"A Most Deadly Illusion": The Atomic Secret and American Nuclear Weapons Policy, 1945-1950

ONE OF THE MOST traumatic moments of Cold War for members of Harry S. Truman administration came with Russia's first test of an atomic weapon in late summer of 1949. Though subsequent efforts were made to belittle its importance, news of Soviet bomb came as a shock to administration, which complacently expected America's atomic monopoly to endure as long as a generation beyond Hiroshima. Private reactions at time reveal extent and effect of surprise. The Russian bomb has changed situation drastically, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman David Lilienthal confided in his journal; the talk about our having anticipated everything and following same program we have before is bunk.' President Truman was at first unwilling to believe that Russians had tested an actual atomic bomb. General Leslie Groves, wartime director of Manhattan Project that built first bomb, remained convinced that nuclear explosion in Russia had been either an