query: The first country to develop nuclear weapons was the United States.

pos: United States The United States of America ( USA ) , commonly known as the United States ( U.S. ) or America , is a constitutional federal republic composed of 50 states , a federal district , five major self-governing territories , and various possessions .  Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico . The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America , bordered by Canada to the east and across the Bering Strait from Russia to the west . The state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean . The U.S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea . Nine time zones are covered . The geography , climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse .   At 3.8 million square miles ( 9.8 million km2 ) and with over 324 million people , the United States is the world 's third - or fourth-largest country by total area , third-largest by land area , and the third-most populous . It is one of the world 's most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations , and is home to the world 's largest immigrant population . The capital is Washington , D.C. , and the largest city is New York City ; nine other major metropolitan areas -- each with at least 4.5 million inhabitants and the largest having more than 13 million people -- are Los Angeles , Chicago , Dallas , Houston , Philadelphia , Miami , Atlanta , Boston , and San Francisco .   Paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago . European colonization began in the 16th century . The United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast . Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the colonies following the Seven Years ' War led to the American Revolution , which began in 1775 . On July 4 , 1776 , during the course of the American Revolutionary War , the colonies unanimously adopted the Declaration of Independence . The war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain , representing the first successful war of independence against a European power . The current constitution was adopted in 1788 , after the Articles of Confederation , adopted in 1781 , were felt to have provided inadequate federal powers . The first ten amendments , collectively named the Bill of Rights , were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties .   The United States embarked on a vigorous expansion across North America throughout the 19th century , displacing Native American tribes , acquiring new territories , and gradually admitting new states until it spanned the continent by 1848 . During the second half of the 19th century , the American Civil War led to the end of legal slavery in the country . By the end of that century , the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean , and its economy , driven in large part by the Industrial Revolution , began to soar . The Spanish -- American War and confirmed the country 's status as a global military power . The United States emerged from as a global superpower , the first country to develop nuclear weapons , the only country to use them in warfare , and a permanent member of the United Nations Security Council . The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the world 's sole superpower . The U.S. is a founding member of the United Nations , World Bank , International Monetary Fund , Organization of American States ( OAS ) , and other international organizations .   The United States is a highly developed country , with the world 's largest economy by nominal GDP and second-largest economy by PPP . Though its population is only 4.3 % of the world total , Americans hold nearly 40 % of the total wealth in the world . The United States ranks among the highest in several measures of socioeconomic performance , including average wage , human development , per capita GDP , and productivity per person . While the U.S. economy is considered post-industrial , characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy , the manufacturing sector remains the second-largest in the world . Accounting for approximately a quarter of global GDP and a third of global military spending , the United States is the world 's foremost economic and military power . The United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally , and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations .

neg: Culture of the United Kingdom The culture of the United Kingdom is influenced by the UK 's history as a developed island country , a liberal democracy and a major power ; its predominantly Christian religious life ; and its composition of four countries -- England , Wales , Scotland and Northern Ireland -- each of which has distinct customs , cultures and symbolism . The wider culture of Europe has also influenced British culture , and Humanism , Protestantism and representative democracy developed from broader Western culture .   British literature , music , cinema , art , theatre , comedy , media , television , philosophy , architecture and education are important aspects of British culture . The United Kingdom is also prominent in science and technology , producing world-leading scientists ( e.g. Isaac Newton and Charles Darwin ) and inventions . Sport is an important part of British culture ; numerous sports originated in the country , including football . The UK has been described as a `` cultural superpower '' , and London has been described as a world cultural capital .   The Industrial Revolution , which started in the UK , had a profound effect on the socio-economic and cultural conditions of the world . As a result of the British Empire , significant British influence can be observed in the language , law , culture and institutions of a geographically wide assortment of countries , including Australia , Canada , India , the Republic of Ireland , New Zealand , Nigeria , Pakistan , South Africa , the United States and English speaking Caribbean nations . These states are sometimes collectively known as the Anglosphere , and are among Britain 's closest allies . In turn the empire also influenced British culture , particularly British cuisine .   The cultures of England , Scotland , Wales and Northern Ireland are diverse and have varying degrees of overlap and distinctiveness .

neg: Chemical weapons in World War I Although the use of toxic chemicals as weapons dates back thousands of years , the first large scale use of chemical weapons was during World War I . They were primarily used to demoralize , injure , and kill entrenched defenders , against whom the indiscriminate and generally very slow-moving or static nature of gas clouds would be most effective . The types of weapons employed ranged from disabling chemicals , such as tear gas , to lethal agents like phosgene , chlorine , and mustard gas . This chemical warfare was a major component of the first global war and first total war of the 20th century . The killing capacity of gas was limited , with only about 90 thousand fatalities from a total of some 1.2 million casualties caused by gas attacks . Gas was unlike most other weapons of the period because it was possible to develop effective countermeasures , such as gas masks . In the later stages of the war , as the use of gas increased , its overall effectiveness diminished . The widespread use of these agents of chemical warfare , and wartime advances in the composition of high explosives , gave rise to an occasionally expressed view of World War I as `` the chemist 's war '' and also the era where `` weapons of mass destruction '' were created .   The use of poison gas performed by all major belligerents throughout World War I constituted war crimes as its use violated the 1899 Hague Declaration Concerning Asphyxiating Gases and the 1907 Hague Convention on Land Warfare , which prohibited the use of `` poison or poisoned weapons '' in warfare .

