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76-408: Resurrection Day may refer to: Resurrection Day (novel) , a 1999 novel by Brendan DuBois Resurrection Day (album) , a 2021 album by Rage Easter Topics referred to by the same term [REDACTED] This disambiguation page lists articles associated with the title Resurrection Day . If an internal link led you here, you may wish to change

152-633: A nuclear war between the Soviet Union and the United States , the book chronicles the investigations of Carl Landry, a reporter for The Boston Globe . As the story unfolds, Carl attempts to uncover the events leading up to the war and to run from those who would have the truth buried. The story begins in 1972, ten years after a nuclear war between the Americans and the Soviets, which

228-564: A reunited Germany now presiding over the continent. The United Kingdom and Canada remain American allies and actively assist in post-war reconstruction efforts in US states that were hit the hardest by the war. The British, since 1962, have managed to regain much of their pre-1939 colonial confidence in the vacuum that is left by the destruction of the Soviet Union and the emasculation of

304-622: A 15-mile (24 km) maximum range. Because of their limited range, their potential use was heavily constrained (they could not, for example, threaten Moscow with an immediate strike). Development of long-range bombers, such as the B-29 Superfortress during World War II, was continued during the Cold War period. In 1946, the Convair B-36 Peacemaker became the first purpose-built nuclear bomber; it served with

380-412: A Soviet attack) was a major political controversy in the 1980s (eventually the silo deployment method was chosen). MIRVed systems enabled the U.S. to render Soviet missile defenses economically unfeasible, as each offensive missile would require between three and ten defensive missiles to counter. Additional developments in weapons delivery included cruise missile systems, which allowed a plane to fire

456-495: A coastline 12,000 kilometres (7,500 mi) inland. Additionally, in-flight refueling of long-range bombers and the use of aircraft carriers extends the possible range virtually indefinitely. Command and control procedures in case of nuclear war were given by the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) until 2003, when this was superseded by Operations Plan 8044. Since World War II ,

532-602: A consequence, the US has become a pariah in the eyes of much of the world. Many governments regard members of the US Air Force as war criminals, and its servicemen are advised not to travel abroad. After the 1962 war, nearly all the remaining countries of the globe have renounced possession of nuclear weapons. The US alone retained an atomic arsenal . Western Europe survived the war largely unscathed. NATO collapsed almost as soon as hostilities had commenced, with France and

608-400: A limited range. After these initial weapons were developed, a considerable amount of money and research was conducted towards the goal of standardizing nuclear warheads so that they did not require highly specialized experts to assemble them before use, as in the case with the idiosyncratic wartime devices, and miniaturization of the warheads for use in more variable delivery systems. Through

684-686: A long and protracted debate, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 was passed, creating the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) as a civilian agency that would be in charge of the production of nuclear weapons and research facilities, funded through Congress, with oversight provided by the Joint Committee on Atomic Energy . The AEC was given vast powers of control over secrecy, research, and money, and could seize lands with suspected uranium deposits. Along with its duties towards

760-457: A long-distance, low-flying nuclear-armed missile towards a target from a relatively comfortable distance. The current delivery systems of the U.S. make virtually any part of the Earth's surface within the reach of its nuclear arsenal. Though its land-based missile systems have a maximum range of 10,000 kilometres (6,200 mi) (less than worldwide), its submarine-based forces extend its reach from

836-633: A nuclear payload across vast distances, allowing the U.S. to house nuclear forces capable of hitting the Soviet Union in the American Midwest . Shorter-range weapons, including small tactical weapons, were fielded in Europe as well, including nuclear artillery and man-portable Special Atomic Demolition Munition . The development of submarine-launched ballistic missile systems allowed for hidden nuclear submarines to covertly launch missiles at distant targets as well, making it virtually impossible for

