Chapter 7 1950 Summary and Analysis

In the fall of 1949, good evidence began to trickle in that the Soviet Union had finally built their first atom bomb. The days of American nuclear monopoly were over. At first it took awhile for Truman and others to believe that the Soviets had been able to build the bomb. Most knew that the Soviet economy was very small and poorly managed compared to the American economy and the idea was that the Soviets would not have the know-how to build something as complex as the nuclear bomb. Eventually, though, good evidence came in that the Soviets did indeed have the bomb. Development of the new, super, hydrogen bomb that would be more powerful than the original atomic bomb proceeded in the United States, hoping to get a strategic edge over the Soviets.

The debate about preventative nuclear war began once...