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THE BOMB MAKER WHO DOUBTED Reviewed by Mikhail Novikov

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THE BOMB MAKER WHO DOUBTED Reviewed by Mikhail Novikov THE BOMB MAKER WHO DOUBTED Lev and the Atom. Academician Lev P. Feoktistov: A Self Portrait and Reminiscences (Moscow: Voskresenye Press, 2003), 440 pp. Reviewed by Mikhail Novikov The history of the creation of the book Lev and the Atom. Academician Lev P. Feoktistov: A SelfPortrait and Reminiscences is as follows. In 1999, Lev Feoktistov’s work Nukes Are Not Forever finally saw the light of day. The volume was published in a small print run in Russian and English through the “Disarmament 2000” campaign of the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War. The author intended to republish the work, but did not have time: his heart stopped in February 2002. His friends and other likeminded individuals had to take up this task themselves. They decided that together with the book written by Feoktistov him self, they would publish under one cover recollections about him by his associates and com panionsinarms, either recorded in their own hand or from their words, as well as a record of the last public appearances where Academician Feoktistov spoke about the problems of nuclear disarmament and international security. Lev Feoktistov began his work in 1951 in the theoretical division of KB11 (this is what the Soviet Union’s first nuclear center, at Arzamas16, was called), headed by Yakov Zeldovich. In the early 1950s, Arzamas16 was thoroughly examining two possible methods to create a hydrogen bomb: thermonuclear detonation in deuterium (the Zeldovich “pipe”) and the con struction of a sphere with alternating layers of light (deuterium, tritium, and their chemical compounds) and heavy (uranium238) elements, dubbed a “layer cake” (sloyka) by the idea’s author, Andrei Sakharov. Work on the “layer cake” progressed more successfully, and after the U.S. test of a hydrogen device in 1952, which made it necessary to rush to retain nuclear parity between the Soviet Union and the United States, work was based on this method. The “layer cake” was the basis for the hydrogen bomb tested at Semipalatinsk Test Site on August 12, 1953, designated RDS6s (the test called by the Americans as “Joe4”). The author describes the dramatic events related to this test as follows. “…in August 1953, the first Soviet hydrogen bomb was successfully tested on the tower of the Semipalatinsk Test Site. Our cal culations were confirmed; it was a complete triumph. In a few months Andrei Sakharov would become a Doctor of Physics and Mathematics, Academician, Laureate of the Stalin Prize, Hero of Socialist Labor, and proclaimed, despite his young age, the “father” of the hydrogen bomb... No one doubted at the time that we would continue further down our own, domestic path, developing our first success still further. However, toward the end of 1953, at the very height of euphoria and, it would seem, against all logic, events began to develop in an entire ly different direction.” The country’s Soviet and Party leadership decided to develop a more powerful, nextgenera tion thermonuclear charge and corresponding intercontinental ballistic missile. The missile was developed, and it was this very rocket that lifted the first artificial satellite into orbit in BOOK REVIEWS 1957, as well as the spacecraft with Yuri Gagarin on board in 1961. In Arzamas16 they began to search for new ways to build a thermonuclear warhead. And they were found, thanks to the efforts of the large numbers of theorists there, which in addition to SECURITY INDEX No. 2 (82), Volume 13 167 Yakov Zeldovich and Andrei Sakharov’s groups included groups led by Igor Tamm and Nikolai Bogolyubov as well. In November 1955, a new bomb design was tested; Lev Feoktistov direct ly participated in its creation. At that time he was already working in the Urals, at Chelyabinsk 70, where he had moved with a large group of colleagues from KB11 in September 1955. Feoktistov worked 22 years in the Urals, making a clear contribution to the creation of a large number of “special items,” defending his doctoral dissertation, and obtaining many state awards, including the Star of the Hero of Socialist Labor and the Lenin Prize; he was elected a corresponding member of the Soviet Academy of Sciences, and became first deputy scientif ic director of the institute. Today, Feoktistov’s colleagues in the weapons field recognize that his ideas were decisive in the creation of the warheads developed at Chelyabinsk70. For instance, Deputy Scientific Director of the AllRussian Scientific Research Institute of Technical Physics (VNIITF) Vadim Simonenko writes in his memoirs about Feoktistov as follows: “Therefore, when I assert ‘there is just one Lev,’ what I have in mind is that he was a unique source of ideas, a significant pro portion of which have already been realized, while some still await their turn.... Essentially, the basis of our institute’s development rests to a considerable degree on Lev’s ideas. And with