The Race for Arms
The idea of a weapon that could produce global annihilation was born during the Second World War; with this information in tow, the United States and the Soviet Union entered into the nuclear arms race, developing the first atomic bombs. In order to perfect these weapons of mass destruction, both countries needed to test their products to look for flaws in the general blue prints of the weapons. Seeing the success with the atomic bomb, the United States started developing a more destructive bomb, the hydrogen bomb, believed to be 1000 times stronger than the atomic bomb. In January of 1950, President Harry S. Truman announced the United States’ intention to build a hydrogen bomb because of the fear that the Soviet Union’s advancements in nuclear weapons were a possible threat to the United States and the rest of the world.
It was not until July 13, 1942, during World War II, that the United States began the Manhattan Project to begin developing an atomic bomb. By December 2, a Manhattan Project team, lead by physicist Enrico Fermi, produced the first artificial fission reaction at the University of Chicago. Even after World War II ended and President Roosevelt died, the research for developing an atomic bomb continued. Three years later, the Manhattan Project achieved it’s goal of developing a true atomic weapon. The so-called nuclear arms race in between the United States and the Soviet Union was a competition for supremacy in nuclear weapons during the Cold War. During the Cold War, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries also developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on the same size as the two superpowers.
The first nuclear test took place in New Mexico on July 16, 1945 under the supervision of Robert J. Oppenheimer. This test was intended to prove the actuality of a radical implosion weapon design that had been developed at Los Alamos during the previous year. This design, embodied in the test device called Gadget, involved a new technology that could not be adequately evaluated without a full-scale test. Less than a month later, the United States dropped two nuclear weapons of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians. When President Truman heard word of the successful bombing in Hiroshima he exclaimed, “This is the greatest day in history!” The United States conducted six nuclear tests before the Soviet Union developed their first atomic bomb.
The U.S. decided to develop the atomic bomb based on the fear they had for the safety of the nation. In August 1939 nuclear physicists sent manuscripts to Albert Einstein in fear the Germany might use the new knowledge of fission on the uranium nucleus as way to construct weapons. In response, on August 2, 1939, Einstein sent a letter to President Roosevelt concerning the pressing matter to use uranium to create such weapons before Germany (Doc A-1). To support the development of the atomic bomb, President Roosevelt approved the production of the bomb following the receipt that the bomb is feasible on January 19, 1942. From this day to December of 1942, many laboratories and ...
In the world there is little thing called power. Many countries want to have great power, few get it. Powers gave the Soviet Union and the U.S. the ability to dominate in wars. In the 1950’s during the Cold War these two countries had a race to se who could create the most powerful weapon the world has ever seen, the Hydrogen Bomb. Edward Teller, an atomic physicist, and Stanislaw Marcin Ulam, a mathematician, "who together developed the Teller-Ulam design in 1951" for the Hydrogen Bomb (Teller-Ulam Design). Many people had their thoughts about why or why not the Hydrogen Bomb should have been built. What this essay will talk about is why the Hydrogen Bomb was built.
America’s development of this secret atomic bomb began back in 1939 when President Roosevelt was still alive. This project was so secretive that Roosevelt did not even want his Vice President Harry S. Truman to know a thing about it. Truman could not believe it, until he read the note from Secretary Stimson. That night he wrote a letter in his diary about the U.S. perfecting an explosive great enough to destroy the world. Tr...
Stalin, political bureaucrats, and even leading Soviet physicists of the time often put early pre-war and wartime Soviet nuclear research on the back burner. This was mainly due to the Soviet Union fighting for its very existence during the first years of the war. After the tide of the war had turned towards the Soviets, and intelligence from the Western powers suggested an active atomic weapon program, renewed interest by Stalin and the Soviet machine began in earnest. The Soviet Union was behind the technological curve when it implemented its atomic weapons program in earnest and suffered greatly from a lack of resources. The Soviet scientific community, by itself, could not have produced a working atomic weapon in just four short years after the successful deployment of two atomic bombs by the United States over Japan in 1945. Resources, material, research, and scientists taken or stripped from Soviet occupied areas of the defeated Nazi Reich (mostly German) and designs stolen from the American Manhattan Project used for the Soviet nuclear weapons program allowed that program to become successful.
When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.
On January 31st, 1950. President Harry S. Truman announces his decision for the development of the hydrogen bomb. The hydrogen bomb was theorized to be way more powerful then the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan during World War II. Five months earlier, America lost their powerful nuclear supremacy to the Soviet Union, due to the country successfully detonating an atomic bomb at their test site in Kazakhstan. Several weeks later, Britain and the U.S. intelligence came to the conclusion that German-born Klaus Fuchs, a top ranking scientists in the U.S. nuclear program, was a spy for the Soviet Union. With the collection of these events, Truman approved the massive funding for the superpower race to complete the world’s first “superbomb”.
