“I am not the simplest person,” the American physicist Isidor Isaac Rabi once remarked. “But compared to Oppenheimer, I am very, very simple.” Robert Oppenheimer was one of central figures of the twentieth century, the very "complexity" of which absorbed the political and ethical contradictions of the country.

During World War II, the brilliant led the development of American nuclear scientists to create the first atomic bomb in the history of mankind. The scientist led a secluded and secluded life, and this gave rise to suspicions of treason.

Atomic weapons are the result of all previous developments in science and technology. Discoveries that are directly related to its occurrence were made at the end of the 19th century. a huge role the studies of A. Becquerel, Pierre Curie and Marie Sklodowska-Curie, E. Rutherford and others played in revealing the secrets of the atom.

In early 1939, the French physicist Joliot-Curie concluded that a chain reaction was possible that would lead to an explosion of monstrous destructive power and that uranium could become an energy source, like an ordinary explosive. This conclusion was the impetus for the development of nuclear weapons.

Europe was on the eve of World War II, and the potential possession of such a powerful weapon pushed militaristic circles to create it as soon as possible, but the problem of the availability of a large amount of uranium ore for large-scale research was a brake. The physicists of Germany, England, the USA, and Japan worked on the creation of atomic weapons, realizing that it was impossible to work without a sufficient amount of uranium ore, the USA in September 1940 purchased a large amount of the required ore under false documents from Belgium, which allowed them to work on the creation nuclear weapons in full swing.

From 1939 to 1945, more than two billion dollars were spent on the Manhattan Project. A huge uranium refinery was built at Oak Ridge, Tennessee. H.C. Urey and Ernest O. Lawrence (inventor of the cyclotron) proposed a purification method based on the principle of gaseous diffusion followed by magnetic separation two isotopes. gas centrifuge separated the light Uranium-235 from the heavier Uranium-238.

On the territory of the United States, in Los Alamos, in the desert expanses of the state of New Mexico, in 1942, an American nuclear center. Many scientists worked on the project, but the main one was Robert Oppenheimer. Under his leadership, the best minds of that time were gathered not only from the USA and England, but from almost all of Western Europe. A huge team worked on the creation of nuclear weapons, including 12 Nobel Prize winners. Work in Los Alamos, where the laboratory was located, did not stop for a minute. In Europe, meanwhile, the Second World War was going on, and Germany carried out mass bombing of the cities of England, which endangered the English atomic project “Tub Alloys”, and England voluntarily transferred its developments and leading scientists of the project to the USA, which allowed the USA to take a leading position in the development of nuclear physics (creation of nuclear weapons).

"", he at the same time was an ardent opponent of American nuclear policy. Bearing the title of one of the most outstanding physicists of his time, he studied with pleasure the mysticism of ancient Indian books. A communist, traveler and staunch American patriot, a very spiritual person, he was nevertheless willing to betray his friends in order to defend himself against the attacks of anti-communists. The scientist who devised a plan to cause the most damage to Hiroshima and Nagasaki cursed himself for "innocent blood on his hands."

write about it controversial person the task is not easy, but interesting, and the twentieth century is marked by a number of books about it. However, the rich life of the scientist continues to attract biographers.

Oppenheimer was born in New York in 1903 to wealthy and educated Jewish parents. Oppenheimer was brought up in love for painting, music, in an atmosphere of intellectual curiosity. In 1922, he entered Harvard University and in just three years received an honors degree, his main subject was chemistry. In the next few years, the precocious young man traveled to several countries in Europe, where he worked with physicists who dealt with the problems of investigating atomic phenomena in the light of new theories. Just a year after graduating from university, Oppenheimer published a scientific paper that showed how deeply he understood new methods. Soon he, together with the famous Max Born, developed essential part quantum theory, known as the Born-Oppenheimer method. In 1927, his outstanding doctoral dissertation brought him worldwide fame.

In 1928 he worked at the Zurich and Leiden universities. In the same year he returned to the USA. From 1929 to 1947 Oppenheimer taught at the University of California and the California Institute of Technology. From 1939 to 1945 he actively participated in the work on the creation of an atomic bomb as part of the Manhattan Project; heading the specially created Los Alamos laboratory.

In 1929, Oppenheimer, a rising star in science, accepted offers from two of several universities that were vying for the right to invite him. During the spring semester he taught at the vibrant, fledgling Caltech in Pasadena, and the fall and winter semesters at UC Berkeley, where he became the first professor of quantum mechanics. In fact, the erudite scholar had to adjust for some time, gradually reducing the level of discussion to the capabilities of his students. In 1936 he fell in love with Jean Tatlock, a restless and moody young woman whose passionate idealism found expression in communist activities. Like many thoughtful people of the time, Oppenheimer explored the ideas of the left movement as one of the possible alternatives, although he did not join the Communist Party, which his younger brother, sister-in-law and many of his friends did. His interest in politics, as well as his ability to read Sanskrit, was the natural result of a constant pursuit of knowledge. In his own words, he was also deeply disturbed by the explosion of anti-Semitism in Nazi Germany and Spain and invested $1,000 a year from his $15,000 annual salary in projects related to the activities of communist groups. After meeting Kitty Harrison, who became his wife in 1940, Oppenheimer parted ways with Jean Tetlock and moved away from her circle of leftist friends.

In 1939, the United States learned that in preparation for a global war, Hitler's Germany had discovered the fission atomic nucleus. Oppenheimer and other scientists immediately guessed that the German physicists would try to create a controlled chain reaction that could be the key to creating a weapon far more destructive than any that existed at that time. Enlisting the support of the great scientific genius, Albert Einstein, concerned scientists warned President Franklin D. Roosevelt of the danger in a famous letter. In authorizing funding for projects aimed at creating untested weapons, the president acted in strict secrecy. Ironically, many of the world's leading scientists, forced to flee their homeland, worked together with American scientists in laboratories scattered throughout the country. One part of the university groups explored the possibility of creating a nuclear reactor, others took up the solution of the problem of separating the isotopes of uranium necessary for the release of energy in a chain reaction. Oppenheimer, who had previously been occupied with theoretical problems, was offered to organize a wide front of work only at the beginning of 1942.

The US Army's atomic bomb program was codenamed Project Manhattan and was led by Colonel Leslie R. Groves, 46, a professional military man. Groves, who described the scientists working on the atomic bomb as "a costly bunch of lunatics," however, acknowledged that Oppenheimer had an ability, hitherto untapped, to control his fellow debaters when the heat was on. The physicist proposed that all scientists be united in one laboratory in the quiet provincial town of Los Alamos, New Mexico, in an area that he knew well. By March 1943, the boarding house for boys had been turned into a tightly guarded secret center, of which Oppenheimer became scientific director. By insisting on the free exchange of information between scientists, who were strictly forbidden to leave the center, Oppenheimer created an atmosphere of trust and mutual respect which contributed to the amazing success in the work. Not sparing himself, he remained the head of all areas of this complex project, although his personal life suffered greatly from this. But for a mixed group of scientists—who included more than a dozen current or future Nobel laureates, and of whom a rare individual did not possess a distinct personality—Oppenheimer was an unusually dedicated leader and subtle diplomat. Most of them would agree that the lion's share of the credit for the project's eventual success belongs to him. By December 30, 1944, Groves, who by that time had become a general, could confidently say that the two billion dollars spent would be ready for action by August 1 of the next year. But when Germany admitted defeat in May 1945, many of the researchers working at Los Alamos began to think about using new weapons. After all, probably, Japan would have capitulated soon without the atomic bombing. Should the United States be the first country in the world to use such a terrible device? Harry S. Truman, who became president after Roosevelt's death, appointed a committee to study the possible consequences of using the atomic bomb, which included Oppenheimer. Experts decided to recommend dropping an atomic bomb without warning on a major Japanese military facility. Oppenheimer's consent was also obtained.

