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Bombing of Japan one of main reasons for nuclear race
Published: 09 August, 2010, 09:59
Edited: 10 August, 2010, 05:29
TAGS: Nuclear, Asia, Russia, USA
Following the US bombing of Japan, the Soviet Union, which would become America's Cold War rival, realized it had to have its own A-bomb as a deterrent to stop a repeat of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
On August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union successfully detonated First Lightning – its own nuclear device – taking the Cold War to a new level.
“The world had changed,” Vladimir Gubarev, writer, said. “The nuclear race had started. Within years, the arsenals of the US and Soviet Russia could have destroyed the world many times over.”
The USSR had been researching atomic weapons from the early 1940s. But it had lagged behind the US – something that became frighteningly clear after Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
With the US and the USSR becoming ever more hostile, the Soviets realized that at whatever cost they had to catch up to remain on par with American technology.
“Mercury was needed for nuclear experiments, and the state gathered all the mercury it had,” said Theodor Gladkov, special services historian. “For four years afterwards, no new thermometers were made in the Soviet Union.
At once, scientists were assembled at a secret town in Southern Russia.
Yury Trutnev, nuclear scientist, recalled the conversation with his superiors.
“They told me: Tomorrow, go to the airport. When there, stand by the statue of Stalin. Our people will put you on an airplane. I said, ‘Hold on. I haven't had the chance to pack my bags.’ They said: It doesn't matter. You must be there.”
Despite every effort, it took help from researchers who developed the American A-bomb to complete the Soviet nuclear project.
Many were Communist sympathizers, and passed vital information on to the Soviets.
“It is no secret that the first Soviet bomb was a copycat of the one dropped on Hiroshima by the Americans,” Gubarev explained.
Two years later, the Soviets tested their own-design nuclear weapon. Nuclear parity had been achieved.
In the decades until the collapse of the Soviet Union the peaceful resolve of both sides was tested. On several occasions the world seemed to have teetered on the edge of nuclear annihilation.
09.08.2010, 08:10
1 comment
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Kihnu know representation of true evil, then you have got to read Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of Darkness. It is amazing the man who wrote this novel was a young man from Poland who saw through what lurked just underneath the white mask/skin that camouflaged the darkest evil of greed, of corruption and of inhumanity in the 19th century version of the Civilizing Mission of the White Man’s Burden. I do respect free speech, though. I respect your views, despite their frightening implications so long you are not in a position to act on them.
What good has the nuclear arsenal done to America? The society is still decaying at a rapid pace. Just a few days ago a howling mob of 70 Blacks assaulted white passengers on the DC metro train, terribly beating a young white boy and sending other whites to the hospital. This assault is endemic of the rot infesting American cities, that no nuclear arsenal can cure. One day, all that will be left of America "The Beautiful" will be a rusting pile of nuclear weapons.
I fully agree with RT in general the Nuclear Race was indeed both a scare and intimidation tool by the United State's lets face it who was it that killed those lost in Hiroshima and Nagasaki United States. The Soviet's were forced into a Nuclear Race sadly which led to an all out political war for which was counter-productive the 40's 50's 60's these decades were dominated by the Nuclear Race between United States & the former USSR (CCCP). I just wish the world never created nuclear weapons in the first place then most of all this could have all been avoided. However it is a real shame the Unites States always plays it's joker card and creating a scapegoat in the form of the Soviet Union. But now the damage has now indeed been done and needless lives have been lost in Japan on those fateful days that they were bombed and the majority of the casualties were civilian too. I hope Russia does do well in knowing that they did not commit genocide of this magnitude in the Second World War. I fully condemn Nuclear Arsenals it's just too much power and leverage for anyone to have. I fully sympathise with the former USSR-Russia this was one needless push too many. Most of all I do sympathise with the Japanese that they lost those that was near and dear caught in the middle of opposing Superpowers however the United States flicked the trigger.