
37. Ibid., p. 1008. 38. James Conant diary, May 9, 1952, Conant Papers, Pusey Library, Harvard University. 39. hid. 40. On Conant leading the GAC‘s 1949 opposition to the H-bomb, see David Lilienthal diary, October 2930, 1949, Lilienthal Papers, SGML; and William Tuttle interviews with 1.1. Rabi, January 8, 1976, and with Lee DuBridge, March 17, 1976, courtesy of Tuttle. Also see Bernstein, ”Four Physicists and the Bomb,” pp. 258-260. 41. Oppenheimer to Conant, June 8, 1951, Box 27, Oppenheimer Papers. International Security 14:2 I 146
over ten years of giving advice on atomic energy, Conant recorded ruefully in his diary that nuclear weapons were “bad business now threatening to become really bad.” He was pained by the forthcoming thermonuclear test and the prospect of the H-bomb itself.42
Unlike both Bush and Oppenheimer, his two friends on Acheson’s special Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 panel, Conant in 1952 did not try, in AEC channels or elsewhere, to work for the test ban or even postponement of the Eniwetok detonation. But thinking of the forthcoming test, he did urge insertion of a warning in the June 1952 GAC report for the White House: “The President should be aware of the lack of clear evidence as to the number of bombs that can be exploded without . , . endangering life.”43Reflecting Conant’s fears, as well as those of Oppenheimer and other GAC members, the 1952 report stressed that America’s atomic advantage was ”temporary.” Written mostly by Oppen- heimer, the report warned that nuclear weapons, “now held to be the shield of the free world, may in a foreseeable time become the gravest threat to our welfare and security.”& At the June 1952 meeting when the GAC prepared its report, Oppenheimer also gave advice on how to speed efforts on thermonuclear weapons, prom- ising even to provide the names of some physicists who might work on the pr~ject.~~.Ingiving such pro-H-bomb counsel at the GAC while also trying with Bush on the panel to head off development of the weapon, Oppenhei- mer was caught in the pincers familiar to many advisers-making proposals to improve official policy while at the same time seeking to reverse it. To unfriendly insiders, his actions could seem very suspicioustwo-faced at best, disloyal at worse. That August, along with both DuBridge and Conant, Oppenheimer left the GAC. Having served nearly six years as its first chairman, he was tired and frustrated, feeling that nuclear policy was moving in directions he feared. He had offered to resign after Truman’s January 1950 decision on the H- bomb and been persuaded to stay,46but by 1952 Truman was eager to have him depart. Suspicions about Oppenheimer and his motives, with various
42. Conant diary, June 14, 1952. 43. Conant, ”Possibilities for Report to the President,” June 1952, HO, DOE. 44. GAC to President, June 14, 1952, HO, DOE. 45. General Advisory Committee Minutes, June 13-14, 1952, HO, DOE. 46. Oppenheimer in AEC, In the Matter of Oppenheimer, p. 83. Crossing the Rubicon 1 247
Defense Department officials and scientists mistrusting him,47undoubtedly spurred the administration’s decision to ease him out by not renewing his appointment. 1.1. Rabi, Oppenheimer’s longtime friend and also a GAC member since
1946, was reappointed and became the GAC chairman. Although Rabi had Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 given advice on H-bomb development in 1952, he showed some interest in supporting Bush‘s test-ban idea, which was basically the same as the Fermi- Rabi proposal of October 1949. In 1952, Rabi apparently regarded the quest for the H-bomb as lamentable and hoped that it might still be headed off.@ The panel’s proposal was also receiving some support from DuBridge, La~ritsen,~~and apparently from Cornell physicist Hans Bethe. Bethe had opposed the H-bomb in 1949-50, had even refused to work on it after Truman’s January 1950 decision, but had joined the thermonuclear project after the Korean War turned sour for the United States. Still, he hoped that the weapon might be headed off. “If we now publicly intensify our efforts,” Bethe secretly warned AEC Chairman Gordon Dean, “we shall force the Russians even more into developing the weapon which we have every reason to dread. ”50 The consultants’ useful allies were few, and seldom in high places. After early August 1952, only two other 1949 H-bomb opponents besides Rabi were still on the GAC or AEC: GAC member Oliver Buckley, a physicist and president of Bell Laboratory, and AEC commissioner Henry D. Smyth, a Princeton physicist. By 1952, however, both Buckley and Smyth were sup-
47. Barton J. Bernstein, “In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences, Vol. 12, Part I1 (1982), pp. 202-205; and Kenneth Pitzer to Truman, April 4, 1952; Wendell Latimer to Truman, May 29, 1952, and Harold Urey to Truman, June 2, 1952, Official File (OF) 692 8, HSTL. 48. Borden implied that Rabi supported the panel’s proposal. Stern, with Green, The Oppenheimer Case, p. 194, agree but omit their source. See Borden to McMahon, May 28,1952, JCAE Records; and DuBridge in AEC, In the Matter of Oppenheimer, p. 526. 49. On DuBridge and Lauritsen, see Garrison North to Secretary Thomas Finletter, “Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer,” July 1, 1952, Doc. 100-17824-1118, Oppenheimer files, FBI Records, J. Edgar Hoover Building, Washington, D.C.; John S. Walker, memorandum to the files on “Ther- monuclear Matters and the Department of Defense,” October 3, 1952, JCAE Records; and Lauritsen in AEC, In the Matter of Oppenheirner, pp. 589-590. 50. Bethe to Gordon Dean, May 23, 1952, CD 471.6 (A-bomb), Records of the Secretary of Defense, RG 330, NA; John S. Walker, ”The Thermonuclear Program,” May 28, 1952, JCAE Records; and Gordon Dean to Bethe, June 23, 1952, Box 9, Bethe Papers, Cornell. In a recent interview, Bethe claimed that he did not know of the panel’s idea until later in 1952 (author‘s interviews with Hans Bethe, April 11 and 14, 1989). International Security 14:2 I 148