All these worries would, of course, be moot if the bomb had not gone off. The test of the world's first atomic bomb was carried out on July 16, 1945, about 80 kilometers from the air base in Alamogordo, New Mexico. The device under test, named "Fat Man" for its convex shape, was attached to a steel tower set up in a desert area. Exactly at 5.30 am the detonator with remote control triggered the bomb. With an echoing roar across a 1.6-kilometer diameter area, a giant purple-green-orange rose into the sky. fire ball. The earth shook from the explosion, the tower disappeared. A white column of smoke rapidly rose to the sky and began to gradually expand, taking on an awesome mushroom shape at an altitude of about 11 kilometers. The first nuclear explosion startled scientific and military observers near the test site and turned their heads. But Oppenheimer remembered the lines from the Indian epic poem Bhagavad Gita: "I will become Death, the destroyer of worlds." Until the end of his life, satisfaction from scientific success was always mixed with a sense of responsibility for the consequences.

On the morning of August 6, 1945, there was a clear, cloudless sky over Hiroshima. As before, the approach from the east of two american aircraft(one of them was called Enola Gay) at an altitude of 10-13 km did not cause alarm (because every day they appeared in the sky of Hiroshima). One of the planes dived and dropped something, and then both planes turned and flew away. The dropped object on a parachute slowly descended and suddenly exploded at an altitude of 600 m above the ground. It was the "Baby" bomb.

Three days after The Kid was blown up in Hiroshima, exact copy The first "Fat Man" was dropped on the city of Nagasaki. On August 15, Japan, whose resolve had finally been broken by this new weapon, signed unconditional surrender. However, the voices of skeptics were already being heard, and Oppenheimer himself predicted two months after Hiroshima that "mankind will curse the names of Los Alamos and Hiroshima."

The whole world was shocked by the explosions in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Tellingly, Oppenheimer managed to combine the excitement of testing a bomb on civilians and the joy that the weapon had finally been tested.

Nevertheless, he accepted the appointment to the post of chairman the following year. scientific council Atomic Energy Commission (AEC), thus becoming the most influential adviser to the government and the military on nuclear issues. While the West and the Stalin-led Soviet Union were seriously preparing for the Cold War, each side focused its attention on the arms race. Although many of the scientists involved in the Manhattan Project did not support the idea of ​​​​creating new weapons, former Oppenheimer employees Edward Teller and Ernest Lawrence felt that US national security required the rapid development of hydrogen bomb. Oppenheimer was horrified. From his point of view, the two nuclear powers were already confronting each other like “two scorpions in a jar, each able to kill the other, but only at the risk of own life". With the proliferation of new weapons, there would no longer be winners and losers in wars, only victims. And the "father of the atomic bomb" made a public statement that he was against the development of the hydrogen bomb. Always feeling out of place under Oppenheimer and clearly envious of his achievements, Teller began to make efforts to lead new project, implying that Oppenheimer should no longer be involved in the work. He told FBI investigators that his rival was keeping scientists from working on the hydrogen bomb with his authority, and revealed the secret that Oppenheimer suffered bouts of severe depression in his youth. When President Truman agreed in 1950 to finance the development of the hydrogen bomb, Teller could celebrate victory.

In 1954, Oppenheimer's enemies launched a campaign to remove him from power, which they succeeded after a month-long search for "black spots" in his personal biography. As a result, a show case was organized in which Oppenheimer was opposed by many influential political and scientific figures. As Albert Einstein later put it: "Oppenheimer's problem was that he loved a woman who didn't love him: the US government."

By allowing Oppenheimer's talent to flourish, America doomed him to death.

Oppenheimer is known not only as the creator of the American atomic bomb. He owns many works on quantum mechanics, theory of relativity, elementary particle physics, theoretical astrophysics. In 1927 he developed the theory of the interaction of free electrons with atoms. Together with Born, he created the theory of structure diatomic molecules. In 1931, he and P. Ehrenfest formulated a theorem, the application of which to the nitrogen nucleus showed that the proton-electron hypothesis of the structure of nuclei leads to a number of contradictions with the known properties of nitrogen. Investigated the internal conversion of g-rays. In 1937 he developed the cascade theory of cosmic showers, in 1938 he made the first calculation of the model neutron star, in 1939 predicted the existence of "black holes".

Oppenheimer owns a number of popular books, including - Science and everyday knowledge (Science and the Common Understanding, 1954), Open Mind (The Open Mind, 1955), Some Reflections on Science and Culture (1960). Oppenheimer died in Princeton on February 18, 1967.

Work on nuclear projects in the USSR and the USA began simultaneously. In August 1942, a secret "Laboratory No. 2" began to work in one of the buildings in the courtyard of Kazan University. Igor Kurchatov was appointed its leader.

In Soviet times, it was claimed that the USSR solved its atomic problem completely independently, and Kurchatov was considered the "father" of the domestic atomic bomb. Although there were rumors about some secrets stolen from the Americans. And only in the 90s, 50 years later, one of the main characters then, Yuli Khariton, spoke about significant role intelligence in accelerating the straggler Soviet project. And American scientific and technical results were obtained by Klaus Fuchs, who arrived in the English group.

Information from abroad helped the country's leadership to take difficult decision- to begin work on nuclear weapons during the most difficult war. Exploration allowed our physicists to save time, helped to avoid a "misfire" at the first atomic test which was of great political importance.

In 1939, a chain reaction of fission of uranium-235 nuclei was discovered, accompanied by the release of colossal energy. Shortly thereafter from the pages scientific journals articles on nuclear physics began to disappear. This could indicate a real prospect of creating an atomic explosive and weapons based on it.

After the discovery by Soviet physicists of the spontaneous fission of uranium-235 nuclei and the determination of the critical mass, a corresponding directive was sent to the residency at the initiative of the head of the scientific and technological revolution L. Kvasnikov.

In the FSB of Russia (the former KGB of the USSR), 17 volumes of archival file No. 13676, which documented who and how attracted US citizens to work for Soviet intelligence, lie under the heading "keep forever" under the heading "keep forever". Only a few of the top leadership of the KGB of the USSR had access to the materials of this case, the classification of which was removed only recently. Soviet intelligence received the first information about the work on the creation of the American atomic bomb in the fall of 1941. And already in March 1942, extensive information about the ongoing research in the United States and England fell on the table of I.V. Stalin. According to Yu. B. Khariton, in that dramatic period it was more reliable to use the bomb scheme already tested by the Americans for our first explosion. “Given the interests of the state, any other decision was then unacceptable. The merit of Fuchs and our other assistants abroad is undeniable. However, we implemented the American scheme in the first test not so much from technical as from political considerations.

The message that the Soviet Union had mastered the secret of nuclear weapons caused ruling circles The US desire to unleash a preventive war as soon as possible. The Troyan plan was developed, which provided for the start of hostilities on January 1, 1950. At that time, the United States had 840 strategic bombers in combat units, 1350 in reserve and over 300 atomic bombs.

A test site was built near the city of Semipalatinsk. Exactly at 7:00 am on August 29, 1949, the first Soviet nuclear device under the code name "RDS-1" was blown up at this test site.

The Troyan plan, according to which atomic bombs were to be dropped on 70 cities of the USSR, was thwarted due to the threat of a retaliatory strike. The event that took place at the Semipalatinsk test site informed the world about the creation of nuclear weapons in the USSR.

Foreign intelligence not only drew the attention of the country's leadership to the problem of creating atomic weapons in the West and thereby initiated similar work in our country. Thanks to information from foreign intelligence, according to academicians A. Aleksandrov, Yu. Khariton and others, I. Kurchatov did not big mistakes, we managed to avoid dead ends in the creation of atomic weapons and create more short time an atomic bomb in the USSR, in just three years, while the United States spent four years on it, spending five billion dollars on its creation.

As academician Y. Khariton noted in an interview with the Izvestia newspaper on December 8, 1992, the first Soviet atomic charge was made according to the American model with the help of information received from K. Fuchs. According to the academician, when government awards were presented to participants in the Soviet nuclear project, Stalin, satisfied that there was no American monopoly in this area, remarked: "If we were late for one or a year and a half, then we would probably try this charge on ourselves."
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The question of the creators of the first Soviet nuclear bomb is quite controversial and requires a more detailed study, but who really father of the Soviet atomic bomb, there are several entrenched opinions. Most physicists and historians believe that the main contribution to the creation of Soviet nuclear weapons was made by Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov. However, some express the opinion that without Yuli Borisovich Khariton, the founder of Arzamas-16 and the creator of the industrial basis for obtaining enriched fissile isotopes, the first test of this type of weapon in the Soviet Union would have dragged on for several more years.

