Download or read book Atomic America written by Todd Tucker and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2009-03-03 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On January 3, 1961, nuclear reactor SL-1 exploded in rural Idaho, spreading radioactive contamination over thousands of acres and killing three men: John Byrnes, Richard McKinley, and Richard Legg. The Army blamed "human error" and a sordid love triangle. Though it has been overshadowed by the accident at Three Mile Island, SL-1 is the only fatal nuclear reactor incident in American history, and it holds serious lessons for a nation poised to embrace nuclear energy once again. Historian Todd Tucker, who first heard the rumors about the Idaho Falls explosion as a trainee in the Navy's nuclear program, suspected there was more to the accident than the rumors suggested. Poring over hundreds of pages of primary sources and interviewing the surviving players led him to a tale of shocking negligence and subterfuge. The Army and its contractors had deliberately obscured the true causes of this terrible accident, the result of poor engineering as much as uncontrolled passions. A bigger story opened up before him about the frantic race for nuclear power among the Army, the Navy, and the Air Force -- a race that started almost the moment the nuclear bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The National Reactor Testing Station (NRTS), where the meltdown occurred, had been a proving ground where engineers, generals, and admirals attempted to make real the Atomic Age dream of unlimited power. Some of their most ambitious plans bore fruit -- like that of the nation's unofficial nuclear patriarch, Admiral Rickover, whose "true submarine," the USS Nautilus, would forever change naval warfare. Others, like the Air Force's billion dollar quest for a nuclear-powered airplane, never came close. The Army's ultimate goal was to construct small, portable reactors to power the Arctic bases that functioned as sentinels against a Soviet sneak attack. At the height of its program, the Army actually constructed a nuclear powered city inside a glacier in Greenland. But with the meltdown in Idaho came the end of the Army's program and the beginning of the Navy's longstanding monopoly on military nuclear power. The dream of miniaturized, portable nuclear plants died with McKinley, Legg, and Byrnes. The demand for clean energy has revived the American nuclear power industry. Chronic instability in the Middle East and fears of global warming have united an unlikely coalition of conservative isolationists and fretful environmentalists, all of whom are fighting for a buildup of the emission-free power source that is already quietly responsible for nearly 20 percent of the American energy supply. More than a hundred nuclear plants generate electricity in the United States today. Thirty-two new reactors are planned. All are descendants of SL-1. With so many plants in operation, and so many more on the way, it is vitally important to examine the dangers of poor design, poor management, and the idea that a nuclear power plant can be inherently safe. Tucker sets the record straight in this fast-paced narrative history, advocating caution and accountability in harnessing this feared power source.

Download or read book Atomic Age America written by Martin V. Melosi and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2016-09-13 with total page 576 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Atomic Age America looks at the broad influence of atomic energy¿focusing particularly on nuclear weapons and nuclear power¿on the lives of Americans within a world context. The text examines the social, political, diplomatic, environmental, and technical impacts of atomic energy on the 20th and 21st centuries, with a look back to the origins of atomic theory.

Download or read book Survival City written by Tom Vanderbilt and published by Princeton Architectural Press. This book was released on 2002-04 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Mixing first-person narrative of his travels around the U.S. in search of Cold War sites and objects with an extensive accumulation of historical facts, the author explores Cold War America's obsession with protecting itself from the nuclear threat through various forms of architectural structures, such as missile silos, fallout shelters, nuclear waste dumps, monoliths like the windowless PacBell building in Los Angeles, and countless motels and diners named "Atomic."

Download or read book War s End written by Charles W. Sweeney and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2018-09-25 with total page 299 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: On August 9, 1945, on the tiny island of Tinian in the South Pacific, a twenty-five-year-old American Army Air Corps major named Charles W. Sweeney climbed aboard a B-29 Superfortress in command of his first combat mission, one devised specifically to bring a long and terrible war to a necessary conclusion. In the belly of his bomber, Bock's Car, was a newly developed, fully armed weapon that had never been tested in a combat situation. It was a weapon capable of a level of destruction never before dreamed of in the history of the human race, a bomb whose terrifying aftershock would ultimately determine the direction of the twentieth century and change the world forever. The last military officer to command an atomic mission, Major General Charles W. Sweeney has the unique distinction of having been an integral part of both the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombing runs. Now updated with a new epilogue from the co-author, his book is an extraordinary chronicle of the months of careful planning and training; the setbacks, secrecy, and snafus; and the nerve-shattering final seconds and the astonishing aftermath of what is arguably the most significant single event in modern history: the employment of an atomic weapon during wartime. The last military officer to command an atomic mission, Major General Charles W. Sweeney has the unique distinction of having been an integral part of both the Hiroshima and the Nagasaki bombing runs. His book is an extraordinary chronicle of the months of careful planning and training; the setbacks, secrecy, and snafus; and the nerve-shattering final seconds and the astonishing aftermath of what is arguably the most significant single event in modern history: the employment of an atomic weapon during wartime.

