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POSTSCRIPT--THE NUCLEAR AGE
(1945-Present)
Events
- Informing the Public, August 1945
- The Manhattan Engineer District, 1945-1946
- First Steps toward International Control, 1944-1945
- Search for a Policy on International Control, 1945
- Negotiating International Control, 1945-1946
- Civilian Control of Atomic Energy, 1945-1946
- Operation Crossroads, July 1946
- The VENONA Intercepts, 1946-1980
- The Cold War, 1945-1990
- Nuclear Proliferation, 1949-present
The end of the Second World War brought with it a whole
new set of issues and problems, not least of which was the dilemma
of
what to do with the nuclear genie now that he had been let out of the
bottle. In the United States, and around the world, news
of the atomic bomb created among the public a sense of shock and awe.
Manhattan Engineer District officials took certain obvious steps such as slowing
down the program from its wartime pace, but the
assembly of additional nuclear weapons did quietly continue.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, top government officials focused
on the possible impact of the bomb on postwar international
relations. The first
hesitant steps toward developing a policy on international control of the
atom began before the end of the war. Following Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, the novelty of the bomb as a factor in international affairs
and doubts about the trustworthiness of the Soviet Union produced
uncertainty on how to proceed in the search
for a policy. In November 1945, the United States, Britain,
and Canada agreed to approach the Soviet Union about negotiating
an agreement on international control at the new United Nations.
Negotiations eventually collapsed when issues of national security and national sovereignty made agreement impossible.
The American
nuclear weapons program was officially transferred into civilian hands
with the creation in 1946 of the Atomic Energy Commission. That same
summer, the United States conducted a high profile
series of atomic tests known as "Operation Crossroads."
Also beginning in 1946, the United States gradually began to realize, largely
through the VENONA decryption of Soviet intelligence
cables, how the Manhattan Project had been penetrated by
communist spies. Atomic espionage and the failure of atomic diplomacy combined with a host of other, even more
significant, factors to produce a "Cold War"
between the Soviet Union and the United States. By the time the
Cold War and its attendant arms race had come to an end,
other nations also had developed nuclear weapons. As the world approached the end of the
twentieth-century, attention increasingly turned
to preventing any additional nations from acquiring the atomic bomb.
To learn more about any of these events associated with the nuclear age since
1945, choose a web page from the menu below.
- Informing the Public, August 1945
- The Manhattan Engineer District, 1945-1946
- First Steps toward International Control, 1944-1945
- Search for a Policy on International Control, 1945
- Negotiating International Control, 1945-1946
- Civilian Control of Atomic Energy, 1945-1946
- Operation Crossroads, July 1946
- The VENONA Intercepts, 1946-1980
- The Cold War, 1945-1990
- Nuclear Proliferation, 1949-present
Previous
Sources and notes for this page.
Portions of the text for this page were adapted from, and portions were taken
directly from the Office of History and Heritage
Resources, publication: Terrence R. Fehner and
F. G. Gosling, Origins of the Nevada Test Site (DOE/MA-0518; Washington:
History Division, Department of Energy, December 2000), 34. "Atomic" and
"nuclear" are basically synonymous. Much as the term "pile" gradually gave way
to "reactor," "atomic" was gradually replaced by "nuclear" during the later
years of the Manhattan Project and afterwards. The drawing of a suggested
fallout shelter design is courtesy the Federal Emergency Management
Administration (via the National
Archives). The photographs
of the "Joe 1" Soviet test and the "Ivy Mike" American thermonuclear
(hydrogen bomb) test are courtesy the Federation of American Scientists.
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