Rise of the Nuclear Age

The mankind evensince searched for the ideal weapon. And it seems, it has never run out of ideas. In this article I would like to present the basic aspects of one of the most recent "swords" as a triumph of human knowledge and as the failure of his humanity. The invention of the atomic bomb had given the rulers of this world the weapon they were looking for. A weapon capable to erase the enemy (and all the rest) in one single blow, without having to battle. That wasn't enough. As soon as the monopol of the United States was broken, the race went into overtime - a race for a higher payload of nuclear yield. In the last period of this race, the super powers gathered around 10-15,000 nuclear warheads each, an yield capable to erase the whole mankind in around 35 minutes (time needed to deliver the warheads).
We all know how this has ended, many arms limitation talks had been held, but the danger of the unleashed nuclear god is not over yet. There are several ways how to get an old nuclear device from the old, dying Russian army and there are nations developing their nuclear potential. We must just hope that those people will be able to keep the finger away from the button and leave the rockets in their silos for, at least, another 50 years. (I, personally have given up the idea of a worldwide nuclear disarmament)

Developments around the World

The US together with the Brits were not the only party going for the A-bomb. Nowadays it's clear that German scientists were working on the development of an atomic bomb, too. How far they really were, was the big question for the other side. According to older statements, they should've been able to get their bomb ready in 1947 or 48. This number surely did scare the allies back in middle 40s, when the war was in a slight hangover and all were waiting for the development of the Eastern front. Delaying the D Day surely wasn't of any help to slow down German scientiscts. In the begining of the research Germans suffered major losses after capturing France, where the Curie family was working on atomic research. They tried to make them work for them, but after some weeks, the facility was mysteriously destroyed in a fire. It cost a little for the Germans to catch up this event and after locating some of the best German scientists in Germany, the research went on well.
The good news is, especially the Brits were well informed about the German progress. Due to the Ultra project, they were able to plan the strike at Norsk Hydro, the heavy water facility in Norway. After the sabotage action of a commando troop failed, the factory was destroyed in heavy bombardment (including the nearby city). That surely slowed the Germans down, but they were trying. Their main problem was after reaching a certain point to keep up good results and find a suitable material for the bomb. Here they got stuck. Germany lost it's uranium storages and didn't have time to produce new 235 izotopes. So they tried plutonium. But the reactor didn't work. This was closely to the end of the war and by that time, the Alsos commandos were raiding German laboratories to capture material, equipment and scientists themselves.

Backgrounds

Atomic bomb research and the later development of the nuclear capabilities of the superpowers is a good example for all those, who don't want to believe, that the secret services and good intelligence has changed the line of history in the Cold War.
As soon as the project Manhattan was started, it was clear that it has to get the highest security ranking available. And so was it. But when you are developing something that big and complicated you can't ensure 100% security. Too many people (starting from scientics, ending with night watchers) have different information of what is going on, even behind the high barb wires of the Los Alamos site. It's like putting together a jigsaw puzzle. With one piece you can't do much, but when you get enough pieces, you get the image. And that was exactly what the Russians were doing. They, of course, got very interested in the project named "Manhattan" and focused their interests to the Los Alamos laboratiories. Soon they learned what was going on there, that they were searching for the ultimative weapon. And soon intelligence networks ran by top Soviet agents began to contact various people from the site to deliver information. And they got it. And it was not a thin records. Various spies working inside the project were able to pass out figures, numbers, plans even blueprints of the initiator (the trickiest part of the bomb) and what stuff the Americans were using as "fuel". Shortly afterwards, top Soviet engineers went to work to do the same. The main part of the job was done after the war. And so, the first Soviet atomic bomb exploded in 1949, just 3,5 years after the US one. Following the statements of the soviet engineers of those times, the intelligence information gathered from the Los Alamos site spared around 4-6 years of research. You might be wondering, why didn't the US use their nuclear monopol in the post-war time to push the Soviets back to Siberia. Well, they wanted but they simply couldn't. After the war, the US had exactly 0 ("ZERO", that is) bombs ready. And with the Soviets knowing this, Truman was not able to scare the Russians away from Berlin. He'd send his bombers to scare them, but they knew, they were empty and could succeed with their plan.
Both Western parties included in the atomic research weren't yet aware of the leaks in their projects and facilities. The most important spies included Maclean, Cairncross, Burgess, Klaus Fuchs, David Greenglass and the Rosenbergs. These sources ran the information directly into Moscow, or as a part of a larger network handed it over to the central in NewYork to Anatoliy Yakovlev or Harry Gold. All of them were discovered in late 40s and 50s after some interceptions and backchecks of Soviet transmissions and crossing overs of Soviet agents. But by then, all the big secrets were gone.
The Americans with the British went outrageous and thus started even bigger witchhunt led by senator MacCarthy, who didn't stop even accusing R.Oppenheimer of being a communist and sabotaging the Manhattan project. MacCarhy apparently suffered of paranoia and his witchhunt was ended in the 50s after he accused the CIA, FBI and several Departments.


Written by Roman Studenic

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