Download or read book Atomic Harvest written by Michael D'Antonio and published by Crown. This book was released on 1993 with total page 334 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspector Casey Ruud raised questions about the concerns of people like nearby farmer Tom Bailie, and eventually went public with facts and figures on faulty plant designs, poor maintenance, sloppy engineering practices, and mismanagement.

Download or read book Atomic Audit written by Stephen I. Schwartz and published by Brookings Institution Press. This book was released on 2011-12-01 with total page 750 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Since 1945, the United States has manufactured and deployed more than 70,000 nuclear weapons to deter and if necessary fight a nuclear war. Some observers believe the absence of a third world war confirms that these weapons were a prudent and cost-effective response to the uncertainty and fear surrounding the Soviet Union's military and political ambitions during the cold war. As early as 1950, nuclear weapons were considered relatively inexpensive— providing "a bigger bang for a buck"—and were thoroughly integrated into U.S. forces on that basis. Yet this assumption was never validated. Indeed, for more than fifty years scant attention has been paid to the enormous costs of this effort—more than $5 trillion thus far—and its short and long-term consequences for the nation. Based on four years of extensive research, Atomic Audit is the first book to document the comprehensive costs of U.S. nuclear weapons, assembling for the first time anywhere the actual and estimated expenditures for the program since its creation in 1940. The authors provide a unique perspective on U.S. nuclear policy and nuclear weapons, tracking their development from the Manhattan Project of World War II to the present day and assessing each aspect of the program, including research, development, testing, and production; deployment; command, control, communications, and intelligence; and defensive measures. They also examine the costs of dismantling nuclear weapons, the management and disposal of large quantities of toxic and radioactive wastes left over from their production, compensation for persons harmed by nuclear weapons activities, nuclear secrecy, and the economic implications of nuclear deterrence. Utilizing archival and newly declassified government documents and data, this richly documented book demonstrates how a variety of factors—the open-ended nature of nuclear deterrence, faulty assumptions about the cost-effectiveness of nuclear weapons, regular misrepresentati

Download or read book Killing Our Own written by Harvey Wasserman and published by Delacorte Press. This book was released on 1982 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Provides a detailed investigation of various facets of America's involvement with nuclear power--including both wartime and peacetime applications--and exposes the dangers of and potential disasters in the nuclear industry

Download or read book Nuclear Statecraft written by Francis J. Gavin and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 231 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We are at a critical juncture in world politics. Nuclear strategy and policy have risen to the top of the global policy agenda, and issues ranging from a nuclear Iran to the global zero movement are generating sharp debate. The historical origins of our contemporary nuclear world are deeply consequential for contemporary policy, but it is crucial that decisions are made on the basis of fact rather than myth and misapprehension. In Nuclear Statecraft, Francis J. Gavin challenges key elements of the widely accepted narrative about the history of the atomic age and the consequences of the nuclear revolution. On the basis of recently declassified documents, Gavin reassesses the strategy of flexible response, the influence of nuclear weapons during the Berlin Crisis, the origins of and motivations for U.S. nuclear nonproliferation policy, and how to assess the nuclear dangers we face today. In case after case, he finds that we know far less than we think we do about our nuclear history. Archival evidence makes it clear that decision makers were more concerned about underlying geopolitical questions than about the strategic dynamic between two nuclear superpowers. Gavin's rigorous historical work not only tells us what happened in the past but also offers a powerful tool to explain how nuclear weapons influence international relations. Nuclear Statecraft provides a solid foundation for future policymaking.