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912-531: A plutonium implosion-design bomb, Fat Man , with the explosion equivalent to about 20 kilotons of TNT, destroying 60% of the city and killing approximately 35,000 people, among them 23,200–28,200 Japanese munitions workers, 2,000 Korean slave laborers, and 150 Japanese combatants. On 1 January 1947, the Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (known as the McMahon Act) took effect, and the Manhattan Project

988-552: A result of the U.S. nuclear weapons program. In 2019, the U.S. and Russia possessed a comparable number of nuclear warheads; together, these two nations possess more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons stockpile. In 2024, it was estimated that the United States held 1,770 deployed warheads, 1,938 in reserve, and 1,336 retired and awaiting dismantlement, in total 5,044 nuclear warheads. The projected costs for maintaining U.S. nuclear forces are $ 60 billion per year during

1064-431: A sane president. In response to this situation, Ron Rosenbaum wrote that no command and control system is foolproof, and that the sanity of senior nuclear decision makers would always be a weak point in any conceivable command and control protocol. Starting with President Eisenhower , authority to launch a full-scale nuclear attack has been delegated to theater commanders and other specific commanders if they believe it

1140-643: A warhead from its silo but did not release any radiation. The nuclear testing program resulted in a number of cases of fallout dispersion onto populated areas. The most significant of these was the Castle Bravo test, which spread radioactive ash over an area of over 100 square miles (260 km ), including a number of populated islands. The populations of the islands were evacuated but not before suffering radiation burns. They would later suffer long-term effects , such as birth defects and increased cancer risk. There are ongoing concerns around deterioration of

1216-671: Is warranted by circumstances, and are out of communication with the president or the president had been incapacitated. For example, during the Cuban Missile Crisis , on 24 October 1962, General Thomas Power, commander of the Strategic Air Command (SAC), took the country to DEFCON 2 , the very precipice of full-scale nuclear war, launching the SAC bombers of the US with nuclear weapons ready to strike. Moreover, some of these commanders subdelegated to lower commanders

1292-756: The Los Alamos National Laboratory at Los Alamos, New Mexico , under the direction of physicist Robert Oppenheimer , the Hanford plutonium production facility in Washington , and the Y-12 National Security Complex in Tennessee . By investing heavily in breeding plutonium in early nuclear reactors and in the electromagnetic and gaseous diffusion enrichment processes for the production of uranium-235 ,

1368-598: The Manhattan Project ), to the nuclear fallout dispersion of the Castle Bravo shot in 1954, to accidents such as crashes of aircraft carrying nuclear weapons, the dropping of nuclear weapons from aircraft, losses of nuclear submarines, and explosions of nuclear-armed missiles ( broken arrows ). How close any of these accidents came to being major nuclear disasters is a matter of technical and scholarly debate and interpretation. Weapons accidentally dropped by

1444-556: The Nevada Test Site , and ten on miscellaneous sites in the United States ( Alaska , Colorado , Mississippi , and New Mexico ). Until November 1962, the vast majority of the U.S. tests were atmospheric (that is, above-ground); after the acceptance of the Partial Test Ban Treaty all testing was relegated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout . In 1992 a new testing moratorium

1520-426: The U.S. federal government spent at least US$ 11.3 trillion in present-day terms on nuclear weapons, including platforms development (aircraft, rockets and facilities), command and control, maintenance, waste management and administrative costs. It is estimated that the United States produced more than 70,000 nuclear warheads since 1945, more than all other nuclear weapon states combined. Until November 1962,

1596-559: The 1966 Palomares case), the explosive system of the fission weapon discharged, but did not trigger a nuclear chain reaction (safety features prevent this from easily happening), but did disperse hazardous nuclear materials across wide areas, necessitating expensive cleanup endeavors. Several US nuclear weapons, partial weapons, or weapons components are thought to be lost and unrecovered, primarily in aircraft accidents. The 1980 Damascus Titan missile explosion in Damascus, Arkansas , threw

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1672-436: The 1990s have been Superfund sites of cleanup and environmental remediation. Hanford is currently the most contaminated nuclear site in the United States and is the focus of the nation's largest environmental cleanup . Radioactive materials are known to be leaking from Hanford into the environment. The Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allows for U.S. citizens exposed to radiation or other health risks through

