6 ms·

The leak that brought the H-bomb debate out of the cold

81 points by benbreen 5y ago

mjreacher 5y ago
I wonder if senator Johnson ever faced any criminal prosecution for his actions here or if he too high profile to consider such actions against.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  Seemingly no, he carried out his Senate term and followed it with a term as Colorado Governor. Oddly the event isn't mentioned on his Wikipedia page as of now, what he's most "famous" for is his denouncement of Ingrid Bergman for adultery in 1950.
  - MichaelGroves 5y ago
    To document a decades long political career properly I think you'd need something the length of a book at least. Wikipedia gives you a handful of paragraphs, probably written by somebody who only skimmed a few books at best.
- eschulz 5y ago
  I don't think people as high as US Senators face the prospect of criminal charges for most felonies. They would only be in that position if it the criminal charge was advantageous for both political parties; say if he was charged with defrauding a charity or beating his wife.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >I wonder if senator Johnson ever faced any criminal prosecution for his actions here or if he too high profile to consider such actions against. Beyond what others said, any prosecution would confirm to the world (and, specifically, the Soviets) that what he said was accurate.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
Y_Y 5y ago
If this was supposed to be a crafty way to force Truman's hand and get the fusion bomb programme approved then it was pretty impressive. It's slightly troubling that individual members of US Congress and even the president have opportunities to radically swing historical decisions like this, given that the system is quite volatile. All kinds of people can (and do) get elected to the positions, and are frequently replaced. You're really rolling dice to see what kind of person you get chairing an appropriate committee or approving some key proposal. Even then the results are unpredictable, maybe someone mentions a "superbomb" in an interview with the hope that it get the project cancelled. Leibniz's "we live in the best of all possible worlds" is always useful, but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that a majority of possible worlds got wiped out in the cold war, and that this is one (or some) of the lucky few that only pulled the trigger when the revolver's chamber was empty.
- bbarnett 5y ago
  I certainly prefer an elected president, and others making these decisions, compared to some dictator or king doing so. One, if making poor decisions, can often be replaced in a few years. The other cannot. Yet in both cases you may end up with a poor choice in the role. Not sure why you think democracy is worse at this, than a dictatorship or hereditary king like system.
  - thaumasiotes 5y ago
    A king being replaced after a few years of making poor decisions isn't exactly an unknown occurrence.
    - bbarnett 5y ago
      Yet it doesn't happen without, essentially, a plot, perhaps the kingdom in civil war, and the next leader is just the next in line, with no real debate on worthiness either. As well, kings have also been known to hold power through decades of poor decisions.
      - 5y ago
phreeza 5y ago
I read a quote somewhere (possibly via @gwern) that the only secret worth keeping about the H-bomb was that it was feasible. But I can't find it anywhere, does someone know it?
- arethuza 5y ago
  I suspect the main "secret" around H-bomb design was the Teller-Ullam configuration of having a primary compress (and therefore heat) a secondary via X-rays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Teller%E2%80%93... Worth noting that this was apparently invented a number of times - first by the US, then by the Soviets, then the UK etc. Probably influenced by the fact they knew it was possible.
  - pfdietz 5y ago
    The composition of fallout from US tests was also a big clue.
  - cogman10 5y ago
    The hardest part about making an H-Bomb is first making a fission bomb. Once you have that, an H-Bomb is trivial by comparison. An H-Bomb is very simply just detonating a fission bomb with enough fusible material to trigger nuclear fusion. Indeed "knowing it's possible" is really all it takes.
    - justin66 5y ago
      > Once you have that, an H-Bomb is trivial by comparison. An H-Bomb is very simply just detonating a fission bomb with enough fusible material to trigger nuclear fusion. That's a completely inaccurate way of characterizing the difficulty of developing the early fusion bombs. The Russians spent years developing a hydrogen bomb they knew wasn't very good [0] because of the difficulty involved in a more sophisticated design, like the one the parent poster mentioned. The design the parent poster mentioned took also took years to develop - Teller advocated for the idea of the hydrogen bomb during the war, but had the "critical idea" in 1951. The first bomb he built in 1952 was totally impractical as a weapon. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_4 (development was also discussed in one of Andrei Sakharov's memoirs)
beerandt 5y ago
>Johnson said a lot of things that he shouldn’t have. Even mentioning that there was some research done into “pre-detonating” a bomb would have been classified (I don’t know anything about this, but it would be entirely unsurprising that this idea was looked into). Odd the author says he doesn't know about this while claiming to be an expert. This is the start of what would become missile defense, although it's phrased in the language of the time, as much of the rest of the article is. Before the infamous "hit a bullet with a bullet" missile tests, and Reagan's so-called star wars initiative, the best technology we had was to launch our own nuclear weapon at an incoming weapon, and detonate it close enough that our bomb released enough energy to start the nuclear chain reaction in the incoming bomb, in a way that causes it to fizzle, but not fully explode. The fizzle would be enough to prevent the incoming bomb from fully exploding, causing it's own detonation to fizzle (if it managed to survive the fireball/blast of the defensive weapon). I believe this was the original reason for seriously studying the neutron bomb, before it became known as the capitalist bomb (since it killed people via acute radiation but largely spared infrastructure), although I don't know if this is still speculative or if it's been confirmed by any declassified material. This is also part of the reason that even after the various nuclear test treaties went into effect, the US (and I assume others) continue to perform and study sub-critical / fizzle explosion tests.
- TMWNN 5y ago
  >>Johnson said a lot of things that he shouldn’t have. Even mentioning that there was some research done into “pre-detonating” a bomb would have been classified (I don’t know anything about this, but it would be entirely unsurprising that this idea was looked into). >Odd the author says he doesn't know about this while claiming to be an expert. >This is the start of what would become missile defense, although it's phrased in the language of the time, as much of the rest of the article is. No, Johnson is almost certainly referring to the fission primary in a fusion weapon. When he spoke on radio, no one was seriously talking about ICBMs, and even the early Navy SLCMs were a decade away, so any and all defense against nuclear weapons was AA and fighters against incoming bomber fleets, Battle of Britain-style.
  - beerandt 5y ago
opwieurposiu 5y ago
Soviet spies were astonishingly effective in the 1940s. They were sending back literal plane loads of documents during lend-lease. What helped the soviets the most were not bomb secrets, but factory plans like rubber tire plants, oil refineries, metal stamping plants. We gave them a lot of this stuff for free in lend/lease but they still used spies to make sure we were not feeding them disinfo. For the atomic program, Beria used the intelligence reports mainly as a way to make sure his own scientists were not wasting time/resources/money. The soviets were terrified of insider attacks slowing progress, so intel provided a yardstick to measure against.

