The United States became
the first country in the world to use nuclear
weapons when they bombed Hiroshima
and Nagasaki
in 1945. These bombs had
been dropped by planes but it soon became clear that it would be far
more effective to use rockets as a means of delivering the weapon
to its target. Rockets were cheaper, faster and more difficult to
destroy in the air. Employing German scientists who had been involved
in developing the V2
Rocket during
the Second World War the United
States set about producing nuclear missiles.
The main problem was developing
a missile that was accurate. The major failing of the V-2 rockets
used against Britain at the end of the
war was that they often did not hit their intended target. Although
mainly aimed at London they often landed
many miles away. The further the V-2 rocket had to travel, the more
inaccurate it became.
As the United States perceived
their main enemy to be the Soviet Union,
they needed missiles that could travel long distances. Therefore,
after the war, the United States concentrated
on developing intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs). The breakthrough
came in 1952 when the United States exploded their first hydrogen
bomb. H-bombs provided large explosions with smaller, lighter warheads.
Weight had always been a problem and these new lighter missiles were
much more accurate. By 1957 the United States had developed the Atlas
missile that could travel 6,000 miles and land within a mile of its
target.
The problem with the Atlas
missile was that it took over an hour to prepare for firing. This
would undermine its effectiveness in a nuclear war. By the end of
the 1950s the United States overcame this problem by developing the
Minuteman missile. This missile stored its fuel in its own engines.
It was now possible to fire a missile in thirty seconds. These missiles
were also fairly small (54 feet long and 10 feet in diameter) and
could be stored in silos under the ground, protected
from an enemy attack.
At the same time the United
States developed Polaris submarines which could carry nuclear missiles.
Protected by the sea, these submarines could move close to the Soviet
Union and therefore increase the missiles' accuracy. This was an important
development, as one Polaris submarine could carry
more destructive power than all the bombs dropped during the whole
of the Second World War.
The Soviet Union was extremely
concerned by these developments. Although they had exploded their
first atomic weapon in 1949, they were a long way behind the United
States in nuclear technology. They had concentrated on producing large
missiles that could travel long distances. However, these missiles
were inaccurate and their size made them difficult to conceal.
With the development of
the U-2 planes the Soviet missile sites became very vulnerable to
attack. The plane could fly at
altitudes of above fourteen miles. Fitted with cameras, the U-2 could
photograph and read a newspaper headline from a
height of 12 miles. In a matter of minutes it could take 4,000 photographs
that covered an area of 125 miles wide by 3,000 miles long. It was
now possible for the United States to work out the size and position
of the Soviet forces.
The Soviet
Union also became concerned when, in 1961, President John
F. Kennedy announced
a program to build nuclear shelters.
Pamphlets were also distributed on how to survive a nuclear war. Further
panic took place in the Soviet Union when in March 1962, Kennedy told
a journalist that in some circumstances the United States might start
a nuclear war.
Soviet scientists advised
Nikita
Khrushchev that it would be several years before they could
catch up with the United States. It was suggested that the Soviet
Union needed to find a way to make the United States vulnerable to
a nuclear attack. Khrushchev became convinced that if the United States
knew they would suffer badly in a nuclear war, they would not start
such a war.
In the 1950s the Soviet
Union had been producing medium-range ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and
intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs). The idea was to use
these to support troops if a war broke out in Europe. If they were
to be used against the United States, the Soviet Union needed a nuclear
base in that area. However, the Soviet Union did not have an ally
in the Americas. After the Cuban revolution and the attempted Bay
of Pigs invasion this situation changed.
As the United States radar
network faced the Soviet Union, missiles placed in Cuba could be aimed
at what became known as America's 'soft underbelly.' There were serious
risks involved in this strategy but Khrushchev calculated that with
the creation of 'Mutually Assured Destruction' (MAD), a first-strike
attack from the United States would not now take place.
(1)
General Dwight
Eisenhower, the Supreme Allied Commander, told President Harry
S. Truman that he was opposed to the dropping of the atom
bomb on Japan.
I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my
belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb
was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our
country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon
whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure
to save American lives. It was my belief that Japan was, at that very
moment, seeking some way to surrender with a minimum loss of "face".