Consider historical sequence conducting research and development work to create a practical sample of an atomic bomb, leaving aside theoretical studies fissile materials and the conditions for the occurrence of a chain reaction, without which a nuclear explosion is impossible.

For the first time, a series of applications for obtaining copyright certificates for the invention (patents) of the atomic bomb was filed in 1940 by employees of the Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology F. Lange, V. Spinel and V. Maslov. The authors considered issues and proposed solutions for the enrichment of uranium and its use as an explosive. The proposed bomb had a classic detonation scheme (gun type), which was later, with some modifications, used to initiate a nuclear explosion in American uranium-based nuclear bombs.

The outbreak of the Great Patriotic War slowed down the theoretical and experimental studies in the field of nuclear physics, and major centers(Kharkov Institute of Physics and Technology and Radium Institute - Leningrad) ceased their activities and were partially evacuated.

Beginning in September 1941, the intelligence agencies of the NKVD and the Main Intelligence Directorate of the Red Army began to receive an increasing amount of information about the special interest shown in the military circles of Great Britain in the development of explosives based on fissile isotopes. In May 1942, the Main Intelligence Directorate, summarizing the materials received, reported to the State Defense Committee (GKO) on the military purpose of ongoing nuclear research.

Around the same time, Lieutenant Technician Georgy Nikolayevich Flerov, who in 1940 was one of the discoverers of spontaneous fission of uranium nuclei, wrote a letter personally to I.V. Stalin. In his message, the future academician, one of the creators of Soviet nuclear weapons, draws attention to the fact that publications on works related to the fission of the atomic nucleus have disappeared from the scientific press in Germany, Great Britain and the United States. According to the scientist, this may indicate the reorientation of "pure" science in the practical military field.

October-November 1942 foreign intelligence The NKVD reports to L.P. Beria, all available information about work in the field of nuclear research, obtained by illegal intelligence officers in England and the USA, on the basis of which the People's Commissar writes a memorandum to the head of state.

At the end of September 1942, I.V. Stalin signs the decree State Committee defense on the resumption and intensification of "works on uranium", and in February 1943, after studying the materials submitted by L.P. Beria, a decision is made to transfer all research on the creation of nuclear weapons (atomic bombs) into a "practical channel". General management and coordination of all types of work were entrusted to the Deputy Chairman of the GKO V.M. Molotov, the scientific management of the project was entrusted to I.V. Kurchatov. The management of work on the search for deposits and the extraction of uranium ore was entrusted to A.P. Zavenyagin, M.G. was responsible for the creation of enterprises for the enrichment of uranium and the production of heavy water. Pervukhin, and People's Commissar non-ferrous metallurgy P.F. Lomako "trusted" by 1944 to accumulate 0.5 tons of metallic (enriched to the required standards) uranium.

At this point, the first stage (the deadlines for which were thwarted), providing for the creation of an atomic bomb in the USSR, was completed.

After the United States dropped atomic bombs on Japanese cities, the leadership of the USSR saw with their own eyes the backlog of scientific research and practical work on the creation of nuclear weapons from their competitors. To intensify and create an atomic bomb as soon as possible, on August 20, 1945, a special decree of the GKO was issued on the creation of Special Committee No. 1, whose functions included organizing and coordinating all types of work to create a nuclear bomb. L.P. is appointed the head of this emergency body with unlimited powers. Beria, the scientific leadership is entrusted to I.V. Kurchatov. The direct management of all research, design and production enterprises was to be carried out by the People's Commissar for Armaments B.L. Vannikov.

Due to the fact that scientific, theoretical and experimental studies were completed, intelligence data on the organization of industrial production of uranium and plutonium were obtained, the scouts obtained schemes for American atomic bombs, the greatest difficulty was the transfer of all types of work to an industrial basis. To create enterprises for the production of plutonium, the city of Chelyabinsk - 40 was built from scratch (scientific supervisor I.V. Kurchatov). In the village of Sarov (future Arzamas - 16), a plant was built for the assembly and production on an industrial scale of the atomic bombs themselves (supervisor - chief designer Yu.B. Khariton).

Thanks to the optimization of all types of work and strict control over them by L.P. Beria, who, however, did not prevent creative development incorporated into the projects of ideas, in July 1946 were developed terms of reference to create the first two Soviet atomic bombs:

• "RDS - 1" - a bomb with a plutonium charge, the explosion of which was carried out according to the implosive type;
• "RDS - 2" - a bomb with a cannon detonation of a uranium charge.

I.V. Kurchatov.

Paternity rights

Tests of the first atomic bomb created in the USSR "RDS - 1" (abbreviation in different sources stands for - "jet engine C" or "Russia makes itself") took place in last days August 1949 in Semipalatinsk under the direct supervision of Yu.B. Khariton. The power of the nuclear charge was 22 kilotons. However, from the point of view of modern copyright law, it is impossible to attribute paternity to this product to any of the Russian (Soviet) citizens. Earlier, when developing the first practical model suitable for military use, the Government of the USSR and the leadership of Special Project No. 1 decided to copy the domestic implosion bomb with a plutonium charge from the American Fat Man prototype dropped on the Japanese city of Nagasaki as much as possible. Thus, the “fatherhood” of the first nuclear bomb of the USSR rather belongs to General Leslie Groves, the military leader of the Manhattan project, and Robert Oppenheimer, known throughout the world as the “father of the atomic bomb” and who provided scientific leadership on the project. "Manhattan". The main difference between the Soviet model and the American one is the use of domestic electronics in the detonation system and a change in the aerodynamic shape of the bomb body.

The first "purely" Soviet atomic bomb can be considered the product "RDS - 2". Despite the fact that it was originally planned to copy the American uranium prototype "Kid", the Soviet uranium atomic bomb "RDS - 2" was created in an implosive version, which had no analogues at that time. L.P. participated in its creation. Beria - general project management, I.V. Kurchatov is the scientific supervisor of all types of work and Yu.B. Khariton is the scientific adviser and chief designer responsible for the manufacture of a practical sample of the bomb and its testing.

Speaking about who is the father of the first Soviet atomic bomb, one should not lose sight of the fact that both RDS - 1 and RDS - 2 were blown up at the test site. The first atomic bomb dropped from the Tu - 4 bomber was the RDS - 3 product. Its design repeated the RDS-2 implosion bomb, but had a combined uranium-plutonium charge, thanks to which it was possible to increase its power, with the same dimensions, up to 40 kilotons. Therefore, in many publications, academician Igor Kurchatov is considered the “scientific” father of the first atomic bomb actually dropped from an aircraft, since his colleague in the scientific workshop, Yuli Khariton, was categorically against making any changes. The fact that in the entire history of the USSR L.P. Beria and I.V. Kurchatov were the only ones who in 1949 were awarded the title of Honorary Citizen of the USSR - "... for the implementation of the Soviet atomic project, the creation of an atomic bomb."

Julius Borisovich Khariton (1904 - 1996)

Scientific director of the Soviet atomic bomb project, an outstanding Soviet and Russian theoretical physicist and physical chemist.

Laureate of Lenin (1956) and three Stalin Prizes (1949, 1951, 1953).

Three times Hero of Socialist Labor (1949, 1951, 1954).

On August 29, 1949, at 7 o'clock in the morning, the first Soviet atomic bomb was detonated several hundred kilometers from the city of Semipalatinsk.

10 days before this event, a special letter train with a “product”, as the bomb was called in the documents, left an unspecified on any map secret city"Arzamas-16" to deliver the "product" and its creators to the test site.

The group of scientists and designers was headed by a man who knew this bomb by heart, all its thousands of details, and who, with his career and, one might say, his life, was responsible for the test results.

This man was Julius Borisovich Khariton.

Jewish boy Yulik Khariton grew up without a mother from the age of 6. He was born in 1904 in St. Petersburg. His mother, Mira Yakovlevna Burovskaya, was an actress at the Moscow Art Theater. She played "Mityla" in the play " Blue bird". Father Boris Iosifovich Khariton, a well-known journalist and liberal, edited the cadet newspaper Rech. Yulik's family lived nervously, in two houses.

In 1910, my mother went to Germany for treatment, but never returned, got married there and in 1933, having left Berlin, went to Tel Aviv, where, having lived a long life, she died at a ripe old age.

