THE HELL BOMB BY _William L. Laurence_ [Illustration: [Logo]] 1951 NEW YORK ALFRED A. KNOPF [Illustration: THIS IS A BORZOI BOOK, PUBLISHED BY ALFRED A. KNOPF, INC.] _Copyright 1950 by The Curtis Publishing Co. Copyright 1950 by William L. Laurence. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. Manufactured in the United States of America. Published simultaneously in Canada by McClelland & Stewart Limited._ FIRST AND SECOND PRINTINGS BEFORE PUBLICATION THIRD PRINTING, JANUARY 1951 To _FLORENCE_ FOREWORD The material in this book falls into two categories: (1) a popular version in terms understandable to the layman of technical data published in scientific literature in this country and abroad, and widely known among scientists everywhere; and (2) technical conclusions reached by deduction based on these published facts and theory, for which I assume the sole responsibility. In doing so, I wish to make it emphatically clear that I have had no access to any classified information on the current hydrogen-bomb program, and also that whatever access I had to H-bomb information during my stay at Los Alamos in the spring and summer of 1945 was strictly limited to the somewhat vague and general discussions carried on there in 1945 and earlier. I hereby take the opportunity to express my profound appreciation to Dr. James G. Beckerley, Director of Classification, Atomic Energy Commission, Washington, D. C., and to Mr. Corbin Allardice, Director, Public Information Service, of the AEC’s New York Operations Office, for their generous cooperation in clearing this manuscript for publication. It must be strictly understood that any such clearance merely means that the AEC has “no objection to publication” on the grounds of security. It does not in any way vouch for the accuracy or correctness of the book’s contents. WILLIAM L. LAURENCE _New York City July 30, 1950_ CONTENTS I The Truth about the Hydrogen Bomb 3 II The Real Secret of the Hydrogen Bomb 29 III Shall We Renounce the Use of the H-bomb? 57 IV Korea Cleared the Air 88 V A Primer of Atomic Energy 114