neg: 1953 Soviet nuclear tests The Soviet Union 's 1953 nuclear test series was a group of 5 nuclear tests conducted in 1953 . These tests followed the 1949-51 Soviet nuclear tests series and preceded the 1954 Soviet nuclear tests series .   -RCB- 279 m + 30 m  | air drop , weapons development  | RDS-6s  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  | aka RDS-6s . First thermonuclear explosion . Used `` sloika '' Layer-cake method , where primary is wrapped in shells of lithium and tamper . It worked , but could not be scaled up to megaton yields .  | -  ! 5 Tatyana ( Joe 5 )  | 02:00 : ??  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 289 m + 600 m  | air drop , weapons development  | RDS-4  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  | Test of first production tactical weapon , used on Tu-4 and Tu-16 jets .  | -  ! 6 ( Joe 6 )  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 280 m + 255 m  | air drop , weapons development  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  |  | -  ! 7  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 280 m + 220 m  | air drop , weapons development  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  |  | -  ! 8 ( Joe 7 )  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' | ALMT ( 6 hrs ) | | Ground Zero , Semipalatinsk , Kazakhstan ~  | 280 m + 260 m  | air drop , weapons development  |  | style = `` text-align : center ; '' |  |  |  |  | -RCB-

neg: We begin bombing in five minutes On August 11 , 1984 , United States President Ronald Reagan , while running for re-election , was preparing to make his weekly Saturday radio address on National Public Radio . During a sound check before the address , Reagan made the following joke to the radio technicians : `` My fellow Americans , I 'm pleased to tell you today that I 've signed legislation that will outlaw Russia forever . We begin bombing in five minutes . '' The joke was a parody of the opening line of that day 's speech : `` My fellow Americans , I 'm pleased to tell you that today I signed legislation that will allow student religious groups to begin enjoying a right they 've too long been denied -- the freedom to meet in public high schools during nonschool hours , just as other student groups are allowed to do . ''   Contrary to popular misconception , this microphone gaffe was not broadcast over the air , but rather leaked later to the general populace . But the Tokyo newspaper Yomiuri Shimbun reported in October 1984 that the Soviet Far East Army was placed on alert after word of the statement got out and that the alert was not withdrawn until 30 minutes later . An unnamed aide to US Representative Michael Barnes ( D-Md . ) confirmed that the Pentagon was aware of the alert . There was no report of any change in the DEFCON level for the United States . The Soviet reaction , and mild confusion it created , was covered by NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw .   This was not the first time Reagan had joked before giving a speech or address . The Soviet official news agency , TASS , condemned the joke , declaring that `` The USSR condemns this unprecedented and hostile attack by the US President '' and that `` this kind of behavior is incompatible with the great responsibility borne by heads of nuclear states for the destinies of their own people and mankind '' .

neg: Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative ( SDI ) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic strategic nuclear weapons ( intercontinental ballistic missiles and submarine-launched ballistic missiles ) . The system , which was to combine ground-based units and orbital deployment platforms , was first publicly announced by President Ronald Reagan on March 23 , 1983 . The initiative focused on strategic defense rather than the prior strategic offense doctrine of mutual assured destruction ( MAD ) . The Strategic Defense Initiative Organization ( SDIO ) was set up in 1984 within the United States Department of Defense to oversee the Strategic Defense Initiative .   Reagan was a vocal critic of MAD doctrine . SDI was an important part of his defense policy intended to end MAD as a nuclear deterrence strategy , as well as a strategic initiative to neutralize the military component of the Soviet Union 's nuclear defenses .   The ambitious initiative was criticized for allegedly threatening to destabilize the MAD-approach and to possibly re-ignite `` an offensive arms race '' . SDI was nicknamed largely in the mainstream media as `` Star Wars '' , after the popular 1977 film by George Lucas . In 1987 , the American Physical Society concluded that a global shield such as `` Star Wars '' was extremely ambitious and with existing technology not directly feasible for operational status , and that about ten more years of research was needed to learn about such a comprehensive and complex system to set up and make it fully operational .   Under the SDIO 's Innovative Sciences and Technology Office , headed by physicist and engineer Dr. James Ionson , the investment was predominantly made in basic research at national laboratories , universities , and in industry ; these programs have continued to be key sources of funding for top research scientists in the fields of high-energy physics , supercomputing/computation , advanced materials , and many other critical science and engineering disciplines -- funding which indirectly supports other research work by top scientists , and which was most politically viable to fund within the budget environment .   Laser research funded by the SDI office was disclosed at laser conferences that also included panel discussions on the subject with the participation of James Ionson , Edward Teller , and other prominent advocates of SDI .   During the administration of President Bill Clinton in 1993 , the SDIO 's name was changed to the Ballistic Missile Defense Organization ( BMDO ) and its focus shifted from national missile defense to theater missile defense ; and its scope from global to more regional coverage . It was never truly developed or deployed , though certain aspects of SDI research and technologies paved the way for some anti-ballistic missile systems of today . BMDO was renamed to the Missile Defense Agency in 2002 . This article covers defense efforts under the SDIO .   Today , the United States holds a significant advantage in the field of comprehensive advanced missile defense systems through years of extensive research and testing . The US and the UK also have both laser weapons and 360 degree laser shields in development , which are expected to be ready for military use as early as 2020 . Many of the obtained technological insights were transferred to subsequent programs and would find use in follow-up programs .