this in mind, if one were to speak about the personal influence, let us say, of Sakharov or Zeldovich on the creation of Soviet or Russian nuclear weapons—not timing, but as far as the realization of ideas are concerned—then I would put Lev first.” Lev Feoktistov characterized the special atmosphere that was established at the new facility as follows: “the ambitious, overwhelmingly young people in Chelyabinsk, who thanks to the trans fer no longer felt, figuratively speaking, ‘the oppression of the venerable,’ and feeling a per sonal responsibility for the work they had been given (an instructive phenomenon, isn’t it?), soon enough began to obtain the foremost positions, earning their right to an important place in the spirited competition with other organizations in the same field.” One can point to sever al achievements as examples of this. For instance, already in 1957 a hydrogen bomb designed in Chelyabinsk70 had been tested and put into series production for the military. It was for participation in its design that Feoktistov received the Lenin Prize in 1958. Feoktistov considered Chelyabinsk70’s main achievement in military affairs to be the minia turization of nuclear warheads. In the chapter “Chelyabinsk70, stepbrother of Arzamas16,” he writes that “it was here, in the beginning of the 1960s, independently of U.S. designs, that the bases for multiple reentry vehicles were developed; this term came to designate a group of warheads located on one delivery vehicle.” The trend towards miniaturization was not only true with respect to strategic weaponry. Chelyabinsk70 became a monopolist in the creation of artilleryfired nuclear projectiles. These smallscale weapons (which had as an indispensa ble requirement the fact that they were externally indistinguishable from conventional, nonnu clear projectiles) obtained significant force thought methods borrowed from multiple reentry vehicles. Incidentally, this is the very projectile type that was transported from East Germany and stolen by criminals in a captivating story that is also included within the covers of the book currently under review, a story of which Feoktistov is also the author. Concluding the survey of his activity in Chelyabinsk70, Feoktistov reviews the development of socalled peaceful nuclear explosives, which were created to solve various applied industrial problems. He notes a very important motive for the work on these charges: “... each of us, in a very human way, greatly wanted the labor to which he was dedicated to bring a direct benefit to society, in this we saw a certain element of internal rehabilitation.” Here he undoubtedly is speaking of the realization of the destructiveness of the weapon that was created with the author’s participation and the desire to justify himself in his own eyes and in the eyes of future generations. Maybe this moral promise was what served as a detonator of the internal changes in the author that led him from weapons into pure science. Not long before his departure, Feoktistov wrote a letter to Yefim Slavsky, who headed the Ministry of Medium Machine Building for many years, in which he proposed ending nuclear testing and thus giving the country’s leadership the possibility to come out with a winning polit ical initiative at the height of the Cold War. This letter was given a classified designation, and access to it was forbidden even to associates of Feoktistov. The author writes that the letter 168 THE BOMB MAKER WHO DOUBTED had a certain political side to it and, without wanting to compare himself to Sakharov, never theless notes that “it was something like the time when Sakharov’s books were banned.” Minister Slavsky let him move to Moscow, but only on the condition that he continue to work in the Medium MachineBuilding system; the nuclear ministry did not want to end up with a “sec ond Sakharov.” Feoktistov went to work at the Kurchatov Institute. Here he once again worked on defense projects, particularly laser weapons. He only managed to transfer to an academic institute in 1988: the Lebedev Physics Institute (FIAN) of the Russian Academy of Sciences, where he had been trying to go ever since he left Chelyabinsk70. He headed the FIAN Department of Laser Thermonuclear Fusion. Here, together with Academician Nikolai Basov, he continued to study various types of nuclear and thermonuclear reactors, work he had already begun in Chelyabinsk70. The loud antinuclear power cam paign that unfolded after the accident at the Chernobyl NPP cut Feoktistov to the quick, bring ing into question his dream of using the enormous number of achievements obtained in the course of creating nuclear weapons to peaceful use. Therefore, one of the main avenues of Feoktistov’s work during his last years was on a new concept for the construction of a nuclear reactor with internal, physically inherent safety systems. In his opinion, the ideal reactor should be such that any operator errors would lead the nuclear reaction to cease through internal mechanisms in accordance with the laws of physics.
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