Comments on: Rare Photos of the Soviet Bomb Project

By: bob

bob — Tue, 19 Mar 2013 23:09:36 +0000

You surely know this, but for more on Nickolaus Riehl see his book Zehn Jahre im goldenen Käfig, translated by Frederick Seitz and published as Stalin's captive: Nikolaus Riehl and the Soviet race for the bomb (American Chemical Society, 1996).

By: Soviet drawings of an American bomb | Restricted Data

Soviet drawings of an American bomb | Restricted Data — Fri, 30 Nov 2012 13:24:40 +0000

[...] people working at Rosatom, the Russian state nuclear agency/corporation, have been publishing impressive amounts of raw historical documents information about the Soviet bomb project, as part of their on-going [...]

By: One year of Restricted Data | Restricted Data

One year of Restricted Data | Restricted Data — Wed, 07 Nov 2012 16:06:19 +0000

[...] Rare Photos of the Soviet Bomb Project (7/27/2012) – 13,400 pageviews [...]

By: Binyamin Rubin

Binyamin Rubin — Tue, 04 Sep 2012 02:43:34 +0000

Here’s an answer to the question about what Korolev and Kurchatov (and also Keldysh) have on the table, it seems to be a bowl of fruit
http://www.ras.ru/keldysh/e516847d-6647-43cb-87b0-9edc7b56ac5d.aspx#
The reference for the picture is: М.В. Келдыш. Творческий портрет по воспоминаниям современников. М.: Наука, 2002. С.74.

By: What Bohr told Beria | Restricted Data

What Bohr told Beria | Restricted Data — Thu, 02 Aug 2012 15:38:32 +0000

[...] pertain to the Soviet side of the Bohr-Terletsky interview. The one that I have scanned comes from the same Russian nuclear history book I discussed last week, though the copy in the book is incomplete. I have managed to scrounge up [...]

By: Aleksey

Aleksey — Wed, 01 Aug 2012 07:52:06 +0000

That’s true. And in fact, ‘polygon’ has more broad meaning than just ‘weapons testing range’ – it’s a (rather big physical) place to test anything.

By: Alex Wellerstein

Alex Wellerstein — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 23:33:31 +0000

Everything Loren Graham has done is wonderful. He’s an amazing guy — basically the first serious historian of Russian and Soviet science. I know him a bit from when I was at Harvard; he told some wild stories about the KGB trying to ensnare him, back in the day.

By: Davey

Davey — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:32:47 +0000

If you'd like a picture of Stalin's relationship with his scientists and engineers, read, The Ghost of the Executed Engineer. It's a fascinating look at the Soviet Union's extermination of technical workers.

By: Alex Wellerstein

Alex Wellerstein — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:12:29 +0000

Julie: thanks! I actually have a short post that involves Kenneth Bainbridge that I’ll be putting up probably next week or the week after. I appreciate the Review of Books reference and will give it a read.

By: Julie Coryell

Julie Coryell — Mon, 30 Jul 2012 21:09:17 +0000

These are amazing pictures and really put faces on the Cold War weapons rivalry. I am about to publish the oral history Joan Bainbridge Safford recorded for Columbia University in 1960 of my father, Charles Coryell, about his work on the Manhattan Project at Chicago and Oak Ridge, titled: A Chemist’s Role at the Birth of Atomic Energy. Her father administered the Trinity Test site.

It is edifying–and difficult–to research the situation of the enemy. Look into Rory Stewart’s review of Diana Preston’s book, The Dark Defile: Britain’s Catastrophic Invasion of Afghanistan, 1838-1842 in the New York Review of Books, August 16, 2012.