Part 7

There can therefore be no question that as soon as the President issued his directive to the AEC “to continue” its work on the hydrogen bomb, the first item on the program was to proceed at once with the production of tritium in sizable amounts, since all known facts point to the need of tritium as extra kindling for the A-bomb trigger. We can also be sure that the production of whatever other auxiliary paraphernalia may be necessary was at once placed on the top-priority list. By the end of 1950, if not earlier, we should thus have all the necessary materials ready in the desired amounts. Meantime, we can be sure that our top scientists have been putting the finishing touches on designs for assembling the materials—the _finishing_ touches, since there can be no doubt that the blueprints for a successful H-bomb have been completed for at least a year and possibly for three or four. It would be unthinkable that we were so careless as to drop all work on such a vital matter, which as far back as 1945 appeared to be a definite possibility.

For this we have no less an authority than Dr. Oppenheimer. In an article in the book _One World or None_, published late in 1945, discussing atomic weapons of the future, he described bombs “that would reduce the cost of destruction per square mile probably by a factor of 10 or more,” which, as we now know, would be a bomb of a thousand times the power that destroyed Hiroshima—namely, a hydrogen bomb. “Preliminary investigations” of proposals for such a bomb, Dr. Oppenheimer wrote at that early date, “appeared sound.” If the preliminary investigations “appeared sound” to scientists such as Dr. Oppenheimer in 1945, and bearing in mind President Truman’s orders to the AEC in 1950 “to continue its work,” we can only conclude that the interim years produced results far beyond the preliminary stage, when they merely “appeared” to be sound. Judging by the reaction of some leading physicists to the President’s order, the H-bomb appears to be an ominous reality, a completed architectural plan requiring only a few polishing touches. In a word, we are almost ready to go.

And while Dr. Bethe estimated that it would take three years to complete the first H-bomb, we must remember that he spoke several months before the guns of Korea gave the alarm. And we must not forget that had it not been for the threat of the Nazis we might not have had the A-bomb in less than twenty-five and possibly fifty years, according to the best estimates, though the present Communist threat might have reduced the time considerably.

Furthermore, we also have the word of Senator McMahon, who should know, that “the hydrogen development will be cheaper than its uranium forerunner.” This lends weight to the earlier deduction that only relatively small amounts of tritium will be necessary, since, as we have seen, large amounts would be prohibitively costly in terms of vast quantities of plutonium. Small amounts of tritium, in turn, mean that it would take a relatively short time to produce them. A reasonable “guestimate,” assuming that 150 to 300 grams of tritium would be required, is that such amounts could be produced within a few months, particularly if we employ all our huge plutonium plants at Hanford on the task of producing tritium.

It is therefore within the realm of possibility that when we carry out the announced tests of the latest models of our A-bombs at Eniwetok, sometime in the spring or summer of 1951, one of them will be the first H-bomb. It may not be the best model, and it need not be the equal in power to a thousand wartime model A-bombs. In fact, it would be highly inadvisable to use such a bomb in a mere test. It will be an H-bomb, nevertheless, and from it we shall learn how to make bigger and better ones, which is all that a test is supposed to do. For unlike the A-bomb, which cannot be made below or above a certain size, the H-bomb can be made as small or as large as the designer wants it to be. As Professor Bacher has pointed out, the H-bomb is “an open-ended weapon.”

One of the major outcomes of the Korean aggression instigated by the Kremlin has thus been to bring the H-bomb into being much sooner than it would otherwise have been. And that is only one branch of the chain reaction that the Korean guns have set in motion.

In addition to unmasking completely the Kremlin’s ultimate intentions to enslave mankind, and alerting the free nations of the world to the danger facing them as they had not been alerted since Hitler’s attack on Poland, the flash of the Korean guns has also shed new light on the Politburo’s strategy of conquest. The best-informed opinion in the summer of 1950 holds that the Kremlin has decided on a series of little wars that would slowly drain our lifeblood and ruin our economy, and thus bring about the collapse and ruin of the rest of the world’s free nations, rather than force a global war, German style. Among other reasons for such a strategy—and there are many logical reasons for it from Russia’s point of view—is the fact, already become evident in Korea, that in such little wars, fought with Russian equipment and other people’s blood, we would not use atomic weapons of any kind, not only because there are no suitable targets, but because dictates of humanity make the use of such weapons on little peoples, caught in the net of Communism, wholly inconceivable. By deciding on a series of little wars, over a prolonged period, one following the other or coming simultaneously, Russia may thus figure that she could gain her ultimate objective in the cheapest possible way, while at the same time making sure that our atomic-bomb stockpile is wholly neutralized.

