Word: thermonuclear
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When Lieut. General Elwood Ricardo Quesada retired from the Air Force in 1951, he had behind him 25 years of service and the experience of commanding the AEC's first thermonuclear tests at Eniwetok (TIME, April 2, 1951). Last week "Pete" Quesada, now 50 and a Lockheed Aircraft Corp. vice president, got a chance to put both his military and scientific knowledge to good use. In Burbank, Calif., Lockheed announced that it was spending $10 million to set up a new scientific laboratory for advanced research by its missiles division. As the lab's boss, Airman Quesada will...
Lockheed's big project will be dedicated to what Quesada calls "the delivery problem." Says he: "Today we can build a thermonuclear weapon with as much yield as we want. The problem is how to get the damn thing there." To find the answer. Quesada will tap 200 of the country's top scientists, give them absolutely free reign to wander through the problem at an 80-acre laboratory in Van Nuys, have them delve into theoretical electronics and upper-air travel. He will pay high salaries, encourage them to soak up academic atmosphere by letting them teach...
...base ties down, in expensive, debilitating idleness, 80,000 of Britain's best troops, some of whom might be used better in Malaya and elsewhere. The 5,000-sq. mi. area, crammed with men and materiel, is a sitting duck for a thermonuclear attack; the Queen's Middle East forces would be deployed in Libya, Cyprus and Jordan...
Since 1945 the atomic bomb has hung over their heads. Thermonuclear bombs intensify a fear that never leaves any British subject for long. Airmen agree that eight or ten H-bombs, dropped on a well-planned pattern, would bring utter destruction...
Accordingly, the British are determined not to get into a thermonuclear war. The peril to Britain is no illusion. They would indeed be superhuman if they were not afraid. But however understandable the British attitude may be, the fact revealed by the Eden speech is: the U.S. has no strong, reliable ally...