When the Soviets
Got the Bomb

During the opening week of October, 1949 President Harry Truman announced that the Soviet Union had exploded its own nuclear bomb.

“…Russia had caught the U.S. flatfooted. For the first time in history every American looked straight down the gun barrel of [a] foreign attack.”

“Four Russians held the atom pistol at the head
of the West:

• Stalin

• Physicist Peter Kapitza, who developed Russia’s weapon

• Secret police boss Lavrenti Beria, who guarded it

• Air-Chief Konstantin Vershinin, who probably would deliver it…

There were new pleas for an agreement between Russia and the U.S., but the Kremlin made no real peace moves.”

Nine months later Stalin gave the go-ahead for North-Korea to invade the South.

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