First Russian A-bombRightardia comment: The story needs some more details. First, the Germans weren't even close to developing a bomb when the US discovered their small nuclear research facility. The Germans had many small decentralized weapons programs that were inefficient. The Germans were also transporting uranium to Japan by submarine when the war ended.
It is possible the Japanese were planning to make a dirty bomb. The Japanese could have used a sub launched aircraft to attack Los Angeles or San Francisco to retaliate for the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Japanese had initially planned to use the sub launched aircraft to attack the Panama Canal's sea gates.
The Russians used spies to steal US atomic energy secrets. Some of the spies were Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, American communists, who were executed in 1953 after having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were charged with passing of information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. This was the first execution of civilians for espionage in United States history.
As the old saying goes, God created men, but Sam Colt made them equal. The same can be told about nations and nuclear weapons. Sixty years ago Soviet Union tested its first A-bomb.It is possible the Japanese were planning to make a dirty bomb. The Japanese could have used a sub launched aircraft to attack Los Angeles or San Francisco to retaliate for the bombing of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. The Japanese had initially planned to use the sub launched aircraft to attack the Panama Canal's sea gates.
The Russians used spies to steal US atomic energy secrets. Some of the spies were Julius Rosenberg and Ethel Rosenberg, American communists, who were executed in 1953 after having been found guilty of conspiracy to commit espionage. They were charged with passing of information about the atomic bomb to the Soviet Union. This was the first execution of civilians for espionage in United States history.
Since the execution, decoded Soviet cables have confirmed courtroom testimony that Julius acted as a courier and recruiter for the Soviets, but doubts remain about the level of Ethel's active involvement.
One final note: The Russian bomb looks a lot like the Fat Man plutonium bomb the US had created.
The other atomic spies that were caught by the FBI offered confessions and were not executed. Ethel's brother, David Greenglass, who supplied documents to Julius from Los Alamos, served 10 years of his 15 year sentence. Harry Gold, who identified Greenglass, served 15 years in Federal prison as the courier for him and the British scientist, Klaus Fuchs. Morton Sobell, who was tried with the Rosenbergs, served 17 years and 9 months.
In 2008, Sobell admitted he was a spy and confirmed Julius Rosenberg was "in a conspiracy that delivered to the Soviets classified military and industrial information and what the American government described as the secret to the atomic bomb."The most devastating weapon ever created by humanity has become arguably the greatest political tool for sustained peace. Coming into existence at the brink of the deadliest war we ever experienced, it helped prevent an even deadlier one from happening by making it a guaranteed no-winner scenario.
For Soviet Union, creating its own nuclear weapon was one of the greatest technological and scientific feats, even if compared to other amazing industrialization projects. In less than seven years, three of which the country was engaged in World War II, a whole new atomic industry was created virtually from scratch. The project consumed unprecedented amounts of resources drawn in a no-questions-asked manner by it governmental leadership, and most of the people involved had little knowledge of what they were working at.
Atomic origins
Interestingly, in 1930s, the time of many discoveries in the area of nuclear physics, Soviet advances in the field were on roughly the same level as that of European and American scientists. This was partially due to absence of secrecy in nuclear research, which was not regarded as something able to bring practical results in nearest future.LFTI had a powerful radiation source for experiments, but it was bulky and had to be kept pretty far from precision instruments. When nuclear scientists studied induced radioactivity, they had to run as fast as possible with the specimen to make measurements, since it took mere seconds for the energy to dissipate. Kurchatov’s younger colleague and student Georgy Flerov recalled he bragged that his work was more accurate that Kurchatov’s, since his running times were a few seconds less.
Several institutes studied atomic phenomena in Soviet Union, including Kharkov Physical Technical Institute, the Institute of Radium in Leningrad and nuclear lab at Leningrad Physical Technical Institute (LFTI). The latest gathered a number of young physicists, including the future head of the atomic project Ivan Kurchatov.Before the war disrupted research, some 700 papers on atomic structure, strong forces, nuclear fission, neutrons and the possibility of chain nuclear reaction in uranium have been published in the country. This was despite officials both in the government and in the Academy of Sciences frowning on nuclear research, which promised little practical implementation in early 1930s.