And in 1922, the Bolsheviks sent my father, along with other ideologically alien intellectuals, on the notorious steamer abroad. My father continued to be a liberal and published the newspaper Segodnya in Riga. In 1940, the Bolsheviks captured Latvia, and Boris Iosifovich Khariton disappeared forever in the cellars of the NKVD.

Therefore, neither father nor mother ever found out about the extraordinary, one might say fantastic, fate of their son.

This fate was also unusual because it took shape under the conditions of the totalitarian Stalinist regime, when personal data were more important than a living person. And with such a questionnaire as that of Yulik, in a country building "the most advanced society in the world", it was not easy. But even if his parents lived in the Land of the Soviets, even then the fate of their son would be a mystery to them, because everything that was connected with their son was a secret for everyone, for his closest relatives and for millions of his compatriots.

Yulik, jumping through the classroom, graduated from school at the age of 15, at the age of 21 - the Polytechnic Institute.

In 1926, he, ideologically weak, but promising in science, was sent for an internship in England to Cambridge in Rutherford's laboratory.

In 1928, he defended his doctoral dissertation there. Returning home from England, he stops by Berlin to see his mother.

While in Berlin, Yuli Borisovich recalled, I was surprised how frivolously the Germans treat Hitler. Then I realized that I had to explosives and defense issues in general.

Returning to Leningrad, Khariton continued to work at the Physico-Technical Institute. Here, under the guidance of Academician Semenov, he began to study the processes of detonation and explosion dynamics.

“Semenov, Khariton recalls, had a fantastic intuition. Until 1939, even before the discovery of uranium fission, he said that a nuclear explosion was possible, and in 1940 his young employee took a letter from Semenov outlining the principle of the atomic bomb to the administration of the people's commissariat of the oil industry. There, this letter was not taken seriously and lost ... "

In 1939, Yu. Khariton, together with Yakov Zeldovich, performed one of the first calculations of a nuclear chain reaction, which became the foundation of modern reactor physics and nuclear energy.

But then the war broke out and Khariton continued to deal with explosives.

In 1943, Igor Kurchatov told Khariton about the idea of ​​creating an atomic bomb.

Khariton, together with Yakov Zeldovich, tried to determine critical mass uranium-235. It turned out about 10 kilograms. As it turned out later, they were wrong 5 times, but the main thing they came to the conclusion: it is possible to make a bomb!

In July 1945, the Americans test the first nuclear weapon at Los Alamos. explosive device. Intelligence reports this to Stalin.

Immediately after the end of the war, Beria and Molotov flew to Berlin. Beria, with the consent of Stalin, was to lead the search in Germany for nuclear materials and specialist scientists who developed the German atomic bomb. A group of Soviet physicists is also sent here. Among them is Julius Khariton.

At the end of 1945, 200 qualified German nuclear scientists were transferred to work in the Soviet Union.

In August 1945, the Americans dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

The elimination of the US nuclear monopoly main task Soviet Union. Beria was entrusted to lead the atomic project.

Scientific leadership is entrusted to the forty-year-old Professor Khariton. He will become the father of the Soviet atomic bomb.

Previously, in pre-perestroika times, this role was attributed to Kurchatov, he did not want to give laurels to a Jew.

Academician Kurchatov really carried out coordination and general management of the project, but Julius Borisovich Khariton invented, developed and created the bomb. And, of course, his followers.

But why does a Jew, non-partisan, with a bad profile, who has not held any high positions, become the head of a team entrusted with a top-secret and extremely important job?

Julius Borisovich lived in this house

In 1950-1984. Moscow, Tverskaya st., 9

This remains a mystery to this day. By a special decree of the Council of Ministers of the USSR, a top-secret design bureau KB-11 headed by Yu. Khariton is being formed to create an atomic bomb.

Finding a place for KB was not easy. It would be nice in the bear corner, but not further than 400 km from Moscow. It would be nice if there were not many people around, but there were production areas.

Finally, we found a small town with a military factory. It was Sarov in the south of the Gorky region. He was famous for his monastery, but against the backdrop of huge, state-important tasks, both the monastery and others historical monuments looked ridiculous.

By a special government decree, the name Sarov was erased from all maps of the Soviet Union. The city was renamed "Arzamas-16", and this name existed only in secret documents. Here are the best scientists of the country: physicists, mathematicians - the elite.

They built without estimates, at actual costs. First point: barbed wire - 30 tons. Everything was surrounded by barbed wire. It was the zone.

Built by prisoners. And then scientific and technical personnel lived in this zone.

Not a step without the permission of a special department, any contact, including acquaintance and marriage, any trip to relatives in a neighboring city. All the work and personal life of the employees of KB-11 was monitored by special commissioned colonels of the MGB. They reported personally to Beria. But Beria did not hide the fact that in the event of the failure of the atomic project, all physicists would be imprisoned or shot.

Laboratories were placed in monastic chambers. Production facilities were hastily built nearby. Special conditions were out of the question. If conventional explosive devices were created after numerous tests and trials, then there was no such possibility here. Everything had to be experienced and tried in the mind. It turned out that to lead such work, one needed not a thunderer, but an easy, tolerant and, as it were, mild Khariton.


Postage stamp of Russia

Work went on in parallel on two projects, Russian and American, obtained by Soviet intelligence. Scouts from Lubyanka supplied Khariton with materials from their foreign residents. Even Kurchatov did not know the name of the Soviet agent Klaus Fuchs. The scheme sent by Fuchs gave only the principle, the idea. Khariton read these materials: it seemed that everything that the Americans did was logical, and yet the thought did not leave him that it might be some kind of insidious spy game that the path indicated by an unknown foreign like-minded person will lead Soviet physicists to a dead end.

Therefore, all Fuchs data were checked and rechecked. Nevertheless, Khariton believes that Fuchs saved them at least a year of work on the bomb. No matter how they hurried, Stalin's task to make a bomb by the beginning of 1948 remained unfulfilled.

Only by the beginning of 1949, a nuclear charge was brought from another secret city, Chelyabinsk-40. No one has ever seen such a load: a plutonium ball with a diameter of 80-90 mm and a mass of 6 kg. The accumulated plutonium was only for one bomb.

In a nondescript one-story building, from which, unfortunately, only ruins remain today, and a memorial plaque should have been hanging here, a control assembly of the product was carried out under the supervision of Khariton. The act of assembly, signed by Khariton, has been preserved.

Before testing the atomic bomb, Stalin called Kurchatov and Khariton. He asked: “Is it possible to make two bombs instead of one, albeit weaker ones?” “You can’t,” Khariton replied. "It's technically impossible."

A letter train under the control of the MGB and the Ministry of Railways rushed the “product” and its creators from Arzamas-16 to a small railway station in the Semipalatinsk region ..

Stalin, for security reasons, forbade Khariton to fly on airplanes. And Khariton always traveled only by train. A special car was built for him with a hall, an office, a bedroom and a compartment for guests, a kitchen, a cook. His closest associates in the work on the bomb went to the test site with Khariton on the train: Zeldovich, Franko-Kamenetsky, Flerov.

After 10 days, they arrived at the landfill. A 37-meter tower was built at the site. The test was scheduled for August 29, 1949. All the test participants and members of the state commission headed by Beria gathered.

Khariton and his assistants assembled a plutonium charge and inserted neutron fuses. On command, the installers rolled the bomb out of the workshop and installed it in the elevator cage.

4 hours 17 minutes in the morning. The rise of the charge on the tower began. There, at the top, set the fuse.

5 hours 55 minutes. Everyone descended from the tower, sealed the entrance, removed the guards and went to the command post, which was located 10 km from the epicenter of the explosion.

6 hours 48 minutes. The automatic detonator is on. From that moment on, it was impossible to intervene in the process.

7.00. atomic mushroom rises into the sky.

And the country lived its own life and did not know anything about atomic explosion, nor that Kurchatov, Khariton, Zeldovich and other scientists were awarded the title of Heroes of Socialist Labor for the creation of the atomic bomb. They received Stalin Prizes.

Kurchatov and Khariton were presented with ZIS-110, the rest - with Pobeda. They were given dachas near Moscow and installed free pass by rail.

An interesting fact is that the fathers of the Soviet and American atomic bombs were the Jews Khariton and Oppenheimer.

