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Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb

Richard Rhodes

4.17 · Rating details · 2,291 ratings · 151 reviews

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Paperback, 736 pages

Published August 6th 1996 by Simon Schuster

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Nov 15, 2018 George rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction

This book is no Making of the Atomic Bomb, but it is still an excellent account of the history of the H-Bomb. It continues exactly where the Making of the Atomic Bomb ended and it proceeds to tell the history of not the H-bomb but the start of the Cold War. With Russian espionage, first Soviet atomic bomb, Berlin air lift and the Korean war the Cold War started and just like with the Atomic Bomb previously, fear and uncertainty gave the true reasons to make the H-Bomb, for it's history is unavoi ...more

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Jun 18, 2009 James Murphy rated it really liked it

Years ago I'd read and enjoyed Rhodes's earlier The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Because that was a history of atomic research, the Manhattan Project, and the resulting bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'd expected Dark Sun to be a history in a similar style. It's partly that; the record of how thermonuclear theory was developed into a weapon is only a piece of the huge story he tells. Dark Sun, continuing the history of nuclear arms begun with The Making of the Atomic Bomb, includes 2 importan Years ago I'd read and enjoyed Rhodes's earlier The Making of the Atomic Bomb. Because that was a history of atomic research, the Manhattan Project, and the resulting bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, I'd expected Dark Sun to be a history in a similar style. It's partly that; the record of how thermonuclear theory was developed into a weapon is only a piece of the huge story he tells. Dark Sun, continuing the history of nuclear arms begun with The Making of the Atomic Bomb, includes 2 important facets of the nuclear arms story: espionage and Soviet nuclear arms research. Large portions of the book are devoted to detailing how the Soviet Union obtained atomic weapons technology from persons within the Manhattan Project and how they'd begun their own development by the end of the war. The story of how they acquired that knowledge as well as the stories of the individuals responsible for the espionage makes for fascinating reading. Also a necessary part of the history is the evolution of Soviet nuclear weapons and testing. There are many surfaces to these complicated events, but Rhodes's grasp of them seems sure, from the political maneuverings of high-powered intellectuals within the scientific community to a history of the Cold War and the arms race to well-honed portraits of the major players involved at all levels. Because the chapters dealing with nuclear theory, bomb design, and fission were over my head, I was grateful they aren't the bulk of the book; I struggled with understanding in ways I didn't remember from my reading The Making of the Atomic Bomb. The most fascinating chapters of the book--the accounts of espionage and the Soviet research and development--aren't technical at all, and they make for gripping reading. For me, Rhodes covers the Cold War and arms race and the many tensions and scares resulting from them too briefly. But, as I say, it's a huge book as it is. I was surprised by many things: at how extensive Soviet atomic research was before the end of the war, for instance, and at how single-mindedly Curtis LeMay and the men around him tried to effect a preemptive war with the Soviets, and at how destructive thermonuclear weapons themselves are. I thought I knew, but I didn't. Good book. ...more

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Mar 24, 2020 Sean Blake rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, cold-war, politics, science, world-war-two

Dark Sun is a monumental piece of history writing. Richard Rhodes' dense and gripping look into the world of the hydrogen bomb is probably one of the most definitive books on nuclear history, Cold War politics and a disturbing insight into nuclear science. It's truly disturbing that man has created a weapon that harnesses the power of the Sun. ...more

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Jul 27, 2009 Richard rated it really liked it

Richard Rhodes described the beginnings of the atomic age in his "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." The scientific-military Manhattan Project was born of the necessity to beat the Nazis into production of atomic bombs and ended with their use by the United States against Japan. "Dark Sun" tells the history of nuclear bomb development since that time. It contains a wealth of scientific descriptions, such as a discussion of the physics of thermonuclear (TN) devices and their construction (e.g., Tell Richard Rhodes described the beginnings of the atomic age in his "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." The scientific-military Manhattan Project was born of the necessity to beat the Nazis into production of atomic bombs and ended with their use by the United States against Japan. "Dark Sun" tells the history of nuclear bomb development since that time. It contains a wealth of scientific descriptions, such as a discussion of the physics of thermonuclear (TN) devices and their construction (e.g., Teller's "Alarm Clock design compared with Sakharov's "Layer Cake" hydrogen bomb), but the lay reader will find the book easily understandable and informative. This book is in a way more interesting to read than Rhodes' earlier book, containing a detailed description of the spying which produced the Soviet atomic bomb.

"Dark Sun" starts before the chronological ending of Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." The United States was sending thousands of tons of material to Russia during World War II in order to help its wartime ally fight Germany. The Roosevelt government had actually granted Lend-Lease to Russia after Hitler had invaded that country, and before the United States entered the war. Lend-Lease (the shipment of war material without prior payment by the receiving nation, with promise to pay somewhere in the post-war future) had been devised by Franklin Roosevelt as a means of helping Great Britain to survive after the war started in 1939.

The interesting thing about this arrangement was that the Soviets were using this conduit of weapons and materials as a means of carrying out an espionage program in the United States. I had not realized until I read this book how much the Russians were taking advantage of this situation. Huge quantities of industrial information and even strategic metals passed under the lax noses of U.S. customs and went to Russia during the war.

