by P. D. Smith
6. Szilard, quoted in William Lanouette with Bela Silard, Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, The Man Behind the Bomb (University of Chicago Press, 1994;1st edn 1992), 456.
7. Quoted in N[orman] C[ousins], ‘Many Facets of Leo Szilard’, Saturday Review (29 Apr. 1961), 15.
8. ‘Recovery from Cancer’, Time (23 Mar. 1962),40, 42.
9. ‘Leo Szilard Dies; A-Bomb Physicist’, NYT (31 May1964), 77.
10. Harrison Brown, ‘The 20th Year’, guest editorial, BAS, 18 (Dec. 1962), 2.
11. Kennedy, quoted in Martin Walker, The Cold War and the Making of the Modern World (London: Vintage, 1994), 171.
12. Szilard, quoted in Lanouette, 458.
13. Cabell Phillips, ‘Pickets Parade at White House’, NYT (28 Oct. 1962), 1.
14. McNamara, quoted in Walker, 171.
15. Secretary of State Dean Rusk; quoted in Walker, 178.
16. LeMay, quoted in Walker, 179.
17. Kennedy, quoted in Tim Weiner, ‘Word for Word: The Cuban Missile Crisis’, NYT (5 Oct. 1997), IV, 1.
18. Time (Oct. 1962). According to Life (Mar. 1961), From Russia with Love was one of Kennedy’s favourite books; see also J. Hoberman, ‘When Dr No Met Dr Strangelove’, Sight and Sound, 12 (Dec. 1993), 16, 18.
19. Lyn Tornabene, ‘Contradicting the Hollywood Image’, Saturday Review, 46 (28 Dec. 1963), 19–21.
20. Quoted in Eugene Archer, ‘How to Learn to Love World Destruction’, NYT (26 Jan. 1964), II, 13.
21. Vincent LoBrutto, Stanley Kubrick: A Biography (London: Faber, 1998),
22. Alastair Buchan, ‘Basis of a Film’ (letter), Times (31 Jan. 1964), 13.
23. Quoted in ‘Peter George, 41, British Novelist’, NYT (3 June 1966).
24. ‘Mr Peter George’ (obit.), Times (3 June1966), 14.
25. Stanley Kubrick, dir., Dr Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb (Columbia Pictures, 1964), dialogue from continuity transcript (see http: //www.visual-memory.co.uk/amk/doc/0055.html).
26. John Coleman, ‘Dr Strangelove’, New Statesman (31 Jan. 1964), 178.
27. ‘The Mined Cities’, BAS, 17 (Dec. 1961); in Szilard, The Voice of the Dolphins and Other Stories (Stanford University Press, 1992; 1st edn 1961).
28. J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye (London: Penguin, 1994;1st edn 1951),40,127. Stephen J. Whitfield draws attention to the link between Holden Caulfield and Major Kong in his excellent essay ‘Cherished and Cursed: Toward a Social History of The Catcher in the Rye’, New England Quarterly, 70 (1997), 593.
29. Urey, quoted in ‘What Goes on Here?’, Time (6 Feb. 1950), 11.
30. ‘Two Days that Shook the World’, Newsweek (11 Sep. 1961), 15.
31. Seymour Topping, ‘Moscow Cites Berlin Tensions – Boasts of Superbomb Project’, NYT (31 Aug. 1961), 1.
32. ‘Berlin’, Time (8 Sep. 1961), 26.
33. See e.g. Scientific American (Mar. 1961); see also Bell Telephone Co. advert in Harper’s (Sep. 1960),1: ‘How the Air Force puts Titan on target!’
34. ‘The Cold War’, and ‘Russia’, Time (8 Sep. 1961),16, 24.
35. ‘Russian Bomb Put at over 50 Megatons’, Times (31 Oct. 1961), 10.
36. James Feron, ‘Britain is Atomic-War Target, Khrushchev Warns Laborites’, NYT (31 Oct. 1961), 14.
37. ‘Superbomb’, Newsweek (30 Oct. 1961),44–5.
38. ‘If Bombs Do Fall on US – What People Look for’, US News and World Report (25 Sep. 1961), 51.