Oppenheimer after Hiroshima experienced the strongest soul feelings. Was Khariton tormented by the moral problem of using atomic weapons? Once journalist Golovanov asked Khariton: Yuly Borisovich, and when for the first time you saw this “mushroom”, and the roll of a hurricane, and blinded birds, and a light that is brighter than many suns, then the thought did not arise in you: “Lord, what are we are we doing?!"

They rode in a special wagon. Khariton silently looked out the window. Then he said, without turning around: “So it was necessary.”

Yes, he was a loyal soldier of the Party.

Working closely with Beria during the creation of the atomic bomb, he did not dare to ask about the fate of his father, who was arrested by Beria's subordinates. He said that this could negatively affect his work.

He signed a letter condemning Academician Sakharov, who worked under him for many years and was the creator of the hydrogen bomb. He lived half his life in a closed city, which no one in the country knew about, communicated only with those who were allowed to see him by the KGB. He gave his talent and his life to serve the Soviet Union and the Communist Party, but when he died, only relatives and fellow scientists came to the funeral at the Novodevichy cemetery.
4638534_547pxHaritonmogilanovodevichye (547x599, 106Kb)

Grave of Academician Khariton

At the Novodevichy cemetery

None of the leaders of the state, for which three times Hero of Socialist Labor, three times laureate Stalin Prize, Lenin Prize laureate Khariton did what determined the course world history didn't come to the funeral.

The father of the Soviet atomic bomb, Julius Borisovich Khariton, lived a long life. He died in 1996 at the age of 92.

Origin

Julius Borisovich Khariton was born in St. Petersburg on February 14 (February 27, according to the new style), 1904, into a Jewish family. His father, Boris Osipovich Khariton, was a well-known journalist who was expelled from the USSR in 1922, after the annexation of Latvia to the USSR in 1940, he was sentenced to 7 years in a labor camp and died two years later in a camp]. Grandfather, Iosif Davidovich Khariton, was a merchant of the first guild in Feodosia; father's sister, Etlya (Adel) Iosifovna Khariton, was married to the historian Julius Isidorovich Gessen (their son is a journalist and screenwriter Daniil Yulievich Gessen). Cousin(son of another sister of his father) - journalist and correspondent of Izvestia David Efremovich Yuzhin ( real name Rakhmilovich; 1892-1939).

Mother, Mirra Yakovlevna Burovskaya (in her second marriage, Eitingon; 1877-1947), was an actress (stage name Mirra Birens), in 1908-1910 she played at the Moscow Art Theater]. Parents divorced in 1907, when Yu. B. Khariton was a child, his mother remarried psychoanalyst Mark Efimovich Eitingon in 1913 and left for Germany, from there in 1933 to Palestine. Boris Osipovich raised his son himself.

Biography

From 1920 to 1925 - student of the electromechanical faculty Polytechnic Institute, since the spring of 1921 - physical and mechanical.

From 1921 he worked at the Physico-Technical Institute under the direction of Nikolai Semyonov.

In 1926-1928, an internship at the Cavendish Laboratory (Cambridge, England). Under the supervision of Ernest Rutherford and James Chadwick, he received the degree of Doctor of Science (D.Sc., Doctor of Science), the topic of the thesis was "On the counting of scintillations produced by alpha particles."

From 1931 to 1946 - head of the explosion laboratory at the Institute of Chemical Physics, scientific work on detonation, combustion theory and explosion dynamics.

Since 1935 - Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences (according to the totality of works).

In 1939-1941, Yuli Khariton and Yakov Zel'dovich were the first to calculate the chain reaction of uranium fission.

Since 1946, Khariton has been the chief designer and scientific director of KB-11 (Arzamas-16) in Sarov at Laboratory No. 2 of the USSR Academy of Sciences. The best physicists of the USSR were involved in the work on the implementation of the nuclear weapons program under his leadership. In an atmosphere of the strictest secrecy, work was carried out in Sarov, culminating in the testing of Soviet atomic (August 29, 1949) and hydrogen (1953) bombs. In subsequent years, he worked on reducing the weight of nuclear charges, increasing their power and improving reliability.

In 1955 he signed the Letter of Three Hundred.

Member of the CPSU since 1956.

Since 1946 - Corresponding Member, since 1953 - Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the USSR. Deputy of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR 3-11 convocations.

He was buried at the Novodevichy Cemetery in Moscow (plot 9).

Change military doctrine USA in the period from 1945 to 1996 and the main concepts

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On the territory of the United States, in Los Alamos, in the desert expanses of the state of New Mexico, in 1942, an American nuclear center was established. At its base, work was launched to create a nuclear bomb. The overall management of the project was entrusted to the talented nuclear physicist R. Oppenheimer. Under his leadership, the best minds of that time were gathered not only from the USA and England, but from almost all of Western Europe. A huge team worked on the creation of nuclear weapons, including 12 Nobel Prize winners. There was no shortage of funds either.

By the summer of 1945, the Americans managed to assemble two atomic bombs, called "Kid" and "Fat Man". The first bomb weighed 2722 kg and was loaded with enriched Uranium-235. "Fat Man" with a charge of Plutonium-239 with a capacity of more than 20 kt had a mass of 3175 kg. On June 16, the first field test of a nuclear device took place, timed to coincide with the meeting of the leaders of the USSR, the USA, Great Britain and France.

By this time, relations between former associates had changed. It should be noted that the United States, as soon as they got the atomic bomb, sought to have a monopoly on its possession in order to deprive other countries of the opportunity to use atomic energy at their discretion.

US President G. Truman became the first political leader who decided to use nuclear bombs. From a military point of view, there was no need for such bombardments of densely populated Japanese cities. But political motives during this period prevailed over military ones. The leadership of the United States aspired to supremacy throughout the post-war world, and nuclear bombing, in their opinion, should have been a powerful reinforcement of these aspirations. To this end, they began to seek the adoption of the American "Baruch Plan", which would secure for the United States monopoly possession of atomic weapons, in other words, "absolute military superiority."

The fateful hour has come. On August 6 and 9, the crews of B-29 "Enola Gay" and "Bocks car" planes dropped their deadly cargo on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The total human losses and the extent of destruction from these bombings are characterized by the following figures: 300 thousand people died instantly from thermal radiation (temperature about 5000 degrees C) and a shock wave, another 200 thousand were injured, burned, irradiated. On an area of ​​12 sq. km, all buildings were completely destroyed. In Hiroshima alone, out of 90,000 buildings, 62,000 were destroyed. These bombings shocked the whole world. It is believed that this event marked the beginning of the nuclear arms race and the confrontation between the two political systems of that time at a new qualitative level.

The development of American strategic offensive weapons after the Second World War was carried out depending on the provisions of military doctrine. Its political side determined the main goal of the US leadership - the achievement of world domination. The main obstacle to these aspirations was considered the Soviet Union, which, in their opinion, should have been liquidated. Depending on the alignment of forces in the world, the achievements of science and technology, its main provisions changed, which was reflected in the adoption of certain strategic strategies (concepts). Each subsequent strategy did not completely replace the one that preceded it, but only modernized it, mainly in matters of determining the ways of building up the Armed Forces and methods of waging war.

From mid-1945 to 1953, the American military-political leadership in matters of building strategic nuclear forces (SNF) proceeded from the fact that the United States had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and could achieve world domination by eliminating the USSR during a nuclear war. Preparations for such a war began almost immediately after the defeat of Nazi Germany. This is evidenced by the directive of the Joint Military Planning Committee No. 432 / d of December 14, 1945, which set the task of preparing the atomic bombing of 20 Soviet cities - the main political and industrial centers of the Soviet Union. At the same time, it was planned to use the entire stock of atomic bombs available at that time (196 pieces), which were carried by modernized B-29 bombers. The method of their application was also determined - a sudden atomic "first strike", which should put Soviet leadership before the fact of the futility of further resistance.

The political justification for such actions is the thesis of the "Soviet threat", one of the main authors of which can be considered US Chargé d'Affaires in the USSR J. Kennan. It was he who, on February 22, 1946, sent a “long telegram” to Washington, where in eight thousand words he described the “life threat” that seemed to hang over the United States, and proposed a strategy for confrontation with the Soviet Union.

President G. Truman instructed to develop a doctrine (later called the "Truman Doctrine") of pursuing a policy from a position of strength in relation to the USSR. In order to centralize planning and increase the effectiveness of the use of strategic aviation, in the spring of 1947 a strategic aviation command (SAC) was created. At the same time, the task of improving strategic aviation technology is being implemented at an accelerated pace.

