Security 3254

Eugene Miya

At the time of WW II, the authorities were suspicious of communists and rightly so. After the USSR made a treaty with Germany and the show trials went on, many people were discouraged with the party and left it (like Oppenheimer). However, many remained fervent believers in either communism-socialism.

Being an active party member meant being part of a tightly disciplined team in which the party--the goals and aspirations it defined--came first above all else. Not many people were "true believers" that deep into it, but those who were were very dangerous. See the books "Reds" by Ted Morgan and "Left" by Ronald Radosh for details. Those 'true believers' felt the USSR under Stalin was a peace loving country and that they (the party) knew best (better than our govt) what was good for the US and USSR. As Rhodes tells it, some of the spies were insulted when offered reward money for their services, they did it in genuine belief for the cause.

In a biography of James Byrnes, I read of Szilard's visit to him which did not go very well. Szilard was naive, as a lot of scientists. Just because the scientists were peace loving and acting in good faith does not mean the other guy would do likewise, as they expected. Indeed, even Byrnes and Truman underestimated the toughness of the Soviets when they tried to negotiate mutually beneficial treaties with them. Byrnes correctly realized that the WW II would not be over until the Japanese themselves saw themselves as defeated, not when we thought they were defeated, just as the Civil War lasted longer for the same reason.

Teller, who lived through a communist takeover in his native country, hated and distrusted the Soviets pbuttionately. While I disagree with many of Teller's politics, he was correct to mistrust them.

That was true, many scientists felt strongly it should've been shared to prevent an arms race and to promote world peace. In hindsight, knowing what an incredibly viscious and cruel despot Stalin and his people were, not trusting them was the wise choice.

A number of scientists decided on their own that they knew better than the govt and took action.

They may have good physicists but they did not have the resources even with top priority in a dictatorship. The U.S. had the resources to make many mistakes and try multiple strategies simultaneously. Could the Soviets have designed and built working reactors and processors like Hanford in a reasonable amount of time? Could the Soviets on their own discovered and engineered a working implosion "lens" so that plutonium would work in a reasonable amount of time?

I'm not saying they couldn't have developed their own weapon, but rather the need to make their share of mistakes along the way would've taken them much longer.

I'm not sure the "super" or hydrogen plant should've been developed given what was known at the time. I think further efforts on refining the basic plant and delivery systems as well as defense systems would've been adequate and preferable even if the Soviets had them. But one political problem Truman and Eisenhower faced was the desire for a relatively small army so they had to put their marbles in nuclear weapons.