The leak that brought the H-bomb debate out of the cold
blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
blog.nuclearsecrecy.com
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.
Indeed "knowing it's possible" is really all it takes.
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 (development was also discussed in one of Andrei Sakharov's memoirs)
It is true that, as arethuza said, knowing that a Teller-Ulam device can be built certainly contributed to the Soviets, British, French, Chinese, Indians, and Pakistanis building their own hydrogen weapons. But that is not the same thing as those nations having specific knowledge of the US's pioneering method.
If the end result is the same, does it matter? It doesn't seem like keeping those details secret slowed those other nations down by much.
For nations, no. For non nation-states, yes. As I said, Al-Qaeda, ISIS, and other groups can build an atomic weapon if they can get enriched uranium. Building a hydrogen weapon is much more difficult in terms of obtaining components and knowing what to do with them. The builders need some level of theoretical understanding of how the weapon works.
The quote is: "the one secret concerning the atomic bomb which might have been kept and which was given to the public and to all potential enemies without the least inhibition, was that of the possibility on its construction".
As others had suspected, it's about the atomic bomb, not the H-bomb, which in retrospect makes more sense of course.
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.
Beyond what others said, any prosecution would confirm to the world (and, specifically, the Soviets) that what he said was accurate.
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.
>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.
1) If so, then that's an even more glaring gap of the author's knowledge.
2) In a technical sense, and in the context of how it affects a secondary material, it's basically the same thing. One scenario sets off a secondary explosion in some primary-adjacent-material, and the other scenario intentionally sets off a fizzle which "disables" a proximate/nearby core (inducing enough fizzle that it can no longer go supercritical).
The development of fusion technology focused too much on fizzles (and avoiding them) to not realize they could be used al I'm that method to purposefully "disable" a bomb. The strategic desire for any type of defense from an incoming nuclear weapon would have ensured the idea was thoroughly explored.
>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.
1) ICBMs and other missiles were only secondary thoughts because they thought manned rockets and space stations were a more feasible goal than figuring out how to navigate and target unmanned missiles. (Alan Shepard riding a modified redstone army rocket was proof of concept of more than just putting an American into suborbital space.) Advances in navigation, geodesy, and computing power, combined with smaller/lighter warheads and MRVs, solved the targeting problem much faster than anticipated.
2) I said missiles bc that's what got built, but the origins of the idea predate them. The most likely implementation (at the time) would have been, as you said, against aerial bombers, and actually based on a Battle of Britain style/ Nazi-derived rocket drone, but manually remote controlled via joystick and analog TV, and air launched from a hybrid interceptor/bomber. It could similarly be used in a bombing role with drones hitting ground targets.
The drone remote control technology had already been developed and used near the end of the war for getting full sized planes and the sensors they carried close enough to collect data from the early nuclear donations.
Interesting. So a V1-style drone used to send up "fizzle" bombs to destroy incoming bomber fleets carrying atomic weapons, Safeguard-style.
(I don't see the point of calling them "fizzle" bombs, or distinguishing "pre-detonation"; even a fizzle is more than enough to take out any nearby aircraft, whether they are carrying atomic weapons or not.)
I still suspect that Johnson was talking about a fission primary:
* The 1949 timing strongly points toward the ongoing hydrogen weapon program that Johnson would be aware of, and not a theoretical air-defense system using yet-undeveloped drone cruise missiles carrying atomic weapons. The fission primary is something that a layman might very well refer to as "pre-detonation".
* In 1949 atomic weapons (let alone any theoretical hydrogen weapon), intentional "fizzlers" or not, were still so heavy that special B29 SILVERPLATE aircraft were needed to carry them, and the US was designing a new series of ever-larger high-altitude bombers to penetrate enemy airspace. I am very skeptical that any back-of-the-envelope work at Los Alamos or Oak Ridge on bombs small enough for a V1-like drone AA cruise missile would be something that a Senator would hear about and think notable enough to mention on the air.