39. ‘Survival: Are Shelters the Answer?’, Newsweek (6 Nov. 1961), 11.
40. Libby, quoted in ‘The Cold War’, Time (8 Sep. 1961), 16.
41. ‘Almost Nobody Building Shelters – Here is Why’, US News and World Report (25 Sep. 1961),52–3.
42. Val Guest, dir., The Day the Earth Caught Fire, co-written with Wolf Mankowitz (British Lion/Paramount, 1961).
43. Harrison E. Salisbury, ‘Stevenson Asks Eisenhower Policy on Cobalt Bomb’, NYT (27 Oct. 1956), 1.
44. A. H. Weiler, ‘The Day the Earth Caught Fire Opens’, NYT (16 Mar. 1962), 25.
45. Kubrick to Peter George, Nov. 1961; quoted in W. Russell, Glasgow Herald (13 July2000), 6.
46. Adam, quoted in LoBrutto, 231.
47. Szilard, in CW3, 427.
48. ‘Let Our Children Go…’, Newsweek (9 Oct. 1961), 26.
49. W. H. Clark, ‘Chemical and Thermonuclear Explosives’, BAS, 17 (Nov. 1961),356–60.
50. Eugene Rabinowitch, ‘Editor’s Note’, BAS, 17 (Nov. 1961), 359.
51. S. M. Genensky and Olaf Helmer, Glossary of Terms on National Security (RAND Corporation, 1961); quoted in Clark, ‘Chemical and Thermonuclear Explosives’, 360.
52. Joseph Kraft, ‘RAND: Arsenal for Ideas’, Harper’s (July1960), 69.
53. Jeremy Bernstein, speaking in the programme ‘Project Orion’ (BBC4 TV, 2002).
54. Bernard Brodie, ‘Implications for Military Policy’, in Brodie, ed., The Absolute Weapon: Atomic Power and World Order (New York: Harcourt, Brace & Co.,1946), 76.
55. Herman Kahn, Thinking about the Unthinkable (New York: Horizon Press, 1962), review: JackRaymond, ‘A Grim Game for Us All’, NYT (17 June 1962), VII, 10.
56. Quoted in Fred M. Kaplan, The Wizards of Armageddon (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1983), 223.
57. Kenneth E. Boulding, ‘World Economic Development: 1979 and Beyond by Herman Kahn’, Economic Development and Cultural Change, 29 (1981), 645.
58. Thomas Bell, quoted in ‘Herman Kahn, a Leading Thinker On War and the Future, Dies at 61’, NYT (8 July 1983), II, 7.
59. Donald Rumsfeld, after receiving the Hudson Institute’s James H. Doolittle Award on 14 May2003; see http: //www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/05/20030513-9.html.
60. Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War (Princeton University Press, 1961;1st edn 1960), 45–6.
61. James R. Newman, ‘Two Discussions of Thermonuclear War’, Scientific American (Mar. 1961),200, 197.
62. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, 228.
63. Arthur Herzog, ‘Report on a “Think Factory”’, NYT (10 Nov. 1963), VI, 42.
64. ibid.
65. Herman Kahn, ‘A “Doomsday Machine” – Last Word in the Arms Race?’, US News and World Report (1 May 1961),61, 64.
66. Herman Kahn, On Thermonuclear War, 145.
67. John Baxter, Stanley Kubrick: A Biography (London: HarperCollins, 1997), 167.
68. Kahn, On Thermonuclear War,145–51.
69. ibid.,145–51, 524.
70. Peter Bryant, Red Alert (New York: Ace Books, 1958),138; published in the UK as Two Hours to Doom (London: Boardman, 1958). The cobalt bombs are described on p. 79.
71. Bosley Crowther, ‘Dr Strangelove, a Shattering Sick Joke’, NYT (30 Jan. 1964), 24.
Chapter 20
1. Szilard to R. A. Spitz, 29 Mar. 1963; quoted in William Lanouette with Bela Silard, Genius in the Shadows: A Biography of Leo Szilard, The Man Behind the Bomb (University of Chicago Press, 1994; 1st edn 1992), 461.
