Stalin and the bomb: the Soviet Union and atomic energy 1939 - 1956

This magisterial history throws light on Soviet policy at the height of the Cold War, illuminates a central but hitherto secret element of the Stalinist system, and puts into perspective the tragic legacy of this program - today environmental damage, a network of secret cities, and a huge stockpile...

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Beteilige Person: Holloway, David 1943- (VerfasserIn)
Format: Buch
Sprache:Englisch
Veröffentlicht: New Haven u.a. Yale University Press [1994]
Schlagwörter:
Zusammenfassung:This magisterial history throws light on Soviet policy at the height of the Cold War, illuminates a central but hitherto secret element of the Stalinist system, and puts into perspective the tragic legacy of this program - today environmental damage, a network of secret cities, and a huge stockpile of unwanted weapons
Abstract:In engrossing detail, David Holloway tells us how Stalin launched a crash atomic program only after the Americans bombed Hiroshima and showed that the bomb could be built; how the information handed over to the Soviets by Klaus Fuchs helped in the creation of their bomb; how the scientific intelligentsia, which included such men as Andrei Sakharov, interacted with the police apparatus headed by the suspicious and menacing Lavrentii Beria; what steps Stalin took to counter U.S. atomic diplomacy; how the nuclear project saved Soviet physics and enabled it to survive as an island of intellectual autonomy in a totalitarian society; and what happened when, after Stalin's death, Soviet scientists argued that a nuclear war might extinguish all life on earth
Umfang:XVI, 464, [24] Seiten Illustrationen
ISBN:0300060564
9780300066647