neg: History of the United States The date of the start of the history of the United States is a subject of debate among historians . Older textbooks start with the arrival of Christopher Columbus on October 12 , 1492 and emphasize the European background of the colonization of the Americas , or they start around 1600 and emphasize the American frontier . In recent decades American schools and universities typically have shifted back in time to include more on the colonial period and much more on the prehistory of the Native Americans .   Indigenous people lived in what is now the United States for thousands of years before European colonists began to arrive , mostly from England , after 1600 . The Spanish built small settlements in Florida and the Southwest , and the French along the Mississippi River and the Gulf Coast . By the 1770s , thirteen British colonies contained two and a half million people along the Atlantic coast east of the Appalachian Mountains . After the end of the French and Indian Wars in the 1760s , the British government imposed a series of new taxes , rejecting the colonists ' argument that any new taxes had to be approved by them ( see Stamp Act 1765 ) . Tax resistance , especially the Boston Tea Party ( 1773 ) , led to punitive laws ( the Intolerable Acts ) by Parliament designed to end self-government in Massachusetts . American Patriots ( as they called themselves ) adhered to a political ideology called republicanism that emphasized civic duty , virtue , and opposition to corruption , fancy luxuries and aristocracy .   Armed conflict began in 1775 as Patriots drove the royal officials out of every colony and assembled in mass meetings and conventions . In 1776 , the Second Continental Congress declared that there was a new , independent nation , the United States of America , not just a collection of disparate colonies . With large-scale military and financial support from France and the military leadership of General George Washington , the American Patriots won the Revolutionary War . The peace treaty of 1783 gave the new nation the land east of the Mississippi River ( except Florida and Canada ) . The central government established by the Articles of Confederation proved ineffectual at providing stability , as it had no authority to collect taxes and had no executive officer . Congress called a convention to meet secretly in Philadelphia in 1787 . It wrote a new Constitution , which was adopted in 1789 . In 1791 , a Bill of Rights was added to guarantee inalienable rights . With Washington as the first president and Alexander Hamilton his chief political and financial adviser , a strong central government was created . When Thomas Jefferson became president he purchased the Louisiana Territory from France , doubling the size of the United States . A second and final war with Britain was fought in 1812 .   Encouraged by the notion of Manifest Destiny , federal territory expanded all the way to the Pacific . The U.S. always was large in terms of area , but its population was small , only 4 million in 1790 . Population growth was rapid , reaching 7.2 million in 1810 , 32 million in 1860 , 76 million in 1900 , 132 million in 1940 , and 321 million in 2015 . Economic growth in terms of overall GDP was even faster . However , compared to European powers , the nation 's military strength was relatively limited in peacetime before 1940 . The expansion was driven by a quest for inexpensive land for yeoman farmers and slave owners . The expansion of slavery was increasingly controversial and fueled political and constitutional battles , which were resolved by compromises . Slavery was abolished in all states north of the Mason -- Dixon line by 1804 , but the South continued to profit off the institution , producing high-value cotton exports to feed increasing high demand in Europe . The 1860 presidential election of Republican Abraham Lincoln was on a platform of ending the expansion of slavery and putting it on a path to extinction .   Seven cotton-based deep South slave states seceded and later founded the Confederacy four months before Lincoln 's inauguration . No nation ever recognized the Confederacy , but it opened the war by attacking Fort Sumter in 1861 . A surge of nationalist outrage in the North fueled a long , intense American Civil War ( 1861 -- 1865 ) . It was fought largely in the South as the overwhelming material and manpower advantages of the North proved decisive in a long war . The war 's result was restoration of the Union , the impoverishment of the South , and the abolition of slavery . In the Reconstruction era ( 1863 -- 1877 ) , legal and voting rights were extended to the freed slave . The national government emerged much stronger , and because of the Fourteenth Amendment in 1868 , it gained the explicit duty to protect individual rights . However , when white Democrats regained their power in the South during the 1870s , often by paramilitary suppression of voting , they passed Jim Crow laws to maintain white supremacy , and new disfranchising constitutions that prevented most African Americans and many poor whites from voting , a situation that continued for decades until gains of the civil rights movement in the 1960s and passage of federal legislation to enforce constitutional rights .   The United States became the world 's leading industrial power at the turn of the 20th century due to an outburst of entrepreneurship in the Northeast and Midwest and the arrival of millions of immigrant workers and farmers from Europe . The national railroad network was completed with the work of Chinese immigrants and large-scale mining and factories industrialized the Northeast and Midwest . Mass dissatisfaction with corruption , inefficiency and traditional politics stimulated the Progressive movement , from the 1890s to 1920s , which led to many social and political reforms . In 1920 , the 19th Amendment to the Constitution guaranteed women 's suffrage ( right to vote ) . This followed the 16th and 17th amendments in 1913 , which established the first national income tax and direct election of US senators to Congress . Initially neutral during World War I , the US declared war on Germany in 1917 and later funded the Allied victory the following year .   After a prosperous decade in the 1920s , the Wall Street Crash of 1929 marked the onset of the decade-long worldwide Great Depression . Democratic President Franklin D. Roosevelt ended the Republican dominance of the White House and implemented his New Deal programs for relief , recovery , and reform . The New Deal , which defined modern American liberalism , included relief for the unemployed , support for farmers , Social Security and a minimum wage . After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7 , 1941 , the United States entered World War II along with Britain , the Soviet Union , China , and the smaller number of Allied nations . The U.S. financed the Allied war effort and helped defeat Nazi Germany in the European theater . Its involvement culminated in using the newly invented nuclear weapons on Japanese cities that helped defeat Imperial Japan in the Pacific theater .   The United States and the Soviet Union emerged as rival superpowers after World War II . During the Cold War , the US and the USSR confronted each other indirectly in the arms race , the Space Race , proxy wars , and propaganda campaigns . US foreign policy during the Cold War was built around the support of Western Europe and Japan along with the policy of containment , stopping the spread of communism . The US joined the wars in Korea and Vietnam to try to stop its spread . In the 1960s , in large part due to the strength of the civil rights movement , another wave of social reforms were enacted by enforcing the constitutional rights of voting and freedom of movement to African-Americans and other racial minorities . Native American activism also rose . The Cold War ended when the Soviet Union officially dissolved in 1991 , leaving the United States as the world 's only superpower .   After the Cold War , the United States focused on international conflicts around the Middle East in response to the Gulf War in the early 1990s . The beginning of the 21st century saw the September 11 attacks by Al-Qaeda in 2001 , which would later followed by the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan . In 2008 , the United States had its worst economic crisis since the Great Depression , which has been followed by slower than usual rates of economic growth during the 2010s .

neg: Nuclear Energy Agency The Nuclear Energy Agency ( NEA ) is an intergovernmental agency that is organized under the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development ( OECD ) . Originally formed on 1 February 1958 with the name European Nuclear Energy Agency ( ENEA ) ( the United States participated as an Associate Member ) , the name was changed on 20 April 1972 to its current name after Japan became a member .   The mission of the NEA is to `` assist its member countries in maintaining and further developing , through international co-operation , the scientific , technological and legal bases required for the safe , environmentally friendly and economical use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes . ''

neg: Nuclear weapons in popular culture Since their public debut in August 1945 , nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture , to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the `` atomic age '' .

