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The Manhattan Project

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Research Question- To what extent did espionage within the Manhattan project speed up the Russian nuclear program?

Introduction:
The Cold war was an incredible time of military and scientific advancements. Supersonic aircraft broke the sound barrier in 1945 and in that same year the first vaccine for influenza was created. Those advances, however, are shadowed by the work produced from the Manhattan project. The project began in 1942, the lead scientist being Dr. J. Robert Oppenheimer. The Manhattan project was the codename for the United States nuclear program. This project however, had large problems with leaks being released to the public media (Wellerstein) as well as a heavy infiltration of informants to Soviet Russia. The list of informants …show more content…

The program was created during the height of the Arms Race between the United States and Soviet Russia and it was intended to create the first nuclear bomb. The creation of this bomb would eventually escalate the arms race into a full out Cold War.
Conclusion:
The result of the KGB operative infiltration into the manhattan project was an increased speed at which Russian nuclear scientists developed their own bomb. The Soviets took the US by surprise as they had created the bomb five years before predicted. The creation of their own nuclear arsenal allowed Russia to have more leverage when it came to negotiations with the US. This shift started the arms race between the US and Soviet union because previously the US had the only nuclear weapons in the world. This arms race ultimately ended with the Tsar Bomba being detonated as the last show of power from the Soviets. This started the idea of mutually assured destruction and prevented the US from dropping more atomic bombs on other countries. Without the infiltration of spies and KGB operatives in the US manhattan project the speed with which nuclear weapons were made couldn't have been achieved by the Soviet Union. The efforts of people such as Dr. Robert Oppenheimer, the Blumbergs and Harry Gold when put into the hands of people such as Igor Kurchatov allowed the Soviet Union to enter the field as a world power. If it had not been …show more content…

It strengthened the power and capability of the United States to decode messages. It also caused the United States to increase its security levels and protocols when it came to top secret programs. The KGB intelligence gained started the Arms race that ended up causing the Cold War between the United States and Soviet Russia. The creation of the Russian nuclear bomb kickstarted the rest of the developed world on using nuclear power. It also spurred the Russians to make the biggest and most powerful bomb in existence the Tsar

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