Leo Szilard and James Franck, key scientists working on the bomb, were very disturbed about the dangers of nuclear power. Szilard predicted in July 1945: “Perhaps the greatest immediate danger which faces us is the probability that our ‘demonstration’ of atomic bombs will precipitate a race in the production of these devices between the United States and Russia.”
After Truman’s decision to bomb Hiroshima, U.S.-Soviet relations were strained. Both countries mistrusted each other. Soviets took control over uranium-rich Eastern Bloc countries and the Iron Curtain dropped. America’s monopoly over nuclear power ended when the Soviets, in 1949, were able to test their own atomic weapon, a copy of the “Fat Man” bomb dropped on Nagasaki. Truman’s decision was a turning point because it started the Cold War and the nuclear arms race, a 45-year conflict when people lived in fear of the destruction of the world.
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During the Cold War (1946-1991), there was strong competition between the Soviets and the Americans in the development of weapons and technologies and disagreements over ideologies. By 1961, there were enough nuclear missiles to destroy the whole world. Both nations kept stockpiling nuclear weapons. The race quickened when the U.S. developed the hydrogen bomb, which was 2,500 times more powerful than the atomic bomb. |
Nuclear Tests |
"When I was in the White House, I was confronted with the challenge of the Cold War. Both the Soviet Union and I had 30,000 nuclear weapons that could destroy the entire earth and I had to maintain the peace." –Jimmy Carter
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America wanted to show strength, not weakness; consequently they continued a “vigorous arms program.” |
In a race to become the greatest superpower, the U.S. and the Soviet Union began developing technologies that would allow them to launch rockets and satellites into space. The Soviets were the first to launch a satellite, Sputnik. Americans feared being left behind. |
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The Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty of 1968 helped cool the arms race. U.S.-Soviet relations improved in the 1980s. The Cold War finally ended in 1991 when the Soviet Union ceased to exist and the Berlin wall fell.
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