This espionage system became the vehicle for Soviet spies and secret agents to make contact with scientists working on atomic bomb development in the United States and England, most notably at the Los Alamos atomic laboratory in New Mexico. Joseph Stalin had ordered the start of atomic bomb development in his country in early 1943. Physicist Igor Kurchatov was placed in charge of the scientific program, which was patterned after the American program since it was able to use tested and tried methods stolen from Los Alamos. The secret materials were obtained in the United States through agents of the intelligence apparatus established by Lavrenti Beria, the head of Stalin's Secret Police. There were several Los Alamos workers selling secrets to the Soviets, but chief among them was Klaus Fuchs, a German emigre scientist working for the British at Los Alamos. Fuchs had knowledge of all atomic development secret processes and sent everything he knew to Beria's operatives. Machinest David Greenglass, Ethel Rosenberg's brother, passed along drawings of implosion bomb designs through operatives working with his brother-in-law, Julius Rosenberg. Harry Gold was part of the Greenglass/Rosenberg connection; Ethel's actual involvement or lack of it still remains hotly contested among historians and surviving family members. Others who engaged in spy activity for the Soviets included Steve Nelson, Haakon Chevalier, Israel Halperin, Morton Sobell and Alan Nunn May.

The Soviets were receiving so much good atomic intelligence that Beria and Kurchatov suspected American intelligence was deliberately trying to redirect them with bogus information. They confirmed the veracity of the information by checking the data from one source against another, but the pressure of having a good part of World War II being fought on their soil kept Russia from going full steam with their bomb program until after the war. The United States government was stunned to discover that the Russians detonated their first bomb, a copy of the U.S. Trinity bomb (the first atomic bomb ever detonated, in July 1945), on August 29, 1949; earlier estimates were that Russia would need upwards of twenty years to develop an atomic bomb.

Rhodes paints a picture of this immediate post-World War II period as a time when history could have taken different directions and ended up with different outcomes; he makes it clear that the way things actually happened, involving decades of nuclear arms race, were not the optimum result. The post-war years saw the United States building up a stockpile of atomic bombs that it initially felt it had a monopoly on; President Harry Truman acted in accordance with a policy of "containment" that attempted to check the perceived expansionism and paranoia being displayed by the Soviet Union. Winston Churchill's "Iron Curtain" speech of 1946 confirmed that our old wartime ally was now our rival. Things became more strained among the former war allies when the Truman Doctrine announced the future Cold War doctrine of the need to support free people resisting subjegation, clearly aimed at Soviet expansionist activities. Russia answered this in less than a year with the Soviet occupation of Prague on February second, 1948; the end of US-USSR collaboration, including the end of any chance for nuclear disarmament negotiations can be dated from this point. The first Cold War confrontation occurred shortly thereafter, with the Russian blockade of Berlin in June 1948, which was combatted and finally defeated in May 1949 by the allies' Berlin Airlift.

Rhodes seems to argue that the fear and paranoia over the beginning of the Cold War caused the scales of military policy to tip in favor of the war hawks who brought on the greatest arms race in history. Rhodes is completely aware that deteriorating relations among the former World War II allies were a fact of life and would cause considerable post-war problems. He also is not a Luddite. His view, which seems to be alligned with Robert Oppenheimer's view of the development of nuclear weapons, is that the building of the atomic bomb by the United States was a necessary and spectacular scientific/military achievement. (Reviewer's note: Oppenheimer pointedly did not join some of his former Los Alamos colleagues who, postwar, expressed guilt about their involvement in the development of nuclear weapons). This philosophy does not, however, embrace the arguments made by atomic scientists like Ernest Laurence, Luis Alvarez and Edward Teller that the United States should have gone into a crash program to develop thermonuclear bombs (from Rhodes' "Arsenals of Folly, The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, Vintage, 2007, p. 70: Bombs made by fusing hydrogen to helium, releasing enough nuclear energy to dwarf fission weapons, i.e., with fireballs measured in miles rather than feet, and their yields measured in megatons, or millions of tons of TNT equivalent explosive power, instead of in kilotons, or thousands of tons of equivalent TNT). More pertinent, the policies which called for the eventual building of literally thousands of nuclear and TN bombs are questioned.

Historically, that argument is over. Harry Truman gave the green light to proceed with TN development in January, 1950. This was the same month that Fuchs was convicted of espionage. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg and others were also arrested for espionage; the Rosenberg's were later convicted and sentenced to death. Numerous international developments helped to support Teller's H-Bomb rationale at this time, including the Russian and Communist China-supported invasion of South Korea in June 1950. Senator Joe McCarthy was capitalizing on the public anxieties arising over these troubling examples of threats to the American way of life by ratcheting up the Red Fever with his ever-growing lists of (never disclosed) supposed federal government employees who were working for the Soviet Union.

Rhodes' main point is that nothing good came from the transition of Los Alamos National Laboratory into a post-war perpetual builder of WMD for the arms race. He asserts, along with Oppenheimer, that the United States could have been amply served by a military which relied on a mix of conventional weapons and smaller, tactical battlefield nuclear weapons (Reviewer's note: So-called "Theater" weapons with more limited explosive power than TN weapons, intended for use primarily against military instead of civilian targets). Having thousands of nuclear weapons available, at an eventual total cost to the United States alone of four trillion dollars, only caused the possibility of world destruction while contributing nothing to our ability to enhance the outcome of the wars we have fought since World War II.

For the record, the United States detonated its first Hydrogen Bomb in the South Pacific on November 1, 1952. The Soviets exploded their first Hydrogen Bomb in November, 1955. Their bomb was developed by physicist, and future peace activist Andrei Sakharov. Rhodes does not discuss how the Russians obtained the information to build their bomb. I checked this on the internet and apparently no definitive records from the old Soviet Union in this regard have been made available to researchers of this subject. There is speculation that Soviet scientific analysis of fallout from U.S. testing at Bikini Atoll in 1954 provided key information; another possibility is that Sakharov solved this puzzle through his own knowledge of physics. ...more

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Oct 09, 2018 Peter Tillman marked it as to-read

Shelves: history, sci-tech

Added this to the long-term TBR list. I liked his first Making of the A-bomb a lot.