porting development of the weapon, and Smyth, along with the four other AEC commissioners, was even suggesting ways of psychologically exploiting the thermonuclear test to advance American foreign policy goals.51 Many other anti-H-bomb physicists of 1949 were supporting, and even
working in, the thermonuclear program by 1952. Under the impact of Tru- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 man’s January 1950 decision, such earlier opponents as Enrico Fermi and John Manley, an associate director at Los Alamos, had fallen into line.52 In 1952, the bureaucratic forces supporting the test ban and trying to stop the H-bomb were frail; they were far weaker than those in 1949 that had struggled, without success, to stop the quest for this powerful weapon. Amid the Korean War in 1952, with many former opponents of the thermonuclear bomb now supporting the program, the panel found itself virtually isolated in the government bureaucracy. The consultants could not find support for a test ban anywhere in government: not in the GAC (aside from Rabi), the AEC, State, Defense, the Joint Chiefs, nor the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy.
Killing the Proposal
”There is a move on foot,” complained William Borden, chief aide to Senator Brien McMahon, chairman of the Joint Committee, “to avoid conducting any major H-bomb test-on the theory that the Russians are never able to do anything until after we have done it and therefore if we never test the H- bomb the Russians never will.” Borden told McMahon, ”it is hard to take this argument seriously,” and implied that McMahon might discuss it with Truman.53 There was no need to do so. The president’s chief advisers, Acheson and Lovett, had no interest in the proposed test ban, nor even in postponing the test for the next administration’s decision. Indeed, at a special NSC meeting on October 9, Acheson dismissed such ideas. At that meeting, the fiercest criticisms came from Lovett, who, in the words of the minutes, ”felt that any such idea should be immediately put out of mind and that any papers that
51. Smyth to Executive Secretary, NSC, September 18, 1952, PSF 202, HSTL; and Hewlett and Duncan, Atomic Shield, pp. 518-520. 52. See Galison and Bernstein, ”In Any Light,” pp. 336-344. 53. Borden to McMahon, May 28, 1952, JCAE Records. Crossing the Rubicon I 149
might exist on the subject should be destroyed.” He seemed to fear a McCarthy-type investigation of the panel and of the administration itself. Although believing privately that Oppenheimer was a ”real menace” and his security file a ”nightmare,” Lovett was less direct at this meeting with Ache-
son, Oppenheimer’s friend. Lovett simply mentioned suspicions of Oppen- Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 heimer’s motives and thus obliquely raised issues that became the focus of the Oppenheimer loyalty-security case eighteen months later.54 To the advisers from State and Defense, an American decision not to develop a thermonuclear device would have been the missed opportunity, as Nitze and the five-man AEC had earlier argued.55They thought that only after a successful American test (and presumably creation of an H-bomb stockpile) might the Soviets recognize the need to negotiate in good faith and allow inspections. Until then, negotiations had no purpose other than propaganda. The Acheson-Lovett analysis was, basically, the doctrine of ”negotiations from strength” that Acheson had been promulgating since 1949.56 Within the upper levels of the administration, the issue was not whether to seek a test ban (which attracted no support), but rather whether the government should postpone the October 31 test a few days, until after the November 4 election, and whether it should issue a press release after the test about its results. Truman himself wanted to delay the detonation until after election day to keep the thermonuclear issue out of partisan politics. He directed the AEC to try deftly to slow up deliveries or find other technical reasons for a brief po~tponement.~~ Despite Truman’s hopes, the test was conducted on October 31. In a last- ditch effort, AEC commissioner Eugene Zuckert had hurried to Eniwetok to determine if there was an acceptable way to delay it, but he concluded that a brief postponement would create costly organizational problems.58Despite
54. Minutes of the Meeting of the Special NSC Committee, October 9, 1952, undated (October 1952), FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 1034-1035. In the minutes, Lovett was unclear whether he suspected Oppenheimer. On Lovett’s deeper suspicions, James Perkins to author, September 23, 1980. 55. Smyth to Executive Secretary, NSC, September 18, 1952. 56. Minutes of the Meeting of the Special NSC Committee, October 9, 1952, pp. 1033-1037; and Gaddis Smith, Dean Acheson (New York: Cooper Square Publishers, 1972), pp. 54-107. 57. R. Gordon Ameson, ”Time of Thermonuclear Test,” October 9, 1952, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, p. 1033; and Dean diary, September 9, 1952, in Anders, Forging the Atomic Shield, p. 222. 58. Dean diary, October 15 and 29, 1952, in ibid., pp. 225, 228-229. International Security 14:2 I 150