2. William L. Laurence, ‘Atomic Forecast’, NYT (2 Dec. 1962), IV, 7.
3. Eugene Rabinowitch, ‘New Year’s Thoughts 1963’, BAS, 19 (Jan. 1963), 2.
4. Glenn T. Seaborg, BAS, 19 (Jan. 1963), 2.
5. Seaborg, interview in Laurence, ‘Atomic Forecast’.
6. Eugene P. Wigner, ‘Twentieth Birthday of the Atomic Age’, NYT (2 Dec. 1962), VI, 34, 126.
7. ‘Message from President John F. Kennedy to the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’, BAS, 18 (Dec. 1962), 2.
8. Kubrick, interviewed by A. H. Weiler, NYT (31 Dec. 1962).
9. Letter from Alan Earney, Peter George’s English publisher, ‘Kubrick’s Pies’, Independent (11 Mar. 1999), 2.
10. Kubrick, quoted in Eugene Archer, ‘How to Learn to Love World Destruction’, NYT (26 Jan. 1964), II, 13.
11. ‘Peter George, 41, British Novelist’, NYT (3 June 1966).
12. Terence Young, dir., Dr No (Eon, 1962).
13. Peter George, Dr Strangelove (London: Souvenir,
1999; 1st edn 1963), 36. This is a novelization based on the screenplay.
14. ibid., 54, 156.
15. Kubrick, in conversation with Alexander Walker, in Walker, Peter Sellers: The Authorized Biography; quoted in Vincent LoBrutto, Stanley Kubrick: A Biography (London: Faber, 1998), 239.
16. Lewis Mumford, letter, “‘Strangelove” Reactions’, NYT (1 Mar. 1964), II, 8; Mumford was responding to Bosley Crowther’s reviews: ‘Dr Strangelove, a Shattering SickJoke’, NYT (30 Jan. 1964), 24, and ‘Is Nothing Sacred?’, NYT (2 Feb. 1964), II, 1.
17. Crowther, ‘Dr Strangelove, a Shattering SickJoke’.
18. Tom Milne, ‘Dr Strangelove’, Sight and Sound 33 (Winter 1963/4), 37–8.
19. John Coleman, ‘Dr Strangelove’, New Statesman (31 Jan. 1964), 178.
20. ‘Debate over Strangelove Film Echoes Happily at the Box Office’, NYT (10 Feb. 1964).
21. ‘Late-Night Showings at Columbia Cinema’, Times (6 Feb. 1964), 6.
22. Geoffrey Perrett, A Dream of Greatness: The American People 1945–1963 (New York: Coward, McCann, & Geoghegan, 1979), 726.
23. Brian Aldiss, ‘The Real Kubrick’, Observer (14 Mar. 1999).
24. Sharon Ghamari-Tabrizi, ‘Dr Strangelove’, note 11, http: //www.visualmemory.co.uk/amk/doc/0097.html.
25. Szilard, quoted in Lanouette, 466.
26. Quoted in Tristram Coffin, ‘Leo Szilard: The Conscience of a Scientist’, Holiday (Feb. 1964), 64–7, 92–9.
27. ibid.
28. James Yaffe, ‘Of Fission and Fish’, Saturday Review, 44 (29 Apr. 1961), 16.
29. ‘Leo Szilard Dies; A-Bomb Scientist’, NYT (31 May 1964), 1, 77.
30. ‘Leo Szilard’ (editorial), NYT (1 June 1964), 28.
31. Teller, writing in Disarmament and Arms Control (Autumn 1964), 453; quoted in Lanouette, 479.
32. Quoted in Martin Walker, The Cold War and the Making of the Modern World (London: Vintage, 1994), 179.
33. ‘A Weapon to Kill Everybody… or Just Cold-War Bluster?’, US News and World Report (28 Sep 1964), 8.
34. ibid.
35. Bruce G. Blair, ‘Russia’s Doomsday Machine’, NYT (8 Oct. 1993), A, 35. The story was not long in reaching Britain: see Steve Doughty, ‘Doomsday at Mercy of a Faulty Switch’, Daily Mail (9 Oct. 1993), 12.
36. George, 109.
37. Blair, 35; for further information see Steven J. Zaloga, The Kremlin’s Nuclear Sword: The Rise and Fall of Russia’s Strategic Nuclear Forces, 1945–2000 (Washington: Smithsonian Institution, 2002).
