William Laurence, the New York Times science reporter attached to the Manhattan Project, explains for lay readers what was publicly known about the hydrogen bomb and what it would mean. He weighs whether the United States should renounce it, draws lessons from the Korean War, and adds a primer of atomic energy, stressing he had no access to classified information.
A vivid early Cold War document of how Americans were taught to think about the H-bomb. Download the free EPUB.