I came across this quote from the book:
"The discovery in 1938 of how to release nuclear energy introduced a singularity into the human world — a deep new reality, a region where the old rules of war no longer applied. The region of nuclear singularity enlarged across the decades, sweeping war away at its shock front until today it excludes all but civil wars and limited conventional wars …

Science has revealed at ...more

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Dec 26, 2018 Michael Burnam-Fink rated it liked it

Shelves: history, 2018

The hydrogen bomb is the natural sequel to the atomic bomb, but Dark Sun is a shadow of its predecessor, and Rhodes can't find a single narrative thread in this trudge of a history.

The individual pieces are there, the transformation of the American atomic complex from a handful of scattered parts in the late 1940s to an instrument capable of killing a nation in 1955 is a fascinating story of bureaucratic transformation. The Teller-Ulam device is a masterpiece of precision engineering, directed ...more

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Jan 18, 2013 Randolph rated it it was ok · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, biography, owned, science-mathematics, post-apocalypse

I finally abandoned this after 200 pages. I NEVER do that, but I'm too old now to waste my life on things I'm not interested in. At least for the 200 pages I read there was precious little about the making of the hydrogen bomb and skimming the rest gave little hope. If you were interested in the espionage behind the atomic programs you might like this book, however I found the narrative so dull I simply could not ever connect with it; who stole this, who met whom on what day, simply tedious. For ...more

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Nov 23, 2019 Ben rated it it was amazing

Shelves: military, history, nuclear-weapons

- I've never read a passage so erotic that subtly turns in gross horror. (The incredible depth and detail of the ignition of the Mike thermonuclear device and all of the physics involved in it's operation as it expands outwards and turns into a wave of destruction.)

- WTF moment 1: Curtis LeMay casually flying spy planes over Russia with possible hopes that he could start WWIII. He'd spent years getting the U.S. bombing force into a potent force, and seemed extremely into not letting the force go - I've never read a passage so erotic that subtly turns in gross horror. (The incredible depth and detail of the ignition of the Mike thermonuclear device and all of the physics involved in it's operation as it expands outwards and turns into a wave of destruction.)

- WTF moment 1: Curtis LeMay casually flying spy planes over Russia with possible hopes that he could start WWIII. He'd spent years getting the U.S. bombing force into a potent force, and seemed extremely into not letting the force go to waste. He seems correct that in 1952 or 1954 if he wanted to wipe out Russia and their ability to retaliate, he could, and that if the choice was between mutually destruction later, or Russia destruction now, he was correct. But also, we're alive now so that choice wasn't necessary? He also had comments about how the u.s. military strength at the time was way more than the rest of the world and how the U.S. could have flexed it's military to gain power. It seems like military people really seem to think about death differently than most civilians and I'd like to understand that better. In General leMay's mind 80Million Russian deaths is fine, as it would increase the U.S. power relative to the rest of the world. The deaths don't really count as part of his calculus. In most people's mind, 80 million deaths and the destruction of Russian culture really outweigh U.S. becoming relatively more powerful.

WTF moment 2: A bunch of people had some last minute wtf-are-we-doing-let's-stop-this thoughts before the first H-bomb test. They were thinking if there is anytime to negotiate a no-bomb-testing-treaty, now was the time to do it, before anyone exploded any H-bombs. The bomb testing was 2 days before the presidential election, and the people sent this guy down to the Marshall Islands to convince the bomb people to have some 'technical difficulties' and delay the explosion a few days just in case the next president had a different opinion than Truman. So the guy goes down there talks to a bunch of people and then they say whatever, you're call dude. But then the guy doesn't want Truman to be mad at him, or something, so he says go ahead and explode it as normal. Wtf dude, history is counting on you!

WTF moment 3: There really were thousands of Russian spies all over the U.S. in the 40s. I'm interested in whether the Red Scare was a bit more based in truth than I thought? Also though, something that came up several times in the book is if you are a weird / socially difficult person, than others will use politics to remove you from power, citing your opposing views, lack of management skills, past connections to political groups, etc. Some of the spies and many people with soviet sympathies had no idea what was actually going on in the country, but were more passing along information because they hoped it would be helpful to this idealistic movement.

The first computer program run on an electronic computer --- ENIAC --- was a monte carlo simulation of a thermonuclear explosion, as von Neuman was trying to figure out the feasibility of the weapon.

WTF moment 4: The United States bombing of North Korea had about 1.5-2 million casualties, about the same number as all of the Japanese casualties in WW2. They destroyed 10-100% of the largest 20 cities or so, looks like maybe 60% on average. Basically all urban areas were bombed. In general I feel like I have more empathy for those guys in Idaho that live in bunkers in the middle of nowhere.

psuedo WTF moment 5: An unarmed atom bomb exploded on the runway about 30 miles from San Francisco when it was taking off to go to Korea. (There was an accident and the plane crashed on takeoff) At first I thought this was a big deal, but then I realized that an unarmed A-bomb is mostly just a bunch of normal explosive without the plutonium core to arm it. It did throw normal U-238 around the runway, which just seems like a regular, normal level of military fuckup. Now I hope that planes don't crash when they fly armed bombs.

