The creation of atomic weapons, and later thermonuclear weapons, was an event of such epochal significance in the 20th century that its history has preoccupied scientists worldwide and the international community at large. Those who have participated directly in nuclear weapons programs do not, and cannot, remain aloof from revealing the facts of that history. Of special interest is the early history of thermonuclear weapons development in the US and the USSR, the first countries to detonate this most dreadful species of nuclear weapon. In these three articles I present a brief survey and analysis of the principal events that make up that early history.
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© 1996 American Institute of Physics.
1996
American Institute of Physics
