Statements in the press have given the power of the H-bomb as between two and 1,000 times that of the present fission bomb. Actually, the thermonuclear reaction on which the H-bomb is based is limited in its power only by the amount of hydrogen which can be carried in the bomb. Even if the power were limited to 1,000 times that of a present atomic bomb, the step from an A-bomb to an H-bomb would be as great as that from an ordinary TNT bomb to the atom bomb.
To create such an ever-present danger for all the nations of the world is against the vital interests of both Russia and the United States. Three prominent Senators have called for renewed efforts to eliminate this weapon and other weapons of mass destruction from the arsenals of all nations. Such efforts should be made, and made in all sincerity from both sides.
In the meantime, we urge that the United States, through its elected government, make a solemn declaration that we shall never use this bomb first.
Before discussing in detail the merits of the proposal that the United States renounce the use of the H-bomb, “no matter how righteous its cause,” except in retaliation for its use against us or our allies, it behooves us to examine the effect of our decisions to proceed with the development of the H-bomb on Russia’s A-bomb progress.
We know that the H-bomb requires an A-bomb for its trigger. We also have strong grounds for assuming that, in addition to the A-bomb, an H-bomb will require certain quantities of tripleweight hydrogen, or tritium, as extra superkindling to boost the A-bomb. We know, furthermore, that it takes eighty times as many neutrons to make a given quantity of tritium as it does to make a corresponding amount of plutonium, which, of course, means a reduction in A-bombs.
Hence, should Russia decide to embark on an H-bomb program of her own, or to “redouble her efforts,” it would lead inevitably to a serious curtailment in her stockpile of A-bombs. While we would have to make the same sacrifice of plutonium, it is obvious that we can afford the sacrifice much better than Russia, since we already have a sizable stockpile of both plutonium and uranium bombs, whereas she has just begun building her stockpile. The situation for her would be much worse if she has put all her atomic eggs in the plutonium basket without bothering to build the much more complicated and costly uranium separation plants, as the incomplete evidence available would seem to indicate. In that case she would be faced with a serious dilemma indeed, for you cannot have H-bombs without A-bombs, and you cannot have A-bombs without plutonium, and if, as the evidence indicates, she has built her A-bomb program exclusively around plutonium, she would have to sacrifice quantities she could ill afford to spare, at this stage of her development, of the only element she desperately needs for building up her A-bomb stockpile.
How do we know that Russia’s A-bomb is made of plutonium? We have the testimony of Senator Johnson of Colorado, who assured us in his famous television broadcast of November 1, 1949 that “there’s no question at all that the Russians have a bomb more or less similar to the bomb that we dropped at Nagasaki, a plutonium bomb.” In this single sentence the Senator from Colorado, who as a member of the Joint Congressional Committee on Atomic Energy has access to such information, inadvertently let at least three cats out of the bag. He confirmed that the Nagasaki bomb was made of plutonium (though, in fairness, it must be said that this had been known unofficially for some time); he told us that we had found out not only that “an atomic explosion had occurred in the U.S.S.R.,” as the President had announced in carefully chosen words, but that the explosion was that of an atomic bomb and that, more important still, the bomb was made of plutonium. And in doing so he, furthermore, gave away the secret of how we had obtained that information, something the Russians very much wanted to know. Not being a scientist, Senator Johnson obviously did not realize that the split fragments (fission products) of a plutonium bomb differ from those given off by the explosion of a uranium bomb, so that in revealing that we knew what the bomb was made of he would also be revealing at the same time that we found it out by examining radioactive air samples and finding them to contain fission fragments of plutonium, as well as whole plutonium atoms that escaped fission.
There is thus no doubt that the Russians have built nuclear reactors for producing plutonium from nonfissionable uranium 238. We cannot, of course, be sure that they have not at the same time also built plants for concentrating uranium 235, but the odds favor the negative. We built uranium separation plants at Oak Ridge, Tennessee, and plutonium plants at Hanford, Washington, during the war because we didn’t know at the time which method would work, and we gambled on the chance that, by building plants for producing fissionable materials by four different methods, at least one of them might work. Had we known at the time that the plutonium plants were practical, it is quite likely that we would not have invested a billion dollars in building the uranium separation plants. Since the Russians have obviously decided on plutonium plants as the simplest and cheapest (three plutonium plants cost us a total of $400,000,000, whereas a single large uranium separation plant cost half a billion), it is hardly likely that they would consider it worth while to invest in the much more costly uranium separation plants.
As Senator Johnson said in the same broadcast: “We tried out four different methods of making a bomb and all of them succeeded, but one of these methods was superior to all the others in simplicity and effectiveness, and we told the Russians and we told the world that fact. Of course, they didn’t have to make the experiments that we had to make to find out by elimination which method was the most effective and which the one that they should follow.”
The evidence is thus strongly in favor of the assumption that Russia has only plutonium plants as her sole source of A-bomb material, whereas we have both plutonium plants and gigantic uranium plants in full operation. If that is so, then our forcing Russia to embark on an H-bomb program, at a time when her A-bomb program is barely started, will place her under a double handicap in her race to catch up with us in A-bombs, and at least to keep abreast of us, if not ahead, in H-bombs. For in this grim race we have a dual if not a triple advantage: our much superior stockpile, both in numbers and no doubt in quality, and our gigantic plants for concentrating U-235, the production of which would not have to be curtailed at all, since tritium can be made only in plutonium plants. In fact, we are now in the process of construction of two great additions to the uranium plant at Oak Ridge.