I don't think these are necessarily the moments that are going to stay with me, but I sort of have to process them before I can start thinking about what the arms race was doing and why it occurred, and the similarities between Los Alamos and other technology organizations.

Not as good of a book as the making of the atomic bomb, but I still learned a bunch and it gave me lots of feels on several topics so 5*. ...more

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Apr 24, 2020 Kris rated it it was amazing

A story of science, politics and espionage. The major players are drawn in almost novel level detail. It’s a bit too thorough to be a constant page turner, but as a work of history it is informative and entertaining.

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Feb 19, 2021 Volo Bonetskyy rated it it was amazing

Mix of history after WWII, cold war and nuclear physics of the hydrogen bomb (like the first atomic bombs weren't enough). Many crazy stories about politicians, scientists and army.
"Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds.", as Oppenheimer quoted Bhagavad Gita. ...more

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Jul 27, 2020 Ben rated it liked it

Shelves: science, history

While parts of this were very interesting, it was overall much weaker than the first book. I think what I liked most about the first book was Rhodes's description of the science and engineering that went into building the atomic bomb. There is some of that here, but significantly less. There is much more about Soviet spying---material which is somewhat dated and, to me, pedestrian. Rhodes also tries to quickly go over the history of US policy on nuclear weapons, but it is too brief and has been ...more

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Apr 24, 2020 Ulyana Kubini rated it really liked it

Overall, the book is an excellent overview of Russian espionage in the scientific community and describes the history and making of the hydrogen bomb. I’ve gotten to know many individuals throughout the book, including the two most in intriguing folks (in my opinion): Klaus Fuchs and Robert Oppenheimer. I enjoyed reading their testimonies and seeing Oppie’s involvement in the physics community at Los Alamos. The book’s other ‘plot’ is this race between the USSR and America. Again, intriguing to ...more

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Sep 09, 2017 Alan Gerling rated it really liked it

After recently reading Hiroshima Nagasaki, I found myself curious about how the hydrogen bomb was developed and tested. Amazon recommended that I read Dark Sun. I started the book in the background (theology and some other reading took priority) several months ago and have been chewing on it ever since. Spoiler, this book is not short! I read almost everything electronically, but if you were to pick up the paperback, it's 700+ pages long.

I've been chewing on it for a while. However, you'll noti After recently reading Hiroshima Nagasaki, I found myself curious about how the hydrogen bomb was developed and tested. Amazon recommended that I read Dark Sun. I started the book in the background (theology and some other reading took priority) several months ago and have been chewing on it ever since. Spoiler, this book is not short! I read almost everything electronically, but if you were to pick up the paperback, it's 700+ pages long.

I've been chewing on it for a while. However, you'll notice that I am writing a review, so the book never ended up in my "abandoned" pile. My continuing curiosity always caused me to pick it back up and read another chapter. The latter chapters do pick up (I kind of got the impression that Rhodes was running out of space). The earlier chapters are really devoted to understanding the science and people essential to the atomic program in the US and USSR.

Rhodes writing style is all over the place. He seems to be unable to resist following a tangent or packing in every bit of his research. The hydrogen bomb isn't really discussed until the final third of the book. Rhodes also clearly has a fascination with the espionage, spending significant time discussing the various Soviet espionage efforts, the FBI investigation of those efforts, and the trials resulting from those investigations. He honestly could have written a completely separate book, as I failed to see how much of this espionage narrative supported the main subject of the book, the design of the hydrogen bomb.

Also, a large part of this book is trying to understand the deterrence and arms race between the US and the USSR. He brings this all to bear in the Epilogue, showing the futility of the nuclear arms race, which cost the US 4 trillion dollars, and was a large factor in the financial breakdown of the USSR. I found this quote from Solly Zuckerman to be particularly relevant to today's news cycle:

"In light of the certain prospect of retaliation, there has been literally no chance at all that any sane political authority, in either the United States or the Soviet Union, would consciously choose to start a nuclear war. This proposition is true for the past, the present and the foreseeable future.... In the real world of real political leaders . . . a decision that would bring even one hydrogen bomb on one city of one's own country would be recognized in advance as a catastrophic blunder; ten bombs on ten cities would be a disaster beyond history, and a hundred bombs on a hundred cities are unthinkable."

I don't know about you, but the words, "sane political authority" send shivers up my spine. I'm not sure with North Korea, we're dealing with a "sane" leader. He does build a convincing case though, particularly following the Cuban missile crisis, that the arms race and nuclear build-up was not only counter-productive but really in many ways defied any logic.

Looking at the book as a whole, I would recommend it, particularly for someone who is a history buff. I suggest that perhaps you pretend the title of the book is something like, Dark Sun: A History of the Nuclear Arms Race of the 20th Century. If you pretend thusly, the book would be quite excellent and on target! ...more

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May 12, 2013 William Hamman rated it really liked it

Shelves: history

It is best for me to regard "Dark Sun" as a direct sequel to "The Making of the Atomic Bomb", because that's exactly what it is. "Dark Sun" presumes that you're read the other book, so it doesn't recapitulate much of the physics or history of the atomic bomb. It only has one reasonably technical section at all, a lucid and clear description of X-ray ablation and pusher recoil as it pertained to the Ivy Mike weapon.

The rest of it is largely concerned with Soviet espionage, the history of some as ...more

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Jun 09, 2015 Todd Stockslager rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: history

Rhode's history of thermonuclear weaponry is well written, but the subject seems oddly dated, as if the "Cold War" and the terrors of atomic attack were something from centuries ago, not from my lifetime. The fear, dread, paranoia, and hysteria were very real and very recent, and it is only surely by the restraining hand of God in human history that it continues. Or, as Rhodes concludes, the greatest and only effective deterrent against nuclear war was "personal dread."