Download or read book Atomic Americans written by Sarah E. Robey and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2022-03-15 with total page 159 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: At the dawn of the Atomic Age, Americans encountered troubling new questions brought about by the nuclear revolution: In a representative democracy, who is responsible for national public safety? How do citizens imagine themselves as members of the national collective when faced with the priority of individual survival? What do nuclear weapons mean for transparency and accountability in government? What role should scientific experts occupy within a democratic government? Nuclear weapons created a new arena for debating individual and collective rights. In turn, they threatened to destabilize the very basis of American citizenship. As Sarah E. Robey shows in Atomic Americans, people negotiated the contours of nuclear citizenship through overlapping public discussions about survival. Policymakers and citizens disagreed about the scale of civil defense programs and other public safety measures. As the public learned more about the dangers of nuclear fallout, critics articulated concerns about whether the federal government was operating in its citizens' best interests. By the early 1960s, a significant antinuclear movement had emerged, which ultimately contributed to the 1963 nuclear testing ban. Atomic Americans tells the story of a thoughtful body politic engaged in rewriting the rubric of rights and responsibilities that made up American citizenship in the Atomic Age.

Download or read book Idaho Falls written by William McKeown and published by ECW Press. This book was released on 2003-04-01 with total page 268 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The little-known true story of a mysterious nuclear reactor disaster—years before Three Mile Island, Chernobyl, or Fukushima. Before the Three Mile Island incident or the Chernobyl disaster, the world’s first nuclear reactor meltdown to claim lives happened on US soil. Chronicled here for the first time is the strange tale of SL-1, an experimental military reactor located in Idaho’s Lost River Desert that exploded on the night of January 3, 1961, killing the three crewmembers on duty. Through exclusive interviews with the victims’ families and friends, firsthand accounts from rescue workers and nuclear industry insiders, and extensive research into official documents, journalist William McKeown probes the many questions surrounding this devastating blast that have gone unanswered for decades. From reports of faulty design and mismanagement to incompetent personnel and even rumors of sabotage after a failed love affair, these plausible explanations raise startling new questions about whether the truth was deliberately suppressed to protect the nuclear energy industry.

Download or read book The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution written by Keir A. Lieber and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2020-06-15 with total page 180 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Leading analysts have predicted for decades that nuclear weapons would help pacify international politics. The core notion is that countries protected by these fearsome weapons can stop competing so intensely with their adversaries: they can end their arms races, scale back their alliances, and stop jockeying for strategic territory. But rarely have theory and practice been so opposed. Why do international relations in the nuclear age remain so competitive? Indeed, why are today's major geopolitical rivalries intensifying? In The Myth of the Nuclear Revolution, Keir A. Lieber and Daryl G. Press tackle the central puzzle of the nuclear age: the persistence of intense geopolitical competition in the shadow of nuclear weapons. They explain why the Cold War superpowers raced so feverishly against each other; why the creation of "mutual assured destruction" does not ensure peace; and why the rapid technological changes of the 21st century will weaken deterrence in critical hotspots around the world. By explaining how the nuclear revolution falls short, Lieber and Press discover answers to the most pressing questions about deterrence in the coming decades: how much capability is required for a reliable nuclear deterrent, how conventional conflicts may become nuclear wars, and how great care is required now to prevent new technology from ushering in an age of nuclear instability.

Download or read book The Nuclear Spies written by Vince Houghton and published by Cornell University Press. This book was released on 2019-09-15 with total page 248 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Why did the US intelligence services fail so spectacularly to know about the Soviet Union's nuclear capabilities following World War II? As Vince Houghton, historian and curator of the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, shows us, that disastrous failure came just a few years after the Manhattan Project's intelligence team had penetrated the Third Reich and knew every detail of the Nazi 's plan for an atomic bomb. What changed and what went wrong? Houghton's delightful retelling of this fascinating case of American spy ineffectiveness in the then new field of scientific intelligence provides us with a new look at the early years of the Cold War. During that time, scientific intelligence quickly grew to become a significant portion of the CIA budget as it struggled to contend with the incredible advance in weapons and other scientific discoveries immediately after World War II. As The Nuclear Spies shows, the abilities of the Soviet Union's scientists, its research facilities and laboratories, and its educational system became a key consideration for the CIA in assessing the threat level of its most potent foe. Sadly, for the CIA scientific intelligence was extremely difficult to do well. For when the Soviet Union detonated its first atomic bomb in 1949, no one in the American intelligence services saw it coming.