some news leaks, Truman’s aim of keeping the issues out of pre-election politics was achieved, in part, by imposing a two-week official news black- 0~t.59 But the administration was candid with president-elect Dwight D. Eisen-
hower after his landslide election. On November 7, acting with Truman’s Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 approval, the AEC informed Eisenhower that the island ”used for the shot- Elugelab-is missing and where it was there is now an underwater crater of some 1500 yards in diameter. ” This test “demonstrated that a thermonuclear explosion is feasible” and that America would be able to test the first deliv- erable thermonuclear weapon in about a year.60 Top-level government advisers disagreed on whether the AEC should officially inform the public of this first thermonuclear test, even though there had already been a major news leak before the test and more leaks afterward. Both Acheson and AEC Chairman Dean wanted a public announcement. But Lovett objected, explaining, it ”is unwise as it may make difficult appropriate investigation and punishment of breaches of security’’;61that is, the post-test leaks by American servicemen involved in the Eniwetok operation. Lovett lost, and thus the AEC issued a three-paragraph statement on November 16. The key sentence read, ”the test program included experiments contributing to thermonuclear research.” That was the only reference in this release to the thermonuclear explosion.62 After that evasive announcement, Truman’s advisers were unsure whether to tell the American people anything more about the recent Eniwetok test
59. AEC press release, November 16, 1952, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, p. 1042. A rather uninfor- mative press release, simply noting forthcoming nuclear tests but not mentioning thermonuclear experiments, was issued on September 9, 1952. Ibid., p. 1025. For leaks, see J. Shachter, ”Collected Public Information and Comments on Thermonuclear Bombs,” September 1953, File 471.6 (thermonuclear), Records of the Los Alamos National Laboratory, Los Alamos, N.M.; and Eugene Rabinowitch, ”The ‘Hydrogen Bomb’ Story,” Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Vol. 8, No. 12 (December 1952), pp. 297-299, which notes the earlier (October 1952) Alsop-Lapp Saturday Evening Posf article on the test. That article had been cleared by the AEC without consulting State; David Bruce to President, October 17, 1952, PSF, HSTL. 60. Dean to Eisenhower, November 7, 1952, AEC Doc. 356. 61. James Lay to Chairman, AEC, ”Psychological Exploitation of Certain Thermonuclear De- velopments,” November 12, 1952; and S. Everett Gleason to President, October 24, 1952, PSF, HSTL. 62. AEC press release, November 16, 1952, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, p. 1042. In a note accom- panying the reprinted release, a State Department historian states that Truman on November 12 had approved the issuance of this release. The note also states that the test occurred on November 1, Washington time, but actually it was November 1, Eniwetok time, and thus October 31 (Halloween) in Washington. Crossing the Rubicon I 252
and the prospects for a hydrogen bomb. On December 30, three weeks before Truman would leave the Oval Office, Acheson, Deputy Secretary of Defense Foster, AEC Commissioner Henry Smyth, and presidential counsel Charles Murphy met to consider the problem. They discussed the recent proposal by
the joint secretaries of the Department of Defense for a statement by Truman, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 perhaps joined by President-elect Eisenhower, warning that thermonuclear bombs ”in sufficient numbers . . . might have the power to destroy the world.” The joint secretaries thought that such a statement, both enlightening and frightening, might promote plans for international control of atomic energy.63 Their proposal alarmed Acheson, who feared, in the words of the minutes, that ”it would generate a sense of utter frustration and lead to public clamor that something be done, however foolish.”” He preferred secrecy and valued its uses. It insulated the administration from popular passions, whether from the right or even the center, and thus allowed the administration considerable autonomy in making critical decisions on nuclear weapons. He did not want to invite public scrutiny and even chafed in dealing with Congress. He wanted to maintain tight control over information, and to shape popular attitudes and restrict political dispute. Accordingly, he thought, the best political strategy was for Truman to mention the thermonuclear matter briefly in his January 1953 State of the Union address and then, at length, to blame the Soviets for the failure to achieve international control. There was no hope for a Soviet-American agreement, Acheson emphasi~ed.~~ Acheson and the others at the meeting knew about the panel’s earlier recommendation for a thermonuclear test ban, but none of them saw any reason to discuss it. It was dead, they felt, and Truman should not mention it to the American people.66 Acheson and Lovett, backed by others in the administration, had easily killed the test ban. Unlike the Fermi-Rabi idea in 1949-50, the 1952 proposal never reached Truman.67If it had, the decision would have been the same, because he shared Acheson’s views on the Soviets and international control: meaningful negotiations and agreements were not possible.