1748-531: The 2021–2030 period. The United States first began developing nuclear weapons during World War II under the order of President Franklin Roosevelt in 1939, motivated by the fear that they were engaged in a race with Nazi Germany to develop such a weapon . After a slow start under the direction of the National Bureau of Standards , at the urging of British scientists and American administrators,

1824-418: The 25 megaton B41 bomb . Between 1940 and 1996, the U.S. spent at least $ 11.3 trillion in present-day terms on nuclear weapons development. Over half was spent on building delivery mechanisms for the weapon. $ 709 billion in present-day terms was spent on nuclear waste management and environmental remediation. Richland, Washington was the first city established to support plutonium production at

1900-469: The American operational series may be found at United States' nuclear test series . The original Little Boy and Fat Man weapons, developed by the United States during the Manhattan Project , were relatively large (Fat Man had a diameter of 5 feet (1.5 m)) and heavy (around 5 tons each) and required specially modified bomber planes to be adapted for their bombing missions against Japan. Each modified bomber could only carry one such weapon and only within

1976-520: The Great Soviet and American Plutonium Disasters (Oxford), Kate Brown explores the health of affected citizens in the United States, and the "slow-motion disasters" that still threaten the environments where the plants are located. According to Brown, the plants at Hanford, over a period of four decades, released millions of curies of radioactive isotopes into the surrounding environment. Brown says that most of this radioactive contamination over

2052-546: The Marshall Islanders in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing. Over $ 15 million was paid to the Japanese government following the exposure of its citizens and food supply to nuclear fallout from the 1954 "Bravo" test . In 1998, the country spent an estimated $ 35.1 billion on its nuclear weapons and weapons-related programs. In the 2013 book Plutopia: Nuclear Families, Atomic Cities, and

2128-694: The Nevada Test Site and U.S. military workers at various tests—have sued for compensation and recognition of their exposure, many successfully. The passage of the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 allowed for a systematic filing of compensation claims in relation to testing as well as those employed at nuclear weapons facilities. By June 2009 over $ 1.4 billion total has been given in compensation, with over $ 660 million going to " downwinders ". A few notable U.S. nuclear tests include: A summary table of each of

2204-669: The OSRD retained responsibility for scientific research. This was the beginning of the Manhattan Project , run as the Manhattan Engineering District (MED), an agency under military control that was in charge of developing the first atomic weapons. After World War II , the MED maintained control over the U.S. arsenal and production facilities and coordinated the Operation Crossroads tests. In 1946 after

2280-753: The President has been killed, command authority follows the presidential line of succession . Changes to this policy have been proposed, but currently the only way to countermand such an order before the strike was launched would be for the Vice President and the majority of the Cabinet to relieve the President under Section 4 of the Twenty-fifth Amendment to the United States Constitution . Regardless of whether

2356-426: The President of the United States has had sole authority to launch U.S. nuclear weapons, whether as a first strike or nuclear retaliation . This arrangement was seen as necessary during the Cold War to present a credible nuclear deterrent ; if an attack was detected, the United States would have only minutes to launch a counterstrike before its nuclear capability was severely damaged, or national leaders killed. If

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2432-505: The Soviet Union and its allies. The term "mutual assured destruction" was coined in 1962 by American strategist Donald Brennan. MAD was implemented by deploying nuclear weapons simultaneously on three different types of weapons platforms. After the 1989 end of the Cold War and the 1991 dissolution of the Soviet Union , the U.S. nuclear program was heavily curtailed; halting its program of nuclear testing, ceasing its production of new nuclear weapons, and reducing its stockpile by half by

2508-529: The Soviet Union to successfully launch a first strike attack against the United States without receiving a deadly response. Improvements in warhead miniaturization in the 1970s and 1980s allowed for the development of MIRVs—missiles which could carry multiple warheads, each of which could be separately targeted. The question of whether these missiles should be based on constantly rotating train tracks (to avoid being easily targeted by opposing Soviet missiles) or based in heavily fortified silos (to possibly withstand

