88
II - Convergence: Discrete variables
From the political point of view, it was clearly not a question of executing such a plan in 1945. In fact, the production of bombs, which
would have reached six per month by the end of the year if the war
had continued, ended in practice thus: the majority of the participants in the project returned to civil life, the much too expensive
installations were suppressed, and the others improved without great
urgency, though the reduced scientific teams remaining in place prepared the future improvements (miniaturisation and thermonuclear)
with the help of university consultants. The result was that America
had only 13 bombs in 1947, to the great stupefaction of President
Truman himself, who was relying on his winning weapon to base his
politics; the Soviets, probably better informed, had not passed onto
the offensive, if not on the diplomatic plane ...
In fact, the policy of "containment" of the USSR inaugurated in 1947
on the inspiration of Kennan did not truly emphasise nuclear arms
until after the first Soviet explosion of August 1949, the principal
effort concerning, before, aeronautics and principally the production
or the development of the strategic bombers B-36, B-47 and B-52.
Foreseen since 1947 by Kennan, the final collapse or the "gradual
mellowinrJ' of the Soviet regime, as he called it, would have to be
caused by internal problems.
(4) The creation in January 1947 of a new administrative structure,
the Atomic Energy Commission under civil control, and the acceleration of the Cold War raised the stock to 298 in 1950, 2,280 in 1955,
12,305 in 1959 (official figures) and to 32,500 in 1967 and then to diminish progressively. The Soviet stock, estimated at 200 in 1955 and
at 1,050 in 1959, widely surpassed the American maximum at the
end of the 1970s (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12/1993). The
study by Stephen I. Schwartz et al., Atomic Audit. The Cost and
Consequences of u.s. Nuclear Weapons since 1940 (Brookings Inst.
Press, 1998, 680 p.), where one finds not only the figures, estimates
the minimum cost of nuclear weapons for the USA alone at 5 821
billion dollars at 1996 values (French GNP for that year: 1280), of
which 409 was for nuclear arms in the strict sense, the rest covering
vectors, anti-aircraft and then anti-missile defence, satellites, etc.
The multiplication of nuclear arms and of their vectors in the two
camps could only powerfully contribute to accentuate their feelings
of insecurity and their mutual hostility, as shown by the innumerable allusions to the "Soviet menace" in the West, and notably in
France (it threatened in the first place Soviet citizens, particularly
under Stalin ... ), also the recent evidence of Russian atomic physicists seeking to protect their country from the "American peril", not
II - Convergence: Discrete variables
From the political point of view, it was clearly not a question of executing such a plan in 1945. In fact, the production of bombs, which
would have reached six per month by the end of the year if the war
had continued, ended in practice thus: the majority of the participants in the project returned to civil life, the much too expensive
installations were suppressed, and the others improved without great
urgency, though the reduced scientific teams remaining in place prepared the future improvements (miniaturisation and thermonuclear)
with the help of university consultants. The result was that America
had only 13 bombs in 1947, to the great stupefaction of President
Truman himself, who was relying on his winning weapon to base his
politics; the Soviets, probably better informed, had not passed onto
the offensive, if not on the diplomatic plane ...
In fact, the policy of "containment" of the USSR inaugurated in 1947
on the inspiration of Kennan did not truly emphasise nuclear arms
until after the first Soviet explosion of August 1949, the principal
effort concerning, before, aeronautics and principally the production
or the development of the strategic bombers B-36, B-47 and B-52.
Foreseen since 1947 by Kennan, the final collapse or the "gradual
mellowinrJ' of the Soviet regime, as he called it, would have to be
caused by internal problems.
(4) The creation in January 1947 of a new administrative structure,
the Atomic Energy Commission under civil control, and the acceleration of the Cold War raised the stock to 298 in 1950, 2,280 in 1955,
12,305 in 1959 (official figures) and to 32,500 in 1967 and then to diminish progressively. The Soviet stock, estimated at 200 in 1955 and
at 1,050 in 1959, widely surpassed the American maximum at the
end of the 1970s (Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, 12/1993). The
study by Stephen I. Schwartz et al., Atomic Audit. The Cost and
Consequences of u.s. Nuclear Weapons since 1940 (Brookings Inst.
Press, 1998, 680 p.), where one finds not only the figures, estimates
the minimum cost of nuclear weapons for the USA alone at 5 821
billion dollars at 1996 values (French GNP for that year: 1280), of
which 409 was for nuclear arms in the strict sense, the rest covering
vectors, anti-aircraft and then anti-missile defence, satellites, etc.
The multiplication of nuclear arms and of their vectors in the two
camps could only powerfully contribute to accentuate their feelings
of insecurity and their mutual hostility, as shown by the innumerable allusions to the "Soviet menace" in the West, and notably in
France (it threatened in the first place Soviet citizens, particularly
under Stalin ... ), also the recent evidence of Russian atomic physicists seeking to protect their country from the "American peril", not