By mid-1948, the Committee of Chiefs of Staff drew up a plan for a nuclear war with the USSR, which received the code name Chariotir. It stipulated that the war should begin "with concentrated air raids using atomic bombs against government, political and administrative centers, industrial cities and selected oil refineries from bases in western hemisphere and England." In the first 30 days alone, it was planned to drop 133 nuclear bombs for 70 Soviet cities.

However, as American military analysts calculated, this was not enough to achieve a quick victory. They believed that during this time the Soviet Army would be able to capture key areas of Europe and Asia. At the beginning of 1949, a special committee was created from higher ranks Army, Air Force and Navy under the leadership of Lieutenant General H. Harmon, who was tasked with trying to assess the political and military consequences of the planned atomic attack on the Soviet Union from the air. The committee's conclusions and calculations clearly showed that the United States was not yet ready for a nuclear war.

The conclusions of the committee indicated that it was necessary to increase the quantitative composition of the SAC, increase its combat capabilities, and replenish nuclear arsenals. In order to ensure the delivery of a massive nuclear strike by air assets, the United States needs to create a network of bases along the borders of the USSR, from which nuclear bombers could carry out combat sorties along the shortest routes to the planned targets on Soviet territory. It is necessary to launch serial production of B-36 heavy strategic intercontinental bombers capable of operating from bases on American soil.

The announcement that the Soviet Union had mastered the secret of nuclear weapons aroused in the US ruling circles a desire to unleash a preventive war as soon as possible. The Troyan plan was developed, which provided for the start of hostilities on January 1, 1950. At that time, the SAC had 840 strategic bombers in combat units, 1350 in reserve and over 300 atomic bombs.

To assess its viability, the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff ordered the group of Lieutenant General D. Hull to test the chances of putting out of action nine of the most important strategic areas on the territory of the Soviet Union at headquarters games. Having lost the air offensive against the USSR, Hull's analysts summed up: the probability of achieving these goals is 70%, which will entail the loss of 55% of the available bombers. It turned out that US strategic aviation in this case would very quickly lose combat effectiveness. Therefore, the question of a preventive war in 1950 was removed. Soon, the American leadership was able to actually verify the correctness of such assessments. In the course of the 1950 Korean War B-29 bombers suffered heavy losses from fighter jet attacks.

But the situation in the world was changing rapidly, which was reflected in the American strategy of "massive retaliation" adopted in 1953. It was based on the superiority of the United States over the USSR in the number of nuclear weapons and their means of delivery. It was envisaged to conduct a general nuclear war against the countries socialist camp. Strategic aviation was considered the main means of achieving victory, for the development of which up to 50% of the funds allocated to the Ministry of Defense for the purchase of weapons were directed.

In 1955, SAC had 1,565 bombers, 70% of which were B-47 jets, and 4,750 nuclear bombs for them with a yield of 50 kt to 20 Mt. In the same year, the B-52 heavy strategic bomber was put into service, which is gradually becoming the main intercontinental carrier of nuclear weapons.

At the same time, the military-political leadership of the United States is beginning to realize that in the face of a rapidly growing Soviet funds Air defense heavy bombers will not be able to solve the problem of achieving victory in a nuclear war alone. In 1958, the medium-range ballistic missiles "Thor" and "Jupiter", which are being deployed in Europe, enter service. A year later, the first Atlas-D intercontinental missiles were put on combat duty, the nuclear submarine J. Washington" with missiles "Polaris-A1".

With the advent of ballistic missiles in the strategic nuclear forces, the possibilities for delivering a nuclear strike from the United States are significantly increasing. However, in the USSR, by the end of the 1950s, intercontinental carriers of nuclear weapons were being created, capable of delivering a retaliatory strike on the territory of the United States. Soviet ICBMs were of particular concern to the Pentagon. Under these conditions, the leaders of the United States felt that the strategy of "massive retaliation" was not fully consistent with modern realities and must be corrected.

By the beginning of 1960, nuclear planning in the United States was taking on a centralized character. Prior to this, each branch of the Armed Forces planned the use of nuclear weapons independently. But the increase in the number of strategic carriers required the creation of a single body for planning nuclear operations. They became the Joint Strategic Objectives Planning Headquarters, subordinate to the commander of the SAC and the Committee of the Chiefs of Staff of the US Armed Forces. In December 1960, the first unified plan for the conduct of a nuclear war was drawn up, which received the name "Unified Integrated Operational Plan" - SIOP. It envisaged, in accordance with the requirements of the "massive retaliation" strategy, waging only a general nuclear war against the USSR and China with unlimited use of nuclear weapons (3.5 thousand nuclear warheads).

In 1961, the "flexible response" strategy was adopted, reflecting changes in official views on the possible nature of the war with the USSR. In addition to a general nuclear war, American strategists began to allow the possibility of limited use of nuclear weapons and warfare with conventional weapons for a short time (no more than two weeks). The choice of methods and means of waging war had to be carried out taking into account the current geostrategic situation, the balance of forces and the availability of resources.

The new installations had a very significant impact on the development of American strategic weapons. A stormy one begins quantitative growth ICBMs and SLBMs. The improvement of the latter is given Special attention, since they could be used as "forward-based" means in Europe. At the same time, the American government no longer needed to look for possible deployment areas for them and persuade the Europeans to give their consent to the use of their territory, as was the case during the deployment of medium-range missiles.

The military-political leadership of the United States believed that it was necessary to have such a quantitative composition of strategic nuclear forces, the use of which would ensure the "guaranteed destruction" of the Soviet Union as a viable state.

In the early years of this decade, a significant constellation of ICBMs was deployed. So, if at the beginning of 1960 the SAC had 20 missiles of only one type - Atlas-D, then by the end of 1962 - already 294. By this time, Atlas intercontinental ballistic missiles of modifications "E" were adopted and "F", "Titan-1" and "Minuteman-1A". The latest ICBMs were several orders of magnitude higher than their predecessors in terms of sophistication. In the same year, the tenth American SSBN went on combat patrol. The total number of Polaris-A1 and Polaris-A2 SLBMs has reached 160 units. The last of the ordered B-52H heavy bombers and B-58 medium bombers entered service. The total number of bombers in the strategic aviation command was 1819. Thus, the American nuclear triad of strategic offensive forces (units and formations of ICBMs, nuclear missile submarines and strategic bombers) took shape organizationally, each component of which harmoniously complemented each other. It was equipped with over 6,000 nuclear warheads.

In mid-1961, the SIOP-2 plan was approved, reflecting a "flexible response" strategy. It provided for the conduct of five interconnected operations to destroy the Soviet nuclear arsenal, suppress the air defense system, destroy the organs and points of the military and government controlled, large groupings of troops, as well as strikes on cities. The total number of targets in the plan was 6,000. In place of those, the developers of the plan also took into account the possibility of a retaliatory nuclear strike by the Soviet Union on US territory.

At the beginning of 1961, a commission was formed, whose duties were charged with developing promising ways for the development of American strategic nuclear forces. Subsequently, such commissions were created regularly.

In the autumn of 1962, the world was again on the brink of nuclear war. The outbreak of the Caribbean crisis forced politicians around the world to look at nuclear weapons with new side. For the first time, it clearly played the role of a deterrent. The sudden appearance of Soviet medium-range missiles in Cuba for the United States and their lack of overwhelming superiority in the number of ICBMs and SLBMs over the Soviet Union made a military way to resolve the conflict impossible.

American military leadership immediately announced the need for additional armament, in fact, heading for unleashing a strategic offensive arms race (START). The desires of the military found due support in the US Senate. Enormous money was allocated for the development of strategic offensive arms, which made it possible to improve the strategic nuclear forces qualitatively and quantitatively. In 1965, the Thor and Jupiter missiles, the Atlas missiles of all modifications and the Titan-1 were completely decommissioned. They were replaced by the Minuteman-1B and Minuteman-2 intercontinental missiles, as well as the heavy Titan-2 ICBM.

The marine component of the SNA has grown significantly both quantitatively and qualitatively. Taking into account such factors as the almost undivided dominance of the US Navy and the combined fleet of NATO in the vast oceans in the early 60s, the high survivability, stealth and mobility of SSBNs, the American leadership decided to significantly increase the number of deployed submarine missile carriers that could successfully replace medium-sized missiles. range. Their main targets were to be large industrial and administrative centers of the Soviet Union and other socialist countries.