2584-489: The U.S. detonated a uranium- gun design bomb, Little Boy , over the Japanese city of Hiroshima with an energy of about 15 kilotons of TNT, killing approximately 70,000 people, among them 20,000 Japanese combatants and 20,000 Korean slave laborers , and destroying nearly 50,000 buildings (including the 2nd General Army and Fifth Division headquarters ). Three days later, on 9 August, the U.S. attacked Nagasaki using

2660-467: The U.S. nuclear program to file for compensation and damages. In 1972, three hijackers took control of a domestic passenger flight along the east coast of the U.S. and threatened to crash the plane into a U.S. nuclear weapons plant in Oak Ridge, Tennessee. The plane got as close as 8,000 feet above the site before the hijackers' demands were met. Various acts of civil disobedience since 1980 by

2736-411: The U.S. was considering designing new nuclear weapons ( "bunker-busting nukes" ) and resuming nuclear testing for reasons of stockpile stewardship. Republicans argued that small nuclear weapons appear more likely to be used than large nuclear weapons, and thus small nuclear weapons pose a more credible threat that has more of a deterrent effect against hostile behavior. Democrats counterargued that allowing

2812-525: The US in the aftermath of the Soviet missile and air strikes. The People's Republic of China has also collapsed, with numerous regional warlords waging a civil war against one another. US nuclear strikes on the Soviets led to the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and to the release of a massive fallout cloud over much of Asia that kills millions of those who survived the destruction of the Soviets. As

2888-496: The US in world affairs. The policy of decolonization has been halted and even reversed. Some newly independent nations even return to the remaining British "Empire" in the new uncertain world that was created after the "Cuban War." British aid is welcome, but there is also a sense of resentment among the American population over its excessive dependence on the British. The large presence of British and Canadian military personnel in

2964-667: The US. The plan is underway near the end of the novel until it is called off at the last minute. Nuclear weapons of the United States The United States was the first country to manufacture nuclear weapons and is the only country to have used them in combat , with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II against Japan . Before and during the Cold War , it conducted 1,054 nuclear tests , and tested many long-range nuclear weapons delivery systems. Between 1940 and 1996,

3040-462: The USAF until 1959. The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress was able by the mid-1950s to carry a wide arsenal of nuclear bombs, each with different capabilities and potential use situations. Starting in 1946, the U.S. based its initial deterrence force on the Strategic Air Command , which, by the late 1950s, maintained a number of nuclear-armed bombers in the sky at all times, prepared to receive orders to attack

3116-537: The USSR whenever needed. This system was, however, tremendously expensive, both in terms of natural and human resources, and raised the possibility of an accidental nuclear war. During the 1950s and 1960s, elaborate computerized early warning systems such as Defense Support Program were developed to detect incoming Soviet attacks and to coordinate response strategies. During this same period, intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) systems were developed that could deliver

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3192-507: The United States include incidents off the coast of British Columbia (1950) (see 1950 British Columbia B-36 crash ), near Atlantic City, New Jersey (1957); Savannah, Georgia (1958) (see Tybee Bomb ); Goldsboro, North Carolina (1961) (see 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash ); off the coast of Okinawa (1965); in the sea near Palomares , Spain (1966, see 1966 Palomares B-52 crash ); and near Thule Air Base , Greenland (1968) (see 1968 Thule Air Base B-52 crash ). In some of these cases (such as

3268-694: The United States is actually under attack by a nuclear-capable adversary, the President alone has the authority to order nuclear strikes. The President and the Secretary of Defense form the National Command Authority , but the Secretary of Defense has no authority to refuse or disobey such an order. The President's decision must be transmitted to the National Military Command Center , which will then issue

