THE ATOM: The H-Bomb Delay

More than a year ago, two Washington reporters, piecing together many fragments from the public record of the hydrogen bomb's history, concluded that: 1) there had been unnecessary delays in the construction of this weapon; 2) part of the delay had been traceable to opposition to the building of an H-bomb; 3) this opposition was not merely technical, but was associated with deep intragovernmental dissension, confusion and indecision over general weapons policy; 4) these struggles, in turn, have been bound up with larger conflicts about the strategic, political and moral aspects of the international scene; 5) as a result of the delay, the U.S. had narrowly missed losing its superiority of atomic weapons, the essential check on Communist aggression.

If these conclusions were right, the two reporters—James Shepley, chief of the TIME-LIFE Washington Bureau, and Clay Blair Jr., military reporter in that bureau—had glimpsed a piece of history that the public should be told. Correspondents Shepley and Blair decided that their account of a complex struggle needed book-length scope.

The Shepley-Blair report, The Hydrogen Bomb, is now the center of a roaring controversy. The book has been denounced by men of weight, including many leading atomic scientists. Certain journalists have said that the book implies a plot on the part of atomic scientists against the U.S. They have said that the book is part of an anti-intellectual wave that is making it impossible for scientists to work for the Government of the U.S.

Such a conflict would be even more serious than the H-bomb delay. For if the U.S. cannot continue to enlist the support of science, if it cannot solve the critical problems of the relationship between the national interest and the pursuit of knowledge, then the U.S. will not survive—and will not deserve to survive. These are not questions for scientists alone or for public officials alone; they affect everybody, and it is wholesome, though painful, that the Shepley-Blair report brings a much larger part of this important argument to public view.

The Limitations. The Shepley-Blair book begins with the following important statement of its own limitations: "A full assessment of the delay in development of the hydrogen bomb and its effect on the survival of the U.S. as a nation and upon the future of mankind will be impossible for some years to come. These reporters have not attempted to do so here, or to ascribe motives to the individuals responsible."

Essentially, this promise is kept. It is possible to believe everything in the book without finding disloyalty in Robert Oppenheimer or any other man who appears in it (except confessed spies like Klaus Fuchs). In fact, those newspaper and magazine commentators who have mentioned the book without attacking it do not find it a story of a plot or a betrayal. The statement that the book describes or implies a plot comes from the book's bitter critics. But confusion, indecision and bad judgment can do as much damage as plots. A lot of roads to the dead ends of history have been paved with good intentions.

Sin & Danger. Here is the road the book describes: