Stalin and the bomb : the Soviet Union and atomic energy, 1939-1956
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
History
xvi, 464 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm
9780300060560, 0300060564
29911222
1. Ioffe's Institute
2. Nuclear Prehistory
3. Reacting to Fission
4. Making a Decision
5. Getting Started
6. Hiroshima
7. The Post-Hiroshima Project
8. The Premises of Policy
9. The Atomic Industry
10. The Atomic Bomb
11. War and the Atomic Bomb
12. The War of Nerves
13. Dangerous Relations
14. The Hydrogen Bomb
15. After Stalin
16. The Atom and Peace