neg: WASH-740 WASH-740 was a report published by the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission ( USAEC ) in 1957 . This report , called `` Theoretical Possibilities and Consequences of Major Accidents in Large Nuclear Power Plants '' ( also known as `` The Brookhaven Report '' ) , estimated maximum possible damage from a meltdown with no containment building at a large nuclear reactor .   The conclusions of this study estimated the possible effects of a `` maximum credible accident '' for nuclear reactors then envisioned as being 3400 deaths , 43,000 injuries and property damage of $ 7 billion ( $ 57bn adjusted for inflation in 2012 since 1957 ) . The estimate of probability was one in a hundred thousand to one in a billion per reactor-year . When WASH-740 was revised in 1964-65 to account for the larger reactors then being designed , the new figures indicated that there could be as many as 45,000 deaths , 100,000 injuries , and $ 17 billion in property damage ( $ 125bn adjusted for inflation since 1964 ) .   However ; the assumptions underlying the results were unrealistic ( including the worst meteorological conditions , no containment building , and that half the reactor core is released into the atmosphere as micrometre-sized pellets without any examination of how this might occur ) . These were due to conservatism ( estimating the maximum possible damage ) and the need to use atomic bomb fallout data , which had been collected from tests ( computers in 1955 being greatly insufficient to do the calculations ) .   As knowledge , models and computers improved the conclusions of this report were replaced by those of first WASH-1400 ( 1975 , The Rasmussen Report ) , then CRAC-II ( 1982 ) , and most recently NUREG-1150 ( 1991 ) . Now all of these studies are considered obsolete ( see the disclaimer to NUREG-1150 ) , and are being replaced by the State-of-the-Art Reactor Consequence Analyses study .

neg: Weapon of mass destruction A weapon of mass destruction ( WMD ) is a nuclear , radiological , chemical , biological or other weapon that can kill and bring significant harm to a large number of humans or cause great damage to human-made structures ( e.g. , buildings ) , natural structures ( e.g. , mountains ) , or the biosphere . The scope and usage of the term has evolved and been disputed , often signifying more politically than technically . Originally coined in reference to aerial bombing with chemical explosives , since World War II it has come to refer to large-scale weaponry of other technologies , such as chemical , biological , radiological , or nuclear .

neg: Leo Szilard Leo Szilard ( -LSB- ˈsɪlɑːrd -RSB- Szilárd Leó -LSB- ˈsila : rd ˈlɛo : -RSB- ; Leo Spitz until age 2 ; February 11 , 1898 -- May 30 , 1964 ) was a Hungarian-born physicist and inventor . He conceived the nuclear chain reaction in 1933 , patented the idea of a nuclear reactor with Enrico Fermi , and in late 1939 wrote the letter for Albert Einstein 's signature that resulted in the Manhattan Project that built the atomic bomb .   Szilard initially attended Palatine Joseph Technical University in Budapest , but his engineering studies were interrupted by service in the Austro-Hungarian Army during World War I . He left Hungary for Germany in 1919 , enrolling at Technische Hochschule ( Institute of Technology ) in Berlin-Charlottenburg , but became bored with engineering and transferred to Friedrich Wilhelm University , where he studied physics . He wrote his doctoral thesis on Maxwell 's demon , a long-standing puzzle in the philosophy of thermal and statistical physics . Szilard was the first to recognize the connection between thermodynamics and Information theory .   In addition to the nuclear reactor , Szilard submitted patent applications for a linear accelerator in 1928 , and a cyclotron in 1929 . He also conceived the idea of an electron microscope . Between 1926 and 1930 , he worked with Einstein on the development of the Einstein refrigerator . After Adolf Hitler became chancellor of Germany in 1933 , Szilard urged his family and friends to flee Europe while they still could . He moved to England , where he helped found the Academic Assistance Council , an organization dedicated to helping refugee scholars find new jobs . While in England he discovered a means of isotope separation known as the Szilard -- Chalmers effect .   Foreseeing another war in Europe , Szilard moved to the United States in 1938 , where he worked with Enrico Fermi and Walter Zinn on means of creating a nuclear chain reaction . He was present when this was achieved on December 2 , 1942 . He worked for the Manhattan Project 's Metallurgical Laboratory on aspects of nuclear reactor design . He drafted the Szilard petition advocating a demonstration of the atomic bomb , but the Interim Committee chose to use them against cities without warning .   After the war , Szilard switched to biology . He invented the chemostat , discovered feedback inhibition , and was involved in the first cloning of a human cell . He publicly sounded the alarm against the possible development of salted thermonuclear bombs , a new kind of nuclear weapon that might annihilate mankind . Diagnosed with bladder cancer in 1960 , he underwent treatment using a cobalt-60 treatment that he had designed . He helped found the Salk Institute for Biological Studies , where he became a resident fellow . Szilard founded Council for a Livable World in 1962 to deliver `` the sweet voice of reason '' about nuclear weapons to Congress , the White House , and the American public . He died in his sleep of a heart attack in 1964 .

