Atomic Weapons and East-West Relations by Blackett, P. M. S - 1956

Cambridge, England: Cambridge University Press, 1956. Presumed First Edition, First printing. Hardcover. Good/Good. Format is approximately 5 inches by 7.5 inches. [2], vi, 107, [1] pages. References. DJ is worn, soiled with small tears and chips. DJ front flap has top corner clipped, but price is at the lower corner. Inscribed by the author to Philip Morrison! There is an 8.5 inch by 10 inch sheet, folded into quarters laid in which what appear to be notes on the book in Morrison's handwriting. Patrick Maynard Stuart Blackett, Baron Blackett OM CH FRS (18 November 1897 - 13 July 1974) was a British experimental physicist known for his work on cloud chambers, cosmic rays, and paleomagnetism, winning the Nobel Prize for Physics in 1948. In 1925 he became the first person to prove that radioactivity could cause the nuclear transmutation of one chemical element to another. He also made a major contribution in World War II advising on military strategy and developing operational research. In 1935 Blackett was invited to join the Aeronautical Research Committee chaired by Sir Henry Tizard. The committee was effective pressing for the early installation of Radar for air defence. In the early part of World War II, Blackett spent time at the Royal Aircraft Establishment (RAE) Farnborough, where he made a major contribution to the design of the Mark XIV bomb sight which allowed bombs to be released without a level bombing run beforehand. August 1940 Blackett became scientific adviser to Lieutenant General Sir Frederick Pile, Commander in Chief of Anti-Aircraft Command and thus began the work that resulted in the field of study known as operational research (OR). Philip Morrison (November 7, 1915 - April 22, 2005) was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). He is known for his work on the Manhattan Project during World War II, and for his later work in quantum physics, nuclear physics and high energy astrophysics. A graduate of Carnegie Tech, Morrison became interested in physics, which he studied at the University of California, Berkeley, under the supervision of J. Robert Oppenheimer. During World War II he joined the Manhattan Project's Metallurgical Laboratory at the University of Chicago, where he worked with Eugene Wigner on the design of nuclear reactors. In 1944 he moved to the Manhattan Project's Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, where he worked with George Kistiakowsky on the development of explosive lenses required to detonate the implosion-type nuclear weapon. Morrison transported the core of the Trinity test device to the test site in the back seat of a Dodge sedan. As leader of Project Alberta's pit crew he helped load the atomic bombs on board the aircraft that participated in the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. After the war ended, he traveled to Hiroshima as part of the Manhattan Project's mission to assess the damage. After the war his research turned away from nuclear physics towards astrophysics. He published papers on cosmic rays, and a 1958 paper of his is considered to mark the birth of gamma ray astronomy.

This book addresses in its three chapters: western military policy, the atomic arms race 1945-1955, and then discusses the retrospect and the prospect. It provides an analysis of atomic power up until the time of publication. Professor Blackett divides the use of atomic power into three periods: the time of American atomic monopoly, the time of American atomic superiority and the time of atomic parity with Russia. In analyzing these periods, Blackett provides an unconventional but reassuring estimate of the situation. Much of the extreme anxiety in the West, he argues, is the result of faulty military and political thinking, with Western countries making particular errors of judgment in terms of the atomic arms race. This book will be of value to anyone with an interest in atomic power and the Cold War.