3344-671: The United States is also a source of contention, and some Americans wonder whether their allies possess ulterior motives. The story covers two parallel plotlines. One involves Landry's attempts to discover what happened in Washington, DC, in October 1962. US military propaganda accounts maintain that the Cuban War broke out because of John F. Kennedy 's recklessness and incompetence; those claims are generally believed. Kennedy and his officials are regarded as butchers and war criminals and

3420-408: The United States was able to develop three usable weapons by mid-1945. The Trinity test was a plutonium implosion-design weapon tested on 16 July 1945, with around a 20 kiloton yield. Faced with a planned invasion of the Japanese home islands scheduled to begin on 1 November 1945 and with Japan not surrendering, President Harry S. Truman ordered the atomic raids on Japan. On 6 August 1945,

3496-501: The United States, and 100 tactical bombs at air bases in Europe. Between 16 July 1945 and 23 September 1992, the United States maintained a program of vigorous nuclear testing , with the exception of a moratorium between November 1958 and September 1961. By official count, a total of 1,054 nuclear tests and two nuclear attacks were conducted, with over 100 of them taking place at sites in the Pacific Ocean , over 900 of them at

3572-459: The aid of brainpower acquired through Operation Paperclip at the tail end of the European theater of World War II , the United States was able to embark on an ambitious program in rocketry . One of the first products of this was the development of rockets capable of holding nuclear warheads. The MGR-1 Honest John was the first such weapon, developed in 1953 as a surface-to-surface missile with

3648-681: The arsenal to around 5,500 total warheads by 2012. Much of that reduction was already accomplished by January 2008. According to the Pentagon's June 2019 Doctrine for Joint Nuclear Operations , "Integration of nuclear weapons employment with conventional and special operations forces is essential to the success of any mission or operation." In 2024 it was estimated that the United States possessed 1,770 deployed nuclear warheads, 1,938 in reserve, and 1,336 retired and awaiting dismantlement (a total of 5,044). 1,370 strategic warheads were deployed on ballistic missiles , 300 at strategic bomber bases in

3724-507: The authority to launch nuclear weapons under similar circumstance. In fact, the nuclear weapons were not placed under locks (i.e., permissive action links ) until decades later, and so pilots or individual submarine commanders had the power to launch nuclear weapons entirely on their own, without higher authority. The United States nuclear program since its inception has experienced accidents of varying forms, ranging from single-casualty research experiments (such as that of Louis Slotin during

3800-518: The coded orders to nuclear-capable forces. The President can give a nuclear launch order using their nuclear briefcase (nicknamed the nuclear football ), or can use command centers such as the White House Situation Room . The command would be carried out by a Nuclear and Missile Operations Officer (a member of a missile combat crew , also called a "missileer") at a missile launch control center . A two-man rule applies to

3876-540: The country is effectively under martial law . The Soviets have been utterly devastated by American nuclear strikes. Cuba is an atomic ruin, with Spain responsible for relief efforts to aid what is left of the island's population. One consequence of the war is that the US embroilment in Vietnam is abruptly curtailed. US military personnel in South Vietnam and the rest of the world are withdrawn to stabilize

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3952-486: The crisis over Cuba from escalating into war and that last-minute attempts to achieve a deal with Nikita Khrushchev to end the crisis were deliberately sabotaged by Curtis and other generals. The other plotline concerns British-American relations . Landry and a British journalist, Sandy Price, discover that elements within the British government and security services are plotting a military takeover (or anschluss ) of

4028-409: The far more powerful hydrogen bomb , which the United States had decided to move forward with after an intense debate during 1949–50. as well as much smaller tactical atomic weapons for battlefield use. By 1990, the United States had produced more than 70,000 nuclear warheads, in over 65 different varieties, ranging in yield from around .01 kilotons (such as the man-portable Davy Crockett shell ) to

4104-562: The force of the bomb that was dropped on Hiroshima in 1945) were permitted to be developed. The Bush administration was unsuccessful in its goal to develop a guided low-yield nuclear weapon, however, in 2010 President Barack Obama began funding and development for what would become the B61-12, a smart guided low-yield nuclear bomb developed off of the B61 “dumb bomb”. Statements by the U.S. government in 2004 indicated that they planned to decrease

