Volume 29, Number 8 · May 13, 1982
The Missed Chance to Stop the H-Bomb
By McGeorge Bundy
On September 23, 1949, President Harry Truman announced that 'within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the USSR.' Four months later, on January 31, 1950, he announced that he had directed the Atomic Energy Commission to work 'on all forms of atomic weapons, including the so-called hydrogen or super bomb.' The president put this announcement in the lowest possible key—strictly speaking what he said was that he had told the commission 'to continue its work.' But the country understood it just as The New York Times put it in a four-column headline the following morning: TRUMAN ORDERS HYDROGEN BOMB BUILT. Any uncertainty about the nature of the president's decision was completely removed in early March when he issued a further secret order calling for an all-out effort.
Feature, 7124 words
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