Download or read book Sleeper Agent written by Ann Hagedorn and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-07-20 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Nominated for an Edgar Award​ This “historical page-turner of the highest order” (The Wall Street Journal) tells the chilling story of an American-born Soviet spy in the atom bomb project in World War II, perfect for fans of The Americans. George Koval was born in Iowa. In 1932, his parents, Russian Jews who had emigrated because of anti-Semitism, decided to return home to live out their socialist ideals. George, who was as committed to socialism as they were, went with them. There, he was recruited by the Soviet Army as a spy and returned to the US in 1940. A gifted science student, he enrolled at Columbia University, where he knew scientists soon to join the Manhattan Project, America’s atom bomb program. After being drafted into the US Army, George used his scientific background and connections to secure an assignment at a site where plutonium and uranium were produced to fuel the atom bomb. There, and later in a second top-secret location, he had full access to all facilities, and he passed highly sensitive information to Moscow. There were hundreds of spies in the US during World War II, but Koval was the only Soviet military spy with security clearances in the atomic-bomb project. The ultimate sleeper agent, he was an all-American boy who had played baseball, loved Walt Whitman’s poetry, and mingled freely with fellow Americans. After the war he got away without a scratch. It is indisputable that his information landed in the right hands in Moscow. In 1949, Soviet scientists produced a bomb identical to America’s years earlier than US experts expected. A gripping, fast-paced, and “fascinating” (Bob Shacochis, National Book Award–winning author of The Woman Who Lost Her Soul) story about one undetected spy whose actions influenced history, Sleeper Agent is perfect for Ben Macintyre fans.

Download or read book Atomic Accidents written by James Maheffey and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2021-08-31 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the moment radiation was discovered in the late nineteenth century, nuclear science has had a rich history of innovative scientific exploration and discovery, coupled with mistakes, accidents, and downright disasters. Mahaffey, a long-time advocate of continued nuclear research and nuclear energy, looks at each incident in turn and analyzes what happened and why, often discovering where scientists went wrong when analyzing past meltdowns.Every incident has lead to new facets in understanding about the mighty atom—and Mahaffey puts forth what the future should be for this final frontier of science that still holds so much promise.

Download or read book Hiroshima written by Ronald Takaki and published by Back Bay Books. This book was released on 1996-09-01 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The bombing of Hiroshima was one of the pivotal events of the twentieth century, yet this controversial question remains unresolved. At the time, General Dwight Eisenhower, General Douglas MacArthur, and chief of staff Admiral William Leahy all agreed that an atomic attack on Japanese cities was unnecessary. All of them believed that Japan had already been beaten and that the war would soon end. Was the bomb dropped to end the war more quickly? Or did it herald the start of the Cold War? In his probing new study, prizewinning historian Ronald Takaki explores these factors and more. He considers the cultural context of race - the ways in which stereotypes of the Japanese influenced public opinion and policymakers - and also probes the human dimension. Relying on top secret military reports, diaries, and personal letters, Takaki relates international policies to the individuals involved: Los Alamos director J. Robert Oppenheimer, Secretary of State James Byrnes, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson, and others... but above all, Harry Truman.

Download or read book Henry A Wallace s Criticism of America s Atomic Monopoly 1945 1948 written by Mayako Shimamoto and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Secretary of Commerce Henry A. Wallace was an earnest supporter of the Stimson Proposal, a disarmament proposal submitted to the Truman administration by then Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson immediately after World War II. This proposal suggested direct dialogue with the Soviets over control of the newly-released atomic energy used against Japan in August 1945. Wallace, who had nurtured a deep scientific knowledge in his early life, was trusted in his Vice Presidency (19411945) for his scientific skills by not only President Franklin D. Roosevelt, but also scientific administrator Vannevar Bush. Because of this, Wallaces postwar vision was similar to Stimsons Proposal and the views of atomic scientists, who believed that basic scientific knowledge could not be contained because science had no national boundaries. Why was Wallace so thoroughly neglected by incumbent President Harry S. Truman and his fellow policy-makers? Wallaces idea, basically encouraging a joint partnership with the Soviets, failed to find favor with Truman, his aides, and the American public. Their belief was that the USs secret of atomic bomb was a national asset. This book illustrates that Wallaces idea of international atomic controls with Soviet partnership a position embraced by atomic scientists could prevent a postwar nuclear proliferation. The failure of Wallaces concept of postwar world order, a product of rejection by President Truman, has revealed an ideological conflict between democracy and nuclear weaponry. Amazingly, Wallace daringly made this historic attempt and kept to his vision, a commitment which led to his alienation and eventual ousting from Trumans cabinet.

Download or read book Justice Downwind written by Howard Ball and published by Oxford University Press, USA. This book was released on 1986 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Discusses the legal, political, and moral battle between U.S. citizens and the U.S. government concerning the Nevada atomic bomb tests.