Word: plutonium
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Another limitation of the old-style uranium bombs is that the core must have a certain minimum size or it will not explode. Hydrogen bombs can be designed in such a way that a smaller core will detonate. So a stockpile of uranium (or plutonium) would go farther if built into hydrogen bombs than it would if used alone. This advantage would appeal to such nations as the U.S.S.R., if they have smaller hoards of uranium than...
...radioactive and is excessively rare in nature, but it is not hard to make. One method is to bombard lithium 6 with neutrons in a uranium pile. The reaction yields tritium and helium, which can be separated by simple chemistry. This job could be done in the plutonium-making piles at Hanford, but probably will be done in a special pile built without difficulty for the purpose...
Atomic experts bombarded uranium with atomic particles from the cyclotron and produced neptunium, a new "synthetic" element with 93 electrons. Next, Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg and co-workers discovered plutonium (No. 94), and, four years later, at the University of Chicago, americium (No. 95) and curium (No. 96). Last week tall, gaunt, 37-year-old Chemist Seaborg and his associates were in the news again. By bombarding americium with alpha particles, they had produced another new element, with 97 electrons...
...Russians also knew, theoretically, how to build a chain-reacting pile. They were aware that such a pile would transmute Uranium 238 into a "trans-uranian element," i.e., plutonium. They realized that to generate atomic energy, either as a bomb explosion or as peaceful power, would be extremely difficult but certainly not impossible. Two Soviet scientists speculated about what "special devices" would be needed...
...scientists, who possessed the same knowledge, went ahead and developed the necessary "devices": the plutonium piles at Hanford, Wash, and the U-235 separation plants at Oak Ridge, Tenn. The Germans tried rather feebly and failed. The Russians, so far as is known, did not try at all until after the war. To start their bomb project, they did not have to wait for spy-gathered information or for the famous Smyth Report. The basic "secrets" were already in their files...