Let us not forget about the execution of Julius and Ethel Rosenberg who the American blamed for the Soviet Union unlocking the secrets of the atom. They were accused of giving atomic secrets to the Soviets because of their "communist affiliation".They claimed that is the only way the Soviets could have developed atomic weapons. This story explains how it was really done, and shows the execution of the Rosenburgs for what it really was --- a state sponsored political execution of peaceful and law abiding citizens. It was state terror of the like that Stalin is accused of.

The U.S. government not only executed innocent civilians, the Rosenbergs, it also meant their children had to grow up without parents.Their parents were killed for a crime they did not commit. The U.S. government also deliberately allowed military and civilian personnel to be exposed to nuclear blast radiation (telling them it was harmless) in order to study the effects on them.Many died years later of horrible cancers.This is amply documented in historical archives. This is the type of behavior supposedly attributed only to horrible "totalitarian" regimes. We see that is not true. Where is the apology and attempt at restitution from the self proclaimed champion of human rights - the U.S.A. Why should they care when the crimes continue? It continues with their secret "renditions" to torture centers and extra judicial executions around the world- as well as threats of war and continuing military occupations.

I could believe that Germans were behind the Soviet Nuclear Weapon program. The same way as there were Germans behind space programs in both the USA and USSR. The only doubts I have that the "top nuclear physicists" (as the article claims) worked in the Soviet lab. The top scientists (including Einstein) were either snapped by Allies (USA/Britain) before Russian army stepped on the German land, or voluntarily moved to the US. And that, I guess, made some difference in the progress of development. For example, the United States and Soviet Union, each employed two (partially competing with each other) groups for development of their rocket technologies. Among four of those, the German group of von Braun was the most advanced (not surprisingly). And that group the only one which carried out the moon landing program. The German group which worked for the Soviets consisted primarily of the second-tier (from the original von Brown group in Germany) engineers, technicians, and workers. They knew technology, but they were not capable to compete with the first-tier designers working in the US. As a result, their creation -- the Soviet N1 rocket couldn't fly. And the genius of S.Korolev was already not available to fix it. So, my point is, the article should not really equalize things regarding this matter. Because, while both American "big achievements" -- nuclear and space technologies -- were primarily jump started and originally created by the foreigners (German von Braun -- rockets, Italian Fermi -- nuclear bomb), the success of Russian programs was very much driven by Russian designers themselves. Though, of course, to keep up with Americans they had to use all possible means for that -- working with Germans, simplifying things, stealing whatever possible, reverse engineering available equipment and data. But, the end result was -- America didn't have any advantages in both technologies over the USSR.

July 17, 2010, 02:33, Bogdanov wrote > So, my point is, the article should not really equalize things regarding this matter. Because, while both American "big achievements" -- nuclear and space technologies -- were primarily jump started and originally created by the foreigners (German von Braun -- rockets, Italian Fermi -- nuclear bomb), the success of Russian programs was very much driven by Russian designers themselves. Though, of course, to keep up with Americans they had to use all possible means for that -- working with Germans, simplifying things, stealing whatever possible, reverse engineering available equipment and data. But, the end result was -- America didn't have any advantages in both technologies over the USSR. You are correct about the rocket technology, somewhat correct about the Atomic bomb but (a). Einstein moved to the USA in 1933(Fermi came in 1938) and did not work on the Atomic bomb, although he pushed Roosevelt for its development, (b). the American work on the Atomic bomb did not use German technology, since the German approach and work on its development was based on "heavy water", and (c). after the end of WW2 in Europe, both the USA and USSR confiscated as many scientist as they could, but the American work on the Atomic bomb was completed by that time as Truman mentioned it to Stalin at Potsdam. So, the reliance of the US on German scientist is dubious at best.

GaryMax, It is the first time I hear that Fermi "did not work on the Atomic Bomb"?! If fact, as far as I know, he (together with Edward Teller) was the actual brain behind the creation of the first functional bomb. Einstein was not directly involved in the Manhattan project. That is true. Though, I brought his name just to show that the top German scientists were in the US and not in the Soviet Union as the article claims. Also, I didn't say that Germans were driving the American nuclear weapon program. I just said that the top German scientists (directly or not) were behind such program. This includes their knowledge and previous research they conducted (including the knowledge what doesn't work) Though, I stressed that the Project was driven by the international (foreign) team of scientists. Lets take some key scientists from the Manhattan Project: Enrico Fermi -- Italian, Niels Bohr -- Danish, Edward Teller -- Hungarian, Otto Frisch -- Austrian, Rudolf Peierls -- German, Felix Bloch -- Swiss, ... Of course, I am, in no way, trying to diminish role of American scientists, such as Oppenheimer or Seaborg. But, my point was -- the Americans couldn't create the Nuclear Weapon relying only on that knowledge they had at that time. Not without help of the European scientists. And, don't forget, that between WW1 and WW2, Germany was practically a world center when it comes to Physics and science, for that matter. So, one way or another the majority of physicists working on the Manhattan Project were influenced by Germans.

Bogdanov I did not mean to imply that Fermi was not involved in the development of the Atomic bomb .... poor sentence structure on my part, only that he was part of the US development before the US got into WW2. Physics is international and universal. Yes, Europe and Germany were the center of nuclear Physics at the time. There was no Physics known in the USA that was not known, or could have been known, in the USSR. The key to the development of the Atomic bomb in my view was organization, focus, the right choice of the use of enriched Uranium and Plutonium, and the development/production of enriched Uranium and Plutonium. The European scientist contributed mostly to the choice of Uranium and Plutonium. ( In fact Leo Szilard, Hungarian immigrant , probably contributed more theoretical physics to this part that any other single individual-in fact he applied for a patent.) The enrichment processes were designed by Harold C. Urey born in Walkerton, Indiana(Oak Ridge diffusion process), and Ernest Lawrence ,born Canton, South Dakota( magnetic separation ), in my opinion, one of the most significant contributions to the development. The original Uranium ore came from a stockpile in the US that was acquired from the Belgium Congo, too. General Graves and Robert Oppenheimer are responsible for the organization and focus. So, yes, I would agree that the theoretical physics for the Atomic Bomb came more from European scientist, whereas the engineering and development was mostly from American scientist and engineers.