In 1967 in battle formation The strategic nuclear forces had 41 SSBNs with 656 missiles, of which more than 80% were Polaris-A3 SLBMs, 1054 ICBMs and over 800 heavy bombers. After the decommissioning of obsolete B-47 aircraft, the nuclear bombs intended for them were eliminated. In connection with the change in strategic aviation tactics, the B-52 was equipped with AGM-28 Hound Dog cruise missiles with a nuclear warhead.

The rapid growth in the second half of the 60s in the number of Soviet OS-type ICBMs with improved characteristics, the creation of a missile defense system, made the likelihood of America achieving a quick victory in a possible nuclear war miserable.

The strategic nuclear arms race posed more and more new tasks for the US military-industrial complex. It was necessary to find a new way to quickly build up nuclear power. The high scientific and production level of the leading American rocket-building firms made it possible to solve this problem as well. Designers have found a way to significantly increase the number of nuclear charges raised without increasing the number of their carriers. Multiple reentry vehicles (MIRVs) were developed and implemented, first with dispersive warheads, and then with individual guidance.

The US leadership decided that the time had come to slightly correct the military-technical side of its military doctrine. Using the tried-and-tested thesis of the "Soviet missile threat" and the "US lagging behind", it easily managed to allocate funds for new strategic weapons. Since 1970, the deployment of Minuteman-3 ICBMs and Poseidon-S3 SLBMs with MIRV-type MIRVs began. At the same time, the obsolete Minuteman-1B and Polaris were removed from combat duty.

In 1971, the strategy of "realistic deterrence" was officially adopted. It was based on the idea of ​​nuclear superiority over the USSR. The authors of the strategy took into account the upcoming equality in the number of strategic carriers between the US and the USSR. By that time, without taking into account the nuclear forces of England and France, the following balance of strategic weapons had developed. For land-based ICBMs, the United States has 1,054 versus 1,300 for the Soviet Union; for the number of SLBMs, 656 versus 300; and for strategic bombers, 550 versus 145, respectively. The new strategic offensive arms development strategy provided for a sharp increase in the number of nuclear warheads on ballistic missiles while improving their performance characteristics, which was supposed to provide a qualitative superiority over the strategic nuclear forces of the Soviet Union.

The improvement of the strategic offensive forces was reflected in the next plan - SIOP-4, adopted in 1971. It was developed taking into account the interaction of all components of the nuclear triad and provided for the defeat of 16,000 targets.

But under pressure from the world community, the US leadership was forced to negotiate nuclear disarmament. The methods of conducting such negotiations were regulated by the concept of "negotiating from a position of strength" - an integral part of the "realistic deterrence" strategy. In 1972, the US-USSR Treaty on the Limitation of ABM Systems and the Interim Agreement on Certain Measures in the Sphere of the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms (SALT-1) were concluded. However, the buildup of the strategic nuclear potential of the opposing political systems continued.

By the mid-1970s, the deployment of the Minuteman-3 and Poseidon missile systems was completed. All SSBNs of the Lafayette type, equipped with new missiles, have been upgraded. Heavy bombers were armed with nuclear SD SRAM. All this led to a sharp increase in the nuclear arsenal assigned to strategic delivery vehicles. So in five years from 1970 to 1975, the number of warheads increased from 5102 to 8500 units. The system of combat control of strategic weapons was being improved at full speed, which made it possible to implement the principle of quickly re-aiming warheads at new targets. It now took only a few tens of minutes to completely recalculate and replace the flight mission for one missile, and the entire grouping of SNA ICBMs could be retargeted in 10 hours. By the end of 1979, this system was implemented on all ICBM launchers and launch control points. At the same time, the security of the mine launchers of the Minuteman ICBMs was increased.

The qualitative improvement in US START made it possible to move from the concept of "assured destruction" to the concept of "selection of targets", which provided for multi-variant actions - from a limited nuclear strike with several missiles to a massive strike against the entire complex of planned targets of destruction. The SIOP-5 plan was drawn up and approved in 1975, which provided for strikes on military, administrative and economic targets of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw Pact countries with a total number of up to 25 thousand.

The main form of use of American strategic offensive arms was considered to be a sudden massive nuclear strike with all combat-ready ICBMs and SLBMs, as well as a certain number of heavy bombers. By this time, SLBMs had become the leaders in the US nuclear triad. If before 1970 most of In 1975, 4536 warheads were installed on 656 sea-based missiles (2154 charges on 1054 ICBMs, and 1800 on heavy bombers). The views on their use have also changed. In addition to striking cities, given the short flight time (12-18 minutes), submarine missiles could be used to destroy launching Soviet ICBMs in the active part of the trajectory or directly in launchers, preventing their launch before the American ICBMs approached. The latter were entrusted with the task of destroying highly protected targets, and above all, silos and command posts of missile units of the Strategic Missile Forces. In this way, a Soviet retaliatory nuclear strike on US territory could be thwarted or significantly weakened. Heavy bombers were planned to be used to destroy surviving or newly identified targets.

From the second half of the 1970s, the transformation of the views of the American political leadership on the prospects for nuclear war began. Taking into account the opinion of the majority of scientists about the disastrous for the United States even a retaliatory Soviet nuclear strike, it decided to accept the theory of a limited nuclear war for one theater of operations, and specifically, the European one. For its implementation, new nuclear weapons were needed.

The administration of President J. Carter allocated funds for the development and production of the highly effective strategic sea-based Trident system. Implementation this project was to be carried out in two stages. At the first, it was planned to rearm 12 SSBNs of the J. Madison" missiles "Trident-C4", as well as build and put into operation 8 SSBNs of a new generation of the "Ohio" type with 24 of the same missiles. At the second stage, it was supposed to build another 14 SSBNs and arm all the boats of this project with the new Trident-D5 SLBM with higher performance characteristics.

In 1979, President J. Carter decides on the full-scale production of the Peekeper (MX) intercontinental ballistic missile, which, in terms of its characteristics, was supposed to surpass all existing Soviet ICBMs. Its development has been carried out since the mid-1970s, along with the Pershing-2 IRBM and a new type of strategic weapon - long-range ground and air-based cruise missiles.

With the coming to power of the administration of President R. Reagan, the “doctrine of neo-globalism” appeared, reflecting the new views of the US military-political leadership on the path to achieving world domination. It provided for a wide range of measures (political, economic, ideological, military) to "roll back communism", the direct use of military force against those countries where the United States sees a threat to its "vital interests." Naturally, the military-technical side of the doctrine was also adjusted. Its basis for the 1980s was the strategy of "direct confrontation" with the USSR in the global and regional scale aimed at achieving "complete and undeniable US military superiority."

Soon, the Pentagon developed "Guidelines for the construction of the US armed forces" for the coming years. In particular, they determined that in a nuclear war "the United States must prevail and be able to force the USSR to cease hostilities in a short time on the terms of the United States." Military plans provided for the conduct of both general and limited nuclear war within the framework of one theater of operations. In addition, the task was to be ready to wage an effective war from space.

Based on these provisions, concepts for the development of the SNA were developed. The concept of "strategic sufficiency" required to have such a combat composition of strategic carriers and nuclear warheads for them in order to ensure the "deterrence" of the Soviet Union. The concept of "active countermeasures" envisaged ways to ensure flexibility in the use of strategic offensive forces in any situation - from a single use of nuclear weapons to the use of the entire nuclear arsenal.

In March 1980, the president approves the SIOP-5D plan. The plan provided for the delivery of three options for nuclear strikes: preventive, retaliatory, and retaliatory. The number of objects of destruction was 40 thousand, which included 900 cities with a population of over 250 thousand each, 15 thousand industrial and economic facilities, 3,500 military targets in the USSR, the Warsaw Pact countries, China, Vietnam and Cuba.

In early October 1981, President Reagan announced his "strategic program" for the 1980s, which contained guidelines for further building up the strategic nuclear potential. At six meetings of the Committee on Military Affairs of the US Congress, the last hearings on this program were held. Representatives of the president, the Ministry of Defense, leading scientists in the field of armaments were invited to them. As a result of comprehensive discussions of all structural elements the strategic arms buildup program was approved. In accordance with it, starting from 1983, 108 Pershing-2 IRBM launchers and 464 BGM-109G land-based cruise missiles were deployed in Europe as forward-based nuclear weapons.