neg: National security National Security is a concept that a government , along with its parliaments , should protect the state and its citizens against all kind of `` national '' crises through a variety of power projections , such as political power , diplomacy , economic power , military might , and so on .   The concept developed all in the United States after World War II . Initially focusing on military might , it now encompasses a broad range of facets , all of which impinge on the non-military or economic security of the nation and the values espoused by the national society . Accordingly , in order to possess national security , a nation needs to possess economic security , energy security , environmental security , etc. . Security threats involve not only conventional foes such as other nation-states but also non-state actors such as violent non-state actors , narcotic cartels , multinational corporations and non-governmental organisations ; some authorities include natural disasters and events causing severe environmental damage in this category .   Measures taken to ensure national security include :  using diplomacy to rally allies and isolate threats  marshalling economic power to facilitate or compel cooperation  maintaining effective armed forces  implementing civil defense and emergency preparedness measures ( including anti-terrorism legislation )  ensuring the resilience and redundancy of critical infrastructure  using intelligence services to detect and defeat or avoid threats and espionage , and to protect classified information  using counterintelligence services or secret police to protect the nation from internal threats   There is no single universally accepted definition of national security . The variety of definitions provide an overview of the many usages of this concept . The concept still remains ambiguous , having originated from simpler definitions which initially emphasised the freedom from military threat and political coercion to later increase in sophistication and include other forms of non-military security as suited the circumstances of the time .   A typical dictionary definition , in this case from the Macmillan Dictionary ( online version ) , defines the term as `` the protection or the safety of a country 's secrets and its citizens '' emphasising the overall security of a nation and a nation state . Walter Lippmann , in 1943 , defined it in terms of war saying that `` a nation has security when it does not have to sacrifice its legitimate ínterests to avoid war , and is able , if challenged , to maintain them by war '' . A later definition by Harold Lasswell , a political scientist , in 1950 , looks at national security from almost the same aspect , that of external coercion : `` The distinctive meaning of national security means freedom from foreign dictation . ''   In 1960 , Arnold Wolfers , while recognising the need to segregate the subjectivity of the conceptual idea from the objectivity , talks of threats to acquired values : `` An ambiguous symbol meaning different things to different people . National security objectively means the absence of threats to acquired values and subjectively , the absence of fear that such values will be attacked . '' The 1996 definition propagated by the National Defence College of India accretes the elements of national power : `` National security is an appropriate and aggressive blend of political resilience and maturity , human resources , economic structure and capacity , technological competence , industrial base and availability of natural resources and finally the military might . ''   Harold Brown , U.S. Secretary of Defense from 1977 to 1981 in the Carter administration , enlarged the definition of national security by including elements such as economic and environmental security : National security then is the ability to preserve the nation 's physical integrity and territory ; to maintain its economic relations with the rest of the world on reasonable terms ; to preserve its nature , institution , and governance from disruption from outside ; and to control its borders.In 1990 , Harvard University history professor Charles Maier defined national security through the lens of national power : `` National security ... is best described as a capacity to control those domestic and foreign conditions that the public opinion of a given community believes necessary to enjoy its own self-determination or autonomy , prosperity and wellbeing . '' According to Prabhakaran Paleri , author of National Security , Imperatives and Challenges , national security may be defined as : The measurable state of the capability of a nation to overcome the multi-dimensional threats to the apparent well-being of its people and its survival as a nation-state at any given time , by balancing all instruments of state policy through governance , that can be indexed by computation , empirically or otherwise , and is extendable to global security by variables external to it .  A concise working definition by Premaratne that paraphrases the aspects of the definitions of Brown , Romm and Paleri defines national security as  Safeguarding the sovereignty , territorial integrity , citizenry and socioeconomic functionality of a nation from an aggressor intent on undermining a particular valued aspect of a nation through violent or unjust means

neg: High-altitude nuclear explosion High-altitude nuclear explosions are the result of nuclear weapons testing . Several such tests were performed at high altitudes by the United States and the Soviet Union between 1958 and 1962 .

neg: Origins of the Cold War The Origins of the Cold War are widely regarded to lie most directly in the relations between the Soviet Union and the allies ( the United States , Great Britain and France ) in the years 1945 -- 1947 . Those events led to the Cold War that endured for just under half a century .   Events preceding the Second World War , and even the Russian Revolution of 1917 , underlay pre -- World War II tensions between the Soviet Union , western European countries and the United States . A series of events during and after World War II exacerbated tensions , including the Soviet-German pact during the first two years of the war leading to subsequent invasions , the perceived delay of an amphibious invasion of German-occupied Europe , the western allies ' support of the Atlantic Charter , disagreement in wartime conferences over the fate of Eastern Europe , the Soviets ' creation of an Eastern Bloc of Soviet satellite states , western allies scrapping the Morgenthau Plan to support the rebuilding of German industry , and the Marshall Plan .

