POSTSCRIPT --
THE NUCLEAR AGE
(1945-present)
Events
The end of the Second World War brought with it a whole
new set of issues and problems, not least of which was the dilemma
of
what to do with the nuclear genie now that he had been let out of the
bottle. In the United States, and around the world, news
of the atomic bomb created among the public a sense of shock and awe. 
Manhattan Engineer District officials took certain obvious steps such as slowing
down the program from its wartime pace, but the
assembly of additional nuclear weapons did quietly continue.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, top government officials focused
on the possible impact of the bomb on postwar international
relations. The first
hesitant steps toward developing a policy on international control of the
atom began before the end of the war. Following Hiroshima
and Nagasaki, the novelty of the bomb as a factor in international affairs
and doubts
about the trustworthiness of the Soviet Union produced
uncertainty on how to proceed in the search
for a policy. In November 1945, the United States, Britain,
and Canada agreed to approach the Soviet Union about negotiating
an agreement on international control at the new United Nations.
Negotiations eventually collapsed when issues of national security and national sovereignty made agreement impossible.
The American
nuclear weapons program was officially transferred into civilian hands
with the creation in 1946 of the Atomic Energy Commission. That same
summer, the United States conducted a high profile
series of atomic tests known as "Operation Crossroads."
Also beginning in 1946, the United States gradually began to realize, largely
through the VENONA decryption of Soviet intelligence
cables, how the Manhattan Project had been penetrated by
communist spies. Atomic espionage and the failure of atomic diplomacy combined with a host of other, even more
significant, factors to produce a "Cold War"
between the Soviet Union and the United States. By the time the
Cold
War and its attendant arms race had come to an end,
other nations also had developed nuclear weapons. As the world approached the end of the
twentieth-century, attention increasingly turned
to preventing any additional nations from acquiring the atomic bomb.
To learn more about any of these events associated with the nuclear age since
1945, choose a web page from the menu below.
The Manhattan
Project