63. “Notes of a Meeting in the Secretary’s Office, 12 noon December 30,1952” (December 1952), Atomic Energy Lot Files, obtained under FOIA. 64. bid. 65. bid. 66. bid. 67. Bush to Conant, March 29, 1954. International Security 14:2 I 152
The United States had missed an effort to try to negotiate a test-ban agreement, and left the Eisenhower administration with a powerful fait ac- compli: the world’s first tested thermonuclear device. Whether negotiations could have succeeded is a separate issue. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 The Soviets and a Possible Thermonuclear Test Ban
Would the Soviets have agreed to a ban in 1952 or 1953? They had started their H-bomb research in 1947 or 1948, well before Truman’s January 1950 public announcement that America would try to develop the H-bomb.@Early Soviet research may have been both provoked and hindered by Fuchs’s espionage; he alerted the Soviets to the American effort and probably put them on the same fruitless path that American scientists pursued in the early postwar period.69At first, the Soviet program received skimpy resources and little attention. Not until shortly after the Soviets tested their first fission weapon, in August 1949, did the Soviet quest for the thermonuclear bomb receive high priority.70 According to David Holloway, the leading Western scholar of the early Soviet nuclear-weapons program, Truman’s January 1950 announcement “did not provide a major stimulus to Soviet work” on the H-bomb, but the October 1952 American test did ”speed up Soviet efforts.” ”The tempo of work” increased in the race for a Soviet thermonuclear weapon.71 Holloway’s analysis that the 1952 test spurred the Soviet thermonuclear program is compatible with Bush’s lament of a 1952 “missed opportunity.” But that still leaves the question: If the Soviets had been approached in 1952 or 1953 before an American test, might they have accepted a test ban? Since the Soviets were behind in the thermonuclear race, and did not test their first superbomb until November 1955, twenty months after the Americans, an agreement would have been in their interest.
68. David Holloway, ”Research Note: Soviet Thermonuclear Development,” International Secu- rity, Vol. 4, No. 3 (Winter 1979/80), p. 193. 69. Bethe, “Memorandum on the History of the Thermonuclear Program,” May 28, 1952; Bethe to Gordon Dean, May 23, 1952, file CD 471.6 (A-bomb), Records of the Office of the Secretary of Defense; and J. Edgar Hoover to Sidney Souers, March 2, 1950 and June 16, 1950, PSF, FBI boxes, HSTL; cf. Lewis Strauss to William Borden, December 10, 1952, Strauss Papers, HHL. 70. I.N. Golovin, 1. V. Kurchatov: A Socialist-Realist Biography of the Soviet Nuclear Physicist, trans. William Dougherty (Bloomington, Ind.: Selbstverlag Press, 1968), pp. 64-65. 71. Holloway, ”Soviet Thermonuclear Development,” pp. 195-196; and Golovin, Kurchatov, p. 65. Crossing the Rubicon I 153
That evidence suggests, but cannot establish, a possibility for agreement. There is some evidence (admittedly indirect) that the Soviet Union in Stalin's last year, despite his possibly pathological paranoia, had become more flex- ible in dealing with the West and might have been attracted to a test ban. In
March 1952, for example, fearful of a rearmed West Germany, the Soviet Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 Union proposed Big Four negotiations for a German peace treaty, unification of the recently divided nation, and withdrawal of all foreign troops." After Stalin's death in March 1953, the new Soviet leadership, though torn by fierce rivalry, might have shown more flexibility in dealing with an Amer- ican test-ban offer. That new leadership did endorse-and may have speeded-the July 1953 settlement in the Korean War; the armistice involved a retreat from two years of communist opposition to automatic repatriation of prisoners of war.73 Although definitive judgment is impossible, sketchy evidence suggests that the Soviet Union might, under Stalin, and perhaps more so under the uneasy 1953 post-Stalin leadership, have accepted an American test-ban offer as a way of blocking the H-bomb.74
The Panel's Report and the Suspicions of Oppenheimer
The Panel of Consultants had never promised that their recommended ap- proach to the Soviets would succeed, only that it should be tried. But well before the October 1952 test, the consultants knew they had lost. Truman's January 1953 State of the Union address, by continuing the general policy of