If this turns out to be true, we would at least escape atomic warfare, and since we, and the rest of the civilized world, fervently wish to avoid being forced to use atomic weapons, this would be all to the good. But we must also take into consideration the possibility that the very decision on Russia’s part to wage little wars and avoid a global war may have been greatly influenced by the fact that we have a large stockpile of A-bombs while her stockpile is still negligible, forcing her to adopt a strategy in which our superiority would be nullified. It is also possible that after her first experience with the production of A-bombs she may have realized that it would be much too costly to try to catch up with us and have therefore decided on a strategy in which atomic weapons could not possibly play any part. On the other hand, it may also mean that she will not risk a global war until she has built up an adequate stockpile of her own, meantime softening us up with a series of little wars.

With all this in mind, it behooves us to take a closer look at our program for the outlawing of atomic weapons and the placing of atomic energy under international control. It was a noble ideal, one of the noblest conceived by man: the most powerful nation in the world voluntarily offered to give up the right to produce or use the greatest weapon ever designed. Alas, it almost died at birth, and now, after four years of nursing in an incubator, the Korean guns have given it a fatal blow. We might as well face the facts squarely: the majority plan for the international control of atomic energy, the only acceptable plan possible, is dead, one of the first casualties of the Korean guns.

We still talk about trying to find ways for compromise between our plan, accepted by all the nations outside the Iron Curtain, and that of Russia. We are still talking, at least officially, as though somehow a compromise can and will be found. The truth of the matter is that the plan as it stands today is completely out of tune with the times. As we look on it by the light of the North Korean guns, it becomes clear that it is wholly visionary, without any relation to the realities.

We still talk as though our original offer still stands. The truth of the matter is that even were the impossible to happen and Russia were to say to the world: “We have been mistaken. We accept the American and the majority plan _in toto_ without any reservations,” we should be forced to say: “Sorry, it is too late, you have missed your chance. Your actions have made the plan unworkable, since it cannot possibly work in an atmosphere of mutual distrust and the constant threat of little wars!”

And even if wise diplomacy prevented us from saying it in such blunt language, and though we may still find it expedient to pay lip service to the majority plan, so that Russia could not use it in her propaganda war as evidence that we were insincere from the very beginning, we would have to wriggle to get out of the very serious predicament in which Russia’s acceptance would place us. And even if diplomacy dictated that we sign a convention with Russia to outlaw production and use of all atomic weapons, to destroy our stockpiles and hand over all our atomic plants to an international atomic authority, as our present plan calls for, there can be no question that such a convention could never muster the approval of even a majority of the Senate, and certainly not the required consent of two thirds of the Senate called for by the Constitution. What is more, such a rejection would have the overwhelming approval of American people, once the facts were made clear to them, and any administration daring to enter such a pact would be overwhelmingly defeated.

All this has been so evident for more than two years that it is remarkable that the Russians have failed so far to take advantage of our potential embarrassment and thus win one of their greatest victories on the propaganda front. In fact, their failure to do so, with the sure knowledge that they would risk nothing by accepting a plan that would most certainly be rejected by our own people, not only reveals lack of subtlety on their part, but appears on the surface as crass stupidity, the same type of stupidity displayed by Hitler, which appears to be an inevitable trait of all monolithic dictatorships that must lead to their ultimate undoing.

The time has come for us to stop talking about giving away our greatest weapons, the only ones, as President Truman and Winston Churchill have told us, that have kept the Red Army hordes from overrunning the free world. It is time for us to face reality and place the blame where it belongs. The evil does not lie in weapons per se. It lies in war itself. It is no evil to build and possess the most powerful weapons at our command with which to defend ourselves against a ruthless aggressor. On the contrary, it would be an evil thing to throw away the principal weapon standing between us and possible defeat. It is no evil to use a weapon to destroy your enemy just because your weapon happens to be the most powerful in existence. It is no greater evil to destroy thousands of your enemy in one great flash than to destroy them by goring them with bayonets. The real evildoer is the nation that starts an aggressive war. Those attacked have the right and duty to defend themselves by all means at their command.

