The Thunderclap

The dark thunderstorm that had lowered over Washington all morning broke with a crash of thunder and a rattle of hail just as the President's statement was handed to White House reporters: "We have evidence that within recent weeks an atomic explosion occurred in the U.S.S.R."

Washington had known it was coming, just as surely as it had known the storm was coming. Nevertheless, the news hit the nation with the jarring impact of a fear suddenly become fact. The comfortable feeling of U.S. monopoly was gone forever. The fact was too big and too brutally simple for quick digestion. What had been a threat for some time in the future, hard to visualize, easy to forget, had become a threat for today, to be lived with.

Giant Mechanism. The Cabinet meeting, which got the news from President Truman just before it was handed to the newsmen, broke up after an hour-long discussion. In the Capitol, Connecticut's Senator Brien McMahon sat down with his Joint Committee on Atomic Energy and AEC officials behind drawn shades. Michigan's Arthur Vandenberg was asked what he thought of the news. "It's the kind of thing you can't think about on a straight line until you've put it aside for 48 hours," he replied.

Within 48 hours, more facts came out. The explosion in Russia did not equal the intensity of the Alamogordo bomb, much less the later Eniwetok bomb. It had been set off deep in Russia, over land, not under water; the date of the explosion was somewhere around Sept. 1.

All of the facts published or still secret had come from a giant mechanism of men and machines, designed specifically to detect an atomic explosion anywhere in the world. When Intelligence got a tip that the Russians had solved the atomic riddle, the mechanism swung into action.

Patrolling bombers, sniffing at the winds that blow out of Russia, picked up the radioactive cloud (see SCIENCE). They followed the radioactive trail for days and thousands of miles, gathering the data by which scientists could measure its size, assess its contents. Intelligence officers queried their sources. As the reports came to the capital, half a dozen of the nation's top atomic physicists were gathered there in deepest secrecy. Besides the President and Secretary of Defense Johnson, fewer than two dozen men knew.

They Were Sure. Events moved swiftly. There began a painstaking matching of the scientific evidence with intelligence reports. AEChairman David Lilienthal was summoned from Martha's Vineyard, where he was vacationing, for hurried briefing. Secretary of State Dean Acheson was called in. Some time last week the scientists reported to the President: they were sure that Russia had brought off an atomic explosion.

The problem then was what to do with the information. Disclosure might give away the workings of the U.S. atomic detection network; it might be better if the Russians did not know the U.S. knew. But no one wanted to let the Russians make a triumphant announcement at a moment of their own choosing, when the news might become a massive propaganda coup. President Truman decided to announce the news immediately.

As soon as the decision was made, a courier was sent to Secretary of State Acheson at the U.N. meeting in Flushing Meadows so that he would be informed in advance of the public announcement. The British, French and Canadians were also told; Britain decided to make a parallel statement from 10 Downing Street. By next morning, the arrangements were complete and the President's message was published to the Cabinet and the press.

Inevitable Day. Despite the first quick sense of shock, the news made no essential change at all in U.S. relations with Russia. Like U.S. scientists, U.S. planners had well known that the day must inevitably come--and soon--when Russia would have the bomb. "Ever since atomic energy was first released by man," wrote the President, "the eventual development of this new force by other nations was to be expected. This probability has always been taken into account by us."

In spite of that indisputable fact there might be changes on the fringes of U.S. foreign policy. Some looked at Yugoslavia with a new, strategic perspective. Ohio's Senator Robert Taft renewed the argument that the U.S. take strategically placed Spain into the community of nations fighting Communism.

There was also a change in mood and tempo. Military planners were suddenly faced with a whole new timetable of strategic planning (see below). Congressional economizers would have to look at the military budget with different eyes. The whole of the U.S. foreign policy would be subjected to the strain of the new, accomplished fact.

No Panic. By & large, the U.S. accepted the fact with grim concern, but with no panic. In Congress an irresponsible few talked nervously of the desirability of moving some Government agencies out of Washington. A few resurgent isolationists seized on it as a reason for scuttling all international programs from MAP to the Marshall Plan. But most reaction was sober, balanced (see PRESS) and a little sardonic. Men told each other wryly: "Better get out your old uniform." Others joked about getting a cabin in the hills. Many talked of a feeling of relief that the period of waiting was over.

The U.S. had entered a new phase of the atomic age in which it would have to live with the Russians' bomb as well as its own. For the first time, U.S. citizens would know, as much of the world had known since 1945, how it feels to live under the threat of sudden destruction--coming like a clap of thunder and a rattle of hail.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.