72. See Adam Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence: Soviet Foreign Policy, 2927-73 (New York Praeger Publishers, 1974, 2nd ed.), pp. 535-537; Adam Ulam, Stalin: The Man and His Era (New York: Viking Press, 1973), pp. 714-734; and cf. Peter Calvocoressi, Survey of International Affairs, 1952 (London: Oxford University Press, 1955), pp. 55-126. 73. Barton J. Bernstein, "The Struggle over the Korean Armistice: Prisoners of Repatriation?" in Bruce Cumings, ed., Child of Conflict: The Korean-American Relationship, 2943-2953 (Seattle: Uni- versity of Washington Press, 1983), pp. 261-307; Rosemary Foot, The Wrong War (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1985), pp. 194-231; Callum A. MacDonald, Korea: The War Before Vietnam (London: Macmillan, 1986), pp. 155-264; Jon Halliday and Bruce Cumings, Korea: The Unknown War (New York: Pantheon, 1988), pp. 163-200; and Ulam, Expansion and Coexistence, pp. 531- 534. 74. But see David Holloway, "Nuclear Weapons in the Soviet-American Relationship, 1950- 1955: The Development of Thermonuclear Weapons" (unpublished ms., October 1988), pp. 14- 16; Holloway believes that Stalin would have rejected a proposal requiring inspection but that his successors might have been more amenable to such a proposal. Holloway does not deal directly with the panel's proposal for a ban without inspection. International Security 14:2 I 154
nuclear secrecy, represented an additional defeat for the consultants, who also wanted the government to roll back this secrecy. The panel had spent only a small portion of its time on the effort to head off the first thermonuclear test. In 1952 and early 1953, the members had
concentrated on framing a basic report to reorient American nuclear policy. Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 Crafted largely by Oppenheimer and Bundy and submitted to Acheson in January 1953, their study emphasized the great dangers: vast nuclear power was accumulating on both sides, and cities and industries were likely targets. The United States, the panel warned, "is heavily committed to a swift and almost unlimited use of atomic retaliation in the event of major Soviet aggres- sion." They recommended reducing "our commitment to the use of nuclear weapons."75 The panel made five general proposals: 1) the reduction of nuclear secrecy and the development of candor with the American people; 2) more com- munication with allies about nuclear weapons, strategy, and defense; 3) serious attention to American continental air defense against a Soviet "knock- out" nuclear blow; 4) disengagement from United Nations nuclear disarma- ment discussions, because they encouraged rigidity and insincerity; and 5) improved communications with the Soviet Union. "It would be unwise to neglect the possibility that negotiation may become feasible in the reasonably near future," the panel stated.76 The January 1953 report called for new thinking and for taking some risks to avoid great perils: "Proposals for arms regulation should be judged against the existing dangerous and unpleasant situation, and not against some ar- bitrary vision of a world of total peace and harmony." A new policy, the panel stressed, rested on cutting back secrecy, enlightening citizens about the dangers of the arms race, and establishing a political situation in which a strong executive could seek negotiations. The report, without mentioning the recently rejected test-ban proposal, thus offered a subtle rebuke77of the Truman-Acheson administration, which had done exactly the opposite of the panel proposals: it had virtually given up Soviet-American negotiations, had
75. Panel of Consultants, "Armaments and American Foreign Policy," FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 1063 and 1071. Apparently, this report was submitted on or slightly before January 9; Department of State press release, January 9, 1953, Policy Planning Staff Papers, Department of State Records; see also Bundy to Allen Dulles, January 20, 1952, Allen Dulles Papers. 76. Panel of Consultants, "Armaments and American Foreign Policy," p. 1077. 77. Ibid., p. 1074. Bush had wanted some specific mention of the rejected test-ban proposal. Bundy to Oppenheimer, December 1, 1952, Box 191, Oppenheimer Papers. Crossing the Rubicon I 155
emphasized great American nuclear strength, and had maintained excessive nuclear secrecy. Oppenheimer received support from part of the American elite to explain and promote the panel’s key ideas. In mid-February, he first explored its
proposals in a well-received off-the-record speech at the Council on Foreign Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 Relations in New Y~rk.~~He also circulated a copy of his speech to major journalists and arms-policy analysts.79 The panel passed on its report to the new administration. The day after Oppenheimer’s New York lecture, President Eisenhower told his National Security Council that he had, in the words of the minutes, “a high opinion of the report,” but he did question its recommendation that the United States should withdraw from UN disarmament negotiations.m A week later, in an NSC meeting called by Eisenhower to discuss the report, he deplored the participation of scientists on the panel and complained that ”they had im- mediately moved out of the scientific realm into the realms of policy and psychology.” Acting CIA Director Allen Dulles, a former panel member, replied that nuclear issues were not purely scientific, and