Our confusion has been the result of our first use of the A-bomb to destroy a city with thousands of its civilian population. Let us admit that the mass bombing of large populated cities (which, by the way, was started by the Nazis) is wholly inexcusable with any kind of weapons, and that we should never resort to such strategic bombing again. That does not mean that we should renounce our right to use A-bombs to destroy an enemy’s armies, navies, and airfields, his transportation facilities and his oil wells—in a word, his capacity to make war against us. And as long as we use the A-bomb and the H-bomb only as weapons of tremendous power to destroy by blast and by fire, they are no different from ordinary blockbusters or incendiaries except that they concentrate their power in a small package. Is there any difference, morally speaking, between the use of thousands of blockbusters and tens of thousands of incendiaries and a weapon that concentrates all their power in one?

Probably the main reason for the confused thinking that has singled out atomic weapons as a greater evil than other weapons of mass destruction has been their radioactivity. But even the A-bombs exploded over Japan were purposely dropped from a height that carried most of the radioactivity away into the upper atmosphere. Nor will the H-bomb, as explained earlier, release great quantities of radioactivity unless it is purposely rigged to do so. We should, therefore, lose nothing and gain much if we renounced the use of A- and H-bombs as radioactive weapons except in retaliation against the use of such weapons on us or our allies. But to renounce their use altogether would be tantamount not only to physical but to spiritual suicide as well, for it would mean condoning the advance of the Red Army.

It has become customary to talk about Russia’s atom bomb as though she already was, or soon will be, on a par with us. It is true that eventually she will catch up with us in the development of a large stockpile of her own and in designing more efficient models. But that is only one side of the picture. As of 1950, and for at least until 1952, years that may well be crucial, our superiority in A-bombs will remain unchallenged, not only qualitatively but quantitatively. By that time we shall have greatly increased our lead by the possession of an effective stockpile of H-bombs. Since Russia cannot build H-bombs at the present stage without sacrificing quantities of plutonium she needs to build up her A-bomb stockpile, she will find herself compelled to build additional plutonium plants, which not only will greatly strain her resources but, more important from our point of view, will gain us additional time.

How many A-bombs can Russia make? Former Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson has told us that the A-bombs we dropped on Japan “were the only ones we had ready.” Counting the test bomb at Alamogordo, we had thus produced three bombs by mid-August 1945. This represented the total output of a two-billion-dollar plant, employing three major methods of production, after the plants had been in operation for an average of about six months. In other words, it took our two-billion-dollar plant about six months to produce three A-bombs—a rate of six A-bombs a year.

Now all the evidence at hand, as already pointed out, indicates that, instead of building three different types of plants for producing A-bomb materials, Russia is concentrating entirely on plutonium. Hence, if we assume that she built a plutonium plant equal in output to the total capacity of our wartime uranium and plutonium plants, and further assuming that her methods for producing plutonium are as efficient as ours, the best she could do at present would be at the rate of six plutonium bombs a year. At this rate she would have about eighteen by the middle of 1952. This would be a sizable stockpile for a nation in sole possession of such a weapon. But would any nation with such a stockpile dare challenge a nation with a stockpile many times bigger, consisting of bombs many times more powerful, and possessing a few hydrogen bombs to boot?

Russia will, no doubt, improve her production methods. But to improve them to the extent of producing, let us say, two bombs per month, she would have to step up her production by four hundred per cent. It is doubtful if such a step-up could be achieved in less than three years.

Then there are other factors to be considered that greatly balance the scales in our favor. To produce plutonium bombs requires tremendous quantities of uranium, something that cannot be conjured up by just dialectic materialism. It so happens that we have access to the only two rich uranium deposits known in the world: the Belgian Congo, and the Great Bear Lake area in Canada. There were no known rich uranium deposits in Russia proper or in the territories of her satellites, with the possible exception of Czechoslovakia. We know this from the fact that she never competed for the world markets for radium, extracted economically only from rich uranium ores, which sold before the war at $25,000 per gram, or at the rate of nearly $12,000,000 a pound. The best evidence, however, that she does not have at her command rich uranium deposits either in Russia or elsewhere is her ruthless exploitation, at the cost of thousands of human lives, of the depleted uranium mines in the mountains of Saxony, which had long been abandoned by their German owners. The only other known source of pitchblende (the mineral richest in uranium) under Russian control is Joachimsthal (Jachymov) in Bohemia, from which came the first radium sample isolated by Mme Curie about fifty years ago. This mine, too, has been largely depleted, though much of its uranium may possibly be recoverable from the dump-heaps, if they have not in the meantime been disposed of.