(2)
Henry Stimson, Secretary of War, letter
to President Harry S. Truman
(11th September, 1945)
The chief lesson I have learned in a long life is that the only way
you can make a man trustworthy is to trust him; and the surest way
to make him untrustworthy is to distrust him. If the atomic bomb were
merely another, though more devastating, military weapon to be assimilated
into our pattern of international relations, it would be one thing.
We would then follow the old custom of secrecy and nationalistic military
superiority relying on international caution to prescribe the future
use of the weapon as we did with gas. But I think the bomb instead
constitutes merely a first step in a new control by man over the forces
of nature too revolutionary and dangerous to fit into old concepts.
My idea of an approach to the Soviets would be a direct proposal after
discussion with the British that we would be prepared in effect to
enter an agreement with the Russians, the general purpose of which
would be to control and limit the use of the atomic bomb as an instrument
of war.
(3)
Henry
Wallace,
letter to Harry
S. Truman
(24th September,
1945).
You have asked for the comment,
in writing, of each cabinet officer on
the proposal submitted by Secretary Stimson for the free and continuous
exchange of scientific information (not industrial blueprints and
engineering "know-how") concerning atomic energy between
all of the United
Nations. I agreed with Henry Stimson.
At the present time, with
the publication of the Smyth report and other published information,
there are no substantial scientific secrets that would serve as obstacles
to the production of atomic bombs by other nations. Of this I am assured
by the most competent scientists who know the facts. We have not only
already made public much of the scientific information about the atomic
bomb, but above all with the authorization of the War Department we
have indicated the road others must travel in order to reach the results
we have obtained.
With respect to future
scientific developments I am confident that both the United States
and the world will gain by the free interchange of scientific information.
In fact, there is danger that in attempting to maintain secrecy about
these scientific developments we will, in the long run, as a prominent
scientist recently put it, be indulging "in the erroneous hope
of being safe behind a scientific Maginot Line."
The nature of science
and the present state of knowledge in other countries are such that
there is no possible way of preventing other nations from repeating
what we have done or surpassing it within five or six years. If the
United States, England, and Canada act the part of the dog in the
manger on this matter, the other nations will come to hate and fear
all Anglo-Saxons without our having gained anything thereby. The world
will be divided into two camps with the non- Anglo-Saxon world eventually
superior in population, resources, and scientific knowledge.
We have no reason to fear
loss of our present leadership through the free interchange of scientific
information. On the other hand, we have every reason to avoid a shortsighted
and unsound attitude which will invoke the hostility of the rest of
the world.
In my opinion, the quicker
we share our scientific knowledge the greater will be the chance that
we can achieve genuine and durable world cooperation. Such action
would be interpreted as a generous gesture on our part and lay
the foundation for sound
international agreements that would assure the control and development
of atomic energy for peaceful use rather than destruction.
(4)
James
Franck
was
against dropping the atom bomb on Japan. He sent his views to President
Harry
S. Truman
on
11th June, 1945.
The military advantages
and the saving of American lives achieved
by the sudden use of atomic bombs against Japan may be
outweighed by the ensuing loss of confidence and by a wave of horror
and repulsion sweeping over the rest of the world and perhaps
even dividing public opinion at home.
From this point of view,
a demonstration of the new weapon might best be made, before the yes
of representatives of all the United Nations, on the desert or a barren
island. The best possible atmosphere for the achievement of an international
agreement could be achieved if America could say to the world, "You
see what sort of a weapon we
had but did not use. We are ready to renounce its use in the future
if other nations join us-in this renunciation and agree to the establishment
of an efficient international control.
(5)
Freda Kirchwey, The
Nation (18th August, 1945)
The bomb that hurried Russia into Far Eastern war a week ahead of
schedule and drove Japan to surrender has accomplished the specific
job for which it was created. From the point of view of military strategy,
$2,000,000,000 (the cost of the bomb and the cost of nine days of
war) was never better spent. The suffering, the wholesale slaughter
it entailed, have been outweighed by its spectacular success; Allied
leaders can rightly claim that the loss of life on both sides would
have been many times greater if the atomic bomb had not been used
and Japan had gone on fighting. There is no answer to this argument.
The danger is that it will encourage those in power to assume that,
once accepted as valid, the argument can be applied equally well in
the future. If that assumption should be permitted, the chance of
saving civilization - perhaps the world itself - from destruction
is a remote one.
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