This abject and groveling ...more

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Sep 06, 2014 George rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Great story, thoroughly researched, of the science, people, relationships and politics of the H-bomb

A great story of the the war, the role of science, the bomb's specific technical evolution, and the people and politics. I find it rare for an author to weave all those elements into a cohesive story, particularly on such a dauntingly complex technical subject.

Too often, the history of science and technology is presented as separate, linear and logical, distinct from the messiness of people, relat ...more

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Dec 19, 2016 David Kirschner rated it really liked it · review of another edition

I read a chunk of Dark Sun this past summer and set it aside when school began. First off, Dark Sun is extremely interesting, with incredibly detailed research. It gets deep into the science and politics of it all. I really enjoyed reading it, but I'm like 1/3 of the way through and it's a slow read. So, second I credit Dark Sun with making me realize that life is short and I've only got time to read books that I'm super interested in or that are going to be useful to me. I mean, I imagine many ...more

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Jun 25, 2008 brian rated it it was amazing

This book is a fairly comprehensive look at the early development of the US nuclear arsenal. The scientific aspects of the book are surprisingly easy to follow for those not familiar with nuclear physics and engineering (which, honestly, is pretty much everyone). The author does a great job of turning what could be a very dry subject into a compelling history with stories of scientific rivalries, political gamesmanship, and Cold War espionage. The book also highlights evolving ideas about nuclea ...more

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Jan 07, 2012 Brian rated it liked it

Shelves: prehistoric

This is sort of the sequel to his The Making of the Atom Bomb(which I liked, albeit it was thick and complicated).

That book was all about "fission"...

Hydrogen bombs, well, that's all about "fusion"....so we're still talking about a thick and complicated book. (Now featuring even more neutrons!)

It was good, too, but it suffered from nuclear physics overdose because I read it after I read the first one. There's only so much heavy hydrogen you can wade through before you want a chase scene or so ...more

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Aug 17, 2018 Nick rated it liked it

Not quite as engaging for me as his previous volume about the Manhattan Project--Rhodes bounces from the Soviet atomic espionage programs to the post-war research environment to (eventually) the development of the hydrogen bomb, and all the threads don't entirely come together. Still, a wealth of information and lots of interesting anecdotes about various members of the U.S. atomic fraternity of the day. ...more

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Dec 27, 2019 Sebastian rated it really liked it

This is the worthy successor to Making of the Atomic Bomb -- focusing on Soviet espionage and the development of the Soviet atomic bomb (Joe-1, 1949; their first thermonuclear test Joe-4 in 1953), as well as the US story featuring Edward Teller, Stanislaw Ulam, Oppenheimer, Fermi, and many both familiar and new faces that made the colossal 10.4 megaton Ivy Mike test of 1953 a success. Finally, Rhodes spends the last chapter on exposition and epilogue.

The Soviet nuclear effort benefitted enormous This is the worthy successor to Making of the Atomic Bomb -- focusing on Soviet espionage and the development of the Soviet atomic bomb (Joe-1, 1949; their first thermonuclear test Joe-4 in 1953), as well as the US story featuring Edward Teller, Stanislaw Ulam, Oppenheimer, Fermi, and many both familiar and new faces that made the colossal 10.4 megaton Ivy Mike test of 1953 a success. Finally, Rhodes spends the last chapter on exposition and epilogue.

The Soviet nuclear effort benefitted enormously from espionage and would not have succeeded as quickly as it did without it. Rhodes spends most of his time on covert Communist scientist Klaus Fuchs and his courier who he only ever knew as "Raymond", Harry Gold. Between 1943 and 1945 Fuchs would funnel virtually all key Manhattan Project plans to the USSR where Stalin set up a parallel Los Alamos under quasi-Oppenheimer, Igor Kurchatov and quasi-Groves, Lavrenti Beria. Important innovations like use of a graphite as moderator and the implosion design were all directly lifted from the Americans. Joe-1 was essentially a copy of Fat Man (dropped over Nagasaki in 1945). Even the plane the Soviets wanted to use for delivery of their bomb, the Tu-4, was developed by reverse engineering a couple of US B-29s that crashed over Siberia during the war.

I think contrasting the US and Soviet nuclear programs highlights what was and continues to be America's durable advantage in the world: the ability to take risks, disagree, and unleash creativity to create new knowledge. Soviet scientists worked under Beria -- a screaming, angry, comic book style Soviet leader -- and Sarov was staffed by scientists who were essentially imprisoned and fed by gulag laborers. The imperative was to make a bomb to match the Americans. It wasn't a place where you could take risks. It also doesn't seem like it was much fun! Meanwhile, Teller could go off on his own and disobey orders to start working on the H-bomb. Groves gave his team a long leash. Scientists came and went from Los Alamos guided by their conscience and will. It was the kind of place where you would dare bring up the idea of e.g. an implosion device over a uranium gun design without fear that your head would be lopped off by an angry Georgian man. Without making it too potted: I think that this disposition towards risk taking and our tolerance of free speech is what enables the US to consistently out-innovate the world. This is also why our tradition of free speech is extremely valuable and why the idea of cancel culture is so poisonous. Things like this Nature article can be recognized for the sentiment but that attitude cannot be tolerated.