Now, every ton of pure uranium metal contains just fourteen pounds of the fissionable element uranium 235. The latter, when split, releases the neutrons that create plutonium out of nonfissionable uranium 238. On the basis of one hundred per cent efficiency, impossible in this operation, the yield of plutonium would thus be fourteen pounds per ton. Since the plutonium must be extracted long before all the U-235 atoms have been split, however, the likelihood is that the yield would be no more than two to four pounds per ton. Russia would thus need tens of thousands of tons of uranium ore to build up a sizable stockpile of A-bombs, and while she may be able to process low-grade ores, it would take her much longer to produce a given quantity of plutonium than it takes us to produce it from our much richer ores. For example, an ore containing fifty per cent uranium would yield a given quantity of plutonium ten times faster than an ore containing only five per cent, unless a refining plant ten times the size is built at ten times the cost of construction and of operation.

If we take Professor Oliphant’s published estimate that the critical mass (that is, the minimum amount) needed for an A-bomb is between 10 and 30 kilograms (22 and 66 pounds), we get a clear picture of the enormous difference there is between rich ores and poor ores for the building up of an A-bomb stockpile, and a further concept of the difficulties that Russia will face in trying to produce an H-bomb.

According to the best available prewar information, the pitchblende of the Belgian Congo has a uranium content as high as 60 to 80 per cent; the Canadian ore yields from 30 to 40 per cent. A conservative estimate would thus place the average uranium content of Belgian and Canadian ores at somewhere around 50 per cent. This contrasts sharply with a prewar figure of around 3 per cent uranium for the pitchblende of Czechoslovakia, and the ore in the mountains of Saxony is of even lower grade.

Hence on the basis of two to four pounds of plutonium per ton of uranium metal, it would require the mining and processing of only 2 tons of Belgian and Canadian ore to obtain that amount as compared with 34 tons for the ore from Czechoslovakia, and a larger amount for the Saxon ore. To make a bomb containing 22 pounds of plutonium would thus require us to mine and process from 11 to 22 tons of ore, whereas Russia would need from 187 to 374 tons. For a bomb requiring 66 pounds, the amount, of course, would be correspondingly tripled, reaching a possible figure of 1,122 tons of ore to produce one A-bomb, as compared with a maximum of no more than 66 tons of the ores available to us. In a state employing slave labor and heedless of the wastage of human lives, the production cost does not count. But even Russia’s manpower is not unlimited, and workers removed from other lines of production must inevitably hurt the economy. This factor must put a definite limit to Russia’s capacity to produce A-bombs and will make it very difficult, if not impossible, for her to produce a large stockpile in a short time.

When it comes to producing an H-bomb, the disparity between ourselves and Russia assumes astronomical proportions. It takes 80 pounds of uranium 235 to produce one pound of tritium. Since, as we have seen, there are only 14 pounds of U-235 in a ton of natural uranium metal, this means that 5.7 tons of uranium metal would be required, assuming one hundred per cent efficiency of utilization, which is out of the question. On the basis of figures already given, it can be seen that we would require the mining and processing of only 11.4 tons of ore whereas Russia would have to use as much as 194 tons to produce that single pound of the element which, as the facts cited earlier appear to demonstrate, is vital for the construction of a successful H-bomb.

All these basic facts, never presented before, should convince us that, despite the fact that Russia has exploded her first A-bomb, we still have tremendous advantages over her that she will find extremely difficult to overcome. And we must not forget other advantages on our side that may prove decisive even after Russia succeeds in building up a sizable stockpile. Bombs can be delivered against us at present only by airplane or by submarine. A look at the map will show that whereas the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans stand between us and Russia’s nearest bases, we are in a much better position to deliver A-bombs to her vital centers, such as the oil fields in the Caucasus, for example, from bases close by. It is, furthermore, not unreasonable to assume that we, as the most advanced industrial nation in the world, will manage to maintain our lead not only in methods of delivery by superior and faster airplanes, or by guided missiles, but also in the development of radar, sonar, and other detection devices, as well as of superior interceptors and other defensive measures, which would make delivery of A-bombs against us much more difficult than it would be for us to deliver them against Russia.