In the second half of the 1980s, another concept was developed - "essential equivalence". It determined how, under the conditions of the reduction and elimination of some types of strategic offensive weapons, by improving the combat characteristics of others, to ensure a qualitative superiority over the strategic nuclear forces of the USSR.

Since 1985, the deployment of 50 silo-based MX ICBMs began (another 50 missiles of this type in a mobile version were planned to be put on combat duty in the early 1990s) and 100 B-1B heavy bombers. The production of BGM-86 air-launched cruise missiles to equip 180 B-52 bombers was in full swing. A new MIRV with more powerful warheads was installed on the 350 Minuteman-3 ICBMs, while the control system was modernized.

An interesting situation developed after the deployment of Pershing-2 missiles in West Germany. Formally, this group was not part of the US SNA and was the nuclear means of the Supreme Commander of the Allied Armed Forces of NATO in Europe (this position has always been occupied by representatives of the United States). official version, for the world community, its deployment in Europe was a reaction to the appearance of RSD-10 (SS-20) missiles in the Soviet Union and the need to re-arm NATO in the face of a missile threat from the East. In fact, the reason was, of course, different, which was confirmed by the Supreme Commander of the Allied NATO Armed Forces in Europe, General B. Rogers. In 1983, in one of his speeches, he said: “Most people believe that we are undertaking the modernization of our weapons because of the SS-20 missiles. We would have carried out the modernization even if there were no SS-20 missiles.”

The main purpose of the Pershings (considered in the SIOP plan) was to deliver a "decapitation strike" on the command posts of the strategic formations of the USSR Armed Forces and the Strategic Missile Forces in Eastern Europe, which was supposed to disrupt the Soviet retaliatory strike. To do this, they had all the necessary tactical and technical characteristics: a short flight time (8-10 minutes), high firing accuracy and a nuclear charge capable of hitting highly protected targets. Thus, it became clear that they were intended to solve strategic offensive tasks.

Land-based cruise missiles, also considered NATO's nuclear weapons, have become a dangerous weapon. But their use was envisaged in accordance with the SIOP plan. Their main advantage was the high accuracy of firing (up to 30 m) and the secrecy of the flight, which took place at an altitude of several tens of meters, which, combined with a small effective dispersion area, made the interception of such missiles by the air defense system extremely tricky business. The targets for the KR could be any pinpoint highly protected targets such as command posts, silos, etc.

However, by the end of the 1980s, the United States and the USSR had accumulated such a huge nuclear potential that it had long outgrown reasonable limits. There was a situation when it was necessary to make a decision what to do next. The situation was aggravated by the fact that half of the ICBMs (Minuteman-2 and part of Minuteman-3) had been in operation for 20 years or more. Maintaining them in a combat-ready state cost more and more every year. Under these conditions, the country's leadership decided on the possibility of a 50% reduction in strategic offensive arms, subject to a reciprocal step on the part of the Soviet Union. Such an agreement was concluded at the end of July 1991. Its provisions largely determined the development of strategic weapons for the 1990s. A directive was given for the development of such strategic offensive arms, so that the USSR would need to spend large financial and material resources to parry the threat from them.

The situation changed radically after the collapse of the Soviet Union. As a result, the United States achieved world domination and remained the only "superpower" of the world. Finally, the political part of the American military doctrine was carried out. But with the ending cold war”, according to the administration of B. Clinton, threats to US interests have remained. In 1995, the report "National Military Strategy" appeared, presented by the chairman of the committee of chiefs of staff of the Armed Forces, and sent to Congress. It became the last of the official documents that set out the provisions of the new military doctrine. It is based on a “strategy of flexible and selective engagement”. Certain adjustments in the new strategy have been made to the content of the main strategic concepts.

The military-political leadership still relies on force, and the Armed Forces are preparing to wage war and achieve "victory in any wars, wherever and whenever they arise." Naturally, the military structure is being improved, including the strategic nuclear forces. They are entrusted with the task of deterring and intimidating a possible enemy, both in peacetime and at the entrance to a general or limited war using conventional weapons.

A significant place in theoretical developments is given to the place and methods of operation of the SNS in a nuclear war. Taking into account the existing correlation of forces between the United States and Russia in the field of strategic weapons, the American military-political leadership believes that the goals in a nuclear war can be achieved as a result of multiple and spaced nuclear strikes against objects of military and economic potential, administrative and political control. In time, it can be both proactive and reciprocal actions.

The following types of nuclear strikes are envisaged: selective - to destroy various bodies command, limited or regional (for example, by groupings of enemy troops during conventional war with an unsuccessful development of the situation) and massive. In this regard, a certain reorganization of the US START was carried out. A further change in American views on possible development and the use of strategic nuclear weapons can be expected early in the next millennium.

He was the founder and first director of the Institute of Atomic Energy, the chief scientific director of the atomic problem in the USSR, and also one of the founders of the use nuclear energy in peaceful purposes. All this is about the famous Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov.

Today we decided to recall and illustrate to you the biography of the "father" of the Soviet atomic bomb.

Igor Vasilyevich was born on January 12, 1903 in the village of Simsky Zavod on Southern Urals in the family of a land surveyor and a teacher. At the age of 12 he entered the gymnasium, which he graduated with a gold medal, despite the great need for a family.

After school he studied at the Faculty of Physics and Mathematics of the Crimean University in Simferopol (graduated in 1923).

Igor Kurchatov(left) with his high school friend

After graduating from the Crimean University. In the center - I. V. Kurchatov. 1923

In the spring of 1925, Kurchatov was invited by A.F. Ioffe to the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology. Since 1933 he has dealt with the problems of nuclear physics.

IgorVasilevich Kurchatovin Baku. 1924

Together with a group of colleagues, he studied nuclear reactions due to fast and slow neutrons; discovered the phenomenon of nuclear isometry in artificially obtained radioactive bromine.

I. V. Kurchatov is an employee of the Radium Institute. Mid 1930s.

Kurchatov is one of the creators of the first uranium-graphite reactor, which was launched in December 1946.

IgorVasilevich Kurchatov

Pupils of A.F. Ioffe at the Physicotechnical Institute. From left to right: D. N. Nasledov, A. P. Aleksandrov, L. M. Nemenov, Yu. P. Maslakovets, I. V. Kurchatov, P. V. Sharavsky, O. V. Losev. 1932

Soviet physicist Igor Kurchatov (sitting on the right) among the staff of the Leningrad Institute of Physics and Technology

A special role belongs to Kurchatov in the formation and development of nuclear energy. He led the creation of the atomic bomb in the USSR. Work began during the Great Patriotic War(1943).

IgorVasilevich Kurchatov

Then, at the Academy of Sciences, Kurchatov created a closed laboratory where research was carried out aimed at obtaining a nuclear chain reaction. The atomic bomb was created in 1949, the hydrogen bomb in 1953, the world's first industrial nuclear power plant- in 1954

A. Sakharov and I. Kurchatov (right), photograph, 1958

In 1955, the laboratory was transformed into the Institute of Atomic Energy (since 1960 it has been named after Kurchatov).

The most atomic guys of the USSR: Igor Kurchatov(left) and Julius Khariton

Academician since 1943, Kurchatov received many awards, including five Orders of Lenin.

In 1957 he became a laureate of the Lenin Prize. Kurchatov's contemporaries note that Igor Vasilyevich was a man of great intellect, talent and diligence.

Academician Igor Kurchatov (left) talks with Marshal of the Soviet Union Andrei Eremenko (right)

Igor Kurchatov

M.A. Lavrentiev and I.V. Kurchatov (on vacation in the Crimea). 1958

IgorKurchatov on the podium of the Extraordinary XXI Congress of the CPSU (1959)

He supported jokes with pleasure, liked to invent nicknames for his comrades, and he himself willingly responded when he was called "Beard".

Monument to Igor Kurchatov on the square named after him in Moscow

Kurchatov's favorite word was "I understand." It was it that became the last in his mouth, when on February 7, 1960, he died right at the moment of a conversation with a colleague, sitting on a bench in Barvikha near Moscow.