Rewriting Los Alamos

Abstract

This chapter outlines the process which began with the unexpected publication of the transcript of the Personnel Security Board hearing. Now, the search was on for villains, and theories about the slow—and seemingly unenthusiastic—development of the Super abounded. With active encouragement from air force sources, the pillorying of Los Alamos took place in the press, culminating in a widely read journalistic account of where the blame lay. With its dubious claim to extensive research, James Shepley and Clay Blair Jr.'s The Hydrogen Bomb owed its paternity and its material to the advocacy coalition that had successfully pushed for the Super. The issues were now public, and the original closed circle of decision widened to include other partisans in the worlds of science and politics. So acrimonious had the progress of the Super been that scores remained to be settled. And they would be.