John Wheeler’s H-bomb blues
physicstoday.scitation.org
physicstoday.scitation.org
https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
The FOIA request files he obtained and on which he based his article (and will also be among the sources of his upcoming book) are still unpublished, but he already published on his blog a sample:
https://blog.nuclearsecrecy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/W...
"a short (24-page) excerpt from Wheeler’s FBI file"
There you can see some copies of the letters directly signed by John Edgar Hoover, probably typed on IBM Executive A with a beautiful proportional font, even in 1953.
The blog is worth reading for those who are interested in the topic, and also the upcoming book.
"After being fired, Borden went back into private law practice. His initial suspicions of the AEC blossomed into an obsession with a conspiracy theory. What if the AEC had been behind the loss of the document? He began to believe that Oppenheimer himself, long an object of his suspicions, had somehow induced Wheeler to lose the document. For the rest of 1953, Borden would conspire—with help from other enemies of Oppenheimer—to bring Oppenheimer down, one way or another.
The culmination of that activity was a letter that Borden wrote to Hoover in November 1953, alleging that after years of considered study he believed “that more probably than not J. Robert Oppenheimer is an agent of the Soviet Union.” "
Insane, but so typical. Every conspiracy is easier to believe than acknowledging to oneself one is wrong.
Who do you think these are? Lewis Strauss and Teller would be hard to walk past.
I'll buy his book. It will go along with many others I've accumulated from that era, such as a 'A Short History of Nuclear Folly'. Atom bombs and planes is what that time was all about, for me.
Anyways, this document was definitely stolen and Bordan (or someone close to him) most likely was the culprit. Just as the Russians are sowing discord among Americans now, this is what they were doing then as well. Bordon wanted to collect all the info about the H-Bomb in one place, almost took down Wheeler and successfully took down Oppenheimer later. Pretty suspicious.
the typesetting in the pdf is clearly superb to my tastes. there are many ways to present he same dish. i prefer the fancier that can be enjoyed longer.
My first impression upon loading the article on my 5.8" phone's web browser was: "Wow, an easily readable article, at last!". To me, PDF seems readable only on much bigger screens or printed.
Compare:
If medical journals could present the online versions of articles this nicely I would be a much happier person, and would also have far less files called 1-s2.387-887sd-main.pdf and similar.