The hell bomb

by William L. Laurence

There can therefore be no question that as soon as the President issued his directive to the AEC “to continue” its work on the hydrogen bomb, the first item on the program was to proceed at once with the production of tritium in sizable amounts, since all known facts point to the need of tritium as extra kindling for the A-bomb trigger. We can also be sure that the production of whatever other auxiliary paraphernalia may be necessary was at once placed on the top-priority list. By the end of 1950, if not earlier, we should thus have all the necessary materials ready in the desired amounts. Meantime, we can be sure that our top scientists have been putting the finishing touches on designs for assembling the materials—the finishing touches, since there can be no doubt that the blueprints for a successful H-bomb have been completed for at least a year and possibly for three or four. It would be unthinkable that we were so careless as to drop all work on such a vital matter, which as far back as 1945 appeared to be a definite possibility.

For this we have no less an authority than Dr. Oppenheimer. In an article in the book One World or None, published late in 1945, discussing atomic weapons of the future, he described bombs “that would reduce the cost of destruction per square mile probably by a factor of 10 or more,” which, as we now know, would be a bomb of a thousand times the power that destroyed Hiroshima—namely, a hydrogen bomb. “Preliminary investigations” of proposals for such a bomb, Dr. Oppenheimer wrote at that early date, “appeared sound.” If the preliminary investigations “appeared sound” to scientists such as Dr. Oppenheimer in 1945, and bearing in mind President Truman’s orders to the AEC in 1950 “to continue its work,” we can only conclude that the interim years produced results far beyond the preliminary stage, when they merely “appeared” to be sound. Judging by the reaction of some leading physicists to the President’s order, the H-bomb appears to be an ominous reality, a completed architectural plan requiring only a few polishing touches. In a word, we are almost ready to go.

And while Dr. Bethe estimated that it would take three years to complete the first H-bomb, we must remember that he spoke several months before the guns of Korea gave the alarm. And we must not forget that had it not been for the threat of the Nazis we might not have had the A-bomb in less than twenty-five and possibly fifty years, according to the best estimates, though the present Communist threat might have reduced the time considerably.

Furthermore, we also have the word of Senator McMahon, who should know, that “the hydrogen development will be cheaper than its uranium forerunner.” This lends weight to the earlier deduction that only relatively small amounts of tritium will be necessary, since, as we have seen, large amounts would be prohibitively costly in terms of vast quantities of plutonium. Small amounts of tritium, in turn, mean that it would take a relatively short time to produce them. A reasonable “guestimate,” assuming that 150 to 300 grams of tritium would be required, is that such amounts could be produced within a few months, particularly if we employ all our huge plutonium plants at Hanford on the task of producing tritium.

It is therefore within the realm of possibility that when we carry out the announced tests of the latest models of our A-bombs at Eniwetok, sometime in the spring or summer of 1951, one of them will be the first H-bomb. It may not be the best model, and it need not be the equal in power to a thousand wartime model A-bombs. In fact, it would be highly inadvisable to use such a bomb in a mere test. It will be an H-bomb, nevertheless, and from it we shall learn how to make bigger and better ones, which is all that a test is supposed to do. For unlike the A-bomb, which cannot be made below or above a certain size, the H-bomb can be made as small or as large as the designer wants it to be. As Professor Bacher has pointed out, the H-bomb is “an open-ended weapon.”

One of the major outcomes of the Korean aggression instigated by the Kremlin has thus been to bring the H-bomb into being much sooner than it would otherwise have been. And that is only one branch of the chain reaction that the Korean guns have set in motion.

In addition to unmasking completely the Kremlin’s ultimate intentions to enslave mankind, and alerting the free nations of the world to the danger facing them as they had not been alerted since Hitler’s attack on Poland, the flash of the Korean guns has also shed new light on the Politburo’s strategy of conquest. The best-informed opinion in the summer of 1950 holds that the Kremlin has decided on a series of little wars that would slowly drain our lifeblood and ruin our economy, and thus bring about the collapse and ruin of the rest of the world’s free nations, rather than force a global war, German style. Among other reasons for such a strategy—and there are many logical reasons for it from Russia’s point of view—is the fact, already become evident in Korea, that in such little wars, fought with Russian equipment and other people’s blood, we would not use atomic weapons of any kind, not only because there are no suitable targets, but because dictates of humanity make the use of such weapons on little peoples, caught in the net of Communism, wholly inconceivable. By deciding on a series of little wars, over a prolonged period, one following the other or coming simultaneously, Russia may thus figure that she could gain her ultimate objective in the cheapest possible way, while at the same time making sure that our atomic-bomb stockpile is wholly neutralized.

If this turns out to be true, we would at least escape atomic warfare, and since we, and the rest of the civilized world, fervently wish to avoid being forced to use atomic weapons, this would be all to the good. But we must also take into consideration the possibility that the very decision on Russia’s part to wage little wars and avoid a global war may have been greatly influenced by the fact that we have a large stockpile of A-bombs while her stockpile is still negligible, forcing her to adopt a strategy in which our superiority would be nullified. It is also possible that after her first experience with the production of A-bombs she may have realized that it would be much too costly to try to catch up with us and have therefore decided on a strategy in which atomic weapons could not possibly play any part. On the other hand, it may also mean that she will not risk a global war until she has built up an adequate stockpile of her own, meantime softening us up with a series of little wars.

With all this in mind, it behooves us to take a closer look at our program for the outlawing of atomic weapons and the placing of atomic energy under international control. It was a noble ideal, one of the noblest conceived by man: the most powerful nation in the world voluntarily offered to give up the right to produce or use the greatest weapon ever designed. Alas, it almost died at birth, and now, after four years of nursing in an incubator, the Korean guns have given it a fatal blow. We might as well face the facts squarely: the majority plan for the international control of atomic energy, the only acceptable plan possible, is dead, one of the first casualties of the Korean guns.

We still talk about trying to find ways for compromise between our plan, accepted by all the nations outside the Iron Curtain, and that of Russia. We are still talking, at least officially, as though somehow a compromise can and will be found. The truth of the matter is that the plan as it stands today is completely out of tune with the times. As we look on it by the light of the North Korean guns, it becomes clear that it is wholly visionary, without any relation to the realities.