81 points by benbreen 5y ago

I wonder if senator Johnson ever faced any criminal prosecution for his actions here or if he too high profile to consider such actions against.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
Seemingly no, he carried out his Senate term and followed it with a term as Colorado Governor. Oddly the event isn't mentioned on his Wikipedia page as of now, what he's most "famous" for is his denouncement of Ingrid Bergman for adultery in 1950.
- MichaelGroves 5y ago
  To document a decades long political career properly I think you'd need something the length of a book at least. Wikipedia gives you a handful of paragraphs, probably written by somebody who only skimmed a few books at best.
eschulz 5y ago
I don't think people as high as US Senators face the prospect of criminal charges for most felonies. They would only be in that position if it the criminal charge was advantageous for both political parties; say if he was charged with defrauding a charity or beating his wife.
TMWNN 5y ago
>I wonder if senator Johnson ever faced any criminal prosecution for his actions here or if he too high profile to consider such actions against. Beyond what others said, any prosecution would confirm to the world (and, specifically, the Soviets) that what he said was accurate.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

Y_Y 5y ago

If this was supposed to be a crafty way to force Truman's hand and get the fusion bomb programme approved then it was pretty impressive. It's slightly troubling that individual members of US Congress and even the president have opportunities to radically swing historical decisions like this, given that the system is quite volatile. All kinds of people can (and do) get elected to the positions, and are frequently replaced. You're really rolling dice to see what kind of person you get chairing an appropriate committee or approving some key proposal. Even then the results are unpredictable, maybe someone mentions a "superbomb" in an interview with the hope that it get the project cancelled. Leibniz's "we live in the best of all possible worlds" is always useful, but I'm sure I'm not alone in thinking that a majority of possible worlds got wiped out in the cold war, and that this is one (or some) of the lucky few that only pulled the trigger when the revolver's chamber was empty.

