Item COLD WAR 27/33 - Transcript of interview with physicist Professor Herbert York, 1996

Typescript transcript of interview with Professor Herbert Frank York, Physicist, Manhattan Project, 1942-1946, Director, Defense Research and Engineering, Office of the US Secretary of Defense, 1958-1961, Professor of Physics, University of California, San Diego, USA, 1964-[1988], and US Ambassador to the Comprehensive Test Ban Negotiations, 1979-1981, relating to the US reaction to the detonation of the first Soviet atomic bomb, Semipalatinsk, Kazakhstan, USSR, 29 Aug 1949; US development of thermonuclear weapons (Hydrogen bombs), 1949-1952; the opposition by Dr Julius Robert Oppenheimer, to the US development of thermonuclear weapons (hydrogen bombs) 1948-1952; the importance of Professor Edward Teller in the US thermonuclear development programme, 1949-1952; detonation of the first US hydrogen bomb, MIKE test, Operation IVY, Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands, 31 Oct 1952; the US BRAVO test, Operation CASTLE, Bikini Atoll, Marshall islands, Pacific Ocean, 28 Feb 1954; the radioactive contamination of the Japanese fishing vessel FUKURYU MARU (LUCKY DRAGON) and its crew, from US thermonuclear tests, Operation CASTLE, Bikini and Eniwetok Atolls, Marshall Islands, Pacific Ocean, Mar 1954; the US Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) investigation against Robert Oppenheimer, 1953-1954; Oppenheimer's connections with left wing organisations, [1942]-1954; the 'bomber gap', the US belief that the USSR had more strategic bombers in operational service than the USAF, [1955-1957]; the US use of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) piloted Lockheed U2 high altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft in missions over the USSR to search for Soviet ICBM silos, 1956-1960; US reaction to the launch of the Soviet Sputnik I and Sputnik II Earth orbiting satellites via SS-6 'Sapwood' Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBM), Oct and Nov 1957; the role played by German scientist Wernher von Braun in the development of US ICBMs and rockets for the US space programme, [1955-1970]; the failed attempt by the USA to launch the Vanguard rocket, Dec 1957; von Braun's involvement in the German development of the V2 rocket, Peenemünde, Germany, 1943-1945; the Gaither Report, a Ford Foundation Commission Study, that concluded that the USSR was ahead of the USA in the production of nuclear missiles, Oct 1957; the shooting down, near Sverdlovsk, USSR, of a US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Lockheed U2 high altitude photographic reconnaissance aircraft, and the capture of the pilot, Francis Gary Powers, May 1960; the US Lockheed Corona reconnaissance satellite programme, 1956-[1960]; the 'missile gap', a US perception of the advantage held by the Soviets in the production of Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs), [1958]-1960; York's work for the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), US Department of Defense, in the search for a US earth orbiting satellite, 1958; the importance of the RAND Corporation in US defense programmes, [1955-1970]; the detonation by the USSR of a 50 megaton nuclear weapon, Novaya Zemlya Island, USSR, 30 Oct 1961; the detonation of the first British thermonuclear weapon, Operation GRAPPLE, Malden Island, Line Islands, Pacific Ocean, May 1957; competition in US nuclear research and development between the Los Alamos and Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories, 1945-1954. 55pp