Interview with Gordon Arneson, 1986

Item Information

Title:
Interview with Gordon Arneson, 1986
Description:
Gordon Arneson was Secretary of the Interim Committee on Atomic Energy under the Secretary of War, (1945), a member of the United States delegation to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission, (1946-1948), and a special assistant to the undersecretary (1948-1950) and then the secretary of state (1950-1954). He was sometimes called the State Department’s “Mr. Atom.” In the interview he discusses the United States’ development and deployment of nuclear weapons. He starts by describing the War Department and the Interim Committee on Atomic Energy during World War II, including personal recollections of Henry Stimson. He explains their attempts to work cooperatively with the Soviet Union, despite many people’s reservations, and their discussions on how best to demonstrate America’s nuclear capabilities, which ended with the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. He describes international collaboration in the development of nuclear weapons, particularly with the British, and how those relationships fell apart in the post-war years. He touches on a number of other topics, including the U.S. policy of containment after World War II, followed by the hurried development of a hydrogen bomb in response to the first Soviet nuclear tests; the role of American military capabilities in State Department planning after the war; the Berlin crisis of 1948; and others.
Interviewee:
Arneson, Gordon
Date:
March 2, 1986
Format:
Film/Video
Location:
WGBH
Collection (local):
WGBH Open Vault
Series:
War and Peace in the Nuclear Age
Subjects:
Baruch Plan (1946)
Gordon, Lincoln
Fuchs, Klaus
Korean War, 1950-1953
World War II
Hiroshima-shi (Japan)--History--Bombardment, 1945
Groves, Leslie Richard
Berlin (Germany)--History--Blockade, 1948-1949
United States. Atomic Energy Act of 1946
Soviet Union
Nagasaki-shi (Japan)--History--Bombardment, 1945
Nitze, Paul H.
International relations
Nuclear energy
Nuclear weapons
U.S. Atomic Energy Commission
MAUD Report (1941)
Great Britain
Hydrogen bomb
Matthews, H. Freeman, 1899-
Attlee, C. R. (Clement Richard), 1883-1967
Byrnes, James F. (James Francis), 1882-1972
Lilienthal, David Eli, 1899-1981
Teller, Edward, 1908-2003
Compton, Arthur Holly, 1892-1962
Bradley, Omar Nelson, 1893-1981
Oppenheimer, J. Robert, 1904-1967
Acheson, Dean, 1893-1971
Stimson, Henry L. (Henry Lewis), 1867-1950
Sherfield, Roger Mellor Makins, Baron, 1904-
Truman, Harry S., 1884-1972
Harriman, W. Averell (William Averell), 1891-1986
Gromyko, Andrei Andreevich, 1909-1989
Kennan, George F. (George Frost), 1904-2005
Marshall, George C. (George Catlett), 1880-1959
Places:
District of Columbia > Washington
Extent:
01:58:46:07
Link to Item:
https://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_47E2CBDA68F2438E8E5083A78AFA1B30
Terms of Use:
Rights status not evaluated.
Contact host institution for more information.
Publisher:
WGBH Educational Foundation
Identifier:
V_47E2CBDA68F2438E8E5083A78AFA1B30