4180-564: The government's most dangerous military material". Nuclear weapons materials on the black market are a global concern, and there is concern about the possible detonation of a small, crude nuclear weapon by a militant group in a major city, with significant loss of life and property. Stuxnet is a computer worm discovered in June 2010 that is believed to have been created by the United States and Israel to attack Iran 's nuclear fuel enrichment facilities. The initial U.S. nuclear program

4256-487: The launch of missiles, meaning that two officers must turn keys simultaneously (far enough apart that this cannot be done by one person). When President Reagan was shot in 1981, there was confusion about where the "nuclear football" was, and who was in charge. In 1975, a launch crew member, Harold Hering , was dismissed from the Air Force for asking how he could know whether the order to launch his missiles came from

4332-406: The link to point directly to the intended article. Retrieved from " https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Resurrection_Day&oldid=1222895898 " Category : Disambiguation pages Hidden categories: Short description is different from Wikidata All article disambiguation pages All disambiguation pages Resurrection Day (novel) Set in the aftermath of

4408-419: The mid-1990s under President Bill Clinton . Many former nuclear facilities were closed, and their sites became targets of extensive environmental remediation. Efforts were redirected from weapons production to stockpile stewardship ; attempting to predict the behavior of aging weapons without using full-scale nuclear testing. Increased funding was directed to anti- nuclear proliferation programs, such as helping

4484-536: The nearby Hanford nuclear site , to power the American nuclear weapons arsenals. It produced plutonium for use in cold war atomic bombs . Throughout the Cold War, the U.S. and USSR threatened with all-out nuclear attack in case of war, regardless of whether it was a conventional or a nuclear clash. U.S. nuclear doctrine called for mutually assured destruction (MAD), which entailed a massive nuclear attack against strategic targets and major populations centers of

4560-485: The nuclear waste site on Runit Island and a potential radioactive spill . There were also instances during the nuclear testing program in which soldiers were exposed to overly high levels of radiation, which grew into a major scandal in the 1970s and 1980s, as many soldiers later suffered from what were claimed to be diseases caused by their exposures. Many of the former nuclear facilities produced significant environmental damages during their years of activity, and since

4636-517: The only senior surviving member of his inner circle, McGeorge Bundy , is imprisoned in Fort Leavenworth . In contrast, US military commanders (notably the Chief of the Air Force , General "Rammer" Curtis, based on the real-life General Curtis LeMay ) are portrayed as the saviors of the nation. During the course of the novel, Landry gradually discovers that it was Kennedy who sought to prevent

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4712-463: The peace group Plowshares have shown how nuclear weapons facilities can be penetrated, and the group's actions represent extraordinary breaches of security at nuclear weapons plants in the United States. The National Nuclear Security Administration has acknowledged the seriousness of the 2012 Plowshares action. Non-proliferation policy experts have questioned "the use of private contractors to provide security at facilities that manufacture and store

4788-503: The production and regulation of nuclear weapons, it was also in charge of stimulating development and regulating civilian nuclear power. The full transference of activities was finalized in January 1947. In 1975, following the "energy crisis" of the early 1970s and public and congressional discontent with the AEC (in part because of the impossibility to be both a producer and a regulator), it

4864-571: The program was put under the Office of Scientific Research and Development , and in 1942 it was officially transferred under the auspices of the United States Army and became known as the Manhattan Project , an American, British and Canadian joint venture. Under the direction of General Leslie Groves , over thirty different sites were constructed for the research, production, and testing of components related to bomb-making. These included

4940-515: The states of the former Soviet Union to eliminate their former nuclear sites and to assist Russia in their efforts to inventory and secure their inherited nuclear stockpile. By February 2006, over $ 1.2 billion had been paid under the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act of 1990 to U.S. citizens exposed to nuclear hazards as a result of the U.S. nuclear weapons program, and by 1998 at least $ 759 million had been paid to

