Alex Wellerstein - Restricted Data: The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States

ALEX WELLERSTEIN

THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS

Chicago and London

The University of Chicago Press, Chicago 60637

The University of Chicago Press, Ltd., London

2021 by The University of Chicago

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles and reviews. For more information, contact the University of Chicago Press, 1427 E. 60th St., Chicago, IL 60637.

Published 2021

Printed in the United States of America

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ISBN-13: 978-0-226-02038-9 (cloth)

ISBN-13: 978-0-226-02041-9 (e-book)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.7208/chicago/9780226020419.001.0001

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Wellerstein, Alex, author.

Title: Restricted data : the history of nuclear secrecy in the United States / Alex Wellerstein.

Description: Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2021. | Includes bibliographical references and index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2020033052 | ISBN 9780226020389 (cloth) | ISBN 9780226020419 (ebook)

Subjects: LCSH: Nuclear weapons information, AmericanAccess control. | Defense information, ClassifiedUnited States.

Classification: LCC U264.3 .W45 2021 | DDC 623.4/51190973dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2020033052

This paper meets the requirements of ANSI/NISO Z39.48-1992 (Permanence of Paper).

I am afraid the scientists have led us into a terrible world.

GENERAL LESLIE R. GROVES, 1948

On the morning of August 6, 1945, the White House issued a press release that would change the world. In an instant, the existence of a vast scientific project was revealed, as well as the fruits of its labor: a new and revolutionary weapon, which had destroyed Hiroshima, Japan. It is an atomic bomb, the statement explained. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. And prior to that moment of revelation, even the fact that the United States was interested in creating such a weapon, much less had actually created, tested, and now deployed it, had been Top Secret, the improper release of which could be, in principle, punished by death.

Nuclear weapons have always been surrounded by secrecy, and the American atomic bomb was born secret. From the moment that scientists first conceived of its possibility, through the massive undertaking that was its actual creation, there were efforts to control the spread of nuclear information, including the newly discovered scientific facts that made them possible. This desire for control was born out of fear. For the first scientists working on the American atomic bomb, it was a fear of a dread enemyNazi Germanyusing said information to build their own weapons. Later, the fears shifted, as officials worried that a premature announcement of the new weapon would lessen its psychological value against the Japanese, and potentially threaten the success of the project itself. Though this secrecy emerged from fears that were originally very specific to the context of World War II, it was easily adapted to the new fears that followed, as new enemies emerged: the Soviet Union, the Peoples Republic of China, North Korea, even non-state nuclear terrorists. And far more diffuse and varied fears would also promote this desire for control, with consequences ranging from the mundane (diplomatic difficulties) to the apocalyptic (global thermonuclear war).

But from the beginning, the desire for nuclear secrecy contained contradictions and complications. The scientists who had made the bomb, and had become enmeshed in its secrecy, were frequently wary. Some had supported the secrecy entirely, because they too shared the fears that motivated it. But many felt the secrecy, even if it had been necessary, was stifling. And as the wars end grew close, new questions, and new worries, entered into their minds.

The atomic bomb was a product of science and industry, yet the fundamental principles it was based on were well known to scientists prior to the outbreak of war. How could a fact of nature be rendered effectively into a state secret, if any scientist, in any laboratory, in any country, could replicate and rediscover it? Military plans, conceived in the mind of a soldier, can be kept secret indefinitely, but can facts of physics and chemistry?