GROUP 1: The President s Daily Bulletin Nuclear Arms Race 1942 Timeline US begins work on the Manhattan Project, a research and development effort that produced the first atomic bombs. As the project moves forward, Soviet spies secretly report on its developments to Moscow. Summer, 1945 On July 16, the US detonates the first nuclear device at the Trinity test site in New Mexico. On July 24, Truman officially briefs Stalin on the development project at the Potsdam Conference. The US drops two atomic weapons on Japan to end WWII. Little Boy was dropped on Hiroshima on August 6; Fat Man was dropped on Nagasaki on August 8. 1946 At its first General Assembly meeting in January, the United Nations forms the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, whose stated goal was the elimination of all nuclear weapons. o In response, the US proposes the Baruch Plan, which advocated for an international body to provide oversight. The USSR calls for universal disarmament. Both proposals were rejected by the UN. In the summer of 1946, the US government tests two more bombs in the Bikini Atoll in the Pacific. 1949 On August 29, the Soviet Union detonates its first atomic weapon, called RDS-1 by the Soviets, and both Fast Lightning and Joe-1 (after Joseph Stalin) by the West. 1950 Emil Fuchs was convicted of spying for the Soviet Union. Fuchs confessed and was sentenced to fourteen years in prison. Fuchs was a German theoretical physicist who became a British citizen during WWII. After the war, Fuchs worked on the Manhattan Project in New Mexico and passed information about the development of the hydrogen bomb onto the Soviet Union. Harry Gold was also convicted as a Soviet spy Gold served as a courier for Fuchs, helping transport information from the Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union.
1952 On November 1, the US detonated Mike, the first hydrogen bomb. 1953 1954 1955 1957 1962 Soviets detonate their first thermonuclear bomb that could be dropped from an airplane. On March 1, the US conducts the BRAVO test of a hydrogen bomb, again at Bikini Atoll. The largest nuclear explosion yet by the US, the bomb yielded 14.8 megatons of destruction, which spread nuclear fallout up to 300 miles away. The USSR detonates its first hydrogen bomb on November 22 with a 1.6 megaton yield. By 1961, the Soviets hydrogen bombs had a 58 megaton yield. The USSR launches Sputnik, a satellite, into Earth s orbit. Development of this technology demonstrated that the Soviet Union could not only utilize air bombers to deliver nuclear weapons they could launch them across continents. In response, the US launches its own satellite in 1959. By the late-1950s, both the US and the USSR had the capability of not only launching a first strike against each other, both could also survive a first strike and launch a response, known as a second strike. This knowledge provided a sense of security and deterrence for the two superpowers. Known as Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, both sides were reluctant to attack the other because they knew that their opponent could still surmount a second strike, which would lead to their annihilation. MAD spurred on the arms race as each side sought to maintain equal or greater capacity for destruction, and thus assured, paradoxically, their own safety. In October, the US and the Soviet Union came closest to nuclear war during the Cuban Missile Crisis, when the Soviet Union sought to secretly place nuclear missiles on Cuban soil, capable of quickly reaching the territorial United States. President Kennedy responded by blockading Soviet ships sailing to complete the final installation. As tensions mounted during the crisis, Kennedy increased military alertness to DEFCON 3, the level just before nuclear war. Thankfully, back door negotiations ended the crisis. The Soviets agreed to remove the missiles and their bases from Cuba. In response, the US removed their missiles from Turkey, which threatened the Soviet Union.
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