The Russians Knew

For the past decade, there has been no "atom-bomb secret" which Russian spies needed to steal. This fact has been asserted again & again by the Atomic Energy Commission and backed up by responsible U.S. physicists. The central "secret"--that an atom bomb can be constructed--has long been known to all the scientific world. Last week the AEC's files yielded documentary proof: Russian scientific papers on the subject, published in 1940, before the U.S. started its atom bomb project.

Nine years ago, the papers prove, Russian scientists were publicly discussing whether Uranium 235 would explode violently. They decided that it would if assembled in "supercritical" amounts.

The Russians also knew, theoretically, how to build a chain-reacting pile. They were aware that such a pile would transmute Uranium 238 into a "trans-uranian element," i.e., plutonium. They realized that to generate atomic energy, either as a bomb explosion or as peaceful power, would be extremely difficult but certainly not impossible. Two Soviet scientists speculated about what "special devices" would be needed.

U.S. scientists, who possessed the same knowledge, went ahead and developed the necessary "devices": the plutonium piles at Hanford, Wash, and the U-235 separation plants at Oak Ridge, Tenn. The Germans tried rather feebly and failed. The Russians, so far as is known, did not try at all until after the war. To start their bomb project, they did not have to wait for spy-gathered information or for the famous Smyth Report. The basic "secrets" were already in their files.

Until this week the Russian papers had been known to few. If the facts they contain had been properly publicized, a lot of spy chasing and pointless orating might have been avoided. The AEC might also have persuaded millions of Americans not to count on a "secret" which the whole scientific world knew.

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