Super Bomb

Super Bomb unveils the story of the events leading up to President Harry S. Truman's 1950 decision to develop a "super," or hydrogen, bomb. That fateful decision and its immediate consequences are detailed in a diverse and complete account built on newly released archives and previously hidden contemporaneous interviews with more than sixty political, military, and scientific figures who were involved in the decision.

Ken Young and Warner R. Schilling present the expectations, hopes, and fears of the key individuals who lobbied for and against developing the H-bomb. They portray the conflicts that arose over the H-bomb as rooted in the distinct interests of the Atomic Energy Commission, the Los Alamos laboratory, the Pentagon and State Department, the Congress, and the White House. But as they clearly show, once Truman made his decision in 1950, resistance to the H-bomb opportunistically shifted to new debates about the development of tactical nuclear weapons, continental air defense, and other aspects of nuclear weapons policy. What Super Bomb reveals is that in many ways the H-bomb struggle was a proxy battle over the morality and effectiveness of strategic bombardment and the role and doctrine of the US Strategic Air Command.

The late Ken Young was Professor of Public Policy at King's College, London. He was a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society and the Academy of Social Sciences and the author of The American Bomb in Britain.

The late Warner R. Schilling was James T. Shotwell Professor of International Relations Emeritus at Columbia University, where he taught for six decades and served as director of Columbia's Institute of War and Peace Studies. He published books and articles on civil-military relations, military technology, nuclear strategy, and the role of science in foreign policy.

Young, a British academic, took Schilling's material, carried out some additional research, and crafted a compelling book that was published posthumously.

[T]he long delay in having the project come to fruition is a serendipitous boon for historians. hHe interviews contain many near-contemporaneous observations and insights from the principals in the superbomb decision.

Sixty years of gestation makes Super Bomb a unique book and, intellectually speaking, an interesting archaeological find.

Super Bomb is well written, cogently argued, and deeply researched. The narrative is supported with robust archival materials and illuminating contemporaneous interviews with myriad policy makers, scientists, and officers who personally witnessed—and in many cases influenced—this critical episode.

Joseph M. Siracusa, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology University:

Super Bomb portrays conflicts that arose as rooted in the distinct interests of several institutions through whose channels politics flowed, resulting in a truly bravura performance, providing both generalists and specialists a better understanding of the world in which we live.

David Holloway, Stanford University, author of Stalin and the Bomb:

Super Bomb brings new evidence to bear on an important historical issue and engages in detail with the existing scholarship. This is a work of high quality.