Word: bomb
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Dates: during 1950-1959
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...Looking by hindsight, do you think he showed good judgment in the fact that he opposed this bomb in the light of present conditions...
...colleagues came before the security board, in answer to subpoenas, and testified against him. Among them was Dr. Luis Alvarez, professor of physics at the University of California, who was on the staff at Los Alamos during World War II (he helped develop the detonating mechanism for the atomic bomb). In September 1949, after the Russians exploded an atomic bomb, Dr. Alvarez and Dr. Lawrence decided to push for development of the H-bomb. Nearly all of the scientists they reached were enthusiastic and anxious to get the program going, Dr. Alvarez testified. He expected Oppenheimer to be enthusiastic...
Alvarez: He said he did not think the United States should build the hydrogen bomb, and the main reason he gave for this . . . was that if we built a hydrogen bomb, then the Russians would build a hydrogen bomb, whereas if we did not build a hydrogen bomb, then the Russians would not build a hydrogen bomb. I found this such an odd point of view that I don't understand it to this...
...think he showed exceedingly poor judgment. I told him so the first time he told me he was opposed to it. I have continued to think so. The thing which I thought at that time was the overpowering reason for building the hydrogen bomb was [that] if we did not do it, some day we might wake up and read headlines and see pictures of an explosion such as we saw a month or so ago, only this would be done off the coast of Siberia. I felt sure that this would be one of the most disastrous things that...
...Elements of the Mystic." Wendell Mitchell Latimer, professor of chemistry at the University of California and associate director of the university's radiation laboratory, painted the same picture as Dr. Alvarez. Dr. Latimer wanted to move ahead with thermonuclear development right after the Russians exploded an atom bomb...