I'm trying to find info on Russia acquiring the atomic bomb...?

Question

I need some sources on how the Soviet Union first acquired the atomic bomb in 1949 (date?) and how it affected the direction of the Cold War and nuclear policy from then on.

Any help would be appreciated.

Answer 1

Try http://www.aapss.org/section.cfm/5/27/1166.

The United States conducted only six nuclear tests before the Soviet Union developed their first atomic bomb (Joe 1) and tested it on August 29, 1949. Neither country had very many nuclear weapons to spare at first, and so testing was relatively limited (when the U.S. used two weapons for Operation Crossroads in 1946, they were detonating over 20% of their current arsenal). However, by the 1950s the United States had established a dedicated test site on its own territory (Nevada Test Site) and were also using a site in the Marshall Islands (Pacific Proving Grounds) for extensive nuclear testing.

The early tests were used primarily to discern the military effects of nuclear weapons (Crossroads had involved the effect of nuclear weapons on a navy, and how they functioned underwater) and to test new weapon designs. During the 1950s these included new hydrogen bomb designs, which were tested in the Pacific, and also new and improved fission weapon designs. The Soviet Union also began testing on a limited scale, primarily in Kazakhstan. During the later phases of the Cold War, though, both countries developed accelerated testing programs, testing many hundreds of bombs over the last half of the twentieth century.

Answer 2

The most significant early work on fission in the Soviet Union was performed by Yakov Zel'dovich and Yuli Khariton who published a series of papers in 1939-41 that laid the groundwork for later Soviet atomic weapons development.

The Soviet weapons program proper began in 1943 during World War II, under the leadership of physicist Igor Vasilievich Kurchatov. The program was initiated by reports collected by Soviet intelligence about the rapidly growing Manhattan Project in the U.S. It remained largely an intelligence operation until the end of the war, but it was a highly successful one, due to sympathies of many for the wartime Soviet Union fighting Nazi Germany; the socialist political sympathies of some; and the weak security screening program necessitated by the hasty assembly of the vast program. Klaus Fuchs, an important physicist at Los Alamos, was by far the most valuable contributor of atomic information.

Immediately after the conclusion of the war against Japan, the Soviet program moved into high gear. Lavrenti Beria was appointed to head the entire project, with Kurchatov remaining as scientific director. Using the detailed data available on the American program, and the detailed design description of the Fat Man bomb provided by Fuchs in June 1945, the Soviet program achieved its first test in almost exactly four years.

The first Soviet nuclear reactor (and the first nuclear reactor in Europe) went critical on Christmas day 1946, at 6 p.m. local time at the Kurchatov Institute in Moscow. The graphite moderated F-1 (for "Physics-1") was apparently based on the design of the Hanford 305 reactor and originally operated at a power level of 10 watts (later upgraded to 24 kilowatts). Larger graphite moderated plutonium production reactors provided the fissile material for the first Soviet atomic bombs.

The first Soviet nuclear test, code named "First Lightning", detonated a plutonium bomb, the RDS-1. The code designation RDS was actually arbitrary and meaningless, but various people on the project gave it a variety of interpretations, one popular one was "Reaktivnyi Dvigatel Stalina" (Stalin's Rocket Engine), another was "Russia Does It Alone". The whole focus of the Soviet program at this point was to set off a Soviet atomic blast at the earliest possible time whatever the cost. At Beria's insistence, this device was an exact copy of the U.S. Gadget/Fat Man design.

Answer 3

Russians are not morons. They used captured German scientists just like we did to develop rockets. Some of the plans were given over by jewish scientists who developed the US version. Jews were sympathetic to communism. Ethel and Julius Rosenberg were executed for this in the US

Answer 4

At that time Russia was getting a "Buy two get one free" deal from China. Everything is made in China.

Answer 5

jewish spies gave the secrets to the U.S.S.R.