History 15/01/20 As a journalist, the USA pushed the USSR to the creation of the atomic bomb
the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki made the U.S. air force in August 1945, known in all details thanks to the work of journalist William Leonard Laurence. This is already old by the mid-1940s, the reporter was fortunate enough to become the official historian of the Manhattan project. Laurence was the only reporter watching the first nuclear tests of the US – first “Trinity” in new Mexico, and then over the Japanese cities.
Saw the atomic bombing
Some time later, Lawrence told about the beginning of the atomic age in the book “Men and atoms”, which was translated into Russian language and published in the Soviet Union. In the midst of the cold war it was possible to say that a unique event. Lawrence left a good impression attempt an impartial approach to the case. Unlike his colleagues, he chose to refrain from opinions, not praising and not condemning the us military for the attack on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which led to thousands dead. The journalist just stated my own observations: how it all happened, what the consequences were.
“the Morning of 6 August 1945 at Hiroshima was clear and Sunny, so Lawrence began his story about the first of the two attacks. – All of the city’s population, young and old, to do their business. Until the judgement remains fifteen minutes.”
the Soviet publishers of “Men and atoms” represented the author as “a physicist, a journalist and editor for science, the New York Times”. In 1966, it is impossible to tell the truth: actually, this man, with my own eyes saw a dazzling bright flash and mushroom cloud over Japan – from the “our ex”, almost your.
Participated in the Russian revolution
Future witness the first and last use of the atomic bomb for military purposes was born in Salantai. Thisday is a small town in Western Lithuania, and in 1888 – a real backwater even by the standards of the Kovno governorate in the Russian Empire. Salantai was notable except that the presence of a large Jewish community. About half of the 2.5 th of the population of the town was made up of representatives of the national minorities.
Jews by birth were the parents of Lawrence. However, a name under which the journalist is known throughout the planet, it got a lot later. His name at birth – Leyb wolf Zeev. Like many Jewish boys of his generation, the future author of “Atoms and men” had a grudge against the autocratic power due to the complex situation of co-religionists, and early imbued with revolutionary ideas.
17-year-old Siew with hope greeted the first Russian revolution, trying to get into her crucible and to take an active part in the unfolding events. However, quite quickly it became clear that ungrateful craft professional revolutionary is not suitable for everyone. In contrast to the Ukrainian Jew Leon Trotsky, Siew was not willing to take risks for Marxist ideas of life, to suffer for questioning and to languish in exile. Seriously fearing arrest, when the revolutionary vortex already began to decline and provided the opportunity for the tsarist secret police to deal with the rebels, Siew fled the country. After long travels he was fortunate enough to move overseas and settle in the North American United States, as they called us at that time, the “capitalist Paradise”.
Borrowed the name from Shakespeare
If Trotsky caught there through the years, in General, skeptical about the American way of life and rushed home, in flames, hungry, but my native Petrograd, then Sieve liking the suddenly-found freedom. He decided to stay permanently and build a life in their new homeland. For a good start was followed by “Americanized”, and Siev did not waste time.
the First name of his new alias he “borrowed” from the favorite author of William Shakespeare, the second took from Leonardo da Vinci’s last name chose in honor of the street on which he settled in Roxbury, outside Boston.
among other things, the name change was a purely practical sense. Siew Lawrence could not know how his fate farther, and if they’re on the trail of “the Tsar’s hounds”. And if Russia looking for revolutionary Sieva, then what’s the Harvard student Lawrence?
he Served in the us army
In 1913 the immigrant second time lucky. Interested in replenishment of the army at the expense of foreigners came the government of the USA was bestowed the citizen of the former Emperor Nicholas II American citizenship. Lawrence had served before America’s entry into the First world war. And, after demobilization, he continued his studies at the faculty of law. Physics he never specifically studied – in this case, the Soviet translators embellished the track record of the author in the annotation.
In 1926, Lawrence began writing notes, focused primarily on scientific topics. Soon started a family, and with the beginning of the Second world switched to nuclear industry, which is actively developed by Nazi Germany, America and, later, the Soviet Union.
Scared the world Hitler
In one of his articles Lawrence so clearly painted all the horrors threatening the world in the case of a Nazi atomic bomb, it had far-reaching consequences. Based on newspaper material, U.S. officials turned to a renowned scientist, Vladimir Vernadsky, with a request to persuade the Soviet authorities to start developing its own nuclear program. Together with Moscow it will be easier to keep the madman of the Fuhrer, decided in Washington. That is, a Lawrence to a certain extent, affected the deployment of the Soviet atomic project, although intensive work in this direction began still later, after the Potsdam conference in the summer of 1945.
Later Lawrence was present during the tests hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll in the Pacific ocean. The journalist has finished his activity in the media in 1964, the WWTPIV the rest of my life to give lectures at prestigious universities and travel. Death overtook him in 1977 on the Spanish island of Majorca.
Okunev Dmitry
Source:
© Russian Seven
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