Back to the story: in the US, an Edward Teller with a chip on his shoulder from his perceived snubs during the war pushes to develop a thermonuclear weapon in the wake of Joe-1. A great debate ensues. Oppenheimer leads a group of scientists with strong consensus that there is no need for an H-bomb: "we thought [a decision not to build a thermonuclear weapon] would make it less likely the Russians would attempt it and less likely they would succeed in the undertaking" [403]. Truman and the Joint Chiefs of Staff totally ignore the recommendation and fund it lavishly. By early 1950, Norris Bradbury (who had since replaced Oppenheimer) and Edward Teller are reassembling the band. There are fewer takers this time around (Bethe, Fermi, etc don't commit). Notably, the old Hungarian guard like Teller and von Neumann -- the Jewish Hungarians with the least trust of the Russians -- are the most eager to build the bomb.

On November 1, 1952, Ivy Mike explodes over the Marshall Islands and obliterates the entire island of Elugelab with 10.4 megatons of force and a fireball 4 miles long and we enter the thermonuclear age. Rhode's description of the various steps in the bomb's detonation [505-507] is beautiful in its concision and clarity. The Soviets detonate a device that is technically thermonuclear in 1953 but much less potent and impossible to deliver. In any event, we know how this story ends. By the 1960s, the US and USSR are funneling considerable treasure into stockpiling weapons that nobody ever uses. Even without the H-bomb by the late 40s we had enough nukes to level virtually every population center and industrial site in the USSR.

I find myself divided on the question of if the US should or should not have created the H-bomb. On the one hand, that nuclear terrorism could exist is unsettling. And society's resources could have been marshaled towards other important programs instead of nukes. And, it seems clear that any leader authorizing the use of an H-bomb (which is so powerful that virtually its only purpose is to obliterate massive population centers) would not be able to maintain legitimacy. On the other hand, authoritarian regimes with control of media and without history of free speech can manipulate a story however they want and perhaps become immune to that backlash. And what if such an actor had a weapon that the United States didn't have? There isn't a "right" answer here; politics is about trade offs. However, I lean towards the side of weapons development. I hope that we never do have to use thermonuclear weapons or any of the other modern tools of war built since. But more intolerable than our own violence is leaving the free West without a goalkeeper. ...more

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Dec 03, 2007 Nick Black rated it liked it

This is no "The Making of the Atomic Bomb". ...more

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May 26, 2014 Nooilforpacifists rated it liked it

Shelves: math-science

This follow-up to the (excellent) "Making of the Atomic Bomb" becomes a Cold War tale: Teller, Oppie, Commies, doomsday devices. It's less science, more Strangelove. ...more

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Jun 16, 2014 Scott Hawkins rated it it was amazing

Shelves: all-time-favorites

A non-fiction book that reads better than the best thrillers, Dark Sun is a masterpiece of research, technical writing, and use of language.

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Sep 06, 2018 John rated it really liked it

Shelves: science, history-biography

This book is a sequel to Rhode's superb Pulitzer Prize winning "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." I read them back-to-back and recommend reading them in that manner. Many of the same personalities developed in Rhode's first volume were involved in the thermonuclear project and Rhode's assumes the reader is familiar with them.

Without writing a full review I will comment on three areas of special interest to me:
(A) the description of Edward Teller's role in lobbying for and conceptualizing the 'Sup This book is a sequel to Rhode's superb Pulitzer Prize winning "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." I read them back-to-back and recommend reading them in that manner. Many of the same personalities developed in Rhode's first volume were involved in the thermonuclear project and Rhode's assumes the reader is familiar with them.

Without writing a full review I will comment on three areas of special interest to me:
(A) the description of Edward Teller's role in lobbying for and conceptualizing the 'Super,' as Teller dubbed it. Although Teller spent the remainder of his life taking credit for hydrogen bomb, his only role was political lobbying for its development and improving upon the first workable design concept, conceived by Manhattan Project scientist, Polish mathematician Stanislaw Ulam. The design ultimately became known as the Teller-Ulam design. Teller resigned in a childish huff from the Los Alamos team early in the project as soon as he was denied leadership of the thermonuclear design team. Teller's Hungarian temper, instability as a scientist and abrasive manner made him entirely unsuited for the job.
(B) Rhodes describes Curtis LeMay's role as the first USAF Commander of the Strategic Air Command. LeMay whipped SAC into an effective fighting force deterrent, with the same drive and spirit he showed in his command of the bombing of the Japanese home islands in late 1944 and during 1945. LeMay's later radicalization as Air Force Chief of Staff and in retirement are accurately styled by Rhodes as a sad and dangerous ending to a distinguished career. One cannot fail to see the parallels to the life of Teller.
(C) The rise and fall of Robert Oppenheimer are adequately documented, although much of the story of Oppenheimer's rising star is given in the first volume. Oppenheimer's leadership of the Manhattan Project was efficient, effective - some describe as magnificent. The consensus was that Robert Oppenheimer was the smartest man in a team compiled of the smartest minds of the Western world. Oppenheimer's disgrace was orchestrated by views of three men: Edward Teller driven by jealousy and paranoia; Lewis Strauss driven by jealousy and Strauss' puritanism over Oppie's Jewish atheism and premarital swordsmanship; and J. Edgar Hoover's anti-semitic paranoia. Oppenheimer's disgrace could not have happened outside Communist hysteria of the McCarthy 1950s. But then something runs in the blood of Anglo peoples to crucify their saviors, as the British did with Alan Turing.