that he and the other consultants worried about what he called the problem of “enoughness”: the Soviets would soon possess so large a stockpile that they could deliver a damaging attack on the United States even though the United States had a much larger stockpile. The need, Allen Dulles contended, was to inform the American people of this danger.s’ Eisenhower and others at the NSC seemed suspicious of this recommendation; they sounded very much like Acheson and Lovett in late 1952. On March 3, 1953, Bush told Oppenheimer that Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, and probably Eisenhower himself, had read the panel’s study, that it had been discussed at an NSC meeting, and that Bush himself was scheduled to talk soon to an NSC staff member about the report. ”This is far better than I thought it would be,” Bush wrote. ”In fact I think it is encour- aging indeed.”82
78. Hamilton Fish Armstrong, editor, Foreign Afuirs, to Oppenheimer, February 19 and March 9, 1953, Box 255, Oppenheimer Papers; and David Lilienthal to Oppenheimer, March 1, 1953, Box 40, Oppenheimer Papers. 79. See note entitled ”Council on Foreign Relations talk sent to,” a list of mailings of early March and a few later mailings, in Box 255, Oppenheimer Papers. 80. Minutes of the NSC Meeting, February 18, 1953, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, p. 1102. For other criticisms, see L. W. Fuller to Nitze, ”Disarmament Consultants’ Report, January 1953,” February 10, 1953, Box 6, Policy Planning Staff Papers, Department of State Records. 81. Minutes of the NSC Meeting, February 25, 1953, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 1110-1112. 82. Bush to Oppenheimer, March 3, 1953, Box 191, Oppenheimer Papers, and copy sent by International Security 14:2 I 156
On May 27, Oppenheimer and Bush met with Eisenhower and the rest of the NSC to discuss the dangers of the continuing Soviet-American buildup, the possibility of establishing some continental defense, and the need for fuller communication with allies and greater openness with the American
people. ”To explain to the [American] people the nature of their dilemma,” Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 Oppenheimer said in the paraphrased words of the minutes, ”it was neces- sary for the highest voice in the land [Eisenhower] to speak. Only a wise and informed people . . . could be expected to act wisely.’’ Yet Oppenheimer also agreed with the president’s conclusion that all American statements should exclude the term ”thermonuclear” in order to keep the Soviets igno- rant or confused about the American program.83 Eisenhower had become generally persuaded by the panel’s recommen- dation for more openness on nuclear matters, and soon his administration began preparing its ”Operation Candor.” But he and others rejected the panel’s warnings about America’s excessive reliance on nuclear weapons; indeed, his administration was cutting back conventional forces and prepar- ing to articulate the doctrine of ”massive retaliation.” During the summer, Oppenheimer tried to keep alive the panel’s recom- mendations by publishing ”Atomic Weapons and American Foreign Policy” in Foreign Affairs. His article’s emphasis on candor, discussions with the Europeans, and continental air defense, as well as the hopes of improving Soviet-American relations, were strong themes in his continuing efforts to manage the nuclear arms race and make the world less perilous.@His article evoked enthusiasm from many, including Nobel prize-winning chemist Har- old Urey, who had secretly opposed Oppenheimer’s reappointment to the GAC in 1952 because of his opposition to the H-bomb. ”Your article . . . is excellent,” wrote Urey, “by all odds the best statement that I have
Oppenheimer to Lauritsen, File 3.20, Charles Lauritsen Papers, Robert Millikan Library, Cali- fornia Institute of Technology, Pasadena. 83. NSC Minutes, May 27, 1953, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 1169-1174; cf. C.D. Jackson to Henry Luce, October 12, 1954, Jackson Papers, Dwight D. Eisenhower Library (DDEL), Abilene, Kansas. For preparations for the meeting, see Robert Cutler, memorandum, May 25, 1953, Official File (OF) 72F, DDEL. 84. J. Robert Oppenheimer, “American Weapons and American Foreign Policy,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 31, No. 4 (July 1953), pp. 525-535; reprinted in Oppenheimer, The Open Mind (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1955), pp. 61-77. For background on administration permission for publi- cation of this article, see Robert Cutler to Edward Michelson, June 29, 1953, OF 104J, DDEL. 85. Harold Urey to Oppenheimer, July 7, 1953, Box 255, Oppenheimer Papers. This box includes many other favorable responses. On stressing defense, see also Edward Teller to Sterling Cole, December 18, 1953, JCAE Records. Crossing the Rubicon I 157