5016-584: The stockpile. Some of these were international in origin and focused on the increasing tensions of the Cold War , including the loss of China , the Soviet Union becoming an atomic power , and the onset of the Korean War . And some of the forces were domestic – both the Truman administration and the Eisenhower administration wanted to rein in military spending and avoid budget deficits and inflation. It

5092-624: The vast majority of U.S. nuclear tests were above ground. After the acceptance of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty , all testing was relegated underground, in order to prevent the dispersion of nuclear fallout . By 1998, at least US$ 759 million had been paid to the Marshall Islanders in compensation for their exposure to U.S. nuclear testing. By March 2021 over US$ 2.5 billion in compensation had been paid to U.S. citizens exposed to nuclear hazards as

5168-490: The weapons could trigger an arms race. In 2003, the Senate Armed Services Committee voted to repeal the 1993 Spratt - Furse ban on the development of small nuclear weapons. This change was part of the 2004 fiscal year defense authorization. The Bush administration wanted the repeal so that they could develop weapons to address the threat from North Korea. "Low-yield weapons" (those with one-third

5244-470: The years at Hanford were part of normal operations, but unforeseen accidents did occur and plant management kept this secret, as the pollution continued unabated. Even today, as pollution threats to health and the environment persist, the government keeps knowledge about the associated risks from the public. During the presidency of George W. Bush , and especially after the 11 September terrorist attacks of 2001, rumors circulated in major news sources that

5320-661: Was disassembled into component parts as the Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA), which assumed most of the AEC's former production, coordination, and research roles, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission , which assumed its civilian regulation activities. ERDA was short-lived, however, and in 1977 the U.S. nuclear weapons activities were reorganized under the Department of Energy , which maintains such responsibilities through

5396-645: Was established, with the NDRC as one of its subordinate agencies, which enlarged and renamed the Uranium Committee as the Section on Uranium . In 1941, NDRC research was placed under direct control of Vannevar Bush as the OSRD S-1 Section, which attempted to increase the pace of weapons research. In June 1942, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers took over the project to develop atomic weapons, while

5472-503: Was initiated, which has been maintained through 2024. The U.S. program of atmospheric nuclear testing exposed a number of the population to the hazards of fallout. Estimating exact numbers, and the exact consequences, of people exposed has been medically very difficult, with the exception of the high exposures of Marshall Islanders and Japanese fishers in the case of the Castle Bravo incident in 1954. A number of groups of U.S. citizens—especially farmers and inhabitants of cities downwind of

5548-496: Was officially turned over to the United States Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). On 15 August 1947, the Manhattan Project was abolished. The American atomic stockpile was small and grew slowly in the immediate aftermath of World War II, and the size of that stockpile was a closely guarded secret. However, there were forces that pushed the United States towards greatly increasing the size of

5624-460: Was precipitated by the Cuban Missile Crisis . Washington, D.C. ; New York City ; Omaha ; San Diego ; Miami ; and other US cities, principally those surrounding military bases, have been destroyed, damaged, or rendered uninhabitable by Soviet nuclear attacks. Philadelphia is now the capital of the United States. Although the Mexican -born President George W. Romney is nominally in office,

5700-631: Was run by the National Bureau of Standards starting in 1939 under the edict of President Franklin Delano Roosevelt . Its primary purpose was to delegate research and dispense funds. In 1940 the National Defense Research Committee (NDRC) was established, coordinating work under the Committee on Uranium among its other wartime efforts. In June 1941, the Office of Scientific Research and Development (OSRD)

5776-454: Was the perception that nuclear weapons gave more " bang for the buck " and thus were the most cost-efficient way to respond to the security threat the Soviet Union represented. As a result, beginning in 1950 the AEC embarked on a massive expansion of its production facilities, an effort that would eventually be one of the largest U.S. government construction projects ever to take place outside of wartime. And this production would soon include

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