neg: History of the United States National Security Council 1953–61 This article is about the history of the United States National Security Council during the Eisenhower Administration , 1953 -- 1961 .   Under President Dwight D. Eisenhower , the National Security Council system evolved into the principal arm of the President in formulating and executing policy on military , international , and internal security affairs . Where Harry S. Truman was uncomfortable with the NSC system and only made regular use of it under the pressure of the Korean War , Eisenhower embraced the NSC concept and created a structured system of integrated policy review . Eisenhower had a penchant for careful staff work , and believed that effective planning involved a creative process of discussion and debate among advisers compelled to work toward consensus recommendations .   The genesis of the new NSC system was a report prepared for the President in March 1953 by Robert Cutler , who became the President 's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs . Cutler proposed a systematic flow of recommendation , decision , and implementation that he later described as the `` policy hill '' process . At the bottom of the hill , concerned agencies such as State and Defense produced draft policy recommendations on specific topics and worked for consensus at the agency level . These draft NSC papers went up the hill through the Planning Board , created to review and refine the recommendations before passing them on for full NSC consideration . The NSC Planning Board met on Tuesday and Friday afternoons and was composed of officials at the Assistant Secretary level from the agencies with permanent or standing representation on the Council , as well as advisers from the Joint Chiefs of Staff and Central Intelligence Agency . Hundreds of hours were spent by the Board reviewing and reconstructing proposed papers for the NSC . Cutler resigned in 1958 in exhaustion . The top of the foreign policy-making hill was the NSC itself , chaired by the President , which met regularly on Thursday mornings .   The Council consisted of the five statutory members : the President , Vice President , Secretaries of State and Defense , and Director of the Office of Defense Mobilization . Depending on the subject under discussion , as many as a score of other senior Cabinet members and advisers , including the Secretary of the Treasury , the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff , and the Director of Central Intelligence , attended and participated . The agenda included regular briefings by the Director of Central Intelligence on worldwide developments affecting U.S. security , and consideration of the policy papers advanced by the Planning Board . The upshot of the discussions were recommendations to the President in the form of NSC Actions . The President , who participated in the discussion , normally endorsed the NSC Action , and the decision went down the hill for implementation to the Operations Coordinating Board .   President Eisenhower created the Operations Coordinating Board ( OCB ) to follow up on all NSC decisions . The OCB met regularly on Wednesday afternoons at the Department of State , and was composed of the Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs , Deputy Secretary of Defense , the Directors of the CIA , the United States Information Agency , and ICA , and the Special Assistants to the President for National Security Affairs and Security Operations Coordination . The OCB was the coordinating and implementing arm of the NSC for all aspects of the implementation of national security policy . NSC action papers were assigned to a team from the OCB for follow-up . More than 40 interagency working groups were established with experts for various countries and subjects . This 24-person staff of the OCB supported these working groups in which officials from various agencies met each other for the first time .   The President 's Special Assistant for National Security Affairs , a post held under Eisenhower by Cutler , Dillon Anderson , William Harding Jackson , and finally Gordon Gray , oversaw the flow of recommendations and decisions up and down the policy hill , and functioned in Council meetings to brief the Council and summarize the sense of discussion . The Special Assistant was an essential facilitator of the decision-making system , but , unlike the National Security Adviser created under Kennedy , had no substantive role in the process . The NSC staff managed by the Special Assistant grew during the Eisenhower years , but again had no independent role in the policy process .   President Eisenhower had great confidence in the efficacy of covert operations as a viable supplement or alternative to previous normal foreign policy initiatives . The seeming clear success of the operations to overthrow Iranian populist leader Mossadegeh in 1953 , and overthrow the democratically elected , left-leaning President Jacobo Árbenz Guzmán in Guatemala in 1954 was not without their crisis moments in the White House . In 1954 NSC 5412 provided for the establishment of a panel of designated representatives of the President and the Secretaries of State and Defense to meet regularly to review and recommend covert operations . Gordon Gray assumed the chairmanship of the `` 5412 Committee '' as it was called , and all succeeding National Security Advisers have chaired similar successor committees , variously named `` 303 '' , `` 40 '' , `` Special Coordinating Committee , '' which , in later Presidential administrations , were charged with the review of CIA covert operations .   President Eisenhower also created the position of staff secretary with the responsibility to screen all foreign policy and military documents coming to the President . While Colonel Andrew Goodpaster held this position , he tended to eclipse the Special Assistant for National Security .   The strength of the NSC system under Eisenhower was that it provided for regular , fully staffed , interagency review of major foreign and national security issues , culminating in discussion and decision at the highest level of government . The resulting Presidentially approved NSC papers provided policy guidance at every level of implementation . Eisenhower felt that the regular policy discussions kept his principal advisers fully informed , in step with one another , and prepared to react knowledgeably in the event of crisis . His commitment to the system was such that he chaired every Council meeting he could attend ( 329 of a total of 366 ) . The NSC meetings , including prior briefings and subsequent review of NSC Actions , constituted the largest single item on his weekly agenda .   Secretary of State John Foster Dulles , on the other hand , had reservations about the NSC system . He was the strongest personality in the Eisenhower Cabinet and jealously guarded his role as principal adviser to the President on foreign policy . He had constant , direct access to the President and did not feel that some of the most sensitive issues should be discussed in groups as large as were involved in most NSC meetings . He drew a sharp line between the NSC policy review process and the day-to-day operations of foreign policy , which he maintained were the province of the Department of State . Dulles and his deputies also were not comfortable with the scope the NSC review system gave to Secretary of the Treasury George Humphrey , another strong figure in the Cabinet , to intrude budgetary limitations into policy considerations . Dulles successfully resisted a proposal to substitute the Vice President for the Under Secretary of State as chairman of the OCB , arguing that such a change would impinge on his role as principal adviser to the President on foreign policy .   Critics of the Eisenhower NSC system have argued that it was inflexible , overstaffed , unable to anticipate and react to immediate crises , and weighed down by committees reporting in great detail on long checklists of minor policy concerns . The most thorough critique of the system emerged from the hearings conducted in 1960 ( 1961 by the Senate Subcommittee on National Policy Machinery , known as the Jackson Subcommittee for its chairman , Senator Henry Jackson . Cutler and NSC Executive Secretary James Lay testified in support of the effectiveness of the system , but their testimony was offset by that of former Truman administration officials such as George Kennan , Paul Nitze , and Robert Lovett . They argued that foreign policy was being made by a passive President influenced by a National Security Council rendered virtually useless by ponderous , bureaucratic machinery . Basically , they argued , the NSC was a huge committee , and suffered from all the weaknesses of committees . Composed of representatives of many agencies , its members were not free to adopt the broad , statesmanlike attitude desired by the President , but , rather , were ambassadors of their own departments , clinging to departmental rather than national views . To make matters worse , critics added , the NSC system by its very nature was restricted to continuing and developing already established policies and was incapable of originating new ideas or major innovations . The critics suggested replacement of the formal , `` over-institutionalized '' NSC structure with a smaller , less formal NSC which would offer the President a clear choice of alternatives on a limited number of major problems .   Eisenhower was certainly not a passive President , dominated by his Secretary of State on foreign policy and national security issues . In fact , Eisenhower was actively in command of his administration 's foreign policy , and the established NSC system met his instincts and requirements to the extent he used them . Although there is substance in the criticism that the Eisenhower NSC became to some extent the prisoner of a rigidly bureaucratic process , the criticism misses the point that Eisenhower and Dulles did not attempt to manage fast-breaking foreign policy crises or day-to-day operation through the NSC apparatus . An examination of several of the major foreign policy decisions that confronted the Eisenhower administration reveals that the NSC system was used to manage some , but was essentially bypassed in others . The established NSC process was used when the question involved a policy debate between departments with strongly held , contending positions , as it did in the case of the debate between the Departments of State and Defense in 1956/1957 over whether to introduce a more modern generation of weapons into Korea , where it focused debate and produced the necessary agreed-upon decision after discussion of three draft policy papers .   In fast-breaking crisis situations however , including the concurrent Suez crisis and Hungarian Revolution of 1956 , the first and Second Taiwan Strait Crisis of 1955 and 1958 , and the 1958 Lebanon crisis , these were typically managed through small meetings with the President in the White House , normally involving Dulles and other concerned advisers , and through telephone conversations between Eisenhower , Dulles , and other principal advisers . Eisenhower sometimes used trusted NSC staffers to serve as an intermediary to gain information outside the chain of command as he did with Colonel Goodpaster during the straits crisis in 1955 . There was great similarity between this process of crisis management and that adopted by subsequent Presidents , such as Kennedy , Johnson , and Nixon , except for the fact that the ad hoc meetings in the Eisenhower White House did not involve a National Security Adviser as a substantive participant . And in the event that aspects of crisis management depended on contact with the critical man-on-the-spot , as it did in 1958 when Deputy Under Secretary of State Robert Murphy was dispatched to Lebanon to attempt to defuse the crisis , his instructions came from the Department of State and he reported to the Secretary of State rather than directly to the White House , as became the practice during the height of the Vietnam War .   When Eisenhower briefed President-elect Kennedy on the NSC system , as when Gordon Gray briefed his successor McGeorge Bundy , they both emphasized the importance of the established NSC machinery in the management of foreign policy and national security affairs . They might have been more persuasive in maintaining the system had they pointed to the fact that the NSC apparatus was essentially limited to policy review , but was not used by them to manage foreign policy crises or day-to-day decisions .