Recommended for lovers of history, science history and political science. ...more

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Jun 23, 2019 Bob Koelle rated it it was amazing

This book has so much more than the title suggests. We don't even get to the hydrogen bomb for a couple hundred pages, and I wondered how much overlap there was with Mr. Rhodes first book on the atomic bomb. But that early section is important to retell, since the espionage story drives so much of subsequent events. Fuchs, Gold, Greenglass and the Rosenbergs did so much to keep the Soviets up-to-date about fission research that the drive for the hydrogen bomb after the 1949 Joe 1 detonation was This book has so much more than the title suggests. We don't even get to the hydrogen bomb for a couple hundred pages, and I wondered how much overlap there was with Mr. Rhodes first book on the atomic bomb. But that early section is important to retell, since the espionage story drives so much of subsequent events. Fuchs, Gold, Greenglass and the Rosenbergs did so much to keep the Soviets up-to-date about fission research that the drive for the hydrogen bomb after the 1949 Joe 1 detonation was pushed with expediency, like it hadn't been before.
This book is about individuals with extreme convictions battling each other. Strauss and Teller against Oppenheimer, Beria against everyone in his paranoid fantasies, LeMay and Power against Eisenhower, Kennedy, and sanity. The SAC commanders were a truly frightening pair, who tried to goad the Soviets into making a first strike, however modest, so they could transform Asia into glass. There are some revelations here I was unaware of.
It was heartening to read about American presidents from Truman to Kennedy being truly afraid of this power, and recognizing quite early on that it was unusable. It's not war anymore, and they knew it. Eisenhower dressing down Syngman Rhee in 1954 is a great account of his wisdom.
The book gives a good explanation about why some people chose to send the Soviets such an incredible trove of information. Imagine a Jewish physicist who had to flee the Nazis, whose relatives were being exterminated, while the Soviets were bearing the overwhelming brunt of that battle, had officially outlawed anti-Semitism years before (however illusory that ban was), and was being shunned by its ally from sharing in nuclear research which might help in that battle. The individuals also believed that America would soon wield that power next against Russia, as some indeed argued for. The espionage activities become quite understandable in that light.
The book asks why the arms race ever happened, when every policy maker knew that a single bomb on either side was sufficient deterrent from war, and I wish this had been more than a few paragraphs at the end. The perfidious acts of intranecine military branch battles for nuclear assets, paired with politics and defense contractors have kept up the pointless stockpiling to this day.
A note about the edition I read. It was a pretty early printing, and I found some curious typos and unfinished sentences. There was also a quote from David Irving, which I'm sure has been excised in more recent versions. ...more

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Nov 27, 2020 John Ryan rated it liked it

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here. This book was as much about the cold war as it was the arms race and, as the title announced, the making of the Hydrogen Bomb; the discussion of the latter was more interesting than the title suggested. Thick, well-researched, and complicated, this book turned out to be a good read.

When WWII ended, the cold war started for more strategic reasons than anything and the atomic arts race began. The accounting of the Soviet Union’s deep losses really come across of why they were willing to fight so This book was as much about the cold war as it was the arms race and, as the title announced, the making of the Hydrogen Bomb; the discussion of the latter was more interesting than the title suggested. Thick, well-researched, and complicated, this book turned out to be a good read.

When WWII ended, the cold war started for more strategic reasons than anything and the atomic arts race began. The accounting of the Soviet Union’s deep losses really come across of why they were willing to fight so hard to maintain the land that they captured with puppet governments. Early the book speaks to how Germany was advancing to Moscow, nearly capturing the city and people were “fleeing in all directions” for it was “every man for himself.” The author speaks about how people just left their assignments and ran.

The book also speaks about how complicated life is and how alliances make all the difference. Klaus Fuchs, who played a major part in the book and later served a 9 of 14-year sentence and lost his British citizenship and ended his life in East Germany, had been a socialist party member in Germany until Paul von Henderburg gave power to Hitler; he then became a communist.

The book also spent considerable time speaking to the spy network that was so important in the Soviet Union’s development of their weapon. On March 11, 1942 FDR was told that the bomb would be ready in two years – and gave approval. Days later, Russia learned of the development and the arms race began. The author later outlines how their bomb was so similar to ours that they must have been learning secrets. The FBI cracked down on so many, wire tapped seemingly everyone involved and seemed to trust no one, largely for good reason, too. Some toiled with a cloud over their head throughout the careers – and even now people speculate if they were spies or not, despite their accomplishments. They believe that the Soviet’s espionage increased the Soviet’s program by two years.

The book also outlined the airlift to keep Berlin safe. There was a fog that lasted I believe nine days that nearly sank the entire operation but when it lifted, we were able to again supply the Germans and keep their freedom alive. Interesting, detailed story and how Stalin was playing hard ball with U.S. and allies, knowing they would not attack and hoping they couldn’t deal with food supply issues and would allow the Soviet Union grab western Berlin. It didn’t work.

...more

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Dec 06, 2020 Matt Suder rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, 2020

Another exhaustive dive into the development of nuclear weapons and early stages of the Cold War. While not nearly the tour de force of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, this was still a relatively engaging trip through the Soviet espionage, American defense policy, international diplomacy and thermonuclear physics that defined the arms race which could have easily destroyed the world.

Takeaways:

- It's remarkable the world didn't end considering the personalities involved. SAC leaders Curtis LeMay Another exhaustive dive into the development of nuclear weapons and early stages of the Cold War. While not nearly the tour de force of The Making of the Atomic Bomb, this was still a relatively engaging trip through the Soviet espionage, American defense policy, international diplomacy and thermonuclear physics that defined the arms race which could have easily destroyed the world.