Representative W. Sterling Cole, chairman of the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy, whose staff included several uneasy about Oppenheimer’s loyalty, invited Oppenheimer to discuss his ideas more fully.86 Oppenheimer’s efforts-especially his opposition to the H-bomb-helped
get him in trouble with the loyalty-security system. On November 7, 1953, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 William Borden, the Joint Committee aide who had decried the 1952 panel’s attempt to block the H-bomb, charged in a letter to the FBI that Oppenheimer was ”more probably than not” a Soviet agent. That letter triggered the Oppenheimer case. Among Borden’s accusations: ”Oppenheimer has worked tirelessly . . . to retard the United States H-bomb program.”87This charge echoed Borden’s mid-1952 warning to Senator McMahon: America had to choose between “Oppie‘s team [and] the team that wants to build H- bombs,”88a view of Oppenheimer shared by others in official Washington in 1952 and 1953 during both the late Truman and early Eisenhower admin- istrations. 89 Unlike the other four panel members and Bundy, Oppenheimer was vul- nerable to loyalty-security charges. He had a past of leftwing beliefs, behav- ior, and associations; his wife, brother, and sister-in-law had been Commu- nist Party members, as had some of his students. He had also lied to security investigators about a World War I1 Soviet espionage approach. Thus, his Cold War recommendations on nuclear weapons-positions that his foes, to quote “father of the H-bomb” Edward Teller, judged “exceedingly hard to ~nderstand”~O-made him deeply suspect. The 1954 loyalty-security “trial”
86. Sterling Cole to Oppenheimer, June 26, 1953, Box 191, Oppenheimer Papers. 87. Borden to FBI, November 7, 1953, Oppenheimer files, FBI Records. In December 1953 and in February 1954, Borden mentioned Oppenheimer’s role on the 1952 panel, and especially his effort to head off the H-bomb test, as additional evidence for mistrusting him. See also E.H. Mossburg, ”Julius Robert Oppenheimer,” December 4, 1953, Doc. 100-178-1426, Oppenheimer files, FBI Records; and ”Informal Interview between Mr. William Borden and Messrs. C.A. Rolander and Roger Robb,” February 20, 1954, HO, DOE. For an earlier Air Force-inspired attack on Oppenheimer, see Charles C.V. Murphy, “Hidden Struggle for the H-bomb: The Story of Dr. Oppenheimer’s Persistent Campaign to Reverse U.S.Military Strategy,” Fortune, Vol. 47 (May 1953), pp. 109-110, and 230, which also listed Conant as a 1952 test-ban supporter; and W.S. Parsons to Oppenheimer, September 25, 1953, Box 56, Oppenheimer Papers. For Air Force defensiveness in 1952-53, see correspondence in File 381 (Dec. 24, 1952), in Records of the Secretary of the Air Force, RG 340, NA. 88. Borden to McMahon, May 28, 1952. 89. Bernstein, “In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” pp. 201-205. 90. Teller in AEC, In the Mutter of Oppenheirner, p. 710. Also see ”Interviews by Atomic Energy Commission Personnel with Prominent Scientists” (especially Lawrence, Alvarez, and Teller), March 1954, Doc. NK 100-31936; SAC, San Francisco, to Director, FBI, on ”J. Robert Oppenhei- mer-Internal Security-R,” April 5, 1952, Doc. 100-17828-273; and J. Edgar Hoover to Sidney Souers, June 18, 1952, Doc. 100-17828-317, all in Oppenheimer files, FBI Records. International Security 14:2 I 158
scrutinized Oppenheimer’s views about nuclear weapons, his hopes for con- tinental air defense, his attitudes toward the Soviet Union, and most of all his opposition to the H-bomb. His anti-H-bomb advice contributed heavily to the government’s conclusion that he was a ”security risk.”91 Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021
Analysis of the Missed Opportunity
On the eve of the 1954 Oppenheimer loyalty-security hearings, Vannevar Bush looked back on the 1952 test-ban proposal. In a lengthy March 29 letter to his World War I1 associate James Conant, then Eisenhower’s high com- missioner in Germany, Bush wrote, ”The attitude in government circles here in this country at that time was such that the proposal could not receive calm evaluation. The entire program for building an H-bomb was so vigorously under way that any suggestion of delay received practically no consideration whatever.” Yet there had been ample time, Bush stressed, to pursue the proposal in 1952-53 without substantially delaying America’s thermonuclear program if the quest for a mutual pledge had failed.92 Bush had put his finger on the problem: There was virtually no support for the proposal. But if Truman and Acheson, the president’s chief adviser on such matters, had wished to seek a test ban or leave the issue open for the next administration, they would have encountered formidable opposition from the Department of Defense and the Joint Chiefs, as well as from the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and the Congress. No departing presi- dent, especially with the skimpy public support Truman had in his last year, would have taken the political risk of seeking a test ban unless he had backing from the two major presidential candidates. Even then, he would have had to defend an agreement that lacked provision for inspections. He would have had to answer doubts about the reliability of detection of thermonuclear tests and to explain why, despite the administration’s frequent charges of Soviet perfidy, a mutual pledge had substantial benefits for the United States. The Panel of Consultants had provided the grist for such an argument-”unless armaments are in some way limited, the future of our society will come