Nevertheless by the time Nazi Germany attacked Soviet Union in 1941, there were quite a few brilliant nuclear scientists in the country, including future Nobel laureate Igor Tamm, Yuly Khariton – future chief constructor of the bomb itself, Yakov Zeldovich, Georgy Flerov, Konstantin Peterzhak, Anatoly Aleksandrov to name a few. However with the start of the war and occupation of large part of the European part of the country the work was halted. LFTI nuclear lab was evacuated with most of its crucial equipment left behind, and scientist were involved in defense projects. Kurchatov, for instance, was working on a system that protected warships from magnetic mines.
Intelligence trigger
 Andrei Sakharov (left) with Igor Kurchatov 1958, Moscow |
One was conspicuous lack of new papers on nuclear physics and any papers by western authors earlier interested in this field. Georgy Flerov wrote a letter to Cergey Kaftanov, the man in the government who supervised possible military application, to draw his attention to the fact, arguing that it meant that the research must has been classified.
At the same time reports gathered by both army intelligence and agents of NKVD, Soviet secret police, indicated that Britain and the USA intend to join their research on the use of uranium as a powerful explosive. For instance Moscow had detailed information on the work done by British MAUD Committee (Military Application of Uranium Detonation), which eventually led to starting the Manhattan Project.
When charged with leading nuclear research, Kurchatov grew a beard, which was meant to give presentability to his young face. While it helped him deal with officials and scientists older then him, friends started to call him “Beard” even in semi-official letters. Kurchatov, who was a good-natured man with good sense of humor, replied he would shave it once the job is done.
Anatoly Aleksandrov, Kurchatov’s close friend and deputy, tried to call on his words in early 1950s and presented him some soap and a razor. Kurchatov kept the beard, but later sent Aleksandrov a package with instruction to open it at an upcoming ministerial meeting. When he did, Aleksandrov, who was absolutely bald by that time, found a wig inside.
And documents captured from a German officer in February 1942 proved Nazi had a similar project too. After consulting leading physicists like Ioffe, Semenov, Khlopin and Kapitsa on the feasibility of a nuclear bomb, Joseph Stalin reportedly gave his conclusion: “We should make one too”.Anatoly Aleksandrov, Kurchatov’s close friend and deputy, tried to call on his words in early 1950s and presented him some soap and a razor. Kurchatov kept the beard, but later sent Aleksandrov a package with instruction to open it at an upcoming ministerial meeting. When he did, Aleksandrov, who was absolutely bald by that time, found a wig inside.
Head of LFTI Abram Ioffe, who is often dubbed the father of Soviet physics school, was offered to head the research, but he declined, saying he was too old for this work and suggested his apprentice Kurchatov instead.
Intelligence data played an important part in the atomic project, reducing the timeframe and giving scientists ideas on where their research should lead. Kurchatov routinely checked reports from agents on the “Project Enormous” as the American nuclear weapons research was codenamed, and gave his analysis to head of NKVD, Lavrentiy Beria, who supervised Soviet atomic effort. Some of the contributing informants remain classified, others like German-born British citizen Klaus Fuchs have been exposed as such. Fuchs spent nine years in prison for espionage before his release in 1953, and later immigrated to Eastern Germany.
The contribution which espionage played in boosting soviet nuclear research is debated, with some scholars going as far as saying the “Russians stole the bomb from Americans”. However most agree that it saved time, rather than opening a principle possibility of success. Atomic project was too complex and without talent and huge effort of researchers, engineers and workers, all the spying would not be enough.
German uranium and brains
Another factor that opened shortcuts for the Soviet Union in the nuclear project was the defeat of Nazi Germany.Classified nature of the atomic project had the drawback of numerous checks and double-checks of integrity of the people involved, which sometimes went ridiculous. Aleksandrov recalls that one late night he was working with metal plutonium when a commission came in. One of the generals inquired what he was doing, and when answered demanded to proof that the hemisphere was actually Uranium. Aleksandrov said he knew it because the new the technology, demonstrated that the sample was radioactive, and when that wasn’t enough got frustrated and said: “Touch it, it’s hot. You sit here all night and wait for it to cool down if you like, and I go to bed”. This ended the questioning.
