If America in 1949 just makes you think of Ronald Reagan under a technicolor blue sky, this was not how it appeared to another populist president Harry Truman, the little guy from the prairies, suddenly faced with a decision that might affect the future of life on earth. To him, the sky was a dangerous nuclear battleground, full of technology that he would never understand. But he understood people, and he was convinced that the Russians would never hesitate to use the atom bomb if they ever developed it. And so he ordered the stepping-up of the arms-race in the small town of Los Alamos in the New Mexico desert.
This surreal location became the scene of a long-running human drama, where some of America's finest minds would come into conflict, often spurred by early influences a long way from America. So for example, there was Edward Teller, who had grown up in Hungary, where he had learned to dread the Soviet Russians over the hill, just as his German colleague, Klaus Fuchs, had feared the Nazis so much that he was willing to spy for the Soviets, whom he could view only as friends of mankind. Meanwhile Curtis LeMay, who had supervised the Hiroshima bombing, and observed it close-up from another plane, had come away profoundly moved by the experience, and wanted to devote his life to protecting his own country from any such fate.
Thanks to the espionage, the Russians soon had their own A-bomb, and attention shifted inexorably towards the next step up - codenamed 'the super', but in fact the Hydrogen bomb (also leaked to them in outline by Fuchs). In this way, the arms-race had became a sort of tennis-match stuck at Deuce. The future human-rights hero Sakharov was pioneering an ingenious new H-bomb, imploded by radiation. Meanwhile the Americans tested their own H-bomb in the Pacific, finding it twice as powerful as they'd expected, but in any case too big to drop from a plane, whereas the Soviets already had a smaller version ready for immediate use.
Behind the scenes, however, the certainties were starting to crumble. At Los Alamos, some of the team had doubts about the viability of the H-bomb, and pressed for just turning-out the A-bomb in bigger quantity. Conflicting reports about radiation were starting to worry the public, and official government advice about building nuclear shelters in your garden was met with ridicule. The potential for genocide was also noted with increasing alarm, and the protest movements were starting up.
Eventually the H-bomb gave way to nuclear missiles, and the arms-race moved into a new phase, beyond the scope of this programme. Kennedy would certainly have been interested to hear that Khruschev (according to him) had never intended to use such missiles. One simple and homely veteran USAF officer declared that we need the bomb to prevent nuclear war, and that nuclear superiority is the key to national survival. It seems that momentous decisions are sometimes better left to fairly unsophisticated people.
This surreal location became the scene of a long-running human drama, where some of America's finest minds would come into conflict, often spurred by early influences a long way from America. So for example, there was Edward Teller, who had grown up in Hungary, where he had learned to dread the Soviet Russians over the hill, just as his German colleague, Klaus Fuchs, had feared the Nazis so much that he was willing to spy for the Soviets, whom he could view only as friends of mankind. Meanwhile Curtis LeMay, who had supervised the Hiroshima bombing, and observed it close-up from another plane, had come away profoundly moved by the experience, and wanted to devote his life to protecting his own country from any such fate.
Thanks to the espionage, the Russians soon had their own A-bomb, and attention shifted inexorably towards the next step up - codenamed 'the super', but in fact the Hydrogen bomb (also leaked to them in outline by Fuchs). In this way, the arms-race had became a sort of tennis-match stuck at Deuce. The future human-rights hero Sakharov was pioneering an ingenious new H-bomb, imploded by radiation. Meanwhile the Americans tested their own H-bomb in the Pacific, finding it twice as powerful as they'd expected, but in any case too big to drop from a plane, whereas the Soviets already had a smaller version ready for immediate use.
Behind the scenes, however, the certainties were starting to crumble. At Los Alamos, some of the team had doubts about the viability of the H-bomb, and pressed for just turning-out the A-bomb in bigger quantity. Conflicting reports about radiation were starting to worry the public, and official government advice about building nuclear shelters in your garden was met with ridicule. The potential for genocide was also noted with increasing alarm, and the protest movements were starting up.
Eventually the H-bomb gave way to nuclear missiles, and the arms-race moved into a new phase, beyond the scope of this programme. Kennedy would certainly have been interested to hear that Khruschev (according to him) had never intended to use such missiles. One simple and homely veteran USAF officer declared that we need the bomb to prevent nuclear war, and that nuclear superiority is the key to national survival. It seems that momentous decisions are sometimes better left to fairly unsophisticated people.
