Soviet Union atomic bomb tested

On August 29, the Soviet Union conducts a test of an atomic bomb, touching off the Cold War. 

The British had proceeded less expeditiously. The Chiefs of Staff advised in October 1945 that the best defence against atomic bombs was likely to be the deterrent effect that the possession of the means of retaliation would have on a potential aggressor, and in January 1946 they said that a stock in the order of hundreds rather than scores would be necessary to deter a country with widely dispersed industries and population (like the Soviet Union). In December 1945, ministers in the Gen 75 committee approved the construction of the first reactor capable of producing plutonium, and in August 1946 the CAS sent the first requisition for an atomic bomb to the Ministry of Supply. The McMahon Act was amended in October 1950 to allow rather more cooperation between American and British scientists but the first British test did not take place until 3 October 1952, in the hold of a ship off Australia. The first test of a British atomic bomb dropped by an aircraft did not occur until 11 October 1956. 

Bohr s proposal to enlist the Soviet Union in discussions before the atomic bomb became a reality here slips to the question of whether or not to tell the Soviets the bare facts after the first bomb had been tested but before the second was dropped on Japan. Byrnes thought the answer to that question might depend on how quickly the USSR could duplicate the American accomplishment. The Interim Committee s recording secretary, 2nd Lieutenant R. Gordon Ameson, remembered after the war of this confrontation that Mr. Byrnes felt that this point was a very important one. The veteran of House and Senate cloakrooms was at least as concerned as Henry Stimson to extract a quid pro quo for any exchange of information, as Conant s next comment to Bush demonstrates ... 

Teller was thus back at weapons work when Harry Truman announced, on September 23, 1949, the explosion of Joe I, the first Soviet atomic bomb. Like most Americans, Teller had not expected the Soviet success so soon. He called Oppenheimer on the day the Soviet test was announced in a state of arousal sufficient to cause Oppenheimer to advise him sharply, Keep your shirt on. He testified later that his mind did not immediately turn in the direction of working on the thermonuclear bomb, but in fact he discussed that prospect intensely at Los Alamos early in October with Ernest Lawrence and Luis Alvarez, who encouraged him. The American nuclear monopoly had ended. The fabulous monster had real claws. If the Soviet Union had tested an atomic bomb, could a Soviet hydrogen bomb be far behind Teller decided that the only possible hope for continued national security was an all-out American effort to build the Super. 

The discovery of nuclear chemistry has had profound impacts on society. Since the testing of the first atomic bomb in 1945, humans have lived under the threat of possible nuclear annihilation. During the Cold War years, the United States and the Soviet Union built over 100,000 nuclear weapons, enough to destroy every major city in the world. Today, many of these weapons have been disarmed, and nuclear arsenals are much smaller. 

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