The Hydrogen Bomb

[1954]
IN: London Is The Place For Me 7 (Calypso, Palm-Wine, Mento, Joropo, Steel & String Band), 2019





"The Soviet nuclear test in August 1949, coupled with the “fall” of China to Communism later that year, struck fear in many Americans. The perceived balance of power that had existed between the Western countries and the Communist Bloc since World War II seemed to have radically shifted in the Communists’ favor. [...] The debate over whether or not to build the super would be played out in the last months of 1949 and Truman’s decision in January 1950 would drastically alter the course of the Cold War. [...] Two and a half years later on November 1, 1952, the United States tested its first ever thermonuclear device at Eniwetok Atoll in the South Pacific. The Mike Shot, as it was known, yielded 10 megatons of TNT and was roughly 1000 times larger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima seven years earlier. Less than a year later, the Soviets exploded their first thermonuclear weapon. By 1953, the nuclear arms race was on."
(from the website of the Atomic Heritage Foundation: https://ahf.nuclearmuseum.org/ahf/history/hydrogen-bomb-1950/