neg: Nuclear weapons and Israel Israel is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons and to be the sixth country in the world to have developed them , allegedly having built its first deliverable nuclear weapon in December 1966 based on scientific and industrial cooperation with pre-nuclear France . It is one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a Nuclear Weapons State by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) ; the others being India , Pakistan , and North Korea . Israel maintains a policy known as `` nuclear ambiguity '' ( also known as `` nuclear opacity '' ) . Israel has never officially denied nor admitted to having nuclear weapons , instead repeating over the years that it would not be the first country to `` introduce '' nuclear weapons to the Middle East , leaving ambiguity as to whether it means it will not create , will not disclose , will not make first use of the weapons or possibly some other interpretation of the phrase . The `` not be the first '' formulation goes back to the Eshkol-Comer ( sic ) memorandum of understanding made between Israel and the United States on March 10 , 1965 , which contained Israel 's written assurance for the first time that it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East . Israel has refused to sign the NPT despite international pressure to do so , and has stated that signing the NPT would be contrary to its national security interests .   Additionally , Israel has made extensive efforts to deny other regional actors the ability to acquire their own nuclear weapons . The counter-proliferation , preventive strike Begin Doctrine added another dimension to Israel 's existing nuclear policy . Israel remains the only country in the Middle East believed to possess them .   Israel started investigating the nuclear field soon after its founding in 1948 and with French support secretly began building the Negev Nuclear Research Center , a facility near Dimona housing a nuclear reactor and reprocessing plant in the late 1950s . Israel is alleged to have built its first nuclear weapon in December 1966 , but it is not publicly confirmed . In 1986 , Mordechai Vanunu , a former Israeli nuclear technician , provided explicit details and photographs to The Sunday Times of a nuclear weapons program in which he had been employed for nine years , `` including equipment for extracting radioactive material for arms production and laboratory models of thermonuclear devices . '' In 1987 , an unclassified US DoD report ( released in February 2015 in response to a FOIA request ) stated that `` As far as nuclear technology is concerned , the Israelis are roughly where the U.S. -LSB- w -RSB- as in the fission weapon field in about 1955 to 1960 . It should be noted that the Israelis are developing the kind of codes which will enable them to make hydrogen bombs . ''   Estimates as to the size of the Israeli nuclear arsenal vary between 75 and 400 nuclear warheads . It is estimated that the Israel nuclear deterrent force has the ability to deliver them by intermediate-range ballistic missile , intercontinental ballistic missile , aircraft , and submarine-launched cruise missile . The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute estimates that Israel has approximately 80 intact nuclear weapons , of which 50 are for delivery by Jericho II medium-range ballistic missiles and 30 are gravity bombs for delivery by aircraft . Former U.S. officials Jimmy Carter and Colin Powell have stated that Israel has 200 ( Powell ) or more than 300 ( Carter ) nuclear warheads .

neg: Dirty bomb A dirty bomb or radiological dispersal device ( RDD ) is a speculative radiological weapon that combines radioactive material with conventional explosives . The purpose of the weapon is to contaminate the area around the dispersal agent/conventional explosion with radioactive material , serving primarily as an area denial device against civilians . It is however not to be confused with a nuclear explosion , such as a fission bomb , which by releasing nuclear energy produces blast effects far in excess of what is achievable by the use of conventional explosives .   Though an RDD would be designed to disperse radioactive material over a large area , a bomb that uses conventional explosives and produces a blast wave would be far more lethal to people than the hazard posed by radioactive material that may be mixed with the explosive . At levels created from probable sources , not enough radiation would be present to cause severe illness or death . A test explosion and subsequent calculations done by the United States Department of Energy found that assuming nothing is done to clean up the affected area and everyone stays in the affected area for one year , the radiation exposure would be `` fairly high '' , but not fatal . Recent analysis of the nuclear fallout from the Chernobyl disaster confirms this , showing that the effect on many people in the surrounding area , although not those in close proximity , was almost negligible .   Since a dirty bomb is unlikely to cause many deaths by radiation exposure , many do not consider this to be a weapon of mass destruction . Its purpose would presumably be to create psychological , not physical , harm through ignorance , mass panic , and terror . For this reason dirty bombs are sometimes called `` weapons of mass disruption '' . Additionally , containment and decontamination of thousands of victims , as well as decontamination of the affected area might require considerable time and expense , rendering areas partly unusable and causing economic damage .

neg: Middle East nuclear weapon free zone The Middle East nuclear weapon free zone ( MENWFZ ) is a proposed agreement similar to other nuclear-weapon-free zones in other regions . Steps towards the establishment of such a zone began in the 1960s led to a joint declaration by Egypt and Iran in 1974 which resulted in a General Assembly resolution ( broadened in 1990 through the Mubarak Initiative to cover all weapons of mass destruction ) . Following the 1995 NPT Review Conference , the International Atomic Energy Agency ( IAEA ) held a series of meetings involving experts and academics to consider ways to advance this process .   Such a zone would strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) , would help to promote global nuclear disarmament and would also help the Middle East peace process as substantial confidence-building measures .   The United Nations Security Council Resolution 687 ( the ceasefire ending the Gulf War ) recognizes the goal of establishing the MENWFZ ( para 14 ) .   For the Egyptian government ( until the political changes of 2011 ) , a MENWFZ was seen as a central source of pressure on Israel to relinquish its ambiguous nuclear policy , and to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty ( NPT ) . Until the Iranian nuclear program , Israel was believed to be the only Mideast country to have a nuclear deterrence capability , developed in the 1960s . As Avner Cohen , Gerald Steinberg and other experts have noted , Israeli policy has emphasized the link between nuclear demilitarization and a comprehensive peace settlement including Palestinian issues and with countries and potential threats in the region , including Syria and Iran . Israel maintains a veil of `` studied ambiguity '' ( `` amimut '' ) about its nuclear arsenal , and has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty .   Four countries in the Middle East have been found in non-compliance with their IAEA safeguards obligations under the NPT : Iraq , Libya , Iran , and Syria . Of these cases , Iran and Syria remain unresolved .   Following pressure from Egypt and the Arab League , the 2010 NPT Review Conference called for holding a conference on a MENWFZ which would primarily press Israel to end its policy of a ambiguity . Finland planned to host such an event in 2012 . However , no agreement was reached on the agenda and other issues , and the conference was called off in November 2012 .   An international group of concerned citizens , including former members of the Israeli Knesset , responded to the lack of progress in official talks by organizing an International Conference For A WMD-Free Middle East . It was held in Haifa in December 2013 .