Remember, WW2 had semi-conclusively refuted the prewar "the bomber will always get through" maxim; I am aware of no serious thinking/planning in 1949 for defending against atomic attack other than, as I said, AA and fighter squadrons, because there was no prospect of any atomic attack other than via bombers. The US maintained squadrons of interceptor aircraft on 24-hour standby around the country well after both sides deployed ICBMs and SLBMs.
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.
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.
As well, kings have also been known to hold power through decades of poor decisions.
I agree that this alway needs tweaking, improvements. And some countries need more election laws to help clean things up a bit.
But there will always be strife, otherwise, everything is perfect, therefore, why even try to change the status quo?
I believe a fundamentally better approach is possible today. One where it is more easy for the voter to directly influence - and not be limited to a short choice and a long theater leading up to it.
Liquid democracy for example brings some new concepts.
My intention was only to point out an unfortunate aspect of the system as it existed at the time. Proposing improvements wasn't something I wanted to get into, but here are some changes I think are improving the situation: greater involvement of civil servants, civilian committees, more comprehensive procedures for using classified information, non-governmental inspectors, disarmament and non-proliferation treaties. Incidentally I don't think an crown and scepter helps much, the UK is a hereditary monarchy (and a democracy) and has had a proportionate share of questionably-justifiable nuclear escalation.
Yes, it did, for you specifically mentioned one form of government.
My intention was only to point out an unfortunate aspect of the system as it existed at the time.
Fair enough.
Despite all reason, it seems that countries with (constitutional) monarchies are by and large better places to live than countries with elected heads of state. He doesn't understand why, and can think of many reasons why this shouldn't be the case, but the evidence doesn't lie.
Or it could just be about a country being older, and so more stable.
Politicians who reach the top tier are as a breed inherently untrustworthy, anyone who seeks power for its own sake is usually morally unfit to wield it. Concentrating all this power in the hands of a single man or woman is tempting fate with disaster, collective responsibility is like the “two man rule” on steroids. We’ve seen how dangerous a presidential style of government is here in the UK which traditionally uses a parliamentary system, we’ve seen Parliament sidelined in favour of unaccountable executive diktats throughout both Brexit and the coronavirus pandemic including really dangerous policies like the abolition of the right to protest.
I think power in general is best made as diffuse as possible, the problem at least in the UK is that the system is based on gentleman’s agreements in a place that’s long stopped being gentlemanly. The system is designed on the premise that nobody ever goes into Parliament and lies, the idea that bad actors can exist among MPs is anathema. What we actually need is a system that admits bad actors are rife in politics and is actively designed to limit the harm they can do. We need a system that’s institutionally distrustful, a system that treats corruption like blasphemy rather than tacitly encouraging it, a system where political power is treated like plutonium - extremely useful but also extremely dangerous with plenty of safeguards to prevent disaster.
I want a system of government that’s designed by cynics and pessimists, not a system that’s effectively a rabbit warren for the wealthy and powerful to protect their interests.
There are two problems here: first, there never was a right to protest, formally. The UK has no constitution, so any such right would need to be inferred from precedent.
Second, the UK has no strong practice of allowing protests, especially on very contentious issues.
The UK system is deeply and fundamentally undemocratic, because it was founded before the idea of a constitution was really a thing, and there have been no revolutions since, so it has essentially developed as an oligarchy which has slowly incorporated democratic elements when put under intense pressure (e.g the Chartist movement, the suffragettes, etc). All of these movements were violent, and the members were subject to extreme state violence.
The UK is a liberal democracy today essentially because it became impossible for the state to contain the labour movement without democratizing - and the result is a bunch of systems (FPTP, the cabinet, etc) that are a compromise between an essentially undemocratic state and a society that's basically democratic in mentality.
The UK absolutely does have a constitution, but it (roughly) consists of all of the laws (including unwritten ones). What it does not have is a "documented" single constitution, like the US or France.
It's precisely because there is no such document that nobody can say that a law against 'nuisance' demonstrations is an invalid law. There is no essential conflict with a higher principle, because there is no higher principle - except parlimentary prerogative.
All the same the term "constitution" was in use in the UK sense by the 17th century, though one may argue that your narrower definition can be traced to Roman and Classical Greek constitutions at least.