For once, Germans facilities had large amounts of uranium, which Russians lacked. By the time the need for large amounts of the rare element was brought up by nuclear scientists, there was but a handful of uranium mines in Soviet Union, and exploration for new ones was time-consuming and chancy.Most of uranium stored in Germany was salvaged by an American group, but some fell into the hands of the Soviets. According to Kurchatov, without uranium captured in Germany, the first experimental nuclear reactor he built in Moscow would have been brought to criticality not in February 1946, but a year later.
Not less important is that several leading German scientists and some 300 hundred specialists, who had been working on Third Reich’s own nuclear project, have been taken to Soviet Union. Nikolaus Riehl, a Russian-born German physicist, headed a uranium plant near Moscow, while famous inventor Manfred von Ardenne and Nobel Prize winner Gustav Hertz worked on isotope separation in Abkhazia. For their contribution many German scientists have been awarded by the government.
Crucial goal
Vladimir Kremlev for RT. Click to enlarge
The committee and dist decisions were top secret, but they could draw and any material and human resources to reach their goal. It saved the atomic project from much of red tape. On the grimmer side, Beria relied on NKVD’s experience in using Gulag inmates in other projects. Many facilities needed to create the bomb have been built by political repression victims.
In addition to the atomic project the committee also managed research in rocketry and the creation of air defense system around Moscow.
In 1949, at least five years ahead of the earliest estimates of western nuclear experts, the country-wide effort yielded the long-awaited result. On August 29 the first nuclear bomb, the RDS-1 was detonated at the Semipalatinsk range in Kazakhstan.
First lightning
First Russian nuclear reactor F-1, was constructed by the Laboratory No. 2 in Moscow, which is now known as Kurchatov Institute. All metal uranium and special ultra-pure graphite the country had at the time was used in it. F-1 gave crucial data needed to build in the Urals city Ozersk a reactor, producing plutonium.
At the date of first launch Igor Kurchatov ordered that an axe was present in the room: if automatic scram system failed in an emergency, it would be used to cut the rope supporting a cadmium rod, and it would fall into the core and prevent meltdown. Today F-1 is still operational and is used as a neuron source in experiments.
The bomb was placed at a 30-meter tower with dozens of military vehicles, brick and wooden buildings, fortifications and test animals placed around it at different ranges. There were even several tunnels dug underground to see how much they would be damaged by the 20-kiloton blast. The explosion was monitored by numerous cameras and instruments.At the date of first launch Igor Kurchatov ordered that an axe was present in the room: if automatic scram system failed in an emergency, it would be used to cut the rope supporting a cadmium rod, and it would fall into the core and prevent meltdown. Today F-1 is still operational and is used as a neuron source in experiments.
The radioactive fallout was registered by spy planes patrolling Soviet borders, and soon US President Truman was reported that the nuclear monopoly was no more. By that time former allies have turned into bitter enemies, and western generals were preparing plans for a possible new war – this time against the Soviet Union. Some plans mass bombing of soviet industrial centers with both nuclear and conventional bombs. The Cold War was in full swing and sliding towards a hot one.
In the west the first soviet nuclear device is known as Joe-1 after the name of Joseph Stalin, and was nicknamed First Lightning by creators. Its official disambiguation is RDS-1, but the true meaning of the abbreviation is not known. Here are the most popular versions:
Kurchatov reportedly had a peculiar naming habit. In late 1950s after suffering two heart attacks, he worked on an experimental impulse-mode reactor dubbed DoUd-3, which means “before third heart attack”.
The news that Moscow had nuclear weapons had a chilling effect, especially on European members of newfound NATO, who were obviously the prime targets for a nuclear strike in case of a war.Kurchatov reportedly had a peculiar naming habit. In late 1950s after suffering two heart attacks, he worked on an experimental impulse-mode reactor dubbed DoUd-3, which means “before third heart attack”.
More successful tests followed the unexpectedly early breakthrough. Soviet scientists tested their first thermonuclear bomb RDS-6s in 1953 just a year after Americans tested their first device Ivy Mike. The layered design of was absolutely different and was later abandoned for the scalable two-stage bomb. On the other hand Make was a 62-ton proof-of-concept device, while the “Sloika” bomb, as it was called, was feasible as a weapon, which makes priority in H-bomb creation debatable.
As parties to ideological confrontation stockpiled more nuclear weapons they turned from devices of war into the best argument not to wage one. The superpowers had to negotiate.
Alexandre Antonov, RT
source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julius_and_Ethel_Rosenberg
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