David M. Blades and Joseph M. Siracusa. A History of U.S. Nuclear Testing and Its Influence on Nuclear Thought, 1945–1963.

Abstract

America's wartime development of the atomic bomb and its subsequent use against Japan ended the Second World War and introduced a new class of weaponry to America's arsenal. In addition to the data collected from the military use of atomic weapons, further testing was demanded to explore their military capabilities, as well as to improve weapon effectiveness and design. In 1946, the United States launched its first postwar atomic test program and began 17 years of peacetime atmospheric nuclear testing, which ended in 1963 with the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT), signed weeks before John F. Kennedy's assassination. David M. Blades and Joseph M. Siracusa's recent work, A History of U.S. Nuclear Testing and Its Influence on Nuclear Thought, 1945–1963, analyzes the period of atmospheric nuclear testing, which began with the wartime Trinity test in 1945, and the policies of the three presidential administrations that ordered their conduct. In six short chapters, the authors alternate between the nuclear test series conducted by the Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy administrations and explanation of the political and scientific rationales behind them. The result is a heavily notated work that is still quite accessible.