neg: Surrender of Japan The surrender of Imperial Japan was announced on August 15 and formally signed on September 2 , 1945 , bringing the hostilities of World War II to a close . By the end of July 1945 , the Imperial Japanese Navy ( IJN ) was incapable of conducting major operations and an Allied invasion of Japan was imminent . Together with the British Empire and China , the United States called for the unconditional surrender of the Japanese armed forces in the Potsdam Declaration on July 26 , 1945 -- the alternative being `` prompt and utter destruction '' . While publicly stating their intent to fight on to the bitter end , Japan 's leaders ( the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War , also known as the `` Big Six '' ) were privately making entreaties to the still-neutral Soviet Union to mediate peace on terms more favorable to the Japanese . Meanwhile , the Soviets were preparing to attack Japanese forces in Manchuria and Korea ( in addition to South Sakhalin and the Kuril Islands ) in fulfillment of promises they had secretly made to the United States and the United Kingdom at the Tehran and Yalta Conferences .   On August 6 , 1945 , at 8:15 AM local time , the United States detonated an atomic bomb over the Japanese city of Hiroshima . Sixteen hours later , American President Harry S. Truman called again for Japan 's surrender , warning them to `` expect a rain of ruin from the air , the like of which has never been seen on this earth . '' Late in the evening of August 8 , 1945 , in accordance with the Yalta agreements , but in violation of the Soviet -- Japanese Neutrality Pact , the Soviet Union declared war on Japan , and soon after midnight on August 9 , 1945 , the Soviet Union invaded the Imperial Japanese puppet state of Manchukuo . Later in the day , the United States dropped a second atomic bomb , this time on the Japanese city of Nagasaki . Following these events , Emperor Hirohito intervened and ordered the Supreme Council for the Direction of the War to accept the terms the Allies had set down in the Potsdam Declaration for ending the war . After several more days of behind-the-scenes negotiations and a failed coup d'état , Emperor Hirohito gave a recorded radio address across the Empire on August 15 . In the radio address , called the , he announced the surrender of Japan to the Allies .   On August 28 , the occupation of Japan by the Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers began . The surrender ceremony was held on September 2 , aboard the United States Navy battleship , at which officials from the Japanese government signed the Japanese Instrument of Surrender , thereby ending the hostilities . Allied civilians and military personnel alike celebrated V-J Day , the end of the war ; however , some isolated soldiers and personnel from Imperial Japan 's far-flung forces throughout Asia and the Pacific islands refused to surrender for months and years afterwards , some even refusing into the 1970s . The role of the atomic bombings in Japan 's unconditional surrender , and the ethics of the two attacks , is still debated . The state of war formally ended when the Treaty of San Francisco came into force on April 28 , 1952 . Four more years passed before Japan and the Soviet Union signed the Soviet -- Japanese Joint Declaration of 1956 , which formally brought an end to their state of war .

neg: Deadline (science fiction story) `` Deadline '' is a 1944 science fiction short story by American writer Cleve Cartmill , first published in Astounding Science Fiction . The story described the then-secret atomic bomb in some detail . At that time the bomb was still under development and top secret , which prompted a visit by the FBI .   In 1943 , Cartmill suggested to John W. Campbell , the then-editor of Astounding , that he could write a story about a futuristic super-bomb . Campbell liked the idea and supplied Cartmill with considerable background information gleaned from unclassified scientific journals , on the use of Uranium-235 to make a nuclear fission device . The resulting story appeared in the issue of Astounding dated March 1944 , which actually appeared early in February of that year .   By March 8 it had come to the attention of the Counterintelligence Corps , who saw many similarities between the technical details in the story and the research currently being undertaken in great secrecy at Los Alamos . Gregory Benford describes the incident as told him by Edward Teller in his autobiographical essay `` Old Legends '' :   Coming three years later in the same magazine , Cleve Cartmill 's `` Deadline '' provoked astonishment in the lunch table discussions at Los Alamos . It really did describe isotope separation and the bomb itself in detail , and raised as its principal plot pivot the issue the physicists were then debating among themselves : should the Allies use it ? To the physicists from many countries clustered in the high mountain strangeness of New Mexico , cut off from their familiar sources of humanist learning , it must have seemed particularly striking that Cartmill described an allied effort , a joint responsibility laid upon many nations .  Discussion of Cartmill 's `` Deadline '' was significant . The story 's detail was remarkable , its sentiments even more so . Did this rather obscure story hint at what the American public really thought about such a superweapon , or would think if they only knew ?  Talk attracts attention , Teller recalled a security officer who took a decided interest , making notes , saying little . In retrospect , it was easy to see what a wartime intelligence monitor would make of the physicists ' conversations . Who was this guy Cartmill , anyway ? Where did he get these details ? Who tipped him to the isotope separation problem ? `` and that is why Mr. Campbell received his visitors . ''   Fearing a security breach , the FBI began an investigation into Cartmill , Campbell , and some of their acquaintances ( including Isaac Asimov and Robert A. Heinlein ) . It appears that the authorities eventually accepted the explanation that the story 's material had been gleaned from unclassified sources , but as a precautionary measure they requested that Campbell should not publish any further stories about nuclear technology for the remainder of the war .   Campbell , in the meantime , had guessed from the number of Astounding subscribers who had suddenly moved to the Los Alamos area , that the US government probably had some sort of technical or scientific project ongoing there . He declined to volunteer this information to the FBI .