Changes

====The H-bomb====

====The H-bomb====

In 1947, Oppenheimer became Chairman of the AEC's General Advisory Committee (GAC) on Science.<ref>"[https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0422.html J. Robert Oppenheimer, Atom Bomb Pioneer, Dies]," ''The New York Times'', February 19, 1967</ref> On September 23, 1949, Truman announced that the Soviets had exploded their own atomic bomb.<ref>[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1234&st=&st1= Statement by the President on Announcing the First Atomic Explosion in the U.S.S.R.], September 23, 1949, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum</ref> (Within a month of breaking the U.S. nuclear monopoly, Soviet-backed Communist rebels would seize control of [[China]], inaugurating a regime that would eventually murder some 70 million Chinese;<ref>Courtois et al. estimate Communist China's murders at 65 million (Stephane Courtois, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin [Mark Kramer, ed.; Jonathan Murphy, trans.], ''[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076082 The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression]'' [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999] ISBN 9780674076082, p. 4); Jung and Halladay estimate "well over 70 million" (Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3EZwAAAAMAAJ Mao: The Unknown Story]'' [London: Jonathan Cape, 2005] ISBN 0224071262, pp. 3, 560, 651); Rummel estimates 77 million. R.J. Rummel, "[http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/RummelDemocide.php Death by Government: Stalin Beat Hitler but Mao Surpassed Both]," ''Orthodoxy Today'', December 4, 2005</ref> within a year, Soviet and Communist Chinese-backed [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea|North Korea]] would invade its neighbor to the south, launching a war that would claim more than 30,000 American lives.)<ref>John W. Chambers, II, ed. in chief, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=O7hmQgAACAAJ The Oxford Companion to American Military History]'' (Oxford University Press, 1999) ISBN 0-19-507198-0, p. 849</ref> AEC Commissioner Lewis Strauss, president of the board of trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (where Oppenheimer was director), responded with a proposal that the U.S. make it "highest priority" to build a hydrogen bomb (then called the "super bomb").<ref>[http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/strauss-lewis/corr_strauss_1949-11-25.htm Letter on the development of the Thermonuclear Bomb], From: Lewis L Strauss, To: Harry S Truman, President of the United States of America, Date: November 25, 1949</ref>

In 1947, Oppenheimer became Chairman of the AEC's General Advisory Committee (GAC) on Science.<ref>"[https://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/0422.html J. Robert Oppenheimer, Atom Bomb Pioneer, Dies]," ''The New York Times'', February 19, 1967</ref> On September 23, 1949, Truman announced that the Soviets had exploded their own atomic bomb.<ref>[http://www.trumanlibrary.org/publicpapers/index.php?pid=1234&st=&st1= Statement by the President on Announcing the First Atomic Explosion in the U.S.S.R.], September 23, 1949, Harry S. Truman Library & Museum</ref> (Within a month of breaking the U.S. nuclear monopoly, Soviet-backed Communist rebels would seize control of [[China]], inaugurating a regime that would eventually murder some 70 million Chinese;<ref>Courtois et al. estimate Communist China's murders at 65 million (Stephane Courtois, Jean-Louis Panne, Andrzej Paczkowski, Karel Bartosek, Jean-Louis Margolin [Mark Kramer, ed.; Jonathan Murphy, trans.], ''[http://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674076082 The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression]'' [Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999] ISBN 9780674076082, p. 4); Jung and Halladay estimate "well over 70 million" (Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=3EZwAAAAMAAJ Mao: The Unknown Story]'' [London: Jonathan Cape, 2005] ISBN 0224071262, pp. 3, 560, 651); Rummel estimates 77 million. R.J. Rummel, "[http://www.orthodoxytoday.org/articles5/RummelDemocide.php Death by Government: Stalin Beat Hitler but Mao Surpassed Both]," ''Orthodoxy Today'', December 4, 2005</ref> within a year, Soviet and Communist Chinese-backed [[Democratic People's Republic of Korea|North Korea]] would invade its neighbor to the south, launching a war that would claim more than 30,000 American lives.)<ref>John W. Chambers, II, ed. in chief, ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=O7hmQgAACAAJ The Oxford Companion to American Military History]'' (Oxford University Press, 1999) ISBN 0-19-507198-0, p. 849</ref> AEC Commissioner Lewis Strauss, president of the board of trustees of the Institute for Advanced Study at [[Princeton]] (where Oppenheimer was director), responded with a proposal that the U.S. make it "highest priority" to build a hydrogen bomb (then called the "super bomb").<ref>[http://www.nuclearfiles.org/menu/library/correspondence/strauss-lewis/corr_strauss_1949-11-25.htm Letter on the development of the Thermonuclear Bomb], From: Lewis L Strauss, To: Harry S Truman, President of the United States of America, Date: November 25, 1949</ref>

On October 14, 1949, one GAC member, Glenn Seaborg, then a future [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1951/seaborg.html Nobel Laureate] (and future AEC Chairman), wrote to Oppenheimer, “I have been unable to come to the conclusion that we should not” proceed with this crash program to develop an H-bomb. “I would have to hear some good arguments before I could take on sufficient courage to recommend not going toward such a program."<ref>[[#refAECH|AEC Hearings]]: 238 (PDF 248)</ref>

On October 14, 1949, one GAC member, Glenn Seaborg, then a future [http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/chemistry/laureates/1951/seaborg.html Nobel Laureate] (and future AEC Chairman), wrote to Oppenheimer, “I have been unable to come to the conclusion that we should not” proceed with this crash program to develop an H-bomb. “I would have to hear some good arguments before I could take on sufficient courage to recommend not going toward such a program."<ref>[[#refAECH|AEC Hearings]]: 238 (PDF 248)</ref>