Today in Technology History

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January 7

Last November, on the fiftieth anniversary of the first hydrogen bomb explosion, we mentioned that the U.S. government kept its new weapon secret for some time. Details started to leak out, thanks to inquisitive reporters and letters written by members of the military who described an explosion that evaporated an island -- but officially, the government stayed tight-lipped for months.

Exactly fifty years ago, on January 7, 1953, lame duck U.S. President Harry Truman sent a written "State of the Union" message to the Congress. In that message, he hinted at the existence of the hydrogen bomb and described how "the new force of atomic energy has turned the world into a very different kind of place":

[T]he progress of scientific experiment has outrun our expectations. Atomic science is in the full tide of development; the unfolding of the innermost secrets of matter is uninterrupted and irresistible. Since Alamogordo we have developed atomic weapons with many times the explosive force of the early models, and we have produced them in substantial quantities. And recently, in the thermonuclear tests at Eniwetok, we have entered another stage in the world-shaking development of atomic energy. From now on, man moves into a new era of destructive power, capable of creating explosions of a new order of magnitude, dwarfing the mushroom clouds of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Warning that atomic war is "not a possible policy for rational men," Truman also used the opportunity to send a pointed message to the leadership of the USSR:

With that in mind, there is something I would say, to Stalin: You claim belief in Lenin's prophecy that one stage in the development of communist society would be war between your world and ours. But Lenin was a pre-atomic man, who viewed society and history with pre-atomic eyes. Something profound has happened since he wrote. War has changed its shape and its dimension. It cannot now be a "stage" in the development of anything save ruin for your regime and your homeland.

Related links:

• Click here to read President Truman's 1953 message to Congress in its entirety.

 

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