Word: thermonuclear
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...last month, carried an international thunderclap. To the high-patrolling U.S. bombers, which scooped up samples of its fine dust, the radioactivity was obvious evidence of some kind of Russian atomic blast. To the scientists who analyzed the samplings, it was clear proof that the Russians had exploded a thermonuclear superbomb, a remarkably exact duplicate of the U.S.'s own. To the political leaders of the U.S., the air mass was one more ominous sign that the time was close when the Russians might have enough atomic strength to destroy the U.S. power of resistance or retaliation...
...quiet, courtly Virginian of deep religious faith and independent character, the cloud was a vindication of a rather lonely fight-a vindication he was the last to want. When he heard the news about the Russian explosion of a "thermonuclear device," Lewis Lichtenstein Strauss, 57, new chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission, informed the other four AECommissioners, and then started working day & night to speed the U.S.'s own thermonuclear bomb production program. Not much was said, but AEC was keenly aware of two fateful facts of U.S. history: 1) had it not been for Lewis Strauss...
...scientific matters. Strauss urged that the GAC be called into special session to advise the commission how to proceed. On Oct. 29, the GAC met in a regularly scheduled session. After one day's deliberation, it reported its recommendation: the U.S. should not try to build a thermonuclear bomb...
...Chairman J. Robert Oppenheimer, as spokesman, advanced two principal reasons: 1) a thermonuclear bomb would divert personnel and raw material from the A-bomb program, and hence the U.S. was giving up a known, certain thing to try an uncertainty; and 2) the U.S. should try again to negotiate a disarmament program with the Russians. The report's key passage said, approximately: Not one of us thinks the thermonuclear bomb should be made. The President should tell the people that the bomb is fundamentally and ethically wrong...
...Defense Department would not elaborate, but the reference to "thermonuclear weapons" provided grounds for some informed guesses. Scientists have long known that the only way in sight to start the fusion of hydrogen atoms is by extreme heat-and the only known way to generate such heat is by an atomic explosion. Thus, an atom bomb would have to act as the "trigger" for any H-bomb...