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RESTRICTED DATA

The History of Nuclear Secrecy in the United States

by Alex Wellerstein

The University of Chicago Press

Chicago and London

2021

Introduction: The terrible inhibition of the atom … 1

Part I. The Birth of Nuclear Secrecy … 13

Chapter 1: The road to secrecy: Chain reactions, 1939–1942 … 15

  • 1.1 The fears of fission … 15
  • 1.2 From self-censorship to government control … 26
  • 1.3 Absolute secrecy … 38

Chapter 2: The “best-kept secret of the war”: The Manhattan Project, 1942–1945 …51

  • 2.1 The heart of security … 52
  • 2.2 Leaks, rumors, and spies … 64
  • 2.3 Avoiding accountability … 77
  • 2.4 The problem of secrecy … 82

Chapter 3: Preparing for “Publicity Day”: A wartime secret revealed, 1944–1945 … 97

  • 3.1 The first history of the atomic bomb … 98
  • 3.2 Press releases, public relations, and purple prose … 105
  • 3.3 Secrecy from publicity … 118

Part II. The Cold War Nuclear Secrecy Regime … 133

Chapter 4: The struggle for postwar control, 1944–1947  … 135

  • 4.1 Wartime plans for postwar control … 136
  • 4.2 “Restricted Data” and the Atomic Energy Act … 145
  • 4.3 Oppenheimer’s anti-secrecy gambits … 158

Chapter 5: “Information control” and the Atomic Energy Commission, 1947–1950 … 179

  • 5.1 The education of David Lilienthal … 180
  • 5.2 The “thrashing” of reform … 196
  • 5.3 Three shocks … 209

Chapter 6: Peaceful atoms, dangerous scientists: The paradoxes of Cold War secrecy, 1950–1969 … 233

  • 6.1 The H-bomb’s silence and roar … 234
  • 6.2 Dangerous minds … 249
  • 6.3 Making atoms peaceful and profitable … 270

Part III. Challenges to Nuclear Secrecy … 285

Chapter 7: Unrestricted data: New challenges to the Cold War secrecy regime, 1964–1978 … 287

  • 7.1 The centrifuge conundrum … 288
  • 7.2 The perils of “peaceful” fusion … 300
  • 7.3 Atoms for terror … 319

Chapter 8: Secret seeking: Anti-secrecy at the end of the Cold War, 1978–1991 … 335

  • 8.1 Drawing the H-bomb … 338
  • 8.2 The “dream case”: The Progressive v. The United States … 351
  • 8.3 Open-source intelligence in a suspicious age … 368

Chapter 9: Nuclear secrecy and openness after the Cold War … 385

Conclusion: The past and future of nuclear secrecy … 397

Acknowledgments … 417

Notes … 423

Bibliography … 507

  • Archival sources and abbreviations … 507
  • Articles … 510
  • Books and monographs … 518

Index … 529