91. Bernstein, ”In the Matter of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” pp. 230-247. 92. Bush to Conant, March 29, 1958. Also see Bush, in AEC, In the Matter of Oppenheimer, pp. 561-563. Crossing fhe Rubicon I 159
increasingly into peril of the gravest kind“93-but it was not an argument that Acheson and Truman sincerely believed. Despite Acheson’s occasional fears that the public, if frightened by the specter of nuclear war, would push ”foolish” action that might benefit the
Soviet Union, American public sentiment, shaped by administration tutelage, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 left Acheson and Truman reasonably free to pursue the nuclear policy they actually desired. Probably few Americans, even if informed of the panel’s proposal, would have been willing in 1952-53 to consider it seriously and to recognize its merits. Years of bipartisan pronouncements about Soviet mal- evolence, and years of excessive secrecy about nuclear policy, had given the administration the public attitudes it wanted for the nuclear policy it de- sired.94 Since Acheson and Truman, along with Lovett and the Joint Chiefs, as well as the Joint Congressional Committee, did not want to halt the devel- opment of the H-bomb, the administration found it easy to continue its course toward thermonuclear weapons.
Epilogue: lke Raises the Issue in 1954
When the test-ban proposal was dismissed in the Truman administration’s last months, none could have foreseen that a similar idea would briefly emerge in 1954. Ironically, within a week of Bush’s March 1954 reflections about the 1952 ”missed opportunity,” President Eisenhower suggested, in secret sessions, that his aides consider a Soviet-American thermonuclear test m~ratorium.~~He had been driven to this idea by world outrage following the unexpectedly large March 1954 H-bomb test; its deadly fallout had drenched the Japanese fishermen of the “Lucky Dragon” and had led to the condemnation of America as, Eisenhower complained, ”skunks, saber-
93. Panel of Consultants, ”The Timing of the Thermonuclear Test,” p. 1006. 94. Truman, in his farewell address on January 15, 1953, tried to answer occasional demands for American-initiated preventive war; Public Papers: Truman, 1952-53, pp. 1000-1001. For earlier administration thinking about the use of the A-bomb in the Korean War, see Barton J. Bernstein, “New Light on the Korean War,” International History Review, Vol. 3, No. 2 (April 1981), pp. 259-272; Roger Dingman, ”Atomic Diplomacy During the Korean War,” International Security Vol. 13, No. 3 (Winter 1988/89),pp. 50-79; and Marc Trachtenberg, “A ’Wasting Asset‘: American Strategy and the Shifting Nuclear Balance,” International Security, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Winter 19881 89), pp. 18-32. 95. John Foster Dulles to Eisenhower, April 6, 1954 (with Eisenhower’s handwritten note), Straws Papers, HHL. International Security 14:2 I 160
rattlers and warmonger^."^^ During the very weeks of the Oppenheimer "trial" that spring, the moratorium was under serious secret examination in Washington. But like the 1949 Fermi-Rabi proposal and the 1952 panel rec- ommendation, the 1954 idea also failed. Unlike the earlier proposals, how-
ever, in 1954 the president himself had helped inspire the idea. Ultimately, Downloaded from http://direct.mit.edu/isec/article-pdf/14/2/132/694430/isec.14.2.132.pdf by guest on 24 September 2021 perhaps reluctantly, Eisenhower accepted the counsel of aides and gave up on it for that year.97 When the idea of a test ban did resurface powerfully in future years, both the United States and the Soviet Union had already tested and developed H-bombs. Thus, later efforts to prohibit testing were ways of merely man- aging and slowing parts of the arms race, not of preventing thermonuclear weapons. The panel's 1952 proposal was probably the last possible effort to try to stop, or even greatly delay, development of the H-bomb. The Rubicon had been crossed in 1952.
96. Minutes of the NSC Meeting, May 6, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, p. 1426. These minutes, although usually paraphrasing speakers, seem to be quoting Eisenhower here without quotation marks, since the phrasing is rather pungent. For the "Lucky Dragon" incident and responses, see Divine, Blowing on the Wind, pp. 6-23. 97. Minutes of the NSC Meeting, June 23, 1954, FRUS, 1952-54, Vol. 11, pp. 1467-1472. Also see Rabi to Strauss, May 29, 1954, HO, DOE.