38. Bruce Blair, ‘We Keep Building Nukes For All the Wrong Reasons’, Washington Post (25 May 2003), also at http: //www.cdi.org/blair/newnukes.cfm.
39. Zaloga, 199–201.
Epilogue
1. Damon Albarn, quoted in ‘Marchers Revive Nuclear Protest’, 9 April 2004, http: //news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3613393.stm.
2. Leo Szilard, ‘Answers to Questions’, dictated 9 May 1963; in CW2, 229.
3. ‘Government Say Keep Away from Bases’, Times (8 Dec. 1961), 14.
4. ‘Minister Sums up Invasion of Wethersfield – A Flop’, Times (11 Dec. 1961), 6.
5. ‘Shabby “Success”, Says Lord Russell’, Times (11 Dec. 1961), 6.
6. Bernard Charles Cyril Smith, ‘Application to Local Tribunal by a Person Provisionally Registered in the Register of Conscientious Objectors’ (Form N.S. 14), 7 Oct. 1943; the court hearing before His Honour Judge G. P. Hargreaves was on 4 Nov. 1943, as recorded on ‘Form N.S. 14 (continuation)’; copies in the author’s possession.
7. Bernard Smith to Avril Haas, Dec.? 1959.
List of Illustrations
The world’s first nuclear reactor, CP-1, goes critical on 2 December 1942. (Courtesy US National Archives and Records Administration, photo no. 326-PV-4(4))
The University of Chicago Round Table, 26 February 1950. (New York Times/Redux)
Research scientist Sanford Lawrence Simons – the ‘plutonium collector’.(AP/EMPICS)
Marie and Pierre Curie pictured in Vanity Fair (1904). (Science Museum Pictorial/Science and Society Picture Library)
Illustration for W. J. Wintle’s 1901 article ‘Life in Our New Century’. (Mary Evans Picture Library)
Fritz Haber in military uniform, 1916. (Archiv der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem)
An aerial view of a German gas attack on the Eastern Front in World War I. (From Francis A. March, History of the World War: An Authentic Narrative of the World’s Greatest War (Philadelphia: United Publishers, 1919)/(http: //firstworldwar.com)
British officers watch the devastation caused by the instantaneous motor-bombs. (From Frank Stockton’s The Great War Syndicate of 1889)
The ‘radio-active energy’ of John King’s superweapon makes battleships vanish like a ‘bursting soap-bubble’.(Illustration by Charles Grunwald)
Pax’s ‘Flying Ring’ uses its atomic disintegrating ray to destroy the Atlas Mountains. (Illustration by Walter L. Greene)
Albert Einstein and Fritz Haber in 1914. (S. Tamaru/Archiv der Max-Planck-Gesellschaft, Berlin-Dahlem)
Eugene Wigner in about 1948. (AIP Emilio Segrè Visual Archives)
‘The War of the Future’. (Unnamed artist; Mary Evans Picture Library)
Scientists attending the 1932 Copenhagen conference. (Courtesy Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
Cover of the script for the 1932 Copenhagen performance of Faust. (Courtesy Niels Bohr Archive, Copenhagen)
Caricature of H. G. Wells from 1913. (Illustration by 220 ‘Tom Titt’ (J. J. Rosciszewski); Mary Evans Picture Library)
Cover illustration for Isaac R. Nathanson’s ‘The World Aflame’. (Illustration by Leo Morey)
Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard re-enacting the signing of their letter to President Roosevelt. (Time Life Pictures/Getty Images)
Fourth-anniversary reunion of CP-1 scientists, 2 December 1946. (Corbis)
A V-2 rocket being prepared for launch at Cuxhaven, Germany, 1945. (Science Museum/Science and Society Picture Library)
Amazing Stories in October 1939 tries to predict what a 293 future atomic power plant will look like. (Mary Evans Picture Library)
Science fiction seemed to have predicted many aspects of the cold-war world. (Science Fiction Quarterly)
Norris E. Bradbury next to the atomic bomb that was exploded in the Trinity test, July 1945. (Corbis)
The Trinity atomic test. (Courtesy US National Archives and 312 Records Administration, photo no. 434-N-65(7539))
A mother and her son in Nagasaki on 10 August 1945, the day after the atomic bomb was dropped. (Photograph by Yosuke Yamahata; Courtesy US National Archives and Records Administration, photo no. 434-OR-75(1))
Aerial view of the smoking ruins of New York City after an atomic attack, from the 1952 film Invasion USA.(Columbia Tristar/Getty Images)
The 1951 Avon edition of Philip Wylie’s The Smuggled Atom Bomb.
