Nuclear History

Tens of millions died during World War II as the warring powers raced to create the best fighter planes, tanks, and guns, and eventually that race extended to bombs which carried enough power to destroy civilization itself. While the war raged in Europe and the Pacific, a dream team was working on the Manhattan Project in America, a program kept so secret that Vice President Harry Truman didn’t know about it until he took the presidency after FDR’s death in April 1945. During this time, J. Robert Oppenheimer emerged as an extraordinary scientific mind in the United States.

When Reagan and Gorbachev sat down in Reykjavik in 1986, George Shultz said that it was “the poker game with the highest stakes ever played”. It was the last time the world had a chance to do away entirely with nuclear weapons. This is the behind-the-scenes story of this remarkable summit conference. An Impossible Dream is the first exploration of recently available archives of both sides - top-secret archives of the Kremlin, the personal papers of Gorbachev, as well as Reagan's archives.

On the night of March 26, 1938, nuclear physicist Ettore Majorana boarded a ship, cash and passport in hand. He was never seen again. In A Brilliant Darkness, theoretical physicist Joo Magueijo tells the story of Majorana and his research group, the Via Panisperna Boys, who discovered atomic fission in 1934. As Majorana, the most brilliant of the group, began to realize the implications of what they had found, he became increasingly unstable.

A Difference in Magnitude uses selected government documents, radio and newsreel broadcasts, and eyewitness accounts to tell the story of the atomic bomb and the nuclear attacks on Japan. Letters, official memos, and diary entries describe the Trinity Test in White Sands, New Mexico, recount President Truman's thoughts before the attacks, tell of the opposition of scientists who worked on the Manhattan Project and give Japan's response to the devastation. Extensive and well-written reports detail and quantify the destruction and casualties.

Comprised of just 300 soldiers, the United States Army’s 100th Missile Defense Brigade and 49th Missile Defense Battalion utilize sophisticated and cutting-edge technology to monitor the skies and seas surrounding the country and shield 300 million Americans against any potential nuclear threat. Named for the number of Spartan warriors who defended Greece at the Battle of Thermopylae, these vigilant individuals endure rigorous, always-evolving regimens to maintain peak efficiency in the event of an actual nuclear strike.

From Hiroshima to Chernobyl, Fukushima to the growing legacy of lethal radioactive waste, humanity's struggle to conquer atomic energy is rife with secrecy, deceit, human error, blatant disregard for life, short-sighted politics and fear. Fallout is an eye-opening odyssey through the first eight decades of this struggle and the radioactive landscapes it has left behind. We are, he finds, forever torn between technological hubris and all-too-human terror about what we have created.

Arguing that North Korea is little more than a carefully constructed Chinese puppet state, the author looks into the heart of this "rogue nation" and finds the Chinese behind much of the terrorism and nuclear weapons manufacturing on the Korean peninsula.

In 2014 it is possible that Israel, backed by the United States, will launch an attack on Iran. This would be a catastrophic event, risking war, bloodshed, and global economic collapse. In this passionate, but rationally argued essay, the author's attempt to avert a potential global catastrophe by showing that the grounds for war do not exist, that there are no Iranian nuclear weapons, and that Iran would happily come to a table and strike a deal.

Are nuclear arsenals safe from cyberattack? Could terrorists launch a nuclear weapon through hacking? Are we standing at the edge of a major technological challenge to global nuclear order? These are among the many pressing security questions addressed in Andrew Futter's groundbreaking study of the cyber threat to nuclear weapons.

As Sarah E. Robey shows in Atomic Americans, people negotiated the contours of nuclear citizenship through overlapping public discussions about survival. Policymakers and citizens disagreed about the scale of civil defense programs and other public safety measures. As the public learned more about the dangers of nuclear fallout, critics articulated concerns about whether the federal government was operating in its citizens' best interests.

The Cold War between the United States of America and the Soviet Union lasted for more than 40 years. In general, this was a war of spies and subterfuge, of covert action and espionage. There was always a danger, however, that an error of judgment on either side could suddenly cause the Cold War to turn red-hot with an exchange of nuclear weapons. On many occasions, tensions between the countries increased, but the prospect of all-out nuclear war between America and Russia was never closer than during a two-week period in October of 1962.

Robert Oppenheimer had a lot resting on his shoulders. During the Second World War, he was tasked with directing the development of the world’s first nuclear arsenal. Known as the Manhattan Project, this super-secretive wartime project had the stoic visage of Oppenheimer overseeing the greatest experiment ever conducted by humankind. Much had happened in Oppenheimer’s life to lead him to this point, and much would subsequently take place after, but this moment was indeed the pinnacle of his career and his life.