The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War, and: The Atomic Bomb and American Society: New Perspective (review)

Nearly a decade has passed since 9/11, the demarcation line separating the remnants of the Cold War from the panoptic War on Terror. Yet even today, the most alarming and potentially deadly threat emanates from so-called rogue nations intent on developing atomic capabilities. Indeed, the Cold War and its atomic standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union may be fading into history. The atomic bomb, however, remains not only a subject of political debate and diplomacy, but a stimulus for renewed concern about civil defense and survival.

The bomb's presence in our political and social consciousness continues to spark scholarship about its historical beginnings and lingering impact. Among this scholarship are two books offering new interpretations and insights about the development of the atomic bomb, the creation and shaping of the Cold War, and the bomb's influence on American society.

In The Atomic Bomb and the Origins of the Cold War, authors Campbell Craig, professor of international relations at the University of South Hampton, and Sergey Radchenko, a tutorial fellow in international history at the London School of Economics, examine the beginnings of the Cold War from a political perspective, focusing on the viewpoints and policies of Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Joseph Stalin, and their respective advisors. The Atomic Bomb and American Society: New Perspectives contains papers originally presented at a 2005 conference of the same name. Edited by Rosemary B. Mariner, lecturer in history at the University of Tennessee, and G. Kurt Piehler, associate professor of history and former director of the Center for the Study of War and Society at the University of Tennessee, the book covers political, scientific, social, and cultural subjects.

Central to Craig and Radchenko's thesis is that the atomic bomb played a central role in determining the policies of the United States and the Soviet Union in the immediate postwar world. Using new Soviet documentation commingled with secondary sources, the authors argue further that the U.S. was responsible for initiating the Cold War, tracing its beginning to the early 1940s. Franklin Roosevelt, they point out, wanted "a new world order shaped by Wilsonian principles" and governed by the "four policemen": the United States, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and China (3). Roosevelt's untimely death on April 11, 1945, however, altered the diplomatic landscape. Although Truman learned about the Manhattan Project on his first day as president, his initial approach to atomic politics emulated that of his predecessor. "Like Roosevelt," the authors write, "Truman wanted to use the atomic bomb both as a stick to intimidate the Soviet Union with respect to its occupation of Eastern Europe and as a carrot with respect to the creation of a serious postwar international order" (63). But Truman's growing distrust of Stalin toughened his stance. Craig and Radchenko even suggest that Truman's decision to drop a second atomic bomb before Japan had adequate time to consider surrender was based largely on preventing the Soviet Union from entering the war and having a postwar role in Japan. "[T]o put it a bit crudely," they write, "we can regard Hiroshima as the final American strike of the Second World War, and Nagasaki as its first strike in the Cold War" (89).

The authors also delve into Stalin's psyche, albeit somewhat questionably, concerning his views of Roosevelt, Truman, and the atomic bomb. They argue that following Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Stalin, whose own nuclear program had languished since 1942, wanted an atomic bomb at any cost. Thus, as the Allies celebrated victory in World War II, Stalin focused on developing his own atomic bomb, which he deemed critical for the Soviet Union's protection, as well as necessary for his country to play a...