College Colloquium, section 15, Prof. Janeba

Skating on the Edge of the Unthinkable: The Nuclear Arms Race

Nuclear news and timeline

Major resource websites:

• The Nuclear Information Project  The Nuclear Information Project provides declassified documents and analysis about nuclear weapons policy and operations.
• Cuban Missile Crisis 40th anniversary page at the National Security Archive at Geo. Washington U:
• WMD [information] resources at the Federation of American Scientists site
  

Links for particular class days:

• Included in today's assigned reading: Secretary of War Henry Stimson’s explanation, published in Harpers Magazine (Feb 1947) of the decision to use atomic bombs. 
        Note the date - this was not the first the US citizenry had heard, it came rather late in the public discussion.
• Optional further reading:
  
• Stimson's memorandum informing new president Harry Truman about the atomic bomb.
• Harrison passes on scientific concern about using the bomb on Japan (see p. 18 Powaski)
• Stimson memo to Truman on the bomb and US-Russian relations (9/11/45)

• Included in today's assigned reading (excerpt distributed in class): Congressional Office of Technology Assessment's 1979 report The Effects of Nuclear War.
• Assigned portions relevant to today's reading in Hiroshima: Direct Nuclear Radiation (p. 19) and Fallout (p. 22)
  
• Text of Truman's statement announcing the bombing of Hiroshima.

• The Bomb for my Pillow, Gregg Ainsworth's memoir of growing up in the early years of the nuclear arms race.

• NSC-68 (April 1950 report of the National Security Council on US-Soviet relations): The whole document
• Section VIII: Atomic Armaments
• Subsection A. Military Evaluation of U.S. and U.S.S.R. Atomic Capabilities
  
• Subsection B. Stockpiling and Use of Atomic Weapons
  
• Section IX: Possible Courses of Action Be sure to read:
  
• The very opening paragraph, which lists the subsections, and
• Subsection "THE THIRD COURSE -- WAR" (scroll down about halfway).
• Conclusions section

• Former Defense Secretary McNamara answers questions in a 2000 forum occasioned by the release of the film
  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/forum/february01/thirteendays.html
  
  
• PBS Newshour discussion of Cuban Missile Crisis and Thirteen Days, with discussion panel including McNamara:
  "the film doesn't really show how close we came."
  http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media/jan-june01/thirteen_2-22.html
• More:
• The Lippman opinion article, New York Herald Tribune, October 25, 1962.  Several internet sources claim that Lippman was not writing at the White House's behest; the film Thirteen Days strongly suggested that he was.  Stern doesn't say outright.  His discussion of the Lippman article gives us no reason to believe that the White House was behind it. Given that "leaks" and "trial balloons" are designed to be deniable, it may be impossible to say for certain.
• How we know what went on in RFK's crucial meeting with Soviet ambassador Dobrynin on the evening of 10/27/63:  A page from the National Security Archive at George Washington University (scroll down to the account published in RFK's book, Thirteen Days, also Ted Sorensen's later "confession" that he posthumously edited the book to remove the promise to remove missiles from Turkey, and also ambassador Dobrynin's report to Khrushchev about the meeting.
• Listen to an excerpt of the Kennedy/ExComm tapes from the crucial Saturday night.
• Read a critique of the historical value of the Costner film, Thirteen Days, by Kennedy Tapes scholar Ernest R. May.

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