Takeaways:

- It's remarkable the world didn't end considering the personalities involved. SAC leaders Curtis LeMay and Thomas Power both come across as batshit insane, pushing politicians to take an extremely aggressive stance towards the USSR and advocating the preemptive destruction of said rivals throughout the 50s and 60s. They are merely two examples of how early paranoia and fear (often unfounded) completely subsumed a more positive/rational approach to diplomacy and defense policy in both nuclear superpowers. The buffoonery and craziness of our current leadership might seem unprecedented, but the individuals driving hawkish policies in the 50s and 60s were no better (just nicer manners and less media coverage).

- Rhodes does not like Edward Teller (i.e. the Nixon of the weapons program?)

- Did women exist in this world? Could count on two hands the number of women with even incidental contributions to this history.

- Americans sure do like bombing and destroying non-white populations and their native lands.

- While the presidents of the time contributed to the development and deployment of nukes, their reticence to actually use the damn things after 1945 demonstrates the importance of the civilian control of the nuclear arsenal. Rhodes makes it absolutely clear the USAF was itching to bomb someone and the target lists and war plans described come across as unhinged.

- Rhodes ability to describe complex physics and chemical processes for rubes like myself is amazing.

Dark Sun wasn't always the most clearly focused book and some of the espionage and political passages became tedious, nothing like the personalities and scientific history that drove the previous work on the A-bomb. That being said it's still a worthwhile contribution to my understanding of the 20th Century. Glad I read it, and thankful global thermonuclear war hasn't yet become a reality. ...more

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Jan 23, 2018 Marcus rated it really liked it

Shelves: history-military, history-political, modern-warfare, military-technology, political-history, united-states, history, history-social, military-history, cold-war

As the only two atomic bombs ever used in anger finally bring an end to the global conflict, it would be easy to assume that creation of even more destructive weapons would be the last thing anyone would be thinking about. But of course, paradoxically, such assumption would be completely incorrect. In “Dark Sun”, Richard Rhodes tries to explain how and even more importantly, why, just a couple of years after the end of most destructive armed conflict in humanity’s history it found itself at the As the only two atomic bombs ever used in anger finally bring an end to the global conflict, it would be easy to assume that creation of even more destructive weapons would be the last thing anyone would be thinking about. But of course, paradoxically, such assumption would be completely incorrect. In “Dark Sun”, Richard Rhodes tries to explain how and even more importantly, why, just a couple of years after the end of most destructive armed conflict in humanity’s history it found itself at the edge of annihilation.

The task of the author is daunting, but he succeeds and presents to the reader a panorama view covering pretty much every relevant scene in this story. Naturally, the story gravitates to a large degree around scientific development on both sides of Iron Curtain, international politics and military facets of the story. However, the author tries to present as complete picture as possible and a lot of space is dedicated to various side stories, such as role of Soviet espionage on US atomic program, personal relationships between scientists and their varied standpoints on moral aspects of the work they performed. The fact that Richard Rhodes manages to weave together a comprehensive story out of all those varied “threads” truly deserves a lot of praise!

At the same time, I must say that author’s broad scope made “Dark Sun” less enjoyable reading experience for me than the preceding volume, “The Making of Atomic Bomb”. I can’t help but feel that some parts of this book, such as detailed recounts of interactions between spies and their handlers or meticulous retelling of Oppenheimer hearings were both superfluous and actually detracted from the focus on the topic this book deals with.

So, my final verdict on “Dark Sun” must therefore be that it was every bit as informative as one could hope for. At times, it was an absolutely fascinating (and truly scary) read. But it has a couple of weak spots and I wish that the author managed to stay as focused on the subject matter in this book as he did in "The Making of Atomic Bomb". ...more

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Nov 05, 2018 Robbie Forkish rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Dark Sun by Richard Rhodes is a worthy successor to his Pulitzer-Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb. As with his first book, there's a gripping narrative of the people and the science that led to the ultimate weapon of mass destruction. But the parallel story in this book is the spying and espionage of the Soviet Union, and how it accelerated if not enabled the Russian a-bomb and h-bomb in the early 1950s. Rhodes does a tremendous job of setting cultural, political and historical contex ...more

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About Richard Rhodes

Richard Rhodes

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Richard Lee Rhodes is an American journalist, historian, and author of both fiction and non-fiction (which he prefers to call "verity"), including the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the Atomic Bomb (1986), and most recently, Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race (2007). He has been awarded grants from the Ford Foundation, the Guggenheim Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation a ...more

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“on his first visit to the Los Alamos Tech Area, when he had encountered von Neumann discussing theory with dark, intense Edward Teller, the “tremendously long formulae on the blackboard” had scared him. “Seeing all these complications of analysis, I was dumbfounded, fearing I would never be able to contribute anything.” But the equations stayed on the board from day to day, which meant to Ulam that the pace of invention was relatively slow, and he soon regained confidence.1340 “I found out that the main ability to have was a visual, and also an almost tactile, way to imagine the physical situations, rather than a merely logical picture of the problems.” — 1 likes

“Don't ask me who's the father of the H-bomb, because nobody is.... The whole thing was a matter of people putting ideas into a pot around a coffee cable. Somebody had an idea and that doesn't work, but they give me an idea, but that doesn't work, but you can give me an idea. Because they were beating one idea against another around a table, in front of a black board and so on. It wasn't anybody's real invention; it was just a lot of people working on it.... Eventually an idea appeared, which looked as if it might work, and for which the technology for the (primary) was reasonably available. Not completely, but could be gotten together pretty fast if you put some more work on that.... It's a very complicated technical question.” — 0 likes

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