The Nth Power

The world's atomic club has become one country bigger.

The news was considered urgent enough to summon members of the Joint Congressional Atomic Energy Committee to Washington for an urgent unscheduled meeting. CIA Director Allen Dulles hastily arranged a talk with President-elect John Kennedy. Around it all was an aura of deep secrecy. Was it someone's first successful Abomb? Was it a nuclear pile gone critical? Those in the know would say only that there has been an "atomic development" by an "nth power."

First speculation was that the nth power was Red China, which has recently been boasting that it would have its own atom bomb in a matter of months. But knowledgeable sources in Washington declared that the nation was neither of the Communist nor the NATO bloc.

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