John von Neumann receives the Medal of Freedom at the White House from President Eisenhower, on 16 February 1956. (Bettmann/Corbis)
Cover by David E. Pattee for Astounding Science Fiction, November 1950. (Mary Evans Picture Library)
Portrait of Leo Szilard in his sixties. (Photographed by Tita Binz/Corbis)
Journalists and military personnel witness the Charlie nuclear test, 22 April 1952. (Courtesy US National Archives and Records Administration, photo no. 434-RF-10(5))
The 1958 thriller Red Alert by Peter Bryant (aka Peter George).
Edward Teller next to a model of the Tsar Bomba, the biggest ever hydrogen bomb. (ITAR-TASS/Valery Bushukhin)
Wernher von Braun, pictured in about 1947. (Keystone/Getty Images)
Peter Sellers taking the title role in Stanley Kubrick’s Dr Strangelove (1964). (Hulton Archive/Getty Images)
Company Sergeant Major Albert Edward Smith, around 1915.
Bernard Smith saluting the flag in about 1931.
Bibliography
This bibliography includes the major works of fiction, non-fiction and th
e cinema that are referenced in the notes, as well as other books, articles, stories and films of interest. However, it does not list references to sources such as newspaper articles, archives and websites which are included in the notes.
Fiction
Anderson, Poul, ‘Tomorrow’s Children’ (1947). In Miller and Greenberg, eds., Beyond Armageddon.
Asimov, Isaac, ed., Before the Golden Age: A Science Fiction Anthology of the 1930s (New York: Doubleday, 1974).
—— and Greenberg, Martin Harry, eds., The Golden Years of Science Fiction, 2nd series (New York: Bonanza, 1983).
Austin, FrederickBritten, “‘Planes!’” (1913). In Clarke, ed., The Tale of the Next Great War.
Avallone, Michael, Beneath the Planet of the Apes (New York: Bantam, 1970).
Ballard, J. G., ‘The Terminal Beach’ (1964). In Gunn, ed., The Road to Science Fiction.
Barr, Densil Neve, The Man with Only One Head (London: Digit Books, 1962; 1st edn 1955).
Barr, Robert, ‘The Doom of London’, The Idler, 2 (Aug. 1892–Jan. 1893), 397–409.
Bell, Neil, The Lord of Life (London: Collins, 1933).
Benet, Stephen Vincent, ‘By the Waters of Babylon’ (1937). In Miller and Greenberg, eds., Beyond Armageddon.
Benford, Gregory and Greenberg, Martin Harry, eds., Nuclear War (New York: Ace Books, 1988).
Bester, Alfred, ‘Adam and No Eve’ (1941). In Asimov and Greenberg, eds., The Golden Years of Science Fiction, 2nd series.
—— ‘Disappearing Act’ (1953). In Malzberg and Pronzini, eds., The End of Summer.
Bone, J. F., ‘Triggerman’ (1958). In Benford and Greenberg, eds., Nuclear War.
Boulle, Pierre, ‘E = mc2’ (1966), in Time Out of Mind (New York: Signet Books, 1969; 1st edn 1966).
Brackett, Leigh, The Long Tomorrow (New York: Ace, 1955).
Bradbury, Ray, ‘The Million-Year Picnic’ (1946). In Gunn, ed., The Road to Science Fiction.
—— ‘There Will Come Soft Rains’ (1950). In Miller and Greenberg, eds., Beyond Armageddon.
Brecht, Bertolt, Leben des Galilei (Berlin: Suhrkamp, 1972; 1st edn 1955).
Brown, Frederic, ‘The Weapon’ (1951). In Benford and Greenberg, eds., Nuclear War.