bbarnett 5y ago
I certainly prefer an elected president, and others making these decisions, compared to some dictator or king doing so. One, if making poor decisions, can often be replaced in a few years. The other cannot. Yet in both cases you may end up with a poor choice in the role. Not sure why you think democracy is worse at this, than a dictatorship or hereditary king like system.
- thaumasiotes 5y ago
  A king being replaced after a few years of making poor decisions isn't exactly an unknown occurrence.
  - bbarnett 5y ago
    Yet it doesn't happen without, essentially, a plot, perhaps the kingdom in civil war, and the next leader is just the next in line, with no real debate on worthiness either. As well, kings have also been known to hold power through decades of poor decisions.
    - 5y ago

phreeza 5y ago

I read a quote somewhere (possibly via @gwern) that the only secret worth keeping about the H-bomb was that it was feasible. But I can't find it anywhere, does someone know it?

arethuza 5y ago
I suspect the main "secret" around H-bomb design was the Teller-Ullam configuration of having a primary compress (and therefore heat) a secondary via X-rays: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Teller%E2%80%93Ulam_design https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Teller%E2%80%93... Worth noting that this was apparently invented a number of times - first by the US, then by the Soviets, then the UK etc. Probably influenced by the fact they knew it was possible.
- pfdietz 5y ago
  The composition of fallout from US tests was also a big clue.
- cogman10 5y ago
  The hardest part about making an H-Bomb is first making a fission bomb. Once you have that, an H-Bomb is trivial by comparison. An H-Bomb is very simply just detonating a fission bomb with enough fusible material to trigger nuclear fusion. Indeed "knowing it's possible" is really all it takes.
  - justin66 5y ago
    > Once you have that, an H-Bomb is trivial by comparison. An H-Bomb is very simply just detonating a fission bomb with enough fusible material to trigger nuclear fusion. That's a completely inaccurate way of characterizing the difficulty of developing the early fusion bombs. The Russians spent years developing a hydrogen bomb they knew wasn't very good [0] because of the difficulty involved in a more sophisticated design, like the one the parent poster mentioned. The design the parent poster mentioned took also took years to develop - Teller advocated for the idea of the hydrogen bomb during the war, but had the "critical idea" in 1951. The first bomb he built in 1952 was totally impractical as a weapon. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_4 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_4 (development was also discussed in one of Andrei Sakharov's memoirs)

beerandt 5y ago

>Johnson said a lot of things that he shouldn’t have. Even mentioning that there was some research done into “pre-detonating” a bomb would have been classified (I don’t know anything about this, but it would be entirely unsurprising that this idea was looked into). Odd the author says he doesn't know about this while claiming to be an expert. This is the start of what would become missile defense, although it's phrased in the language of the time, as much of the rest of the article is. Before the infamous "hit a bullet with a bullet" missile tests, and Reagan's so-called star wars initiative, the best technology we had was to launch our own nuclear weapon at an incoming weapon, and detonate it close enough that our bomb released enough energy to start the nuclear chain reaction in the incoming bomb, in a way that causes it to fizzle, but not fully explode. The fizzle would be enough to prevent the incoming bomb from fully exploding, causing it's own detonation to fizzle (if it managed to survive the fireball/blast of the defensive weapon). I believe this was the original reason for seriously studying the neutron bomb, before it became known as the capitalist bomb (since it killed people via acute radiation but largely spared infrastructure), although I don't know if this is still speculative or if it's been confirmed by any declassified material. This is also part of the reason that even after the various nuclear test treaties went into effect, the US (and I assume others) continue to perform and study sub-critical / fizzle explosion tests.

TMWNN 5y ago
>>Johnson said a lot of things that he shouldn’t have. Even mentioning that there was some research done into “pre-detonating” a bomb would have been classified (I don’t know anything about this, but it would be entirely unsurprising that this idea was looked into). >Odd the author says he doesn't know about this while claiming to be an expert. >This is the start of what would become missile defense, although it's phrased in the language of the time, as much of the rest of the article is. No, Johnson is almost certainly referring to the fission primary in a fusion weapon. When he spoke on radio, no one was seriously talking about ICBMs, and even the early Navy SLCMs were a decade away, so any and all defense against nuclear weapons was AA and fighters against incoming bomber fleets, Battle of Britain-style.
- beerandt 5y ago

opwieurposiu 5y ago

Soviet spies were astonishingly effective in the 1940s. They were sending back literal plane loads of documents during lend-lease. What helped the soviets the most were not bomb secrets, but factory plans like rubber tire plants, oil refineries, metal stamping plants. We gave them a lot of this stuff for free in lend/lease but they still used spies to make sure we were not feeding them disinfo. For the atomic program, Beria used the intelligence reports mainly as a way to make sure his own scientists were not wasting time/resources/money. The soviets were terrified of insider attacks slowing progress, so intel provided a yardstick to measure against.