Synopsis
The Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Making of the Atomic Bomb tells the story of the H-bomb and reveals how it created a nuclear stalemate that lasted forty years. 100,000 first printing. $100,000 ad/promo. Tour.
Reviews
Unchallenged expositor of things atomic, Rhodes delivers a megaton of science, postwar politics, espionage, and moral drama in this epic of the "Super," as physicists dubbed the fusion weapon they knew was possible early in the Manhattan Project. Appropriately, the first third of this superlative history involves American and Russian efforts to develop the fission bomb. Spying was integral to Soviet progress, and last year an NKVD assassin (Pavel Sudoplatov) alleged that Oppenheimer was a source in addition to the unmasked Klaus Fuchs; Rhodes decisively rehabilitates Oppenheimer, but his adroit reconstruction of the espionage ring's agents touches part of the nuclear weapon's moral baggage: Is it right to spread its "secrets" ? Fuchs and another as yet unidentified physicist, code-named "Perseus," had no compunctions: Fuchs also passed Teller's ideas for the H-bomb as early as 1946. The second moral problem was whether or not a weapon so awesome it could only be used to commit "omnicide," in Rhodes' foreboding coinage, should even be built. While fleshing out the debaters--politician, scientists, and generals--with the same insightful humanity he displayed in The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1987), Rhodes chains through the theoretical breakthroughs Teller and mathematician Stanislaw Ulam made, leading to the first test explosion, and concludes with the strategic paradoxes posed by an all-powerful but unusable weapon, as illustrated by the astounding risks run by SAC's Curtis LeMay. An outstanding narrative, this daunting but engrossing history seems destined for literary awards and long-standing popularity. Gilbert Taylor
Like Rhodes's earlier The Making of the Atomic Bomb (LJ 3/1/87), this meticulously documented treatise presents a gripping story as it provides parallel coverage of U.S. and Russian efforts to create the hydrogen bomb, resulting in the nuclear arms race. Using declassified U.S. material and recently released KGB espionage documents, Rhodes provides a clear picture of U.S. research efforts from the late 1940s through the early 1950s and the nearly direct transfer of these results to the major Soviet research establishments through the efforts of Klaus Fuchs, the Rosenbergs, and many others. Even more fascinating is Rhodes's treatment of the role of the Strategic Air Command in the military mentality of the 1960s. With the conclusion of the Cold War, the breakup of the Soviet Union, and the current American concern about downsizing the military, there is much in this book worth serious consideration. Recommended.
-?Hilary D. Burton, Lawrence Livermore National Lab., Livermore, Cal.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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