the h-bomb was was made in 1951. Its also called the hydrogen bomb. the united states detonate the first thermonuclear weapon. the hydrogen bomb on eniwetok atoll in the pacific. the test gave the united states a short lived advantage in the nuclear arms race with the soviet union. following the successful soviet detonation of an atomic device in september 1949 the united states accelerated its program to develop the next stage in atomic weaponry.popularly know as the hydrogen bomb this new weapon was approximately 1000 times more powerful than conventional nuclear devices. opponents of development of the hydrogen bomb included j. robert oppenheimer. one of the fathers of the atomic bomb. He and others argued that little would be accomplished except the speeding of the arms race, since it assumed that the soviets would quickly follow suits. the opponents were
A decade later on July 16, 1945, the U.S. detonated the first Atomic Bomb near Alamogordo, New Mexico. It was called the "Trinity" test and exploded with a force equivalent to 18,000 tons of TNT.(2) Truman then made the controversial decision to drop the bomb over Hiroshima on August 6, 1945. The "Little Boy" Atomic Bomb exploded 1,900 feet above Hiroshima with a force equivalent to 12,500 tons of TNT.(3) Bomb related deaths totaled over 140,000. Then three days later on August 9, 1945, the "Fat Man" Atomic Bomb exploded 1,650 feet over Nagasaki with a yield equivalent to 22,000 tons of TNT.(4) A little over 70,000 died in Nagasaki by the end of 1945 from the effects of the b...
The strongest among the Allies, the United States was the initiator of the plan of the atomic bomb. During World War II, Japan bombed the navy base of the United States known as Pearl Harbor(Depression & WWII). Fueled by the motivation to take revenge on Japan after the Pearl Harbor Incident, the United States decided to enter World War II. In order to defeat Japan as rapidly as possible, the United States initiated the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb (Chen). The two atomic bombs that were dropped on the two major cities of Japan led to the unconditional surrender of Japan. According to President, Truman the dropping of the “atomic bomb was the greatest thing in history.”(Wright) Therefore, even after seeing the devastating effects of the atomic bomb the United States showed no regrets of the plan of the atomic bomb. The United States government believed that it was a necessary act to drop the atomic bomb for the sake of ending the war as soon as possible.
Near the end of the Second World War, America and Japan continue to fight with no signs of surrender in sight from either side. President Truman warned the government of Japan that he would use weapons of mass destruction if there was not an end to the war, but they refused to surrender. The decision that Japan made to ignore President Truman left him with two choices; develop the atomic bomb or invade Japan with American forces and allies. After careful consideration, President Truman made the choice to develop and use the nuclear bombs as a way to end World War II. On August 6, 1945, the president unleashed the massive weapon of destruction on the city of Hiroshima dropping the atomic bomb code named “Little Boy”. A few days later on August
In 1941, The United States began an atomic bomb program called the “Manhattan Project.” The main objective of the “Manhattan Project” was to research and build an atomic bomb before Germany could create and use one against the allied forces during World War II. German scientists had started a similar research program four years before the United States began so the scientists of the “Manhattan Project” felt a sense of urgency throughout their work (Wood “Men … Project”).
During last 50 years of development, the nuclear bomb, as the ultimate weapon became the peacekeeping force on the earth. The nuclear bomb was developed in Manhattan project during the WW II and was successfully tested in the New Mexico on July 16 1945. At this point started the change of nuclear weapon from ultimate weapon to political weapon. USA decided to use the atomic bomb to defeat Japan in order to save around 500.000 lives of American soldiers that were needed to end the war and in the summer 1945 the USA dropped two bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The nuclear weapon raised the confidence of USA but president Truman did not ordered its mass production because at that time he saw no explicit political function for the bomb. USA even tried to internationalize control of the bomb under the UNITED NATIONS but the Soviets were reluctant to support American plan for two reasons. To stop soviet nuclear program before developing the first soviet bomb would give Americans permanent lead in nuclear weapons technology. Soviets believed that instruments of force always have political capabilities. For the Kremlin weapons were political tools. This led Americans to the same conclusion. The beginning of Cold War created several political functions of nuclear weapons: nuclear deterrence, alliance building, and international prestige.
The hydrogen bomb was built in 1952, and is known as the greatest byproduct of the cold war. The invention of this bomb gave America tremendous amounts of technological power over the Soviet Union (in the cold war). Seven years before the hydrogen bomb was made, America built the atomic bomb. This invention created a monopoly of nuclear arms (for America) and incited the cold war. Soon (in 1949), the USSR also created an atomic bomb, which ended America’s monopoly of nuclear arms and began to cause unsettling fear among Americans. In response, President Harry Truman frantically organized a team create a “super bomb.” This bomb would be equivalent to 50 million tons of TNT (more than all the explosives used in World War II), and would be known
At 5:30 AM July 16th 1945, the nuclear age had started. The world’s first atomic bomb was detonated. On August 6th 1942 at 8:15 AM, an American B-29 bomber, the Enola Gay, dropped a perfected atomic bomb created by the Americans, over the city of Hiroshima hoping to end the war. Thousands of people died in the two cities in Japan. They were Hiroshima and Nagasaki “the Manhattan Project”. The research and development project that produced these atomic bombs during this time was known as “the Manhattan Project”.
The nuclear bomb was the most devastating weapon ever created by man. It was developed between 1942 and 1945 during the second World War. The project to build the worlds first atomic weapon was called The Manhattan Project. The nuclear bomb was based on the idea of splitting an atom to create energy, this is called fission. Three bombs were created, “Trinity”, “Little Boy”, and “Fat Man”. “Trinity” was dropped on a test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, proving the theories, engineering and mathematics of the bomb to be correct. Shortly after that, not more than 2 months, the U.S. performed the first actual nuclear attack in the history of war. The bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on the town of Hiroshima, instantly killing thousands. “Fat Man” was dropped shortly after on the town of Nagasaki. After the bombing almost all scientist involved with the creation of the bomb regretted its construction and spoke out against the abolishment of nuclear weapons.